+------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |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. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ northern nut growers association report of the proceedings at the tenth annual meeting battle creek, michigan december and , contents page officers and committees of the association members of the association constitution and by-laws proceedings of the tenth annual convention president's address, mr w. c. reed, indiana report of the secretary-treasurer business sessions , the farms by the side of the road, matthew henry hoover, new york native nut tree plantations in michigan, prof. a. k. chittenden, michigan pecans other than those of the well known sections, j. f. jones, pennsylvania hazel nuts and filberts, conrad vollertsen, new york disease resistance in the american chestnut, arthur h. graves, connecticut notes on the hickories, dr. robert t. morris, new york the nutritive value of nuts, f. a. cajorie, connecticut nut trees and bushes in landscape work, o. c. simonds, illinois nut culture in michigan, c. a. reed, u. s. department of agriculture, nut trees for highways and public places, hon. william s. linton, michigan legislation regarding the planting of nut and other food producing trees, senator harvey a. penney, michigan michigan law regarding roadside planting of nut trees the soy bean, dr. j. h. kellogg, michigan judging nuts, willard g. bixby, new york the nut contest, willard g. bixby, new york officers of the association _president_ w. s. linton saginaw, michigan _vice-president_ james s. mcglennon rochester, new york _secretary and treasurer_ willard g. bixby baldwin, nassau co., new york _acting secretary_ w. c. deming wilton, connecticut committees _auditing_--c. p. close, c. a. reed _executive_--j. russell smith, w. c. reed and the officers _federal aid_--j. m. patterson, r. t. morris, j. h. kellogg, t. p. littlepage, willard g. bixby, j. f. jones, j. s. mcglennon _finance_--t. p. littlepage, willard g. bixby, w. c. deming _hybrids_--r. t. morris, c. p. close, w. c. deming, j. g. rush membership--harry r. weber, r. t. olcott, f. n. fagan. w. o. potter, w. c. deming, j. russell smith _nomenclature_--c. a. reed, r. t. morris, j. f. jones _press and publication_--ralph t. olcott, j. russell smith, w. c. deming _programme_--w. c. deming, j. russell smith, c. a. reed, r. t. morris _promising seedlings_--c. a. reed, j. f. jones state vice-presidents california t. c. tucker california st., san francisco canada g. h. corsan rusholme park crescent, toronto connecticut henry leroy lewis stratford georgia j. b. wight cairo illinois e. a. riehl godfrey indiana m. p. reed vincennes maryland c. p. close college park massachusetts james h. bowditch tremont building, boston michigan dr. j. h. kellogg battle creek missouri p. c. stark louisiana new jersey c. s. ridgway lumberton new york m. e. wile calumet st., rochester ohio harry r. weber gerke building, cincinnati pennsylvania j. g. rush west willow texas r. s. trumbull m. s. r. r. co., el paso west virginia b. f. hartzell shepherdstown members of the northern nut growers association arkansas * drake, prof. n. f., university of arkansas, fayetteville california cress, b. e., tehachapi tucker, t. c, manager california almond growers exchange, california st., san francisco canada corsan, g. h., rusholme park crescent, toronto sager, dr. d. s., brantford connecticut barrows, paul m., may apple farm, high ridge, stamford bartlett, francis a., stamford deming, dr. w. c, wilton filley, w. o., state forester, drawer , new haven glover, james l., shelton, r. f. d. hungerford, newman, torrington, r. f. d. , box ives, ernest m., sterling orchards, meriden lewis, henry leroy, stratford mcglashan, archibald, kent * morris, dr. robert t., cos cob, route , box pomeroy, eleazer, bloomfield ave., windsor sessions, albert l., bellevue ave., bristol southworth, george e., milford, box staunton, gray, park st., new haven white, gerrard, north granby district of columbia close, prof. c. p., pomologist, department of agriculture, washington foster, b. g., g street, n. w. washington * littlepage, t. p., union trust building, washington reed, c. a., nut culturist, department of agriculture, washington taylor, dr. lewis h., the cecil, washington ** van fleet, walter, u. s. department of agriculture, washington england spence, howard, eskdale, knutsford, cheshire georgia bullard, william p., albany van duzee, c. a., judson orchard farm, cairo wight, j. b., cairo illinois casper, o. h., anna librarian, university of illinois, urbana poll, carl j., maple st., danville potter, hon. w. o., marion riehl, e. a., godfrey, route uran, b. f., mattoon indiana crain, donald j., north st., logansport reed, m. p., vincennes reed, w. c., vincennes simpson, h. d., vincennes staderman, a. l., s. seventh st., terre haute wilkinson, j. f., rockport iowa snyder, d. c., center point (linn co. nurseries) kansas sharpe, james, council grove, (morris co. nurseries) kentucky baker, sam c., beaver dam, r. d. livengood, frank m., berea maryland hoopes, wilmer p., forest hill keenan, dr. john f., brentwood littlepage, miss louise, bowie massachusetts * bowditch, james h., tremont building, boston cleaver, c. leroy, commonwealth ave., boston michigan house, george w., ford building, detroit kellogg, dr. j. h., manchester st., battle creek linton, w. s., president board of trade saginaw mckale, h. b., lansing, route schram, mrs. o. e., galesburg, box missouri mosnat, h. r., east st., kansas city stark, p. c., louisiana ward, miss daisy, allen ave., st. louis nebraska caha, wm., wahoo nevada swingle, c. g., hazen new jersey * jaques, lee w., waverly st., jersey city heights landmann, miss m. v., cranbury, r. d. marston, edwin s., florham park, box price, john r., ridgedale ave., madison ridgeway, c. s., floralia, lumberton new york abbott, frederick b., ninth street, brooklyn ashworth, fred l., heuvelton atwater, c. g., the barrett co., battery place, new york city bixby, willard g., grand ave., baldwin, nassau co. brown, ronald j., broadway, new york city buist, dr. george j., hancock st., brooklyn crane, alfred j., monroe, box ellwanger, mrs. w. d., east ave., rochester goeltz, mrs. m. h., creston ave., new york city harper, g. w., jr., broadway, new york city hicks, henry, westbury, long island hodgson, casper w., world book co., yonkers * huntington, a. m., west st st., new york city mcglennon, james s., cutler building, rochester olcott, ralph t., editor american nut journal, ellwanger and barry building, rochester pomeroy, a. c., lockport stephen, john w., new york state college of forestry, syracuse tallinger, j. f., barnard teele, a. w., broadway, new york city ulman, dr. ira, w. th st., new york city vollertsen, conrad, gregory st., rochester wile, m. e., harvard st., rochester williams, dr. charles mallory, e. th st., new york city * wissman, mrs. f. der., westchester, new york city north carolina barrett, dr. harvey p., vail ave., charlotte hutchings, miss lida g., pine bluff north carolina dept. of agriculture, raleigh van lindley, j., j. van lindley nursery co., pomona ohio burton, j. howard, casstown dayton, j. h., storrs & harrison co., painesville ketchum, c. s., middlefield truman, g. g., perrysville, box weber, harry r., east th st., cincinnati yunck, e. g., central ave., sandusky oregon pearcy, knight, salem, r. f. d. , box pennsylvania druckemiller, w. h., sunbury fagan, prof. f. n., department of horticulture, state college heffner, h., highland chestnut grove, leeper hile, anthony, curwensville national bank, curwensville jenkins, charles francis, farm journal, philadelphia * jones, j. f., lancaster, box kaufman, m. m., clarion leas, f. c., merion station murphy, p. j., vice president l. & w. r. r. co., scranton o'neill, william c., walnut st., philadelphia patterson, j. e., n. franklin st., wilkes-barre * rick, john, pennsylvania square, reading rife, jacob a., camp hill rush, j. g., west willow smedley, samuel l., newtown square, r. f. d. * sober, col. c. k., lewisburg weaver, william s., mccungie wilhelm, dr. edward a., clarion * wister, john c., wister st. & clarkson ave., germantown south carolina shanklin, prof. a. g., clemson college texas burkett, j. h., nut specialist, state department of agriculture, clyde. trumbull, r. s., agricultural agent, el paso & s. w., system morenci southern r. r. co., el paso virginia parish, john s., university smith, dr. j. russell, roundhill west virginia brooks, fred e., french creek cannaday, dr. john egerton, charleston, box hartzell, b. f., shepherdstown jenkins, miss, the green bottom homestead, glenwood p. o. * life member. ** honorary member. constitution article i _name._ this society shall be known as the northern nut growers' association. article ii _object._ its object shall be the promotion of interest in nut-bearing plants, their products and their culture. article iii _membership._ membership in the society shall be open to all persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to place of residence or nationality, subject to the rules and regulations of the committee on membership. article iv _officers._ there shall be a president, a vice-president and a secretary-treasurer, who shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting; and an executive committee of five persons, of which the president, two last retiring presidents, vice-president and secretary-treasurer shall be members. there shall be a state vice-president from each state, dependency, or country represented in the membership of the association, who shall be appointed by the president. article v _election of officers._ a committee of five members shall be elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating officers for the following year. article vi _meetings._--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 executive committee 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 executive committee. article vii _quorum._ ten members of the association shall constitute a quorum, but must include a majority of the executive committee or two of the three elected officers. article viii _amendments._ 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 a copy of the proposed amendment having been mailed by any member to each member thirty days before the date of the annual meeting. by-laws article i _committees._ the association shall appoint standing committees as follows: on membership, on finance, on programme, on press and publication, on nomenclature, on promising seedlings, on hybrids, and an auditing committee. the committee on membership may make recommendations to the association as to the discipline or expulsion of any member. article ii _fees._ the fees shall be of two kinds, annual and life. the former shall be two dollars, the latter twenty dollars. article iii _membership._ all annual memberships shall begin with the first day of the calendar quarter following the date of joining the association. article iv _amendments._ by-laws may be amended by a two-thirds vote of members present at any annual meeting. northern nut growers association tenth annual meeting december and , battle creek, michigan the tenth annual meeting of the northern nut growers' association was called to order at : a. m., tuesday, december , , in the annex parlor of the battle creek sanitarium, battle creek, michigan, with the president, w. c. reed, presiding. the meeting was opened with a short business session beginning with the president's report as follows: president's address w. c. reed, vincennes, ind. fellow members, northern nut growers association, ladies and gentlemen: our association meets today under the most favorable surroundings. we have this splendid building in which to hold our meetings, furnished gratuitously also have with us in this wonderful institution several thousand guests, men and women of ability and prominence in their respective communities, from all parts of the united states. dr. kellogg has been very kind and generous in extending an invitation several times to this association, and your speaker has thought there was no place quite so well suited for a winter meeting. it gives me great pleasure to be able to be with you and preside over a meeting as the guests of dr. kellogg. there is probably no man in america who has done so much to further the use of nuts, to show their benefits, and to explain their uses, as a food for mankind. conditions have changed greatly since our last meeting, september , at stamford, connecticut. at that time the greater part of the world was at war, and owing to conditions prevailing during , it was impossible for this association to hold its annual meeting. your speaker is still holding the office of president because you have had no meeting at which new officers could be elected. it is to be regretted that the past three years have been crowded so full of events, that it was impossible to give the association matters the attention they deserved, and devote the time to them i would have liked to have done. with the armistice came a cessation of war, and we are all happy that the terrible struggle is over, but with it have come conditions that are almost as terrible as war. famine and want stare millions of people in the face on the continent of europe. our own country is at present in the grip of strikes for higher wages, the like of which has never been known. yet we are prosperous beyond the greatest dreams of any nation on earth, but with this prosperity comes many duties. our yields of food crops have been great, but to us has fallen the lot of feeding the world, and this will continue until industrial and agricultural conditions of europe, have been reestablished on a pre-war condition. there never was a time when meats of all kinds were so expensive, and to many almost prohibitive. many have learned the use of nut meats in varied ways until all kinds of edible nuts are quoted on the markets today at prices undreamed of in former years. these conditions will not always last; crop failures will come; and production will be curtailed. land values are advancing so rapidly that the production of cheap meats will be impossible. to help supply this deficiency, there will be an increased demand for nuts of all kinds. to help meet this demand, much can be done by road side planting. on our main market highways, such trees as the grafted black walnuts could be planted profitably, in many sections of the country; the english walnut in some parts where they succeed the best; and the pecan and chestnut in other parts of the country where they are specially adapted. while commercial planting of nut trees may not be attractive to the average man, home planting of a few nut trees can be recommended for every where space is available. they will make beautiful shade trees, and produce crops that will eventually be of great value. to land owners who are planting private parks, avenues and pastures, we would recommend nut trees. the production of nut trees is very difficult, and the development and testing of new varieties, a slow and expensive process. we need the government's helping hand, and are very glad that there has been set aside by congress an appropriation to help develop this industry. we have with us, the nut culturist from the department of agriculture, who is devoting his entire time along these lines. on the programme that is to be presented here, today and tomorrow, are men of national reputation in their respective lines, who stand at the head of their profession. to our friends and visitors here, we extend an urgent invitation, that you attend all the meetings possible, and we trust that you may learn much that will be of interest, and that this information may be taken home to your different communities. our sincere thanks should be extended to the programme committee and our very efficient secretary who have given so much time to this work. for an association to stand still, is usually to go backward. owing to war conditions, and missing one meeting, we have had little chance to increase our membership. i sincerely trust that the membership committee will be active while here, and extend an invitation to all to become members, and to help advance an industry that will be for the good of posterity, and should give us much pleasure during our own lifetime. we are told, the good we do unto others lives after us. may the nut trees planted and fostered by the members of this association, live long to wave their leafy branches under heaven's purple dome, and may weary pilgrims of future generations rest beneath their shade, and enjoy their fruits, thanking us with a silent prayer that these trees were planted for their benefit. president reed: i believe the next thing in order will be the reading of the secretary's and treasurer's reports. does any one have anything to present while we are waiting for the secretary, who is busy? dr. morris: how many members have we, mr. president? president reed: i don't know. several have written me asking about members, and mr. olcott probably knows something about it. mr. olcott: i don't know how many there are now; but i think there were or at the time of the stamford meeting. i think there were that many enrolled. i presume that two-thirds of those renewed--probably something over members. president reed: there were paid members. dr. morris: dr. kellogg says there may be a thousand men in the audience this evening, and if there are we ought to do some propaganda work. president reed: i don't remember who the membership committee was. mr. weber was chairman, i believe, and he is not here. olcott is next on the committee. mr. olcott: i didn't know i was on that committee. president reed: fagan was on that committee, potter, deming, williams, j. russell smith. i guess you are the only member of the committee who is here. we are ready for the report of the secretary and treasurer, mr. bixby. * * * * * report of the secretary-treasurer sept. , -nov. , key: a: sep. . ' to dec. , ' b: jan. , ' to may , ' c: may , ' to dec. , ' d: jan. , ' to nov. , ' receipts a b c d total balance balance on hand date of last report, august , . $ . received from annual members including joint subscriptions to american nut journal $ . $ . $ . $ . $ . received in payment of life membership . . . sale of reports, brochures and leaflets . . . . . advertising in report of stamford meetings th, . . sales of sundry material. . . contributions for contest . . . contribution for special hickory prizes . . ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- $ . $ . $ . $ . $ . $ . ------- $ . expenditures american nut journal, their portion of joint subscriptions $ . $ . $ . $ . stationary, printing and supplies . . . . postage, express, etc. . . . . . prizes nut contest . . prize nut contest . . advertising nut contest $ . ; expenses contest $ . . . advertising nut contest . . stamford meeting expenses . . printing report of stamford meeting . . errors in remittance corrected . . . litchfield savings bank. life membership of john rick balance on hand dec. , . . . ------ ------ ------- ------- ------- ------- $ . $ . $ . $ . $ . $ . balance on hand dec. , . special hickory prize . life membership lee w. jaques . for regular expenses. . ------- $ . i have carefully been over the above statement and found it to be correct. c. a. reed, for auditing committee. the above are records of receipts and expenditures for two years and three months and are approximately double those noted in the report of of the stamford meeting. the activities of the association were necessarily at a low ebb in war time, and, although a joint meeting with the national association was planned for the fall of , it was never held. the list of members printed in this report numbers while that in the last one shows , apparently a very large decrease. the last report showed paid up members. following the methods of secretary deming, members who have not responded to notices and letters have been dropped. in no case has a member been dropped until a letter with return postage has been sent. in a number of instances members thus written to have resigned giving various reasons, the most common of which are change of occupation or residence, which prevented their doing anything in the line of nut growing or lack of success in their attempts to grow nuts. two members have died since the last meeting, mr. wendell p. williams and mr. mahlon hutchinson; the former was in the u. s. service at the time of his death. new members have been added to our rolls since making a total of joining since organization of whom we now have , having dropped out. of the who have joined since last meeting, joined before oct. , the date of the proposed meeting in albany, ga., which was never held, and since that date. the holding of members is a difficult problem and one that has not been worked out at all satisfactorily. most members join in the hope of thereby learning how to successfully grow nut trees. they find out that so much is still experimental that most do not remain. this is bound to continue till we can show grafted or budded nut trees bearing satisfactory crops, and, until that time, there seems nothing to do but to keep on going after new members and by means of bulletins, reports, letters and otherwise making the membership more valuable than ever. there has been a greater interest in nut growing during the past fall than at any time since your secretary-treasurer has held office. respectfully submitted, willard g. bixby, secretary-treasurer. * * * * * president reed: you have heard the report. what is your pleasure? i believe that is usually referred to an auditing committee. c. a. reed was chairman of that committee. mr. bixby: mr. reed spoke to me about this yesterday. he said he would be glad to audit it, but there has not been time to give it to him. it was ready for him this morning, but he was busy on other things. president reed: what is the next thing on the program, mr. secretary? mr. bixby: the reports of committees. i do not know how much report the standing committees have. president reed: there is the executive committee, the finance committee, the hybrids committee--maybe dr. morris has something on that. dr. morris: no, i have no report to make on that. i shall talk on the subject this afternoon or in the course of my paper incidentally. i didn't see any occasion for action in that direction since the last meeting, so i have not acted except incidentally in the course of my work. president reed: the committee on nomenclature--of course they wouldn't have any report until after this meeting. mr. bixby: who is on that committee?--c. a. reed, dr. morris, and j. f. jones. two members of the committee are here. there is one matter which perhaps i better bring up to the committee first,--one matter i think they should take some action on. president reed: i think it would be best to have that come up at a later time. dr. morris: i would like to bring in something incidentally in relation to nomenclature in my paper. perhaps we could have the question discussed after i have brought up that point. president reed: there is a committee on promising seedlings c. a. reed, and j. f. jones. i think that covers all the standing committees. wasn't there a committee on nominations for officers to be elected, this morning? mr. bixby: that nominating committee has to be elected. president reed: how many members? mr. bixby: there were four or five last time, i think. president reed: (reading by-laws calling for five members). mr. bixby: i move mr. olcott be on the committee. voice: i second the motion. president reed: it has been moved and seconded that mr. olcott be elected as a member of the nominating committee. all in favor say, aye. it is so ordered. who else shall we have, for a second member? mr. linton: i move mr. bixby be a member of the committee. mr. bixby: there is a precedent that the secretary has never been a member of the nominating committee. he has sometimes given them information. i move dr. morris, mr. jones, and mr. linton be members of the nominating committee, and mr. mcglennon. mr. mcglennon: i second the motion. mr. olcott: the committee as you suggested it is dr. morris, mr. j. f. jones, mr. linton, mr. mcglennon and myself? president reed: you have heard the motion. all in favor say aye. the committee stands elected as named. they report at tomorrow morning's meeting. i think there is one matter it would be well to bring up, and that is the membership committee. mr. olcott: i was going to suggest that is an important matter, and i think that committee should be filled out with those who are present, inasmuch as the regular members are not here. it looks as though a comparatively small membership would have to double up on membership committee. president reed: have you any suggestions as to whom you want on that committee? mr. bixby: those committees, with the exception of the nominating committee, are appointed by the president. i think myself that the new president appoints them. president reed: my idea was to appoint for this meeting and help mr. olcott out. mr. olcott: i suggest mr. mcglennon and mr. jones as two of the members. president reed: let it stand as it is with the three and give the chairman power to appoint two more later. mr. mcglennon: can the secretary tell us how many members there are? mr. bixby: one hundred sixty-four notices of this meeting were sent out. there are paid up members. mr. olcott: on the matter of membership, i wonder if the association could suggest some inducement for membership, or summarize the inducements. as you know, the american association of nurserymen has been desirous of more members, and they found it very advisable to outline definitely the benefits of membership in that association. i am wondering if that has been done recently and could not be emphasized in some way to the advantage of larger membership. you have got to do something more than say that there is in existence an association devoted to these purposes and everybody is invited to come in. maybe the secretary has something on that line. mr. bixby: i have no suggestion. it is very evident that there is a greatly increased interest in nut growing over what there was when i first took up the office. that is very clearly brought out by the amount of mail received. you may know that capt. deming, when in the service, took the position of editing the nut department of the american fruit grower. i saw him recently and it looks to me as if, as editor of that department, he is answering about as many correspondents on nuts and trying to boost the association in that way as he did when he was secretary before. and that would appear to be in addition to the communications that are coming to me now. mr. olcott: there is interest. we get at the journal office a great quantity of inquiries but only a small per cent of them result in memberships and subscriptions, and while this interest is so strong, ought not this association to study that which is something of a problem--perhaps something that ought to be taken up in view of the interests and the benefits of the association shown. president reed: i think that is a good suggestion. i think they need something along that line. is there anything else we want to bring up at this morning session? mr. mcglennon: is this not a very good field to open up operations along that line, right here at battle creek? a large number of people who come here are people who eat nuts, and i believe that condition would resolve itself into a material advance of membership. i think we ought to get busy right here and see if we can not enlist the membership of a great number of the patrons of this institution. mr. olcott: that was the principal object of the membership committee i suppose. my idea was to get the ideas of the individual members, put them together and present a broadside of benefits in this organization rather than have one man attempt to outline them. dr. morris: there is an immense amount of interest. the question is how to get it together and formulate it in such a way that men will join. there is an enormous, large loose majority, and we must have a small compact minority to swing it as the senators do down at washington, you know. prof. murrill of the new york botanical garden told me that wherever he went (he is interested in mushrooms, that is his special subject) he had had no idea in the world there was so much interest of the public in mushrooms; yet when it comes to getting together members to form the base of an association to study the subject, he finds very few members. it is simply because men haven't got the habit, and we have got in some way to give direction to that in such a way that it will be focused and concentrated on some one objective point. how to do it, i don't know. mr. bixby: dr. kellogg suggested that at the meeting this evening there will be the largest number of people, not members, that there has been at any meeting; and he said he had had requests from people that they wanted to hear dr. morris, and they wanted to hear prof. cajori who used to be here, and he asked me to change those from this afternoon to this evening in order to accomplish that, and i said we would switch the program. that was for that very purpose. mr. olcott: mr. president, it just occurred to me that in view of the number of inquiries we get, and i am sure the secretary gets, and i am also sure dr. deming gets from his articles, there is no doubt of the interest, yet the joining of this northern association, and the attendance of its single annual meeting, does not appeal to many. they do not find it convenient to attend the convention; they do not see any great amount of benefit in the membership. it occurs to me that if we had a list of state vice-presidents and each of those could provide for some local gathering of people interested in nut culture in the various communities; rather, i would say that if our members, as fast as we can increase our membership, wherever they are located, would form a nucleus of a little circle in their neighborhood, and have them affiliated with the northern association; it would accomplish this result. and afterward it occurred to me that perhaps that could be done through state vice-presidents. but what is really needed is to get them together in meetings. they won't come yet. they will when you get a larger membership, but they won't come to the annual meeting of this association where i think they would go to a community affair and talk over matters and refer difficult problems to the northern association of which they were affiliated members. in some way, a wheel within a wheel could work at it that way, and we could increase membership in that way. dr. morris: it is a rule in psychology that you have got to have personal interest first. if mr. olcott's idea of having a local vice-president offer prizes, no matter how small, for nuts in the vicinity, and would also state that any one finding some remarkable nut would have that nut named after him to go down to all time, you would have two points there in self-interest. first, a five dollar prize to the best nut; next the name going rattling down through time in association with it. there are two points of personal interest. we may as well take it back to the basic principles and begin with the psychology of the situation. mr. ketchum: mr. president, in regard to these vice-presidents, that point looks to me very good for this reason. i saw it work out in the minnesota state horticultural society. they had a vice-president in each congressional district. i was vice-president in the third district one year myself from them reports were sent from their district by people who were interested. they were asked to fill out blanks about conditions as they found them in their neighborhood and we got great good from it. then this vice-president was to make a general district report from the reports sent him, and hand it in at the annual meeting. it was quite a success. dr. morris: there you have civic pride brought into your psychology. mr. ketchum: that was in the third district which included the northeast part of the state. it was quite a large district geographically, and i sent out something like seventy of these blank reports, and while the interest was very slight, i think i got field reports in return, and out of those were some nine or ten that were of some considerable importance; but it was a great big help to me in making out my report together with what i knew in my own location. the percentage of reports that came back showed that there was great interest taken by those persons. dr. morris: you can arouse local pride in any locality. president reed: i have tried that in our own state in the last two or three years, at county fairs and local district horticultural meetings. several times i have offered prizes out of my own pocket individually; then i have gotten other parties to help in some cases, and some exhibits even at county farmers' institutes, even very creditable exhibits and they seemed to attract as much interest even as the school exhibits. i know of one case at martinsville two years ago this winter where the nut exhibit was almost as large as the fruit exhibit, and i think it attracted more attention; and i think there was only something like ten dollars spent in order to get it out. i think that work along that line, missionary work of that kind, is going to do us more good than almost any other endeavor. mr. olcott: i do not think that the industry is old enough or strong enough yet, perhaps, to operate that state vice-president plan as it would be perhaps later on, for this reason, that if you have a state vice-president, you narrow the activity in that state to that immediate locality. but it would probably be much better, instead of that, to endeavor to get each member to form the nucleus of a local circle, and so have ten or a dozen in a state, instead of one. president reed: i think that suggestion is better. mr. olcott: that was my original idea, and the state vice-president idea came in afterwards. mr. mcglennon: how many states are included in the northern association territory? mr. bixby: there is no limit. dr. morris: northern is a relative term. president reed: i don't think there is any clearly defined line where the northern association is. mr. olcott: for the reason that men live in the north are interested in lands in the south, and _vice versa_. president reed: there are twenty-three vice-presidents on the list here, in the last published report. is there anything else that should come up at the morning session? mr. secretary, do you know of anything else? mr. bixby: i would really like to see something definite on this line of increasing the membership. i can think of several things that will help; but to get something that is going to have action right away is not so clear. recently i have had a good many people come down to my place to look at the small orchard i have there. i aim to have varieties of every nut tree that is being propagated, and i think if i keep at it a few years longer i will pretty nearly have them; and in most cases, when people have come down that way, they have become members afterwards. two or three of them have. i am only twenty miles from new york city, and it is not difficult, if i find someone interested, to invite them down to look over the trees growing there, and usually when they come they join afterwards. mr. olcott: pardon me for speaking again, but i am on the membership committee and i am anxious to draw out anything that may be of use. why could not some plan be devised by the secretary or by this committee and sent out tentatively in the way of suggestion and perhaps some other suggestions will be made to add to it. perhaps also in addition to this local community plan that i suggested, there might be formed, all of it within the northern association, a subsidiary thereto--the walnut society--people particularly interested in the walnut, but do not care for the hickory, pecan or any other nut. you will find people particularly interested in the black walnut, some in the persian walnut, some in the filbert--form a filbert society as the american nut journal has suggested, and let all the enthusiasts of the filbert get together, and if they are scattered, let them keep together by correspondence and increased activity in that way. the same for the butternut. get at it from that way. mr. ketchum: another thing to further our society here today, we can make those small organizations auxiliary thereto. dr. morris: any one who is interested in one nut becomes interested in all eventually. mr. bixby: i received more inquiries regarding the persian walnut and the pecan than any other nuts--probably more regarding the persian walnut. nearly everybody who writes wants to grow persian walnuts; and in the great majority of instances, i have to try to switch them onto black walnuts with the suggestion that they plant a few persian walnuts because we have no experimental data of the persian walnut succeeding in their section. in some instances they will turn to the black walnuts; in other instances i hear nothing further from them. the persian walnut is the most popular with people who have not tried to grow any nuts. mr. jones perhaps can tell us how his inquiries run. don't they run very largely for persian walnuts? mr. jones: yes, they do. i was thinking possibly you could make a combination--take, for instance, the membership, the nut journal, and some nut trees. the nurserymen could make considerable concession. dr. morris: that combination is right well. mr. jones: you could give a coupon good for so much on an order for trees or something of that sort. mr. bixby: that suggestion was made and i referred it to the executive committee. i have not had any reply. president reed: i didn't have time to answer the communication and get it back to you before i came here; so i thought we would decide on that here. if there is nothing further to come up this morning, a motion to adjourn will be in order until the afternoon session. mr. bixby: i might repeat that at the request of dr. kellogg, in order to get the papers which he had been particularly requested to have given so that people could hear them, dr. morris and prof. cajori who were scheduled this afternoon, will come this evening, and mr. hoover's and mr. graves' papers, which were scheduled for this evening, will have to come this afternoon. neither of the writers are present, but the papers are here. mr. graves expected to be here but i had a telegram yesterday that he could not get away. i have the paper, though and the photographs. mr. mcglennon: has there been provision made for a paper on filberts by mr. vollertsen? if not, i should like to have it. mr. bixby: certainly, there can be. it ought to come in this afternoon. i wrote mr. vollertsen asking if he could deliver it. mr. mcglennon: he has the paper prepared, and i want to hear it. i have been closely associated with mr. vollertsen for some ten years, and i know that his whole heart and soul are in the development of the filbert; and i know what he has done and that he is a rare character in the nut world today, that he possesses a fund of information. i am sure you will find intensely interesting; and furthermore i would suggest, and i believe i speak for him when i say i hope you will feel free to ask him questions. as i said before, he has a fund of information that i think we nut people ought to have, and the general public as well. we have a very good exhibit of the nuts. mr. vollertsen is the practical man in the enterprise we are interested in. i look after the business end of it. we are equally interested in it and feel that we have made some progress. dr. morris: put mr. mcglennon on too. mr. mcglennon: i have said all i can say. mr. vollertsen: you have said too much. president reed: if there is nothing else, we will stand adjourned until : p. m. * * * * * tuesday afternoon, december , , : p. m. president w. c. reed, in the chair president reed: the first paper is by mr. hoover, matthew henry hoover, of lockport, n. y., president of the new york state conservation association. mr. hoover is not here, and the secretary will read his paper. the farms by the side of the road by matthew henry hoover, lockport, n. y. formerly new york conservation commissioner president new york state conservation association horace greeley is best known for his contribution to the abolition of human slavery in the united states. yet his service to mankind is not fully appraised by the average american, because many of the younger generation are unaware of his aid to agriculture. his maxim about farmers' failing to till the most valuable part of their farms underneath, opening the eyes of agriculturists to the efficacy of sub-soil plowing, was the preamble to freeing american husbandry from the slavery of antiquated and unscientific methods. following the application of science to the cultivation of the soil, came the students of conservation. they were teaching the farmer the relation of conservation of natural resources to agriculture, the effects of forests on rainfall, moisture, erosion of soil, minimization of floods that annually bury thousands of acres of arable lands in the valleys, under rocky debris and so on. greeley discovered the farm below. the conservationists are saving the farm above. now, in these days of reclamation and reconstruction, it is high time to pay more attention to the farm by the side of the road. the northern nut growers' association is to be congratulated upon the fact that it is blazing the trail through the forest of popular ignorance on this vitally important conservation question; leading public thought in the right direction; and providing both the seed and the stock for practical efforts in behalf of the farm by the side of the road. i am going to claim a bond of brotherhood with you in this great work, basing my claim not upon my small activities in nut cultivation, but rather upon the fact that i was one of the conservation pioneers in new york state in the advocacy of planting profitable trees--nut trees and fruit trees--along the public highways. that eminent conservationist, gifford pinchot, addressing the national council of farmers' co-operative associations in , defined "conservation" as "the wise use of the earth for the benefit of the people who live on it." that would be a perfect definition, if it did not invite the query: should it not be enjoined upon the people who live upon the earth today, while enjoying its benefits, to keep faithful stewardship of the interests of the inhabitants of tomorrow? about the time mr. pinchot enunciated this famous definition, the new york state conservation department summed up the purposes of practical conservation as: "the correction of past indiscretion, the perfection of present utilization, and the formation of future accumulation with respect to natural resources." conservation activities must repair errors of the past which have left denuded forest lands and empty game covers and waters; they must afford and direct the present use of the forests and the streams; they must safeguard the future supply, if they would meet the requirements of a conservation which shall raise the standards of life and lower the cost of living. that is a conservation embracing both the aesthetic and the economic, the only kind worth while. it is a conservation wherein the arable areas and the so-called waste lands and waters have a very intimate interrelation of interests. and, i submit, gentlemen, that the american people too long have failed to recognize and to account as in the class of waste lands, "the farms by the side of the road." the reclamation of waste lands is a compromise between the activities of the conservationists, who claim that in the more thickly inhabited portions of the united states the cultivated or semi-cultivated areas are out of sane and safe proportion to the wild forest sections, and the advocates of intensive and extensive agriculture. it is not the purpose of this article to take sides in that controversy, but rather to invite attention of both sides to a safe and practical field for their endeavors, namely, the reclamation of the "wasted lands" along the roadsides, the farms along the highways. during the war garden campaigns of the past two years, these heretofore largely unused strips of tillable land, forming in the aggregate thousands of along-the-road acres in every state, received considerable attention from the thrifty plow and hoe. but in the main, the results were not encouraging. the public will trespass, unintentionally or otherwise, upon the land cropped along the highway. then, if the farms by the side of the road are to be conserved--used by present as well as future generations--there remains but one practical recourse: productive trees. the american people love beautiful trees, possibly the expression of a reaction from the sentiment of the pioneers who regarded trees as their enemies, handicaps to agriculture to be removed as thoroughly and expeditiously as possible. but with virgin soil producing enormous crops, they naturally centered their interest on ornamental trees without reference to their fruits. hence the horse-chestnut, buck-eye, maple, locust, oak, poplar, along the highways and byways of america, instead of the native nut trees and the persian or english walnut. and, speaking of highways, this is the age of concrete. taking the hint, i am selecting one concrete example of which i have intimate and personal knowledge, well aware that there are numerous others that i might cite were my acquaintance with practical nut culture more extensive than it is. the one that i know about of my own personal knowledge is, a very good example of the plain common sense of productive trees which combine the useful with the ornamental. it reads like a fairy tale in two niagara county farmers, norman pomeroy and matthew o'connor, neighbors, decided to go to the centennial. they packed one carpet-bag in common for their baggage and boarded the train for philadelphia. although well to do farmers, their economic instincts warned them to beware the profiteering hotel keepers. so they sought a humble boarding house in the suburbs of the city. returning one evening from sight-seeing at the exposition, the travelers were so weary that they retired immediately after supper. during the night pomeroy was awakened by a tapping on the window. assuring himself that the wallet under his pillow was still there, he investigated the cause of the disturbance of his slumbers. the noise had ceased and he decided that the overstrain of the day had worked an hallucination. pomeroy dropped off to sleep, but presently was aroused by sounds which were unmistakably caused by a gentle tapping on the window pane. exasperated, the man arose, picked up a boot, slipped to the window and raised it gently ready to give the joker or would-be burglar a rousing whack on the head if within reach. he stuck his head out of the window for a better view of the exterior world, and his curiosity was rewarded with a stinging blow on the cheek. the pain aroused all the pomeroy french huguenot fighting blood in his veins. viciously he swung the boot at the unseen foe, only to hear it crash through tree branches. laughing softly, in his enlightenment, he reached out into the night, grasped a branch, broke it off and turned on the gas and lit it. on the twig were two curious nuts. pomeroy was a lover of nature, as i learned by many an interesting talk with him. he found time in his regular farming pursuits to study native trees and shrubs, and had forbidden his hired men to cut down any of the native nut trees on his acre farm. but the nuts on the branch retrieved from darkness were specimens new to him and he could hardly wait for daylight to come to enable him to get acquainted with the tree which had invited his attention so rudely. next morning pomeroy learned that his new found arboreal friend was a persian walnut. it was loaded and the wind storm of the night had covered the ground with shucked and unshucked nuts. by permission of the landlord, he gathered a peck of the persian walnuts, wrapped o'connor's and his own belongings in a newspaper and filled the carpet-bag with the nut treasures. arriving home, the tourists stopped first at o'connor's house. there they had to relate the experience of their great trip to an assemblage of the two families. the recounting of the centennial wonders took until midnight. when pomeroy picked up his carpet-bag to go home, it was empty! the children had made a discrete retirement after having consumed the entire peck of english walnuts, as the shells in the kitchen disclosed. luckily for the youngsters, they were safe in bed and asleep. the next day, according to the elder pomeroy, little albert who had not been at the o'connor home the night before, heard the dolorous tale of the wonderful tree in philadelphia, the gift of nuts and their weird disappearance. to confirm the sad story he picked up the carpet-bag, turned it inside out. within a torn lining, he triumphantly extracted ten nuts. child-like, he proceeded to sample them and had eaten three when his father rescued the remainder. seven philadelphia walnuts were planted in the yard, and, in due time there were seven slender, silver-grayish seedling trees. these were carefully staked, guarded and cultivated by norman pomeroy. despite the caviling of the neighbors, who declared that a persian walnut tree would not thrive and bear so far north, twelve years after planting the "lucky seven" reproduced their kind--from a dozen to two dozen large, handsome persian or english walnuts. today the seven centennial trees are about two feet in diameter and about feet high. and as to the value of the crop, one tree alone produced nuts which sold four years ago for $ . . now as to the application of this romance in real life. i must return to the more prosaic generalizations of conservation and its relation to the products of cultivation with which this article began. in governor martin h. glynn invited me to outline for him a program of "practical and progressive conservation", applicable to the needs of new york state. in the effort to meet the request, i drew a little from my personal experience and observations as a sportsman, a farmer and a newspaper man, and a great deal from what i had learned from others among the organized sportsmen, agricultural societies, hydro-electric engineers, forest products men, foresters, and nature lovers in general. we then set forth the following as necessary to the realization of the purposes of a conservation which should meet all conditions imposed by the past, the present and the future, as hereinbefore stated: "practical and progressive conservation" . protect the birds and save the crops. . develop the unutilized water powers, now going to waste with destructive effects in freshet periods to arable lands and thickly populated communities, through public ownership and distribution; thereby use "the people's white coal," save coal and cussin' the ash-sifter, giving the public cheaper light and power for the homes, the farms, the factories, and public highways. . amend the constitution to permit the use of dead and down timber in the state forest preserves, worth at least $ , , annually. . provide free forest trees furnished by the state for all who will plant them. (note--the present n. y. conservation commission in a special report to be made to the legislature of has at last adopted that progressive policy). . plant productive trees along the highways--nut and fruit trees. . restock waters and covers more extensively and intelligently. . stop pollution of private and public waters. . harmonize the interrelated interests of farmers and sportsmen. . establish game and bird refuges in every county in the state. . sane and practical game laws, eliminating prosecutions on petty technicalities, educate the public to co-operate in fish and game protection, enact legislation to encourage rather than handicap the propagation of fish and game by private enterprise. it will be noted that plank in our progressive conservation platform is urging the planting of producing trees along the highways. by that we meant not only the native nut trees, all of which are beautiful and ornamental, but also fruit trees, according to the wishes of the abutting owners. in the state of new york, taking into account only improved roads coming under the head of state or county improved highways, disregarding the mileage of the rural roads several times as large, there are about , miles of "good roads". there are many stretches of the highways which nature has generously adorned with trees. some portions of the roads have witnessed the spoliation of the contractor's indiscriminating ax, but in the main the workmen were as careful as possible to retain natural shade trees along the routes. a few miles comparatively, were planted by state agencies. farmers, especially in the lake ontario fruit belt of new york state, have worked wonders in ornamentation and economy by planting cherry, apple, plum and other beautiful and productive trees on the strip of land, "the farms by the side of the road." at a very small additional expense, the state could have planted every rod of improved highway with productive trees, putting that forethoughtful specification into the contracts. get out your pencil for a moment. suppose the state had english walnuts on the , miles, placing the trees feet apart. we should have growing then over one million productive trees and some of them would be old enough to be bearing today. within ten years from now, their product would be worth at a conservative estimate $ per tree, representing a sum sufficient to carry one-third of the state's entire cost of government. the war just won for the cause of world democracy has opened the eyes of the american people to many things they had not before apprehended or realized. one is the value of productive land space. another is the importance of our forests, and especially the value of the native nut-bearing trees. it was discovered, when uncle sam scurried around to procure a supply of black walnut for gun stocks, that the german agents had been ahead of him. although thickly settled, germany finds it profitable to employ one-fourth of its entire area in growing forest trees. yet it seems the kaiser's forests were short on this valuable timber, so they picked up all the procurable black walnut in the united states. this set the new york state conservation commissioner thinking and last year he advised farmers to propagate and cultivate the black walnut--a little late for the emergency; but better late than never, especially in this case. on my little farm near lockport, n. y., there is a large black walnut tree, perhaps to years old. it bears a nut of unusual size, of excellent taste and good keeping qualities. this tree has produced as high as ten bushels of shucked nuts in a season. twenty-two years ago, when the importance of growing native nut trees had impressed but few people, i did have the good sense to plant several dozen nuts from the "niagara king walnut." i must confess i gave the trees little attention, and a farm hand zealously cut down all but one of the black walnuts, mistaking them for sumac. the survivor last year bore about three bushels of nuts. most interesting of all is the result of observations as to the product, and its bearing on the question of whether or not nut trees will reproduce "true to variety." the walnuts from the young tree differ in shape, being almost round, while the fruit of the parent tree is almost chestnut in form. but the flavor, thickness of shell and the keeping qualities seem identical. six years ago i started a small black walnut and butternut tree nursery for home use and from it have set out about four hundred trees along the ditches and fences on the farm. the early plantings have attained a height of from to feet. if every farmer would do likewise, he would make a considerable addition to the country's food supply, to say nothing of the value of the timber for coming generations when the frees approach maturity. it has afforded me pleasure to send nut trees to friends in various counties of the state and we shall watch with interest, the reports on their growth and development under the many variations of soil and climate. the butternut in many parts of the country is rapidly disappearing. to save this beautiful tree with its delicately flavored nuts, it will undoubtedly be necessary to take it into extensive cultivation. although apart from the subject perhaps, it may be interesting to refer to the application of forestry to a woodlot containing native nut trees. like many farmers who regard every tree as just a tree, useful for timber or fire wood, i found several years ago that indiscriminate cutting on my woodlot was destroying walnuts, along with the commoner species of the stand. my first step was to halt the cutting of all black walnuts, hickories, butternuts, oaks and beeches on the seven-acre woodlot. i took an inventory of these trees and found there were shagbark hickories from to years old, five butternuts about years old, and four black walnuts about years old. these, of course, were not "tolerant trees" like the evergreens, and most of them were rapidly deteriorating from being overcrowded by more rapidly growing and less desirable neighbors. all _of_ them had been retarded in growth by the crowded condition of the stand. inaugurating a process of judicious thinning with a view to giving the nut trees the advantage, the result in a single season was surprising. under the beneficent influence of ample sun, air and root sustenance, the butternuts and black walnuts bore fine crops for the first time, in the season following the winter thinning process. the young hickories contented themselves with making their first annual growth in years. and, oh joy of realized hopes, in this the third season since letting the sun into the native nut grove, nearly all of the older shagbark hickories bore their first crops! and now i have a nut plantation, that might have been ere this, burned up as fire-wood, at no expense whatever, since the thinning out process produced a very welcome supply of fire wood in these days of high-priced coal. in a recent bulletin of the united states department of agriculture, "value to farm families of food, fuel and use of house," there are some illuminating statistics on "the farmer's income" and "the farmer's living." it is stated that "the total average of the three items of food, fuel and use of the house for the families (selected from all parts of the united states) is $ , and % of $ of this is furnished by the farm." the seven pomeroy centennial. trees in one year produced a food product worth and actually sold for about $ in one year! the average annual production of those seven trees has been over $ for the last ten years. and what about the labor involved in raising and harvesting the english walnut crop in question? picking the nuts from the ground, children gladly doing it and earning five cents per basket. horace greeley's undiscovered farm under the first twelve inches was a gold mine when turned up finally; mr. pinchot's farm on top rescued from flood and other devastations is worth more money than before. but how about the strip of land along the roadside, an aggregate waste of at least one per cent of the acreages of eastern farms? well worth reclaiming, and no expensive ditching, irrigation and lumbering involved in the process either. in addition, credit must be given also to this enterprise for the value of ornamentation of the highways and their protection from the elements all seasons of the year. and strange to relate, in the long list of items under the head of "classes of food," given in the federal bulletin referred to, no mention is made of nut foods, either native or imported nut trees. fruits, vegetables, meats, store groceries, everything is there but nuts. "nutty," do we hear someone suggest? probably not in this audience of enlightened nut growers, but speaking to the general public we shall say, "well, mebbe," like uncle lige of niagara. two bad years on the farm, four acres of tomatoes that didn't pay for the plants, nothing but soft corn and no potatoes compelled uncle and aunt tompkins to open an account at the corner grocery. the first month the bill came in, aunt sally was all in a flutter when she audited the items: sugar, ; coffee, ; oatmeal, ; sugar, ; ditto, . "lige, you go right back to the store and tell that cunnin' clerk that he's charged us fer what we never got. we ain't had no 'ditto' in this house." lige went to the store and returned, apparently a sadder but a wiser man. "well, lige," inquired the thrifty spouse, "did you find out 'bout that 'ditto' we didn't get? what did you find?" lige picked up his pipe, remarking, "well sally, i found i was a durned fool, and you _ditto_." we are all waking up to the fact that we did not become "nutty" soon enough. we have found that our public agencies of conservation have been "durn fools" and farmers and other land owners "ditto", for not having inaugurated the systematic planting of productive trees along the highways and farm hedgerows and ditches, many years ago. norman pomeroy used to say with becoming modesty that he took no credit for planting the trees that have made such a substantial income for his family, because "i had to be slapped in the face in the dark before i became wise, and then the natural improvidence of mankind came near spoiling nature's tip when the children gratified their little stomachs in preference to planting for the future. men are but children of an older growth, a wise man said. that is a true but sad doctrine. we all live too much in the present and for the present, forgetting that the future will soon be the present, if not for ourselves, for our children and our children's children. it takes time to realize on trees, for the stomach or the pocketbook. it requires sacrifice to get anything worth while and, waiting is the hardest kind of sacrifice, especially for people of small means. but it pays in the end." the northern nut growers' association, is doing valuable work not only in the study and planting of nut trees, but in its propaganda. but i have discovered that the results of practical work and the worth of propaganda, are hard to bring home to public agencies, like governors and legislatures. the construction and maintenance _of_ public highways are a state function. but that duty must be incomplete in our opinion until the state finishes its job by planting productive trees along the highways and public roads. how shall we bring this about? adopt resolutions? very good. but did the anti-saloon league, for example, content itself with resolutions when it wanted real results in the halls of legislation? not much. our prohibition friends were very practical. they employed trained agents to present their cause everywhere and in every way calculated to do the most good. let me repeat to you tree planters the late norman pomeroy's favorite lines, as i recall them: "_the dead are eternized in stone,_ _the living, by living shafts are known._ _plant thou a tree and each recurring spring_ _the stirring leaves thy lasting praise shall sing._" president reed: prof. chittenden, of michigan agricultural college will address you on "native nut tree plantations for michigan." native nut tree plantations in michigan professor a. k. chittenden, michigan agricultural college east lansing, michigan i am very glad of this opportunity to tell you what the michigan agricultural college is doing, and what it thinks, about nut tree plantations in this state. i want to say first, that there is a very general interest in nut trees among the farmers and land owners of the state. a considerable number of the letters that the forestry department of the college receives from farmers are about nut culture. they seem to be particularly interested in pecans, english walnuts, and chestnuts. a few years ago the state was flooded with literature urging people to plant these trees and we are still feeling the aftermath of this campaign. much of this state is too far north for the successful growth of these particular trees and we therefore have advised waiting before investing heavily in young trees, until experiments have shown where they would succeed and what kinds it would be safe to plant. at the same time, we suggested the planting of one or two trees of certain varieties as an experiment. we have for the most part recommended only our native nut trees for planting on a large scale. we have tried many varieties of nut trees, grafted on hardy stock, at the college, and only a few of them are alive today. all of the pecan trees have been lost and nearly all of the english walnuts. about two years ago, we got some of burbank's royal walnuts from california. all of these trees except one, were killed back of the graft the first winter. one of them, however, is doing well although growing very slowly. it will doubtless succeed now, as it has pulled through two winters, one an exceptionally cold one. about three years ago, we bought some sober paragon chestnuts from an eastern nursery which had been advertising them widely in this state. they were all infected with the chestnut blight disease. now this disease has at the present time not appeared in michigan, except on imported nursery stock. we have a considerable number of chestnut plantations in the state, and if the disease can be kept out, there is no reason why chestnuts cannot be raised more profitably. but our experience has shown that the trees must be raised in this state and not brought in from outside. we have some very nice chestnut trees in our nursery at the college which are now thirteen years old and which have been bearing nuts for four years. this fall we are planting them all along the drives so as to open up the crowns and induce a greater production of nuts. we also have some japanese walnuts that are doing well indeed. one of these trees on the campus is years old and produces a large quantity of nuts. there are a number of english walnuts at various places along lake michigan in the fruit belt. individual trees will often succeed, but the chances for success are not great enough to warrant a man putting very much money into a plantation. there are two sober paragon chestnuts near niles which are now years old and are growing and bearing well. at the college farm, near grand rapids, there are some pecan trees, but their history shows that they have been repeatedly frosted back. i could mention a great many cases of success with individual imported trees, but i do not know of any extensive plantations that have so far succeeded. there is, however, a different story to tell of our native nut trees of which there are many successful plantations. our native edible nuts are black walnut, hickories and chestnut. they will grow anywhere in the southern part of the state and along lake michigan. using these trees as a basis, i believe we can develop, if it has not already been done, a tree that will bear an improved quality of nuts and that will be perfectly hardy. the black walnut is the tree that did perhaps more than any other tree to help win the war, and, while timber raising and nut culture do not perhaps go hand in hand, probably more black walnuts are being planted as individual trees than any other tree in the state. the black walnut was an invaluable tree for gun stocks and airplane propellers. the war department scoured the country to find trees for these purposes and every black walnut that is now planted, may be of service to the country in the future. the college raises thousands of black walnuts and japanese walnuts each year, and the demand for them is very great. when we have in planting, a choice between two trees, one choice being a tree suitable for shade only and the other a nut producing tree, i would say plant the nut tree. our trees will have a double appeal if they furnish not only shade, but edible nuts as well. at the last session of the state legislature, an act was passed providing for the planting of nut and shade trees along our highways. as a result of this act, we hope sometime to see the highways in the southern part of the state lined with walnut and other nut bearing trees. a tree that will serve a double purpose should be planted wherever possible. tree planting is a thing in which we are all interested. those of you who have been abroad remember the long rows of trees, often fruit trees, that lined the roads. in this country we cannot plant fruit trees along our roads as there is nobody to care for them and disease would quickly start and spread to our orchards. but nut trees can be safely planted. we have, on certain soils in the southern part of the state, recommended planting black walnuts for fence posts. the heart wood is very durable and the tree grows quite rapidly under favorable conditions. then, perhaps when the trees are large enough for posts, the owner will decide to keep them for the nuts and for timber production. during the past summer the college made a study of native nut tree plantations in the state with a view to determining the profitableness of such plantations. among the older plantations studied was one in berrien county. it was planted years ago and covers four acres. the soil is clay and loam with a clay sub-soil. three year old seedlings were used with an average spacing of about by feet. the grove was cultivated for about years after planting. the trees are now in fairly good condition but many are affected with heart-rot. they are quite spreading and bushy in form and are not suitable for lumber. there is now about cords of wood per acre. the average diameter is inches with an average height of feet. the ground is sodded over and the grove is used for grazing sheep. the owner says that about half the trees bear and that the june bugs are the principal source of trouble, eating the blossoms. the yield in nuts varies from practically nothing to or bushels for the entire plantation. about six years ago, the owner reports a crop of bushels, and two years ago a crop of bushels. from these figures i should say the plantation is a success. a chestnut plantation in van buren county was set years ago and covers one acre of sandy soil. the plantation was cultivated for about ten years and corn was grown between the trees. the average tree is inches in diameter and feet tall. the returns have been small because the trees were planted too close together, but some years the plantation has yielded bushels of nuts. there are trees on the acre, which is too many for good nut production. the grove will produce about cords of wood or about split fence posts per acre. one of the oldest plantations in the state is years old and covers - / acres in montcalm county. it consists of black walnuts and chestnuts mixed together. the average black walnut is inches in diameter and feet tall. the average chestnut is inches in diameter and feet tall. the spacing is about by feet and the soil is a gravelly sand. the yield in nuts has been quite small, six to eight bushels a year. there are a number of such mixed plantations in the state and it would seem that the two trees do not do very well together. in this case, i should say that the soil is not well suited for either tree. there is a plantation of japanese walnuts in oakland county. it is five years old and on sandy soil. about trees were planted at the cost of cents per tree. the stock came from pennsylvania and was budded to english walnut. the scions died back, however, and the plantation stock came along so it is now a japanese walnut grove. the average tree is about inches in diameter and feet tall. the trees are very healthy and vigorous and are beginning to bear a few nuts. a chestnut plantation in van buren county is years old. two foot transplants were used and the trees were planted at the rate of to the acre. they were cultivated for two years. the average tree is inches in diameter and feet high. the trees are healthy and in good condition. the grove is yielding from one to two bushels of nuts a year and should be thinned so as to open it up and encourage nut production. a black walnut plantation in ingham county, planted about years ago for timber purposes and underplanted with white cedar to force the trees to grow straight and tall, is in excellent condition. the average tree is inches in diameter and feet tall. the plantation has not yet borne nuts but if it were opened up, would doubtless produce a large number in a few years. i could give more instances of nut tree plantations in the state, but i think i have mentioned enough to show that our native nut trees can be profitably raised. during the last few years, a great many black walnut plantations have been established but most of them are yet too young to be in a bearing condition. if it were not for the difficulty of getting healthy chestnut stock, i believe michigan would be a large producer of these nuts. a study has been made of the volume of the wood that could be obtained from these chestnut plantations. owing to the open nature of the groves, the trees are mostly not suitable for lumber and the yield of cordwood and posts is less than in a forest plantation where the trees are closer together and force each other to grow straight and tall. it was found, however, that a chestnut grove planted for nuts, would yield on the average standard cords of wood per acre at years of age, cords at years, and cords at years of age. placing the value of this wood at present prices of $ per cord, would give a value of $ per acre at years and $ per acre at years for the wood alone. probably most of the chestnut plantations have been planted for the nut and the black walnuts for timber with the nuts as a side issue. black walnuts should be planted on fairly fertile, moist soil. we do not recommend planting the nuts as squirrels are liable to dig them out. it is better to use small trees. the cost of establishing black walnut plantations is quite small. native trees can be bought for $ per thousand one year old seedlings. we prefer to plant these small trees as the black walnut develops a strong tap root early in life, making it difficult to transplant large trees. only a comparatively small number of hickories have been planted in this state. this is a tree that, while it grows slowly, is very valuable for its wood and it is becoming very scarce. it should be planted more extensively. it may well be planted in openings in the woodlot. every farmer knows the value of hickory and the trees can be utilized when quite small. it is needless to say anything about the value of black walnut wood. high prices have been paid for standing trees and for saw logs. many individual trees have sold for $ apiece and even more. prices as high as $ per m board feet have been paid for standing timber. at the present rate of cutting, it is only a question of a few years before all of the merchantable black walnut will have been removed, and, unless trees are planted, the black walnut will be a thing of the past. it cannot be depended upon to reproduce itself in our forests as do the maples, the ash, and many other trees with nonedible seed. for every black walnut tree in our woods and along the roads, there are innumerable small boys and squirrels who are after the nuts and the seed have little chance of germinating even if they do get into the soil. if there are to be black walnuts in our future forests, the trees must be planted or the nuts planted and properly safeguarded. from a forestry viewpoint, the black walnut is a good tree to plant. it has a high value and the demand for the wood is very great. and, for planting, trees should be chosen that will give a good quality nut as far as possible. for ornamental planting, too, nut trees may often be chosen to advantage. for the farm yard they are often the best choice. hickories or black walnut are long lived trees and the hickory is very ornamental. a great many trees have been planted by the school children of the state; and right here is a good field for planting, around our school houses. the average country school ground is a forlorn place, usually barren of both grass and shade. while we perhaps cannot have a lawn, we can certainly have shade trees, and the children will take care of them and watch their development with interest, particularly if they have a part in planting them. a few years ago the college distributed about trees to the schools of the state for arbor day and many of these trees were black walnuts. during the last few years, the collage has not raised enough of these trees to meet the demand. as memorial trees, also, nut trees are being quite extensively planted. a great many black walnuts have been planted in the honor of our soldiers who gave their lives in the war and it is a very suitable tree to plant for this purpose. now that our forests are becoming more scarce, we are beginning to appreciate more fully the value of their products. nuts, extracts, maple syrup and many minor products are obtained from our native trees. if man could be surrounded with the right assortment of trees, he would need little else. he would have food in the nuts and fruit; fire wood and building material in the stems, as well as paper and clothing from the wood pulp. he would have sugar from the sap, medicine from the bark, and he would have wood distillates, turpentine and resin. he could live long and well on the products of our forests. our forests are, however, disappearing. our native nut trees are being cut off. our sugar maple orchards are being put into farm land, and forest products are increasing rapidly in price. we have got to keep a certain part of the country in forests in order to have the country prosperous, and to do this we must either plant trees or so manage the existing forests that they will renew themselves naturally. in planting trees, we should not overlook the by-products of the trees, nuts and syrup and bark. these products are often the main crop in themselves and in any case, they will increase the receipts and make our forestry work more profitable. there are many acres in southern michigan and along the lake, that will give larger returns from nut tree plantations than from any other source. we want first to be sure that the trees are hardy to the locality before we recommend them. i believe there is a very big future for such plantations. the history of southern plantations has been one of remarkable success. we must be particularly careful in advising the establishment of nut tree plantations. we ought to be particularly careful in not encouraging people to buy trees that we are not sure will succeed. for every plantation that fails means a loss of money and an obstacle to future progress. but every tree that succeeds means an advertisement for years to come. i do not see any reason why southern michigan cannot raise many improved varieties of black walnut and perhaps some other nut trees as well. our study of native nut tree plantations this summer, shows that with proper care they may be very profitable and we hope to see a great extension of such plantations in this state. prof. chittenden: i would like to say that the college has been very favorably impressed with the work that this association has been doing and the care that is used in recommending nut trees. it is a thing the people need a lot of advice about. i thank you. (applause). mr. j. f. jones: i would like to ask if the pecans that were tender were northern or southern pecans. prof. chittenden: we got them from a nursery in new york state and i could not say as to the source of the stock beyond that. mr. jones: naturally the southern source is the cheapest tree. prof. chittenden: we got the trees from a nursery that had been advertising them very extensively in michigan. it was about five years ago, at a time when this state had been flooded with literature from this nursery and other nurseries about particularly pecans and chestnuts. we were doubtful about the trees they were recommending, and we got a considerable number and planted them out, but we took pretty good care of them; but they all died in winter. dr. morris: it is a pity that people who do the most advertising have to. certain firms are not allowed to advertise in nut journals at all. i think the public ought to be made aware of that fact. it is a pity too, because the ones who spend the largest amount of money in advertising are the ones of whom we ask the most questions. in regard to prof. chittenden's paper, it is a very important matter to impress upon children and others who are setting out trees the idea that a tree is not able to care for itself as a rule. it is quite the exception for a tree set out by itself to thrive and enter into competition with other trees and bushes and shade, in the early years, and insects later. i suppose the number of ordinary trees including maples that make their way to a successful old age would not represent one in many hundred thousands that make a start in the sprouting seed. that fact ought to be impressed on every school child who is setting out a tree--he really should adopt that tree and make that its own child. and if you can inculcate the maternal and the paternal instinct along with the setting out of from one to six children of these other children, you will then get trees on your roadsides and your waste lands, and without a great amount of difficulty. but you have got to go back to first principles there and realize that very few trees are able to succeed after they have been set out unless they receive a great deal of care subsequently. those of us who give a great deal of attention to trees, who pretend to care for our trees, will lose a percentage so large that i would hardly dare state what it probably is. among the hundreds and thousands of trees i have set out, all from reputable nurserymen or raised by myself; i doubt if % are alive today, and i have pretty good success too. this is not to discourage anyone; it is to encourage people, and they are to be encouraged by knowing the facts; and when all the final facts are known about the values of trees that are given proper attention, then people will be willing to give them that degree of attention. not until then are we to have success in filling our waste lands with nut trees. prof. chittenden brought up one point of a great deal of consequence. in any locality plant the species which belong to that locality. the species which, by natural selection and adaptation have fitted themselves to the environment are, as a rule, the trees which will do best in that locality. that is a principle i think which ought to be thoroughly well fixed in mind. one may experiment with any number of trees from a distance, but the trees which naturally have adapted themselves to a locality, the species which have done that are the species upon which we can expend our efforts to the best advantage. in the matter of chestnut blight, we assume that the chestnut blight will act like measles blight, scarlet fever blight, or any other epidemic. in other words, it is due to a microbe, it is due to a peculiar microbic group, a peculiar family group which happened to start out in northern china on its invasion and got to this country where it found trees which were not resistant. the american and european trees are not resistant. wherever it has gone from northern china, from the place where blight, the tree host and enemy grew up side by side, and represented the survival of the fittest; wherever it has gone away from the place where we have the survival of the fittest, at any rate as a result of struggle, there it has found susceptible individuals that it has destroyed. when a blight of any sort sets out, chestnut blight, measles, scarlet fever--any blight you please, you are talking natural history, you are taking biology, about an animal or a plant, about a microbe, a living thing. all of these living things run out of their vital energy in time. each microbe runs out of its energy just as a breed of horses or of strawberries runs out of its energy. all varieties, varietal types, run out of their natural energy, so that it is simply a question of length of time before this family microbe or family group of this microbe will lose its energy. we do not know how many years that will be. it may be a great many years, and by that time, our chestnuts may practically have disappeared. we can find here and there a tree which resists better than others do, and we may find some with enough resistance to be worthy of propagation as of that resistant kind. we know that several species resist the blight very well. i found four species that resist the blight very well among six kinds i have tried out on my place. but some chestnuts bear so early and heavily that we may afford to set them out, even in the presence of blight, trimming them back and looking after them carefully: for instance, a number of sober paragon chestnuts that i planted all died but one that is near the house. it bears so heavily that it is well worth while, and it simply means that one must give a great deal of attention to it. some people can afford even to set out the paragon because of its high bearing power. i have a number of hybrids which resist the blight very well. the cross between the american chestnut and the japanese, or between the common american chestnut and the chinquapins showed the resistance very largely of the resistant parent. but curiously enough, the ones which look most like the american chestnut also carry that parent's weakness in regard to blight, so that all of my hybrids between the american chestnut and the resistant kinds which look like the american chestnut and act like it also catch the same microbe for the most part. but one of the hybrids does not. no. which i have given mr. jones, is very much like the american chestnut. it grows vigorously, acts like it, and looks like it, and it has not blighted up to the ninth year of age, beginning to bear about the fourth year. most of those that are like the chinquapin or like the chinese chestnut resist blight very well. about japanese walnuts. if prof. chittenden has a large number of japanese walnuts about the state, he may very well select one or two of the very best and advise the owners to top work the others with the one or two which happen to be particularly good. most of the japanese walnuts are small. most of them are siebold type instead of the heart nut variety, but a few very large ones will be found here and there and of high quality, and they graft almost as easily as peaches. in regard to persian walnuts. if there are a few trees here and there about the state, we need not fear the question of introducing others because it is too far north. if you simply have one tree that is a good one, that is enough, because you can graft over all sorts of black walnuts, japanese walnut and persian walnut stocks with the one or two trees which are known to be good in michigan. one good tree in the state which is bearing good nuts of desirable qualities is enough. graft all of your other walnuts back from it. and in setting out the native black walnuts, chestnuts and the hickories of different species, it is important always to distinguish in regard to intention--whether they are to be for forest purposes or for nut purposes. that is not always clear in the minds of a number of people whom i have seen setting out groves of these trees. they talk about getting timber and nuts. you can not get both profitably. i think people ought to be impressed with the fact that if they are setting out apple trees for timber they would set them five or six feet apart. if they are setting them out for apples, they would set them sixty feet apart. precisely the same thing is true of nut trees. (applause). mr. jones: i would like to ask dr. morris how he protects grafts the first year. grafts growing the first year are very tender, put in late, and they will often winter kill in the tree that is perfectly hardy otherwise. dr. morris: mr. jones is quite right about that, and that is a matter requiring more experience than i have at the present time. what i have done in the way of protection fairly well is this: for instance, if i graft persian walnut on black walnut and it makes a late start and then in september has a very sappy growth, or in october has a sappy growth of three or four or five feet (they grow tremendously fast, like weeds) if the bark at the base of the graft is brown or has two or three buds that are brown or partially ripened, i cut off four or five of the first leaves and let them harden. then in the fall i cut off all but those four or five buds and put wax over the end. that is the way i avoid the winter killing of the sappy growth. as soon as the part nearest the grafted place begins to turn brown, looks like hardening up and two or three buds are pretty hard, i cut off four or five of those leaves right there and let the buds ripen, and those buds will ripen very well. i will sacrifice five or six buds for the sake of saving three or four buds. the next year they grow all right. that is not a nice way, but when you see you are going to lose a thing on account of sappiness, that will sometimes work. mr. jones: i generally wrap the base of the limb in burlap. dr. morris: if the sappy tip dies, it poisons the rest. there are poisonous enzymes that poison the rest of it. mr. bixby: i was going to ask prof. chittenden if he could give any experience with the named varieties of black walnuts. prof. chittenden: i don't think i could distinguish between the varieties of black walnut that have been planted in this state. that is not a thing that i feel able to discuss. i know that a number of different varieties of black walnut have been planted. at the college we have done a good deal of grafting on the black walnuts, and we have not had very good success. mr. bixby: i had in mind improved varieties of black walnut grafted on the black walnut stock. prof. chittenden: i don't think we have had any experience of that. we always get a good deal of wood from pennsylvania in the spring and do the grafting in class. we can not expect a very high grade of work when the students do it as a part of their work of instruction. there are some black walnuts in the state that have very good nuts, and some that have not. i have tried to get for our nursery good nuts from trees that had a good native nut. we have had so much difficulty getting black walnuts at all the last few years that we have taken just what we could get. we get nuts from all over the central part of the state and plant in the nursery to get our seedling trees. mr. bixby: i have found some of the named varieties of black walnuts bearing in quite a number of sections of this state and other states. they seem to bear quite young. president reed: mr. jones has partly prepared a paper on "pecans other than those of the well known sections," but as it has been impossible to complete it, it will be handed to the secretary later, and inserted in the proceedings. pecans other than those of the well known sections j. f. jones, lancaster, pennsylvania pecans have been grown in the south for a good many years, and, with the advent of budded and grafted trees of superior varieties in more recent years, the industry made great strides and now that the product of some of these grafted orchards is coming on the market and selling readily at high prices, the economic value and importance of the pecan is becoming to be more fully appreciated. the success of the pecan in the south, led some planters in the northern states to make experimental plantings of these southern varieties but they have proven disappointing, as might be expected, since our seasons are too short for the nuts to mature, even where the trees are hardy. i have seen the stuart, one of the largest southern pecans, when grown in lancaster and adams counties, pa., not half as large as the indiana sorts and with little or no kernel. the schley, one of the finest southern pecans, when grown in adams co., pa., is so small that no one would recognize it and it has no kernel at all. in very recent years, largely through the efforts of a few progressive men in indiana, fine varieties of the pecan have been discovered in indiana and kentucky, and these varieties are being propagated and planted over the northern states generally. while the discovery of these varieties and their propagation marked a big step forward in extending the cultural range of the pecan and making it possible to grow this nut several hundred miles north of the southern pecan belt, not unlike the southern varieties, the indiana and kentucky varieties are necessarily limited in their range of adaptability, and it is perhaps not safe to recommend them for planting, except possibly in the more favored localities, north of the th parallel and south thereof and possibly in the elevated or mountain sections they should not be recommended for planting north of latitude degrees. the advantages of securing varieties for propagation therefore from as far north as possible is obvious. i have examined a good many sample pecans from missouri and kansas, some of which are excellent, but, aside from possibly being a little hardier in tree, they have no advantage over the fine indiana and kentucky varieties that we already have, unless of course, they should be better adapted to planting in the western states. in its natural range, the pecan is found growing farther north along the mississippi river, in iowa and illinois, than anywhere else in the country, and naturally we turned to these pecan forests hoping to find a variety bearing nuts of a size and quality to merit propagation and dissemination north of the belt where it is safe to recommend the planting of the indiana varieties. as a result of correspondence with an iowa nurseryman in the fall of , i engaged the services of a competent man to gather pecans for me at muscatine, iowa. following my instructions, this man searched the woods in that locality to find what i wanted for propagation and as a result, nuts were sent me from several trees which were carefully marked so that in case scions were wanted from any of the trees, they would be readily identified. this man seemed to be very enthusiastic about the nuts he sent me, and, as he had made a business of gathering pecans, and he knew the pecans in that section well, i felt that he had sent me the best that he had there. none of the pecans sent had sufficient size and merit to propagate however, and i gave the matter up. fortunately, mr. g. h. corsan, toronto, canada, was endeavoring the same fall or winter to get pecans to grow trees that would succeed in canada and he bought pecans from a dealer in burlington, iowa. upon receiving this lot of nuts, mr. corsan was astonished at their large size, as he expected that pecans from the northern limit of the pecan to be of small size. thinking that this party had sent him southern pecans, mr. corsan wrote him at once that he did not want southern pecans, explaining that he wanted them for planting. this party replied that the nuts sent him were genuine iowa pecans. knowing my interest in the matter, mr. corsan wrote me during the spring of , giving me the facts in the case and urged that i go to burlington the next fall and look up a variety for propagation. fall came on, but with it, so much to do and with short help, due to war conditions, that i had to give up the trip, but, at mr. corsan's suggestion, i took the matter up with mr. ed. g. marquardt, burlington, iowa, with the result that the matter was placed in his hands, with the assurance from mr. marquardt that he would do the very best he could for us. mr. marquardt employed a man who had made a business of gathering pecans there and who knew the trees bearing the largest nuts, and with the help of this man, finally located a tree miles north of burlington bearing very large pecans of thin shell and splendid quality. although most of the nuts had been gathered, the husks on the ground indicated it had been bearing good crops. this tree was marked and some of the nuts sent to me. these pecans i considered remarkably fine for so far north. they were fully as large as the indiana, with even a thinner shell and a full kernel of excellent quality. with the help of mr. marquardt, scions were secured from this tree the following spring, and grafting proved very successful, which we consider very fortunate, as this land was cleared during the war and this tree met the fate of others, being turned into lumber and it is no more. this variety has been given mr. marquardt's name. coming from miles north of burlington, iowa, in north latitude degrees, i shall expect the marquardt to succeed any where south of the great lakes. the indiana and busseron pecans originated farther north than any others of the indiana group, the original trees of which are growing in the wabash river bottom, west of oaktown, ind., about miles south of latitude . most of the indiana and kentucky varieties are from latitude degrees, or approximately miles south of where the marquardt originated. the climate of iowa is also considerably colder than is the same latitude farther east, due to the more open character of the country west and to the influence of the great lakes farther east. the pecans there are not only necessarily hardier, but have to mature their fruit in a shorter season, which is all important in a variety for northern planting, as it has been shown that the pecan is hardy in tree considerably north of where it will mature its fruit properly. realizing the importance of the iowa pecans for northern planting and realizing the building of the big power dam on the mississippi river at keokuk, iowa, and the consequent raising of the water level for considerable distance up the river together with building of levees and clearing of the forests, threatened the destruction of many of the pecan trees and pecan forests, mr. bixby spent nearly a week during the past fall in the pecan forests and groves along the mississippi river around clinton, ia., and burlington, ia. the facts of the following paragraphs (except the last two) i have taken from his notes: these pecan trees at clinton, iowa, are the most northerly growing of the native pecans so far discovered. they are on the islands in the river and on the bottom lands, where the land at low water is only a few feet above the water level, and at high water, several feet under water. the trees certainly are not suffering from lack of moisture. the soil is alluvial, seemingly of unknown depths and must be very fertile, enriched as it is by the deposits left by the high waters each year, or sometimes, several times a year. no pecan trees under six inches in diameter were seen here, and they ranged from that size up to inches in trunk diameter feet tall. no trees bearing large pecan nuts were seen, although the flavor of the kernels of practically all of the trees was good. crops of nuts were irregular and seemingly not so good as they were some years. none of the trees near clinton were deemed worthy of propagation. the pecans at burlington are growing under similar conditions to those at clinton, but they are much more numerous, there being thousands of them, some being larger than any seen at clinton. four trees, including the marquardt, have been discovered and brought to the attention of the association by mr. ed. g. marquardt and mr. john h. witte of burlington. cuts of these nuts, natural size, are shown opposite page . the marquardt is being propagated by me and the other three varieties by snyder bros., center point, iowa. from the appearance of the leaves, buds and habit of growth of the marquardt pecan, it seemed to me that the tree had hickory blood in it, although the nut did not suggest it; and i intended to look into this matter fully, on a trip to iowa the past fall, but finding i could not go, i gave mr. bixby samples of the nuts, leaves and twigs and told him what i expected, and he had this in mind during his trip. he never found young pecan trees growing in the woods but did find them growing in large numbers on the levees and on the edges of cultivated fields. a careful examination showed a very considerable variation in leaf, bud and habit of growth and there seemed little question but that there were among them many hybrids between the pecan and the big bottom shellbark, _carya laciniosa_, which is found growing on the bottom lands and the islands along with the pecan. as a matter of fact, two of the four iowa pecans selected for propagation, the burlington and the greenbay, show unmistakable evidence of hybrid parentage in the nut, in the leaves and buds. the marquardt gives no hint of such parentage in the nut, but the leaves and buds do suggest that it has hickory blood in its make up, and it is believed that this is so. the witte is seemingly a pure pecan. there has recently been much done near burlington in reclaiming valuable, cultivatable lands from the river which formerly overflowed them each year so that people were afraid to plant crops and they were therefore abandoned to the forests. levees have recently been built to keep the water off these lands in time of high water. drainage ditches have been made behind them and pumping plants put in to pump the water out of them. the cost of these improvements, which has given to cultivation much very fertile land, has been assessed on the owners of the lands benefited, as is also the upkeep expense. many owners had not the money to pay the assessments and have sold the land to those who are clearing off the timber. this means the clearing of thousands of acres of bottom land and the pecan is one of the principle trees on these bottom lands. this condition makes it necessary to locate and propagate at once, the best and most promising of these iowa pecans and hybrids and observe their behavior afterwards in the young trees, instead of depending on the watching of the behavior of the original trees as has been the case in indiana. i feel reluctant to close this address without mentioning the good work done by secretaries deming and bixby and other members of this association in searching for varieties of nuts that may be superior to what we already have. those of us who are propagating these trees, while we may feel the inspiration that comes from doing a work that benefits mankind, nevertheless, we hope and expect to make dollars and cents out of growing these trees, while this is not the case with some of the members of this association who are not nurserymen and who do not expect to enter this field. dr. deming, former secretary of this association, did much good work and secured some fine nuts worthy of propagation, through advertising and the offering of premiums, and mr. bixby, who very kindly took up this work when dr. deming was called to the colors, has been active and is doing a great work for northern nut culture. president reed: we will now have a grafting demonstration by mr. jones. mr. jones had brought with him specimens of stock, scions and all the materials and tools needed for the demonstration, and performed the various operations of grafting and budding before the audience. mr. jones: we often use scions half or three-fourths of an inch in diameter, for grafting, but they are rather hard to get. in top working, we generally take limbs two to four inches in diameter, cut them off, and split the bark. the nut grafting must all be done late when the sap is up in the trees. cut the scions all on one side. split the bark, slip in the scion, tie up and wax the whole scion over with grafting wax, put it on hot and seal it up tight. sometimes for winter protection of the english walnut as far north as michigan your tip might kill back because it grows so very fast and is sappy. i have never [illustration: pecans from burlington, ia] had trees kill in that way, but i do have many people write me that they have trees killed in that way. in nursery grafting, we usually use just the cleft method. you should cut the cleft on one side and don't split it, but keep it smooth all the way through. president reed: you get better results, mr. jones, from waxing the entire scion? mr. jones: yes, we get better results that way. in the south we have no success at all that way; we have to cover them with sacks. voice: about what degree of heat is best for the wax? mr. jones: don't have it too hot and it can't burn. you can tell that by the wax smoking. president reed: as long as the wax does not smoke, it is pretty safe. mr. jones: this illustrates what we call a side graft. put the scion in the side and leave the top on. you can also do it in bark grafting. cut your bark, split it, and stick your scion straight down as it is here. voice: how do you apply the hot wax? mr. jones: with a swab or brush. we use a carbon heater and that makes it about the right temperature. voice: how large black walnut trees could be top worked to english walnuts? mr. jones: you can work almost any sized tree, but it is quite a job in the large tree. take a tree larger than six inches in diameter, or eight, and it would not be very satisfactory. in cutting the scions be careful to make a straight surface on the cut bevel. to do that the knife should be held at an angle lengthwise to the scion. in our grafting in the south we leave the scion dry and cover it with a bag. that was in florida. dr. morris: that is a very interesting question about the limits of our using the method of covering the scion and all with the wax. i shall speak of that in my own grafting demonstration which is short. i got the point from mr. jones, and mr. jones tells me he got it from mr. riehl. they use black wax and hard, strong wax. mr. jones: mr. riehl uses a liquid wax, resin and beeswax without the coloring matter. we use the coloring matter to toughen the wax. dr. morris: still, that is amber. amber will cut out light, and it seems to me that it is a matter of a good deal of consequence, the black or amber wax covering the graft completely, buds and all, wound, scion, stock. it succeeds in the north, succeeds better than any other method in grafting, and yet in the south it does not succeed. it is possible that as you get further south the longer sun, the hotter sun scalds the cambium layer of bark beneath when it would not do so in the north. that is at least worth thinking about. in my own work during the past year i have used transparent paraffin alone, nothing else. i have tried different kinds of paraffin, the parowax, the common one that the women put up preserves with is the one that will stay on best, will not crack and is perfectly transparent, allowing the light of the sun to act upon the chlorophyl, in the bark and the bud and intensify the activity of that part of the plant that depends upon light transformation by means of chlorophyl. i am very much interested to know if this will not succeed in the south. paraffin would not attract the heat of the sun, and it is possible that this will allow us to carry the method of mr. jones, the best method to date, still farther south. mr. jones: i think, doctor, it is a matter of heat, because in the shade you can graft them almost any way. do you cover the scion with paraffin or only the union? dr. morris: i cover the entire thing with paraffin, scions, buds and all including the wrapping. i don't leave anything exposed to the air. there are several principles involved there. in the first place you have the effect of light upon chlorophyl which is important; in the second place, the melted paraffin fills all interstices in which sap would collect and ferment. if those interstices are filled with melted paraffin, sap will not collect there and ferment. the microbes of bacterial and fungus origin, that prevent union and break down the products of repair that are thrown out for the purpose of repair, can not do it if they can not collect in quantity, and the paraffin fills the space in which they would collect in quantity; so that does away with another one of the dangers. in the third place, you have the same sap tension maintained in the scion as in the stock. the difference between the negative and positive pressures, day and night, is very great in spring time, and as the sap responds between day and night in the stock, it puts a strain upon the scion. the scion can not follow the stock with its sap movement ordinarily. but if scion and stock are covered completely with paraffin, the tension remains the same, so that you do away with the shock of varying negative and positive pressures. that is an important point, it seems to me, in principle in the matter of using the paraffin. another point is this. you prevent evaporation from scion that goes on ordinarily through the little breathing lenticels, the little apertures between the cells of the bark which allow moisture to escape as well as to enter. one would naturally believe the paraffin would fill these and smother the scion, and i presume it is that fear which has prevented the world from trying this for the past ten thousand years, because they were skilful grafters in egypt, both in the tree world and the financial world, in the days of hammurabi there were skilful grafters in both worlds two or three thousand years before christ. i suppose that fear of closing the breathing apertures in the stock has prevented people from adopting this method; but it is not justified, because those bold, brave nurserymen who are not afraid to smother a scion find that all the scions live. it is a venture into the unknown, that dramatic book, in the way of dramatically constructive progress. another point: when you protect your graft in the ordinary way with ordinary wrapping, ordinary wax, the scion becomes timid, the stock becomes timid. it is not quite sure of itself in many cases, and when it is not sure of itself, when it has a fear, what does it do? it resorts to the protection method. what is the first? suberization, cork layer formation. so the frightened stock throws cork cells over its cut surface between that and the graft, and the suberization goes on as a result of fear on the part of the timid stock. when you have taken away the fear by covering the whole area with melted paraffin and it feels safe, then suberization does not go on in this way, your stock is not frightened, you have not a scared tree at all, and it will go on kindly and gently as a jersey heifer to do its work. president reed: i would like to ask dr. morris about that myself. i am very much interested in the line of grafting, as we graft , to , every spring, using this same method. i feel as mr. jones does, that the losses from grafting are largely due to heat and the fermentation of sap. we find perhaps, that the first week of grafting in cherry, we can almost invariably secure a fairly good stand. following that it tapers as the warmth and air increase, although the scions are kept in cold storage, perfectly dormant, the sap is coming up, and the increased rays of the sun--we get a very small percentage, and it seems to become less every day, and we have always used the dark wax. while i have been using paraffin wax a good deal of the time, i put lampblack in it for coloring. dr. morris: i have until this year. in order to get mr. jones' points, i tried to work out the philosophy of the subject and see what values there are, what meanings in the methods which led to his success. then following that line of investigation, i stopped into another line of observation, and arrived at the transparent paraffin method, so that this is the first year in which i have tried it, but the results are perfectly remarkable. i have only done it for a year, but you will see % of catches on almost everything, hickories, walnuts, hazels. i must tell you of one very remarkable incident. mrs. morris had some dwarf trees set out on the slope of the lawn, dwarf pear trees. one of my men cut one of them off with a lawn mower the latter part of august. the top kicked around under foot for three or four days, wilted in the sun. we were walking past it along in august. i think mr. bixby said, "why don't you try grafting on that kind of material?" i said, "i will, blessed if i don't." so i cut three pear scions from this wilted top that had been cut by the lawnmower in august, and i put them on a scrub pear tree under the fence near the house. and i tried this paraffin method, and in about six days one of them started out a shoot, and i said to one of my men, "we will transplant this. this is no place for it." i meant in the spring, or in a year or so. he transplanted it the next day. and it grew i think about half an inch after that, made good wood to last through the winter. so i don't know what the limitations of this paraffin method are. but that is a thing i would hardly dare tell about unless there were men here in this room who had seen it. that little pear top, cut off by mistake, kicked about under foot a few days in august, no sort of scion that any one would ever think of using as a graft, put it in as a joke, and with the further abuse of being transplanted; but it started growth, and now it is going to be a good pear tree. mr. jones: the kicking around only made it good for grafting. president reed: perhaps it ripened up to a certain extent by that drying out, like it would in the fall. dr. morris: maybe, but i have never heard of horticulturists propagating trees in that way and transplanting them in the same year, and having the new wood from the graft harden for the winter. mr. jones: mr. reed spoke of grafting a cherry. you cut the top off didn't you? president reed: yes. mr. jones: we graft filberts by leaving the top on and cut the graft in on the side and wax it over. we leave it there two weeks, maybe, and cut it off, and we get perfect stands that way, and you would on the cherry. president reed: we use the side grafting, but we cut the top off. mr. vollertsen: i would like to ask dr. morris with regard to the stock. don't you think the fact that that tree was moved at the time it was, so soon after grafting, had something to do with the retarding of the sap and causing the tree to mature the wood it did in place of making more growth? dr. morris: that might be. all of the expert horticultural opinions brought to bear on this are valuable. every suggestion that has been made has had a meaning. it requires explanation. president reed: if there is nothing further along that line, we have with us mr. conrad vollertsen, of rochester, who has been asked to prepare a paper; and we would like to hear from him. he is an expert in the filbert, and i believe can give us some valuable information. (applause). hazel nuts and filberts conrad vollertsen, rochester, n. y. mr. president, ladies and gentlemen of this convention: i have been approached by a member of the northern nut growers' association to prepare a paper to be read at this convention on the growing, cultivating, and propagating of the european hazel, together with such other topics on the subject, as would be of interest to the members of this association, particularly my experience and observations during the last three or four seasons in my hazel orchard and nursery. now, ladies and gentlemen, i am not a public speaker nor a public writer; my business is nursery and garden work; i can use spade and pick more freely than pen and ink, and, therefore, fear that i am not the right party called upon, knowing as i do, that we have members in this association far more capable and experienced, and who possess more knowledge about the european hazel than ever i had. nevertheless as the growing and planting of the european hazel in the eastern and middle states of our country so far, both for ornamental or commercial purposes, has been more or less experimental, i think all practical information on the subject should be welcomed, and therefore i have consented to prepare this paper and hope it will be accepted for what it stands. a number of years ago, after leaving school, i entered a large nursery and garden establishment in germany, as an apprentice boy, to learn the garden business, to become a gardener and horticulturist, to learn how to raise trees and other plants, to learn how to graft, to prune and cultivate, and, in general, to take care of all kinds of growing plants. one of the first duties bestowed upon me in my new place was the charge of a large plot of young hazel or filbert plants. to prune or graft them? not at all. at that time i did not know anything about such skilled labor. i was merely told to weed and hoe them and to keep them clean. it was not just very elegant work, but, ladies and gentlemen, i enjoyed very much indeed, every minute so employed among those young filbert bushes. i became really attached to them and knew practically every plant in the plot, and almost believe they knew me, too. now what was the reason for this immense pleasure i found in working among those plants? was it perhaps from the commercial or financial point of view, the future income from them for fruit or when the plants reached a saleable age? not at all. i was then too much of a boy and did not comprehend such a thing as that. it was merely the fond and pleasant recollection of my childhood, of my boyhood, when, together with other children, in the proper season, we went hunting for the common hazel nuts, the _corylus avellana_, as the gathering of these nuts is one of the greatest pleasures of the german country child, and to roam through fields and woods in late summer in those beautiful september days, when the foliage of trees and bushes begin to color, when the birds of the garden, field and forest begin to assemble for future migration, when goldenrod, asters and other field flowers are reaching their greatest beauty, then, ladies and gentlemen, the hazelnut has reached maturity. the nut itself is a very beautiful brown color, the outer bark a golden yellow, the leaves of the plants slightly colored with bronze, pink or yellow, a most beautiful combination, a pleasure to look upon, and a sight never to be forgotten. whoever has had an opportunity to see and admire a well fruited hazel plant, at the time of maturity, will agree with me that it is a thing of beauty, not only during the fruit bearing season, but in fact throughout the whole winter, with the handsome staminate flowers or catkins appearing very abundantly in early fall, and remaining throughout the winter, until late spring. of all these pleasures, these beautiful sights, etc., of which a vivid and fond recollection caused all the pleasures in cultivating the above mentioned hazel lot, we need not be deprived in our otherwise so richly blest country. it is true that, at the present time, we have no american native hazel, that can fully compete with the better european varieties, but we hope that in time not far off, through scientific hybridization, such will be produced. for the time being, we have some very fine european varieties as a substitute, which for years have stood the test very well, and should be planted wherever a place can be spared for a few of them, and great pleasure and enjoyment will be the result. so much for the pleasure of raising hazel nuts. i have related the foregoing merely to show the lasting pleasure and enjoyments derived from the planting, cultivating and gathering of a few european hazel nuts. but to raise hazel nuts for the pleasure of it only, would be a very poor business proposition, and certainly not a paying one. what we should do is to raise them in large quantities, for commercial purposes, but here it seems to me the question should be asked: have we had experience enough as to recommend the planting of them in the middle and eastern states for commercial purposes? in other words, is it worth while to plant them with that point in view? now, gentlemen, i do not suppose that any one of us, at the present time, would be fully capable or prepared to answer this question intelligently or positively, as the planting of the hazel, for commercial purposes, has not been tried long enough, at least not in the eastern or middle states, to warrant a positive opinion on the subject. a great deal depends upon the variety planted, also the location where the planting is done. much observation and experimenting is still required. i have growing on my ground in western new york, near rochester, several hundred trees or bushes, to years old, about varieties, most of them german varieties, a few from france, and a few from england. they have been bearing nuts the last four seasons, and all have reached maturity perfectly. the smaller and medium sized nuts appeared to bear a little better than the larger varieties. the varieties received from france have, so far, not done well with me, as the german varieties. they are poor bearers. in the fall of , i gathered from each to year old tree, of the german variety, about a pound and a quarter of the medium sized nuts, while hardly a pound from the larger fruited varieties (same sized plants) ripened well. i was then under the impression that the hazel not only could but should be planted in large numbers for commercial purpose. in the fall of my crop of nuts was very much less, and i had expected even a better harvest than in , which certainly was discouraging to me. the plants themselves were growing beautifully, but most of the staminate blossoms or catkins were frozen, and, consequently, very little pollenizing was accomplished, and very little fruit the result. such and possibly other occurrences, from time to time we may expect and look for, and should be ready to investigate thoroughly, before we can advocate or recommend the planting of the hazel extensively. it really seems strange that while the hazel generally is at home in the northern latitudes, it should partly freeze when the thermometer reaches say about to degrees below zero, and, as i had never noticed that before, it then occurred to me that possibly another reason could be found, why so many of the catkins were frozen. through my investigation in the spring of , i have come to the conclusion that the unusually wet season in our vicinity of western new york throughout caused the hazel plants to grow until the real cold weather was upon them, which gave the wood a very poor chance to ripen, particularly the terminal buds, where a great many of the catkins had formed, and caused not only them to freeze but also a certain part of the wood. only the lower and more protected catkins came through the winter alright and caused what little pollenizing was done, hence the very light harvest in the fall of . should the results of my investigation prove true, and the continuance of the wet weather prove the main cause of freezing so many catkins, then it seems to me there is nothing to be alarmed about, and the planting of the european hazel, at least in this vicinity, for commercial purposes could be conscientiously recommended, and should be done, the sooner the better. we do not expect our apple or pear orchards to bear an abundant crop every year, and we should not expect it of our hazel orchards. something will occasionally happen to them as well as to other crops, otherwise we run no risk whatever. my trees or bushes, several hundred in number, planted in and later, have stood all kinds of weather, extreme cold, very hot, continuous wet, and still are growing most beautifully at the present time. they gave a very satisfactory crop of nuts this last fall, , in spite of severe freezing weather on april th and th when the mercury dropped to to degrees, and all hazel bushes in full bloom. at the present time the prospect for a good crop of nuts next season is certainly very bright. neither fungus, blight, or other diseases of any kind, or troublesome insects have so far been detected. in planting the hazel for commercial purposes, i should recommend feet distance between the plants each way, as they require abundant sun and air. at the same time, there is an opportunity to use the land between the rows for several years to come, as low growing crops like potatoes, strawberries, beans, beets, carrots, etc., could be grown there to great advantage, and the cultivation of these crops would be amply sufficient for the hazel plants. now the selection of varieties to be planted for the commercial hazel orchard is a very important part of the undertaking, and should be well considered. to plant several varieties is absolutely necessary on account of pollenizing, as staminate and pistillate flowers, though on the same plant, do not always appear together in proper condition on all plants; in fact it has been proven in my orchard that sometimes plants bring forth a great many pistillate blossoms and not a single staminate one on them, and still a good crop of nuts were grown on them. here the pollination must have taken place with the pollen from other nearby plants conveyed to them by wind or insects. one particular plant of the zellernut type grown in one of my city lots during the last season was very well filled with pistillate blossoms and not one catkin on it, and still it ripened a fairly good crop of perfect nuts, where the nearest plants filled with staminate blossoms was at least feet from it. here it is shown and proven that a number of varieties is a necessity. but what varieties we shall choose, will undoubtedly be an open question for some time to come, and, no doubt, a great deal of experimental work will have to be done to finally select the right varieties for the different localities, the variation of temperature and location has very much to do with the proper selection of varieties. i have among my varieties some i could recommend and again others that are not at all satisfactory, at least not so far, and it requires more close observation before the very best of them can be picked out or selected. our next operation in the hazel will be the pruning. here i should say above all things: "_keep the suckers away._" hazel bushes are naturally inclined to produce a great many suckers, which should be thoroughly removed as soon as they appear; it will stop when the plants grow older. besides the suckers, all weak and unnecessary wood should be removed entirely, not cut back. our aim should be to try and get as near as possible low standard trees, with trunk say to inches high and the tree itself not to exceed to feet in height with the center kept open all the time. to accomplish this, i should suggest the removing of all crowding limbs from the center, regardless of their being fruit-bearing limbs, which to determine is mostly guess-work at the best. in order to keep the plants within to feet in height, the terminal shoots also should be removed or reduced as the case may be, beginning at the time of planting until the desired height is reached. after that, one or more of the old limbs may from time to time be removed, as there always will be enough young branches to take their places. such pruning in my orchard, so far, has proved sufficient, as blight has never made its appearance in my nursery. i will not be able to say much about blight. i have known trees in our city, or varieties, for more than years, bearing more or less fruit year after year, and have never noticed any blight or anything wrong with them. should blight appear, i should remove all affected limbs to the sound and healthy wood, as we would do to our pear and quince trees when blight appears among them. i do not believe that properly treated hazel bushes will ever suffer much from blight, at least not in our vicinity. neither do i believe that any more pruning than i have outlined is required or necessary to our hazel plants. the next subject about which i wish to say a few words is the propagation of hazel plants. there seems to be quite a difference of opinion as to the mode of propagating them; some advocate grafting, others layering, again others from suckers only. grafting i believe myself, will produce a finer plant and the operation of doing so seems quite successful, but a great many varieties produce so many suckers that the graft is liable to be choked or crowded out if not constantly watched, and it should not be expected of the average person to know the difference between the graft and the wild shoot, and consequently, in a comparative short time, he would have a wild or common hazel. for that reason grafted plants should not be used for the trade until our people get better acquainted with hazel plants. i, therefore, should recommend layering, thereby having the plants on their own roots, which would prove more satisfactory everywhere. that grafted plants bear fruit sooner than layers, does not always hold good; it may be so with some varieties, but not with all of them. i have some three year old grafted plants and no fruit as yet, where i had plenty of layers in the nursery rows two years old well fruited. it is true that plants grafted on seedlings of the _corylus avellana_ will not produce as many suckers, as plants grafted on layers of the avellana type, but they will produce enough to confuse the average person, as the foliage of some varieties are so nearly alike, that it actually requires an expert to tell the difference. i, therefore, under the existing circumstances, should advise the propagating of hazel plants by layers only, until our people get better acquainted with the hazel proposition in general. why propagation by suckers only should be preferred by some people, i fail to see, as they are practically the same as layers, plants on their own roots from a parent plant, only that layers are produced a little more scientifically and suckers more naturally; otherwise they are identically the same thing. when i referred to propagating, i should perhaps have mentioned the growing of hazel plants from seeds, that is from the nut, but i did not think it necessary. i will, however, say that plants raised from seed should never be planted for fruit bearing unless they are grafted or budded, as it has been fully and positively proven that plants raised from seed, even if the very finest nuts of our european hybrids are planted, will not produce nuts as good as those planted, but will almost invariably go back to the original type, the _corylus avellana_. it is alright to raise plants from seeds for the sake of getting stock to graft or bud on, but, as to variety, the seedlings are unreliable. before coming to a close, i would like to say a few words about the fertilizing of the ground for hazel orchards and what experience i have had in this matter, as i believe this would be of interest to all. it is a well-known fact that hazel plants grow well and will thrive in almost any kind of soil, as long as it is not too wet or too heavy, but from time to time a little manure worked in is very beneficial both to old and young plants, but care and judgment should be exercised, so as not to overdo it. i have growing in one of my city lots with very fertile soil, several bearing hazel plants, to years old, different varieties. these plants grow so immensely that it plainly shows, they are growing at the expense of the fruit, not only that the quantity of nuts gathered from a plant there is considerably less than of same sized plants grown on ordinary farmland, but the quality also is very much below. my best nuts are all grown on ordinary farmland and the greatest quantity has always been obtained from the farm where only very little fertilizing or manuring had been done. for the growing of young plants for commercial purposes, for the trade, i should recommend liberal manuring at all times. (applause.) question: is the hazel a long lived tree? mr. vollertsen: i have known trees for almost forty years that are bearing good fruit year after year, although not always a good crop. they don't seem to grow so rapidly at that age as when younger. dr. morris: hazels seem to graft pretty well on each other. i think the tree hazel is going to be our most successful stock for grafting. however, i have grafted on the _corylus avellana_. the tree hazel does not put out any suckers. question: does the hazel find its way into the market commercially? mr. vollertsen: i would almost think so. i have had lots of inquiries for them from storekeepers. it seems to me there are a great many imported around here. our american hazels are not so very good. there may be here and there a fairly good one, but i have not found any really good ones worth propagating. i think if we would do more scientific work we could get very good nuts. there is no question that they are perfectly hardy and will stand almost any climate. mr. jones: some of your varieties are hybrids aren't they? mr. vollertsen: they are all hybrids. i have a few of the real, original _avellana_ type i think got there by accident. president reed: i believe the next paper is one the secretary has from mr. a. h. graves. disease resistance in the american chestnut[ ] arthur h. graves (read by the secretary) your secretary, mr. bixby, has asked me to tell you about the native chestnut trees in the vicinity of new york city which i have found to be resistant to the destructive bark disease. i commenced the search for such trees in the summer of , at the suggestion of dr. haven metcalf, of the laboratory of forest pathology, bureau of plant industry. during the campaign in pennsylvania against the bark disease, scouts had been on the lookout for immune or resistant trees, but without result. as far as i am aware, no systematic organized search had been made for such individuals. it was our plan to commence the search in the region of new york city, because this area is probably the oldest center of infection in the united states. apparently this is the port of entry where the undesirable immigrants (japanese or chinese chestnuts) passed through quarantine and were allowed to disembark carrying their terrible scourge with them unnoticed. according to metcalf and collins,[ ] this was probably as early as . this was why we selected this area to begin on, for here the disease has had a longer opportunity to run its course than anywhere else, and, consequently, has had ample time (more than a quarter of a century) to call out the non-resistant trees. those remaining, if any could be found, might be suspected, _a priori_, of being resistant. as the work progressed, i soon realized that it would be most difficult, or perhaps impossible, to locate resistant or immune trees in a region not so long exposed to infection; for, in such a region, one would have to inoculate all individuals suspected of possessing resistant qualities, in order to ascertain whether their healthy condition was actually due to resistant qualities or simply the result of a chance escape of infection. we therefore decided to restrict the work, for the present at least, entirely to a definite area about new york city. this area includes all of the territory within a radius of about miles from new york city hall, and therefore comprised in a general way, greater new york and the adjacent parts of new jersey. results of the survey first i made a thorough canvas of staten island, doing the work on foot, aided by the trolley and the staten island r. r., and often guided by that genial naturalist and lover of staten island, dr. arthur hollick of the staten island institute of arts and sciences, i made a careful survey of the whole square miles of which the island is composed. after two weeks of this kind of work, i began to get fairly well discouraged, not so much because of lack of results which, it is true, were entirely negative, but more on account of the appearance of the dead chestnuts. for where it was not entirely cut out, the bare, weathered poles showed that they had been dead for many years. the only encouraging feature was the finding of large quantities of healthy seedlings, from years of age upward, to which i will refer later. the palisade region along the hudson has been notable in the past for its chestnut forests. i next attacked this, making as thorough a search as possible from hoboken to a little north of alpine, n. j., which is a small place on the hudson opposite yonkers. here also the vast forests of dead poles weathered gray with time, bore silent witness to the completeness of the destruction. about the middle of july while ferrying across the hudson, i noticed north of the landing at dyckman st., what appeared to be chestnut trees in bloom. on investigation, i found these to be living native chestnuts, of the peculiar strip type i shall describe later, and proceeding further north from this, where the harlem enters the hudson. i was led into a forest where i found at least living chestnuts, some of which were in good condition, and one particularly was leafy nearly to the top. (fig. ) naturally, one would immediately suspect that somehow these trees had escaped infection, but this could not possibly be the case, for mixed in with them on all sides were bare, weathered trunks showing signs of old worn cankers, proving incontestibly that the fungus had been present here also for a long period. shortly afterward, dr. olive, of the brooklyn botanic garden, informed me that he had seen living chestnuts near hollis, l. i., and at valley stream, l. i., and at each of these places i found a group similar to that near the harlem. these, in brief, are the high spots of the survey from the point of view of the scientist. in addition, i covered adjacent region of new jersey to the west, including the watchung mt. range about plainfield and the oranges; the bronx and van cortland park and the country to yonkers and the north, and to the northeast of new rochelle. long island, as far as hempstead, was also included. altogether i travelled about miles on foot, not counting the distance traversed on trolleys and railroads. always armed with opera glasses, i was careful not to use them when anyone was looking, for on the second day of the survey i had been arrested on the charge of being a german spy! i was also arrested on board a train in new jersey for looking earnestly at a topographic map, then sharply out of the car window and noting what i had seen (dead chestnut trees) on said map. the carrying of a botanist's tin can (containing fungi, not bombs) was also an additional implicating circumstance on the latter occasion. what then were the results of the survey? they may be stated briefly as follows: . no immune trees were found. . for the most part the older trees (from years upward) were entirely dead, and had been so for a long period, as attested by the bare trunks, weathered a characteristic gray color which only time can produce. . however, large numbers of seedlings and young saplings were located, both healthy and diseased. . _the most important result was the finding of three well defined colonies of living mature trees; all of which, by virtue of characters to be presently described, are offering more or less resistance to the disease._ seedling trees it is well known that seedlings and young saplings are naturally immune for a certain period, which varies in extent from to years beyond germination of the seed beginning, of course with the first formation of the seedling. such immunity depends, however, not on any inherent characteristic, but on the fact that at this period the bark is usually smooth, sound, and free from wounds of any sort where endothia spores and mycelium might enter. of course, when wounded from any cause whatever during this period of youth, this immunity ends, so that the condition might perhaps be termed physical, in contrast to physiological immunity. as i have already said, large numbers of seedlings, for the most part still unattacked, were found in many places in the area surveyed. there are of course no grounds for believing that such seedlings, descended as they are from non-resistant trees, are physiologically immune. where they are free from disease, this exemption is due merely to the physical immunity i have just mentioned. since they therefore represent non-resistant stock, they were used for comparative inoculation work, which will be referred to later. i may as well say here as anywhere, that by resistance, i do not mean total resistance, for that would be immunity. there are, of course, degrees of resistance, in the plant world just as in the animal world. one person may resist a cold germ or the influenza bacillus better than another, that is, it will cause him only a little discomfort. another person may not be affected at all, that is, he is totally resistant or immune. i say this because i have misunderstood when i have used the term resistance. the trees in the new york region show all grades of resistance, from individuals where the fungus makes very little headway in the bark, to cases where it grows almost as fast as in the average non-resistant tree. characteristics of the resistant trees what now are the characteristics of these resistant trees? how are we going to know one when we see it? i have outlined the leading features as follows: . bark. in the case of this particular disease, it is obvious that the character of the bark is the most important feature since this fungus is primarily parasitic in the living cortex. in other words, the character of resistance must necessarily depend on the living cells of the cortex. now, careful observation of the resistant trees reveals a most striking feature of the bark, namely its tendency to heal, by means of a callus growth around the margins of the lesions, whether large or small; and it is very apparent that this callus growth wards off the advance of the fungus for a time at least. when the callus growth is once formed, the fungus of the original canker encroaches on it very slowly, or often not at all. inoculations in the callused margins of cankers showed usually only slight growth of the fungus after two months' time in the summer, or in some cases no growth at all. several layers of wood could be counted underneath these callused margins--often or --before reaching the annual ring exposed at the surface of the canker. this of course, shows unquestionably that the callus had remained healthy at that location for that period of time. . extension of the callus tissue.--in many cases the callus tissue is of considerably greater extent than the normal area one would expect around a wound. it may even occur that the whole inner bark around the trunk is of a callused nature, without any open cankers showing at all. for example in a tree of which i have a photograph here (figs. and ), the outer bark is sloughing off, revealing callused bark underneath of entirely different appearance, which no one would recognize as chestnut bark. this particular tree photographed represents an extreme in this respect. it seemed as if the whole tree was getting a new kind of bark, and yet this same character appears in all of the highly resistant trees. on cutting into this new callused inner bark it was found plentifully dotted with tiny _endothia_ lesions, which however, never penetrated deeply. (fig ). close to the cambium the white inner bark is quite healthy, generally for a thickness of - mm. that the mycelium in the small lesions was unquestionably the _endothia_ mycelium, was shown by the appearance of the mycelium, and the presence of the _endothia_ pustules in many of the spots. that these were not late infections, but only slowly growing small lesions, was shown by inoculations in such bark, which revealed scarcely any growth after two months. [illustration: fig. one of the most resistant trees, the smaller tree near the center of the photograph, near the harlem river, boro of manhattan, new york city.] [illustration: fig. a very strikingly resistant tree at valley stream, long island, showing peculiar inner bark. the outer bark is sloughing off.] [illustration: fig. one of the "strip" trees in the forest in the boro of manhattan, new york city.] [illustration: fig. showing the character of the inner bark of the valley stream tree (fig. ). at one place, near the center of the photograph, the bark has been shaved showing the small lesions caused by the fungus.] . the white secretion.--the most striking peculiarity of the callus tissue, is its abundant content of a thickish, milky, white substance. this came to light immediately when i cut into the callus, and it showed up very clearly when i shaved off the outer layers of dead cork tissue. the white material is not evenly distributed through the irregular grain of the wound tissue, but is particularly abundant in small spots or pockets which are especially conspicuous in the callused margin of the lesion. soon after exposure to the air the cut bark, and particularly the white substance, redden rapidly, indicating oxidation. this peculiarity is of course true of all chestnut bark, yet here the reddening seems to be deeper and more rapid than the normal. no chemical analysis has yet been made of this substance, but there is sufficient other evidence at hand to warrant a tentative statement that it is very rich in tannin or tannin compounds, and that possibly the quality of resistance is bound up with the nature of this material. . the strip condition.--some of the trees showed the living bark restricted to a narrow, flattened, rope-like strip running up the trunk to one or a very few branches (plate , fig. ). in these cases all of the bark was of the callus nature, rich in the resistant substance, and plentifully besprinkled with small endothia lesions, while underneath were a number of layers of functioning wood. the rest of the trunk was bare, weathered gray, with traces on its surface of old cankers, and evidently dead for a long period. this type of tree was so commonly found that i have called it the strip tree. inoculations the very fact that these trees are now alive in this new york region is pretty good proof of their resistance. but of course the most conclusive test is by inoculation with the fungus in question. if the fungus grows slowly in these trees as compared with its growth on non-resistant stock, then no one can deny that they are resistant. i will not bore you with figures of tables, i will only give you the results. the average growth of the fungus in inoculations on the resistant trees was about / as fast as on non-resistant stock, and taking the rate of growth on those trees which are especially resistant it is about / as fast as on the non-resistant stock. for non-resistant stock the seedlings on staten island were inoculated, and the growth on these tallied very closely with growth in non-resistant trees inoculated by anderson and rankin.[ ] another very striking result brought out by the inoculation work was that of the inoculations on branches and basal shoots of the resistant trees, only nine had been girdled after one month's growth, while in the same time out of the non-resistant staten island trees were girdled. at the end of the second month, the results were still more striking. then, in the staten island trees, out of were girdled, while in the inoculations on the basal shoots and branches of resistant stock only out of the resulted in girdling. this striking difference was not due to smaller diameters of the staten island trees, for particular pains were taken to have them approximately equal to the branches and shoots inoculated in the resistant trees. summary of evidences of resistance we may summarize the evidences of resistance as follows: . the results of the inoculation tests show that the fungus grows in these trees on the average from / to / as fast as in ordinary chestnut. . the occurrence of the trees in a neighborhood long subjected to the disease, and their presence among the trees of individuals long since dead. . indications of the long period the disease has been present in the trees themselves; such as bare weathered tops, and healed cankers. . peculiarities of the bark; such as extensive development of the callus tissue, and the presence of a peculiar substance or white secretion which is particularly conspicuous in cases of marked resistance. is the disease resistance here an hereditary character? as to whether this disease resistance is an inherent character and will be transmitted from generation to generation, or is only the result of particularly favorable environmental conditions such as soil, light or moisture, is a point of great practical importance. i believe that further work will prove that the resistance is heritable, for the following reasons: . the resistance is not due to a particularly favorable environment of the trees, for the three groups grow in very different soils and under varying conditions of light and moisture. . the finding of the trees in colonies points to a genetic variation. at first i was unable to account for the grouping of the trees, for i had expected to find immune or resistant trees singly, here and there. but if we adopt the hypothesis of a heritable protoplasmic variation--something in their "blood," so to speak, the explanation is easy. we know that chestnut fruits or nuts do not travel far, like the seeds of willow, poplar, maple or ash, and therefore, in any given stand of chestnut, if we could go back from generation to generation into earlier time, most probably the majority of the trees would be found to have arisen from a common ancestor, although of course a few outsiders would have found their way into the group, carried by squirrels or other animals. . in a considerable number of cases all the members of the same group of coppice trunks from an old stump show a similar degree of resistance. to attribute such a condition as due merely to chance, occurring as often as it does, would be placing a pretty large burden on chance; and since the coppice trunks are all off-shoots of the same plant, the condition is what one would expect were the resistant quality in inherent character. a correspondence of degree of resistance was also noted, in the inoculations made on branches, trunk, and basal shoots of the same individual tree. experimental work is being carried on at washington to test out the truth of this hypothesis, i. e. to see whether or not the disease resistance is really heritable. the work is being carried on in connection with the propagation of other resistant stock, chinese, japanese, etc.; and, as soon as the department is sure of the product, the results will be distributed to nut growers and others who are interested. in the meantime we can all help by being on the lookout for resistant native trees. i believe they will be found in many places besides the new york region. footnotes: [ ] illustration for this paper will be found opposite page . [ ] metcalf, haven & collins, j. franklin. the control of the chestnut bark disease. farmer's bulletin-- , , p. . [ ] anderson, p. j. & rankin, w. h., endothia canker of chestnut. cornell univ. agri. expt. sta. bulletin , . evening session sanitarium gymnasium, at : p.m. president reed in chair dr. j. h. kellogg: ladies and gentlemen: battle creek has the honor today and tomorrow to entertain the northern nut growers' association. this association with other associations having similar purposes, is undertaking to do, it seems to me, one of the most important things that can be done for the american people--to show us how we can get our nitrogen, our protein, and our fats without the livestock industry which is wasting at least nine-tenths of the grain, or in fact at least nineteen-twentieths of all our foodstuffs. the great cause of the high cost of living at the present time is that the pigs and the cattle are eating up our corn and other good things that we ought to eat ourselves. if we had a sufficient area of land, perhaps even the sides of our roadways and railways planted out to black walnuts and other good nut trees, we would have all the protein and fat we needed, perhaps as much as we are getting now, and more, and the cattle industry might be entirely dismissed from consideration, and a great deal of labor would be saved. i am sure that there is no place in the whole united states where this association could have a heartier welcome than here in battle creek, or where people could be found who would appreciate its labors any more. you are going to have a very interesting program tonight. we are favored with visits from very distinguished gentlemen from all over the united states, among others dr. robert t. morris, the nestor of american surgeons has come all the way from new york to tell us about some wonderful discoveries he has made, and a fatherless walnut tree he is cultivating, and other things that will be of great interest to us all i am sure. i take pleasure in introducing to you the president of this association, mr. w. c. reed, of vincennes, indiana. mr. reed. president reed: we are simply continuing our program. this afternoon we were in session at the annex and moved over here this evening so as to be able to present what we have here so we could entertain more of you than we could over there to advantage. you know that most all men have a hobby along some line or other, and those who constitute our leaders, whom we have to look to, and along the line of nut trees of different species and so on, we have learned to look to dr. morris as one of the leaders. i have great pleasure in introducing to you dr. robert t. morris, of new york, who will address you on the hickory. notes on the hickories robert t. morris, m. d., new york city, n. y. when people speak of the "hickory" without qualification, they are apt to have in mind some one kind of hickory which belonged to their boyhood environment. all other kinds which they happened to know, were qualified in some way, very much as the word "fish" in boston stands for the codfish only, other kinds of fish in the world being described by qualifying names. in the northeast the hickory means the shagbark. in missouri it means the shellbark. elsewhere the pignut and the mockernut are called "hickory." interest in the subject has increased so rapidly of late years that we must all of us be more particular in our descriptions and add qualifying names, speaking always of the shagbark hickory, pecan hickory, or bitternut hickory as the case may be. sargent describes fifteen species of hickory and in addition a large number of varieties by environment and by hybridization. there is a mexican hickory, making sixteen species for the north american continent, and the late mr. f. n. meyer, agricultural explorer from washington, has found a hickory in china. previous to this discovery, it was believed that the hickories belonged to the north american continent only. botanists divide the hickories into two groups, apocarya and eucarya. for convenience in every day conversation, it might be well for us to speak of the "open-bud" group and the "closed bud" group. _apocarya_ or the "open bud" group, includes the pecan hickory, _carya pecan_, the bitternut hickory, _carya cordiformis_, the bitter pecan, _carya texana_, the water hickory, _carya aquatica_, the nutmeg hickory, _carya myristicaeformis_, and the chinese hickory, _carya cathayensis_. the winter buds of this group will be seen on examination to show the minute, snugly curled-up leaves which are ready to burst forth when the springtime sun opens the fronds of the ferns which have forced their way through the hard ground with clenched fists. the scale buds in the open-bud group do not cover the tiny leaf forms completely. in _eucarya_, or the "closed-bud" group, stout scales close the bud completely against the snow and ice of wintry days, so that we see scales only when looking at the bud. the closed-bud hickories include the shagbark, _carya ovata_, the carolina hickory, _carya carolinae-septentrionalis_, the shellbark, _carya laciniosa_, the mockernut, _carya alba_, the smooth-bark hickory, _carya leiodermis_, the pallid hickory, _carya pallida_, the close-bark pignut, _carya glabra_, the loose-bark pignut, _carya ovalis_, the florida hickory, _carya floridana_, the buckley hickory, _carya buckleyi_, and the mexican hickory, _carya mexicana_. hickories which have nuts with a bitter pellicle, all belong to the open-bud group. these are the bitternut, texas hickory, and water hickory. hickories with scaly bark are found in both groups. in the open-bud group, the trunk of the water hickory carries long loose bark strips attached by one end, and in the closed-bud group, we find this characteristic belonging to the shagbark, shellbark, carolina hickory, and to one of the pignuts, carya ovalis. that takes us to another occasion for a note. what do we mean by "pignut?" in the north, this term is applied to carya glabra and carya ovalis. in the south, it is applied to carya cordiformis. a name so well established, will have to be retained, but in our association it will perhaps be best to have an understanding about which one of the hickories the common name pignut should belong. so long as it already covers two species in the north as opposed to one in the south, there are already two votes to one in favor of retaining the name pignut for carya glabra and carya ovalis. we may describe these in plain language as the smooth-bark pignut and the loose-bark pignut. the reason for choosing the name "loose" instead of "scaly" is because we are pretty well agreed upon applying the name "scalybark" to the carolina hickory, the name "shagbark" to carya ovata, and the name shellbark to carya laciniosa. the name bitternut may safely be allowed to remain with carya cordiformis because the other two nuts with bitter pellicle already have distinctive names, carya aquatica being called water hickory and carya texana being called bitter pecan. by making fixed points in nomenclature in this way we may head off the confusion which will become worse confounded as the interest in hickories becomes rapidly enlarged, if our committee on nomenclature does not take some decisive step. concerning latin nomenclature, we have further troubles for settlement. hicoria is the oldest generic name and naturally should have priority but the vienna congress of botanists adopted carya. so far so good (or bad). now comes our trouble in giving specific and varietal names. the binomial is clearly applicable enough for species, carya pecan, for example, but when we come to varieties of the pecan there are two kinds of varieties to be considered, those by environment and those by hybridization. in cases of natural variation we are still within accepted resources in nomenclature by saying for example, carya pecan, var, stuartii. when naming hybrid varieties, however, i would suggest that in advance of the abbreviation "var", we place the abbreviation "hyb." thus reading for brown's pecan, "carya pecan, hyb. var. brownii," instead of "carya brownii," which latter binomial would throw it among the species. in view of the fact that we are to have in the future hundreds of named hybrids, it seems to me that we must adopt some such definite method for convenience promptly. this method of naming, relates to convenience and is applied to the most evident parent. as a matter of fact, in horticultural circles we are doing precisely that sort of thing, speaking, for example, of "brown's pecan" meaning a nut which we recognize as being a hybrid, brought to attention by brown but with the pecan as parent most strongly in evidence. when i was a boy, the only hickory nuts of any sort available, were those collected from wild trees. the popular boy was one who knew of some trees which furnished the best nuts and who did not keep the news to himself. the squirrels knew the best nuts as well as the boys did and they would go past many hickory trees along fences and groves in order to congregate in the ones which had the nuts with the thinnest shells and plumpest meats of best quality. in the early morning hours i have seen several squirrels in one particularly good hickory nut tree and not a single squirrel in a tree completely filled with nuts, though its branches touches those of the first one. men are quite as intelligent as squirrels in some respects. here and there attempts were made at propagating fine hickory trees of various species by planting nuts. it was not generally known at that time that the hickories were so thoroughly crossed like the apples, that they would not reproduce true to type from seed. attempts were then made at grafting which were mostly failures for many years. we are now on the verge of a great development in hybridization or crossing of choice kinds of hickories and in determining upon which stocks the different kinds of selected hickories may be grown to best advantage. hybrids between varieties of hickories occur frequently in nature and hybrids between species of hickories occur occasionally. a number of these accidental hybrids have been discovered and some of them are now being propagated. for the most part they do not represent the best quality of the best parent but it is a notable fact that the bitterness of kinds with the bitter pellicle appears to be a recessive character and disappears usually from hybrids between species in which one parent has a bitter nut. unfortunately, the finer extractive which give character to the nut of the better parent are prone to disappear also. this is in line with our experience in mixing of characters along mendelian lines. given a sufficient number of hybrids and we shall have here and there one with spectacular characteristics of special value. now that horticulturists at the present moment are turning so freely toward the idea of producing quantities of hybrids artificially, the next generation will see hickory nuts which were not dreamed of in the days when i was a boy. the crossing of hickories is not difficult work. we simply remove the male flowers from branches carrying female flowers before the male flowers have begun to shed their pollen. the female flowers are then covered with oiled paper bags tied over them for protection and when the danger from self pollination has passed, we take off the bags and add a little pollen which we have kept for the purpose--pollen from some trees bearing remarkably valuable nuts. nuts resulting from this cross pollination when planted, give us new varieties of trees which never have been seen before by anybody and that is so interesting that very many people will probably take up hybridization as an incident in recreation. some of the hybrids will bear very early in their history and others very late. if one is impatient to determine at once which ones are to be valuable, he can hurry the process by grafting a number of cuttings from young seedling trees into the tops of larger trees which are already bearing--labeling each graft, so that he may keep track of the seedling stock from which it came. it is possible to put one hundred or more seedlings in the top of some stock tree at one time. one reason for delay in propagation by grafting is because the hickories like many other trees are slow in making repair of wounds. grafts usually perished before being accepted by the stock under grafting methods that were in common use. the best step forward in grafting method for hickories is one that i obtained from mr. j. f. jones, lancaster, pennsylvania. he tells me that he obtained the method from its originator, mr. e. a. riehl, godfrey, illinois. this consisted in covering the entire graft, buds and all, with melted grafting wax and including also all of the wound and wrapping of the stock. the buds make their way through this grafting wax without any difficulty, but the grafting wax used by mr. jones contained lamp black and that used by mr. riehl consisted of a beeswax and rosin mixture. it was found that these seemed to be applicable in the north but not farther south in the hotter sun. examining into the reasons for this, it seemed to me that in all probability the black grafting wax used by mr. jones and the brown or amber grafting wax used by mr. riehl, would naturally allow the heat rays of the sun to pass through to the graft while halting the actinic ray of light. the latter is extremely valuable for promoting the activity of chlorophyl, which acts only in the presence of light and in the best way in the best light. the heat rays might have certain destructive qualities. with this theoretical idea of the situation in mind, i employed melted paraffin in place of the grafting wax, covering the scions completely as well as the wound in the stock and the wrappings. this immediately proved to be a success. in fact, it appears to have changed the entire subject of grafting nut trees in such a way that any intelligent boy employing this method can now do better hickory nut grafting than would have been possible at the hands of an expert two years ago. the melted paraffin fills the interstices in which sap might collect and ferment, but at the same time, hardening so quickly that it does not introduce the danger of extension between points of contact with scion and stock. the second point of value consists in allowing the actinic ray in the sunlight to act upon the chlorophyl in bud and bark of the scion and it does not attract the destructive heat ray. this is perhaps the most important single point of value and due to the transparency of the paraffin. third, the paraffin coating, impervious to air, maintains the sap tension equally in the course of fluctuation between negative and positive pressures occurring between night and day, and under varying conditions of light and temperature. this maintenance of equalised sap tension, i believe to be important. the paraffin is waterproof and prevents evaporation from the scion, which otherwise is prone to dry out before granulation of the wound has taken place in the hickories, as in other species which callus slowly. fifth, under the paraffin coating of stock and scion, the plant apparently does not have that anxiety which would otherwise lead it to introduce the protective feature of superization, the spreading of a corky layer over the wound surface between stock and scion, thus introducing a mechanical obstacle to union. this method of grafting has extended the grafting season for nearly two months, apparently. formerly, i hurried to get all of the grafts in while buds were bursting, in early may. during the season of i grafted hickories up to august sixth experimentally. the last grafts which caught well in a practical way were put in on july twenty-first. after that the proportion of catches was small and the growth feeble. incidentally, it may be remarked that filberts grafted as late as august sixth, did perfectly well. the scions employed were cut in late winter and kept in the sawdust of my icehouse. i formerly supposed that ice beneath the sawdust was important, but this year i could not get ice and the scions kept just as well. in july, experiments were tried with grafting directly from one tree to another, using wood of the season's growth. this worked well with hazels, but not with hickories or walnuts, only one out of many hickory grafts catching. that one, however, is significant and i hope to work out principles which will allow of direct grafting of hickories as readily as may be done with the hazels. when a hickory graft is to be inserted into a small stock or branch, the ordinary cleft graft does well. in stock recipients much larger than the graft a side cleft of the width of the scion only is desirable, or better yet the "split bark" method devised by mr. e. a. riehl. a straight split is made in the bark of the end of the stock, and the graft crowded down into this split so that it remains between bark and wood finally. my own method for large stocks, is what i have called "the slot bark method." this consists in turning down a width of stock bark measuring the same as the scion in width. when the scion has been inserted into this slot so made, the bark is turned up over it again and fastened there. by this method i have put scions in the trunks of trees nearly a foot in diameter and at any chosen point, sometimes several feet below the ends of cut branches. one may cut off the top of a large hickory tree and then peg the trunk full of scions by means of bark slots. another important point in hickory propagation work consists in the employment of the spanish windlass for fastening graft and stock together. the old time wrapping of twine or of raffia had to be released in order to allow growth at the point of union of scion and stock. when cord is used it cuts deeply into the new growth, and raffia, which is placed on flat, will be burst open. in either case new wrapping is required at a precarious time, according to old methods. the spanish windlass, which is used in surgery for controlling haemorrage, seemed to me to be applicable for fastening scions in place. it consists in a paraffined cord with ends tied in a firm knot but hanging loosely about the graft and wound. a wooden skewer or any small lever, is then inserted into the loose loop of cord and twisted about until the part of the cord about the graft wound is so snug that it holds the scion in place more firmly than it can be held by any other sort of wrapping. in order to prevent the cord from cutting into the bark, two shields of wood or metal an inch in length, are interposed between cord and bark. the lever of the spanish windlass is fastened with a cord or with a galvanized nail in order to prevent the windlass from unwinding and the whole covered with melted paraffin. this may remain in place for two seasons without change, holding the scion firmly in place all of that time and requiring no attention. the growing stock separates the two shields very much as it might separate two stones in the field and automatically unwinds the spanish windlass by sheer force, just enough to allow growth without any unloosening of its holding apparatus. in hickory grafting, much experimental work remains to be done in the choice of stocks for grafts of different species. almost all of the hickories that have been grafted upon the pecan hickory stock, seem to do pretty well upon that stock, but the converse is not true. the pecan apparently does not do well as a rule when grafted upon other hickory stocks, even upon those of its cousins in the open-bud group. the shagbark hickory, in my experience, has done best upon stocks of the shagbark or mockernut or pignut. a number of years, however, are required in some cases for determining that point. shagbarks which i have grafted upon bitternuts have sometimes made a remarkably good start. then at the end of three or four years they begin to slow up, while shagbarks on shagbark stock, starting slowly at first, surpassed the ones on bitternut stock finally. in the spring of , i topworked two trees standing near together and of about the same size (thirty feet) with beaver hybrid (a cross between the bitternut and the shagbark). one of the trees was a bitternut and the other a pignut. almost everyone of the grafts of the beaver grew thriftily on the bitternut. those on the pignut stock practically all caught and made short growth and then began to wilt back. finally, only one shoot remained alive. this very striking object lesson will have bearing in varying degrees in all of our hickory grafting. according to my experience to date, hybrid hickories are grafted more readily than are straight species or varieties. they seem to have lost family pride and seem to take up with any friend offering economic support. in the case just quoted, however, caprice was shown by the beaver hybrid which took eagerly to a host of the species of one of its parents. it refused to thrive on the pignut which did not represent either one of its parents although that same pignut stock would have been accepted by shagbark scions--the shagbark representing the other parent of the beaver. this sort of experience throws open the entire subject in such a large way as to show what possibilities of success and failure lie before us in experimental work. the same method of grafting, the paraffin windlass method, was employed for these two trees which were neighbors. interesting experimental work is to be done in finding the extent to which different species and varieties of hickories may be grown out of their indigenous range. at stamford, the bitter pecan from texas, appears to be perfectly hardy but it makes very slow growth--sometimes less than an inch in a year. the buckley hickory also from texas, grows thriftly at stamford and so does the carolina hickory pecans from the northern belt thrive at merribrooke, but those from the southern belt have such a long growing season, that their new wood is not yet sufficiently well lignified to stand the winter well. some of them pull through a mild winter in fairly good order, but on the whole they do not thrive. the commercial side of hickory raising, is being worked out for the pecan only at the present time. we may assume that several of the other species of hickory adapted to growing in the north, will equal pecans in importance, eventually. the reason for that is because some of the other hickories stand quite as high as the pecan in food value and general excellence. at the time of writing, low grade seedling shellbark nuts from the west are selling in the retail market in new york for forty cents a pound. i have seen better nuts of this species being loaded on the cars in ohio at fifty cents a bushel. the present new york price, to be sure, represents a profiteering war price. fine grades of shagbark hickories and some of the hybrids will command prices equally high with prices for best pecans in the market of to-morrow. voice: will it be practical to plant nuts, get young plants, and then bud or graft them? dr. morris: yes, that is what we do. it is practical to plant nuts for the purpose of getting a stock, but not for the purpose of getting nuts. but we plant them in the nursery rows, and then when they are two years old, preferably (some like three-year-old trees), we graft them over to good kinds in the nursery row; then they remain there for a year or two, and are transferred or sold. we now have members of this association who are experts in grafting nut trees who make that a business. it is not generally known that we have in this country three journals devoted wholly to the subject of nut culture. we have nurserymen who make a specialty of grafted nut trees of the very best sorts, so that one may perhaps take up this mode of farming more profitably today than almost any other sort of farming. one gentleman in pennsylvania told me he made thirty thousand dollars on one crop of chestnuts two years ago, cultivated chestnuts. he had thirty acres, and no tree was yet fourteen years of age. his net profit beyond all expenses was thirty thousand dollars that year. there are probably very few professional men who make more than that a year. many men are making good, comfortable incomes out of their nut orchards. it is the best insurance against the needs of old age, the best sort of life insurance. voice: do you use anything besides the hickory as stock for grafting on? dr. morris: yes, we have some experimenting to do in order to learn which stock will best serve for a certain variety. we find that one species or variety of hickory will accept other varieties of that species well, but perhaps it will not accept another species. we do know that certain kinds do remarkably well on certain stocks; but the entire range of that subject has not as yet been worked out. question: does the stock you graft on have any effect on the quality of the fruit? dr. morris: the stock on which you graft is supposed to have no effect at all on the quality of the fruit. but there are some exceptions. we learned that in orange grafting. a naval orange grafted on the wild orange stock might be raggy, not full of juice; while when grafted on the trifoliate orange stock might be heavy and full of juice. so in that case the stock did have some influence upon the graft; and there are other instances. but as a rule we assume that the stock has no influence upon the graft in regard to the validity of character. question: are pecans a variety of hickory? dr. morris: yes, pecans are hickories. the indians gave it the name of pekan. the french spelled it pecanne, so that has been spelled as the pecan, without the necessary other part of its name, hickory. we should always say pecan hickory--always. dr. kellogg: dr. morris, how old hickories may be used for grafting? dr. morris: i have experimented with trees up to fifty years of age; but the most satisfactory work, perhaps, is done with trees that are not more than fifteen or twenty years of age and three or four or five inches in diameter. those are the best trees to work with. if we cut off the limbs of a very old tree and try to top work it, it means an enormous amount of work on the part of the orchardist, more work than my employees like to give it. but one may topwork a tree of almost any age, preferably a tree less than twenty-five years of age; and by choice i should say trees not more than ten years of age. we have experts in the audience better qualified to speak on that subject than i am. question: do you prefer the melted paraffin to the old-fashioned way of using bees wax? dr. morris: the old-fashioned beeswax had a certain color, and the black wax with charcoal, with lampblack, both turned the light ray and allowed the heat ray to enter so that the amber of the old resin wax, and the black of the black wax both allowed damage to occur to the tree, in the south particularly, in a hot climate early in the summer, prevented our grafting in the summer because of the turning away of the light ray that was wanted and the absorption of the heat ray that was not wanted. the melted paraffin being perfectly transparent, allows the light ray to set the chlorophyl into activity. all the life processes of the tree are carried on under the influence of the green chlorophyl grains, and these work only in the presence of light. question: can you successfully graft a pecan on the pignut? question: what is the best stock to graft pecan on? dr.morris: pecan stock, i think. i do not think we have anything better. mr. reed and mr. jones are both experts in that field. they have grafted hundreds of thousands of trees. president reed: i think the pecan is the best. the hickory will grow on the pecan very well, the shagbark hickory, but it will not do to change it with any degree of success. dr. morris: the shagbarks will grow fairly well on pecans, but the pecan not well on the shagbark. it is best i think to put shagbarks on shagbark or shellbark. but they do well on pignut. i have got some very good shagbarks on mockernut. on bitternut they grow fast, but at the end of eight or ten years are inclined to slow up. shagbark can be put on, i suppose, ten other kinds of hickory, but the pecan can not. question: how many grafts would be necessary on a nut tree twelve inches in diameter? dr. morris: i should say you would probably have to put in fifty. i would cut off the branches down to about two inches or an inch and a half in diameter, and that might leave fifty stubs to graft. graft all of them, is one way to do it. having done one that way, you will then become familiar with the entire subject. question: what is the best time of year? dr. morris: i don't know. some time ago the american agriculturist said to its readers that there is disagreement about the best time for pruning peach trees. let us hear from all our readers. so all of the readers wrote expressing their opinions, and the editor said, "summing up all of the opinions, the entire testimony in the case, we have decided that the time to prune your peach tree is when your knife is sharp." i had always supposed that the best time for grafting was when the buds were first bursting in the spring, always held rigidly to that, and at that time of the year was in a great hurry. i dropped professional work and lost hundreds and even thousands of dollars in order to see this work go ahead; it is more interesting than professional work. and now this year, with this new method, i have grafted right straight on up to the first of august, and everything growing--deliberately, all through the summer. so that now, at the present moment i do not know. a year ago i could have told you. when i first graduated in medicine, i could answer any question in medicine. after forty years of surgery, i am puzzled over a great many questions. it is the same way regarding grafting. question: in summer grafting do you remove the leaves from scions? dr. morris: in summer grafting i have used for the most part scions i have kept in the icebox in sawdust. i have formerly put in twenty or thirty tons in my icehouse for my family to use during the summer. last winter we could not get any ice, and my scions were just as good kept in the sawdust as if we had had ice; and i grafted those scions in august and the grafts are living. i have also cut off the leaves in grafting, but that is new and you can not depend on it,--stop at one tree, cut off a piece of it, and put it on another tree and have it grow. i have never done that until this year, and it does not succeed in a very large percentage. it is not practical. it can be done--i have proven that; but it is not practical. the best way is to use your scions from last year that have been kept in cold storage in sawdust or leaves. dr. kellogg: when should the scions be cut? dr. morris: there is some disagreement about that. almost all scions may suffer a little winter injury. some men prefer to cut in the early part of december before we have had any hard winter, then keep them in cold storage during the entire year, moderately moist, or protected in sand, leaves, or stratification. but i have always preferred february myself, cutting them the last of february before the buds begin to start, then put them in sawdust in the icehouse or cold storage, or bury them under a thick layer of leaves. for budding you transfer immediately. in fact, budding technically comes under the same physiologic principles as grafting. in budding i do that work in my place at stamford, conn., about the latter part of july or early august. dr. kellogg: do you use the same method in transferring buds? dr. morris: yes, i fix them the same way as i do the graft and cover everything with paraffin. i have even had a little short side graft grow using this paraffin method, a graft two or three inches long. dr. kellogg: tell us about those fatherless walnuts. dr. morris: in the course of crossing the nut trees, we supposed, as a matter of course, that we must always have the pollen from one tree, or from a tree which bore the staminate or fertilizing flowers, in order to develop nuts or fruit of any sort; but on one occasion i covered a lot of chinkapin female flowers with paper bags; i didn't have pollen enough to go around and left the bags on because i happened to be too lazy or too busy to pull them off. about a month later when i did take them off i found a full set of chinkapin nuts under those bags. they had received no pollen. that was an observation of a good deal of interest. it may have been that they had gone on by what we call parthenogenesis, and we had the children without the father, had the female parent only, the fatherless chinkapin. it sounds sad. i followed up the experiment with other nut trees, and found that not infrequently we may develop fatherless nuts. the effect will be, according to natural law, to intensify the characteristics of one parent. the female which bears this fruit, this child, without a father, will give to that child an intensification of her own characteristics. that will be the effect of parthenogenesis. that may be continued through several generations perhaps; we do not know. it is new, quite new. (applause). president reed: the next topic is the digestibility of nuts, by mr. cajorie, of yale university. the nutritive value of nuts f. a. cajorie, yale university, new haven, conn. mr. president and members of the northern nut growers' association: it was with great pleasure that i accepted the invitation of your association to be present at this convention and give a discussion of nuts and nut production, from the point of view of their nutritive or food value. during the last few years our knowledge of nutrition and the parts that individual foods may play in the diet has been greatly increased and in the light of the new discoveries, it is interesting and valuable to view the place that nuts hold. as you are well aware, nuts have been used as foods by the peoples of the world. in many places nut products have made up a very appreciable part of the diet. chestnut flour is extensively used in southern europe. among the peasants of tuscany, chestnut flour forms a considerable part of the total diet. in this region, also ground acorns are made into bread with cereal flours and in this form is a common food. the hazel or filbert nut is also seen in the form of flour on the shores of the black sea. races living in the tropics have utilized the many varieties of nuts indigenous to tropical climes such as the coconut, brazil nuts, java almond, paradise nut, candle nut and african cream nut. in the orient, the lichi, ginko and water chestnut, and in italy and india the varieties of the pine nut are used to considerable extent. in america, with the exception of a few localities and among a limited class of people, nuts have never made up a staple part of our dietaries, rather they have been used as tasty supplements to otherwise complete menus. that they are prized as adjuncts and are sought after is strikingly shown when we see in our markets not only the products of our native american nut trees, the hickory, walnut, butternut, chestnut, pecan, beechnut and pinion, but the brazil nut, filbert, english walnut, peanut, coconut, all of which are derived from foreign countries or from trees originally imported to america from other lands. analysis of nuts have shown them to be of two types, one rich in fats and protein, the nitrogen containing component of our foods and the other relatively rich in carbohydrates, or starches. with the exception of the chestnut, and the coconut, most of our more common nuts belong to this first class, and chemists have pointed out that in these nuts we have a concentration of protein and fat seen in no other class of foodstuffs. for example, the protein-fat rich nuts have a percentage of protein varying between and % and a fat content of - %; compare this with other foods that we think of as being concentrated; eggs, % protein and % fat; cheese % protein, % fat; round steak, % protein, % fat; and bread, % protein. this nutritive concentration in nuts places them in a unique position among our natural food products. our cereals, meats, fruit and vegetables all contain more or less water or refuse that reduces their concentration, while in nuts we find a compact form of almost pure food. we are dependent on foods for the source of energy that is necessary to perform our work and maintain our body temperature much in the same way that a steam engine is dependent on the fuel supplied it to perform the mechanical tasks assigned to it, and this fuel value of foods in turn, depends on the amount of protein, carbohydrate and fat, particularly the latter, that are present in the foods. at once we see, in our concentrated nuts, a tremendous source of energy, provided that we can digest these nuts and make this energy available. despite the fact, as revealed by chemical analysis, that in nuts we have a source of protein and fat in a concentration rarely seen in foods, there have been relatively few experiments to actually determine the digestibility. prof jaffa at the california experiment station was the first to make a comprehensive investigation along these lines. he made extensive digestion tests on men using most of the more common american nuts. his results, as reported in a bulletin of the u. s. department of agriculture, indicated that nuts when they made up a substantial portion of the diet, were well digested by those who ate them and gave no intestinal disturbance or discomfort. nuts have had a reputation for indigestibility that was wide spread, not only among people in general, but also among physicians and dieticians, and even prof jaffa's clear cut experiments failed to dispell this idea of indigestibility that had been empirically assigned to nuts. a few years ago, a rather extensive series of digestion experiments were inaugurated at yale university in an effort to settle this question of the indigestibility of nuts and also to test out some of the commercial nut products to find what effect roasting, boiling, and other processes that nuts are subjected to, had to do with the digestibility. through the courtesy of dr kellogg of battle creek, it was possible to follow up these experiments with a series here at battle creek. it is the result of these tests that i wish to speak of today. one word regarding the method which is the conventional one for such experiments. the amount of food eaten by the individual or animal is weighed at each meal and the composition determined by chemical analysis. the intestinal output is collected, weighed and analysed. from the difference in any substance such as protein in the food and the protein which appears in the body refuse, the amount digested and absorbed or utilized by the body is easily determined. for example; if gms. of nitrogen were eaten in the food and one gm appears in the feces, we say that the coefficient of digestibility of that nitrogen is %, that is of the gms. eaten were absorbed by the body. the average of a great many such tests on mixed diets has the following standard coefficient: protein %, fat %, and carbohydrates %. our digestion experiments show the following results: for protein digestion of nuts, almond %, peanut %, pine nut %, eng. walnut, %, brazil %, and coconut %. in all cases the carbohydrate coefficients are or %, and in the case of the carbohydrate rich chestnut, normal digestion took place after the nut was heated so as to rupture the starch granules. in all of these cases the nut made up a substantial part of each meal and was eaten in large amounts. the experimental subject, experienced no digestive troubles or discomforture whatsoever except in the case of the english walnut, which evidently contains some irritating substance that causes diarrhea. except for the pecan which gave rather low utilization, the protein of nuts was digested to a high degree that compares most favorably with our ordinary foodstuffs. how then explain the undoubted discomforture that many people experience after eating nuts? i believe that the explanation rests on the fact that our common american way of eating nuts, is not the rational way. we would not consider topping off a heavy meal with eggs, meats or cereals or to eat these in large quantities between meals realizing that we are exposing ourselves to possible digestive discomfort. no more then, can we expect to so eat nuts which are even more concentrated or "heavy" than meat or eggs without occasional discomfort. unpleasant results from so eating does not condemn the nuts as indigestible, rather it condemns our mode of using that nut. further, we must recognize that the nut is a hard, compact substance and that unless completely masticated, is not readily penetrated by the digestive juices of the alimentary canal. this was very well brought out in our experiment with dogs. the dog bolts his food and where there were large fragments of the nut in the food, they appeared almost unchanged in the feces, while if the nut is ground fine before feeding, it was readily digested. comparisons of nut butters and nut pastes with the whole nut also brought out this point. the completely commuted nut butters showed consistently higher degrees of digestion than the whole nut. with the exception of the starch rich chestnut, the heating of the nut did not seem to effect the digestibility whether this heat was boiling, steaming or roasting. the raw nut apparently is as well digested as the heated products. no differences were found between nut butters whether the process involved steaming or roasting of the nut. i am not speaking of the enhancing of the flavor that heating may bring about, but only of the digestibility. dr. longworthy and his co-workers in the dept. of agriculture have investigated in recent years the digestibility of many vegetable oils, among them nut oils, and have found as high a percent of utilization with these as with butter and our other common animal food fats. i believe that we are fully justified in the conclusion that nuts and nut products, if rationally used in our diets, are as digestible and fully as valuable from a nutritional point of view as our other foodstuffs. while we can now definitely speak of the high digestibility of nuts, it is necessary to consider other phases of the part played by foods in nutrition. the fact that a food after being taken into the body can be broken up by the digestive juices of the alimentary tract, and the products absorbed, as we have found, to be the case with the nuts, is not the end of the story of the function of that food. about fifteen years ago, it was discovered that during the progress of digestion, the protein materials are reduced by the digestive juices of our stomachs and intestines to smaller chemical compounds, and that it is these smaller fragments of the protein molecule that are absorbed into the blood and are used to build up our muscles and tissues. these fragments or "building stones" as they have been fancifully called, are all of a distant class of chemical compounds known to chemists as amino acids. eighteen of these acids have been found as the products of protein digestion. we may conceive of our bodies as being continually supplied with a mass of these building stones from which it selects the kind and number that it needs to repair the everyday wear and tear of the tissues and in the case of the growing child builds new structures. since the date of this important discovery regarding the fate of indigested protein, it has been found that with few exceptions, the body is not able to manufacture these amino acids or to change one kind into another, and must depend on the protein eaten, for a supply of the various kinds that go to make up the body protein. further it has been found, that many of our commonly used food proteins do not contain all of these amino acids components. in some foods one, two, and sometimes more are lacking, or if present are in very small amounts. if our diet contained only proteins of an inferior grade, we can picture our body requiring building stones of various kinds to maintain the structure of the body and unable to obtain them due to the poor quality of the food, protein. nutritional failure would be the result. the proteins then must be of the right quality as well as present in the proper quantities, to prevent mal-nutrition. bearing in mind these facts, it is necessary in studying a food such as our nuts, to determine the kind of protein the individual nut contains as well as to know whether or not it can be digested by the body. during the past few years, it has been found that we must have in our foods a certain amount of substances whose chemical nature is at present unknown and to which the name of vitamines has been given. it is not my purpose to discuss with you the many phases of vitamines and their relation to nutrition, but i only wish to impress upon you the fact that it is of the utmost importance for a dietary to contain these substances; fully as important as that the protein, fat, carbohydrate, and inorganic salt content shall be satisfactory. lack of these vitamines brings on various evidences of mal-nutrition. one vitamine which is found in animal fats and the leaves of plants and is soluble in, and associated with fats, is, for that reason, called fat soluble vitamine. another called the water soluble vitamine is widely distributed in cereal seeds, vegetables, and legumes. the third, the so-called antiscorbutic vitamine because of its action as preventative and cure for scurvy, is found in certain fruits and vegetables. we then ask the next question: are nuts adequate as far as their proteins contain these essential amino acids, and do nuts contain vitamines? that is, is their biological value as satisfactory as their digestibility? dr. hoobler of detroit, in a study of the diets of lactating mothers and wet nurses, a year or so ago, compared the value of proteins from animal and vegetable sources for the elaboration of milk. he found that a mixture of the almond, english walnut, peanut and pecan, furnished proteins that were equal to the animal food tried, and far superior to other vegetable proteins. here then is evidence that nuts provide the necessary building stones to form milk that food par excellence for the newly born individual. drs. mendel and osborn, experimenting on white rats have shown that the principle proteins of the brazil nut will maintain animals through the growing period. bureau of chemistry workers and others have found similar results with the coconut and the peanut. i have now, experiments underway at new haven, on the biological value of the filbert, english walnut, pine nut, almond, and pecan. while these tests are yet incompleted, it can at least be said that to date there is no evidence that the proteins of these nuts are in any way less satisfactory than those of the peanut or brazil nut that have been thoroughly tested out. as to the vitamine content, abundant quantities of water soluble vitamine have been found in the peanut and the coconut. experiments that we have in progress as well as a series conducted here at battle creek under dr. kellogg's direction give promise to increase this list of vitamine containing nuts to include at least many of our common nuts. along with our vegetable oils in general, coconut oil and peanut oil contain insufficient quantities of the fat soluble vitamine to maintain growth in young animals. whether the other nut oils will prove more efficacious in this respect, is now under investigation. as far as i am aware, the antiscorbutic properties of nuts have not been studied. with the population of the world on a steady increase, it continually becomes necessary for mankind to seek out new sources of food, and utilize products that formerly had received little attention as possible foods. conditions that disturb normal food production and distribution, such for example as were brought about by the world war, produce serious food shortages in the world, and emphasize how close is the margin that determines whether the peoples of the world have adequate quantities of food or whether they are faced by shortages, and, in many cases, by starvation. in this continual development of our food resources, nuts stand out prominently as offering possibilities which are very great. not only do they represent a very concentrated form of food which is highly digestible, but they possess a number of characteristic and highly pleasing flavors that recommends them for use in all manner of culinary procedures. the variety of uses to which nuts can be put in the kitchen is amply demonstrated right here in dr. kellogg's sanitarium and i feel sure that even he has not exhausted the possibilities of nuts in the dietary. the forms of nut products on the market are steadily increasing. the nut butters, nut pastes, nut margarines, meat substitutes, and so forth, all point to the variety of ways that nuts can be handled as foods. the tremendous increase in the use of nut oils in the form of the oil itself and as nut margarines within the last few years is a striking example of the utilization on a large scale of relatively new food products. the press cake which remains as a by-product of this oil industry finds ready use as concentrates for cattle feeds. many of our ideas in the feeding of our domestic animals are undergoing development along with the idea of human nutrition. just recently, investigators at the wisconsin experiment station, reported that the well known "home grown ration" for dairy cows that consist of cereals, silage and hay, is not a large milk producing diet. their recommendation is to supplement this ration with protein concentrates. nut meals recommend themselves most highly as protein concentrates. it certainly is safe to say that the day when the fruits of our nut bearing trees will be allowed to fall ungathered from the trees, is at an end. there are many problems that still call for an answer by the chemist and dietitian. the nutritive value of the individual nuts should be firmly established in all its phases. the causes that have made the use of certain nuts unprofitable commercially, should be studied with the view of correcting these stumbling blocks. for example, the freeing of the horse-chestnut from its poisonous saponins and enable us to use this starch rich nut as food is well within the range of possibility as indicated by experiments conducted in austria during the war. why do nut oils tend to become rancid easily and can this tendency be remedied? is the freeing of the acorn and its tannin and other objectionable substances a practical consideration? what is the irritating principle of the english walnut? all these problems and many others wait solution. research on nuts is in progress in many places. it involves time consuming experiments that are often times expensive. as a result, progress is slow, the amount of research being limited by the financial factor. the value of the pecan nut crop alone of the year , was over million dollars and the value of the imports and exports of nuts and nut products during the same year amounted to over million dollars. if one one-hundredth of one per cent of this sum should be devoted by those interested in the development of our nut industry in this country for the study of the nutritional and chemical properties of nuts, i feel sure that they would be amply repaid for their investment. president reed: i believe this will complete our program for tonight. we have quite a full program for tomorrow morning. mr. c. a. reed, nut culturist of the u. s. department of agriculture, is with us and was to have been on the program tonight, but he has been busy all day and was hardly ready for tonight's program, as he has been busy getting the exhibit in order, and he will be on the program tomorrow morning, and three or four others, among them dr kellogg, i believe, so that there will be quite a full morning's program, and we will be glad to have all of you come who can. we meet in the parlor of the annex at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. if any one desires to join the association and will speak to the secretary, he will give yow the necessary information. end of tuesday evening session * * * * * wednesday, december , , : a.m. president w. c. reed in the chair president reed: mr. o. c. simonds of chicago will talk to you on "nut trees in landscape work." nut trees and bushes in landscape work o. c. simonds, chicago, illinois in considering material for landscape work the places that come to mind where such work would be required are home grounds, highways, parks, cemeteries, school grounds, city squares and woods. the highways would include city streets, parkways, usually called boulevards, and country roads. all trees are beautiful and should serve in some place in landscape work. some_are more beautiful than others and where but few trees can be used the more beautiful would naturally be chosen. black walnuts not long ago, a lawyer was talking to me about the beauty of black walnuts. to his mind there is no tree more beautiful and from what he said, he would use it almost to the exclusion of other trees. my own judgment does not fully coincide with his although i consider a black walnut a very attractive tree. it grows to a large size and is generally healthy. its shape is good and the foliage attractive in summer. the leaves drop early and they are not especially attractive in autumn coloring. black walnuts are strong in appearance. they lack the gracefulness of the elm and if i were making a list of trees in the order of their appearance, placing the most beautiful first and the least attractive last, i should place several trees ahead of the black walnut, among them sugar maples, elms and several of the oaks. perhaps the black walnut would come about in the center of the list for most locations. the list itself would vary for different situations and climates. i should advise using black walnuts plentifully along the highways, especially country roads, and somewhat sparingly in home grounds and the other locations which i have named. by plentifully, i do not mean to the exclusion of other trees, for, in some places, there should be more elms and maples than black walnuts, but highways are so extensive that many kinds of trees could be used in abundance to give shade. in woods there are places where black walnuts could be used in profusion. the objections that one might raise to the use of black walnuts would be, first, the comparatively short season of the leaves. these come out rather late in the spring and drop early, probably these trees can not be improved very much in this respect. second, boys will sometimes throw sticks at the trees to bring down the nuts. if a boy comes in home grounds to do this, he will be considered a nuisance. branches are sometimes broken and the trees disfigured from this cause. along highways this objection might perhaps be lessened somewhat by planting enough trees so that there would be more nuts than the boy would want, or by improving the manner of the boy. third, the trees are often attacked by caterpillars. this objection can usually be obviated by spraying or destroying the pests in other ways. butternuts the remarks made about the black walnut would apply in many ways to the butternut, its nearest relative. butternuts have a range extending further north and they are more subject to disease than the black walnuts. like the walnut, their leaves come out late and drop early. they are subject to the attacks of boys. when healthy, they are attractive in appearance and they deserve to be planted in most places where trees are used for landscape effect, but in the list i suggested, they would come below the black walnut. hickories there is a time of the year when the shagbark, which produces such sweet nuts, would be more attractive than any neighboring tree. it is when the big buds swell and send out yellowish green leaves surrounded by large, red bracts. at this time they are as showy and as beautiful as any flowers. the bracts soon fall, but the leaves turn a rich green and are attractive until early fall, when they are sometimes yellow, and sometimes drop without any marked coloring. the trunk of the hickory is unique in appearance as the bark separates from the tree in long platelike strips which hang on at one end and give the scraggly appearance from which the tree derives its name. all of the hickories are attractive in appearance, but some of them drop their leaves early. the hickories are difficult to transplant but this is nothing against the beauty of the tree. an established tree is more valuable on this account. in some places hickories are quite subject to disease or to the attacks of borers. like the walnuts, hickories which produce edible nuts are subject to the attacks of boys, but, on account of the toughness of the wood and the roughness of the bark, they are usually quite able to withstand these attacks. hickories are suitable for use in all landscape work so far as their appearance is concerned. the fact that they are not so used is due to the difficulty of transplanting them. in the fall when a maple tree has colored up beautifully and a hickory near it has dropped its leaves, we are apt to compare the two unfavorably to the latter, but we should remember the appearance in summer and especially when the leaves first unfold. hickory trees are beautiful also when the leaves are off, their branches making beautiful etchings against the sky in winter. the pecan, which is the largest of all hickories, is an exception to the general rule because it is planted quite extensively, especially in the south. it is a beautiful tree and where it is hardy there is no reason why it should not be used as a street tree, a tree in home grounds, in parks, or any other place where deciduous trees are needed. it is raised extensively in some nurseries, while the other hickories are raised very sparingly, and some not at all. the beech some would consider the beech the most beautiful of all nut trees. its comparatively smooth, bluish-gray bark makes it a distinctive tree at all seasons. its branches, spreading straight out from the trunk, give it an appearance of strength. its fine branches form a specially pleasing skyline, its sharp buds are trim and neat in appearance, its leaves are beautiful in shape and texture. their fall coloring, while not as brilliant as that of the maples, is really beautiful, being either yellow or a rich brown. the leaves are apt to hang on all winter, especially on the younger growth, and then they often turn a straw color. if a list of beautiful trees for february were to be made, i am rather inclined to think that the beech would stand at the head of the list. a young beech with its bluish-gray bark, its straw colored leaves, and flecks of snow here and there, seems to me the most beautiful of all deciduous trees in winter. the young leaves also are especially attractive when they first appear and the blossoms are sometimes objects of interest, although not showy in color. hazelnuts often in old pastures one finds forlorn, scraggly looking bushes and is told they are hazelnut bushes. one would not pick out bushes like these to plant in his front yard, and yet, when given a chance, there is scarcely a more attractive shrub than the hazel. it is one of the first shrubs to blossom, the staminate flowers hanging in slender, graceful yellowish-brown catkins, while the pistillate flowers are little points of purplish-red protruding from the buds. these blossoms appear long before the leaves. the latter, when fully developed, are beautiful in outline and soft in texture and they have a rich coloring in the fall including various shades of yellow and red. the hazel should certainly be used extensively in landscape work. the nuts, with their leaflike involucres, are attractive in appearance in august and september. in connection with our own hazel one would naturally think of the filbert, which is a european relative. the filbert is often planted for ornament. there is a variety with purple leaves which some people admire. the oaks of all our native trees, i think the oak excels in beauty of foliage. by many oaks might not be considered nut trees, but nearly all of the acorns are eaten by squirrels or other wild animals and so i think it would be proper to mention oaks when speaking of nut trees in the landscape. in the northern states we have two groups known as the white oak group and the red oak group. the trees of the former have soft, dull green leaves with rounded lobes, while those of the latter have shiny leaves with lobes ending in points of filaments. the former mature their acorns in one year, while the latter require two years to bring them to maturity. the acorns of the white group are sweet, while those of the red group are more or less bitter. the foliage of all oaks is attractive when it first appears, the small leaves varying in color from almost white through pink, yellow, and red to the deepest purple. perhaps the red oak excels all other trees in the beauty of its summer foliage and its leaves are also richly colored in autumn. the bur oak, in addition to having attractive foliage, has a rough, dark bark that gives it an attractive appearance in winter. the white oak, especially when young, holds many of its leaves in spring and these with their brown color, give a warmth to the snowy landscape. one could make a most beautiful park by planting nothing but oaks and they should rank with maples and elms as street trees. chestnuts there is a tree which a few years ago would have been considered along with the oak in landscape work, but which now would not be thought of in certain regions on account of a disease which has practically destroyed it. this tree is the american chestnut. it grows to a large size, and if it were not for this disease, would be worthy of a place in any park. hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent without success in endeavoring to exterminate the disease. some of the introduced varieties are apparently exempt from this disease, but only the future can tell whether the chestnut will again become valuable in landscape work as well as in the raising of food and lumber. in designing landscapes, we think first of open spaces and then bound these spaces with trees and shrubs having pleasing shapes and foliage. the tops of these trees form the skyline and the lower growth a margin of lawns, or perhaps of walks and drives. for these purposes the beeches, hickories, hazels, walnuts and butternuts are all valuable, their value being approximately in the order named. horse chestnuts and buckeyes there may be some question about including these in a list of nut trees. i understand, however, that the seeds of all of these trees have been used for feeding stock and perhaps some way may be found for making them available as food for men and women. there is no question about their usefulness for ornamental trees. in europe, the horse chestnut has been used extensively for park and boulevard planting and it is also largely used in the united states. there are several varieties. the leaves appear early, the blossoms coming out later. our own buckeyes are handsome in appearance and all are adapted for use in landscape work. the arguments for and against the use of nut trees in landscape work would be somewhat similar to such arguments regarding fruit trees. a luscious fruit tree like the snow apple, would be omitted from the list of trees for the park, not because it lacks beauty, but because its fruit would lead to its destruction. apple trees might, however, be very appropriate for private grounds. they have sometimes given a name to a home, as "the orchard". the same is true of certain nut trees, "walnut hill," and "hickory grove" being not uncommon. the hazel, too, is frequently used in naming home grounds, streets or localities. a name would not be used in this way unless the object bearing it was held in esteem. i am glad there is an association to encourage the raising of nut trees and i hope to see such trees used in this way extensively, for the purpose of developing attractive scenery as well as for food production. mr simonds: when mr. bixby asked me to prepare a paper and come here and read it, i wrote back i would prepare a paper and send to him to read; and afterwards mr. reed came to see me, and knowing that he would be here, i concluded i would come. i dictated a paper and afterwards i found i had left out a few nut trees, and i want to speak just a word regarding those before i read my paper. one of those is the coconut palm. i was thinking more particularly of trees in this locality when i dictated the paper; but the coconut tree aside from raising the coconuts, i think is the most magnificent palm that we have. there are other trees that some like better, but i think the coconut palm is the most picturesque, the finest tree to plant. i prefer it to the other large palms. it has great spreading leaves, sometimes fifteen or twenty feet long, a feathery top, and the trunk is not quite straight, and i like it a little better because it is not. then here is the english walnut. i did not speak in my paper about the english walnut, but there is a tree that is a beautiful tree, and where it is hardy it should of course be planted for ornament as well as for the nuts. and then there is the almond which we do not have here as a nut tree, but which they have in california, which has some attractions, and might be planted, although it is really not so ornamental as some of the nut trees; still it is worth planting. (applause). president reed: are there any questions you would like to ask mr. simonds while he is with us, or is there any discussion? dr. morris: there are two or three points for discussion. mr. simonds does not think highly of the almond. i do for decorative purposes. when i drive in my driveway at stamford and face that magnificent blaze of blazing clouds of almonds in the springtime, i think it is something worth while; it is the hard shelled almond. it will grow as far north as the peach does. the only trouble is they are a little more subject to leaf blight and need a little more attention. but where the peach will grow you can raise the almond profitably. among the hazel nuts the most beautiful of the entire series is the tree hazel that grows about as large as the smaller oaks, and that is said to bear twenty-five or thirty bushels of hazelnuts a year,--enormous crops. that is perfectly hardy here, and the beauty of the tree is such that i believe it to be a very important addition. i would like to hear mr. jones' opinion on that point. i use it for grafting purposes for other hazels. the japanese walnuts, almost tropical in their rapid growth, sometimes grow six feet in a year in rich ground, and with their great sprays of leaves sometimes a yard in length, and the seedballs of the heart nut variety give really a tropical appearance to the grounds where the ground is rich enough. they will grow almost any place, but in rich ground they are certainly very wonderful. among the chestnuts, of course, we have a number of hybrids now that resist blight very well; and the little chinkapins for lawn bushes are very attractive. one of our most beautiful chestnuts is splendid for a lawn specimen and is evergreen in the south. when i was a boy i never had plums enough; so one of my ambitions was to have plums enough so i could see some of them rot on the ground. we can do the same thing with nut trees--have nuts enough so the boys will be full and have nuts enough. it seems to me it ought to be one of our ambitions to have so many nut trees along the roadsides in the parks, etc., that the boys and the squirrels can not use them all up. mr. simonds: i think the doctor is right in some of his criticisms. in fact, the almond is something like a peach, and i had not prized it for use in landscape work so very much on account of certain diseases which would be apt to affect it here if it were not taken care of as we would take care of trees in an orchard. the hazel tree, of course, would be attractive if it is hardy here. i have had doubts about its being hardy because of its coming from southern europe. dr. morris: it is hardy in all canada. they have fine tree hazels in the park at rochester. they have there probably the largest tree hazels in the country. mr. c. a. reed: i would like to have more questions asked. i feel as though i had accomplished a real achievement in getting mr. simonds here. i was under him a short time a number of years ago and learned something of his skill as a landscape gardener and the reputation that he has; and i felt that we could not hope to have a better authority on these points that he has discussed than we could in mr. simonds; and it is something that is constantly coming up. the department of agriculture have to consider that people want to know what trees they can plant in the landscape; and i feel particularly glad to have mr. simonds here. dr. morris: it seems to me we ought to talk more about the nut-bearing pines in the landscape, because where you are planting pine trees, you might as well plant the nut-bearing kind as the others; they are just as beautiful, and you combine the greek idea of beauty and utility. mr. simonds: certainly, that is a tree i have omitted, because in this region we have not had any nuts. dr. morris: there are four pines that will bear nuts here--the korean pine, the pignolia or stone pine, the italian stone pine and the swiss both. there are five nut bearing pine trees that are all market trees for nuts, that i know will grow and bear here, including the lace bark pine. mr. simonds: are they raising nuts in michigan on pines? dr. morris: no, but they might. those five kinds would grow here and bear nuts here, so they have a double value. mr. simonds: i think we ought to raise them. of course they are beautiful in the landscape. dr. morris: the whole idea of your paper is to approach the greek ideal--add utility to beauty. mr. simonds: that is what nature does. it makes beautiful leaves, then uses the leaves for plant food. mr. c. a. reed: i wonder, dr. morris, if you can tell where these pines can be had. dr. morris: the korean pine is from northeast asia, and you can get those from the original pine seed; the lace bark pine is from northeastern asia where the climate is like ours. the swiss stone pine and the italian stone pine are from switzerland and italy and closely related--both excellent trees. the fruit now you buy as the pignolia in the markets. both those are sold as pignolia nuts. it is a commercial nut of europe. the white barked pine you would get from the west. it has a beautiful fine large nut, and you would get that from any pacific coast dealers in nut trees. mr. simmonds: has that another name? dr. morris: i do not know of any other name for it. wait: the single leaved pine is one. that grows so far north on the pacific, but we do not know whether it will ripen its nuts here or not. it is perfectly hardy here and would be a beautiful nut tree, grows well. the single-leaved pine--that is _monophylla_. there are four or five pinons that will live, but they do not grow fast enough to make it worth while to raise them in michigan. the jeffrey bull pine is another one that will grow here and bear fruit, with a beautiful blue-green foliage. the jeffrey bull pine is one of the most beautiful and thrifty pines. that is the jeffrey variety of ponderosa. the nut is very much larger than the nut of the ordinary ponderosa. the nut of the ponderosa is small, but the indians use them and eat them, shell and all. when we come to using the pines more freely for food purposes, we are going to do what they do in europe with some of the small seeded pines--crush them and make a mass, squeeze the cream out from the nuts, dry it a little, and that makes very fine rich cream; then the residue is given to the chickens and pigs. there are in all about thirty pine trees now that are used for market purposes where they fruit, and we will undoubtedly increase that number. i do not doubt that fifty species of pine trees will be planted for their fruit by two generations from now when we feel the need more. president reed: we will be glad to have questions from any one. i think we get more from the discussions than we do from the papers. voice: in regard to the hickory nut, the shagbark, back in northeastern ohio, four years ago we had quite serious trouble with our hickories there along in the month of june, about the time we get the common june bug, there was a large bug that looked like the june bug that seemed to work at night mostly. we did not see them active in the day time, but they ate the foliage entirely off the lower branches and those limbs from which they ate the foliage died. in some cases, the tree died. i would like to know if anyone knows anything about those. that was new to me. i have had opportunity to answer all sorts of questions about that. i have been asked i guess by a thousand different people about that insect, and i have not been able to learn anything about it. mr. simonds: i can not tell you. same voice: one man told me when he knew i was coming here, "for goodness sakes find out something about that if you can." dr. morris: it probably is the june bug, and turkeys and ducks would solve the problem. mr. c. a. reed: the only suggestion i would make is that in ohio you have one of the best posted authorities on nut insects there is in the country. that is prof. h. a. gossard, at wooster. if he can not tell you about it, no one can. mr. j. f. jones: i think it is no doubt it is the ordinary may beetle that is doing the mischief. president reed: i might say we had quite a deluge of beetles along that line in the nursery a year ago this last june, the first time we have ever been bothered with them. they finally became so thick we had to go through and shake the trees and shake them off. they looked something like the may beetle, only smaller, hard shelled, and seemed to come by the millions; but they only lasted a few days, and it was all over, and we have never seen them since. mr. c. a. reed: there is one more question i would like to ask mr. simonds, and that is in regard to the proper distance for spacing nut trees along avenues and in parks. mr. simonds: i think that in both of those situations it is well to give the trees a natural appearance by grouping, and sometimes they can be far apart, and sometimes i think there might be a group of two or three close together, so that they would grow in one group. that will give a more natural arrangement in parks, and we have room enough along the sides of most of our highways to have the same effect there. the policy to be pursued with regard to spacing nut trees along highways would be the same that we would follow in planting any other trees, and one of the most attractive streets i know is now in the city of grand rapids; it used to be in the country when i lived there years ago; but along the sides of that street there are native trees, mostly burr oaks, and they have grown just as nature planted them. there will be a group of two or three, then a space, may be a single tree, then there may be a group of five or six; and that natural arrangement is really beautiful, to me far more beautiful than a straight row of trees, uniform spaced. on that same street sixty or seventy years ago my uncle planted where there were no trees--it is a continuation of this street--rows of sugar maples, and they grew and finally made splendid trees, and a great storm came along and broke down two or three, and that was a source of great regret to my uncle; but his son thinks, perhaps, it was a good thing, because it opened a beautiful view out into the country. now by grouping trees we can save beautiful views. if we plant uniformly, we get monotony. with this belt of burr oaks spaced as i have described, you have variety on your sky line. some trees are a little farther up than others and catch the sunlight, and we get shade and light. that is the way i should plant nut trees. if i were planting black walnuts or butternuts i would group them, but see that the tree has in some directions space enough to develop as far as it wishes. mr. c. a. reed: mr. simonds is about to go. that is the reason i precipitated this question at this point. it was asked with reference to the law which these gentlemen, sitting at my right here, were responsible in putting through in the legislature of this state--provision for planting food trees along the highways; and it may be before mr. simonds goes, they have something further to ask. president reed: these questions are very important to draw out information. is there anything else you wish to ask before we leave this topic? if not, we will call on c. a. reed to present his paper next. it was carried over from last night, i believe. nut culture in michigan c. a. reed, washington, d. c. there is evidence on all sides that the people of michigan are deeply interested in nut culture. some have invested in pecan lands in the far south; no doubt some own persian (english) walnut, almond or filbert orchards on the pacific coast; and others are at the point of planting nut trees in michigan. everybody would go nutting in fall if he could. michigan leads all other northern states in what its institutions and some of its people have done toward developing the nut industry. some thirty years ago the lake shore and michigan southern railroad company showed its interest in nut production, when it planted many miles of chestnut trees along its tracks running north from adrian. between and there were planted on the grounds of the sub-experiment station at south haven, a number of pecan trees of iowa and missouri seed, japanese walnuts, a number of filbert plants and a collection of almond varieties. at about the same time, prof l. h. bailey set out half dozen pecans and japanese walnut trees on the campus of the michigan agricultural college. later, professor l. r. taft added several seedling persian (english) walnut trees to the group. in traveling over the southern part of michigan, one cannot go far without seeing signs of interest in nut trees. everywhere the black walnut has been spared or planted. in certain sections it is to be found about practically every farm house or at least near enough by to furnish the winter supply of the family nuts. the chestnut is less common in any part of the state than is the black walnut, not appearing to any considerable extent except in the lower southeastern corner. it has not fared well in the state either as a native or planted tree. the persian or so-called english walnut has attracted considerable attention from time to time, and under especially favorable surroundings one occasionally finds thrifty specimen trees. the pecan, the japanese walnut, european hazel or more popularly called the "filbert" have all been given limited trials at various times. even the almond has had a day in michigan. quite possibly the pistache has been through the same experience; but if so, the fact is not generally known. that species is from arid asia and wholly unlikely to succeed in the latitude of michigan although a young tree of a chinese species ornamental because of its fine feathery foliage, green in summer but which takes on a brilliant hue in fall is, or was the last we know, doing well on the private grounds of dr. robert t. morris, near stamford, conn. among the kinds of nut trees from which we can select varieties for planting in michigan, there are eleven or more distinct species. with such a range as this, one might ask, why not go into nut growing in michigan on the same scale as in the growing of apples and peaches. there are probably better reasons why this is not being done, but two very good ones are that there are not enough available trees of good varieties to plant more than a single orchard of respectable size in the state; and the other; it would not pay to put good michigan land to nut trees of such varieties as are now available even though they could be had. if nut trees can't be had and wouldn't pay if they could then why publish an article on "nuts for michigan planting," is probably what will run through the minds of most readers of these lines. it is certainly a logical question, but there are at least ten reasons why nut trees should be planted in michigan. . the forests of michigan have reached the point of depletion such that for the sake of future generations, trees of some kind other than fruit must be planted. . while planting, we may as well select those capable of performing more than a single service; in other words, trees of maximum possible use. oaks, poplars, ashes, pines, elms, etc., all have their places, but not one in the group can produce anything of food value to humankind. . nut trees of most kinds, rightly used, are valuable for timber purposes and are very effective in the landscape. . members of the walnut family including the hickories are especially appropriate along the highways and city streets. they are sturdy, long-lived and not easily damaged by storms or neighbor's boys. . nuts are among the very best of the meat substitutes. they contain much of the same food elements as do meats, although in different proportions. some contain starch and to that extent can be used as are the cereals and irish potatoes. nuts are the only vegetable product grown in michigan, which in raw condition afford a complete and fairly well balanced food for human beings. every pound of nut food that can be raised from a tree along the street or in the fence corner on the farm is clear gain, and that much added to our national food supply. . nuts are rapidly assuming importance as factors in the lists of american foods. . many species of nut trees are adapted to some parts of michigan. by planting the best that are now available, and by constantly being on the lookout for better sorts, superior varieties will be certain to develop in a short while, the same as has been the case with all older orchard fruits and farm crops. . whoever intelligently plants nut trees performs a distinct public service. he will receive the gratitude of more than the present generation. . among all kinds of trees, none are more appropriate for memorial purposes to the men who did not come back from france, than is the black walnut. that species itself took a valiant part in warfare. it furnished material for gunstocks the same as in previous wars, but in the world war it rendered what was considered by eminent authority, a greater service in supplying propellors for aeroplanes. the shells of the nuts contributed their part toward the making of carbon for gas masks, and no one knows the extent to which walnut kernels made up the delicacies sent from home to the boys in the trenches. with such a service record as this, the black walnut is entitled to a memorial of its own. its value as a timber tree, as an ornamental, and as a food producer, together with its great range of adaptability from north to south and east to west, should justly entitle it to recognition as a national tree. . michigan has a law providing for the planting of nut trees along its highways. thus, the state has officially put its approval on the idea and has become a leader in the encouragement of this great kind of economy and thrift. it has taken a step toward conservation in a direction which is highly developed in certain parts of europe. the product is sold to the highest bidder and the income used in the upkeep of the road system. in that manner the roadways of those sections take care of themselves. in this country millions of dollars of state and federal moneys are being used this year, (ending june , ), in the construction and upkeep of public roads. desirable as it would be to accomplish these ends, it could not all be done at once. even though there were an abundance of available trees of tried kinds, it would take a long time to plant them and to care for them until they might become of profitable bearing age, also public opinion would need to be remolded in order to insure their care and protection. still it can and will be done. the movement is already on; the michigan law began to operate soon after being passed, and the division of forestry at the agricultural college is raising the trees for planting. public opinion regarding the care of the trees and their product will take care of itself when the value of the trees and their products becomes apparent. both in california and in oregon not only nut but fruit orchards and vineyards, grow beside the roadways with no protection other than that of public opinion; and what has been done in one part of the country can be done in others as well. the eleven species referred to as being available for michigan use are as follows: the almond, beechnut, butternut, chestnut, filbert, (hazel), pecan, shagbark hickory, shellbark hickory, black walnut, japanese walnut, and the persian or so-called english walnut. taking these up in order we will consider first the almond except as an ornamental, the almond does not offer a great deal for use in michigan. it is sometimes said to be as hardy as the peach, but only as this refers to the tree and not to the fruit, is it true. certain hardshell almonds edible, yet so inferior to the improved varieties as to have practically no market value, do sometimes succeed in lower michigan but their value is limited to their beauty when in bloom and to the production of a low grade product. in form and general appearance these almonds are much like peach pits. very often they contain much of the same bitter taste of prussic acid common to the kernel of the ordinary peach. they are interesting to observe while growing especially as they begin to ripen. the covering outside the seed is thin and leathery and while ripening, splits and peels outward in curious fashion. perhaps the only recognized variety of almond of this class which is known to have fruited in the east is the ridenhower from southern illinois. trees can be had from some of the nurserymen. the beech one of michigan's noblest, hardiest, and most often abused trees is the american beech. it is common from north to south. no tree is more handsome and none, unless possibly it be the white birch, is so often defaced. dr. robt. t. morris, of new york city, reminds us that according to the scriptures, man, genus _homo_, is a finished product made by and in the image of the creator. a safe assumption is that the scriptural reference is not to the creature whose initials appear on the trunk of a beech or whose knife has removed bark from white birch. his genus is not _homo_, and he is not scripturally recorded. the beech is not directly important as a nut bearing tree, but indirectly it is as the nuts are rarely harvested. indirectly it is of great value. no food is better for turkeys and hogs than are beechnuts. a bushel of beechnuts that can be used in this way replace at least a bushel of corn. the difference in cost of production should make beechnuts worth several times as much as corn. in europe a valuable oil used as a drug and for salads is expressed from beechnuts. possibly individual trees could be found somewhere in michigan which produce nuts large enough, good enough, and in quantity enough to justify their recognition and propagation as named varieties. no matter whether distinct varieties appear or not, the beech is well worthy of planting in many places about both the farm and the city lot. butternut a member of the walnut family known also as "long walnut" and as "white walnut" is the true butternut. it has a smaller range of adaptability than does the black walnut but is found considerably farther north. on the atlantic coast, its native range extends into nova scotia. in parts of new york state and new england, it is one of the most common species. it is well known in michigan where, to many people it is the favorite of all nuts. the tree is less durable and long-lived than is the black walnut. it is less well suited for use in the landscape and its timber value is probably the least of any native walnut. within very recent years one or two promising varieties have been introduced by the nurserymen. the first and only one now available is the aiken from new hampshire. the nut cracks well and the kernels are of pleasant flavor, but as a variety it has not been tested long enough to determine its adaptability to conditions in other states nor the extent to which budded trees will be productive. chestnut perhaps the greatest, of all tree tragedies is represented by the chestnut. once a dominant species in many parts of the east, it is now merely a wreck of its former self. in whole states along the atlantic seaboard, it has been wiped out by a fungus disease introduced from japan some years ago. pennsylvania allows no chestnut trees to be shipped outside its limits for fear of further spreading this disease. so far as known chestnut trees from west of the wabash river are free from infection. from illinois, there have recently been introduced several varieties of chestnut supposedly of pure american parentage which are quite the equal in size of the european sorts but which have the sweet flavor of true american strains. in protected places in the southern part of the lower peninsula these chestnuts should be well worthy of trial. they are, indeed, splendid chestnuts. the principal varieties are the rochester, progress, fuller and boone. the last is not related to the others; but is the result of an artificial cross between the american sweet chestnut and the japan giant. hickory next to, or perhaps equal to the black walnut, the hickories are among the best known of michigan's nut trees. belonging to the same family as do the walnuts, they require much the same soil for their best development. they are slower of growth and even harder to bud and graft or to successfully transplant. nevertheless, some of hickories bear splendid nuts in liberal quantities. quite a number of good varieties have been named and a few propagated. they are mainly of the shagbark species although some are shellbarks, some pignuts, and a few hybrids. the true shellbark is not found in michigan and would probably not succeed there as well as do others. in character of growth, the shellbark is much like the shagbark but the nuts are much larger, and the shells extremely thick. among the good shagbarks there are the swaim, weiker, kentucky, manahan, taylor and vest. true hickories ordinarily do not attain important habits of bearing until from to years of age. pecan the pecan is easily the favorite and most important nut of american origin. contrary to current ideas, it is not an introduced species nor are the best pecans grown in california. the pecan has become one of the leading nuts of this country by rapid but natural processes. in the forests, it is indigenous as far north as the southern part of indiana, and in western illinois it is found at the latitude of chicago. seedling trees at south haven and on the campus of michigan agricultural college have borne occasional crops but the climate of michigan is too severe for pecans to bear regularly. the trees of northern origin should do well enough over much of lower michigan to be worthy of planting. good varieties are the major, greenriver, niblack, indiana, busseron and posey. black walnut already the black walnut had been referred to in this article. in its further behalf may be said that like the pecan it is one of america's most rapid growing valuable trees. it does not grow with the speed of a poplar, a willow, or a linden. neither does any other tree of value or longevity. two -year-old trees of the eastern black walnut grown in the wiliamette valley of western oregon, bore approximately a peck of nuts apiece, in , when they were photographed by the writer. in good soil and under favorable conditions of growth, it will be seen that the black walnut is not always slow in developing but that it is sometimes a rapid grower. three varieties of black walnut are now available from the nurserymen. they are the thomas from pennsylvania, the ohio from some miles south of toledo, and the stabler from howard county, maryland or miles outside the district of columbia. all are prolific, precocious and of superior cracking quality. the thomas was discovered and first propagated some years ago. the young grafted trees show a tendency to begin bearing in the nursery rows. at the present time, the black walnut is regarded as being of greater promise for planting in the northern states than is any other species either native or introduced. the japanese walnut to a considerable extent this species has been confused with the persian walnut, although the two are quite unlike. this is a dwarfish species with dull green rough leaflets often as many as or per leaf, which often bears nuts in clusters of a dozen or more. while green the outer hulls of the nuts are rough, and somewhat sticky. the persian walnut is a standard-sized upright growing tree with bright green leaflets, usually to per leaf, and smooth, round nut hulls which split open and shed the nuts automatically. the japanese walnuts hybridize freely with other species of walnuts and produce nuts of all types; not infrequently crosses of this kind resemble butternuts so closely as to be practically indistinguishable from them. true japanese walnuts have a range in form of two distinct types. the better known is of guinea egg shape; the other, often known as the heartnut, is of distinct heart shape. neither is large; the former is of about the size of a guinea egg or smaller; the latter is still smaller. both are like the black walnut in being encased in a rough outer husk, which upon maturing shrivels and adheres to the surface of the nut. the shells are thinner than are those of the black walnut, but thicker than are those of the persian walnut. when well matured, the shell of the heartnut tends to open slightly at the apex, after which it can be readily split in half with a knife blade. the flavor of the kernel is much like that of the american butternut. the japanese walnut is ordinarily hardy wherever the black succeeds. it is by no means uncommon in michigan where it is especially appropriate for family planting. for the present, seedling trees will have to be relied upon almost wholly, as very few varieties have been propagated. so far as the writer is informed, the only named variety available from a northern nursery is the lancaster introduced by j. f. jones, a nurseryman at lancaster, pa. persian walnut perhaps no species of nut tree has attracted as great attention in michigan as has the persian walnut. under some conditions it does well for a time in the eastern or northeastern states, but on the whole its performance is distinctly erratic. commercially speaking, it is of importance in this country only on the pacific coast. trees on the campus at michigan agricultural college and at many private places in the central part of the state, have come to little. usually they grow well in summer only to freeze back nearly as much in winter. in saranac county, eastern michigan, close to lake huron there are a few young orchards that are in good condition, but a half mile back from the lake the results are discouraging. the same is true next to lake michigan from grand rapids south to the indiana line. the only recommendations that can be made relative to planting the persian walnut in michigan are, that it be planted very cautiously in any part of the state and except under very favored circumstances it be not at all in the middle of the state. do not undertake to grow the trees by planting the nuts or by buying seedlings. the most desirable trees are those of hardy varieties, budded on the black walnut as a stock a foot or more above ground. the filbert the filbert has been one of our tantalizing species of nut trees. in england, trees grow to ages of from one to two hundred years, bearing profusely meanwhile. there, for many years, they are grown under apple trees with currants below them. in germany, we are told that strawberries are grown below the currants and gooseberries. we are waiting for the yankee who will be first to grow peanuts or potatoes below strawberries. in the eastern part of this country, plants of the european kinds are disappointing in two ways. first, they are uncertain as to their ability to bear; and second, they are highly susceptible to a fungus disease found everywhere that the native hazels abound. the native species is quite able to resist this disease, but the introductions ordinarily succumb to it quickly. in the pacific northwest, where by many filbert culture is believed destined to become a successful and paying industry within the next few years, not infrequently some varieties begin to blossom as early as in december. the blooming is largely responsible for the failure of eastern trees to set and mature crops of nuts. several nurserymen are now endeavoring to find varieties of commercial value in the eastern part of the country. apparently they are meeting with some success as far as their work has gone. many of the varieties they are testing are proving inferior, but a few have borne good nuts in gratifying quantity for several years. during the past winter, a good many froze severely, although they are commonly hardy under severe weather. wherever they are planted, they should have fertile soil, from to feet of space each way and should be trained to tree form. after years or so, they should be headed back severely, unless regular pruning has been practiced in the meantime. filberts fruit only on new wood. to those who have read this article to this point, it is now apparent that the nut industry of michigan lies almost wholly in the future. the native varieties form an excellent ground work for that future, but to properly take advantage of that base, it will be necessary for practically every nut lover in the state to lend a helping hand. the first great movement necessary is to examine the nuts in the fall as ripen in order to find the best of the walnuts, hickories, native hazels, beeches and introduced chestnuts, walnuts and filberts. in this everyone can help. whoever finds a tree of any kind bearing superior nuts will render a great service by sending specimens, together with his or her address and that of the owner of the tree to the federal department of agriculture at washington, d. c., or to willard g. bixby, treasurer of the association, baldwin, nassau county, n. y. be sure to carefully note the exact tree, from which the nuts were obtained and if specimens are sent from more than one tree, they should be kept separate and each carefully labeled. such nuts will be examined and if found to be the equal or superior to the varieties already being grown, they will be named and arrangements made for this propagation and test. no prizes are given by the government but good nuts sent the government will be eligible to entry in the contest of the northern nut growers' association. if enough specimens are sent the department, some will be forwarded to the treasurer of that association who has charge of awards. according to very recent reports, the outlook for a nut crop during the coming year was never better. this should, therefore, be an excellent year for finding the trees bearing the best nuts. president reed: i believe mr. reed expects to give an additional talk tonight with lantern slides. mr. c. a. reed: there will be an informal talk, a question box this evening for the benefit of any interested in the general discussion of nut culture in the united states. i notice the guests of the institution are deeply interested in nut growing in their particular states; so the arrangement for this evening is to give those persons an opportunity to come out and ask questions. mr. olcott: while mr. reed is on that subject, i would like to ask if there is a chestnut as large as the boone or other chestnuts grown by mr. riehl of as good flavor as the american sweet chestnut. a good many people are asking me from time to time what the merit is in those large chestnuts. invariably they have found that the quality is not as good as in the american sweet chestnut. i have been assured and mr. reed says that the kernel of these is very good. i wonder if there, are some of them better than others--of the very large chestnuts. mr. c. a. reed: there is a difference. the boone that mr. olcott refers to is a cross between the american species and the japanese. the japanese has not a good flavor; it is considerably below that of the american; but the boone is quite good; but there are some of mr. riehl's chestnuts that are better. mr. riehl's are believed to be the pure american sweet chestnuts and some of them are very good, perhaps not quite as sweet as our american sweet, but they are exceedingly satisfactory and very popular in the chicago markets where mr. riehl's chestnuts are going. mr. bixby: this fall i received a chestnut which i am satisfied was japanese, which is very large, and seemingly about as sweet as the american. i did not have the american there to test it by, but it was very interesting to me, and i am planning to get scions in the spring to follow it up further. it was seemingly a japanese chestnut, and pretty nearly as large as the boone. mr. j. f. jones: i might say that so far as i have tested them, some of the japanese are quite sweet, but the meat is generally tough, not brittle and sweet like the american. president reed: i believe mr. linton is with us, and we shall be glad to hear from him. nut trees for highways and public places william s. linton, saginaw, michigan for a number of years it has been a source of gratification and pleasure to me to be identified with the membership of the northern nut growers' association. true, "a long distance membership only," but nevertheless a connection that all must admit has borne fruit, or nuts, as you may prefer to state it. to this association and its official journal must be given full credit for the pioneer work in a great and good movement that will sweep, not only over the united states, but over every clime and county in the world's western hemisphere as well. your seed sown in the peninsular state of michigan, was the first to sprout in a substantial way in so far as public planting of nut trees by a sovereign state is concerned, and it was our good fortune to have as staunch supporters for the plan such able and persistent workers as my good friend, senator harvey a. penney of saginaw, professor a. k. chittenden of the michigan agricultural college, and last, but not least, honorable frank f. rogers, michigan's excellent state highway commissioner. upon the latter will largely devolve the duty of carrying out the law's provisions, as provided in senator penney's bill passed at the last session of the legislature, and that it will be well and practically done, goes without saying. and now to my theme, "should the country roadsides be planted and why." the present high cost of living, and in fact the cost of living at any time is a fruitful and serious problem. our vast natural resources during the century gone, of forests, of game, and of grazing lands, have almost to the point of extinction been rapidly passing away, and it behooves us, who have profited thereby and now owe a duty to our race to artificially provide wherever and whenever we can for the future of humankind. in what better way can this be done than in utilizing the immense acreage of america's vast system of highways, (now absolutely wasted except for the sole purpose of travel), to reproduce the very finest of our country's magnificent trees, to again afford beauty, grateful shade, valuable timber and the choicest of food in great abundance for the generations to come. were this not a convention devoted to the advancement of nut growing alone, i would be glad to extol also for road planting fruit trees of every kind of adequate size and character, and free or nearly so, from the ravages of disease or insect pest, would be glad to praise the stately, hard maple, with its clear, sweet sap, producing the syrup and sugar that are the delight of childhood and age, and would be glad to recommend the useful basswood with its valuable lumber and its fragrant yellow flowers, producing that nectar from which our most delicious honey is made, and would be glad to recommend for our highways, certain other majestic trees needed by man and beautiful in the landscape. but the object of this association and convention is a specialized one, as undoubtedly it should be, owing to the important field it covers, and therefore the nut trees and it alone for planting on highways and in public places should be the subject of this paper. if we were to confine ourselves to one native variety or species for our northern territory, the great majority of people would unhesitatingly say, let it be the black walnut (_juglans nigra_). attaining as it does a height of feet and more, and a trunk of four feet and over in diameter, with a symmetrical top of splendid foliage, bearing the richest of nuts and its timber the most valuable in the country, with a natural range extending from michigan to mississippi and from delaware to the dakotas, it should be universally planted throughout the united states along thousands of miles of our great trunk line roads. its nearest american relative, the butternut (_juglans cinerea_) preferring lower lands along river bottoms, attaining an average height of feet with a trunk of feet, its wood suitable for cabinet work, its bark with medicinal properties, and its nuts of splendid flavor, should be planted where soil conditions call for it. for their rich, delicious nuts, alone, saying nothing about their clean, handsome foliage, their rough, strong wood--the best of any grown for many purposes--the hickories, among which are the shagbark (_carya ovata_) and the big shellbark (_carya laciniosa_), should be planted in many places. they both frequently attain feet in height with straight sturdy trunks averaging from three to four feet in diameter. the other nut trees suitable for roadside planting, are not specially attractive to mankind for their fruits, as heretofore used or utilized, but may eventually become so under modern methods of cooking or proper treatment. in their raw state, however, all are edible and also palatable to most people, but their chief food value today, is to provide rich provender to domestic animals and birds, or the desirable wild life of the woodlands, all of which devour them eagerly, adding quickly to their weight and greatly to their quality and flavor of their flesh. i refer to the three magnificent oaks producing sweet acorns, viz., the white oak (_quercus albaq_), the bur oak (_quercus macrocarpa_) and the swamp white oak (_quercus plantanoides_). they are all emblematic of great strength and grandeur, reaching the majestic height of feet, with trunks four or five feet in diameter; the leaf coloring at times is indescribably beautiful and the timber owing to its great solidity and strength is of the utmost value. last, but not least, the american beech, with a three or four foot trunk and almost feet in height, distinct and beautiful, will demand the attention of those who plant our highways. its nuts, feasted upon by many forest denizens, may be classed with the sweet acorns heretofore referred to, but the tree has a grace and charm all its own and it thrives from the warm waters of the gulf to the icy shores of lake superior. at this time we cannot recommend what has been a noble, almost fascinating tree, feet its usual height and sometimes spreading feet almost in extent, with a trunk that in some cases reached a diameter of feet, with clusters of golden catkins fragrant in midsummer, resulting in great quantities of delicious nuts in autumn. such was the chestnut, _castanea dentata_, of the past, the fate of which, and almost extinction, has been a tragedy in the ranks of our native trees that has brought bitter regrets to all lovers of this partician of the forest. good news comes from the far east, however, to the effect that some specimens of this famous tree have escaped or proven immune to the blight, and if the latter, it means the saving of the species and its replanting in soil and territory where it may thrive as of yore. having now enumerated the varieties of trees that should be selected in the main for the planting of highways and in public places, the question now arises as to the best method of carrying on the work in a practical way throughout the country. individuals or small communities certainly can not be depended upon to do it, as the result would be of a patchwork character that would not be pleasing to the eye or beneficial in its results. only federal, state and municipal governments can take charge of this great work and carry it forward to completion. the state of michigan, now as you know, by legal enactment, causes state authorities to plant the trunk line, highways, the county to plant the roads of the county systems, and the cities and villages and townships those minor roads that are within their borders. in case of individual effort, where an owner of land plants food-producing trees along the highways in front of his property, he is reimbursed by stated amounts covering each tree so planted, the returns coming to him by a reduction in the amount of his own taxation. this so-called michigan plan carried on throughout the entire country, would call for a supply of trees of the character named far beyond the ability of the commercial growers to supply, and in my opinion can be worked out only by seed or seedlings of the various varieties. and why not? the cost would be much less than of any other method, and only a few years would pass before substantial returns would commence to come. it has been stated and it is true, that the seeds of the trees named do not always produce superior nuts, but in a great majority only those of a common or inferior kind. however, choice specimens will appear also, and from these of the better class grafting may be done to enrich all. then again, it is a question as to whether the important tap roots of the important nut species should be disturbed or destroyed in transplanting. it would seem to be the proper plan, therefore, in order to avoid too great an expense, that the nuts or seed should be used in a great majority of highway planting, the trees to remain where first placed on approved roadside lines, and the proper distance apart. it may be said that too great a time would elapse between the planting of the seed and the maturity of the tree, but as time goes nowadays, it would not be an unreasonable period, and there are those within the sound of my voice now, who will witness in their maturity the magnificent trees producing their valuable products and adding to the beauty of the landscape and to the welfare of mankind. this association has been the pioneer in this great movement, and it will be the credit to those connected therewith in the generations to come, in that they have all contributed in a very marked degree to the everlasting benefit of mankind. president reed: is there any discussion? mr. c. a. reed: i believe senator penney is to discuss a topic very closely affiliated with this one and perhaps it would be well to defer the discussion until we hear his address. president reed: we will be glad to have senator penney present his paper next, then. it is along the same lines--legislation in regard to tree planting. senator penney: when my friend, mr. linton, started off to discuss his paper, he said he was a long distance member, and you can see the effect in the fruits he has borne or the nuts he has borne. ever since i was taken sick up north, he has been trying to tell me i was a nut. i was taken sick up there in the deer hunting camp, and my friend, mr. linton, assisted in getting me out and rushing me to the nearest hospital, and it happened to be an insane asylum in northern michigan. legislation regarding the planting of nut and other food producing trees senator harvey a. penney, saginaw, michigan i wish to express my hearty appreciation to your association for the distinct honor of being invited to address your meeting upon the subject of "legislation regarding the planting of nut and other food trees." i believe that my invitation came as a result of having been responsible for introducing a tree-planting bill in the senate of the session of the michigan state legislature, and later in securing its passage. this bill purported "to regulate the planting of ornamental, nut-bearing and other food-producing trees along the highways of the state of michigan, or in public places, and for the maintenance, protection and care of such trees, and to provide a penalty for injury thereof, or for stealing the products thereof." for several sessions of the michigan legislature prior to , bills had been introduced intending to accomplish this result, but each time heretofore they have regularly failed to pass. this fate included one introduced by the writer during the session of . i am now fully convinced that none of these bills, although a step in the right direction, seemed to provide the proper working machinery or necessary features to put them into practical operation, and hence did not appeal to the legislative committees, nor to the members of the several legislatures. during the regular session of , with the valuable assistance of hon. w. s. linton of saginaw, a new bill was prepared providing an entirely new method of supplying and planting such trees, and for putting such a law into effective operation under the jurisdiction of the state. it was made to work in harmony with the rights of the property owner adjoining the highway, and with the duties of those state officials whose departments were perfectly adapted and equipped for putting the law into active operation. i am going to attach an enrolled copy of the tree planting bill at the end of this paper, so that it may be made a part of the permanent records of the association. it will therefore be unnecessary to give a detailed account of all the provisions contained therein. i will, however, mention a few of the principal points so that you may understand its purpose. it provides that the public domain commission which has charge of the state forest reserve lands and parks, together with the michigan agricultural college, are given authority to grow and acquire suitable seeds, scions or trees for planting under the provisions of this act. a department of the agricultural college determines the kind of trees which are adapted or suitable for planting in different soils or places. in order to insure a uniform system of planting, this duty is left to the state highway commission and the state board of agriculture, acting jointly. the trees belong to the state, but the nuts or other products belong to the owner of the land adjoining the highway. a penalty is imposed if these trees are defaced with advertisements or signs, and neither can they be cut down or destroyed. but just as you find legislatures differing in their opinions upon public matters, so you must expect them to differ more or less upon the feasibility of most any bill that is presented for their consideration. all kinds of arguments are made for and against any bill. i remember that one senator in the committee thought that trees planted along the highways bearing nuts or fruit would constantly be subject to a lot of tampering and molestation by the traveling public. but another senator came back with a reply that seemed to be very convincing, when he stated that he had a fine row of cherry trees growing along the front of his farm, and had never experienced any trouble of that kind from such a source. i have always felt that if the merits of a good bill were properly explained to a legislature committee, there will be no hesitancy in having it favorably reported out and finally passed. i believe the legislature of took this view of the tree planting bill introduced by myself, as it was passed by both the senate and the house, and later received the signature of governor sleeper, thus making it an established law of michigan. i must not forget to mention the fact that after this bill had been passed by the legislature and still needed the signature of the governor to make it a law, a number of michigan's representative and influential citizens wrote to governor sleeper, urging him to affix his signature thereto. among those was dr. j. h. kellogg of battle creek, who has more than a nation-wide reputation in his profession and is at present a strong factor in the success of this association. this law is intended not only to ornament the public highways of michigan, but also to furnish nut bearing and other food-producing trees that should assist materially in the problems incident to the high cost of living. it would seem that such a law should be duplicated in every state where practicable, and also be promoted by the national government upon national highways. the people of michigan recently voted to amend the state constitution so as to permit the issuance of $ , , . worth of bonds for the improvement of public highways. by the time that this large sum has been apportioned over a period of say ten years, and the road moneys furnished and expended during this time, as federal aid by the federal government, local counties and townships are added thereto, it has been estimated that the vast sum of nearly $ , , . will have been used solely for the improvement of our state highways. with a wonderful highway system thus established, beautifully adorned by the state with nut-bearing and other trees, the roads of michigan should become a great attraction in which our citizens would not only have a just pride, but serve as a model of excellence for the whole nation to imitate. mr. c. a. reed: mr. president, i would like to ask the senator what danger there is likely to be in the protection of these trees when they are once planted. is the tree going to have right of way, or is the telephone company going to have right of way in cutting out the top; or is a new bred consciousness going to have authority. if it is possible that the trees will be destroyed as many have been, perhaps the legislation may be changed in some way. suppose we want to give them good care, what are we going to do? senator penney: the law has a section in it providing for defacing and damaging the trees or cutting them down. i have a copy of the bill there. as my throat is in bad shape perhaps it might be well to have the secretary read the bill. it is not very long. mr. linton: in this connection i would also ask for the reading of the bill by the secretary. this is a bill that may be copied by other states throughout the union, and if there is any criticism that is just, in reason, for changing any of the features in the bill, they should be decided upon at this meeting or by a committee. because a uniform bill throughout the country is really something desirable, i think, in connection with this legislation. and i would add further: michigan does not have an entire monopoly of highway legislation at the present time, but is in a prominent position in connection therewith. the chairman of the committee on post offices and post roads of the united states senate is senator townsend, of this state. it is his bill that will cause the national highways to be constructed from ocean to ocean. senator townsend is one of our best beloved citizens; his heart is in this work; and i am sure from what i know of him (and he is a close friend of mine) that he will enter heartily into the spirit of embodying in national legislation something of the character that we have in state legislation in michigan so that it may apply to the whole country as well. and for that reason i would like to have the bill read. it is a short one, and any additions or any amendments thereto i know will be gladly received by senator penny or myself. mr. olcott: mr. president, i think that is one of the most important subjects that can come before this association; not only that, but the interest of every member should be enlisted particularly in this subject. the possibilities of the extension of that work are almost unlimited and directly in line with the objects of this organization. president reed: i am just wondering whether we would have time to have it read now, or postpone it to a little later. dr. kellogg is with us now. mr. bixby: this bill is very short. (read bill.) senate bill no. introduced by senator penney (file no. ) state of michigan th legislature regular session of senate enrolled act no. an act to regulate the planting of ornamental, nut bearing or other food producing trees along the highways of the state of michigan, or in public places, and for the maintenance, protection and care of such trees and to provide a penalty for injury thereof, or for stealing the products thereof. the people of the state of michigan enact section . the state highway commissioner and the state board of agriculture, acting jointly hereunder, shall have authority and it shall be their duty to select and plant by seed, scions or otherwise, ornamental, nut bearing, or other food producing trees, (to be supplied by the public domain commission, or the michigan agricultural college, as may be recommended or approved by the division of agriculture of said college,) suitable for shade trees, along the state trunk line highways and all other highways of the state of michigan, upon which state reward has been paid or earned: provided, that in no case shall such trees be planted except by and with the consent of the owner of the property adjoining such highway. the state highway commissioner shall establish rules and regulations for uniform planting or proper placing of all trees under the provisions of this act, and all such trees shall belong to the state, but the products thereof shall belong to the owners of the adjacent land. nothing herein contained shall authorize the state highway commissioner, or the state board of agriculture to cut down or interfere with shade trees now growing along any such highway, without permission in writing from the owner of the adjoining property. all expenses incurred in carrying out the provisions of this section shall be paid out of any moneys in the state highway fund that may be available therefor. section . counties, townships, cities and villages may annually appropriate money to be used in planting, pruning and protecting, and whenever necessary in acquiring shade, nut bearing and ornamental trees to be placed along and within the respective limits of said municipalities. the expenditure of any such fund shall be vested in the highway commissioner in the case of county roads, and in the proper highway authorities of the city or village as the case may be. section . the owner of any real estate in the state of michigan that borders upon a legal highway upon which state reward has not been paid, shall have the right to plant said approved ornamental, nut bearing, or other food producing trees along the line of said highway adjoining said land, and shall receive annually a credit of five cents upon his highway repair tax for each tree so planted by him and growing in good order, not less than six feet in height when planted and not less than twenty and not more than forty feet apart. all of said trees and their products shall belong to the owner of said land: provided, that no bounty shall be paid or deduction allowed under the provision of this section upon any one tree or row of trees for a longer period than five years. the owner of such trees shall have the care thereof and shall have the duty and responsibility for the trimming, spraying and cultivation thereof. section . the michigan agricultural college and public domain commission are hereby authorized to grow and acquire suitable seeds, scions or trees for planting under the provisions of this act, and to establish proper rules and regulations for distributing the same at nominal cost, or otherwise, to counties, townships, cities, villages, and citizens of the state for the aforesaid purpose, and also for state parks or other public places. section . it shall be unlawful to cut, destroy, injure, deface or break any ornamental, nut bearing, food producing or shade tree upon any public highway or place, except where such trees shall interfere with the proper construction or maintenance of such highways. it shall be unlawful to affix to any such tree any picture, announcement, play-bill, notice or advertisement, or to paint or mark such tree, except for the purpose of protecting it, or to negligently permit any animal to break down, injure or destroy any such tree within the limits of any public highway. any person violating any of the provisions of this act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not less than one dollar or more than twenty-five dollars, and in default of payment of any such fine may be imprisoned in the county jail for a period not exceeding thirty days. such person shall be liable to the owner of the trees for treble the amount of damages sustained. luren d. dickinson, lieutenant governor, president of the senate. tom reed, speaker of the house of representatives. approved, march , . albert e. sleeper, governor. mr. c. a. reed: mr. chairman, i _move_ that before adjournment the chairman appoint a committee of three members of this association to carefully review this bill and either report in favor of any suggestions that they may wish to make in regard to its amendment or give approval of the bill as it stands. mr. linton: i support the motion. president reed: it is moved and seconded that the chairman appoint a committee of three to carry out the recommendations. all in favor say aye; contrary, no. it is carried. senator penney: that law is adjusted to the laws of michigan and any other state proposed would have to adjust it to fit their laws. president reed: i would like to have mr. c. a. reed on that committee, mr. olcott and dr. morris. c. a. reed: then, mr. president, in addition to that we are going to take the liberty of adding an _ex officio_ member, mr. littlepage, an ex-president and also a good thoroughgoing nut. mr. jones: my understanding is the provision for six-ft. trees. six foot nut trees unless they have been transplanted several times will hardly succeed. i would say use small trees along the highway. president reed: i think that would need to be worked out. i think a six foot tree is a little dangerous in some varieties. the committee might find it wise to offer some suggestions in that line. voice: if you plant a tree six feet high, you are sure of having a tree there. president reed: i believe dr. kellogg is about ready now, and we will hear from dr. kellogg whom you are all acquainted with. the soy bean dr. j. h. kellogg, battle creek, michigan it is evident that the live stock industry is shriveling up. the livestock inhabitants of the country--the pigs, sheep and cattle--are much smaller in population at the present time than they were twenty-five or thirty years ago, and are getting smaller all the time. the price of meat is high and is going to continue to climb. it is away out of reach of the average laboring man even at the present time. i heard dr. charley mayo say at a clinic not long ago that meat is so high he could not afford to eat it and he didn't see how anybody could; and as a matter of fact, he didn't need it anyhow, and so we could easily get along without it. as a matter of fact, as mr. bill said some years ago it is not really so much the high cost of living as it is the cost of high living; and the use of meat is such an extravagant and expensive thing it is very important that people should know how to get along without meat. the experimenters of the agricultural experiment stations have shown us that it takes thirty-three pounds of dry digestible food substance to make one pound of beef-- or pounds to make a pound of beef, and or pounds to make a pound of mutton. seven pounds of digestible food substance will make a pound of dry milk. so we can readily see that there is an enormous waste of foodstuff. only about ten per cent of the corn raised is used for feeding human beings. the rest is fed to animals and a large part of it is wasted. so it is exceedingly important, it seems to me, that this nut industry should be encouraged in every way. a half million acres of nut trees well advanced and producing would produce all of the fat and more digestible fat, and all the protein and more digestible protein, than we are now using in the entire country. we are producing more than enough food in corn and other foodstuffs to feed nearly three times our present population, and most of it is wasted in the energy which the hog, the steer and other animals use up in running around and keeping warm. that is where the great loss comes. in nuts we have a choice foodstuff as digestible as any other foodstuff, and prof. torrey and prof. mendel and others who have recently made experiments have shown that the protein of the nut and the protein of vegetables in general is not so putrescible as the protein of meats. there are good reasons for it. it does not undergo putrefaction so readily any way, and besides meat carries along with it the bacteria which produce putrefaction. meat is the filthiest thing that goes upon our tables. if the number of bacteria in milk was as great as the number of bacteria in meat, nobody would think of eating it. if the bacteria in water were as numerous as in milk, no one would be willing to drink the water. it is a very curious thing that we permit in milk and in meat a condition of things we would not tolerate in air or water for a moment. every morsel of meat a person eats contains some billions of the bacteria of the very worst sort. bacteria found in meat are those which produce colitis, appendicitis, abscesses of the teeth and diseased conditions of the tonsils. they predispose to a good many infectious diseases of the intestine, and no doubt predispose to cancer. it is pretty well established at the present time that cancer is a disease of meat eating men and animals. about one cow in fifty has cancer, whereas every seventh dog taken to a hospital sick is found to have cancer. dr. mayo recently gathered some statistics on this matter, and he told me and some other doctors that dogs under eight years of age, every fourth one has cancer; every third one of dogs ten years of age has cancer, and half of all the dogs over twelve years of age have cancer and would die of it if left to themselves. these statements were based on laboratory animals that were killed when they were well and not sick, so the observation ought to be fairly reliable. i was to say particularly a few words about the soy bean. i am not going to try to tell you very much about it, because i do not know very much about it. if you want to learn all about it, you can easily do so by writing to mr. w. j. morse, of the bureau of plant industry, u. s. department of agriculture, washington, d. c. farmers' bulletin , one of the very best on this subject, tells all about the culture of this exceedingly useful legume. the soy bean is really the beefsteak of china and japan. in those oriental countries, soy beans have been used for centuries. it is more nearly like a nut than a bean. perhaps i better show you the pictures first, and then have the curtains raised so we can get a better inspection of the beans. the composition of the soy bean is very remarkably different from that of the ordinary bean. it contains forty per cent of fat, on the average and about forty per cent of protein--sometimes more than forty per cent. the protein is sixty per cent more than in our best ordinary foods; and the fat is five or six times as much as that found in the ordinary bean. a thousand different varieties of the soy bean have been gathered by the bureau of plant industry of the department of agriculture at washington. five hundred of these varieties have been tested, and thirty or forty of them have been found to be adapted to this country, and very useful. you can see in this picture the great mass of pods to be found growing on the plant. this slide shows how unusually well they grow in the field. you can see the pods scattered all through the plant. a large part of the foliage is made up of pods. this is one of our own fields of the beans that we raised this year. it is rather difficult to raise the bean in this latitude, because it requires a long time to mature. it requires about days for some varieties. we have, however, a variety we raised here that we got from the agricultural department of ontario. we found it matured very well indeed in days. we planted the bean here the first week in may and harvested it the first week in september; so its season was about days. i found this particular bean was new to the agricultural department at washington, and have sent them some of the seed, and i think they are going to make some trial of it. this is a view of a field of the hahto variety which is a particularly fine variety for use as a shelled bean. in china the soy bean is very little used as we use beans. they do not cook the bean and eat it as we do; but instead they make it into a cheese which they call tofu, and this cheese is made by soaking the beans, grinding them into a pulp, then boiling for ten or fifteen minutes with about five volumes of water; then the milky mass is precipitated with sulphate of magnesia or citric acid, a very small amount because they use it as a curd. i have here a sample of the curd which i will pass around in a moment for you to see. this picture shows this curd pressed in large cakes. the soy bean curd is stored on wooden trays in a dark room. it is also stored in large earthen jars. they cure it and make cheese out of it which very closely resembles our american milk cheese. they also use the beans for sprouting. the bean lacks only two things. it lacks lime and the fat-soluble vitamines. it contains a considerable amount of the fat-soluble vitamines. it is one of the very few seeds that is found to contain a sufficient amount of the fat-soluble vitamine to promote growth, so that animals will grow and develop normally on the bean alone without any other sort of fat-soluble vitamine. if the bean is sprouted, a large amount of this fat-soluble vitamine is produced by the plant itself. this is also found to be a valuable means of preventing scurvy--by sprouting the beans in this way and using the sprouts as a salad. the sprouts are used as a green vegetable. it is an easy way of getting green vegetables at any season of the year. it takes the place of ordinary greens. here is a courtyard full of pots in which the fermented soy beans are placed. this is a very interesting scheme they have for making a substitute for meat extract. by this means they prepare an extract which closely resembles extract of beef. in fact, it is rather a finer flavored product than meat extracts. it is made by first cooking the beans, spreading them out in the yard on trays and allowing a fungus to grow, and after two or three weeks the whole mass is put into pots of brine in the yard and allowed to remain there for a year or more, and at the end of that time the brine has become soy sauce. this shows a mass of soy roots. it has been suggested it might be very useful to nut growers as a means of fertilizing the soil, a crop which will fertilize the soil for the trees and at the same time give a valuable return for the labor and expense. the little nodules on the roots are very numerous and show well here. they produce nitrogen, concentrated nitrogen from the air as do the nodules on the roots of alfalfa. the _scientific american_ recently stated that the soy bean is one of the most promising of vegetables. it provides food for man and beast. given enough soy beans and granted the art of preparing them so that they might be served as food having sufficient diversity and palatableness, neither meat nor fish nor fat would be needed. in this respect the germans did not prepare for war. if they had had the soy bean industry well developed it might have helped them through, and the map of the world might have been seriously changed from what it now is. i think one of the finest of the soy beans is the hahto variety. they grow one or two in a pod. i saw some of these beans in the market in jerusalem forty years ago. when about three quarters grown and used as shelled beans they are exceedingly palatable. if at the dinner table today you will call for a soy bean omelet, you will be quite surprised. dr. morris tried it this morning and was kind enough to say it was the finest he ever ate. the soy bean is the best of a large part of the cookery of the orient. we have been introducing it here the last few months, and it is very palatable, very digestible, and our patients like it very much. if you are interested in the soy bean, write, to w. j. morse, or to the agricultural department, bureau of plant industry, and they will give you a lot of interesting information about it. in starting the planting of the bean, it is necessary to inoculate the soil as in the starting of a planting of alfalfa. president reed: mr. bixby has prepared a paper on "judging nuts" which there is not now time for him to read. it will be inserted in the proceedings at this point. judging nuts willard g. bixby, baldwin, nassau co., n. y. that there are differences in nuts is apparent to everybody. the selecting of the best nuts out of a lot of two or three usually presents no difficulty, and, when the number of nuts to be judged amounts to a dozen or so, it is generally possible to pick out the best, but, when one has before him nuts from several hundred trees, the problem becomes a very different one, and the person who tries to pick out the best from such a lot soon becomes aware of his own limitations. if, in addition, he has sufficient respect for consistency to try to be so exact in his judgment as to be able to go over a large lot of nuts today, we will say, and several months hence go over the same lot again and render the same verdict on each one of them, he will doubtless give the matter up as an impossibility, and yet that is just what is wanted and expected of those who judge the nuts which are sent in to the annual contests, which contests have resulted in bringing to the attention of the nut growing world the nuts of so many fine trees. the experience of the last two or three years in being one of the judges who passed on the nuts which were sent in to the contests convinced me, almost at the start, of the desirability of getting methods where it would be possible to go over a large lot of nuts now and several months hence, and render the same verdict on each one of them, but now how to do it was not at first apparent, and the methods for doing it which will be outlined are the results of much work, many attempts, and the discarding of many of the methods tried. considering the methods used in judging fruit, animals and fowl has helped to some extent, but this assistance did not go far. the beginning of improved methods of judging any of the above, is the establishment of a score card, as it is called, which is nothing more than an enumeration of the characteristics and a decision as to the relative value of each one. usually the values assigned to each characteristic are such that when added up the total will be points. score cards of this character are in general use. the first attempt to make a score card for use in judging the nuts to which the northern nut growers' association gives its attention, so so far as i am aware, was that of a committee of the northern nut growers' association, which reported at the fifth annual meeting at evansville, ind., , and which report will be found on page of the report of that meeting. prof. e. r. lake was chairman of the committee. the score card for butternuts, black walnuts and hickories which it recommended is noted below: general values points size form color shell values thinness cracking kernel values color plumpness flavor quality ___ total this score card has served as a basis for all the work that has been done in judging nuts since that work has largely fallen to me. it was early found desirable, however, to change the score card in one or two respects, and it has since been changed two or three times as the experience gained in judging nuts saw it was desirable. the score card now in use is noted below: general values weight form color shell values husking quality thinness cracking quality kernel values color proportion of kernel quality and flavor ___ total the first time one attempts to judge a large number of nuts whether with the aid of such a score card as that proposed by prof. lake's committee or without it, he gets into practical difficulties at once. these difficulties are not with the score card but in its use. take for example the characteristic, size, the first one on prof. lake's score card. how can a person tell from the nuts of a hundred hickory trees which is the largest and which is the smallest and which are intermediate; in short how can he arrange them in order of size, the largest at one end of the line and the smallest at the other with a uniform graduation in between. anyone who tries to do such a thing quickly finds that it is impossible to do this correctly if one has only his eye to aid him in determining size. the inability to do so quickly becomes apparent if a person tries to arrange such a lot of nuts in order of size at one time and then several days later tries to arrange the same lot of nuts in order of size again. it is almost certain that they will not get arranged the same both times. the differences between the nuts are usually so minute, and, what is more important, the difficulties of correctly estimating size by the eye alone are so great that it is practically impossible to do it. an expert on this point can do it of course much better than one who is not, but even the expert is only too well aware of his limitations and of the impossibility of properly doing the above. the same difficulty is apparent with every characteristic on the list and while judging by experts with the aid of a score card, is, so far as i am aware, the method used in judging fruit, farm animals, poultry, etc., the crudeness of this method is only too evident to the experts themselves. two or three years ago it seemed very far inferior to what actually measuring these characteristics would be, although such measurement at first seemed difficult, not to say almost impossible. much work has been done on this, and it is very gratifying to say that this measurement has been found possible to an extent that was not dreamed of before the work was started. before outlining the methods worked out to do this a little discussion will be given on prof. lake's score card, the characteristics which it pointed out, and the reason shown for changing some of them. size is a characteristic which is apparent to everyone, yet the actual measurement of size in the case of a large lot of nuts presents difficulties which seem practically insurmountable. a serious attempt was made to measure the length, breadth and height of the nuts examined and gauges were made which should do this exactly and quickly. these were finely discarded and the characteristic "weight" adopted in place of size. this has to quite an extent replaced size in considering farm products. when we used to buy potatoes by the bushel we used to get a bushel basket full, now we get the legal weight of a bushel of potatoes and instances of this kind might be multiplied almost indefinitely. while weight and size are not exactly the same thing, yet they are so to a large extent in the case of a given commodity, such as nuts of one species, and weight can be accurately and rapidly determined. plumpness is another characteristic which we all understand as far as the difference between a nut with a plump well filled kernel is concerned, and one with a shriveled up kernel, but when it comes to arranging the kernels of a lot of nuts in order of their plumpness, the one who tries to do it becomes ready to give up before he really gets started. it was found that the ratio of the weight of kernel to the weight of the entire nut which is termed "proportion of kernel" was never large in the case of a nut with shriveled kernel. it was small in the case of a nut with a thick shell and a plump well filled kernel, but, as stated above it was never large in the case of a nut with a shriveled kernel and a good deal of work on the subject convinced me that the characteristic "proportion of kernel" could be very well substituted for plumpness. there seemed at the present time little use for separating flavor and quality as there seemed to be some question as to what was intended by the terms separately and so they were considered together. i would like to state here that little consideration has so far been given as to whether the number of points awarded for each characteristic are such as to cause the nut that will ultimately be considered of most value commercially to get the first prize or not. the score card of prof. lake's seemed so good that it was thought far more important at present to develop methods of measuring these characteristics. a careful study of the nuts sent in to the contests, it was thought, would point out most parts of the score card where improvement could be made, and this has already proved to be so to a considerable extent. the methods of quantitatively measuring the different characteristics and determining the number of points to be awarded for each will be outlined one at a time. weight: this is determined by an accurate scale, one weighing to / gram was used, and the same scale was used directly or indirectly for determining six out of the nine characteristics considered. in determining weight, five average nuts (as far as could be determined by appearance) were weighed and the average weight determined. having at hand the weights of the largest and smallest nuts of the species under examination, the largest nut was awarded points and the smallest and the nuts of intermediate weight were awarded intermediate figures. the method of doing this will best be seen by taking a specific instance e. g. the lutz black walnut, the average weight of which is . g. the alley black walnut, the average weight of which is . g is the smallest good black walnut which has come to our attention, while the armknecht black walnut which weighs . g is the largest one of which we know. the armknecht black walnut would be awarded points for weight and the alley points and a table would be made up for use in determining the number of points to be awarded for intermediate weights as noted below: black walnuts--weight heaviest armknecht . grams; lightest alley . grams. weight of nut. points. grams and less than grams " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " after the average weight of five nuts of a given variety has been determined, an inspection of the table shows at a glance the number of points to be awarded for weight, which, in the case of the lutz black walnut, is . in case a nut should be entered which was very much larger or smaller than provided for, the table can be extended for use temporarily. the table, however, should be revised before being used the next year. for example, had a nut come in weighing . grams this might have been awarded points, and had one weighing . grams come in this would have been awarded- point in order to give each nut full credit, for excellence in size or to penalize it for lack of it. it will be noticed that by the method outlined the size of a nut is determined exactly and the same number of points for size (or weight) would be awarded today, next week, next month, or next year, barring of course real changes, e. g. those caused by actual loss of moisture, etc. form: it was only recently that a method of measuring this characteristic has been suggested and this has been tried out only experimentally. by form is meant attractive appearing shape which has been held to be absence of hollows, ridges, angles, etc. a round, smooth nut would be held to have perfect form in distinction from nuts that are rough and full of ridges or edges. the only method of measuring that has been suggested and which it is believed will work out satisfactorily is to first select an average nut and weigh, then fill up the hollows in the surface of the nut with wax just covering the ridges till the surface is smooth, and weigh. this will give the weight of the nut plus the weight of the wax needed to fill up the hollows on the surface. as the specific gravity of the wax is / that of the nut the figure actually used is weight of nut plus / weight of the wax, which gives the weight of a nut of the size of the sample with the hollows in the shell filled up or the weight of a nut of perfect form of the size of the sample. the measurement of form is then the weight of the average nut divided by the weight of a nut of the same size of perfect shape, that is without hollows or ridges. a measurement of form of a black walnut gave the following: weight of nut . grams weight of nut and wax . " weight of wax . " weight of - wax . " weight of nut and - wax . " form . ÷ . = . % when a nut has perfect form there will be no hollows to fill and no wax will be needed and the weight of nut and / of the wax will be the same as the weight of the nut and therefore its form figure will be %. the number of points to be awarded for any measurement of form would be determined by making up a table as was made up for awarding points for weight, but such a table cannot be made up till after an examination of form values for a large number of nuts. this will be done later. color: the color of shell was measured by making up samples of water colors of all gradations of color between the lightest shell and the darkest. from these, five were selected as showing in five steps the differences noted, the lightest being marked , the next and so on down to the darkest which was marked . with these color standards in front of the one judging, it was only necessary to take the nut to be judged and lay it on the standards of color and the figure on the shade which the nut most nearly matched was the figure awarded for color. husking quality: this represents the ease with which the husk can be removed. in view of the well known fact that husks of all nuts do not come off with equal facility the need of such is apparent. its measurement will be the proportion of husk removed by a standard husking operation. thinness of shell: this was measured by providing a means for bringing two metal surfaces together, keeping them always parallel. the nut to be cracked was placed between these surfaces and an arrangement of scale levers provided so that the pressure exerted on the nut could be weighed. the surfaces were brought together till the nut was cracked and the pressure required was noted. this measures the thinness of the shell or more properly the strength of the shell, the weakest shell of course being the one that takes the least pressure to crack. this pressure was measured in kilograms for by doing so it was possible to utilize some stock apparatus. after the pressure required to crack has been noted a reference to the table below will tell the number of points to be awarded. we will take for an example the the same nut as taken to illustrate weight e. g. the lutz black walnut whose average cracking pressure is kg and which therefore would be awarded points for thinness of shell. in this connection it should be stated that this table would seem not to be made out on the plan followed heretofore by taking the thinnest shelled nut of which we know, the alley, as the low limit of the table. while the alley black walnut takes the least cracking pressure of any we know which we can identify as from a particular tree, one black walnut was cracked which i believe came from the ten eyck tree which had a cracking pressure below kg and hence the table was made of sufficient extent to include this. it is my intention to get additional ten eyck nuts this year and check the matter up. black walnuts--thinness of shell weight required to crack: thinnest, alley kg; thickest, triplett kg. weight in kg. points and less than and less than and less than and less than and less than and less than and less than and less than and less than and less than +-------------------------------------------------------+ |transcribers note: point was missing in the original.| +-------------------------------------------------------+ cracking quality: this characteristic is perhaps the one which seems to most people the most difficult to measure, but, while it was some time before methods of measuring it did occur to anyone, its measurement is effected very easily. in cracking nuts a part of the kernel will usually drop right out, some times it is a large part, occasionally all, and sometimes it is but a small portion. a perfect cracker is one where the entire kernel drops out after cracking. this would have % cracking quality. when / of the kernel drops out after cracking and the remaining / can be extracted only by recracking or by picking out, the nut is said to have % cracking quality. in other words, the cracking quality is the ratio of the weight of the kernel which drops out after cracking to the entire kernel. the operations of determining cracking quality in practice are first, selecting five average nuts; second, cracking them and weighing the part of the kernels which drop out after cracking; third, extracting the balance of the kernels and getting the weight of all the kernels; fourth, dividing the weight of the part of the kernels which drop out after cracking by the total weight of the kernels, and the result is the cracking quality. after an examination of the figures of a large number of nuts, the table below was made up from which the number of points to be awarded for any given cracking quality is readily obtained. taking the lutz black walnut as an example again we find that the weight of the kernels which dropped out after cracking was grams while the total weight of kernels was . grams which gives a cracking quality of . % which would be awarded points for cracking quality. black walnuts--cracking quality percentage of kernel that drops out after cracking. highest, alley[ ], %; lowest, butler, . %. cracking quality. points. % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % % and all higher percentages under % color of kernel: this is determined in the same way as the color of the shell by comparing with a standard color scale, and the step of the scale whose color most nearly matches the color of the kernel being examined gives the figure to be awarded. proportion of kernel: this is the ratio of the weight of the kernels of five average nuts to the entire weight of such average nuts. after this has been determined a comparison with the table below which was made up after an examination of the proportion of kernel of a large number of nuts, the number of points to be awarded is readily determined. if we take for example the lutz black walnuts again we find the weight of five average nuts . grams and the weight of the kernels of these nuts . grams which gives for the proportion of kernel . % which would be awarded points. black walnuts--proportion of kernel ratio of weight of kernel to weight of entire nut (without husk) highest, ten eyck . %; lowest, seefeldt, %. percent of kernel. points % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % % and less than % quality and flavor: absolutely no progress has so far been made in measuring this characteristic or more correctly these characteristics for, strictly speaking, there are a number of them instead of one and the only method available at present is tasting by experts. it is very much to be desired that methods for measuring this be worked out and several lines on which to work in order to accomplish it have been thought of but as yet no definite progress has been made. while the characteristic as yet unmeasured is one of the most important and most difficult even for experts to estimate correctly when there are large numbers of nuts to be examined, the fact that it is possible to measure the other eight is a matter of a good deal of satisfaction and this satisfaction is the greater because with the methods that have been worked out it is possible for any ordinarily careful person to do the work about as well as it is for an expert and, as the work of judging a large number of nuts is very considerable, the elimination of a large part of the need for expert services is very gratifying. the services for example of such experts as dr. morris and capt. deming are obtainable only occasionally and for a short period. now that the nuts sent in are rapidly increasing, it would have been impossible to have handled the contests without some improvements in the methods used. while the same score card has been used for butternuts, black walnuts, and hickories it seemingly can be used quite well for english walnuts, japan walnuts and pecans also, in short, for all nuts belonging to the botanical family juglandaceae and perhaps for hazels. separate ones will evidently be required for beechnuts, and chestnuts. the tables for determining the number of points to be awarded for a given value of any characteristic are likely to vary for each species. inasmuch as there are fourteen species of hickories exclusive of the pecan that have to be considered and apparently even more species of walnuts not to mention beechnuts, chestnuts and hazels, one might think that nearly tables would be required. a study of the matter, however, has shown that the number really needed is very much less, and the more that nuts are examined the more it seems possible to make one table answer for a number of species and have the number of points a nut receives indicate to a certain extent its value as a nut to grow, and not simply the value of a given variety of a certain species. the hickories and the walnuts require a word in passing. there are at least nine species of hickory either native in the northeastern united states or that will grow there and it is quite possible that further study of the hickories will add to this number. seven of these belong to the scale bud class, _eucarya_, the shagbark, _carya ovata_, the shellbark, _carya laciniosa_, the scaly bark, _carya carolinae-septentrionalis_, the mockernut, _carya alba_, and the close-bark pignut, _carya glabra_, the loose-bark pignut, _carya-ovalis_, and the pallid hickory, _carya pallida_; while two belong to the open bud class, _apocarya_, the pecan, _carya pecan_, and the bitternut, _carya cordiformis_. hybrids between many of these species are found occurring naturally and seemingly hybrids between any two are possible, and the fact of many of them being hybrids is not evident on an inspection of the nuts. it is a noteworthy fact that quite a proportion of fine hickories that are being propagated are evidently hybrids and the number of our fine hickories which are evidently hybrids increases as they are studied more carefully. in many ways it would be desirable in the contest to offer prizes for the best nuts of each species of hickories, but the difficulty of determining the species from the nut alone, and the fact of such a proportion of our finest nuts being hybrids is sufficient to discourage the attempt. what was done in the contest, and what would seem to be the best thing that can be done is to offer the prizes for hickory nuts simply. most of the prizes are taken by shagbarks but when a nut not a shagbark gets into the prize winning class, we make a class that would include it. for example, in the contest, three shellbarks and one mockernut came into the prize winning class, whereupon a special lot of prizes for shellbarks and mockernuts were given. this enables us to do what would be accomplished in offering prizes for best nuts of each species of hickories. the same score card and tables therefore are used for each of these species. it is convenient, in judging nuts, to differentiate between the pecan on the one hand and the other hickories on the other, although study recently put on the matter would seem to show that this distinction is not exact and that some nuts, for example, which apparently are pure pecans are really pecan hickory hybrids. the differences between the structure of the shell of the nuts of certain of the walnuts is greater than between the shell structure of the hickories and the walnuts may be divided into three classes. hybrids between a number of species are found which have been formed naturally, and seemingly hybrids between all species are possible. it is convenient in judging nuts to differentiate between english walnuts, black walnuts, and butternuts, which nuts are representative of the three walnut classes and to include with the butternuts, the japan walnuts. this will strike many people as a strange classification, i. e. to include the butternut and japan walnut, but i feel sure that no one who has given the matter much study will so consider it. whenever the two grow in proximity they hybridize so freely that one may be almost certain of not getting pure species if he plants nuts and raises seedlings. indeed i have received many such hybrids which have been called either butternuts or japan walnuts. as a matter of fact the same difficulty exists in distinguishing butternuts and japan walnuts that exists in distinguishing hickories. there is no name which includes the butternut and japan walnut as there is to include the various species of hickories, and, as such a name is urgently needed, i have used the word "butterjaps." this includes butternuts, japan walnuts and hybrids between them. while it doubtless will be convenient to continue the names butternut and japan walnut it should be understood that usually they will mean simply nuts which, as far as appearance is concerned, would seem to be one or the other, but very likely may be hybrids between the two species and might be more properly called by some name e. g. "butterjaps," which would include the two species and hybrids between them. at this point the convention took a recess to enable a photograph to be taken and immediately after reassembled for a business session. footnote: [ ] an additional lot of alley black walnuts received several months after the one entered in the contest did not show % cracking quality. business session president w. c. reed in the chair president reed: if mr. patterson is in the room, we will be glad to hear from him at this time. he has a matter he wants to bring before us. mr. patterson: mr. president and gentlemen: the national nut growers association for some three years have had a standing committee on federal aid for the nut industry. two years ago through the instrumentality of that committee, the appropriation for investigational work was increased by some fifteen thousand dollars from the previous appropriation. the total appropriation along this line now is thirty thousand to thirty-five thousand dollars. during the past year the almond growers felt the need of some encouragement and help from the department of agriculture, and the last appropriation was increased but was not made specific for the pecan industry, but for the nut industry in general in the united states which was entirely agreeable to the pecan people. and now i appear before you especially to call your attention to this movement and to suggest that this association should appoint a committee to co-operate with a committee from the national nut growers' association and the almond growers' association, and the nut growers of washington and oregon in an effort to secure an appropriation from the department of agriculture which would commensurate with the needs of the great nut industry in the united states. as we all know, it is entirely in its infancy as a commercial proposition and i doubt not we all agree as to its wonderful possibilities. the recommendation from the secretary of the department of agriculture has gone to the house committee this year without any increase over the appropriation of last year; so that it will be necessary if any increased allowance is made, that pressure shall be brought to bear upon the house committee of agriculture, or the senate committee (the bill is before the house committee at present), to get them to appreciate the importance of this appropriation. i might say i am on my way to washington now to see if i can do anything in co-operation with the california almond growers association and such other co-operation as we can get to see if we can get an increase in the appropriation over and above the appropriation recommended by the secretary of agriculture. the secretary is not opposed to a higher appropriation, but he has had orders from higher up not to recommend any increase. i thank you for the privilege of bringing this matter to the attention of the association with the suggestion that, if it meets with your approval you appoint a committee to co-operate with the other committees already appointed by these other associations. president reed: you have heard the suggestion by mr. patterson. are there any remarks? mr. bixby: i move, mr president, that a committee on federal aid be appointed for that purpose, to co-operate with the other associations for the purpose of securing for the nut industry an appropriation sufficient or at least somewhere near sufficient for the work in hand. there is much work to be done that should be done now. mr. olcott: i second the motion, mr. president. president reed: you have heard the motion. it is moved that a committee be appointed for this work, as suggested. all in favor of the motion say aye. contrary same sign. it is carried. i think it would be well to leave that committee to the incoming president. that was your idea, mr. bixby, was it? mr. bixby: i didn't think that far. president reed: that won't be far off, and i think it would be well to leave the appointment of that committee to the incoming president. i think also, it would be well, before appointing that committee, to confer a little bit to see who could possibly attend, could go to washington, and would have the time to give to it. president reed: we will now have the report of the nominating committee. report of the nominating committee your committee on nominations, having in mind the rapidly expanding interest in nut culture and the need of the northern nut growers association for a board of officers especially equipped for extending development on broad lines, respectfully submit the following nominations: _for president_--william s. linton, saginaw, michigan. _for vice-president_--james s. mcglennon, rochester, new york. _for secretary-treasurer_--willard g. bixby, baldwin, new york. _for acting secretary_--dr. w. c. deming, wilton, connecticut. _for executive committee_--messrs. linton, mcglennon, bixby, w. c. reed, and j. russell smith. (signed) ralph t olcott james s. mcglennon robert t morris william s. linton j. f. jones mr. olcott: secretary-treasurer bixby has suggested that the work of his office be divided, he to look after the financial affairs and the nut contests, dr. deming to assume the work of the secretary proper. the constitution provides that the three principal officers and the last two retiring presidents be the executive committee. as the constitution specifically provides regarding this matter, the committee suggests the position of acting secretary for dr. deming until such action may be taken as will conform to the constitution. president reed: you have heard the report of the committee. what is your pleasure? mr. c. a. reed: i move that this report of the committee be unanimously adopted and the officers be elected, and the secretary so cast the ballot. mr. smedley: i second the motion. president reed: all in favor of that vote say aye. opposed, no. carried. i hereby instruct the secretary to cast the unanimous ballot of the association for the list of officers as read. the secretary then cast a ballot for the persons on the report of the nominating committee, and declared the following elected: _president_--william s. linton, saginaw, mich. _vice-president_--james s. mcglennon, rochester, n. y. _secretary-treasurer_--willard g. bixby, baldwin, new york. _executive committee_--the above three and w. c. reed, vincennes, ind., and j. russell smith, swarthmore, penn. _acting secretary_--dr. w. c. deming, wilton, conn. president reed: in regard to the change in the constitution, that will have to go over until next year. mr. olcott: the constitution provides that notice be given to this convention for action to be taken a year from now; or that thirty days before action is taken, the notice be sent to the members. it seems to me that inasmuch as the action proposed is fully understood, that dr. deming is available, and mr. bixby kindly consented while dr. deming was tied up in the war work to look after this work, that there really is enough for two, and as both are agreeable, this is the time to take that action to become effective a year from now unless you can bring it about quicker. president reed: i should think it is only necessary to take the action on that. if there is some one better posted on parliamentary law, who thinks entire action better be taken at this time, i will entertain a motion. if not, we will let it stand as it is at present. mr. olcott: i move that it is the sentiment of this convention, and that the members should be notified through the annual report and the regular proceedings, that that action is contemplated--to divide the office of secretary-treasurer at the next annual meeting, and that the constitution be changed as follows: that article iv, _officers_, be changed as follows: there shall be a president, a vice-president, a treasurer and a secretary, who shall be elected at the annual meeting; and an executive committee of six persons of which the president, two last retiring presidents, vice-president, treasurer and secretary shall be members. there shall be a state vice-president from each state, dependency, or county represented in the membership of the association, who shall be appointed by the president. that article vii, _quorum_, be changed as follows: ten members of the association shall constitution a quorum, but must include a majority of the executive committee, or two of the four elected officers. voice: i second the motion. president reed: it is moved and seconded that this matter come up at the next annual meeting to be voted on as presented by mr. olcott. all in favor say aye; opposed, no. carried. i believe we have a report of the auditing committee that should come up. mr. c. a. reed: mr. chairman, i believe i am the sole member of the auditing committee who is present. i have to report that the committee has not acted, but i think we can do this if agreeable: if you will leave it to the committee to audit the account, and if the committee finds the account is not accurate, to report to that effect next year and bring mr. bixby to time, then; otherwise say nothing about it. president reed: i think we are willing to do it on that basis. mr. secretary, are there any other things that ought to come up that you think of? mr. bixby: i have a resolution here if this is in order now. this resolution is sent from mr. littlepage. "whereas this association is justly jealous of its character and standing among the nut-growing public of this western continent and especially among the northern nut culturists, amateur or professional; and "whereas this association views with distrust and some alarm the growing and questionable practice of selling seedling pecan trees to the general public; and "whereas it developed at a recent meeting of the southern nurserymen's association held at atlanta, georgia, that seedling pecan trees from the gulf states were being distributed in the territory north of the ohio river; and "whereas this practice, if continued, will work a distinct disadvantage to the industry in general as well as to the planters in particular; "therefore be it resolved, that this association now and here vigorously record its view on this question as follows: that we protest against the above named practice and urge upon the nurserymen of the united states the importance of discouraging the practice of planting seedling pecan trees for orchard purposes in particular; and further that especially shall extreme caution be used to prevent the shipment of southern seedling pecan trees for planting in the territory north of the ohio and potomac rivers, and further be it "resolved, that the secretary communicate a _copy_ of these resolutions to the president of the american association of nurserymen with the request that his organization take cognizance of this condition and take such steps as are compatible with its authority and sentiment to repress such reprehensible practice on the part of the american nursery trade." i will introduce this as a resolution. voice: i second the motion. president reed: you have heard the resolution which has been seconded. are there any remarks? mr. c. a. reed: i would like to add a word of explanation. there are only two or three nurserymen in the south engaged in that practice. there are several northern men who are in the nursery business in the south who have raised the question as to the propriety of that practice, and the question has been discussed at the meetings of this southern association with a good deal of heat and vigor. the southern people will not plant seedling pecan trees at all, but these few nurserymen do a few hundred dollars' worth of business every year by sending their product to big nurseries here in the north, general fruit-tree nurseries and they in turn distribute these trees through the north. these northern friends of ours who are now in the south, put through a resolution asking that the matter be discussed at their meeting this year at atlanta, the meeting held in august, by myself representing the department of agriculture. i was unable to be present, but i sent down a paper which was read by my associate in the office, and he tells us that ninety per cent of the southern nurserymen were with us in opposing that practice; that it is only those two or three and their associates who practice it. and it is as a result of that situation that this resolution has been proposed. prof. lake, secretary of the american pomological society, has been in the south working on pecans and is quite familiar with the situation, and he drew up this resolution. it is something that by all means should be stopped if possible. the southern pecan does not succeed in the north anyhow, and even it did, we do not want the kind of pecan tree up here that the southerners would not plant themselves. president reed: are you ready for the question? all in favor of adopting the resolution as read, say aye. contrary, same sign. it is so carried. mr. c. a. reed: i would like to suggest that a copy of these resolutions be sent to the secretary of the southern nurserymen's association, mr. o. joe howard, hickory, n. c. mr. bixby: i have a telegram from mr. littlepage which i will read. "i regret exceedingly it is impossible to attend the meeting this year. signed, t. p. littlepage." mr. j. f. jones: i make a motion that dr. walter van fleet be made an honorary member of this association for his valuable work in nut culture and hybridizing. mr. olcott: i second the motion. president reed: it has been moved and seconded that dr. walter van fleet be made an honorary member of this association for his valuable work in nut culture. all in favor say aye. contrary, no. it is carried. mr. bixby: the place of the next meeting is decided before the meeting adjourns, i think, or else provision made for it. president reed: as i understand it, it is either decided or you vote to put it in the hands of the executive committee. mr. bixby: provision in some way is made for it. on that subject i would like to say a word. we have an invitation from mr. littlepage, and in considering the place of the meeting there were really three different locations spoken of--one washington, d. c., one new york city or some point near there, and one lancaster, pa. heretofore we have practically decided the place of the meeting on consideration of being able to see near there nut trees of interest. i think every meeting has been decided with that idea in mind. this year each of the three places offered promise of being very attractive in a year or two, but not in . in the case of the meeting at washington, we could see mr. littlepage's orchard of pecans, thirty acres in extent, which year before last put out a few flowers, and this year quite a number, and he expects nuts next year. there are also the many things to be seen around washington,--the department of agriculture, and dr. van fleet's work besides a number of other things. and at lancaster, pa., there has been a chance the past year to see some remarkable work on top worked hickories, that is, the early bearing of crops of fine nuts. then again very soon on capt. deming's place at georgetown, conn., is going to be the greatest opportunity for topworked hickories anywhere to be seen. he has more young seedling hickories top worked to fine varieties than any one else that i know of. as a matter of suggestion it would seem to me well--this is only a suggestion, of course--that the matter be left with the executive committee, and next spring or summer when it is possible to get an idea as to which of these three places offers the most to see in the line of nut trees, then they could decide where it is best to go. that would be the suggestion that i would make. mr. mcglennon: one of the suggestions was rochester, n. y. i think there are things worth while there in nut culture to be seen, and i know that we who are interested in nut culture would like to have the convention there; and i know also our chamber of commerce in the city would be very happy to have it there. so that in considering the place for the next meeting, i hope rochester, n y., will be incorporated in the thought. mr. pomeroy: mr. president, i would also suggest you might come to lockport, n. y. out northeast of buffalo there were shipped eighteen hundred pounds of walnuts to the buffalo market this fall. north of lockport is a man who supplies the country stores with english walnuts. as long as there are any of these walnuts in the baskets exposed for sale, those which were purchased from the wholesalers from california are left unsold. i went into one store and the store-keeper had some home grown english walnuts out in the back room. i said, "why do you keep them out here?" he said, "i have three bushels of california walnuts, and i keep these here until the others are sold. if i put these out in front, i would not sell the others at all." mr. bixby: i would be glad to include rochester, or lockport, or any other place suggested, and leave it to the executive committee with the power to act. mr. c. a. reed: mr. president, we know pretty nearly what could be seen at most of these places next year. there is not going to be a great change in what there has been this year, and it seems to me the sooner we can definitely decide upon this thing and get it a matter of record, and plan for it, the better it will be. we can go around from one place to another. we want to go to all these places during the next three or four years, and we have a definite invitation from mr. littlepage; and while he didn't so state in his telegram, in conversation with him on friday by telephone, he said he would like to have them come there the latter part of august or first of september; and to make the matter definite and know where we stand early in the game, i move we accept mr. littlepage's invitation for a meeting about the first of september. mr. olcott: i second that motion, and add that at the stamford convention, that is the very argument i made. before that meeting it had always been left to the executive committee. it had been the custom of dr. deming, the secretary, to defer the matter of the place of meeting until a few weeks before the date for it. nobody knew, and the committee decided, and the time was too short to get anything like the attendance we should have. if we should publish in the american nut journal for a year where the meeting is to be, you would get a year's advertising of that matter, and could plan better thereby. president reed: you have heard the motion. mr. bixby: the only reason i had in making the suggestion i did, was the possibility of one place or the other showing more importance but as mr. reed said, we want to do all these places mentioned at some time. it does not make much difference which we do first. we should like to take first the place where there is most to be seen, of course. president reed: if there is no further discussion, all in favor of accepting mr. littlepage's invitation for washington for the next meeting say aye. contrary, no. it is carried. j. f. jones: the reason i did not push lancaster is that some experiments on spraying are being conducted there and it will be a year before that will show up. the nut growers could see that better the year following. president reed: if there is nothing else, i believe we are ready to turn over the gavel to our new president. mr. c. a. reed: mr. president, there is an important committee you have not appointed. i was out of the room when mr. patterson suggested this morning that a committee be appointed. has that been attended to? president reed: i expected to let the incoming president appoint that committee before we adjourn. mr. smedley: i will make a motion that mr. patterson represent us and have the endorsement of this association as to demanding more appropriations for the work in hand. j. f. jones: i second the motion. president reed: it is moved and seconded that mr. patterson be appointed to represent us before congress in connection with the appropriation. mr. patterson: if everyone on the committee could go to washington as soon as we can get at the house committee for a hearing, that would be the way to get action on the matter. of course, the endorsement of the association is good, and if you could get a committee of some one who could go down and help re-enforce it, there, we would appreciate it very much. president reed: i think the incoming president will be one who will be going down. if he will come forward, i am ready to turn over the gavel. at this point, mr. linton, the newly elected president, took the chair. president linton: ladies and gentlemen i am sure that you will all concede that i have not sought official position, and no one could have been more surprised than i, when i was presented with the report of your committee. i have been much interested in the work that is being carried on by this association; and of course if i can be of any value to the association or to the cause in the position of president during this particular year, why i accept that duty. but i would like to impose one or two conditions. i know that your hearty co-operation will be given. that would be one condition. but i am sure that each and every one of you can assist in adding greatly to the membership of this organization. we should at least have fifty members in each state within our jurisdiction. that would mean, perhaps one-half of the states in the union. that would mean one thousand members. now, in accepting this position, i am going to ask each and every active member through his friends and acquaintances to solicit and secure twenty-five members. now, i will double that amount, and agree during the year, to add fifty good members to the association. that means over one thousand during the year, and that is one goal that i hope we can reach during this particular year, . so far as the growing of nuts is concerned, so far as the details connected with the work that you have been engaged in is concerned, i propose leaving those things to those whom i consider experts, dr. morris, our friend reed from washington, and others that i might name; but the particular lines that i would like to follow this year, gentlemen, and what i hope to receive your earnest support in is an addition to your membership so that it may exceed a thousand; and assistance in legislation throughout the country along the line that we have worked out in our peninsular state of michigan. i am glad that you decided upon washington as the place of the next meeting, and as i have intimated in my remarks heretofore, i believe we have there a michigan senator who will assist in national legislation along the lines that we desire, because they are right ones; and in his position as chairman of the committee on post offices and post roads of the country, being at the head of the highway legislation, there is no man in the united states as competent to help us along that line, and i feel sure that we will get that assistance and support. with these few lines i will close, and i sincerely hope you have not made any mistake at this session; and when we have rounded up our year's work, that we can all say it has been a successful one. i thank you. (applause). the committee on federal aid that the incoming president was to appoint, i will name as follows: j. m. patterson, dr. morris, dr. kellogg, mr. littlepage, mr. bixby, mr. jones and mr. mcglennon. mr. bixby: senator penney would like to say a word. senator penney: i hadn't any intention of saying a word. but i am particularly pleased that you elected my friend, mr. linton, as president of the organization. i have known him a good many years, and i know he is an industrious worker. in anything that he undertakes to do, you will always see results. i am sure that in the lines which he has expressed himself as being anxious to cover, your membership, the matter of legislation, i am sure that you will see some results that will be very gratifying to the association. i do not know as there is anything further i wish to say. but i have been very interested in these meetings. i am not a nut grower, and i hardly know one nut from another, excepting that i am like the squirrel, if i get hold of a good nut i like to eat it; but i have certainly learned a lot of things from this association, and i am very pleased to be present. president linton: i am going to ask senator penney to become a member of this association. mr. bixby: he is a member. senator penney: i have gotten two since i have been here, so i am going to pledge myself for two or three more for the next year. mr. olcott: i think one subject should not be overlooked, and that is the matter of resolutions. there is dr. kellogg's very courteous offer and treatment to be remembered, and perhaps some other things. if there is not such a committee, i think some one ought to be appointed on it to report very soon before we close. i move that a committee on resolutions be appointed. c. a. reed: i second the motion. president linton: gentlemen, you have heard the motion made by mr. olcott. are you ready for the question? those who favor the motion say aye; opposed, no. the resolution is adopted. i appoint mr. olcott, mr. bixby, senator penney, mr. jones and mr. patterson. c. a. reed: there is a little bit of news i would like to tell the members of the association. yesterday afternoon, a gentleman who is a patient across the street at the sanitarium, came down to the nut exhibit in a wheelchair and looked on with interest at what was shown there, and presently he called mrs. reed over to talk with her a little and ask something about who was connected with that exhibit; and the next thing he asked me to sit down by him. he was not able to get around, to stand, and he told me this: that four years ago he met a mr. page from tulsa, oklahoma, a man who is evidently a man of a good deal of means in the oil business there, who is very philanthropic in his activities, a man who has adopted two hundred children, i believe it is; and he proposed to this gentleman, who was mr. dow of jamestown, n. y., that he go to oklahoma to establish a nut arboretum. he was willing to set aside two hundred acres of land and to endow it with $ , if this mr. dow would go and take charge of it. he also offered to build a $ , house on the place. but mr. dow is director of the leadsworth forest arboretum, some sixty miles up the genesee river from rochester, and of course he did not feel that he could leave the work he was doing there and devote his energies to a new work. i thought that was something that we northerners would be very much interested in, and i think we ought to see if that offer could not be taken advantage of. mr. bixby: can any one here tell me where seedlings of the big western shellback, carya laciniosa, can be obtained? i would like to get of them. c. a. reed: probably the best place to get that information would be from the u. s. forest service. that bureau keeps in touch with such information. they have catalogs and they have lists of nurserymen having various trees including nut trees; the u. s. forest service, department of agriculture, washington, d. c. president linton: mr. reed informs me that it is the intention to close this session at this time. j. f. jones: i don't think we ought to close without passing a resolution of thanks to dr. kellogg for the nice entertainment here, the free service, the rooms, etc. voice: i support the motion. president linton: you have heard the motion offered by mr. jones. we can take a recess and adjourn after we take the trip through the buildings. c. a. reed: if there is no one there but the president, officers and the committee, they would still have the authority to adopt these resolutions, and then properly adjourn. president linton: if that is the consensus of opinion, we will take a recess until called to order again by the chair following the trip through the buildings. c. a. reed: the idea was to take a recess until after our trip this afternoon and adjourn then. at that time this committee will be prepared with its resolutions. president linton: we can not fix a definite time. it will be following the afternoon session with dr. kellogg. if there is nothing more to come before us at this time, a recess will be taken until after that time. the convention then took a recess and reassembled at p. m. at which time an old fashioned straw sleigh ride was taken to the buildings of the kellogg pure food company. here dr. kellogg met the party and conducted them through, explaining the various products made and the processes by which they were made, and also that the large plant of the company was a growth from a very humble beginning, started originally for the purpose of providing food for the sanitarium that was impossible to procure any other way. persons who had been guests of the sanitarium, after leaving it, have wished to get some of the food products they had had when there, and in that way, a demand was made which had grown, till many of them were supplied to the jobbing trade. a most enjoyable lunch enabled the party to sample many of the products. from the kellogg pure food company, the sleigh took the party back to the sanitarium through which they were conducted and shown the remarkable facilities for providing the guests with every kind of medical treatment that had proved valuable. it would be difficult to find a place where apparatus for treating every form of disease is equal to that of the battle creek sanitarium or where such facilities exist for providing patients with all means for their comfort and for the recovery of their health. a most interesting talk illustrated with lantern slides, showed the growth of this institution from a modest beginning in a dwelling house, years ago. after this the convention reassembled and adjourned at p. m. the nut contest willard g. bixby, baldwin, nassau co., n. y. the nuts sent in to the contest have been finished at last but the date is only a few days ahead of the date last year when the contest was finished, which is to me a matter of a good deal of chagrin as it was last year. no attempt was made to examine the nuts received till after the first of the year as the experience of last year showed this to be a waste of time. several things seemed, this year, to conspire to prevent getting started on the examination. the number of nuts received was large and the time taken for examination quite considerable for no attempt as yet has been made to have but one person work on it. but the thing that has caused the greater part of the delay was the wide variation between the results in the tests of those nuts which were sent into both the and contests, and my unwillingness to have these results appear in print until the reasons for these discrepancies could be stated with certainty. had the methods used been those in use for some time and whose correctness had been proven, these differences would have caused little concern, but inasmuch as the methods for measuring most of the nut characteristics were used for the first time in , and their had been devised by me, i could not help feeling that there was a possibility of the discrepancies being due to imperfections in methods for, at first, it would seem likely that nuts borne by a given tree one year would be like those borne the next year. i considered therefore that it was for me to prove beyond question that the methods used were sound and that the differences noted were real. the amount of time needed to do this at a period when my time was well occupied with other things has been more than i wish it had been. while many efforts were made to see if there were imperfections in the methods used for measuring the various characteristics, no such imperfections were found, and, for a considerable period, all efforts made to explain the differences in tests made on nuts borne by the same trees in different years were unproductive of results. finally the matter was settled to my satisfaction as is noted in the next paragraph. the clark hickory received points last year when it took the first prize. it tested out points less this year when first tested which put it entirely out of the prize winning class. repetition of this year's tests gave results agreeing fairly well with the first ones made but still not all comparable to those of last year. this was decidedly disconcerting when one of the principal results expected of the adoption of methods of measuring nut characteristics was the possibility of testing a given nut now and several months hence and obtaining the same verdict. after much work designed to see if the methods of measuring nut characteristics were faulty and nothing wrong had been found with them, a visit was made to the tree. mr. clark said that it bore a good crop every other year and but few nuts in the intervening years, and that the nuts were much better the years when a good crop was borne than they were in the other years. this was interesting information but i could not help realizing the difficulty of carrying in one's mind, from one year to the next, the merits of hickory nuts, and felt that, unless the matter could be proven, i had not as yet done very much to solve the problem at hand. mr. clark, however, gave me practically all the nuts of the crop which he had and i returned feeling that this trip had not done much to solve the problem as to why the tests on the nuts and nuts should be so different. very careful examination was made of the few clark hickory nuts remaining in my possession of the crop and they were compared with those of the crop. slight differences in shape were noted and finally one nut was found seemingly just like the nuts that won the prize in . when this nut was tested it gave substantially the same results as those tested in . another like it was afterward found where the result was repeated. this proved definitely that the trouble was not with the methods, and that, in off years, with the clark hickory at least, some few nuts were borne that would test out as well as those borne in good years. the results of the tests on these good nuts borne in were substituted for those on the inferior nuts previously tested for in contests it is always the intention of those sending in nuts to send in the best. it will be noted that the number of points finally awarded the clark hickory for example this year is less than awarded last year. this difference is due to the method of scoring. in a matter as new as methods for measuring nut characteristics, the constants which have to be determined by experience must change somewhat at first. the method used this year in testing nuts sent in to the contest was to judge them on the basis used in , redetermine the constants that required it, and work out the results again. an example will help to make this clear. take the matter of proportion of kernel, the highest award for which was points in and also in . up to the time the contest was decided the hickory with the largest proportion of kernel was the beam, nut no. , of the contest with over % of kernel and the lowest was the brown mockernut of the contest with % of kernel. on the basis of the difference between the highest and lowest the number of points to be awarded each was worked out. on this basis the clark hickory was awarded, in , points for a proportion of kernel of . %. in the case of the contest nuts with larger proportion of kernel were found, the hatch bitternut with %, and the halesite bitternuts with % kernel. a mockernut from sliding hill, jackson, s. c. with only % kernel was also found and the figures for awarding points for proportion of kernel were recalculated as follows: points points % and over . % to . % inclusive . % to . % inclusive . % to . % inclusive . % to . % inclusive . % to . % inclusive . % to . % inclusive . % to . % inclusive . % to . % inclusive . % to . % inclusive . % to . % inclusive . % to . % inclusive . % to . % inclusive . % to . % inclusive . % to . % inclusive . % to . % inclusive on this basis the clark hickory was awarded but points for the same proportion of kernel in instead of as in . this accounts for out of the points difference between the points awarded in and the % in . the other two points can be similarly explained. there are bound to be similar changes in the tables for awarding points from year to year, but they will be less and less as time goes on. for example, the wasson butternut of the contest which weighed . g was the largest butternut received until when two larger came in, one weighing . g and the other weighing . g. the mott shellbark hickory which weighs . g which was discovered by dr. morris before the founding of the association is still the largest hickory of which we know. on the other hand the black walnut record for size was exceeded in and also in . the nuts received were gone over carefully and all characteristics measured where this was possible, then the other characteristics were passed on by me. then the best nuts were brought to the attention of dr. morris and dr. deming and the three of us passed on those characteristics where methods of measurement had not been worked out. the results of this contest are noted in considerable detail as it is believed that they may have value as matters of record. while an attempt has been made to give the species of each nut tested as such information is useful, it must be understood that the notations of species are tentative and subject to change should further knowledge require it. it is, frequently, difficult to positively identify a nut as to species without having leaves, buds, bark and husk for examination and in most instances the judges did not have these. no nut is noted as a hybrid unless it has been proven so by evidence which it is believed is beyond question, yet there are a number of nuts noted as pure species which later may be proved to be hybrids. this is particularly so in the case of the hickories. in explanation of the tables it should be noted that weights of nuts and kernels are expressed in grams, while cracking pressures are expressed in kilograms. the methods used for measuring the various characteristics are noted in detail in the article "judging nuts" on pages to inclusive. the two items cracking quality need a little explanation. last year points were awarded for cracking quality and points for plumpness of kernel. plumpness was very difficult of estimation. it means the reverse of shrivelled. to assign values for this can only be done by appearance and it seemed impossible of measurement. a study of the nuts of the contest which were awarded high values for plumpness and those which were awarded low values showed that in no case was a nut which had a shrivelled kernel awarded a high value for proportion of kernel. sometimes a nut with a plump kernel had a very thick shell and a low proportion of kernel but in no instance did a nut with a shrivelled kernel have a high proportion of kernel, so it was thought that for practical purposes the figure for proportion of kernel would answer very well to represent excellence in both characteristics. it was also evident that the ratio of the weight of the portion of the kernel which, after cracking, could be easily picked out with the fingers to the total weight of the kernel, which was taken to represent cracking quality last year, was capable of more refinement for it was noticed that of those nuts where the entire kernel could be easily picked out with the fingers after cracking that some were better crackers than others, for, in some instances, the entire kernel fell out. as the proportion of the kernel which could be picked out easily with the fingers is seemingly the most important this was still given points and called "cracking quality commercial," and the figure representing the proportion of kernel which dropped out after cracking was called "cracking quality absolute," and awarded the points formerly awarded to plumpness. in the case of the hazel which generally has a cracking quality both absolute and commercial of % the item "freedom from fibre" was substituted for "cracking quality absolute." the hazel seems to be the only nut where this characteristic must be considered. it is too bad that while practically all characteristics are determined with exactness to a single point and could be even more precisely determined, that the item quality and flavor of kernel to which points are justly awarded has to be determined in so crude a manner as it is at present. it is true that formerly all characteristics were determined in equally crude manner and we should be glad that all others can be determined with precision but still having one quality not precisely determined, to a certain extent prevents exact determination of the others having the value it otherwise would. we can make only about five graduations in quality which would be differences of five points except at the top of the scale where it is and an error in one gradation would make a difference of points generally. when it is seen how close some of the nuts run, particularly the hickories, where the differences in total points awarded are generally only point, with several of the same score, this crudeness of determination of one of the most important characteristics is the more regrettable. the results of the contest on nuts of the various species are as noted below: hickories-- entries the results of the tests on the prize winning hickories are shown in the table on page . what is said of the difficulty of identification as to species is particularly applicable to the hickory where it is known that many of the fine nuts that we have are hybrids. while no nut is noted as a hybrid unless it has been so proven by evidence which it is believed is beyond question, there is considerable question as to whether a number of the nuts noted as shagbarks are really pure shagbarks. it will take more observation and study than it has as yet been possible to give them to determine this point. it is to be noted, however, that the more study we put on the hickories notable for the excellence of the nuts they bear, the more we find that give suggestion of hybrid parentage. beside the hickories noted above which received a sufficient number of points to entitle them to one of the eight prizes awarded the measurements are given of the hatch and halesite bitternuts because they have the thinnest shell and highest proportion of kernel of any hickories yet discovered and of the stanley hickory because it is the best shellbark of which we yet know. hickories key: a: species b: prize awarded c: average weight of nut d: average weight of kernel e: average weight of kernel that dropped out after cracking f: average weight of kernel that could be easily picked out with fingers after cracking g: average cracking pressure h: proportion of kernel i: cracking quality absolute j: cracking quality commercial k: size ( ) k: form ( ) m: color of shell ( ) n: husking quality ( ) o: thinness of shell ( ) p: cracking quality commercial ( ) q: cracking quality absolute ( ) r: color of kernel ( ) s: proportion of kernel ( ) t: quality of kernel ( ) u: total points awarded ( ) |name |address |designation | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | ==================================================================== |luther w. vest | | | | | | | | | | |blacksburg, va. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |vest hickory | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |g. w. manahan | | | | | | | | | | |sabillasville. md. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |manahan hickory | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |eugene j. clark | | | | | | | | | | |ludlow, mass. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |ralph t. olcott | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. |gxb| | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |laney hickory | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |snyder bros. | | | | | | | | | | |center point, ia. |gxb| | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |fairbanks hickory | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |mort sturts | | | | | | | | | | |hazel dell, ill. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |howard g. barnes | | | | | | | | | | |fayetteville, o. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |e. c. beam | | | | | | | | | | |mt. oreb, o. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |charles swaim | | | | | | | | | | |south bend, ind. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |swaim hickory | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- g. e. beaver | | | | | | | | | | |millerstown, pa. |gxb| | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |beaver hickory | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |mrs. augusta patton| | | | | | | | | | |walnut hill. ill. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |e. c. beam | | | | | | | | | | |mt. oreb, o. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |e. c. beam | | | | | | | | | | |mt. oreb, o. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |james l. glover | | | | | | | | | | |shelton, conn. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |james l. glover | | | | | | | | | | |shelton, conn. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. f. jones | | | | | | | | | | |lancaster, pa. |gxl| c | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |weiker hickory | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |sarah kronk | | | | | | | | | | |minford. o. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |mort sturts | | | | | | | | | | |hazel dell, ill. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |w. c. deming | | | | | | | | | | |wilton. conn. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |terpenny hickory | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |william gobble | | | | | | | | | | |holston, va. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |w. p. griffin | | | | | | | | | | |creal spring, ill. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |kate yawger | | | | | | | | | | |port byron, n. y. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |kate yawger | | | | | | | | | | |port byron, n. y. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |e. c. beam | | | | | | | | | | |mt. oreb, o. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |sarah kronk | | | | | | | | | | |minford, o. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |reuben j. kurtz | | | | | | | | | | |holly, mich. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |e. pomeroy | | | | | | | | | | |windsor, conn. | g | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |r. c. hatch | | | | | | | | | | |central city, ia. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |willard g. bixby | | | | | | | | | | |baldwin, n. y. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |halesite bitternut | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |s. a. sipe | | | | | | | | | | |carthage, ind. | l | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |stanley hickory | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |name |address |designation | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | ======================================================================= |luther w. vest | | | | | | | | | | | | | |blacksburg, va. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |vest hickory | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |g. w. manahan | | | | | | | | | | | | | |sabillasville. md. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |manahan hickory | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |eugene j. clark | | | | | | | | | | | | | |ludlow, mass. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |ralph t. olcott | | | | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |laney hickory | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |snyder bros. | | | | | | | | | | | | | |center point, ia. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |fairbanks hickory | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |mort sturts | | | | | | | | | | | | | |hazel dell, ill. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |howard g. barnes | | | | | | | | | | | | | |fayetteville, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |e. c. beam | | | | | | | | | | | | | |mt. oreb, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |charles swaim | | | | | | | | | | | | | |south bend, ind. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |swaim hickory | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- g. e. beaver | | | | | | | | | | | | | |millerstown, pa. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |beaver hickory | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |mrs. augusta patton| | | | | | | | | | | | | |walnut hill. ill. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |e. c. beam | | | | | | | | | | | | | |mt. oreb, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |e. c. beam | | | | | | | | | | | | | |mt. oreb, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |james l. glover | | | | | | | | | | | | | |shelton, conn. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |james l. glover | | | | | | | | | | | | | |shelton, conn. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. f. jones | | | | | | | | | | | | | |lancaster, pa. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |weiker hickory | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |sarah kronk | | | | | | | | | | | | | |minford. o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |mort sturts | | | | | | | | | | | | | |hazel dell, ill. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |w. c. deming | | | | | | | | | | | | | |wilton. conn. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |terpenny hickory | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |william gobble | | | | | | | | | | | | | |holston, va. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- w. p. griffin | | | | | | | | | | | | | |creal spring, ill. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |kate yawger | | | | | | | | | | | | | |port byron, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |kate yawger | | | | | | | | | | | | | |port byron, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |e. c. beam | | | | | | | | | | | | | |mt. oreb, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |sarah kronk | | | | | | | | | | | | | |minford, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |reuben j. kurtz | | | | | | | | | | | | | |holly, mich. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |e. pomeroy | | | | | | | | | | | | | |windsor, conn. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |hickory no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |r. c. hatch | | | | | | | | | | | | | |central city, ia. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |willard g. bixby | | | | | | | | | | | | | |baldwin, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |halesite bitternut | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |s. a. sipe | | | | | | | | | | | | | |carthage, ind. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |stanley hickory | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- the abbreviations used under the species column are g for shagbark (carya ovata), l for shellbark (carya laciniosa), and b for bitternut (carya cordiformis). where two letters appear with an x between it means that the nut in question is a hybrid between the two species. following out the plan adopted last year (when no prizes were offered for specific species of hickories) when a nut other than a shagbark sent judged by the hickory standard received sufficient points to put it among the prize winners, a special class was made for that. some of the nuts in the above list are disqualified for receiving prizes as they are being "propagated." this term has been somewhat difficult of definition and in default of action of the association or of some committee appointed for the purpose i have held it to mean those nuts which are listed in the catalog of any nurseryman. that is to say, a nut is eligible for prizes more than one year, and the mere growing a few grafted or budded trees of a variety and distributing them privately does not constitute "propagation" in the sense that the word is used in the nut contests. as soon, however, as any nurseryman considers a variety of sufficient merit so that he lists it is his catalog or in any printed supplement to a catalog and states that he can furnish grafted or budded trees of this variety, from that time on it is debarred from receiving the prizes offered annually. other hickories were received from: d. s. bassett, fisherville, mass. e. c. beam, mt. orab, ohio. (nuts no. , no. ). w. f. cook, moscow, ky. w. e. cornell, stewart ave., ithaca, n. y. f. n. decker, syracuse, n. y. (nuts no. , no. ). joan deming, danbury, conn., route . f. earland gilson, groton, mass. wm. h. kuhne, woodbury, conn. reuben j. kurtz, holly, mich., r. no. , box . harvey losee, upper red hook, n. y. mrs. f. a. patch, west townsend, mass, box . e. pomeroy, windsor, conn. (nut no. ). ruth a. reeves, newark, n. y. snyder bros., center point, ia. (nut no. , seedling). mort stuarts, hazel dell, ill. (nuts no. , no. , no. ). walter k. wilson, watertown, conn., lock box . kate yawger, port bryon, n. y. (nut no. ). grant yeagley, jamestown, penn., r. r. no. i. black walnuts-- entries the prize winning black walnuts exhibited and the prizes awarded are noted in the table of page . there is but one species of walnuts of the black walnut class native in the north eastern united states, the eastern black walnut, _juglans nigra_. in this contest specimens of the texas black walnut, _juglans rupestris_, and of the california black walnut, _juglans hindsii_ were entered. tests on these two black walnuts are noted for the purpose of record although no characteristics of value were noted. the california black walnut has a smoother shell than the eastern black walnut. the texas black walnut has beautiful willowy foliage and grows very late in the fall and holds its leaves much longer than the other walnuts and it is of dwarf habit of growth. tests on the werner black walnut are noted because it is the largest black walnut we have. the black walnuts sent in this year were much poorer on the whole than those exhibited in some years. some well known trees bore scarcely a nut. some well known propagated black walnuts were tested but only two of them tested out high enough to get into the prize winning class, the thomas and ten eyck. from what we know of the variation of nuts particularly of black walnuts, it is evident that we must test black walnuts more than one year to get a good idea of their value. the nut sent in by john s. bomberges is particularly noticeable on account of the unusually fine flavor of the kernel and would seem to be a standard of excellence for black walnut kernels. other black walnuts received from: william a. agner, rockport, ind., r. f. d. no. . george a. ede, cobden, ill. m. h. hoover, lockport, n. y. c. s. ketchum, middlefield, ohio. (nuts no. , , , , ). a. h. lang, collingwood ave., toledo, ohio, (nut no. ). james e. ripley, tippecanoe, o., r. f. d. no. . (nut no. ). s. a. toy, freeman, w. va. (nut no. ). g. g. truman, perrysville, ohio. box . u. s. department of agriculture, washington, d. c. peanut black walnut. ira c. wilson, new truxton, mo. black walnuts key: a: species b: prize awarded c: average weight of nut d: average weight of kernel e: average weight of kernel that dropped out after cracking f: average weight of kernel that could be easily picked out with fingers after cracking g: average cracking pressure h: proportion of kernel i: cracking quality absolute j: cracking quality commercial k: size ( ) k: form ( ) m: color of shell ( ) n: husking quality ( ) o: thinness of shell ( ) p: cracking quality commercial ( ) q: cracking quality absolute ( ) r: color of kernel ( ) s: proportion of kernel ( ) t: quality of kernel ( ) u: total points awarded ( ) |name |address |description | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | ======================================================================== |c. s. ketchum | | | | | | | | | | |middlefield, o. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |john s. bomberges | | | | | | | | | | |lebanon, pa. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |henry hicks | | | | | | | | | | |westbury, n. y. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |amy a. alley | | | | | | | | | | |lagrangeville, n.y. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |not the prize nut | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |james e. ripley | | | | | | | | | | |tippecanoe, o. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |snyder bros. | | | | | | | | | | |center point, ia. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |thomas black walnut | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |a. h. lang | | | | | | | | | | |toledo, o. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |kate yawger | | | | | | | | | | |port byron, n. y. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |e. m. ten eyck | | | | | | | | | | |so. plainfield, n. j. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |ten eyck black walnut | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |c. s. ketchum | | | | | | | | | | |middlefield, o. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |s. a. toy | | | | | | | | | | |freeman, w. va. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |arnold arboretum | | | | | | | | | | |jamaica pl'n., mass. | r | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |from rochester, n. y. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |g. hunger | | | | | | | | | | |tolhouse, calif. | c | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |california black walnut| | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |edward a. werner | | | | | | | | | | |marion, ia. r | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |name |address |description | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | =========================================================================== |c. s. ketchum | | | | | | | | | | | | | |middlefield, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |john s. bomberges | | | | | | | | | | | | | |lebanon, pa. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |henry hicks | | | | | | | | | | | | | |westbury, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |amy a. alley | | | | | | | | | | | | | |lagrangeville, n.y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |not the prize nut | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |james e. ripley | | | | | | | | | | | | | |tippecanoe, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |snyder bros. | | | | | | | | | | | | | |center point, ia. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |thomas black walnut | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |a. h. lang | | | | | | | | | | | | | |toledo, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |kate yawger | | | | | | | | | | | | | |port byron, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |e. m. ten eyck | | | | | | | | | | | | | |so. plainfield, n. j. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |ten eyck black walnut | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |c. s. ketchum | | | | | | | | | | | | | |middlefield, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |s. a. toy | | | | | | | | | | | | | |freeman, w. va. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |arnold arboretum | | | | | | | | | | | | | |jamaica pl'n., mass. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |from rochester, n. y. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |g. hunger | | | | | | | | | | | | | |tolhouse, calif. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |california black walnut| | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |edward a. werner | | | | | | | | | | | | | |marion, ia. r | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- the abbreviations used under the species column are: b for black walnut (juglans nigra), c for california black walnut (juglans hindsii), r for (juglans rupestris). [tn: last column in row corrected to from ] butterjaps--butternuts, japan walnuts, and hybrids-- entries the butternut and japan walnuts and hybrids between them are grouped together as they were last year although but one hybrid appeared this year. the need of a name to include these is apparent and the name butterjaps to include butternuts, japan walnuts, and hybrids between them is used this year following out last year's suggestion. it was a very poor year for these nuts, many well known trees bearing no crop at all. the one hybrid exhibited which was sent in as a curiosity not for the purpose of being entered in the contest but it is interesting to note that it took a prize, although not a high one. the prize winning nuts and prizes awarded are noted in the table on page . other butternuts received from: c. delp, morrison, ohio. (nut no. ). snyder bros., center point, ia. (fairbanks butternut). g. g. truman, perrysville, ohio. (nuts no. , ). other japan walnuts received from: l. h. & p. j. jr. berckmans, lamar bldg., augusta, ga. butternuts key: a: species b: prize awarded c: average weight of nut d: average weight of kernel e: average weight of kernel that dropped out after cracking f: average weight of kernel that could be easily picked out with fingers after cracking g: average cracking pressure h: proportion of kernel i: cracking quality absolute j: cracking quality commercial k: size ( ) k: form ( ) m: color of shell ( ) n: husking quality ( ) o: thinness of shell ( ) p: cracking quality commercial ( ) q: cracking quality absolute ( ) r: color of kernel ( ) s: proportion of kernel ( ) t: quality of kernel ( ) u: total points awarded ( ) |name |address |description | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | ======================================================================== |g. g. truman | | | | | | | | | | |perrysville, o. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |c. delp | | | | | | | | | | |morrison, o. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |s. w. snyder | | | | | | | | | | |center point, ia. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |pumfrey nd | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |c. delp | | | | | | | | | | |morrison, o. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |c. delp | | | | | | | | | | |morrison, o. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |joe p. wilson | | | | | | | | | | |landon, miss. |sxb| | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |butterjap | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |wm. h. kuhne | | | | | | | | | | |woodbury, conn. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |c. delp | | | | | | | | | | |morrison, o. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |s. w. snyder | | | | | | | | | | |center point, ia. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |pumfrey st | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |postmaster | | | | | | | | | | |balsam, n. c. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |g. g. truman | | | | | | | | | | |perrysville, o. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |g. g. truman | | | | | | | | | | |perrysville, o. | b | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |nut no. , round shape | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |name |address |description | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | =========================================================================== |g. g. truman | | | | | | | | | | | | | |perrysville, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |c. delp | | | | | | | | | | | | | |morrison, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |s. w. snyder | | | | | | | | | | | | | |center point, ia. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |pumfrey nd | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |c. delp | | | | | | | | | | | | | |morrison, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |c. delp | | | | | | | | | | | | | |morrison, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |joe p. wilson | | | | | | | | | | | | | |landon, miss. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |butterjap | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |wm. h. kuhne | | | | | | | | | | | | | |woodbury, conn. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |c. delp | | | | | | | | | | | | | |morrison, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |s. w. snyder | | | | | | | | | | | | | |center point, ia. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |pumfrey st | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |postmaster | | | | | | | | | | | | | |balsam, n. c. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |g. g. truman | | | | | | | | | | | | | |perrysville, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |nut no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |g. g. truman | | | | | | | | | | | | | |perrysville, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |nut no. , round shape | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- the abbreviations used under the species column are: b for butternut (juglans cinerea), sxb for siebold walnut, x butternut hybrid (juglans sieboldiana x cinerea). japan walnuts key: a: species b: prize awarded c: average weight of nut d: average weight of kernel e: average weight of kernel that dropped out after cracking f: average weight of kernel that could be easily picked out with fingers after cracking g: average cracking pressure h: proportion of kernel i: cracking quality absolute j: cracking quality commercial k: size ( ) k: form ( ) m: color of shell ( ) n: husking quality ( ) o: thinness of shell ( ) p: cracking quality commercial ( ) q: cracking quality absolute ( ) r: color of kernel ( ) s: proportion of kernel ( ) t: quality of kernel ( ) u: total points awarded ( ) |name |address |description | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | ======================================================================== |r. bates | | | | | | | | | | |jackson, s. c. | h | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |stranger heartnut | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |r. bates | | | | | | | | | | |jackson, s. c. | h | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |tokio heartnut | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |o. f. witte | | | | | | | | | | |amherst, o. | h | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |heartnut | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |r. bates | | | | | | | | | | |jackson, s. c. | h | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |heartnut near mobile | | | | | | | | | | | pecan | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |o. f. witte | | | | | | | | | | |amherst, o. | s | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |siebold walnut no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |joe p. wilson | | | | | | | | | | |landon, miss. | ? | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |o. f. witte | | | | | | | | | | |amherst, o. | s | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |siebold walnut no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |o. d. faust | | | | | | | | | | |bamberg, s. c. | h | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |heartnut | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |l. j. bryant & son | | | | | | | | | | |newark, n. y. | s | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |siebold walnut | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |o. d. faust | | | | | | | | | | |bamberg, s. c. | s | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |siebold walnut | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |r. bates | | | | | | | | | | |jackson, s. c. |hxp| | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |cording walnut | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |r. bates | | | | | | | | | | |jackson, s. c. |pxs| | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |siebosian walnut | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |name |address |description | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | =========================================================================== |r. bates | | | | | | | | | | | | | |jackson, s. c. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |stranger heartnut | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |r. bates | | | | | | | | | | | | | |jackson, s. c. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |tokio heartnut | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |o. f. witte | | | | | | | | | | | | | |amherst, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |heartnut | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |r. bates | | | | | | | | | | | | | |jackson, s. c. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |heartnut near mobile | | | | | | | | | | | | | | pecan | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |o. f. witte | | | | | | | | | | | | | |amherst, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |siebold walnut no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |joe p. wilson | | | | | | | | | | | | | |landon, miss. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |o. f. witte | | | | | | | | | | | | | |amherst, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |siebold walnut no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |o. d. faust | | | | | | | | | | | | | |bamberg, s. c. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |heartnut | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |l. j. bryant & son | | | | | | | | | | | | | |newark, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |siebold walnut | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |o. d. faust | | | | | | | | | | | | | |bamberg, s. c. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |siebold walnut | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |r. bates | | | | | | | | | | | | | |jackson, s. c. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |cording walnut | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |r. bates | | | | | | | | | | | | | |jackson, s. c. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |siebosian walnut | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- the abbreviations under the species column are: h for heartnut (juglans cordifornis), s for siebold walnut (juglans sieboldiana), hxp for heartnut x persian walnut hybrid (juglans cordifornis x regia), pxs for persian walnut x siebold walnut hybrid (juglans regia x sieboldiana). in the case of hybrids the species first named is the pistillate parent. pecans-- varieties some very good northern pecans were sent in to the contest and two of them are deemed worthy of experimental propagation. one of these dunn no. , had a particularly delicious flavor and the other the koontz, was also a desirable nut. they are not large but are almost exactly the size of the moore pecan, a southern variety now attracting a good deal of attention. specimens of three nuts of larger size were received, the norton, mccallister and kline, but not in sufficient quantity to test. the weights are given for reference. tests of nine standard southern pecans are also shown. it will be noticed that the best pecans sent to the contest compare very favorably with these fine southern pecans, only the schley being shown superior. the northern pecans are generally smaller than the southern, have lighter colored shell and lighter colored kernel, flavor every bit as good, and shell just as thin. the prize winning nuts and the prizes awarded are shown in the table on page . the results of tests of southern pecans is inserted with some hesitation. these pecans are judged by the same score cards as are the northern pecans which is the one used for hickories. inasmuch as the pecans, both northern and southern, are judged by the same standards, it is hoped that the figures may be of some value. the writer makes no claim to being an expert on the southern pecan and does not wish these figures taken as his opinion on the relative merits of southern pecans, which have been grown in orchard form long enough so that regularity of bearing, size of crops, resistance to disease, etc., have been determined to a considerable extent. these are of such importance to the practical pecan grower as to overbalance to quite an extent the merits of the nut itself which are the only qualities that can be considered in a nut contest. other pecans received from: g. m. brown, van buren, ark. j. h. burkett, clyde, texas. (young grafted tree). mrs. w. w. evans, blackwell, okla. mr. j. b. shultz, fulton, ark. snyder bros., center point, ia. (pumfrey st, nd). pecans key: a: species b: prize awarded c: average weight of nut d: average weight of kernel e: average weight of kernel that dropped out after cracking f: average weight of kernel that could be easily picked out with fingers after cracking g: average cracking pressure h: proportion of kernel i: cracking quality absolute j: cracking quality commercial k: size ( ) k: form ( ) m: color of shell ( ) n: husking quality ( ) o: thinness of shell ( ) p: cracking quality commercial ( ) q: cracking quality absolute ( ) r: color of kernel ( ) s: proportion of kernel ( ) t: quality of kernel ( ) u: total points awarded ( ) |name |address |description | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | ======================================================================== |d. k. dunn | | | | | | | | | | |wynne, ark. | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |pecan no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |e. j. koontz | | | | | | | | | | |richards, mo. | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |j. f. clifford | | | | | | | | | | |crossville, ill. | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |prolific | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |j. f. clifford | | | | | | | | | | |crossville, ill. | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |sweetmeat | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |d. k. dunn | | | | | | | | | | |wynne, ark. | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |pecan no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |mrs. maida r. wears | | | | | | | | | | |rich hill, mo. | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |s. w. snyder | | | | | | | | | | |center point, ia. | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |oberman | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |d. k. dunn | | | | | | | | | | |wynne, ark. | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |pecan no. | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |a. g. shanklin | | | | | | | | | | |clemson college, s. c. | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |mrs. addie g. evans | | | | | | | | | | |blackwell, okla. | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |---- | | | | | | | | | | |---- | p | | . g| | | | | | | |norton | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |---- | | | | | | | | | | |---- |pxl| | . g| | | | | | | |mccallister | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |---- | | | | | | | | | | |---- |pxl| | . g| | | | | | | |klein | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |name |address |description | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | =========================================================================== |d. k. dunn | | | | | | | | | | | | | |wynne, ark. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |pecan no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |e. j. koontz | | | | | | | | | | | | | |richards, mo. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. f. clifford | | | | | | | | | | | | | |crossville, ill. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |prolific | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. f. clifford | | | | | | | | | | | | | |crossville, ill. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |sweetmeat | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |d. k. dunn | | | | | | | | | | | | | |wynne, ark. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |pecan no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |mrs. maida r. wears | | | | | | | | | | | | | |rich hill, mo. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |s. w. snyder | | | | | | | | | | | | | |center point, ia. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |oberman | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |d. k. dunn | | | | | | | | | | | | | |wynne, ark. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |pecan no. | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |a. g. shanklin | | | | | | | | | | | | | |clemson college, s. c. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |mrs. addie g. evans | | | | | | | | | | | | | |blackwell, okla. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |norton | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |mccallister | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |klein | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- standard southern varieties key: a: species b: prize awarded c: average weight of nut d: average weight of kernel e: average weight of kernel that dropped out after cracking f: average weight of kernel that could be easily picked out with fingers after cracking g: average cracking pressure h: proportion of kernel i: cracking quality absolute j: cracking quality commercial k: size ( ) k: form ( ) m: color of shell ( ) n: husking quality ( ) o: thinness of shell ( ) p: cracking quality commercial ( ) q: cracking quality absolute ( ) r: color of kernel ( ) s: proportion of kernel ( ) t: quality of kernel ( ) u: total points awarded ( ) |name |address |description | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | ====================================================================== |---- | | | | | | | | | | |---- | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |schley | | | | | | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | |---- | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |burkett | | | | | | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | |---- | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |moore | | | | | | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | |---- | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |alley | | | | | | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | |---- | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |delmas | | | | | | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | |---- | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |moneymaker | | | | | | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | |---- | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |pabst | | | | | | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | |---- | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |stuart | | | | | | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | |---- | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |vandeman | | | | | | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |name |address |description | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | ========================================================================= |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |schley | | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |burkett | | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |moore | | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |alley | | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |delmas | | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |moneymaker | | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |pabst | | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |stuart | | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |vandeman | | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- the abbreviations used under the species column are: p for pecan (carya pecan), pxl for pecan x shellbark hybrid (carya pecan x laciniosa). hazels-- entries this is the first time i have had opportunity of testing rush hazel which was found by mr. rush years ago, but which, so far as i know, has never been propagated in the sense in which the word is used in the contests where it means listed in the catalog of some nurseryman who is prepared to furnish grafted or budded or layered plants. the value of this hazel is now being recognized and doubtless it will not be long that this will be the case for it is by far the best american hazel now known. the prize winning nuts and the prizes awarded are shown in the table on page . following the list of american hazels are varieties of mr. conrad vollertsen's, rochester, n. y., most of them of german origin. these are given with their german names. these names are given here for convenience for readers and only for that, for they violate one of the rules followed in naming nuts. they will be referred to the nomenclature committee at its next session. following mr. vollertsen's hazels are five standard market hazels grown on the pacific coast which are noted as matters of record. it will be noted that the white aveline hazel has been placed higher than the barcelona when judged by the score card used. inasmuch as orchards of white aveline hazels in the pacific northwest are being replaced by barcelona and duchilly because white aveline nuts are too small to be saleable commercially, it was questioned as to whether the score card was not at fault and whether much more emphasis should not be put on size and less on quality than is the case with the score card used. inasmuch as the same score card has been used for all nuts except where it seemed entirely unadapted (because when this was done the figures have a value they otherwise would not in expressing the relative value of each species) it seems very desirable this common score card be retained for as many nuts as possible. there are some notable instances where fruits commercially important do not rank highest in quality, e. g., the elberta peach, ben davis apple, and kiefer pear, therefore it is thought better not to emphasize size too strongly in the case of hazels. it is only fair to state, however, that much less work has been put on judging hazels than on some other nuts and perhaps our ideas will have to be revised later. hazels key: a: species b: prize awarded c: average weight of nut d: average weight of kernel e: average weight of kernel that dropped out after cracking f: average weight of kernel that could be easily picked out with fingers after cracking g: average cracking pressure h: proportion of kernel i: cracking quality absolute j: cracking quality commercial k: size ( ) k: form ( ) m: color of shell ( ) n: husking quality ( ) o: thinness of shell ( ) p: cracking quality commercial ( ) q: cracking quality absolute ( ) r: color of kernel ( ) s: proportion of kernel ( ) t: quality of kernel ( ) u: total points awarded ( ) |name |address |description | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | ========================================================================== |j. f. jones | | | | | | | | | | |lancaster, pa. | am | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |rush hazel | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |miss louise littlepage | | | | | | | | | | |bowie, md | am | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. w. strassel | | | | | | | | | | |rockport, ind | am | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |mrs. priscilla randall | | | | | | | | | | |freeport, o. | am | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |luther w. vest | | | | | | | | | | |blacksburg, va. | am | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |william h. kuhne | | | | | | | | | | |woodbury, conn. | am | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |---- | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | ? | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |medium long | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |italienische rothe | | | | | | | | | | | zeller | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | m | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |lambertnuss rothe | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | m | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |merveille de bollwiller| | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | m | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |lambertnuss weisse | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |gunzelebener zeller | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | av | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |althaldensleben | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | av | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |grosse kugelnuss | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | p | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |minna's zeller | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. f. jones | | | | | | | | | | |lancaster, pa. | | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |daviana | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. f. jones | | | | | | | | | | |lancaster, pa. | | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |white aveline | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. f. jones | | | | | | | | | | |lancaster, pa. | | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |noce lunghe | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. f. jones | | | | | | | | | | |lancaster, pa. | | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |imperial | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. f. jones | | | | | | | | | | |lancaster, pa. | | | . g| . g| . g| . g| kg| . | . | |barcelona | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |name |address |description | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | =========================================================================== |j. f. jones | | | | | | | | | | | | | |lancaster, pa. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |rush hazel | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |miss louise littlepage | | | | | | | | | | | | | |bowie, md | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. w. strassel | | | | | | | | | | | | | |rockport, ind | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |mrs. priscilla randall | | | | | | | | | | | | | |freeport, o. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |luther w. vest | | | | | | | | | | | | | |blacksburg, va. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |william h. kuhne | | | | | | | | | | | | | |woodbury, conn. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |medium long | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |italienische rothe | | | | | | | | | | | | | | zeller | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |lambertnuss rothe | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |merveille de bollwiller| | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |lambertnuss weisse | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |gunzelebener zeller | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |althaldensleben | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |grosse kugelnuss | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |conrad vollertsen | | | | | | | | | | | | | |rochester, n. y. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |minna's zeller | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. f. jones | | | | | | | | | | | | | |lancaster, pa. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |daviana | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. f. jones | | | | | | | | | | | | | |lancaster, pa. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |white aveline | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. f. jones | | | | | | | | | | | | | |lancaster, pa. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |noce lunghe | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. f. jones | | | | | | | | | | | | | |lancaster, pa. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |imperial | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |j. f. jones | | | | | | | | | | | | | |lancaster, pa. | . | | | | | | | | | | | | |barcelona | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- the abbreviations used under the species column are: am for american hazel (corylus americana), av for corylus avellana, a european, species, m for corylus maxima, a european species, p for corylus pontica, a european species. it seems quite probable that many of the european varieties noted above are hybrids and not pure species. the species identification of the european varieties are those of mr. conrad vollertsen. persian walnuts-- entries the prize winning nuts and the prizes awarded are shown in the table on page . this is the first time that i have had opportunity to test some of the propagated persian walnuts. the results shown are given for what they are worth. a sufficient number of persian walnuts have not as yet been examined to enable us to determine the constants so that they are as valuable as they will be later, and as they are on the hickories, black walnuts, and butternuts where hundreds of nuts have been examined. consequently, conclusions based on the figures in the table should be conservatively drawn. the position of the franquette at the bottom of the list of the propagated nuts it is believed will be materially changed with the redetermination of the constants that an examination of a large number of nuts would require. observations the number of entries in the contest was about % greater than in . no hickories, no black walnuts or butternuts deemed worthy of experimental propagation appeared as was the case in , but on the other hand, two pecans, the dunn no. and koontz, it is believed, are well worth while propagating experimentally even though the dunn nut comes from a somewhat more southern section than the other northern pecans now being propagated. the need for additional heartnuts makes it seem advisable to propagate experimentally the stranger heartnut, even though it comes from jackson, s. c., a section so far south that the southern pecan grows and bears well. the contest has helped to bring out the value of the rush hazel, which has been propagated experimentally for a long time but which, so far as i know, has never been offered to the public by nurserymen. the following standards for hickories have been established: the largest nut found so far is still the mott shellbark, which dr. morris found a number of years ago and which weighs . g. the vest hickory, which among the seemingly pure shagbarks, had the record of the thinnest shell up to the contest, has been surpassed by the beam no. of the contest, which takes but kg to crack the shell. the figure is surpassed by one bitternut hybrid the beaver kg, and by the hatch bitternut kg, and the halesite bitternut kg. the vest of the crop is still the seemingly pure shagbark with the largest percentage of kernel . %. this is surpassed by the hatch bitternut . %, and the halesite bitternut . %. no hickory has been found to surpass the vest in the excellence of flavor of the kernel. one hickory, the barnes, contest, showed % cracking quality. the following standards for black walnuts have been established. the armknecht no. which held the record last year has been surpassed by the werner with a weight of . g. the thinnest shelled one is still the alley of the contest, with a cracking pressure of kg, although the ten eyck of the contest was only slightly higher, kg. the record for the greatest proportion of kernel is still with the ten eyck of the contest . %. the ten eyck black walnut exhibited in had no such records of thinness of shell or proportion of kernel. the stabler is believed to be the best cracker but the alley of the contest showed %. the bomberges black walnut of the contest showed unusually fine quality of kernel and is believed to hold the record for quality of kernel so far. the following standards for butterjaps (i. e., butternuts, japan walnuts and their hybrids) have been established. the wasson butternut which held the record for size heretofore . g has been surpassed by two nuts pumfrey no. , . g and truman no. , . g. the same high cracking quality among the pure butternuts noted last year still continues. the ritchie heartnut of the contest still holds the record for percentage of kernel, . %. one pure butternut, the kuhne of the contest, with % kernel has been found. the aiken butternut kg cracking pressure is the thinnest shelled pure butternut yet found. the thinnest shelled japan walnut yet found is the wilson seibold walnut of the contest, kg cracking pressure. the following standards for pecans have been established (including the pecan x shellbark hybrids which generally resemble pecans in flavor and appearance and would be classed with them). largest, the klein, . g in weight. of the pure northern pecans the norton, . g in weight is the largest. of the pure southern pecans tested the delmas . g in weight is the largest. of the northern pecans the greatest percentage of kernel yet found is the clifford "sweetmeat" of the contest, . % of kernel, followed closely by the koontz, . % and the dunn, . %. of the southern pecans the schley, %, leads. the thinnest shelled northern pecan yet tested is the wears of the contest, kg cracking pressure; the thinnest southern pecan is the burkett, kg followed closely by the schley kg. the finest flavored among the northern pecans is dunn no. , which has a kernel which is exceptionally delicious. the finest flavored among the southern pecans is the schley. the following standards for hazels have been established. the largest american hazel yet found is the littlepage . g but the rush, although a smaller nut has a larger kernel . g against . g for the littlepage. the rush also has a greater proportion of kernel, . %, than any other native hazel yet tested or any foreign one excepting the white aveline which has . %. the thinnest shelled american hazel is the rush kg and the thinnest shelled foreign one, the white aveline kg. those who have given the matter consideration are thoroughly convinced of the great possibilities of systematic hybridization of nut trees. work of this kind will have to be carried on according to carefully thought out plans, the details of which are not yet quite clear in all particulars. the facts brought out by this contest have added to our knowledge of what may be expected from our work. take the hickory for example; we have shellbark hickory nuts nearly three times the size of the best southern pecans; we have bitternut hickory nuts with a proportion of kernel greater than that of any pecan and with shell so thin, that they can be cracked with less pressure than any pecans i have ever seen; we have in the best shagbarks, flavor of kernel unsurpassed in any nut. theoretically, it should be possible to produce nuts in which these qualities are combined to a large degree. similar possibilities exist with the butternut and the japan walnut where it is seemingly possible to produce nuts in which the qualities of both will be combined and get smooth, thin-shelled butternuts or well flavored japan walnuts or desirable butterjaps, as i am inclined to call them. an inspection of the table of hickories show that out of the receiving points or over, are certainly hybrids. there are a number of others where it seems very probable that they are hybrids. there are a number of facts to suggest that some of our very thin shelled hickories, which at first sight seem to be shagbarks, are hybrids of which the shellbark or mockernut is one parent. why the offspring of such thick shelled nuts as the shellbark or the mockernut and the shagbark should be thin shelled, is more than i can imagine. we have two occurrences however which are significant. on the list of japan walnuts two hybrids of the persian and japan walnut, cording and siebosian are noted. i have never tested a persian walnut where the cracking pressure runs much over kg and it is rather unusual for a japan walnut to run much over kg, yet cording is kg, a strength of shell greater than that of any other nut sent into the contest this year and which is only found among black walnuts and shellbark hickories. siebosian is not very much less. if two comparatively thin shelled nuts will produce an offspring with a shell so much thicker than either parent, it does not seem more impossible for two thick shelled nuts to produce thin shelled offsprings. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |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. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ _northern nut growers association_ _incorporated_ _affiliated with the american horticultural society_ report _of the proceedings of the_ twenty-fifth annual meeting battle creek, mich. _september and , _ index officers, directors and committees state vice-presidents list of members constitution by-laws the president proceedings of the twenty-fifth annual convention address of welcome by w. k. kellogg report of secretary report of treasurer reports of standing committees business session the dietetic importance of nuts--dr. john harvey kellogg nut culture work of the living tree guild--miss dorothy sawyer progress report on nut growing in the ithaca, n. y. region--dr. l. h. macdaniels some random notes on nut culture--d. c. snyder winter injury of filberts at geneva, - --prof. g. l. slate notes on hickories--a. b. anthony letter from rev. paul c. crath--poland the chestnut situation in illinois--dr. a. s. colby report on commercial cracking and merchandising of black walnuts--h. f. stokes nut culture in ontario--george corsan nut growing on a commercial basis--miss amelia riehl some notes on the hardiness of the english walnut in michigan and ontario--prof. j. a. neilson nut tree prospects in the tennessee valley--john w. hershey some new hicans and pecans--j. g. duis some old friends--dr. w. c. deming nut growing in vermont--zenas h. ellis a roll call of the nuts--dr. w. c. deming nut culture in the north--j. f. wilkinson varieties of nut trees for the northernmost zone--c. a. reed notes on the tour, tuesday september , address of prof. v. r. gardner, director, experiment station at michigan state college, east lansing the ohio black walnut contest--carl f. walker mr. ellis' report as delegate to paris horticultural exposition report of resolutions committee communications from: j. u. gellatley b. d. wallace vera nekiassena divisional forest officer--kashmir john w. hershey mrs. e. w. freel geo. w. gibbens fred kettler telegram to dr. morris catalogue of nut trees in kellogg plantings exhibits at convention attendance books and bulletins on northern nut growing advertisement--"hobbies magazine" officers of the association _president._ frank h. frey, room , la salle st. station, chicago, ill. _vice-president._ dr. g. a. zimmerman, south th st., harrisburg, pa. _secretary._ geo. l. slate, state agricultural experiment station, geneva, n. y. _treasurer._. carl f. walker, e. overlook road, cleveland heights, ohio _directors_ frank h. frey, dr. g. a. zimmerman, geo. l. slate, carl f. walker, prof. j. a. neilson, d. c. snyder. _editor of publications_ dr. w. c. deming _committees_ _executive._ frank h. frey, dr. g. a. zimmerman, geo. l. slate, carl f. walker, prof. j. a. neilson, d. c. snyder. _auditing._ zenas h. ellis, h. burgart. _finance._ t. p. littlepage, dr. w. c. deming, h. r. weber. _press and publication_. dr. w. c. deming, karl w. greene, dr. j. russell smith, zenas h. ellis, geo. l. slate. _membership._ col. l. h. mitchell, miss dorothy c. sawyer, j. u. gellatly, d. c. snyder, carl f. walker. _program._ j. f. wilkinson, dr. w. c. deming, c. a. reed, karl w. greene, h. r. weber. _hybrids and promising seedlings._ dr. g. a. zimmerman, prof. n. f. drake, miss amelia riehl, h. f. stoke, j. f. wilkinson, c. a. reed. _survey._ c. a. reed, carl f. walker, dr. a. s. colby, h. f. stoke, dr. l. h. mac daniels, dr. w. c. deming. _exhibits._ h. r. weber, miss mildred jones, prof. a. s. colby. _dean of the association_ dr. robert t. morris, of new york and connecticut. _field secretary_ zenas h. ellis, fair haven, vermont. _official journal_ american fruit grower, ontario st., cleveland, ohio. state vice-presidents argentina, s. a. francisco m. croce arkansas prof. n. f. drake california will j. thorpe canada j. u. gellatly canal zone l. c. leighton connecticut dr. w. c. deming dist. of columbia l. h. mitchell illinois dr. a. s. colby indiana j. f. wilkinson iowa d. c. snyder kansas w. p. orth kentucky e. c. rice maryland t. p. littlepage massachusetts james h. bowditch michigan harry burgart minnesota carl weschcke missouri j. w. schmid nebraska william caha new jersey lee w. jaques new york prof. l. h. macdaniels ohio harry r. weber oregon c. e. schuster pennsylvania john rick rhode island philip allen vermont zenas h. ellis virginia dr. j. russel smith washington major h. b. ferris west virginia andrew cross wisconsin lt. g. h. turner northern nut growers' association list of members as of january , argentina, s. a. croce, francisco m., mendoza arkansas * drake, prof. n. f., fayetteville california thorpe, william j., divisadero st., san francisco canada chipman, g. f., "the country guide," winnipeg, manitoba gage, j. h., flatt ave., hamilton, ont. gellatly, j. u., west bank, b. c. middleton, m. s., esq., district horticulturist, vernon, b. c. canal zone leighton, l. c., box , cristobal connecticut bartlett, f. a., f. a. bartlett tree expert co., stamford beeman, henry w., new preston deming, dr. w. c., owen st., hartford little, norman b., rocky hill * morris, dr. robert t., merribrooke, r. f. d., stamford pratt, george d., jr., bridgewater rowley, dr. john c., asylum st., hartford southworth, geo. f., milford district of columbia gravatt, dr. g. f., forest pathology, plant industry, u. s. d. a., wash. greene, karl w., foxhall rd., n. w., washington * littlepage, thomas p., union trust bldg., washington mitchell, col. lennard h., california st., n. w., washington reed, c. a., dep't of agriculture, washington illinois anthony, a. b., r. f. d. no. , sterling bontz, mrs. lillian, general delivery, peoria colby, dr. arthur s., university of illinois, urbana frey, frank h., room , lasalle st. station, chicago oakes royal, bluffs ramsdell, t. a., hotel galt, sterling riehl, miss amelia, evergreen heights, godfrey spencer, mrs. may r., w. decatur st., decatur indiana galbreath, dr. r. s., w. washington st., huntington minton, charles f., south jefferson st., huntington wilkinson, j. f., indiana nut nursery, rockport iowa helmick, j. k., columbus junction iowa state horticultural society, state house, des moines johnson, mrs. r. t., knoxville rohrbacher, wm., east college st., iowa city schlagenbusch bros., route no. , ft. madison snyder, d. c., center point van meter, w. l., adel kansas orth, w. p., mt. hope kentucky horine, dr. emmet f., breslin medical bldg., louisville rice, e. c., absher maryland close, dr. c. p., college park hahn, albert g., route no. , bethesda porter, john j., the terrace, hagerstown mehring, upton f., keymar purnell, j. edgar, box , salisbury massachusetts allen, edward e., hotel ambassador, cambridge * bowditch, james h., tremont st., boston brown, daniel l., state st., boston hale, richard w., state st., boston kaan, dr. helen w., wellesley college, wellesley putnam, mrs. ellen m., babson st., mattapan russell, mrs. newton h., burnett ave., south hadley ryan, henry e., sunderland smith, leon c., day ave., westfield wellman, sargeant h., windridge, topsfield michigan bradley, homer l., manchester st., battle creek burgart, harry, michigan nut nursery, route no. , union city healey, scott, route no. , otsego healy, oliver t., michigan nut nursery, route no. , union city ** kellogg, dr. john harvey, manchester st., battle creek ** kellogg, w. k., battle creek morrison, j. robert, paw paw neilson, prof. j. a., michigan state college, e. lansing otto, arnold g., three mile drive, detroit stocking, frederick n., cadillac st., detroit wieber, frank a., fowler minnesota andrews, miss frances e., clifton ave., minneapolis weschcke, carl, wabasha st., st. paul missouri schmid, j. w., s. holland, springfield nebraska caha, wm., wahoo new jersey buckwalter, alan r., flemington * jaques, lee w., waverly place, jersey city orner, george d., ridgewood rd., maplewood new york bennett, f. h., east nd st., new york bixby, mrs. willard g., grand ave., baldwin collins, joseph n., w. th st., new york cooke, frank s., bowery, new york crysdale, stanley a., route no. , auburn curtis, elroy, worth st., new york ellwanger, mrs. wm. d., east ave., rochester graham, s. h., route no. , ithaca * huntington, a. m., east th st., new york kelly, mortimer b., battery place, new york * lewis, clarence, park ave., new york macdaniels, dr. l. h., c/o cornell university, ithaca, n. y. * montgomery, robert h., madison ave., new york pickhardt, dr. otto c., east th st., new york sawyer, miss dorothy c., living tree guild, fourth ave., n. y. sefton, pennington, lake ave., auburn slate, geo. l., state agricultural exp. station, geneva smith, gilbert l., state school, wassaic tice, david, lockport tukey, dr. harold b., state agricultural exp. station, geneva * wissman, mrs. f. de r., w. th st., new york ohio canaday, ward m., home bank bldg., toledo cranz, eugene f., mount tom farm, ira fickes, w. r., route no. , wooster gerber, e. p., route no. , apple creek park, dr. j. b., ohio state university, columbus tabor, rollin h., mount vernon thorton, willis, fenway hall hotel, cleveland walker, carl f., e. overlook rd., cleveland heights * weber, harry r., east th st., cincinnati oregon schuster, c. e., horticulturist, corvallis pennsylvania baum, dr. f. l., yellow house gebhardt, f. c., east th st., erie hershey, john w., downingtown hostetter, c. f., bird-in-hand hostetter, l. k., route no. , lancaster jones nurseries, j. f., lancaster, box kaufman, m. m., clarion leach, will, cornell bldg., scranton mcintyre, a. c., dep't of forestry, state college miller, herbert, pinecrest poultry farms, richfield * rick, john, pennsylvania square, reading ruhl, a. w., langhorne terrace, langhorne smith, dr. j. russell, swarthmore, pa., elm ave. theiss, dr. lewis e., muncy * wister, john c., clarkson ave. & wister sts., germantown wright, ross pier, west th st., erie zimmerman, dr. g. a., so. th st., harrisburg rhode island ** allen, phillip, dorance st., providence vermont aldrich, a. w., route no. , springfield elfgren, ivar p., sheldon place, rutland * ellis, zenas h., fair haven virginia ricketts, e. t., box -d, route no. , alexandria stoke, h. f., watts ave., roanoke washington ferris, major hiram b., p. o. box , spokane west virginia cross, andrew, ripley wisconsin turner, lieut. g. h., prospect ave., portage * life member ** contributing member constitution article i _name._ this society shall be known as the northern nut growers association, incorporated. article ii _object._ its object shall be the promotion of interest in nut-bearing plants, their products and their culture. article iii _membership._ membership in this society shall be open to all persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to place of residence or nationality, subject to the rules and regulations of the committee on membership. article iv _officers._ there shall be a president, a vice-president, a secretary and a treasurer, who shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting; and an executive committee of six persons, of which the president, the two last retiring presidents, the vice-president, the secretary and the treasurer shall be members. there shall be a state vice-president from each state, dependency, or country represented in the membership of the association, who shall be appointed by the president. article v _election of officers._ a committee of five members shall be elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating officers for the following year. article vi _meetings._ 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 executive committee 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 executive committee. article vii _quorum._ ten members of the association shall constitute a quorum, but must include two of the four elected officers. article viii _amendments._ 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 a copy of the proposed amendment having been mailed by any member to each member thirty days before the date of the annual meeting. by-laws article i _committees._ the association shall appoint standing committees as follows: on membership, on finance, on programme, on press and publication, on exhibits, on hybrids, on survey, and an auditing committee. the committee on membership may make recommendations to the association as to the discipline or expulsion of any member. article ii _fees._ annual members shall pay two dollars annually. contributing members shall pay ten dollars annually. life members shall make one payment of fifty dollars, and shall be exempt from further dues and will be entitled to same benefits as annual members. honorary members shall be exempt from dues. "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 will 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 or the donation. article iii _membership._ all annual memberships shall begin either with the first day of the calendar quarter following the date of joining the association, or with the first day of the calendar quarter preceding that date as may be arranged between the new member and the treasurer. article iv _amendments._ by-laws may be amended by a two-third vote of members present at any annual meeting. article v members shall be sent a notification of annual dues at the time they are due, and if not paid within two months, they shall be sent a second notice, telling them that they are not in good standing on account of non-payment of dues, and are not entitled to receive the annual report. at the end of thirty days from the sending of the second notice, a third notice shall be sent notifying such members that unless dues are paid within ten days from the receipt of this notice, their names will be dropped from the rolls for non-payment of dues. [illustration: the president--frank h. frey] report of the proceedings at the twenty-fifth annual convention _of the_ northern nut growers association (incorporated) _september , , _ battle creek, michigan the first session convened at : a. m., september , at the kellogg hotel with president frey in the chair. _the president:_ this is the twenty-fifth annual convention of the northern nut growers' association, our silver anniversary. fifteen years ago the convention was held in this city. we are glad to be back again and happy to have with us mr. w. k. kellogg who has consented to extend a welcome. mr. kellogg: i am glad to welcome this association, and you as individuals, to battle creek. a year ago when an invitation was sent you thru professor neilson to make this your meeting place for , we were very much pleased to have the invitation accepted. now that we have the pleasure of your presence we hope you may have an enjoyable and profitable time. battle creek was undoubtedly put on the map many years ago by the battle creek sanitarium and has since been kept prominently before the public by the extensive advertising that has been done by the companies located here which manufacture ready-to-eat foods. the records indicate that more than , carloads of these foods are shipped every year to almost every country on the globe. more than , people are given employment. so much for the magic words, "battle creek." my interest in nuts dates from my earliest recollection when my father took the children nutting. in the evening we often gathered around the kerosene lamp, the kitchen stove and father with an inverted flat iron in his lap and a pan of ohio hickory nuts near by. these, accompanied by some red-cheeked apples, entertained us royally. no movies in those days. about ten or twelve years ago mrs. kellogg and i had the opportunity of listening to a talk by mr. george hebden corsan, sr. he devoted considerable time to the subject of nut culture, mentioning his own experiences in canada and also the work of mr. john f. jones of lancaster, pennsylvania. a few years later mr. corsan became associated with the bird sanctuary enterprise, a few miles west of battle creek, and very shortly thereafter was talking nut culture. the result was we began to order nut trees by the carloads. with this beginning it was only a year or two when mr. corsan told me of the wonderful experience, as well as the ability, of professor neilson of toronto in nut culture. as you are doubtless aware professor neilson decided to locate in michigan and he made a connection with the michigan agricultural college at lansing. professor neilson is present and better prepared to tell you of the work that has been accomplished thru his efforts during the last five years. he may also have an opportunity of showing you the results of some of his work in nut grafting. now just a word furthermore with reference to this wonderful town of battle creek which in celebrated its centennial. with the exception of detroit, chicago and new york, there is probably no city so well known the world over as battle creek, this having been accomplished thru the advertising of the sanitarium since its establishment in , and the advertising of ready-to-eat cereal foods for more than forty years, during which time the magic words "battle creek" have appeared on packages of cereals, in newspapers, magazines and other advertising more than six billion times. one of the food factories located in battle creek frequently prints, fills and ships more than , , packages per day, or the equivalent of carloads. this same factory gives employment to more than , people, none of whom work more than six hours per day. this six hour plan has been established more than - / years and the minimum wage paid per hour to the men is cents. in conclusion, i must admit that most of my interest in nut culture has been by proxy. professor neilson and mr. corsan are both with us today and no doubt will have an opportunity of showing you some of the progress that has been made in the vicinity of wintergreen and gull lakes, the state agricultural farm and the kellogg ranch. we assure you it has been a pleasure to have you with us on this occasion and we should be glad to have your convention meet with us annually. you have my best wishes for the continued success and prosperity of the northern nut growers' association. * * * * * _the vice-president_, dr. zimmerman: it will be rather a difficult task to respond to an address of welcome of such a notable character as mr. kellogg's. however, i want to express my sincere appreciation for being commissioned to respond to such a hearty welcome. i'm glad to be here for several other reasons. first, because this association represents a number of people who in themselves represent different lines of action. we have first the men and women who are in this association from an experimental standpoint. we have also a number who are here with a commercial planting standpoint. then we have another group that represents the growing and selling of nut trees. but, in addition to that and most important of all, we have another set that represents the consuming public, notably mr. kellogg and his brother. about their work there need not be a great deal said. i remember, when i first began to become interested in nut culture, i wrote to dr. j. h. kellogg. i don't remember at the present time where he said his plantings were, but i wrote to him in connection with pecans, and he said he had a grove of them planted. he said they were quite large but they hadn't borne and he believed that they would not bear in this section because it was so far north. he advised me to get in communication with mr. j. h. jones. that was practically the information i got from everybody i wrote to, so i went to see mr. jones. dr. kellogg has advanced the idea of nuts as food. not only that but he has continuously stood for the belief that they are more suitable for human food than many of the proteins of animal nature. in addition to that he publishes one of the best health magazines in the country. dr. kellogg is putting out a health magazine that is further advanced than any other magazine that i know of. it gives me great pleasure to respond to the address of welcome and i wish to thank mr. kellogg on the part of the association and myself. report of the secretary for the present secretary assumed office in september without the benefit of previous membership in the association and knowledge of its affairs. considerable time has been spent in getting acquainted with these affairs. president frey, mr. reed, and dr. deming have been especially helpful in orienting the secretary and assisting in answering correspondence. the late mr. russell, and his successor, mr. walker, have handled all matters referred to them in a prompt and efficient manner. much credit is due to mrs. russell for the efficient manner in which she attended to the treasurer's duties during mr. russell's illness. one of the chief duties of the secretary is the answering of correspondence pertaining to association affairs and inquiries regarding nut culture. a total of letters were written for the association. fifty-three were to the officers and mr. reed regarding association affairs, while concerned nut cultural problems and memberships. a number of letters were referred to mr. reed and a few to prof. macdaniels for reply. in addition to the correspondence addressed to the association regarding nuts, an equal or larger number of inquiries concerning nuts addressed to the station were also answered. a list of names of people interested in nuts, but not members of the association, is being accumulated from this correspondence. the circular describing the association and its work was reprinted and a list of nut nurseries and tree seedsmen prepared by mr. reed was mimeographed. these were enclosed in all association and station letters sent to non-members in answer to nut inquiries. their effect in bringing in new members and their influence on the sale of nut trees is of course unknown. dr. macdaniels and dr. colby also used these circulars in correspondence. a list of available publications on nut culture has also been prepared and will be mimeographed shortly. a campaign to sell many of the surplus reports of the association was planned, but owing to unforeseen obstacles the reports were not available and the plans for selling them were shelved until after this meeting. if the reports are soon assembled at geneva it is planned to circularize agricultural and horticultural libraries and attempt to place complete or nearly complete sets in as many as possible. attractive prices will be made on sets of those reports of which we have an oversupply. a mimeographed list of cions available from the bixby collection was prepared at mr. reed's suggestion and sent to all members and other interested persons. mrs. bixby received as many copies as she needed. mr. j. t. bregger, editor of the american fruit grower, has cooperated with the secretary in publishing notes pertaining to association activities. he is desirous of publishing articles on nut culture. it is to be hoped that contributions may be received from members interested in various phases of nut growing. other publications are eager for articles on all phases of horticulture. if nut culture is to receive its due publicity more than a few must take their pens in hand. it is with great regret and sadness that the death on april , , of our treasurer, newton h. russell, is recorded. his enthusiasm, interest and kindly personality will be greatly missed. he was very active in promoting nut culture in massachusetts. we have lost a valuable member. the discontinuance of the national nut news leaves us without an official organ. this is a serious handicap to our work. the stimulation of interest provided by the regular arrival of a publication containing the latest news and newest developments in our field, is a valuable aid in nut culture and association activities. the provision of such a medium is one of our most pressing problems. our membership is at a low point and should be doubled. the secretary is desirous of cooperating with the membership committee in a campaign to increase the membership. with our dues at their present low figure it should not be difficult to interest many in the association. such a campaign should follow several lines. first: every member should attempt to secure additional members. second: many who dropped out when dues were high should be invited to return. third: attempts should be made to contact certain groups. all of the northern experiment stations and agricultural colleges should have a member of their horticultural department in the association. groups such as doctors, lawyers, nurserymen, farmers and others should be informed of the association and what it offers to each. fourth: the agricultural college and experiment station libraries should be induced to take out memberships and bring their sets of reports up to date. such a campaign is more than one person can handle, and several should participate in it. treasurer's report year ending august , receipts annual memberships $ . contributing memberships . sale of reports . sale of bulletins . for subscriptions to national nut news . _______ total $ . $ . disbursements reprints, k. w. greene (for mr. bixby) $ . printing report, balance, american fruits pub. co. . subscriptions, national nut news . printing report, lightner pub. corp. . expenses downingtown convention, j. w. hershey . membership dues, american horticultural society . expense handling surplus reports, c. a. reed . advertising, lightner pub. corp. . printing report, lightner pub. corp. . release expense of account with litchfield savings society . loss on check . postage, f. h. frey . postage and miscl. expense for report, f. h. frey . mimeographing, g. l. slate . printing, postage and supplies, c. f. walker . check charges & taxes . _______ total $ . $ . excess of disbursements over receipts $ . cash account cash on hand or in bank as reported as of aug. , $ . account in litchfield savings society as of aug. , . _______ total cash on hand or in bank as of aug. , $ . $ . excess of disbursements over receipts . _______ balance, cash in bank, august , $ . accounts, due or payable none _press and publication committee_ dr. deming: we have had one or two articles in each issue of the national horticultural magazine, published by the american horticultural society in washington. the editor has promised to have in each issue of his magazine something relating to nuts. he is particularly anxious to get short articles with a single illustration, articles about a page long which will attract attention, be easy to read and stimulate interest in nuts. i would be glad to receive articles of that nature for submission to the editor. it is unfortunate that we no longer have an official journal, the national nut news having gone out of existence. we have an opportunity to make the american fruit grower, with which we have been acquainted a good many years, our official journal, and that will come up in the course of this meeting. _membership committee_ mr. walker: from our increase in membership--forty new members--and from their addresses, one is able to judge of the work of prof. neilson, he being very active in obtaining new members. there are others of our members who also have been active and to whom credit is due for the increase in membership. an analysis of the membership of the past six years indicates that we are on the increase again. we have retained over % of those who were members last year. i feel as though we need not try to get everybody in the world to plant nut trees. but there is no reason why we should not greatly increase our membership. _program committee_ prof. neilson: at nine o'clock tomorrow morning busses will be at the hotel to take us to the kellogg plant. about : we will proceed to the sanitarium. we will try and meet at the kellogg hotel at : p.m. where we are to be the guest of mr. w. k. kellogg for luncheon. after lunch, at one o'clock, we will board the busses and proceed to the kellogg farm. at the farm we will look over the buildings for a few minutes, call at the kellogg school, and then stop for a few moments and look over our bittersweet plantation. then we will go on to the kellogg bird sanctuary and see what is being done there in conserving wild fowl. after we leave the sanctuary we will visit a block of about fifteen acres of hickory trees, where i have been doing top working experiments for the last three or four years. then we will inspect our variety plantation of nut trees and proceed to mr. kellogg's estate. at : the kellogg company will provide motor boats to take us for a cruise on gull lake. at : we will have our dinner at bunbury inn on gull lake and then have a few addresses and a business session. _report of committee on hybrids and promising seedlings_ dr. zimmerman: one or two interesting seedlings have come to our attention during the past year. one a hickory nut that was drawn to the attention of the pennsylvania nut growers' association january last. it is a rather good nut and bears very well. i think mr. hershey has some of the trees for sale. the other, a very interesting shellbark, came to my attention. the nut is large, the best cracker for a shellbark that i have seen, the tree itself is beautiful and, although the party who owns it says it bears every other year, it seems to me to produce a good many nuts every year that i have seen it. another, probably worthless, but interesting, seems to me to be an english walnut x butternut hybrid. the party insists she planted walnuts from a typical english walnut tree, but the trees from these nuts, of which there are a number bearing small nuts, certainly have the earmarks of the butternut. these plants will be kept under observation and a later report given concerning them. we have a number of first generation hybrids, but so far as i am aware we have no second or following generation hybrids in the nut line. it seems to me that if we plant a lot of the nuts from these first generation hybrids and, when the plants are large enough, distribute them to parties who will give them space and care for them until they come into bearing, somebody sooner or later will get hold of some valuable material. work along this line i expect to advance through our committee as rapidly as practical. it seems to me that the seedlings of our first generation hybrids should not be destroyed as has frequently been done in the past. prof. neilson: i have seen quite a few hybrids between the heartnut and the butternut. i believe the mitchel is about the best. dr. macdaniels: we found that the tree had stood the winter very well and that it was bearing a good crop. we brought along a few samples labeled the mitchel hybrid heartnut. it looked to me to be a promising nut. prof. neilson: mr. mitchel thought it was a worthless butternut. i told mr. mitchel that i thought it was well worth saving and i hope that one of these days we shall succeed in propagating it. the president: mr. stokes, in virginia, has located some black walnuts that will be excellent. mr. hershey's name and work have been mentioned. he writes me that the territory of the tennessee valley is a wonderful lay-out and he is putting on a contest for different kinds of nuts. he may have some desirable nuts to present later on. mr. slate: if mr. reed is not planning to discuss those jones hybrids in his paper i wish he, or someone else who is acquainted with them, would make some remarks to be placed on record. mr. reed: we think that the two most promising of the jones hybrids are numbers and . those were mr. jones' own numbers. about three years ago we began making an intensive study of them. ninety-two seemed to bear better and be a little more promising than , and so it was named first. it was named buchanan in honor of the only president of the united states who came from pennsylvania. last year number showed up so favorably that it seemed well to name that one also, so just about a year ago the name of bixby was suggested and it met with universal approval. that, i think, is all that i have to say about the hybrids. we are watching them very closely. from here east we had a very severe winter last year. apple orchards very, very old were killed all through the east and with them thousands and thousands of english walnut trees. in washington we have practically no crop of filberts and our english walnuts were affected generally. we have yet to find a single hybrid between black walnut and english walnut which appears to be promising. there is a record, but i think we should have brought to our attention from time to time what was known as the james river hybrid. it was an enormous black walnut tree that grew on the james river near jamestown. it was visited in by mr. karl greene and mr. hershey. mr. greene said that the tree measured thirteen feet in circumference. you don't often see trees as large as that in any part of the country. that is in a part of the country where the english walnut has not done well. the tree must have been somewhere around years old when it died. it was probably grown from a hybrid between an english walnut and a black walnut. our american colonists brought the english walnut with them about the same time they brought our first apples and peaches and plums and everything else. this tree throws some light on the question as to when the first english walnut first came to this country. a week ago yesterday i was riding along a country road down in maryland. i saw a row of trees. one tree in the middle of that row was as big as any other three there. i slowed up and looked at them more closely. the large tree was a hybrid and the others were not. _committee on exhibits_: on the tables prof. neilson has a number of plates of the northern pecan at its best. besides that he has two remarkable specimens of hybrid hickories. one is a mccallister, and the other is of unknown origin. there are also on the tables other remarkable nuts grown in this part of the united states, in ontario and in british columbia. there are chestnuts, english walnuts, japanese heartnuts and others. mr. reed: you will recall that one year ago i was made custodian of the back records of the association. within two weeks of the time of last year's meeting i personally procured the reports which were stacked away in mr. bixby's barn, and took them to washington. a little later dr. deming and the late mr. russell made a trip to redding, connecticut, and sent me pounds of back reports. still later mr. karl greene brought to me about another pounds of reports. i had then about pounds. we put them in the basement of the building where our office was and then we began to move around. it began to cost something to move them. i communicated with mr. slate and found that there was abundant space at geneva, and the authorities were willing that they should be housed there. so i had the reports tied up and arranged with a truck man to move them to geneva. i made the arrangements with a man who agreed to move them for $ . then he backed out. i didn't feel like incurring a greater expense by sending them by railroad, so i waited until last week and took a bundle from each year in my own car. they are in the secretary's care at geneva at the present time. the rest of the reports will presently be stored in mr. littlepage's packing shed out in his apple orchard. there are still a few reports in the bixby's barn and dr. deming can tell how many more he has. the president: each current report will be sold at $ . per copy and old reports at c a copy. if someone wanted an entire set we would sell all eighteen or nineteen numbers now for $ . . the american fruit grower, published in cleveland, ohio, has agreed to have the magazine appear as the official journal of the northern nut growers' association. mr. j. t. bregger: we will deem it a privilege, and i'm sure an obligation, to take on this responsibility of acting as official journal of your society and give to you at least a column each month. we are already acting as official organ of other horticultural societies and it seems to work out very well. in addition to the column that your secretary would have each month you could run further articles on nut growing, which would be of additional interest to your members. you would have some , of our readers who are interested in fruit growing, and who would be interested in nut growing, as possible new members for your organization. they would receive your announcements and articles each month and you could get in touch with them, through that column, for additional membership. mr. walker: i move that the american fruit grower be made the official organ of the northern nut growers' association, that the secretary be the official correspondent with the american fruit grower, that the subscription price be paid by the treasurer direct to the american fruit grower, that the present membership fee remain the same, two dollars, to all members, with the privilege of receiving the american fruit grower. the motion was seconded by prof. neilson. the president: mr. ellis has offered to donate $ . this year, if it is necessary, to apply on subscriptions for the membership. i don't know that we will have to call on him for this but it is certainly a display of fine spirit. dr. deming: i want to express my great satisfaction that the american fruit grower has offered to act as our official organ on such advantageous terms. fourteen years ago, before mr. bregger's career as an editor began, i edited a nut column in the fruit grower. the motion was carried. the following named were elected as committee to nominate officers for next year: dr. deming, colonel mitchell, professor neilson, mr. weber, and dr. colby. resolutions committee: professor slate, mr. c. a. reed, and dr. colby. motion was duly made, seconded and carried that; honorary membership in this association may be conferred upon any person by a majority vote of members present at any business session or by letter ballot of members in good standing and honorary membership should be conferred only on individuals who have rendered outstanding or meritorious service in connection with the promotion of interest in nut bearing plants, their products and their culture. mr. w. k. kellogg and dr. john h. kellogg were nominated for honorary members of the association and unanimously elected. the dietetic importance of nuts _by_ dr. john harvey kellogg, _michigan_ nuts, which supply the finest edible fats and proteins which science has discovered, occupy the smallest place in the nation's food budget of any of our substantial native foods. this is a remarkable situation well worthy of consideration in view of the fact that, according to prof. elliot of oxford university and the eminent prof. ami of montreal, and many other paleontologists, nuts were the chief diet of the earliest representatives of the race who appeared in the eocene period of geologic time. at that time, according to prof. elliot, the regions inhabited by man bore great forests of walnut, hickory, and other nut trees, the fossil relics of which are found in great abundance in association with the remains of prehistoric man. it is significant, also, that man's nearest relatives, the gorilla, orangutan, and chimpanzee still stick to the original bill of fare. i once made an ape so angry by offering him a bit of meat that he threatened to attack me and finally, as i persisted in offering him the meat, seized it and flung it as far away as possible, then scrubbed his soiled hand with dust and wiped it on the grass to get rid of the taint of the meat. he gave every evidence of feeling deeply insulted. biology classifies man as a primate along with the great apes and, according to the great cuvier, assigns to him along with other primates, a diet consisting of nuts, fruits, soft grains, tender shoots and succulent roots. the great ice sheet which crept down over the greater part of the northern hemisphere during the glacial period destroyed the nut forests. the greater part of the primate family, including man, moved south and survive today in central africa, where, along with their furry cousins, the gorilla and the chimpanzee, they still adhere to a dietary almost wholly of plant foods. those who remained behind were compelled to resort to a flesh diet to avoid starvation. flesh eating naturally led to cannibalism, and the historians tell us that only a few thousand years ago, the survivors of the glacial terrors who roamed the british isles, from which the ancestors of most americans emigrated, roamed the forests clad in the skins of animals and feasted upon their enemies. when the grain-eating romans conquered and civilized our barbarian ancestors and taught them agriculture, plant foods again became the chief sources of nutriment, but a meat appetite had been developed and is still characteristic of the anglo-saxon race, while most of the rest of the world are almost exclusively plant feeders. four hundred millions of chinese eat so little meat that it is, in the case of south china, not even mentioned in the national food budget. sixty millions of japanese eat an average of pounds per capita. two hundred millions of east indians never taste meat. as a matter of fact, only americans, english, germans and scandinavians are large meat eaters. evidently, the american meat appetite as well as the american sugar tooth is enormously exaggerated. it is somewhat encouraging, however, to note that the eating habits of the american people are changing. within a generation, and especially since the world war, there has been a notable change in the national bill of fare. more cereals are consumed than formerly, but the greatest per capita increase is shown in the consumption of fruits and vegetables, and especially greenstuffs, such as lettuce, spinach, kale, and other greens. this increase in the use of certain foods is not due to the fact that the american appetite is increasing or the american stomach enlarging, but to the spread among the people of scientific information concerning nutrition. through experiments upon rats and various other animals, including man himself, fundamental principles have been discovered and a real science of nutrition has been developed, the axioms, formulae, and basic ideas of which are as clearly established as are those of geometry and chemistry. we are no longer left to be led astray by guess-work or fancy in supplying our nutritive needs, and have verified the truth so aptly expressed by that shrewd old roman philosopher, seneca, who said, "there is nothing against which we ought to be more on our guard than, like a flock of sheep, following the crowd of those who preceded us." this change in the eating habits of the american people has been brought about by disillusionment respecting the importance of meats. fifty years ago, every physiologist taught that the liberal consumption of meat was essential. this idea was based, first, upon the supposition that protein, the chief constituent of lean meat, is the most important source of energy; and, second, the belief that food of animal origin is better adapted to human sustenance than plant foods, through having undergone a process of refinement and concentration in the transformation from plant to animal. modern studies of nutrition have shown that both these ideas are without scientific basis. unfortunately for the nut-growing industry, and still more unfortunately for the american people, the claims of nuts to consideration in this re-adjustment of the bill of fare have been generally overlooked, and it seems evident that the only hope for the nut industry lies in the creation of a larger demand for these nutrients from the plant world by acquainting the public with their superlative merits. of course, room must be made for the increased intake of nuts by lessened consumption of something which nuts may advantageously replace in the bill of fare. most nuts consist almost exclusively of proteins and fat. proteins and fats likewise are almost the sole constituents of meat. nuts are thus the vegetable analogues of meat and are competitors for a place on the bill of fare. physiologists are agreed that the american people are eating too much meat, and it is the general spread of this conviction that has lessened the consumption of flesh foods in this country and has crippled the packing industry. a few years ago, the meat packers, finding that the consumption of meat had fallen off nearly one-fourth since the beginning of the century, began a vigorous campaign of publicity to increase the demand for their products. a special board was established for the purpose and through the activities of this board an enormous amount of misinformation has been broadcasted which has influenced a number of people to "eat more meat to save the live stock industry," to use the packers' appealing slogan and incidentally to help the packing industry, and there has been some increase in the use of pork, although the falling off in the consumption of beef has continued in spite of unscrupulous efforts to deceive and mislead the people, to their injury. the two greatest obstacles in the way of the nut growing industry are the ignorance of the people with respect to the value of nuts as staple foods and the frantic efforts being made by those interested in the meat industry to increase the demand for their products. a counter campaign of education is needed to set before the people the true facts as revealed by modern chemical and bacteriological research, by the discoveries of nutrition laboratories and by the clinical observations of thousands of eminent clinicians. the false claims for meat must be met, for it is only by lessening the consumption of meat that room can be made for the dietetic use of nuts. here are some of the errors that should be corrected. claim that meat is an essential food staple, and that without it there would result loss of vitality and of individual and racial stamina. no respectable physiologist will support this claim today, although half a century ago all physiologists held these now obsolete views. claim that flesh foods are necessary for blood building, especially red meats, because of their iron content. this claim is wholly without scientific support. modern experiments have shown that anemic animals recover most quickly on a diet rich in plant iron. green foods have been proven to be sources of the best iron, which is associated with chlorophyl. the iron of meat has been once used and is of the same sort as that which the body throws away. it is inferior to the iron of green plants, from which the ox makes his red blood. nuts contain a rich store of this precious plant iron, as do also beans. claim that beef and other flesh meats are muscle and strength builders par excellence. this claim no longer has scientific support. sugar is fuel of the body engine. when the butcher's daughter, gertrude ederle, failed in her first attempt to swim the english channel, she very justly charged her collapse before reaching the english shore to the mutton stew her trainer gave her before starting. when in a second attempt, she adopted my suggestion through a mutual acquaintance, to eat sugar instead of meat, she made a world record. this practice is, i believe, now adopted by all successful channel swimmers. non-flesh eaters are far superior to meat-eaters in endurance under special strains. when dempsey defeated the argentinean giant, he had trained on modest allowances of meat and his last meal had consisted of vitamin-rich fresh vegetables, while firpo loaded himself up with steaks and chops. when battling nelson lost his championship, he explained to a newspaper reporter, "'twas the beefsteak that done it. i swiped an extra beefsteak when my trainer was not looking, and it made me tired." de lesseps, the famous french engineer, became a confirmed and enthusiastic flesh abstainer when he found his sturdy beef-fed englishmen could not compete in work on the suez canal with the arab laborers, who subsisted on wheat bread and onions, as did the builders of the pyramids, according to herodotus, , years before. he declared, in fact, that without the hardy arabs, he could not have done the work. theodore roosevelt, in his story of his east africa hunting expedition, said in scribners magazine that a horse with a heavy man on his back could always run down a lion fleeing for his life in a mile and a half. claim that a man can live on a flesh or muscle meat diet such as chops and steaks. the famous pedestrian, weston, informed me that on his long walks, he never ate meat and on his walk across the continent lived on corn flakes and milk. carl mann, a grocer's clerk not professionally trained, competing in a government supervised walking race from dresden to berlin, miles, against the picked pedestrians of the german army and several professionals, won easily on a fleshless diet consisting of nuts and fresh vegetables which he pulled out of the vegetable gardens as he hurried by. the only protein he ate was derived from nuts. the tarahumari indians of mexico are the most tireless runners in the world. their ancestors were the dispatch runners of montezuma in pre-colombian days, and they still adhere to the simple plant regimen of their forbears. at the time of the boxer uprising in china some years ago, the rice-fed japanese were the first to arrive of the military representatives of numerous nations who raced to the rescue of the foreign embassies besieged by the fanatical and bloodthirsty boxers. claim that a man can live and enjoy good health for a year or many years on a purely flesh or muscle-meat diet. the packers' much heralded stefansson stunt of living a year on an exclusive meat diet was a discreditable fake. stefansson did not live on a meat diet, but on a diet consisting of one-fifth protein and four-fifths fat (caloric intake). when compelled against his protest to eat steaks and chops, he was made very ill with acidosis within two days, vomiting and purging so violently that he was compelled to make a complete and immediate change. prof. newburgh of our state university stated that stefansson ate no more real muscle meat than the average man usually eats. the stefansson experiment proved but one thing, namely, that a man even when accustomed to a meat diet, cannot live on lean meat alone for more than two days without becoming ill. dr. newburgh produced nephritis, or acute inflammation of the kidneys, in rats by feeding them exclusively on meat for a few weeks. claim that eskimos thrive on a meat diet. captain mcmillan who accompanied peary on his discovery of the north pole, a year or two ago informed me that the eskimo is short lived. that he becomes at years very old and useless and at infirm and helpless, and rarely lives to the age of years. the arctic traveler stefansson said to me, "i do not claim to have proven that a man can live better or longer on a flesh diet, but only that he can live. of course the scientific argument is against such a diet." prof. irving fisher of yale university some years ago made a series of endurance tests in which the endurance of the athletes of the yale gymnasium was compared with that of physicians and men nurses of the battle creek sanitarium. as prof. fisher said in his report, which was published in the yale scientific review, the endurance of the battle creek flesh-abstainers was found to be not only "greater" in all the tests, but far greater. in the arm holding (arms extended sidewise) tests, the battle creek men held their arms out longer than any yale man and nine times as long as the same number of yale men. vegetarian bicyclists have for many years held all the championships in endurance riding tests from land's end to john o'groats. through finland's minister to the united states i have learned that nurmi, the finnish runner whose record stands unequalled, was trained on a non-flesh dietary. the great war taught the world among many other important lessons, the fact that meat may be dispensed with not only without injury, but with great and very definite benefits. during the world war, denmark sold her cattle to germany and reduced her meat ration to a very low minimum, with the result that her death rate was reduced one-third. in germany, where at the beginning of the war the cattle were killed to save food and a practically meatless ration was maintained for more than three years, diabetes, bright's disease, and many other chronic maladies were reduced in frequency to an extraordinary degree. after the war, as i was informed by the medical director of one of the largest life insurance companies in this country, it was discovered that the death losses among the company's german policy holders, not excepting war casualties, were far below the prewar average. the chittenden standard now universally accepted, fixes the protein intake at per cent of the total ration. this leaves little room for meat, and not a few authorities reduce the protein to a still lower level. for some years, mccollum of johns hopkins has been calling attention to the evils of the "meat and bread" diet, which he declares to be about the worst diet one can adopt, and adds, "we could entirely dispense with meats without suffering any ill effects whatever." chalmers watson of edinburgh found that rats on a lean meat diet deteriorated so rapidly that after two or three generations they became deformed and dwarfed and ceased to reproduce. the international scientific food commission appointed by the allies at the time of the great war and charged with the duty of fixing the minimum ration of different food essentials, declared it to be unnecessary to fix a minimum meat ration, "in view of the fact that no absolute physiological need exists for meat, since the proteins of meat can be replaced by other proteins of animal origin, such as those contained in milk, cheese and eggs, as well as by proteins of vegetable origin." it is evident from the above facts that an effort to induce the american people to eat less meat and more nuts would do no harm and should prove substantially beneficial. a leading textbook on "nutrition and clinical dietetics" by carter, howe and mason of columbia university, calls attention to the encouraging fact that "of late there has been a distinct reaction in the meat-eating of the wealthier classes, and one sees less meat and more vegetable habits as they progress upward in the scale of civilization. also, on account of their sedentary habits, people find that the ingestion of considerable quantities of animal protein, with the consequent increase in intestinal putrefaction, gives rise to symptoms of toxemia, which have assumed a very definite place in the pathology of disease." that meat enormously increases intestinal putrefaction cannot be questioned. it is this fact which makes the difference between the excreta of a dog or lion and that of a cow or horse. all carnivorous animals suffer from autointoxication. the eminent pathologist of the philadelphia zoo states that all dogs over three years of age have hardened arteries, while horses practically never show arterial changes even when very old. dr. charles mayo states that three out of four dogs over years have cancer. i quote the following paragraphs from a poster prepared some years ago as a reply to "meat is wholesome" poster distributed by the packers through the post office department which presents ample evidence that meat is by no means always wholesome: a bacteriological examination made in the laboratory of the battle creek sanitarium of fresh meats purchased at seven different markets, all in apparently fresh condition, showed the following number of bacteria per ounce: bacteria per ounce beefsteak , , - , , pork chops , , - , , beef liver , , - , , corned beef , - , , hamburger steak , , - , , , pork liver , , - , , , the above figures agree with the findings of tissier, distaso, weinzirl, farger, walpole, and other bacteriological authorities. the fresh droppings of animals bacteria per ounce calf , , horse , , goat , , , cow , , , oyster juice , , the bacteria in meats are identical in character with those of manure, and are more numerous in some meats than in fresh manure. all meats become infected with manure germs in the process of slaughtering, and the number increases the longer the meat is kept in storage. ordinary cooking does not destroy all of the germs of meat. the importance of suppressing this intestinal putrefaction is becoming more and more evident as medical investigation and discoveries are continually bringing out new facts which show an intimate relation between intestinal poisons and many chronic maladies, including gall bladder disease, high blood pressure, heart disease which kills , americans annually, bright's disease, insanity and premature senility. many physicians are on this account saying daily to patients, "eat less meat." "cut out beefsteak and chops," and "change your intestinal flora so as to clear your coated tongue and eliminate the poison that taints your breath." nuts have the great advantage that although richer in protein than is meat, they are much less putrescible. fresh meats are practically always in a state of putrefaction when eaten while nuts are delivered to us by the generous hand of nature in aseptic packages, ready to eat, and presenting pure nutriment in the most condensed and refined form known to science. fresh meats are always contaminated with colon and putrefactive germs with which they become contaminated in the slaughtering process. if flesh is to be used as food, animals should be killed with the same antiseptic precautions which are employed in modern surgery. this is never done, and within a few days after killing, the flesh of a slaughtered animal is swarming with colon germs, and when long kept for use of hotels and many restaurants, is covered with a beard of green mold. such food is fit only for scavengers. hamburger steak and pork liver often contain more manure germs than the fresh droppings of animals. the liberal substitution of nuts for meats would save billions annually. according to prof. baker, of the department of agriculture, fully per cent of the total feed and food products in the united states is consumed by live stock. most of these animals are consumed as food. the enormous loss involved is shown by the fact that pounds of digestible foodstuffs are required to produce pounds of beef. according to an announcement by the united states bureau of statistics, the per capita annual cost of meat in the united states is more than $ . , which totals for the whole population nearly $ , , , per annum. prof. baker suggests that the annual per capita consumption of meat might without injury be reduced from the present pounds to fifty pounds, which would make a saving of $ , , , at least, for $ , , , would easily supply from nuts and other plant sources more than enough food to replace the discarded meats. the general belief that nuts are an expensive food is an error. when a man pays a dollar for three pounds of steak, he is probably not aware of the fact that three-fourths of what he buys is simply water, so that the actual solid nutriment purchased amounts to not more than three-quarters of a pound, making the actual cost of the water-free food $ . per pound. two pounds of almonds or other nut meats which might be purchased at the same cost, would yield twice as much and better food. if the whole beef industry were wiped out, the country would be the gainer. what the nut industry needs most is a campaign of education to tell the american public about the superior values of nuts and to correct the errors broadcasted by the meat board. the public must not only be taught the value of nuts as set forth in mr. russell's admirable book, but should be encouraged by government aid to plant nut trees on barren mountain sides and areas devastated by lumbering operations. if every lumberman had been required by law to plant a nut tree for every ten timber trees cut down during the last years, a food source would have been provided which would insure more than an ample supply of precious protein and satisfying fat to feed , , of americans if the cereal food crops were destroyed by a drouth or predatory insects. if nut trees were planted along all our highways and railway thoroughfares, a food crop would be produced of greater nutrient value than that yielded at the present time by the entire live stock industry. that an educational campaign may be made to succeed was shown by the experience of the raisin producers of california. some years ago, when the raisin industry was prostrate, i received a letter from the secretary of an association organized for the purpose of trying to revive the industry, asking for information concerning the food value of raisins. i called attention to the fact that the raisin is rich in food iron and a good source for this food mineral and suggested that if the people were made acquainted with this fact through a broad advertising campaign, the demand for this delectable fruit might be greatly increased. "have you eaten your iron?" soon appeared in the newspapers throughout the land, and the raisin farmers of california found it necessary to enlarge their vineyards. a discouraging feature of the nut industry to beginners is the long time required to bring trees to bearing. on this account, it seems to me that state and federal governments should lend the industry a helping hand. i would suggest that this association should instruct its president and secretary to make an earnest effort to persuade state and federal governments to give more attention to the planting of nut trees in their reforesting operations. a broad belt of nut trees running the length of the great timberline which is to be created for the protection of the western states from a recurrence of drouth, might prove a more dependable protection to our food supply than the possible effect of a narrow strip of woodland upon the country's climate. i append a table which shows the high food value of nuts as compared with other common foods. one pound of walnut meats equals in food value each of the following: pounds beef loin, lean . beef ribs, lean . beef neck, lean . veal . mutton leg, lean . ham, lean . fowls . chicken, broilers . red bass . trout . frog's legs . oysters . lobsters . eggs . milk . evaporated cream . dr. deming: i am sure everyone feels that the trip here would be worth while if we didn't receive another bit of information but your paper, and they would really like to develop some kind of an ailment so that they could place themselves under your care. mr. reed: about five years ago i spent a few hours here in battle creek, largely as a guest of dr. kellogg over at his home. while i was there he introduced me to quite a variety of soy bean products and he rather disturbed me by telling me that beans had much the same food values as nuts. he reminded me that you could grow a crop of beans every year. you can't be sure of doing that with nut trees. he gave me an economic idea to think about. i wonder if he has anything to say about beans now. are beans going to supplant nuts? dr. kellogg: i confess that it seems to me, from a practical and economic standpoint, that the soy bean is a very strong rival of the nut industry. i would like to inquire how many acres are at the present time planted in nuts. how many acres have been added in the last twenty years? there are, at the present time, more than , , acres of soy beans being planted every year. it has only been a short time since they were first introduced and there are more being planted every year. i believe that the government ought to take an interest in this matter of nut tree planting, for i believe that is the best way in which it can be promoted. i have for several years been trying to find someone who has made a fortune out of raising nuts but i have not yet found such a man. i believe, however, that it is a veritable gold mine of value but will have to have governmental aid. i think the government should require all of these slaughtering lumbermen to plant nut trees in the place of the trees they are cutting down. mr. corsan: the nut tree is one of the things that will make the boys and girls of the farm love their homes. in a few years boys and girls will be going back to a beautiful farm, not to pig pens, but where there are beautiful trees. nut culture work of the living tree guild _by_ miss dorothy c. sawyer, _new york_ the living tree guild appreciates the privilege of presenting a paper at the silver anniversary convention of the northern nut growers' association. we feel in a humble mood when talking to you. we are new comers in the field and the work we have done in furthering interest in the subject of northern nut culture is only taking what you have created and endeavoring to make it intelligible and useful to the public. it is something which arouses our enthusiasm. we have great faith in the value of planting grafted nut trees in the north. this new resource for beautifying and making idle land productive is no longer restricted to this small group of nut culturists, but it is now practical, for anyone with a little land and the urge to grow things, to enjoy the planting of nut trees. our function is in educating more people to an appreciation of what improved nut trees are and what they can do as they are at present developed. nut growing is just beginning to come into its own and the nut tree should take its place as a valuable shade tree, should be included in the home orchard and used as a paying crop by the farmer in the north. the guild is especially interested in introducing and popularizing new horticultural developments. it publishes a new type of tree as a publisher does a book. we serve as a connecting link between the horticulturist and the layman, aiming to coordinate the work of horticulturists and to interpret the meaning of this work to prospective planters of trees. we act as a sort of educational sieve, our aim being to extend the number of tree planters. this is a sales job and the living tree guild is a sales organization. we work through the press by means of conservative advertising and publicity articles, through personal contact by means of exhibits and individual interviews and through the mails by means of carefully prepared bulletins of information and well selected photographs. we work to gather all the authentic information and offer this to our customers as a unique service. frankly we believe that there is no other organization in the country that is as closely associated as we are with the authorities on tree planting. dr. morris, whom we all know as the dean of northern nut culture, is a member of our board of advisors. in order to symbolize the grafted nut tree the guild has adopted a brand name, guild pedigree, based on the fact that the mother trees have been carefully selected and are well known for their quality. experiments have shown that they represent a selected family line and develop true to its characteristics. we have been in touch with northern nut tree planting for a good many years, but our sales work has been limited to the past three years which, of course, means that we have never tried to sell nut trees in so-called normal times. yet guild pedigrees have bucked these economic obstacles and they are becoming recognized as offering a remarkable opportunity to the business man who has property and to the busy farmer to make their idle land productive with a minimum amount of care and attention. they realize that the difficult operation of grafting has been successfully accomplished and that they need only prepare the ground for planting according to the character of the soil and with a little pruning and cultivation within a few years may be assured of a new type of crop for which there is a growing demand. they recognize the value of these trees over ordinary fruit trees which require numerous sprayings a year and whose extremely perishable crop must be carefully picked from the trees. everyone knows that a certain amount of effort is required to get good returns from farming, but comparatively speaking improved nut trees have a decided advantage in their facility of growth, which means that they can be planted by a much wider range of growers than almost any other kind of crop. in all of this we speak primarily of the black walnut which we recognize as the best nut tree for extensive planting in the north. we believe the hazel hybrids and filberts are of value as a secondary nut crop, as fillers-in between the black walnuts or used as ornamental bushes for screening around the grounds. where local conditions justify it we recommend that the home orchard include a variety of nut trees, the english walnut, the northern pecan, certain hybrid hickories and a highly blight-resistant chestnut. the guild has realized from the start that most laymen know little or nothing about the planting of nut trees. we, therefore, work with them individually, advising them in detail on their particular plantings. we keep a record of all guild pedigree nut trees, particularly of the black walnut, each one of which bears a tag with a serial number. we keep a record of this number and are gradually building up a case history of each tree, in so far as possible, in some instances complete with photographs. we include the conditions under which the tree was planted, whether as an orchard or as an ornamental tree, the amount of care and attention given it and its gradual development and increase in bearing. this is also being done with every tree that is included in the experimental orchard the guild is operating in the connecticut river valley. the data that we are obtaining in this way is aiding us in publishing the latest authentic information on what happens when nut trees are planted by laymen under varying conditions. we believe these records will be a unique contribution of the guild to northern nut culture. by this means we can already point to certain guild pedigrees as having made unusual growth or only average development, together with the probable explanation, and of course to some that have died from natural causes or from attacks by woodchucks or the like. we can offer records of plantings of pedigrees that have been made in practically all the leading states, canada and even abroad. perhaps one of the most interesting case histories is that of pedigree no. which was planted in the spring of as a washington bicentennial tree. this tree, set as a single specimen, came into full leaf immediately after planting and a year later was all of seven feet tall and had three mature black walnuts for its first crop. it is the proud possession of two small boys. young as we are in the field we have given authentic information on the planting of northern nut trees to several thousands of tree lovers. we have found a definite demand for detailed knowledge, and recognition of our work has been shown by the great interests in exhibits we have staged and from several awards which we have received from such organizations as the horticultural society of new york. an analysis shows that guild nut tree plantings range from the true farmer to the gentleman farmer, from the small lot owner to the owner of hundreds of acres of non-dividend paying land, from the keen horticulturist to the youth who is taking his first step in following a fascinating new hobby. the selling of nut trees is a very special problem. it is not like selling other kinds of trees. we recognize the fact that those who plant pedigree nut trees are in a class by themselves and we, therefore, set up a separate department for them, making a special study of the subject. we feel certain that there is a great future ahead for nut growing in the north with our associations cooperating in the distribution of information and stock developed from actual experimentation over a period of years. above all it is important to understand what others are doing, and appreciate that the commercial side should go hand in hand with the purely horticultural. progress report on nut growing in the ithaca, n. y. region _by_ dr. l. h. macdaniels _new york_ the status of nut growing in the ithaca region was reported at the washington, d. c. meeting of this association in . since that time there has been little change in the situation except that a few more of the varieties have come into bearing, and the severe winter of - has injured the trees of many varieties. the plantings in the vicinity of ithaca are confined chiefly to those of the department of pomology at cornell university, and those of mr. s. h. graham who is a member of this association and has been planting nut trees for many years. other than these there are only scattered trees either native or planted around the dooryards by amateurs without any very keen interest in northern nut growing. the purpose of the plantings at cornell university is primarily to test out varieties for their suitability for growing in the rather rigorous climate of the region. farmers and others throughout new york state look to the experiment stations for information regarding the possibilities of nut culture and the varieties which might be planted to advantage. as has been pointed out previously, the number of varieties adapted to the region is distinctly limited because of unfavorable climatic conditions. these climatic conditions are more fully described in bulletin of the new york state agricultural experiment station at cornell entitled "nut growing in new york state." the breeding of new varieties and other investigational work is being carried on at the geneva experiment station where, as you know, prof. g. l. slate has been growing many varieties of filberts for some years. the university plantings at ithaca consist of about an acre set about years ago, including a number of varieties of different nuts recommended for planting at that time. there is also about an acre of "butterjaps" which are growing vigorously but have shown little promise of value because of a lack of hardiness and generally poor cracking quality. the most important planting is about acres of cleared woodland in which many hickories have come up naturally. these have been top worked to many of the leading hickory varieties. a considerable number of walnut stocks have also been planted in this area and top-worked to walnut varieties. plans are under way to acquire or additional acres to be used for further variety tests as new varieties are brought to light in the various nut variety contests which are being carried on. up to and including the black walnuts that have fruited are the thomas, the ohio, and the stabler. of these the thomas is the only one which is at all satisfactory. this variety has fruited years in succession and has matured well-filled nuts every year. the ohio and stabler have been shy bearers and in addition the nuts have been small and not well filled. both are evidently adapted to a longer growing season than that at ithaca. in one stambaugh graft matured about nuts. this variety appears promising but needs further testing. in another year or two at least a dozen more of the promising varieties of black walnuts should come into bearing. among the hickories the barnes, of which there are trees, has fruited several times but in no case have the nuts been filled. the brooks, the stanley, and the weiker have also fruited sparingly but the nuts have not been filled. during the past season, , a few nuts were borne on the taylor, kentucky, and vest hickory trees, which were well filled. it may be that these varieties will prove suitable for the region. the kentucky looks particularly promising. the beaver and the fairbanks have borne a few nuts but the quality is not sufficiently good to make them worth growing. the burlington hybrid pecan makes a very beautiful tree and has set nuts in several seasons, but they are not well filled. about half a dozen varieties of northern pecans have been fairly hardy but the seasons are too short to mature the nuts. they have always been frozen on the trees while still very green. during the past winter the temperature went down to - ° f. at the university orchard. this killed most of the persian walnuts outright. even the hardy varieties, rush and hall, were killed back to a few buds on the trunks and larger branches. this experience has been quite general throughout new york where the temperature went down below - ° f. it is to be hoped that some of the new sorts being introduced from the ukraine will be better able to stand the low temperatures experienced in new york. the low temperature very seriously damaged the chinese chestnuts growing in the university orchard, killing the terminals back for several feet and the sapwood all the way out to the combium and down to the snow line. the trees so injured made only fair recovery and it is doubtful if they are worth saving. some chinese chestnut trees nearer cayuga lake where the temperature only reached - ° f. were only slightly injured. it would seem, therefore, that around - ° f. was the critical temperature for the chinese chestnut. the japanese walnuts were not injured seriously by the cold weather of the winter. many of the more tender seedlings had already been eliminated by the cold winters of the past. the japanese walnuts were, however, badly damaged by the late spring frost which froze off the catkins and new shoots. this has occurred several times in the last ten years and is a serious drawback to the bearing of this species. hickories and black walnuts for the most part showed no injury except in the case of rapidly growing grafts. all of the mccallister hican grafts were killed outright as were a number of grafts of the shellbark hickory (carya laciniosa). at enfield park where the probable temperature was about - ° f. one mccallister pecan graft survived. the filberts were quite generally damaged both in wood and catkins, except the rush, which fruited heavily. northern pecans had their terminals killed back about inches but were otherwise uninjured. in my judgment the greatest need of northern nut growing is the discovery and testing of new varieties adapted to the different northern regions. to find and test these varieties is probably the greatest service that the northern nut growers' association can perform. we cannot expect that nurserymen will propagate commercially the new nuts which are discovered until they are sufficiently tested to establish the value of the variety for different regions. as has been pointed out, the northern nut growers' association is in much the same position as was the american pomological society or more years ago when information regarding new varieties was the main interest of the fruit industry. in this connection it would seem to me well worth while to carry out the idea proposed by dr. deming last year which he called the roll call of nut varieties. the older sorts have now been planted sufficiently widely by members of the association to make it possible to get some adequate idea of their suitability for growing in various localities. those who have the interest of the association at heart should do all they can to obtain and grow any new varieties that offer any promise of being adapted to their locality. it is only by carrying out such a program that we shall have any real basis for making recommendations as to varieties adapted to different regions. i must confess that i am still skeptical about a commercial nut industry in new york on the basis of our present varieties. after more than years of variety testing in ithaca only the thomas black walnut has shown any real merit. all the other sorts that were propagated and recommended have shown themselves to be quite unsuitable to the climate. a grower setting out a commercial orchard years ago on the basis of our knowledge of varieties at that time would now have practically nothing to show, except as he happened to have the thomas black walnut, or possibly some of the hickories of northern origin. at the present time the number of promising varieties known has been greatly increased. they are, however, not available in the trade, nor will they be until they have been adequately tested to establish their merit. fortunately some of the nurserymen growing nut trees are willing to run test orchards as well. they are few in number and of course their work must be augmented by the work of others in the association. what we need more than anything else are test orchards in different localities in which the relative yield of the different varieties over a period of years will be kept. on the basis of such data recommendations as to varieties to plant can be made with some degree of assurance that the information given is sound. mr. c. a. reed: prof. macdaniels may have told you of a number of promising varieties which he personally has been responsible for bringing to light during the last year. if he didn't i hope that he will tell as a matter of record how he came to get them and just what they are. prof. macdaniels: prof. o. f. curtis of cornell university and i made a pilgrimage of about a thousand miles back to the stamping ground of our youth with the avowed purpose of hunting down some of the best black walnuts of the region. the trip, though a hurried one, was packed with interest. in all, four walnuts were located which seemed well worth testing. probably the best of these is the albert todd. the nut is thin hulled, a little smaller than the thomas but with a thicker kernel. the tree was about dead when found but scions were procured and are now growing at ithaca and geneva. another variety is the emerson, located at madison, ohio. this is a large round nut with a rather tough shell and high proportion of kernel. mr. emerson has a good stand of native walnut growing on bottom land. a few years ago he sold trees to a furniture company for $ . the third nut dr. curtis found on a previous journey to ohio. it is a large nut of rather unusual shape being higher than it is long. it has good cracking quality and deserves further testing. the fourth walnut, the chase, is growing in a dooryard at oberlin, ohio. it is larger than any of the others, with good shell conformation. it has the reputation of not always filling out the kernels, a condition which may be seasonal or possibly an inherent defect. grafts of all four of these walnuts are growing at ithaca and at geneva and will be available after a year or two. we had one disappointment in that a tree that we particularly wanted was found to have died only two years before. it was the old story of being too late. certainly such experiences ought to spur this association to new efforts in trying to locate the best nut trees before they are destroyed. some random notes on nut culture _by_ d. c. snyder, _iowa_ any notes concerning the behavior of nut trees in iowa this year necessarily recall the trying weather conditions and these must be referred to again and again. although winter temperatures were quite mild, catkins on the filberts and hazels were so badly injured that none bloomed on the filberts and very few on the jones hybrids which had previously been hardy. the native hazels bloomed but set very few nuts, apparently because of their repeatedly freezing during the blooming period. the winkler hazel seems to be a phenomenal individual and a poor parent, not reproducing anywhere nearly true. thus far all its seedlings have produced nuts inferior to the parent variety even when they were from seed which was cross-pollinated by other choice hazels or filberts. they do, however, show much variation in foliage, bushes and fruit and what the second generation may bring forth is yet to be determined. established hazel plants endured the extreme heat and drought splendidly, but newly planted bushes did not. well-rooted layers and divisions planted out early made a splendid start, then backed up and were a total failure before the july rains came. that you may know how dry it was in iowa the first six months of , let me tell you that only about two-thirds of the oats sown in april in well prepared soil got moisture enough to germinate then, and about the same part of the corn planted in may germinated. well, along in june a shower furnished enough moisture to germinate the remaining part, so we had corn to feet high and in adjacent hills only or inches high, and oats which were headed out mixed with others of the same sowing which were just up. the walnuts endured these extremely dry conditions better than any fruit or nut bearing trees. young seedlings made quite a satisfactory growth and year old seedlings lined out for future grafting made almost a perfect stand, as did the grafted trees which were unsold and lined out at the end of the selling season. the heavy loss in walnuts was in the grafts set in may. this will be mentioned later. the shortage of moisture in apparently was responsible for considerable winter killing of young hickories which were in sod. there was no loss in cultivated ground. the hickories were like the apples this year in that they did not bloom much, and unlike them in that the apples ripened ahead of their normal season, while the hickories ripened later. stratford nuts are usually ready to gather september but this year are still clinging to the trees. fairbanks is our most prolific kind. nuts closely resembling fairbanks, yet somewhat different from it, keep bobbing up on different sides of us when there is a good crop of hickory nuts. none of them have yet been superior to fairbanks. perhaps one should give each a good testing and keep up a search for one with better quality than fairbanks. certainly there is no reason for calling stratford a hybrid. it is one of a group of shagbarks with smaller leaves and buds, and thinner husks than are found in what we would call a typical shagbark. the shagbarks might be divided into several species and be as distinct as some of the species of other trees, such as the ash for example. vest and hand represent another group with thin, wavy shells and thereby are quite distinct from the typical shagbarks. on account of extremely hot weather coming so early the nut trees were grafted earlier than usual and in this order: chestnuts, bitternuts, hickory stocks, shagbark stocks and, after a few days, the walnuts and pecans. the grafting was successful in the order worked. immediately after the walnuts and pecans were worked the temperature began mounting, reaching ° f. in the shade at one time, and of course much more in the sun and just above the bare dry ground. the chestnuts and bitternuts had time to knit together before the extreme heat and gave a splendid stand. the shagbarks also made a good stand. but the walnuts and pecan stocks were near a total failure. apparently what occurred was that the grafting wax and paraffin which was coated over the scion melted and penetrated the union, like that much kerosene or penetrating oil, and prevented callusing. the cions remained plump and green for a long time except for a thin layer at the cut surfaces. the usual resin, beeswax, linseed oil and lamp black grafting wax was used. can anyone suggest a wax which will remain absolutely dry under the conditions described above? what happened, as near as i can tell, is that the extremely hot weather and the continuation of it melted the grafting wax and the paraffin. they fused and made a new combination which looked like grease and absolutely prevented any growth. the shagbark hickories gave a good stand, about as perfect a stand as you could expect in hickories. last of all the pecan stocks were worked. they should have been the easiest to work but they were a total failure. that is because the hot weather set in less than a week after they were set, while the others had more time. the problem i would like to see solved is one of a wax which will remain absolutely dry during such times, and i think then we will have solved one of the big problems of propagation. prof. neilson: i've had more or less trouble with grafting waxes since i began to graft nut trees, and i have therefore been looking for a wax that would stand up under extremely hot weather and which could be applied cold and was not too costly. i think i have found one that comes nearest to the ideal. it is an asphalt tree emulsion made by the flintkote co. of new york city. this emulsion can be purchased in five gallon drums at c a gallon in detroit. it can be diluted with water and applied in a thin or heavy coating. i used this wax last summer and i am better pleased with it than any other wax i have ever tried. mr. weber: i thought a few years ago that i had eliminated wax trouble, but finally i came to the conclusion that when you have a temperature that runs beyond the place that will melt ordinary paraffin the heat will kill the grafts. mr. walker: this question is an old one. last winter and the winter before i did a little work on the old reports. you will find some mighty good winter reading there. i find things hashed and rehashed over and over again. the subject of grafting wax, of course, was discussed years ago. i might caution you on the asphalt. it will have to be the highest, purest grade. member: you can easily prevent wax from getting in between the scion and the stock by using a paper or cellophane. mr. snyder: these grafts were tied with tape. i'm sure that this oil would penetrate anything which was not absolutely air tight. winter injury of filberts at geneva - [a] _by_ g. l. slate _new york experiment station, geneva, n. y._ last year i reported to you the winter injury to the geneva filbert collection resulting from a very mild winter. this year i am reporting the damage resulting from the coldest winter on record in western new york. varieties that have withstood both winters may be considered sufficiently hardy for anything western new york and regions with a similar climate have to offer in climate. a brief summary of the winter and its effects on other fruit plants in the vicinity of geneva will serve as a background for the data on filberts. the first severe cold occurred on december when the temperature dropped to - ° f. this equalled the previous low record established in february, . on february the minimum temperature recorded was - ° f. or ten degrees lower than anything previously recorded in the history of the station. the minimum on february was - ° f. and on february , - ° f. fruit trees suffered severe injury from these extreme temperatures. nearly all the older baldwin apple trees in the vicinity were killed or so severely injured as to be of no further value for fruit production. peach fruit buds were all killed and many of the trees succumbed, even in well cared for orchards. very few sweet cherry buds survived, and many trees were injured or killed. delaware, catawba and niagara grapes were also killed to the ground or lost most of their buds. japanese plums failed to bloom, and the trees were severely injured. nearly all climbing roses were killed to the ground. even the native elderberry, sambucus canadensis, was killed back in many cases. such was the winter experienced by the filberts. before classifying the filbert varieties as to their hardiness, some general statements regarding the effect of the cold on the filberts may be of interest. the injury to the wood seemed to be due to a gradual drying out and the clear cut distinction between winter killed wood and live wood so evident in peaches, apples, and pears did not show in the filberts. the wood of the filberts had a dried out appearance with a few brown streaks so that one could not predict definitely in february the amount of injury. it was not until midsummer that a true picture of the injury to the wood could be obtained. this gradual drying out of the wood without the clear cut distinctions between dead and live wood also characterized the winter killing of the wood of grapes and raspberries. in the spring new growth on the injured filbert wood started late. if the injury was slight the foliage soon reached normal size. in some cases the early leaves were very small, but later attained normal size. with trees that were severely injured the leaves remained small until midsummer and then gradually turned yellow and died. many branches were killed outright and failed to start or only a bud here and there would start. on the trees of a few varieties that were injured the least, a few small leaves were the chief evidence of winter injury. the recuperative power of the filbert seems to be nearly as great as that of the peach and pear insofar as this may be determined by observation in the orchard. in spite of the past winter the station filbert orchards present a fairly good appearance except for a few varieties. it is probably safe to consider filberts as hardy as peaches and sweet cherries. the flowers of the filbert show a greater range in hardiness than those of peaches and sweet cherries. the staminate flowers or catkins of a few varieties are definitely hardier than peach flowers. not a single peach blossom survived but three filberts bloomed with only slightly more than the usual amount of catkin killing. the pistillate or female flowers are much hardier than peach flowers. the pistillate flowers are also hardier than the wood as flowers were observed on trees the wood of which was nearly dead by midsummer. in the older orchard about varieties bore a number of pistillate flowers that were recorded as medium or greater. these did not all set nuts, however, owing to the scarcity of pollen, but the crop on seven varieties was about medium. it should be emphasized at this point that there were no peaches, practically no japanese plums, very few sweet cherries, and very few grapes in the station orchards and vineyards this year. trees in the partially protected orchard fared somewhat better in regard to catkin injury than those in the more exposed orchard. that full exposure to the wind has much to do with winter killing of catkins is shown by the following. after the severe freeze of december and when - ° f. was experienced, catkins of several varieties were forced in the office. these all opened and shed pollen normally. january and near zero temperatures were experienced with very strong winds. catkins forced in the office immediately after this were nearly all killed. since zero temperatures are not uncommon at geneva in winter, but are rare with strong winds, much of the injury may be attributed to the combination of wind and cold. young trees were injured less in wood than old trees. this is well shown by a comparison of two lots of kentish cob of different ages. nine -year-old trees were killed back from to percent in addition to considerable weakening of the remaining wood. eleven two-year-old trees in the same orchard were uninjured. the importance of exposure to winds as a factor in causing catkin killing is further shown by a comparison of catkin killing in the two filbert orchards at geneva. in the younger orchard which is exposed to the full sweep of the west wind not a catkin survived on any of the varieties in that orchard. in the other older orchard which is protected on the west and north by buildings and spruce trees, sufficient catkins survived on three varieties to provide for proper pollination. in discussing the effects of winter injury on the different varieties it will be necessary to make a distinction between the two orchards. orchard is the partially protected planting while orchard is fully exposed. most of the trees in orchard were nine years old, while those in orchard are six years old or less. wood injury, catkin injury, and pistil injury will be treated separately. in the first group are those varieties which suffered very severe wood injury. they are clackamas, early globe, english cluster, and oregon. the latter two are very similar and may be identical. these were all nine year old trees located in orchard . the trees were so severely injured that their recovery is doubtful and the development of new trees from suckers will be necessary. clackamas evidently suffered root killing as only one of the six trees is producing suckers. in this group the trees leaved out, but the foliage was small, usually less than one-fifth the size of normal foliage, and growth weak. by august the leaves were yellow and many were shrivelling. varieties moderately to severely injured in orchard were barcelona, kentish cob (du chilly), fertile de coutard, minna, purple aveline, red aveline, white aveline, white lambert, d'alger, and montebello. in orchard the severely injured varieties were garibaldi, kentish filbert, marquis of lorne, princess royal, red skinned, the shah, webbs prize cob, bandnuss, einzeltragende kegelformige, liegels zellernuss, multiflora, schlesierin, sicklers zellernuss, truchsess zellernuss, vollkugel, volle zellernuss, romische nuss, kruse and rush. the trees of varieties in this group were severely injured, but have a fair chance of recovering. in many cases from to percent of the top was killed outright, and new growth was weak. most of the trees have a few fairly strong shoots from the trunk or larger branches from which a new top may be developed. four out of trees of barcelona were killed entirely, indicating root as well as top killing. the last group includes those varieties of which less than percent of the wood was killed. the new growth was weakened slightly or not at all. in many cases the tree is apparently uninjured and occasionally a single tree of a variety may be severely injured while the others are unhurt. varieties in orchard belonging in this group are alpha, buttner zeller, cosford, daviana, gubener zeller, gunzlebener zeller, gustav zeller, lange landsberger, fichtwerdersche zeller, noce lunghe, italian red, large globe, medium long, bollwiller, nottingham, halle, red lambert, gasaway, guebener barcelloner, blumberger zeller, bixby, jones nos. , , , , and corylus colurna. in orchard varieties in this group include cannon ball, duke of edinburgh, pearson's prolific, barr's zellernuss, berger's zellernuss, beethe's zellernuss, eckige barcelloner, grosse kugelnuss, heynicks zellernuss, jeeves samling, kadetten zellernuss, kaiserin eugenie, kurzhullige zellernuss, longe von downton, ludolph's zellernuss, luisen's zellernuss, mogulnuss, neue riesennuss, northamptonshire, prolifique a coque serree, imperial de trebizond, and russ. native sorts in this group are winkler, littlepage, wilder, a corylus americana variety from the east end of lake ontario, and a corylus rostrata from rhode island. seventeen -year old french varieties were also uninjured, but in view of the general lack of wood killing, on young filberts, they are not included in this list. it is evident then that we have a number of varieties of which the wood is fairly hardy. catkin killing was very severe in both orchards and only those varieties which had a few live catkins are listed. in orchard the catkin killing on five trees of italian red ranged from to percent and on six trees of red lambert from to percent. a few catkins on alpha also survived. the remaining filbert varieties in this orchard lost all their catkins. several jones hybrids in this orchard fared somewhat better. a few catkins survived on bixby. jones lost percent, jones lost percent, and jones lost none of its catkins. all the catkins were killed on jones . in orchard , the story is soon told. not a single live catkin was found in the spring on the filbert varieties in this orchard. of the native hazels bush lost all its catkins, and winkler none. all catkins were dead on the corylus rostrata from rhode island. as stated earlier, the pistillate flowers were hardier than the catkins and nearly all varieties in both orchards had at least an occasional female flower. however, only those in which the number of pistillate flowers was described as medium or numerous will be recorded here. in orchard these varieties were alpha, cosford, fichtwerdersche, gubener zeller, gunzlebener zeller, gustav's zeller, longe landsberger, noce lunghe, italian red, medium long, bollwiller, white lambert, gasaway, gubener barcelloner, blumberger zeller, and unknown. five jones hybrids including bixby had a full pistillate bloom. due to wood injury and possibly to a scarcity of pollen only a few of these varieties bore more than a few nuts. varieties bearing a medium crop are cosford, italian red, medium long, gubener zeller, gunzlebener zeller, bollwiller, and unknown. four of jones hybrids including bixby, are bearing fair crops. the other varieties in this orchard are bearing only an occasional nut or none. in orchard the pistillate flowers were described as medium or numerous on the following varieties: barr's zellernuss and the winkler hazel. the other varieties bore only an occasional flower. no filbert pollen was available in this orchard, consequently winkler is the only variety fruiting. in orchard were two-year-old trees from crosses between rush and various filbert varieties. the cross was made by mr. reed and the seedlings were sent to geneva by the late mr. bixby. of these seedlings, bore catkins. the catkins on of these were uninjured, had varying amounts of injury, and suffered percent killing. three hundred and ninety-two bore pistillate flowers and of these would probably have had full crops had they been pollinated. in view of the complete loss of catkins on the filbert varieties in this orchard, the survival of catkins on about half of the blooming seedlings is of considerable interest to the filbert breeder. in addition, none of these hybrids experienced any wood killing. if the list of varieties which passed through the very severe winter of - is compared with the list of varieties which were not seriously injured by the very mild winter of - , only two sorts, italian red and red lambert are found to be satisfactorily hardy in wood and catkin. red lambert is too unproductive to be used except as a pollenizer. italian red may therefore be considered the most promising variety now available for western new york conditions. the nut is satisfactory and the tree is one of the most productive. cosford and medium long may also be considered among the hardiest in spite of the complete loss of catkins last winter. in all previous winters they have been among the hardiest in wood and catkins. no variety should be eliminated because of a lack of hardiness during the coldest winter on record in the region where it is being grown, if it possesses other desirable characters. i think considerable encouragement may be derived from the previous winter's experience. we are at last down to rock bottom and know what is hardy and what is not. it is evident from the behavior of the jones hybrids and mr. reed's hybrids involving a similar parentage that sufficiently hardy varieties will result from this line of breeding work to make filbert culture possible in those sections of the country that are not too cold for peaches. [footnote a: approved by the director of the new york state agricultural experiment station for publication as journal paper no. .] notes on hickories _by_ a. b. anthony _sterling, illinois_ i am satisfied only when i am trying for the best, and the best to me in nuts is the hickory. for the past nine years in the nut season, and sometimes out of it, for nut shucks tell their story, i have been combing my own territory with hopes of finding some hickories more worth while. about twenty miles westward from my home brings one to the mississippi river. one hundred years ago most of this twenty mile land tract was covered with timber, more or less interspersed with hickories, most of which have been cut down. along the mississippi there were then shellbarks and shagbarks, together with pecans, the latter of which i understand are all gone now. my own location was originally prairie land out of which one could not go in any direction without passing through a woodland tract. these nearer woods held in nut trees more shagbarks than of any other nut variety, with the bitter hickory nut coming in second place. as i thought about it, given a good enough tree, it seemed to me the hickory was the greatest one we could grow. grandfather had let pass his opportunity to save any choice ones. so had my father. and if the neighborhood zest was overfreighted with purpose to find such trees i had not found it out. it looked to me like a worthwhile endeavor not to let this neglect go further, even though chance finds were much lessened from what they probably once were. having three or four kinds of hickories is no doubt a fine thing for us. nature cannot manage nearly so well with them as can man, but she makes something of a hit once in a while. more than we think for, perhaps, in the hickories we are using to graft from, there is quite likely, in the sizeable shagbarks, something besides shagbark. their distinctiveness, for which we selected them, is due to a fortunate, unlike cross bringing out their exceptional characteristics. what most hinders progress is quite conceivably a sort of swamped unchangeableness. that is very possibly the likely ailment we've got in our hazelnuts. there were no three or four kinds of them scattered more or less everywhere about the country with which nature could make chance crosses as with hickories. seemingly my locality ought to yield as many, perhaps more, exceptional hickory specimens than many could. here, or near here, the pecan of the south had reached its northernmost trek. here also was the shagbark, shellbark, bitternut. and uniformity here should have more chance of a knockout. a riddance of sameness. hazelnuts conceded no such diversity to help nature make freaks. in the hickory field was alteration, hope, and chance. in the assemblage of varieties there is given opportunity for crosses that nature occasionally delves into, and in the additional eccentric types getting mixed, tending to offer in rare instances special merit. we have then through mixture, not that fixedness that usually stands in the way, but a getting away from set types where once in thousands of offerings a more useful specimen is made, one nature herself cannot handle to our advantage, but for which we should have our eyes open, and make use of when chance comes our way. just two years ago tomorrow i came upon what to me was an eye feast. a half grown hickory tree whose top-most limbs bent as in rare instances do limbs when heavily laden with sleet. and the nuts were of good size for shagbarks. with the shucks off there were forty-two pounds of them. they proved to be quite good crackers. i sent a sample to dr. deming and he very considerately gave them the name anthony. from the shape of the nut, i believe it has a trace of the bitternut hickory in its make-up. mr. reed has likewise expressed such an opinion in writing me regarding it. this foreign blood tinge gives it, i believe, its jump in size and its rather attractive form, also i think, a bit lessening in quality. while we would like the very highest quality in our nuts, it is conceivable that it may be advisable to do with them as is done with peaches. take the elberta, with its many good traits, even though it does fail somewhat in quality. having found this nut tree just two years ago hardly gives time enough for adequate judgement of its merits. with something like three-fourths of an inch of rain this year, from sometime in march to the seventeenth of june, none of our crops can be judged by their performance. skipping last year, except for a very few nuts, this hickory came out this season heavy with bloom. i was watching it at blooming time. on may i brought home from it a bit of bloom, laid it on a paper and the next morning it had shed its pollen. the next morning after that we had a frost on low ground. this tree is near such ground. with frost, and two dry seasons, this year's crop has amounted to but one and one-half quarts. most hickories have done little since . another hickory tree found last year that i call no. did have four and one-half pounds on it last season. it is hardly half grown, is a shagbark, my best find toward cracking out in halves, and the earliest in maturing nuts of any hickory i have found. it has no crop this year but is worth keeping an eye on the coming seasons. no. is my best find in quality, quite good of cracking, good in size for a shagbark and has possibly a trace of shellbark in its make-up. while bearing light crops, it has been very consistent in doing so every year for at least three years. it is an old tree, medium early in maturing its nuts and doubtless could do better if freed from the under and surrounding smaller trees. its crop, shucks on this year, is sixty-five pounds, or above eighteen pounds shucks off but not dried. to the best of my present knowledge, and with such conveniences as i had, and to aid in grafting, i should have been told to make a long narrow box, put a wire screen bottom on it, make a cover for it, fasten a wire at each end, put my scion wood in and let it down deep in a cistern, and let it hang two or three inches over the water for scion keeping. when grafting i should have been told to carry my merribrooke melter around in an empty pail to keep the wind from blowing it out and to be able to better hold the blaze down and keep the wax at the right temperature. and when and if the blaze does go out, do not try taking the thing apart for relighting. instead, split a small stick, put a match in the split, take out the wax cup, strike the match and reach down from the top for relighting. talk to people about better hickories and you discern first that the subject has never been brought to their attention. on further discussion, when they are made to understand that worthwhile hickories can be grown, you come to the balking point. it's the crop! it's too far off! people do not let the time question bother them when they set out the usual dooryard trees because expectancy goes no further than trees. in our latitude grafted hickories, first of all trees, rightly should be in everyone's dooryard. it takes about as much time to grow the best ornamental and shade trees as to make a hickory tree. and the latter furnishes quite as much ornament, just as much shade as were it some other kind of tree. even if one cannot live long enough to eat nuts from his own planting, plant grafted hickories anyway. left to their own, and most people's council, their lesser tree selections would approach the eventual worth of a good hickory. why not make the choice a good one? no one knows, so far as i have ascertained, the age of a hickory. it is much beyond that of an apple tree, at least in my locality. of its close relation, the pecan of the south, it has been said there are pecan trees there now bearing nuts that were here when christopher columbus discovered america. not long ago i read that there are something like five thousand telescope nuts in the country. (you know we here are all interested in nuts.) i can understand that it is interesting to search off in vast spaces to ascertain facts, but it is hard to understand why more people cannot find interest in rare and useful nut sports that can be strived for and, in addition to that enthusiasm, help give to future mankind that first of all essentials, food. whether we can get a helpful clue with experiences of the past i do not know. but i often cannot help but recall a bit of the blindness of man when i think of the potato. it was once said that they were fit only for hogs to eat. many years back when they were having war in ireland, soldiers would go through people's home and take all they had to eat. it was found, however, where there was a potato patch soldiers would run right over them, giving no thought of there finding food. there then was a chance for home dwellers to better hold their own and it gave the impetus, the beginning of potato growing, to the caucasian race and the name we have to this day, irish potato. years later, when they still had kings in france, their ruler realized his poor subjects could help themselves so much if they would only grow potatoes. there seemed no way of getting them to do so. one day, however, the king went and had a plat of ground planted to potatoes, set guards around it day and night, and let it be known they were the king's potatoes and no one was going to be allowed to steal them. that awoke the people. if potatoes were that good the king would have them, they would have them also. franklin roosevelt likes trees. do you suppose we could get him to be a king to lead for the finest in tree planting, grafted hickory-nut trees? another thing. every bit we can add to the feeling and knowledge of our securing is a help to us. we have many people whose make-up is not one that enables them to provide for their later years, not even if they earned ten dollars a day over a long period of time. planting grafted hickories would be something of a standby, extend away into the years, and helping too when physical strength is no more ours. so too, we can count too much sometimes on what we have in a bank. we may do likewise with an insurance company. and there have been people whose governments went back on them. ours has, on gold promises! all one's hickory trees, had he such, are not likely to treat him like that, at least won't all die in a bunch! they won't even refuse a crop because of a depression! and if one couldn't eat all of his nuts or even any of them, they are something to offer in trade for that which can be used. again, if i am not mistaken, there is nothing that we of this latitude do grow or can grow in field or garden that so equally takes the place of meat as do nuts. speaking of gardens, it has been said "gardening is an occupation for which no man is too high or too low." likewise could the truth be so said for so clean a pursuit as nut growing. history has spoken of "the age of acorns." we hope we can look into a not too distant future and rightly see additional help, food, leisure, income for everybody made so partially, in a little way at least, in an age with nuts. dr. deming: mr. anthony sent me quite a generous sample of his hickory and i got to be quite familiar with it. i consider the anthony one of our best hickories. it is quite evident from his paper that he is a thinking man, and i noticed that he has found out in two or three years things which i have found out only after twenty-five or thirty years of study and which i thought were exclusively possessions of my own. mr. reed: the shellbarks and shagbarks are among the finest looking trees in washington. they are symmetrical, erect and have dark green or light green foliage. at this time of year they are taking on a superb golden yellow. the landscape gardeners use the hickories for the golden effect of the foliage. before we get through with this meeting i would like to get some reports from the people from the north as to which species grow the farthest north. is it the black walnut or the shagbark? does the bitternut grow farther north than either one of them? mr. corsan: yes. the bitternut grows miles north of ottawa. the hickory is much farther north than the black walnut. mr. snyder: it has always been my impression that the butternut reached farther north than the black walnut. mr. ellis: the hickories go as far north as lake champlain. the butternuts go up as far as the line of canada. mr. corsan: butternuts go way above the canadian line. mr. reed: in new england the shagbark grows considerably farther north than the black walnut and west of the great lakes the black walnut grows farther north than the hickory. mr. walker: i believe the bitternut grows farther north than the butternut. i think the rivers have an influence on them. getting away from the rivers you don't have to go so far before they run out. the president: with the exhibits is a picture of a wisconsin black walnut i grafted myself. dr. zimmerman also has one growing. the meat of this black walnut is as white and sweet as an english walnut. i think it is quite promising for northern territory. mr. reed, did you have an opportunity to test them. mr. reed: they impressed me as being very promising. i tried to get cions but was not able to at that time. dr. zimmerman: i don't think i have ever seen a hickory nut tree so loaded with nuts as a manahan which i have grafted on bitternut. the taylor every year sets a bunch of young nutlets, but i have never yet seen a catkin on it. i don't know anything that will pollinate it. until we select buds for hickory nuts and walnuts as they do for citrus and other fruit, i don't believe we can get very far. mr. reed: i have some hickories growing and fruiting well on bitternut. i've also seen enough of them not growing well so that i prefer shagbark to bitternut. i prefer shagbark on shagbark. motion was made and carried that the next annual meeting of the northern nut growers' association be held at rockport, indiana, monday and tuesday, september and , . letter from rev. paul c. crath kosseev, poland (_read by title_) being eager to get on time to the walnut harvest in the carpathian region and personally select walnuts for planting in canada and the u.s.a. i borrowed $ and--now i am here. on october i sent to toronto eight boxes of selected walnuts, about , in all, and i hope they will arrive in toronto in time for the royal winter fair. there are varieties and amongst them some of very high quality are on the way to our acadia. but it was no easy task to find out here good walnuts. i bought kilograms of different nuts before i picked out of them kg. for canada. besides me three men were busy searching for the best walnuts in the orchards of kosseev and kooty. inclosed please find a description of walnut trees and their nuts. a collection of these nuts i am sending you separately. i found here that: . every walnut tree bears nuts of different variety. the nuts differ from nuts of other trees in shape, hardness of shell, size, texture and flavor of kernels. . on every tree walnuts are of three sizes, large, medium and small. it depends how much sunshine they receive. those nearer to the trunk and on the northern side of the tree are the smallest. . according to flavor the walnut trees may be divided into three different groups. those which bear nuts of sweet kernel are the best. those nuts which have some bitter flavor are not bad, but those which are languid or tasteless are no good at all. . giants have kernels smaller than the cavity of their shell. but i was told that in this country somewhere are giants with sweet, hard kernels which fill up their paper-thin shell fully. some gentleman pointed to the city of tchernievtjee as a source of good giants. it is not far from kosseev, but on the other side of rumanian frontier. it means that i should go to the province of bookovina if we wish to find those perfect giants. i sent to canada some good giants, but not perfect ones yet. a physician who resides in kooty told me that in the mountaineers villages of rozhen ( meters above sea level) there is a tree bearing awfully sweet walnuts. he ate those nuts but he does not know the name of the owner. now it is my task to find those nuts. in the village of twedeev ( meters above sea level) is a tree bearing one year large nuts and next year small nuts. but those small nuts are awfully oily. i failed to secure nuts from that tree but i know its whereabouts. there in the mountains about meters above the sea level comes the line beyond which no walnut tree grows. that line is stretched from the east to the west along the northern slope of the carpathian region. i have seen some nuts from that colder belt. in shape they are rough, but one variety has papershell and sweet flavor. it seems to me that among these (as natives call them hutzoolian walnuts) we could find some good variety for northern ontario and maybe manitoba. my nearest task will be to go along the cold line and select some walnut trees there. kooty and kooseev district are really walnut country. this district produces papershell walnuts for other parts of poland. but walnut trees could be found five degrees to the north. too, i wish to investigate walnuts north of the dniester river and then proceed farther north to find the northern limit beyond which no walnut grows. i am going to publish questionnaires, one for each walnut tree. i or my friends would examine these questionnaires when filled out. maybe we'll come across some extra good walnut through this inquiry. but the easiest way to locate the best walnut is to organize a walnut contest as you did in michigan, with the help of mr. kellogg. with the help of the local agricultural papers we could have such a contest and i am sure we'll have an amazing success. do your best to get some funds for the prizes. then please go to the royal winter fair which starts this fall november and inspect my walnuts i shipped there recently. create a judging committee of prof. neilson, mr. corsan, dr. currelly and others. open a couple nuts of each variety and judge which walnuts are the best. then write me from what trees i should cut scions. you see, i am waiting now for winter to cut scions from trees bearing the best walnuts i found. then after xmas i'll ship to canada a large box containing about , walnut scions. i expect to cut every scion personally and that way secure the best stuff for the spring grafting. i am told that there are in latvia filberts of very good type. latvian filberts have grown eight inches thick in diameter. in that country the ground is frozen in october, like in manitolia. it seems to me that the latvian filbert will be ideal for the northern part of the north america. i wish to go there too while i am in europe. i would bring the latvian filbert to canada and the u.s.a. if a small financial support could be given to me to accomplish this task. to assure bringing of the best walnut into canada and the u.s.a. i made an agreement with a local gardener to graft for us walnut seedlings with the scions i would secure for him. thus grafted seedlings could be brought to canada the next fall. furthermore, i have an idea to create the largest and the best walnut which ever grew on the globe. for this purpose i selected several walnut trees bearing giant nuts and i wish to pollenize them next spring with pollen of a tree which yields the hardest and the sweetest kernel. such a tree is in the city of stanislav. and here in kosseev is a tree bearing giants which before they are dried weigh ten nuts to one kilogram ( . pounds). i hope that combination could give us a desirable type. it is also desirable for me to stay in this country until the fall of . then i am sure that we'd have some desirable walnuts and filberts. i hope that my friends in canada and the u.s.a. would come with financial help to give me a chance to accomplish my task. to assure the shipment of scions i need one hundred dollars. for my existence in this country i need $ for next twelve months, and for traveling expenses about $ . all together i need $ . i hope that some canadian or american would understand the importance of my expedition and will come with the help. please put my case before some people who would back me in my enterprise. mr. corsan: mr. crath is a presbyterian minister, he is out of a job and he is a man of extraordinary practical skill in agriculture. now he informs me that, up in the carpathian mountain region, in the valleys they don't have the english walnut, but the estates up in the mountains for hundreds of years have cultivated and selected it. the estates are being divided up and the trees cut down. he has gone up there to select these trees to have the nuts sent to him before the dealers get them and kill-dry to insure them against spoiling. the chestnut situation in illinois _by_ dr. a. s. colby, _illinois_ illinois claims prominence as a state where the commercial chestnut crop has been a profitable one for many years, beginning nearly three decades ago. before chestnut blight, endothia parasitica (murrill), killed the trees in the east, tons of nuts were gathered there and a considerable quantity marketed; these, however, were chiefly of the smaller native species and little attention was paid to the trees, most of which were wild. during the past few years some consideration has been given chestnut culture in the far west; this development, however, is quite recent. two men stand out as pioneers in illinois nut growing: the late george w. endicott of villa ridge, who crossed the native american with the giant japanese chestnut in , his work resulting in the origination of the boone, blair, and riehl varieties, the fruit of which combines the size of the japanese with the quality of the american parent; and the late e. a. riehl of godfrey, who for over years, until his death in , carried on experimental work in nut culture, originating, among others, the fuller and gibbens chestnuts, superior late and early varieties. both mr. endicott and mr. riehl planted the better varieties in orchard form and found the undertaking a very profitable one. the third large orchard planting in illinois is located at farina and owned by the whitford family. here the soil type is less favorable for chestnuts and the water drainage is not of the best, but in spite of these disadvantages, the trees are productive. these orchards, with other smaller plantings in the state, came into full bearing at about the time of the gradual failure of the eastern crops and have made money for their owners, especially where attention was paid to sizing the nuts and to other advanced marketing practices. during the past twenty years, interest in chestnut culture in illinois has been increasing gradually. many plantings of the improved varieties have been made in widely scattered localities. through the co-operation of mr. p. a. glenn, of the state nursery inspection service, a survey of illinois has been begun to locate all the chestnut trees in the state. by the fall of , with about one-third of the counties surveyed, a total of , chestnut trees has been found, approximately one-half of which are of bearing and one-half non-bearing age. this latter group includes nursery stock and newly planted young trees mostly of named varieties. in a preliminary study of the approximately , trees of bearing age, a number of facts of interest were noted. nearly all these chestnuts were of the named varieties, the plantings ranging in size from to individuals and in age from to years. most of them were planted in orchard form and given some attention as to cultural needs. however, there were over older trees averaging from to years with five, years of age and three reported to be years old. these older trees are in poor condition as a rule, with many dead tops and branches and hollow trunks, but still struggling for life and producing some nuts. very little care had been given them. they were found along the roadside, in pastures, in the yard about the home, in rows bordering an orchard. some of these older trees were known to be seedlings from seeds brought in from the east; others had been planted, the trees coming from eastern sections. very few of these trees are infected with blight. they indicate ages at which chestnut trees may be productive in illinois if blight is controlled. satisfactory soil and climatic conditions for chestnut culture are found in most sections of illinois, since plantings are reported from pulaski county in the extreme south to lee in the north, and in the central sections from champaign west to hancock county. as the survey progresses, it is probable that these limits will be extended. one of the reasons for the state survey was to make a careful inspection of the trees found for evidence of chestnut blight and to have the necessary steps taken for its prompt eradication. blight was found in illinois in , and efforts have been made since that time to eradicate it. only a few infected trees were located prior to . most of them have been destroyed. in this year's ( ) survey, diseased trees were found, and these are being handled in the most effective way to check further spread of the blight. these trees were found in nine counties, mostly scattered over the southern third of the state, with one infection center in central illinois in logan county. such is the present status of the chestnut in illinois. what of the future? we believe that chestnut blight will continue to spread. the disease has been reported in several of the near-by states, including michigan, indiana and iowa. with the scattered centers of infection in illinois, it is probable that other diseased trees will continue to appear. only the most determined efforts to check it, based upon a thorough understanding of the life cycle of its causal fungus, can be of any possible value in keeping it in control for any considerable time. continuous inspection of the trees, with prompt removal of diseased material, such as cankers and infected branches, following methods recognized as sanitary, and immediate burning will be very helpful in checking the trouble. when the entire tree is infected, necessitating its removal, the stump should be treated by peeling back the bark and building a hot fire around the trunk in order that all bark tissues shall be destroyed. it is advisable, also, that all chestnut trees be given good care, especially as regards their needs for plant nutrients. beginning with the young trees, newly planted, bark injuries of any kind should be guarded against. extreme care is necessary in the training of the scaffold branches, as the tree grows, in order that the mature tree shall be well formed with as few large wounds as possible through the removal of large branches. the application of fungicidal sprays, such as bordeaux, at intervals throughout the growing season, may be helpful. the trunk and the main branches, especially, of young trees should be protected from sun scald. borers and other insects must be kept out. injury from tools used about the trees must be guarded against. any break in the bark offers easy entrance to the fungus spores. wrapping the trunk with burlap or paper may be very helpful in preventing such injuries. probably the best time of year to make necessary pruning cuts is in early spring. pruning should be followed by the painting of the wounds with shellac, later covering this with a good grade of paint. the tree should be well fed to aid in the growth of callus formation to cover the wound quickly. other methods of attack in solving the problem include the immunization of the chestnut against the blight and the breeding of resistant varieties. experimental work along these lines is being carried on by individuals and federal and state agencies, but the work has not as yet progressed sufficiently to give results of commercial value. if careful cultural methods are followed in every locality, with special emphasis on the prompt and thorough disposal of diseased material, by removal and burning, we can look forward to a number of years of profitable chestnut production in illinois. dr. deming: is the riehl orchard free from blight? dr. colby: one of the same gentlemen who visited ithaca the other day, by authority, is making a very careful survey for disease of the nut trees in the eastern and northern united states. the riehl orchard that we visited last year about this time had considerably over trees badly diseased. we'll have to do the best we can with the old trees but watch the young ones carefully. dr. deming: don't you think that one of the commonest causes of the blight of chestnut trees is through the wounds and the inoculations made by the claws of squirrels? dr. colby: yes, and also woodpeckers. the old trees can be preserved for a longer or shorter time, depending on the care that is given to them. we found the disease down in the endicott orchard, even in plantings of mature standing. there have been several trees located at lincoln where the disease has been found. any of those old trees where there are any injuries to the bark will be subject to the trouble. report on commercial cracking and merchandising of black walnuts _by_ h. f. stoke, _virginia_ (_read by title_) the black walnut crop of southwestern virginia was light and exceedingly spotted. some districts reported a complete failure, a most unusual condition. the volume of shelled nuts offered on the local market was smaller than usual, due partly to scarcity of the nuts and partly because the mountain folk who produce most of the kernels were not so keen at cracking walnuts for a pittance when once they had tasted the sweets of cents per hour on road work offered as part of the federal recovery program. this, apparently, will become a factor in the development of commercial cracking plants. the price was better than for several years past. home-cracked nuts sold at an average price of cents per pound to local consumers, who took most of the season's production. sales to northern concerns were mostly at from to cents for hand-picked goods, ranging up to cents per pound by midsummer. i do not know present prices. the writer knows of no new development in mechanical cracking and separating processes. at the present time he is completing the construction of a power driven cracker of new design, but any report must await successful operation. in the marketing of kernels five channels may be considered: . the local consumer market, which should be cultivated as far as possible. . mail order consumer, usually reached by advertising. a two-pound carton lined with wax paper makes a most satisfactory unit for sales of this kind. this package has been selling generally at $ . , postpaid. . commercial consumers, who are usually manufacturers of food products, such as bakeries, ice cream manufacturers, confectioners, etc. usually these people buy from wholesale supply houses. in order to hold this trade the producer should be in a position to fill orders throughout the year. an "in-and-outer" cannot hope to hold this excellent class of customers. . wholesale supply houses, who specialize on supplying commercial consumers and nut stores. these people depend on buying their season's supply as cheaply as possible during the flush period and distributing later at a profit. it is to their interest to demoralize the market early, so they can buy cheaply, and later proclaim a scarcity so the market will advance to profitable levels. they seem fully alive to their interests. at the opening of the past season one very prominent new york buyer was offering from to cents per pound for hand-picked kernels, though i knew of none selling at anywhere near that figure. this class of customer is rather unsatisfactory, though they will pay fair prices late in the season if a real shortage exists, and they are out of supplies. . a good, honest broker or commission merchant is probably the most satisfactory channel for handling large quantities of kernels. he is acquainted with actual prices and market conditions, as well as a large list of possible customers. his customers are usually commercial consumers, though he also sells wholesale supply houses. his commission is usually per cent. as a note of warning, be sure your broker is honest, then stick to him. some concerns masquerading as brokers or commission merchants are really wholesale buyers on their own account. they will charge the shipper a commission on sales to themselves at a low figure. the baltimore market seems especially cursed with this sort of thing, though it is now, i believe, forbidden by a code. as a whole, baltimore is not a very satisfactory market for black walnut kernels, though the largest in the east. i find philadelphia and new york more satisfactory. the outlook for the black walnut crop in this section is most promising. a dry spring was favorable to a good set of nuts, while plenty of rain during the summer guarantees good size. prices will probably be satisfactory, due to the extreme drought in the west and the labor situation already referred to. at this point i shall digress from the subject assigned me. the following matter may be left off the record, at your discretion. a. in my report i made mention of several promising black walnut seedlings found in this locality. samples of the nuts of the parent trees of the crop have been kept to the present time. all have deteriorated to a greater or lesser degree except the stanley, which is as sweet and good as when gathered. the stanley and caldwell are precocious as grafted trees. the bowman seedling tree, which was reported as most precocious, is continuing its record of not having missed a crop since its third season from seed. it must be reported, however, that a two-year-old graft of this tree has not borne, as yet. b. one thing of interest concerning the black walnut that has been observed is the scarcity of the walnut web worm this season, none having been observed by the writer up to september st. is this a general or a local condition? the year of the geneva convention, , was the worst ever observed by the writer in this respect. do web worms occur in cycles, or do other conditions govern their appearance? c. the injury caused by the melting of grafting and coating waxes by the hot sun is well known. last spring an attempt was made to overcome the difficulty by painting the waxed surface with aluminum bronze paint. the experiment was a complete success, as even straight paraffine failed to melt beneath the aluminum coating during the hottest summer here on record. english walnut grafts so protected were more than usually successful. reflection of the sun's rays by the bright surface undoubtedly lowered the temperature to below the melting point of the paraffine. this lowered temperature was also doubtless beneficial to the life processes of the graft union. direct coating of the trunks of newly set trees with the aluminum paint, without the use of wax, was also tried with satisfactory results. applied direct to the dormant buds of the sweet cherry, however, it proved toxic, as the buds never developed. this was no doubt due to the bronzing liquid rather than to the aluminum. the material is very easily applied, either with a brush or spray, and makes a silvery, impervious and very durable coating. it should be completely effective as a preventative of sun-burn of the bark of tender species, especially to cover the creosote applications sometimes used by tree surgeons. such black coverings often defeat their purpose in the hot sun by killing the living tissues by the absorption of the sun's heat. at the present time manufacturers are being corresponded with looking to the development of a bronzing liquid that shall be non-toxic to buds. now if some investigator will come forward with a non-toxic, water soluble coating material for the roots of nursery stock, professor neilson's dream will be fully realized. last year mr. homer jacobs of the davey tree expert company gave us a very excellent report of his company's experiments with various coatings used in connection with the moving of large trees. it is to be hoped that they will add aluminum bronze paint to the list of materials tested, and give us the benefit of their findings at our next convention. in the meantime, the private experiments mentioned will be continued. d. a publicity stunt for the furtherance of nut culture is being tried in the way of vases filled with sprays of oriental chestnut, with opening burrs, displayed in the windows of our leading department store, with a showing of fall goods. a card gives credit for the display. judging from the enthusiasm with which the store manager and the window dresser received the suggestion, it would appear that the idea could be used almost anywhere. if living sprays were not available, a display of nuts hardy to the locality could doubtless be used in the same manner. cards identifying the nuts and stating they were grown (or could be grown) locally would add to the interest. it is a matter of deepest personal regret that, due to a combination of new deal, raw deal and general lack of a great deal, i am unable to be with you other than in spirit. i salute you. nut culture in ontario _by_ george h. corsan _islington, ontario_ as most of you know, i was away from my place for six years, but in the meantime my nut trees grew and yielded. the past season has been most severe on nut trees and plants. last winter the winds came straight across the land without any apparent obstruction, and it blew all winter long and we had no snow. then a dry summer with a little moisture in the fall has created a situation that was never known before. last year i gathered nine large baskets of filberts but this year i secured only about three baskets of filberts and these from bushes that were in a protected place. most of the male catkins had frozen. the filberts in the unprotected places died. a burlington hican (purchased as a marquardt) lived under circumstances that hardly any other tree could withstand. one stanley shellbark lived and one died. it is strange how hardy the pecans are. not a bud was killed last winter. it is seldom that the pecans mature a crop as the summer season is too short in ontario, but they grow well and make a beautiful tree. we find that hickories grafted on pecan stocks do well, putting on two and one-half to three feet of new growth in a year. the butternut is so common around certain parts of ontario and quebec that the people do not even bring it to market, but they do appreciate it. i am carrying on a program over the air as i am the "nut" man of station cfrb and follow the farm report on prices at : o'clock each afternoon. we are trying to influence the farmers to plant nut trees along the lanes, around the barns and in the pastures and thus beautify the farms and bring the boys and girls back from the cities. none of the work that has been done in the research line of agriculture has approached the value of the work that prof. neilson has done here in michigan in the last few years. the surface of the farms can be planted to grains and vegetables and yield practically nothing, but you can plant a nut tree and it will reach down into the sub-soil with its long roots and bring up the finest food in the form of nut meats. nut growing on a commercial basis _by_ amelia riehl, _illinois_ (_read by title_) i have several times given figures stating the size of our chestnut crop and the income from year to year. to this i might add that the crop last year amounted to , pounds and was sold at wholesale for $ , . . because we do a good part of the work ourselves, it is hard to figure the cost of harvesting. but the amount we paid out in cash comes away below $ . . we still think it pays to grow chestnuts, though things look pretty bad around here now. this was the third very dry season we have had in succession, and the very worst of all. we had no rain at all for over seventy days, and the heat was terrible. everything suffered from drought. even forest trees on the island below us died from lack of moisture. you can imagine what happened to the nut trees on the steep hillsides. all were more or less scorched, and many of them actually died. these are the old trees that father planted years ago. the young trees, which were planted after he was gone, on fairly level ground, are heavy with burrs, and i know will produce a fair crop of nuts as usual. for the first time in several years we will have no hazels. they bloomed very early this year and were caught by late frost. there are a few walnuts on some of the trees, but i doubt if they will be well filled. for forty years father tried to grow english walnuts, but never succeeded in getting any of them to bear nuts. finally gave it up in disgust. after he was gone we started out all over again, planting several varieties that were thought to be hardy. now for the first time one of them has set eight nuts. it is the alpine variety, scions of which were given me by mr. j. f. jones. of course, it is yet to be seen whether or not there is anything in these nuts. but it is encouraging anyway. we all send greetings to our many friends at the convention. will be with you in thought and wish you all a happy time. some notes on the hardiness of the english walnut in michigan and ontario _by_ j. a. neilson, _michigan_ in a study of the desirable characters of nut trees for planting in the northern part of the united states and in southern canada, one is forced to place hardiness first. rapid growth, high yield and excellent quality of nuts are of little value if hardiness is lacking. hardiness, of course, is a relative term and may be applied to disease and insect resistance, adaptability to diverse soils and capacity to withstand extremes of winter and summer temperatures. in the present paper emphasis will be placed on resistance to winter cold and to unusual weather conditions, such as occurred during the autumn of and the winter of and . in order to properly understand the effect of the past winter on the english walnut, it will be necessary to devote some attention to the weather conditions that prevailed in the southern half of michigan in the autumn of . a perusal of the meteorological records shows that the average maximum and minimum temperatures in september and october were unusually high and that there was a heavy rainfall in these two months. the following table shows the precipitation and temperatures recorded at the kellogg farm where most of our nut cultural experiments are conducted. september--the average maximum temperature, . ; average minimum temperature, . ; precipitation, . inches. october--the average maximum temperature, . ; average minimum temperature, . ; precipitation, . inches. the unusually high temperatures and heavy rainfall caused growth to continue much later than normally and thus prevented the wood from ripening properly before winter set in. english walnuts are found at several places throughout the lower peninsula and more particularly in the southern half of the state. in no place, however, are the trees numerous with the exception of a small area around lexington, where there are approximately trees. inasmuch as this paper deals with the effect of low temperatures on the english walnut, the minimum temperatures of the weather station nearest to the places mentioned in the following text are given hereunder. lowest place mo.--date temp. allegan feb. - bay city feb. - caro feb. - croswell feb. - fennville feb. - flint feb. - grand rapids feb. - gull lake--kellogg farm feb. - hart feb. - lansing feb. - mount pleasant feb. - muskegon feb. - owosso feb. - saranac feb. - sparta feb. - [a] leamington, ont. feb. - guelph feb. - simcoe feb. - [footnote a: unofficial.] the extreme cold of the past winter following a warm, wet autumn caused a great deal of injury to english walnut trees in this state and elsewhere. the data presented herein were obtained by a careful examination of several plantations or individual trees scattered over the southern half of the lower peninsula in michigan and in southwestern ontario. to properly present this information it seems desirable to group the varieties or strains according to their place of origin. group . _cultivated varieties from the pacific coast._ in this group we have mayette, franquette and seeando. the mayette has been considered one of the hardiest of the cultivated varieties and was therefore included in the plantings at the kellogg farm. more than twenty trees were planted and every one died last winter or in the preceding winter. seeando, a new and supposedly hardy variety from washington state, was planted in limited numbers in the spring of , but every tree perished last winter. franquette was not planted as a nursery tree, but was top-grafted on several large black walnuts at the kellogg farm and at east lansing, michigan. the grafts made a vigorous growth but only two out of eleven lived through the winter. in simcoe, ontario, where the minimum temperature was - f, a six-year-old tree was so badly injured that it will likely die this winter, but should it not perish, the degree of injury is so severe that it will be of very little value. in the niagara district the franquette top-grafted in on black walnut came through in moderately good condition, but in this part of ontario the minimum temperature was only below zero f. group . _new varieties of canadian origin._ this group contains broadview and mcdermid. broadview scions were secured from mr. j. j. gellatly of westbank, b. c., who discovered the variety near broadview, b. c. these scions were grafted on a medium-sized black walnut in and have since made a remarkable growth, but notwithstanding the vigorous growth there was no killing back during the past winter or in preceding winters. this variety was also grown as a top-graft by mr. carl walker of cleveland heights, ohio, where the minimum temperature last winter was - degrees f. some killing back was reported on this tree, but the injury was not severe enough to be serious. the broadview is reported to have endured without injury - degrees f. in british columbia and in russia, where the parent tree originated, equally low temperatures are said to prevail. the mcdermid was obtained from mr. peter mcdermid of st. catherines, ontario. this tree is a third generation tree in ontario and is descended from a tree brought out from germany more than years ago. the nuts are large with a moderately thick shell and contain a kernel of excellent quality. mcdermid has been grown as a top graft at simcoe, ontario, east lansing, the kellogg farm and estate near augusta and at south haven, michigan. all of the trees of this variety grown in michigan came through without injury, but the tree at simcoe, ontario, suffered somewhat by killing back of the past season's growth. the larger branches and trunk, however, were uninjured and have since made a rank growth. the mcdermid top-grafted on a black walnut on mr. g. tolles' farm at south haven proved hardy and was one of the few english walnut trees in michigan to bear nuts this year. at the michigan state college where the temperature went to - degrees f. vigorous mcdermid grafts on a thrifty black walnut were uninjured whereas all the franquette grafts on the same tree were killed outright. similar results were noted on several trees at the kellogg farm near augusta, michigan. group . _carpathian walnuts._ this strain of juglans regia was introduced into canada by rev. p. c. crath of peterboro avenue, toronto, ontario, from the carpathian mountains in southeastern poland. in this part of europe the winter temperatures are reported to go to - degrees f., and occasionally lower. in the winter of - a vast amount of injury was done to fruit trees and the less hardy english walnut trees in poland, but a number of english walnuts came through without serious injury. scion wood of some hardy selections was sent in to the writer by mr. crath, who was then in poland. this material was grafted on vigorous growing black walnuts in the spring of and good results were secured with two varieties. these varieties made a vigorous growth, but notwithstanding this they showed not the slightest injury in the spring of . the growth made during the summer of has been remarkable and if this unusually vigorous growth survives the coming winter it would seem as though we have an exceptionally hardy strain. the nut characters and productiveness of these varieties have not yet been determined in michigan, but if they are equal to some of the trees of the same origin, then we will have very valuable trees. these strains have been named crath and are distinguished by nos. and . about small seedlings of polish origin were purchased from mr. landega of toronto, ontario, an associate of mr. crath, and planted at the kellogg farm in . these trees have been subjected to trying conditions through drouth, competition with alfalfa, late growth and severe winter temperatures. as a result some have died, but a number are growing nicely, and it is expected that some of these will eventually become established. seedlings of this lot suffered only slight injury near sparta, michigan, but grafts from these same seedling trees set on a vigorous young black walnut were very severely injured. another tree from this group endured the severe cold at madison, wisconsin, during the past winter and made a rapid growth this season. scions from another fine tree of polish origin growing at mr. crath's place in toronto were set on several trees in this state in the spring of and in every case endured the lowest temperature without much injury to the new growth. a very unusual condition was noted, though on three young black walnut trees top-grafted to scions of this tree. on these trees the vigorous grafts appeared to be uninjured in the wood, but the bark at the point of union on both stock and scion was so severely injured that the grafts died. an examination showed evidences of bark splitting and this was undoubtedly caused by a severe and sudden cold spell following a very late and extremely vigorous growth. scions of this strain were grafted on a medium sized black walnut at caro, michigan, and these endured - degrees f. without serious injury. a small black walnut tree at the kellogg farm top-grafted to scions of another crath seedling showed bark injury on the lower half of the stock, but fortunately the extent of the injury was not great and the graft was saved. it also made a vigorous growth this season notwithstanding the hot dry weather and injury to the bark on the stock. scions of this strain were grafted on a vigorous black walnut on the farm of f. wilde at wayland in . these scions made an extraordinary growth that season and were subjected to a temperature of - degrees f. last winter. some killing back occurred but no permanent injury was done as the grafts have made a good growth this season. _pomeroy seedlings_ this strain of walnuts originated on the farm of mr. norman pomeroy of lockport, new york. trees from this plantation, or seedlings of these trees, are grown at various places throughout michigan with the heaviest concentration near lexington. there are also a number of pomeroy seedlings on the farm of mr. grant fox at leamington, ontario. all of the trees in the lexington district were more or less severely injured by killing back of the branches and occasionally by bark splitting or bark killing. at st. louis one very fine tree was nearly girdled by bark injury and will undoubtedly die. near ithaca another tree showed moderate killing back and in the city two trees were killed to the ground and one other so severely injured as to be useless. the trees at leamington, ontario, were also severely injured, especially those that bore thin-shelled nuts. some of the larger trees in this plantation which bore nuts with moderate thick shells were not as severely injured, and this would seem to indicate that there may be a relationship between thickness of shell and resistance to winter cold. in this plantation it was also found on another occasion that the trees which bore thin-shelled nuts produced long vigorous succulent shoots with a large pith and loose, spongy buds. on the other trees that bore thick-shelled nuts the shoot growth was shorter and firmer than on the trees with thin-shelled nuts. in contrast to these trees the buds on the crath trees nos. and were short, rather broad and very solid. the wood also was very hard and well matured with a small pith even on vigorous shoots. this seems to indicate that there may be a relationship between density and maturity of wood and buds and winter hardiness. _other seedlings_ at various places in michigan there are english walnut trees that originated in england or which are seedlings of trees that came from england. an exceptionally good tree of english origin grows near ionia and is called larson after the owner of the farm on which it grew. the larson tree is at least years old and bears nuts of large size and excellent quality in favorable seasons. this variety was propagated for the college by the michigan nut nursery and some of these trees were planted at the kellogg farm in . unfortunately the past winter killed all the young trees and so severely injured the parent tree that its recovery is doubtful. beck is another good variety of english origin that grows near allegan on the monterey road. the original tree of this variety was very severely injured and much greater injury was noted on seven-year-old grafts of this variety which had been set on a black walnut. at vassar there is a tree of english origin that yields very fine nuts, but this one was also severely injured. near conklin there is an old tree of german origin and this was likewise severely injured, but not so much as the trees from england. _chinese walnuts_ the chinese walnut is a geographic form of the so-called english walnut. it occurs over a large area of central and northern china, and it is believed that trees from the northernmost range of this species in china are somewhat hardier than the average english walnut from western europe. the number of trees of this species under observation is very limited, but those that have been seen appear to be promising. the largest and best tree observed grows on the property of mr. geo. corsan at islington, ontario. this tree was subjected to - degrees f. last winter and was somewhat injured. the growth this spring was delayed longer than normally and some killing back was noted. eventually the tree started to grow and made a normal amount of growth. scions from this tree were grafted on two black walnut trees at the kellogg farm in and a vigorous growth was made in that season. these grafts were carefully examined in the spring of and were found uninjured. subsequently a very large graft on one medium sized black walnut tree died, but this was due to injury at the point of union rather than to the graft above. the remaining scions made a good growth this season. seedling trees of another strain of chinese walnut showed some variation in their hardiness. some came through in good condition and made a vigorous growth but others were more or less injured. the limited number of trees under observation scarcely justifies definite conclusion, but it would seem as though this form of juglans regia is worthy of a wider trial in southern michigan. _types of winter injury_ the following forms of winter injury which have been referred to in the preceding notes are given special attention hereunder. ( ) killing back of branches. this type was found on every tree except the hardy varieties of polish and russian origin. in some cases the large branches were killed outright, but usually the injury was confined to small branches, and the degree of injury varied from slight to very severe killing. branches so injured were attacked by fungus diseases and some were beginning to decay and fall off when examined in october. killing back of the branches was also noted on one excellent heartnut at scotland, ontario. this tree was subjected to - degrees f. but was less severely injured than many of the english walnuts noted above, and when examined in september showed a vigorous new growth throughout most of the top. there were also several vigorous seedlings from this tree growing near by which were only slightly injured in the bark or which were uninjured. it was interesting to observe that the seedlings of the old heartnut tree that were apparently of hybrid origin were not injured in the least and bore good crops of nuts this year, but the seedlings that were pure heartnuts were injured slightly. this point suggests the desirability of crossing the finest heartnuts with the best butternuts to get a combination of the hardiness of the butternut with the good qualities of the heartnut. _bark killing_ bark injury is often found on fruit trees following a severe winter and is occasionally found on nut trees. it may be due to bark splitting or to desiccation or both. in severe cases of bark splitting the bark splits vertically and laterally from the ground up for several feet, but in milder cases the bark is only split away for a short distance. where the bark is loosened for some distance around the tree or vertically it dies shortly thereafter, but where only a small amount of splitting occurs, the tree may recover if given attention. in such cases the bark should be cut back to the living tissue and all particles of dead or injured bark scraped off. the exposed area should then be coated with a good tree paint or asphaltic emulsion. the severest case of bark splitting observed was on a vigorous young heartnut seedling at guelph, ontario. on this tree the bark was completely split away entirely around the trunk from the ground up for several feet and the injury was so great that the tree died early in the summer. within a short distance of this tree was another tree of the same origin that was quite uninjured, but this tree, however, was a hybrid between the butternut and the heartnut. on this hardy tree there was a heavy crop of nuts that were intermediate in form between the heartnut and the butternut, this indicating its hybrid origin. practically all of these hybrids escaped injury even though the temperature was - degrees f. bark injury was also noticed at the kellogg farm on several black walnut trees that had been grafted in the nursery and which were planted in and . on these trees the scion variety was uninjured but the bark on the stock was more or less affected from the ground up to the point of union. all trees thus affected came out into leaf, but shortly afterward the leaves withered and the top died. bark injury from splitting or desiccation was more prevalent on young vigorous growing trees, and on older trees that had been stimulated into a strong growth by fertilizers or late cultivation. _suggested means of control_ since it is impossible to control temperatures and precipitation, it is perhaps a vain hope to expect complete immunity from winter injury to the english walnut. it is possible, however, to lessen the degree of injury by certain measures of precaution. these are as follows: ( ) plant only the hardiest varieties. the past winter showed very clearly that the commercial varieties of english walnut or seedlings as grown in this state are not hardy enough to endure the severe cold that periodically occurs in michigan. this limits the choice of varieties to those from central europe or north china where rigorous climatic conditions prevail. as already pointed out, the varieties that endured the past winter were from the carpathian region in poland or western russia and north china. these varieties have not been widely distributed in this state and it may be found that even these will have a limited range in michigan. their behavior, however, shows that they are somewhat hardier than varieties from western europe or england. unfortunately the supply of trees of these apparently hardy kinds is limited and it will take some time to work up a stock of the best strains. in the meantime, those who desire to plant the english walnut had better wait until a supply of the hardier kind is available or plant some other hardy species such as the black walnut. ( ) thoroughly drain all soils intended for nut trees. well drained soils favor good root development and seem to lessen late growth, thus reducing to a slight extent at least the severe killing back that is noticeable on such growth. ( ) use nitrogenous fertilizers in moderation. fertilizers rich in nitrogen may stimulate the late growth and predispose the tree to killing back. ( ) do not cultivate the soil around nut trees late in the summer. late cultivation stimulates late growth and prevents the trees from properly ripening their buds and wood. this late growth invariably suffers more severely from winter cold than growth that is well matured. nut tree prospects in the tennessee valley _by_ john w. hershey _tree crop specialist, division of forestry._ _tennessee valley authority._ this is a vital question to discuss in the economic welfare of any community, but the sooner the value of tree crops is recognized, the sooner will the agriculturists be on a more simple economic basis and i feel that the members of this association agree with me when i say that the tennessee valley authority board of directors should be complimented by this body for their foresight in making tree crops a part of their economic scheme. in my five months of work the points that i believe are of most interest to this body are that i have actually made a cursory tree crop survey of the whole valley--fifteen hundred miles long and seventy-five miles wide. this is the first time this kind of work has ever been attempted in the world on an extensive scale. the results of this survey have been approximately the following: ( ) a keen interest by all the county agents in the tree crops question. ( ) i was astonished at the surprising number of county agents that had been advocating nut trees as a farm asset. it gave me considerable pleasure to note the number who had nuts sticking around their offices they had gathered up because of their interest in trying to find a good cracker of either hickory or walnut. as we all know it would be impossible for me to attempt to fine-tooth-comb an area as large as the tennessee valley basin for thin shelled nuts, but with the enthusiasm shown by the county agents we will have excellent co-operation with them in getting publicity in local papers for the contests that we have run to date on all the tree crops. the announcement of this association's prize contest is going to have an outstanding influence in getting a lot of samples of nuts and you can easily see the stimulant to get two prizes in the place of one is going to make a lot of men and women and children scour the country for the nut that will possibly take the prize in both contests. i want to say that i feel that these nuts, from the few samples and reports i have at hand, are going to give the balance of the united states a run for their money in the contest. my work, when developed along the lines as recommended, will not only comprise the development of nuts but of all tree crops in general. not only in introducing selected tree crops to the farmers but in the breeding of superior crops. the tree crops idea like the authority's power idea will have, in the words of dr. kellogg, in a recent letter to me, "it will not only influence the welfare of the farmers in the valley but over the whole united states." first in showing the farmers on a worth while scale the value of tree crops and second in introducing this health food into the diet of the american people. some new hicans and pecans in illinois _from_ j. g. duis, _shattuc, illinois_ (_read by title_) i am writing a short account of the new nuts i have discovered in this vicinity, all in the kaskaskia river valley and not one fifty miles away. the duis, swagler, joffrey and carlyle pecans. the duis black walnut. the gerardi and nussbaumer hicans. and the dintleman hybrid. the duis pecan grows about four miles up the river from carlyle. i claim it as the largest northern pecan in existence, with the swagler not far second in size. both have been bearing the two years i have known them, the duis rather prolifically. however, it was so severely whipped last fall, and the season so dry this year, that i do not expect a crop off either tree, though i have not visited them as they are rather inaccessible. both graft fairly well, especially the swagler. the joffrey pecan grows alone in a corn field south of pelican pouch, a glacial moraine south of carlyle about six miles. it is the plumpest, thinnest shelled nut of northern variety, and above average size. fair bearer to the best of my knowledge, but a severe hail storm and a season of severe walnut caterpillars ruined two years' prospects. the carlyle pecan grows in the state fish hatchery and park at carlyle, and i have only the word of the "game warden" and caretaker for size and quality. the same hail and caterpillar pest hit that tree. the duis black walnut is from a scrub tree on shoal creek, about five miles northwest of carlyle and is about crowded out by other trees. my oldest grafted tree from it is about seven years old and has been bearing consistently since two years old. even this year, after two severe dry seasons, and a late frost that nipped the early shoots, it has a fine crop even though other trees, grafted and seedlings, are mostly barren. the nuts are medium to rather large and readily crack out in halves comparable to the stabler when properly prepared for cracking. there are so many new walnuts i know nothing about that i presume there are better ones. i claim only secondary credit for "resurrecting" the nussbaumer hican and the dintleman hybrid, presumably king hickory and bitternut. the nussbaumer is the hybrid mentioned in fuller's nut culturist some fifty years ago. i thought of this for several months and corresponded regarding this nut and finally made a couple of trips down the river to mascoutah and vicinity. i could hardly find a man old enough to know mr. nussbaumer, who was a druggist there. later he removed to okawville and from there to texas, where he died a number of years ago. i was advised to see an old nurseryman by the name of jacob leibrock, now deceased. i was told he had two of the trees from seed. he had, but both bore bitternuts and he had cut them down. i did not think till later that they probably were not from the nussbaumer tree and when i wrote for more information he had passed away. he advised me to see two men toward fayetteville down the river. the first one did not know where the tree was. the second one did but was too busy to go to it, so i hired him to go as soon as possible and advise me and if possible send me some samples and i would return later. from what he told me i was sure i was off the track of the nussbaumer, but on the trail of a new and better nut. he said the tree bore "sacks full" and the nuts were so thin shelled you could crack them in your hand. i went farther down the river to fayetteville, not far from which place east the tree was located, but was there informed the tree was dead. however, the informer told me he had a seedling from it, but upon investigation found he had a fullblood pecan, probably planted by a jaybird from a number of bearing trees in close proximity, for i was satisfied by this time the nut was not even part pecan. the two original nuts probably never grew. the innkeeper advised me that mr. dintleman, a nurseryman of belleville, ill., had been much interested in the nuts and might have a tree. so i wrote him asking about it and also wrote mr. c. a. reed, u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. mr. dintleman wrote me that our well known mr. j. f. wilkinson, had a seven-year-old budded tree from buds he sent. and mr. reed advised me to write a farm advisor in missouri. through him i was informed a mr. george miller, near bluffton, son of judge miller, mentioned in fuller's book, had a tree thirty years old. in short, i found not only the one tree i was after but a second king hickory and bitternut cross with a shell so thin you could "crack it with your hands." shall we call it a hickbit? mr. wilkinson sent me graftwood and stated he expected we call it the dintleman. the nussbaumer, mr. miller informed me, is not a good bearer, but it may be due to location or lack of pollinization. i now have several trees of each from spring grafts. all the above trees grow in overflow ground, sometimes in water for weeks, called slashes. the stabler walnut also seems to like that, but the thomas does not and is outgrown by the three-year-old stablers. i will know more about that in a year or two. however, nearly all grow very well on the prairie land around here and some seem to bear better. may i add another observation. cultivation will produce bigger, better and more nuts, same as for corn. * * * * * evening session. dr. deming: i'd like to speak for a moment about some old friends, one of whom we shall never see any more, mr. bixby. if you will take the trouble to go back through our annual reports and see the number of articles he has written and the diversity of subjects he has written on, and see what an important part he has taken in our discussions, you will get a good idea of the ability and broad-mindedness, the scientific knowledge and the honesty of mr. bixby. there is one thing that perhaps you don't all know, and that is that his collection of nuts has been sold to the united states government. there is something fewer of you know and that is that this sale was brought about by the persistent energy, mental and physical, of mr. reed. the other old friend, whom we shall perhaps never see again at a meeting, is dr. morris. i've seen him twice this summer, had several letters from him, and lunched with him once. he has with him his devoted wife and his little daughter and he appears to be fairly well. he doesn't look very different from what he has when he attended our meetings. he is up and around and he walked about the place for fifteen or twenty minutes with mrs. morris and me looking at his trees. some other old friends that i would like to call to your attention are our past reports. i suppose that i have read those reports more times than anybody else, since i have edited nearly all of them. i go back over them occasionally even now and i have been astonished to find the value of the papers and discussions that are contained there. i recommend to all of you who have these reports to make a review of them and see how many things were known during the early years of our association, as mr. walker has said, that we are now rehashing. when you go over the names of the men who made up the membership of the association in its early days, men whom many of you perhaps have never seen, or have seen very seldom, you can understand how these pioneers in nut growing would have had something interesting to say. i've made a little list of names of these men, some of whom are gone, and the rest of whom we seldom see. dr. morris, prof. craig, henry hales, prof. close, prof. hutt, w. n. roper, w. c. reed, prof. collins, e. a. riehl, dr. van fleet, prof. van deman, j. g. rush, mr. jones, mr. littlepage, mr. bixby, dr. smith, prof. e. r. lake, s. w. snyder, mrs. erlanger, col. sober, prof. drake and many others. i think it will pay you all to look back through those annual reports and see what the pioneer nut growers of this country have recorded. mr. reed, i was saying that mr. bixby's collection of nut trees had been sold to the government and that it was through your help that this sale was made. now i'd like to ask you if there is any information that you could properly release to the meeting about the sale of those trees. i am sure everyone of us would be interested to know where they are going. mr. reed: the trees have been bought by the interior department with funds placed at their disposal for the purpose of planting trees for the national forests. their attitude has been rather liberal in this case. they have felt that if they could get trees planted, regardless of whether they were planted on interior department land or not, it would be justified expense. when the matter was laid before them, they at once thought of the arboretum which is now being developed within the district of columbia. the final purchase was made largely in order that the arboretum might be able to start off with the bixby collection as a nucleus. a complete list of all varieties that are in the collection will go there. another part of the purchase comes to the branch of the agricultural department which i represent, and practically all of the varieties in the bixby collection which are not now in the plant at beltsville will be sent there. it was the original plan of the interior department that all of the trees which neither the arboretum nor the branch of the department which i represent needed, should go to the shenandoah national park in virginia, and it was with that understanding that the deal was closed. after the deal was closed and a notice was sent to the authorities in charge at the park that a certain number of seedlings of different species and a certain number of grafted trees would be delivered there sometime this fall, the shenandoah authorities took the strange attitude that they couldn't use grafted trees. in other words, they preferred mongrels to thoroughbreds. we chuckled in our sleeves. but nevertheless they threw back upon us several grafted trees to find some place for. we immediately took it up with the forest service. they have land in north carolina where all of the trees can be planted fifty feet apart, not cultivated, but nursed and cared for, and available for study by our own department and the state of north carolina and any individuals. i have omitted mentioning that there are certain limitations on the ability of the interior officials to buy trees for interior department planting. it is a definite policy of the interior department that in all national parks they plant only american species. that automatically eliminated many trees of the bixby collection. but the arboretum wanted a good many of those trees and so did we. there are still in the bixby collection several fine persian walnut trees. we haven't been able to trace their source, but it is my impression that they are of chinese origin. dr. deming: he had a row of pomeroy trees. prof. slate: he also had some trees from chinese seed, because he sent some of them to geneva. mr. reed: we have the bixby correspondence. by the terms of the purchase mrs. bixby was to deliver to the interior department all of mr. bixby's records pertaining to those trees, and as far as she has been able to get things together they have been turned over to me. dr. deming: in addition to our annual reports i want to say a word about the reports of the national pecan growers' association. twenty-five years ago i took out a life membership in that association for $ . , and i have been getting annual reports ever since. while they relate almost exclusively to the southern pecan they have also many scientific articles on the development of twigs, blossoms and fruit, on pruning and grafting and on fertilizing and cultivating, which are of importance to all nut growers. i think perhaps i won't go into the subject which has been talked of so much today, the severe winter and summer we have had. but j. g. rush in our third annual report has a paper which is entitled, "the persian walnut, its disaster, etc.," which describes events twenty-two years ago very similar to those that have taken place in the last winter. nut growing in vermont _by_ zenas h. ellis, _fair haven_ in all my life of over seventy years i have never seen a time like the present. we have passed through the coldest winter and the dryest summer ever known. i raise on my place in old vermont every kind of tree that will grow there, and try many that will not, or only with more or less protection. i have apples, pears, plums, cherries, peaches and figs, with berries of all kinds. i have nut trees of many different varieties, hickories, black and english walnuts, filberts, hazel-filberts, pecans, almonds and butternuts. which have stood the cold and drought the best? strange as it may seem, my nut trees have stood the extreme temperatures the best. my hardiest apples like the wealthy, yellow transparent, wolf river, and pewaukee have gone down to their death, or so near thereto that i never expect to see any fruit from them again. whereas, on the other hand, my hickories, black walnuts, butternuts and hazel-filberts have not even lost a leaf. wonderful to relate and almost unbelievable my large pecan tree, over forty feet in height, and a foot in diameter, is as hale and hearty as ever. august th last i picked and cracked some of my improved butternuts and hazel-filberts, and found the kernels large, full grown and normal in every way. whereas i have not an apple or pear fit to eat, no, not even a berry either. i set out my butternut years ago in the position of honor in front of my house, and it has merited it ever since. the kernels came out in halves and often times whole. i have given away many of the nuts for planting, even as far away as kew gardens, england. money could not buy the parent tree. i would not exchange it for the best cattle ranch in colorado, the best wheat farm in kansas, or the best cotton plantation in both the carolinas. it is self-sustaining, does not require any subsidy from uncle sam, or any twenty-five thousand dollars a year official to regulate it. it is better than any dollar nowadays, always worth per cent in gold instead of cents, as is our government kind. the reason is, god rules it, instead of a mere man with any combination of the alphabet you can make. it is the same with my improved hazel-filberts which grow tall and rank and bend down to the ground with their branches heavily laden with large, well-filled nuts. my thomas black walnuts are doing well, as also my sier's hybrid hickories; both are perfectly hardy but not bearing this year as it is the off year for them. the butternut and hazel-filberts have never an off year but, like the "brook," go on forever. my english walnuts with some protection passed the winter in perfect safety. but the almonds, though protected as well, fared very poorly, showing that they are not near so hardy as the former. the other kinds of nut trees that i have mentioned, even to the pecan, withstood the rigors of the winter with no protection whatever. my true filberts fared rather poorly but are coming up lustily from below the snow line and will, i think, be as good as ever if the past winter does not repeat itself. what does this all mean? it means that we should plant more nut trees instead of so many fruit trees, especially the apple, which has proven more liable to cold injury than even the pear, if we would have any of the delectable valuable products of the tree kind. why, just think of it, a few nut trees planted around every home in the country would do more to relieve the present depression than all the other agencies and remedies put together. frost does not impair their fruit. nuts will keep through the year or longer. insects do not injure them as they do the soft, unprotected fruits. squirrels may take their toll but they are far easier to destroy than a bug. to hunt them is grand sport for young people, whereas to chase a bug is no fun at all. the workman, the professional man, the merchant, should especially raise them as they would take no time from their business. their children would think it no work at all to gather them, that is if they were like the children of my youth who looked forward to gathering nuts as one of the pleasantest pastimes of the year. if all our city parks, public squares, playgrounds, roadsides, waste places and other like areas were planted with them, all children even to the poorest could have a sufficiency of the healthiest food that would build up their bodies into strong healthy adults who could go out into the country and build it up again as it was years ago, instead of the vast, desolate region it is now. what makes children so puny and so unwilling to do any real work today? it is because emigration from nut-eating countries being shut off, and our native nut trees cut down or uncared for, there is nothing to keep up the supply of the best food for the body today. the remedy is to raise more nuts so the children and adults as well can again be fed on the most valuable, healthy and strength-giving food god ever made. then, too, crime would be greatly reduced, especially of the juvenile kind. the spare time of our youth would be taken up for about three months in a year with a clean, pure, pleasant, agreeable occupation instead of searching for mischief and quasi-vicious adventures. have no juvenile crime and the adult crime is reduced to a minimum, or obliterated entirely. god started man on a nut eating diet and kept him thereon for centuries. as long as he stuck to it he was all right. we do not hear much about that era, for happy is the nation that has no history. then he had no diseases to speak of except extreme old age, no wars and hardly any troubles. but when, in the garden of eden, the devil tempted him to switch off onto some other diet, he has been wrong ever since. so then, let us return to our old diet as far as possible and have something of an eden again about us today. perhaps you people of michigan would like to know what my town of fair haven is. it gave you james witherell who, while congressman from vermont, resigned to accept the supreme judgeship of the great territory of michigan. in the war of he had command of the troops thereof and, when ordered by the cowardly general hull to surrender them to the british, absolutely refused. after that war he laid out anew the war stricken city of detroit. his grandson, thomas witherell palmer, the son of a native born fair haven girl, became your united states senator, minister to spain and, in , president of the world fair commission at chicago. he gave to detroit that large and beautiful park named after him. so you see henry ford is not the whole architect of that great city, as good vermont blood had to relay its foundations and get it well under way for that great auto magnate to make it the fourth city in the union. a roll call of the nuts _by_ dr. w. c. deming _connecticut_ in the report of the proceedings at the eighth annual meeting of this association, held at stamford, conn., september and , , is an address by the vice president, prof. w. n. hutt of north carolina, entitled "reasons for our limited knowledge as to what varieties of nut trees to plant." i quote from that address: "in the american pomological society was formed as a national clearing house of horticultural ideas. the first work the society undertook was to determine the varieties of the different classes of fruits suitable for planting in different sections of the country. patrick barry of rochester, one of the pioneers of american horticulture, was for years the chairman of the committee on varietal adaptation and did an immense amount of work on that line. at the meetings of the society he went alphabetically over the variety lists of fruits and called for reports on each one from growers all over the country. this practice was kept up for years and the resulting data were collected and compiled in the society's reports. a similar systematic roll call of classes and varieties of nuts grown by the members of this association would be of immense value to intending planters of nut trees. in northern nut growing, however, it may be questioned if we have yet arrived at the patrick barry stage." these were the words of prof. hutt in , seventeen years ago. i believe that nut growing has now arrived at the patrick barry stage. it seems right, therefore, that we should begin to have an annual roll call of the nuts. to this end i have prepared a list of nuts of the different genera, species and varieties grown in the northeastern united states. this list is long but by no means complete and this, by the nature of things, it can never be. it is evident that there will not be time enough to go over more than a small part of this list. it is, therefore, proposed to have the list mimeographed and sent to all members for their reports. members are asked particularly to add to the list the names and performances of any varieties not listed of which they may have knowledge. in this way we shall soon be able to make our lists as nearly complete as possible. in order to reduce bulk and expense it will be necessary to print the names in compact form. it is suggested that the lists be kept for reference and that any report be made on a separate sheet under the proper heading. i will go as far in it now as you want me to. as i call the names of the nuts on this list i will ask the members present to report, as briefly as possible, any knowledge they may have as to the performance of each nut, such as the earliness of its fruiting, size and regularity of crops, growth and vigor of tree and character of nuts. hickories the anthony: see mr. reed's paper in this report. the barnes (shag. x mock.): dr. macdaniels: there are some at itaca which bear. dr. deming: this is undoubtedly a shagbark--mockernut hybrid. it is entirely at home when grafted on the mockernut. this makes it of value for there are few of our named hickories that will do well when grafted on the mockernut. in i top-worked a mockernut with ten grafts of the barnes. in it bore fine nuts. it appears to be an excellent nut. there are three other nuts that i know do well on the mockernut. one is the wampler from indiana introduced by w. c. reed. another is the minnie raised by mr. s. w. snyder. the fourth nut is the gobble. the barnes is mentioned in dr. zimmerman's report, page , proceedings. carl weschcke has it growing at river falls, wis. the bates (pecan x mock.): mentioned in dr. zimmerman's report, page , . the beam: see mr. bixby's paper in report. the beaver (shag. x bitter.): dr. deming: it grows rapidly. the nuts are not of very good quality, like most bitternut hybrids. the beaver is growing in the kellogg plantings at battle creek and is mentioned in dr. zimmerman's report, page , . carl weschcke has it growing at river falls, wis. e. c. rice, absher, ky., has one one-year graft on bitternut, height feet. j. h. gage, hamilton, ont., has one beaver tree planted in and moved in growing in light sandy soil on north shore at west end lake ontario. diameter of the trunk is about three inches, tree fifteen feet high, bore first time in . it is growing at the riehl farm, godfrey, ill., and in the jones nursery, lancaster, pa. the beam: is mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report. the billau: is mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report. the bontrager (shag.): won third prize in contest, page , . tree owned by john d. bontrager, middlebury, ind. the brooks (shag.): is mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report. it won ninth prize in contest, page , , to mrs. john brooks, ottumwa, iowa. carl weschcke has it growing at river falls, wis. the burlington (pecan x shell.): dr. deming: the true name of the nut we call marquardt. the michigan nut nursery have trees bearing. miss jones: a characteristic of all shellbark x pecan hybrids is that they don't fill well. mr. corsan: are they in exceedingly rich soil or just ordinary? i find that nuts respond to rich soil. miss jones: they are in ordinary soil. dr. macdaniels: we have two trees at ithaca about ten years old which have borne but the nuts have not filled very well. dr. deming: is the burlington worth growing? does it fill so badly that it is not a success? miss jones: the kernel fills out about three-fourths of the way. it fills better than the mccallister. mr. corsan: i have never seen such a fine nut in my life. mr. wilkinson: it is a good hybrid and a wonderful bearer. dr. deming: every year? mr. wilkinson: yes, and matures unusually early. the burlington is in the riehl plantings at godfrey, ill. it is mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report. carl weschcke has young trees growing at river falls, wis. sargeant h. wellman has some young trees at topsfield, mass. f. h. frey has young tree in yard at chicago, but it has not borne nuts as yet. foliage is beautiful, leaves being rather broad but some kind of blight seems to turn them dark and they curl up about middle of the summer. j. w. hershey: of the hybrid hickories the burlington should be eliminated from the list and a great many others of the hickories should be thrown out as rapidly as possible. the burton (pecan x shell.): mentioned in dr. zimmerman's report, page , . it is growing in riehl plantings at godfrey, ill., and on kellogg farm, michigan. the caldwell: it is growing in the riehl plantings at godfrey, ill. the casper: mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report. parent tree in illinois. the cedar rapids: see mr. reed's paper in this report, also mr. bixby's paper in report. it is growing on the riehl farm at godfrey, ill., the kellogg farm at battle creek, mich., and in the carl weschcke plantings at river falls, wis. the clark (shag.): see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's in report. this hickory is growing on the carl weschcke place at river falls, wis., and in sargeant h. wellman's nut orchard at topsfield, mass. the comins: see mr. reed's paper in this report. the cook (shag.): see mr. reed's paper in report. the creager: see mr. reed's paper in this report. this hickory is growing in the kellogg farm plantings at battle creek, mich. the dennis (shag.): see mr. reed's paper in this report and mr. bixby's paper in report. this hickory is growing in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich., and in carl weschcke nut orchard at river falls, wis. w. r. fickes, wooster, ohio, reports the dennis promises to be a heavy, early bearer of fairly good quality. the des moines (pecan x shell.): mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report and by dr. zimmerman, page , . is growing in the riehl and kellogg farms plantings. the drew (shag.): see mr. reed's paper in this report and his paper in report. the edaburn: mentioned by mr. bixby in his paper in report. carl weschcke has it growing in his orchard at river falls, wis. the emerick: see mr. reed's paper in this report. the eureka (shell.): see mr. bixby's paper in report. the eversman (shell.): see mr. bixby's paper in report. the fairbanks (shag. x bitter.): mr. corsan: i had eleven nuts on my tree last year. they are very small trees. dr. neilson: a fairbanks grafted on a pignut in the spring of at the kellogg estate has quite a few nuts on it this season. miss jones: they bear well and regularly. dr. deming: yes, they do at my place, too. mr. corsan: what kind of a flavor has it? dr. deming: it is bitter when you keep it but not when fresh. mr. snyder: don't judge them by one nut. they get better as you eat them. the more you eat the better you like them. miss jones: people that try them at our place don't notice much difference between those hybrids and the shellbarks. i give them to people any time during the winter, and they don't notice the difference. mr. reed: mr. bixby said at one of the conventions that the fairbanks was a good grower, easy to propagate, bore well, not so good as to size, thin shelled and had all the desirable characteristics of a good nut except that it wasn't good to eat. see mr. reed's paper in this report and mr. bixby's paper in report. the fairbanks is mentioned in dr. zimmerman's report, page , . it is growing in the riehl orchard at godfrey, ill., the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich., in the carl weschcke orchard at river falls, wis., and in the e. c. rice plantings at absher, ky. sargeant h. wellman has some young fairbanks trees at topsfield, mass. mr. w. r. fickes reports it is a very poor quality hickory at wooster, ohio, but may be valuable for double working. the fluhr (shag. x shell.): awarded seventh prize in contest, page , report, to edgar fluhr, kiel, wis. the freel (shag.): entered in contest by mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, iowa. the froman (shag.): awarded ninth prize in contest to arlie w. froman, bacon, ind. the galloway: h. r. weber: i notice the galloway is not listed among the hickory hybrids. the parent tree is growing in hamilton county, ohio, and, is supposed to be a pecan x bitternut hybrid. the gerardi (pecan x shell.): a member: it is like the nussbaumer. this hybrid is mentioned in dr. zimmerman's report, page , . also see description by joseph gerardi, page , report. it is growing in the riehl plantings at godfrey, ill., and the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich. the gissel: it is growing in the riehl plantings at godfrey, ill., and in orchard of carl weschcke at river falls, wis. the glover (shag.): it is mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. it is growing in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich., the carl weschcke orchard at river falls, wis., and the sargeant h. wellman orchard at topsfield, mass. e. c. rice, absher, ky., has two-year grafts on shellbark and bitternut stocks. it seems to do better on the shellbark stocks. the gobble (shag.): mentioned on page , report. tree owned by william gobble, holsten, va. the goheen (shag.): awarded sixth prize in contest to mrs. hamill goheen, pennsylvania furnace, penna. sargeant h. wellman has young trees growing at topsfield, mass. the green: see mr. reed's paper in this report. the greenbay (pecan x shell.): mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report and in dr. zimmerman's report, page , . the griffin: mr. bixby, page , , report, states it is an early bearer. dr. j. russell smith, swarthmore, pa., reports the griffin is precocious when grafted on pecan but cracking test by mr. c. a. reed shows it to have a very low cracking value. the grupe: is mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report. it is growing in the jones nursery at lancaster, pa. the hagen (shag. x shell.): mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report. it was awarded ninth prize in contest. parent tree owned by mrs. c. e. hagen, guttenberg, iowa. it is growing in the snyder bros.' plantings at center point, iowa, the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich., and in the carl weschcke orchard at river falls, wis. the hales (shag.): mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report. the hand: mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report. it is growing in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich., and in the orchard of carl weschcke at river falls., wis. the hill (shell.): introduced by s. w. snyder, center point, iowa, and mentioned by mr. bixby in his paper in report. the huber: see mr. reed's paper in this report. the huff: see mr. reed's paper in this report. the iowa (shell.): mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report. the kelsey: mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report. carl weschcke has it growing in his orchard at river falls, wis. the kentucky (shag. x mock.): dr. deming: this is said to be a shagbark x mockernut hybrid but i see no reason for the belief. it is a vigorous grower. one year my trees were liberally sprinkled with nuts. i know that they bear from year to year, but the squirrels get the nuts. i think it is a shy bearer. dr. zimmerman: it bears regularly at my place but at mr. littlepage's it isn't bearing. this hickory is mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report and in dr. zimmerman's report, page , . the kirtland (shag.): mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report and in mr. reed's paper in report. it is growing in the jones nursery at lancaster, pa., and in the orchards of carl weschcke, river falls, wis., and of sargeant h. wellman at topsfield, mass. the lake (shag.): awarded first prize in contest to mrs. c. lake, new haven, ind., r. r. . the leonard (shell.): mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report. the laney (shag. x bitter.): see mr. reed's paper in this report and mr. bixby's paper in report. dr. deming: i have never known them to bear anything yet at my place in connecticut. dr. zimmerman: they haven't borne at my place, either. see dr. zimmerman's report, page , . the laney hickory is growing in the jones nursery at lancaster, pa., the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich., and the carl weschcke orchard at river falls, wis. the lingenfelter (shag.): mentioned in mr. reed's paper in report. it is growing in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich. the manahan (shag.): mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report and in mr. reed's paper in report. it is growing in the riehl orchard at godfrey, ill., and the carl weschcke orchard at river falls, wis. the mann (of michigan shag.): see mr. reed's paper in this report. the mann (of ohio, shag. x shell.): awarded ninth prize in contest to howard mann, delta, ohio. the mccallister (pecan x shell.): dr. deming: has anyone any new information about the filling or bearing of the mccallister? mr. wilkinson: it fills well but not heavily. mr. reed: i have watched the mccallister for years and years and the nuts have failed to fill. but there is a tree that has the reputation of bearing a very considerable quantity of nuts. we went over to see the tree and we found that it stood where the soil was very rich. i have wanted ever since then to try some mccallisters and give them all of the plant food that they could possibly consume. i believe that that has a good deal to do with filling. dr. deming: heavy fertilization influences the filling of nuts. the mccallister is mentioned in dr. zimmerman's report, page , . it is growing in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich., the orchards of carl weschcke at river falls, wis., e. c. rice at absher, ky., of sargeant h. wellman at topsfield, mass., and in the government plantings at beltsville, md. it is also growing and doing well in the waite orchard at normandy, tenn., see page , report. the milford (shag.): it is mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in report. it is growing in the jones nursery at lancaster. the minnie (shag.): see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. parent tree is growing in the yard of the snyder farm at center point, iowa. this hickory is growing in the riehl orchard at godfrey, ill. the morton (pecan x shell.): mentioned in dr. zimmerman's report, page , . is growing in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich. the peschke (shag.): awarded tenth prize in contest to grace peschke, ripon, wis. the pleas (pecan x bitter.): miss jones: it has a very thin shell. you can crack it with your hand. mr. reed: miss riehl has said that it is worth growing for ornamental effect. it has great long catkins that make it really a beautiful thing, and yet it is like all of the others as far as i know, it has that bitter principle. it is very much the same as the other bitternut hybrids. the pleas is mentioned in mr. bixby's paper in the report and is listed in dr. zimmerman's report, page , . it is being grown on the riehl farm at godfrey, ill., in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich., in the carl weschcke orchard at river falls, wis., and sargeant h. wellman has young trees doing well at topsfield, mass. the renggenberg (shag.): awarded eighth prize in contest to edward renggenberg, madison, wis., r. , box . the rockville (pecan x shell.): see mr. bixby's paper in report. also mentioned in dr. zimmerman's report, page , . is growing at the riehl farm, godfrey, ill., the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich., and in orchard of carl weschcke at river falls, wis., and in the jones nursery at lancaster, pennsylvania. the roddy (shag. x shell.): awarded fourth prize in contest to john roddy, napoleon, ohio. the romig: is in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich., and sargeant h. wellman has some young trees in his orchard at topsfield, mass. the sande (shag. x shell.): see mr. reed's paper in this report. the sayer (shell.): see mr. bixby's paper in report. the schoenberger (shag.): awarded tenth prize in contest to roy schoenberger, nevada, ohio. the seaver (shag.): awarded ninth prize in contest to j. k. seaver, harvard, ill. the schinnerling: see mr. bixby's paper in report. is growing in kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich., and in orchard of carl weschcke at river falls, wis. the shaul: see mr. bixby's paper in report. is growing in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich. the siers (mock. x bitter.): see mr. bixby's paper in report. mentioned in dr. zimmerman's report, page , . is growing on the riehl farm at godfrey, ill., in orchard of carl weschcke at river falls, wis., and in the jones nursery at lancaster, pa. the sobolewski (shag.): awarded ninth prize in contest to jos. sobolewski, norwich, conn., r. , box a. the sprunger (shell): awarded ninth prize in contest to caleb sprunger, berne, ind. the stanley (shell.): see mr. bixby's paper in report. is growing in plantings on kellogg farm at battle creek, mich. the stratford (shag. x bitter.): see mr. bixby's paper in report and dr. zimmerman's report, page , . it is growing in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich., and the orchard of carl weschcke at river falls, wis. dr. j. russell smith, swarthmore, pa., reports it is one of the most precocious and productive nuts he has when grafted on pignut. it has not missed bearing some nuts in the last four seasons. the swain (shag.): see mr. reed's paper in this report; mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the swartz (shag.): see mr. reed's paper in report. the tama queen (shell.): see mr. bixby's paper in report. the taylor (shag.): see mr. bixby's paper in report; mr. reed's paper in report, and dr. zimmerman's report, page , . this hickory is growing in orchard of carl weschcke at river falls, wis., and sargeant h. wellman at topsfield, mass. w. r. fickes, wooster, ohio, reports the taylor is a light bearer but good in quality. the tiedke (pecan x shell.): see dr. zimmerman's report, page , . the vest (shag.): see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the wampler: see mr. bixby's paper in report. the weed (shag. x bitter.): see dr. zimmerman's report, page , . the weiker (shag. x shell.): see mr. bixby's paper in report; mr. reed's paper in report and dr. zimmerman's report, page , . is growing in the jones nursery at lancaster, pa., and the orchards of carl weschcke at river falls, wis., and sargeant h. wellman at topsfield, mass. the weschcke: a hybrid hickory at fayette, iowa, owned by carl weschcke of st. paul, minn., who has grafted many bitternut seedlings at river falls, wis., with cions from this tree. the westphal: see mr. reed's paper in this report. the wright (pecan x shell): awarded eighth prize in contest to c. d. wright, sumner, mo. see dr. zimmerman's report, page , . this hickory is growing in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich. the woods (shag. x shell.): see dr. zimmerman's report, page , . the zimmerman (shag. x shell.): see dr. zimmerman's report, page , . the zurcher: awarded sixth prize in contest to menno zurcher, apple creek, ohio. northern pecans the busseron: see mr. bixby's paper in report. this pecan has been generally propagated by nurserymen and is widely distributed. e. c. rice, absher, ky., reports it does better on shellbark stock than on pignut stock. dr. j. russell smith, swarthmore, pa., reports the busseron pecan has proved to be much the most precocious bearer, that ripened well filled nuts on top of the blue ridge mountains, elevation , feet, fifty miles from washington, d. c., in a climate distinctly colder than philadelphia. the butterick: see mr. bixby's paper in report. this pecan has been generally propagated and distributed by nurserymen. the greenriver: see mr. bixby's paper in report. this pecan is also well distributed. e. c. rice, absher, ky., reports greenriver graft on shagbark stock grew eight feet tall in two years. the indiana: see mr. bixby's paper in report. this pecan also generally distributed. the kentucky: see mr. bixby's paper in report. the major: see mr. bixby's paper in report. dr. j. russell smith, swarthmore, pa., reports the major has ripened nuts on top of blue ridge mountain, elevation , feet, fifty miles from washington, d. c., in a climate distinctly colder than philadelphia. the nuts are small. the niblack: see mr. bixby's paper in report. mr. hershey reports it should be put on the obsolete list. the norton: see mr. bixby's paper in report. sargeant h. wellman, topsfield, mass., has some fine young trees but they are not yet bearing. the posey: is growing in the jones and riehl nurseries and in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich. the upton: see mr. bixby's paper in report. the warrick (warwick): see mr. bixby's paper in report. dr. j. russell smith, swarthmore, pa., reports that on the piedmont plateau, elevation feet, forty miles from washington, d. c., in a climate approximating that of philadelphia, the warrick has often not ripened its nuts although some seasons it does. john w. hershey states the warrick should be put on the obsolete list. the witte: see mr. bixby's paper in report. the nut is very small but of good quality. mr. john w. hershey states the pecan should be put on the obsolete list. black walnuts the adams: see mr. reed's paper in this report, also mr. bixby's paper in report, and mr. reed's paper in report. the adams is growing in the kellogg planting at battle creek, mich. the allen: see mr. reed's paper in this report, also his paper in report. the allen is growing on the kellogg farm at battle creek, mich. j. h. gage of hamilton, ontario, has some young trees which have not yet borne nuts. the alley: see mr. reed's paper in this report, also mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the anglin: see mr. reed's paper in report. is growing on the riehl farm at godfrey, ill. the asbury: was in the contest. see mr. reed's paper in the report. it is growing in the riehl plantings at godfrey, ill. the atkins: see mr. reed's paper in the report. the aygarn: see mr. reed's paper in report. the barlee: is in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich. the beck: see mr. reed's paper in this report, also his paper in the report. this walnut is growing in the plantings on the riehl farm at godfrey, ill., and the kellogg farm at battle creek, mich. w. r. fickes, wooster, ohio, states the beck walnut is not promising there. the bechtold: is growing in the riehl planting at godfrey, ill. benge: see mr. reed's paper in report. bloss: see mr. reed's paper in this report. the bohanan: see mr. reed's paper in report. this walnut is growing in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich. the bontz: see mr. reed's paper in report. the booth: see dr. zimmerman's report, page , . this walnut is growing at the riehl farm. the bowman: see dr. zimmerman's report, page , . the bomberger: see mr. reed's paper in report. the brougham: see dr. zimmerman's report, page , . the bruer: see mr. reed's paper in this report. the burroughs: this walnut is growing on the riehl farm at godfrey, ill. the burton: see mr. reed's paper in report. this walnut is growing on the riehl farm. it was entered in contest by herbert burton, hartford, kentucky. the carper: see dr. zimmerman's report, page , . the cooper: this walnut is growing on the riehl farm at godfrey, ill. the creitz: see mr. reed's paper in report. this walnut is growing on the riehl and kellogg farms. the cresco: see mr. reed's paper in this report and his paper in report. the deming (ornamental): see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the dependahl: see mr. reed's paper in report. the edras: parent tree owned by gerald w. adams, morehead, iowa, see page of report. see mr. reed's paper in report. is growing in the riehl plantings at godfrey, ill., and the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich. the fayette: is growing on the riehl farm at godfrey, ill. the freel: awarded first prize in contest to mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, iowa. see mr. reed's paper in report. the fritz: see mr. reed's paper in report. the galloway: see mr. reed's paper in report. is growing in the jones nursery at lancaster, pa. the germaine: see mr. reed's paper in this report and his paper in report. the glory (curly wood): see mr. bixby's paper in report. the graham: see mr. reed's paper in report. is growing in the riehl and kellogg plantings. the graybill: see mr. stokes' paper with test record, page of report, and dr. zimmerman's report, page , report. is growing in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich. the gregory: see dr. zimmerman's report, page , report. the grundy: awarded fifth prize in contest to mr. rohwer, grundy center, iowa. see mr. reed's paper in this report and his paper in report. is growing in the riehl and kellogg orchards. the harris: see mr. reed's paper in this report. the hancock: see mr. reed's paper in report. the hare: see mr. reed's paper in report. is growing on riehl farm. was entered in contest by frank h. hare, rushville, schuyler county, ill., and is mentioned on page , report. the hepier: see dr. zimmerman's report, page , . is growing on the riehl and kellogg farms. the herman (rush): see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the hilton: see mr. reed's paper in this report. the hine: see mr. bixby's paper in report. the hobbs: was entered in contest by c. t. s. hobbs, fort blackmore, va., r. . see mr. reed's paper in report. the homeland: parent tree owned by clinton thomas, troutville, va. see mr. stokes' paper with tests, pages and , report. the hopwood: see mr. reed's paper in report. the howell: see mr. reed's paper in report. is growing in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich. the huber: see mr. reed's paper in this report. the impit: given eleventh place in contest. submitted by j. u. gellatly, west bank, b. c. the jumbo: see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the kettler (wisconsin no. ): parent tree owned by fred kettler, platteville, wis. has taken first prize in state fair contests. dr. zimmerman and mr. frey have young trees which have not yet borne nuts. see mr. kettler's letter in this report. the kinder: see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the knapbe: submitted in contest by j. j. knapbe, new weston, ohio. see mr. reed's paper in report. the kurtz: see mr. reed's paper in report. the lamb (curly wood): see mr. reed's paper in this report and mr. bixby's paper in report. grafts from this tree are growing in several eastern orchards, including the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich. it is not as yet definitely known if the propagated trees will reproduce the curly texture of the wood of the parent tree. the lee: see dr. zimmerman's report, page , , and mr. reed's paper, page , report; also tests recorded in mr. stokes' paper, page , report. the lewis: see mr. bixby's paper in report. is growing in the kellogg plantings at battle creek, mich. the lucas: see mr. reed's paper in report. the lutz: see mr. reed's paper in report. the marion: awarded second prize in contest to mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, iowa. the mark: entered in contest by c. e. mark, washington court house, ohio. see mr. reed's paper in report. the mattingly: see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the mccoy: see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the mcmillen: see dr. zimmerman's report, page , . is growing in the riehl and kellogg plantings. the metcalf: awarded eighth prize in the contest to mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, iowa. in fair seasons has borne heavy crops each year. is supposed to be the mother tree of the freel and marion. the miller: see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. is growing in the kellogg plantings. the mintle: see mr. reed's paper in report. is growing in the riehl and kellogg plantings. the monterey: see mr. reed's paper in report and dr. zimmerman's report, page , report. is growing in the riehl plantings at godfrey, ill. w. r. fickes, wooster, ohio, reports it is not promising there. the morris: see mr. bixby's paper in report. the myers: entered in contest by elmer r. myers, bellefontaine, ohio, r. . see mr. reed's paper in report. the nichols: see mr. reed's paper in report. the ogden: entered in contest by mrs. joe ogden, bedford, ky. see mr. reed's paper in report. is growing at riehl farm. the ohio: see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. has been generally planted in all nut tree orchards. e. c. rice, absher, ky., has few young trees doing fine and bore a few nuts in ; largest in hull he had ever seen. j. h. gage, hamilton, ontario, planted one ohio walnut in , moved it in . it started to bear in and has borne every year since except one. tree now feet in height, trunk six inches in diameter, is growing in light, sandy soil near west end of north shore of lake ontario. w. r. fickes, wooster, ohio, reports the ohio as not promising there. the paradox (hybrid): see mr. bixby's paper in report. see dr. zimmerman's report, page , report. is supposed to be a rapid grower but has not proved satisfactory in the east. the patterson: submitted in contest by mrs. william patterson, wever, iowa. the patuxent: see mr. reed's paper in report. is growing in the riehl and kellogg orchards. the peanut: see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the pearl: see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the pinecrest: see dr. zimmerman's report, page , , and mr. reed's paper, page , report; also mr. stokes' paper and tests, page , report. the powers: see mr. reed's paper in report. the rohwer: took second prize in contest. see mr. reed's paper in report. j. h. gage, hamilton, ontario, has young grafts of this walnut growing but not old enough to bear. w. r. fickes, wooster, ohio, reports that the rohwer there is probably next to the thomas in quality. the royal (hybrid): see mr. bixby's paper in report. is reported to be a rapid grower but has not proved satisfactory in the east. the ruddick: see mr. reed's paper in report. the schimmoller: entered in contest by will t. schimmoller, fort jennings, ohio. see mr. reed's paper in report. the stabler: parent tree in howard county, maryland. has been generally planted in nut orchards but has not proved satisfactory. it is a fine cracker. e. c. rice, absher, ky., reports it does fine there, better than ohio. w. r. fickes, wooster, ohio, reports it is not promising there. j. h. gage, hamilton, ontario, has one tree four years of age, which bore a few nuts in . stood last winter's weather (- degrees f.) with no damage whatever. the stambaugh: took first prize in contest. see mr. reed's paper in report. it is being generally tested in nut orchards. j. h. gage, hamilton, ontario, has some young trees growing which are not old enough to bear. w. r. fickes, wooster, ohio, reports the stambaugh there is heavily veined, is oily, soon shrivels and is not very good quality. the stanley: see dr. zimmerman's report, page , , and mr. stokes' paper with tests, pages and , report. the stevens: see dr. zimmerman's report, page , , and mr. reed's paper, page , and mr. stokes' paper with tests, pages and , in report. the stillman: awarded third prize in contest to mrs. j. a. stillman, mackeys, north carolina. the stout: entered in contest by w. f. stout, hammersville, ohio. the tasterite: see mr. reed's paper in this report and his paper in report. w. r. fickes, wooster, ohio, reports the tasterite is not promising there. the ten eyck: one of the standards in past years. see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the thomas: considered the leading walnut in past years and still preferred to all others by many growers. see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the thomas walnut seems to produce the same quality nuts from oklahoma to new york. e. c. rice, absher, ky., has young trees doing fine but not old enough to bear. j. h. gage, hamilton, ontario, has two thomas trees planted in and moved in which started to bear in and have borne every year since except one. trunks of trees are to inches in diameter, trees are feet high and growing in light sandy soil near west end of north shore of lake ontario. temperature last winter reached - f. but no damage to the thomas trees. w. r. fickes, wooster, ohio, reports at the present time he considers the thomas the best all-round walnut, good in quality, self-pollinating and a heavy early bearer. the thorp: see mr. reed's paper in report. the tilley: submitted in contest by b. j. tilley, murfreesboro, n. c. is growing in the riehl orchard. the vandersloot: submitted in contest by c. e. vandersloot, muddy creek forks, pa. see mr. reed's paper in report. the wasson: see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the wetzel: awarded fourth prize in contest to annie w. wetzel, new berlin, pa. see mr. reed's paper in report. the wheeling: a new excellent walnut located by mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, iowa, in . the weidenhammer: see dr. zimmerman's report, page , . the wiard: see mr. reed's paper in this report. the woodall: see mr. bixby's paper in report and mr. reed's paper in report. the worthington: an excellent walnut located by mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, iowa. see mr. reed's paper, page , report. mr. h. r. weber, cincinnati, ohio, calls attention to the fact that he has a parent black walnut tree on his place, the nuts of which took second prize in the michigan nut contest. he will later give more information concerning it. persian walnuts the following persian walnuts are listed in mr. bixby's paper in the report: alpine anderson boston eureka franquette hall holden lancaster mayette meylan rush prof. neilson's paper in this report covers the following: beck broadview crath franquette larson mayette mcdermid pomeroy seeando in addition the jones nursery has growing the following: nebo potomac sinclair mr. john w. hershey reports the alpine and lancaster are the same and that the franquette, hall, nebo and rush should be listed as obsolete for northern planting, and that the use of the eureka in the north is questionable. w. r. fickes, wooster, ohio, reports that the franquette, lancaster, mayette, pomeroy and rush winter kill at his place. butternuts the following butternuts are listed in mr. reed's paper in the report, pages and : aiken bliss buckley creitz deming devon helmick hergert hostetter irvine lingle mandeville saugatuck sherman sherwood simonson thill utterbock the alverson, deming, irvine, love, luther and sherman are covered in mr. reed's paper in this report. heart nuts mr. bixby's paper in report covers the following heart nuts: bates, faust, lancaster, ritchie and stranger. mr. john w. hershey reports the lancaster should be classed as obsolete as it is practically a hopeless tree, and that the stranger is a rather common-place nut and should be classed as such. mr. hershey reports a new heart nut, the hershey, a seedling grown on his grounds at downington, pa. it is growing in a severe frost pocket but has never winter-killed or frost-killed. the nut is excellent. bearing has been light due to crowding, which has been remedied by cutting down the trees around it. chestnuts most of the named chestnuts are listed in mr. bixby's paper in the report and are growing on the riehl farm at godfrey, ill. experiments are still being carried on with hope of producing a blight resistant chestnut. anyone desiring to plant chestnut trees should consult their local nurseryman or farm advisor. hazels and filberts the filberts have not proved entirely hardy for northern territory, but the native hazels and hybrids appear to be entirely satisfactory. the lists are too long to publish. full and reliable information is contained in prof. slate's paper in this report. nut culture in the north _by_ j. f. wilkinson _rockport, indiana_ there being other papers on the subject of nut culture i will confine this to indiana and surrounding territory where nut trees of several kinds are native, and flourished before the coming of the white man. walnut and hickory trees are to be found growing on most kinds of soil, chestnut and hazels mostly on hill land, the pecan as a rule in the lowlands along the streams where vast groves of them are yet producing splendid crops of nuts. one mile from my nursery, around enterprise (which was the boyhood home of our worthy member mr. t. p. littlepage), are hundreds of these trees, including one of the largest in indiana. this tree measures feet in circumference at waist height and is estimated to be feet high. it has produced more than pounds of nuts in a season and other trees near here have produced as much as pounds. one of these has a spread of over feet. it is not unusual for a large size tree to produce from to pounds of a good season. one of the largest groves near here is known as the major grove near the mouth of green river, containing about acres, most of the trees on which are pecan trees. some are of immense size and probably as large as can be found north of the cotton belt. a few trees in this grove are estimated to be more than feet tall. along the wabash river is probably the largest native northern pecan grove consisting of several hundred acres in which it is estimated there are more than , bearing-size pecan trees. at gathering time in the fall this is a very busy place. it is a source of revenue to many besides the owners. i was at this grove two weeks ago and was told there that each year school begins the first of august so they can dismiss during october and november to allow the school children to gather pecans during those two months. school teachers in that territory are required to sign a contract to that effect. this grove lies between shawneetown and new haven, which are eighteen miles apart. the town of new haven has a population of about . i was told last fall by one of the three pecan buyers there that, in one day a few years ago, the three of them paid more than $ , for pecans for one day's delivery. this of course did not represent the total day's sales for this territory as many of them were sold at shawneetown. so one can easily see why the people there are anxious for their children to help in this harvest, it being the chief source of fall income to many poor people, who are given one-half of all the pecans they gather. often on or after a windy day the amount gathered by each one makes a splendid day's wages. many make a practice of coming a distance each fall for this harvest. one party from st. louis told me last fall that was his twenty-sixth year at that grove. this grove is surrounded by smaller ones and many single trees growing on cultivated land. none of the native nut trees in this section have ever had any care whatever, except the ones growing in cultivated fields, and those only farm crop cultivation. many of the native seedlings seldom bear and some others are shy or irregular bearers. but it is noticeable how much better as a rule those produce that have farm crop cultivation or stand in favorable locations. this is plainly evident in many instances where trees in the last few years have been cleared around and cultivated, or where an individual tree is standing alone without cultivation, but has plenty of space, food and moisture. an excellent example of this is the littlepage tree in enterprise that is probably years old, has never been cultivated but stands in a well used stock lot and has been an annual bearer since a small tree. on the other hand, near here are a number of trees around which the land had been cultivated in farm crops until about ten years ago, and these trees produced well, but since that time the land has been abandoned and has grown up in a thicket and the production of these trees has been greatly reduced. about twenty years ago propagation of the better varieties of northern nut trees was begun in southern indiana. at that time i believe that most of us overlooked the needs of nut trees as we had been used to their taking care of themselves. our attention to them was mostly at nut harvest time. we failed to take into consideration the conditions under which the best bearing trees were growing and too strongly condemned those not bearing so well, when it was often due to conditions instead of to the trees themselves. the walnut and hickory will succeed and bear with less moisture than the pecan, though they will do better with plenty of moisture if on well drained land and having good cultivation. we failed to take in consideration that the best bearing pecan trees were growing on low land that was usually overflowed one or more times each season, leaving plenty of moisture and a deposit of plant food. many articles have been written by nut tree enthusiasts in which the planting of nut trees on unproductive or waste land has been advised. in this the writers were sincere in their statements. this advice has been taken by many, causing more or less disappointment to the planter and no encouragement to his neighbor. no successful fruit grower would plant an orchard of peach or apple trees on poor or waste land, forget about them for a few years and expect to go back and harvest a crop of fruit, and neither need the nut grower expect to. since many trees of the named varieties have been in bearing for a number of years it gives a broad field for studying them, and their habits are very similar to the native trees, i do not know of a single tree that is not a testimonial to the care and attention it has been given. in my first nursery planting trees were left growing to supply bud and graftwood for future use. these were left entirely too close together to remain until large trees, but i have never yet had nerve enough to remove all that should be taken out, with the result that they are now crowding and robbing each other of food and moisture retarding both growth and bearing. these are now from to years old and not producing as many nuts as they did several years ago, or as many as trees several years younger that have more space. my observations convince me that plenty of space, food and moisture are most essential for best results. the past four years has been a splendid time to study this as our weather conditions have been unusual in that we have in this section had both wet and dry seasons. i am firmly convinced that weather conditions have a great deal to do with the nut crop not only with the quantity of nuts but quality as well. moisture conditions in spring and early summer determine the size of the nut, and later in the season the quality of the kernel. plenty of moisture in spring and early summer will make a large size nut. after the shell once forms the growth of nut is done. then the plumpness of the kernel depends on the amount of moisture after the shell is formed. lack of moisture the entire season spells a small, poorly filled nut. trees growing in a crowded position, or on hard, dry ground, seldom ever have all the moisture they need to produce a good crop of well filled nuts. this has been plainly demonstrated with my own and my neighbors' trees in the past few years. the weather of the previous season also may have much to do with the crop the following season, especially with trees growing under adverse conditions. these conditions can often be largely overcome by the owner, with fertilizers and cultivation. in planting a tree be sure to give it plenty of space. if the soil is lacking in plant food feed the tree, remembering it can draw food only from a given space. no one would expect to grow the same farm crop on a plot of ground for many years without fertilizer. prepare to conserve moisture for the hot, dry season either by cultivation or mulching. one of the thriftiest best bearing nut tree plantings i know of is on very sharp, hilly clay ground in rockport, but the owner fertilizes these trees annually and gives splendid cultivation. a non-bearing nut tree is no better than any other kind of a tree, so it is not a question of how many nut trees you have, but how many good bearing nut trees you have. to get the best results provide your trees with space, food and moisture. varieties of nut trees for the northernmost zone _by_ c. a. reed, _bureau of plant industry united states department of agriculture_ the northernmost zone of the eastern part of the united states, within which conditions appear at all encouraging for the planting of the hardiest varieties of nut trees now available, may be outlined as covering the milder portions of massachusetts, rhode island, connecticut, new york, michigan, wisconsin, minnesota and south dakota. beyond the canadian border this zone should perhaps include the fruit belt of ontario known as the "niagara peninsula," which skirts lake ontario from the city of hamilton to the niagara river. no doubt it should also include considerable canadian territory immediately adjacent to lakes erie and st. clair, and north to the lower end of lake huron. in each american state within this general zone there are numerous localities to which several species of edible nuts are indigenous, others where the butternut alone is found, and still others to which none of the common kinds appear to be adapted. climate and soil are both limiting factors within this general section. no nut trees are likely to prove hardy to the extent of bearing heavily where winter temperatures are extremely trying or where soils are not of high grade. a fundamental principle involving plant ecology, which with reference to planted nut trees is too often lost sight of, is that, regardless of species, plants are unlikely to be altogether hardy in any locality where minimum temperatures of winter are appreciably lower, or growing periods much shorter, than at the place where the variety in question originated. for example, it is often assumed that a pecan tree native to southern texas, the lowest point of the range of this species in the united states, should do well in southeastern iowa, the northernmost point within the range. likewise, it is also sometimes assumed that a black walnut variety originating in arkansas, texas or tennessee should be hardy in the black walnut belts of new york, michigan, wisconsin, minnesota, pennsylvania, or wherever the species is indigenous or has been successfully transplanted. there are definite degrees of hardiness which must not be overlooked. a species or variety may be hardy enough to grow thriftily for many years, and to make a splendid tree, hundreds of miles north of the latitude at which it will mature occasional crops; or it may be able to produce crops that are frequent in occurrence yet indifferent as to character; or there may be occasional crops of first-class nuts; but good crops of good nuts are exceedingly rare when the minimum temperatures of winter or the length of the growing period are appreciably more adverse than in the locality where the variety originated. a few illustrations may help to make these points clearer. on the experimental farm of the u. s. department of agriculture at arlington, va., directly opposite washington, on the potomac, there are five pecan trees of the schley variety which originated on the gulf coast of mississippi. these trees have grown splendidly since being planted more than years ago. they blossomed and set nuts more or less regularly after they were about eight or ten years of age, but it was only in the eighteenth year that a season was late enough in fall for a single nut to mature. another case is afforded by a pecan seedling, probably from texas, called to the writer's attention by dr. w. c. deming, hartford, conn., which stands near the outskirts of that city. this is a large, beautiful tree. it rarely sets crops of nuts, and when it does the nuts fail to become more than half or two-thirds normal size by the time of autumn frosts. the kernels are then quite undeveloped and the nuts therefore worthless each year. in another case, near ithaca, new york, the stabler walnut from maryland and the ohio from toledo, of the state after which it was named, all appear to be congenially situated insofar as environment is concerned until the nuts are actually harvested and cured. the nuts of each variety appear normal when they drop from the trees, but during the process of curing, the kernels wither up too badly to be marketable. the thomas from southeastern pennsylvania is somewhat better able to adjust itself to ithaca conditions, but it is far from being a commercial success in that region. kinds of nuts the kinds of nuts suitable for this northern zone naturally divide themselves into three main groups, viz., native, foreign and hybrid. the last might well be divided into three sub-groups, as native hybrids, foreign hybrids, and hybrids between native and foreign species. it is perhaps true that there should also be a fourth subgroup to which chance hybrids should be assigned when there is uncertainty as to which of these three others a given variety may belong. the native group of these three main groups that of the native species is at present by far the most important. it includes the black walnut, _juglans nigra_; the butternut, _j. cinerea_; the shagbark hickory, _hicoria ovata_; the sweet hickory, _h. ovalis_; the pignut hickory, _h. glabra_; the american sweet chestnut, _castanea dentata_; the american beech, _fagus americana_; and two species of native hazelnut, _corylus americana_; and the beaked hazelnut, _c. rostrata_. black walnut the black walnut is placed at the head of the native group because of its great all round usefulness. wherever it grows well its timber is of leading value among all american species. it is a splendid ornamental and the nuts are highly edible. the black walnut range does not extend as far north as does that of the butternut, yet wherever it grows well it is much more useful as a tree, and is successful under a greater variety of conditions. it is probably a more dependable bearer and, upon the average, the nuts yield a higher percentage of kernel. many more varieties of black walnut than of butternut have been brought to light and more trees have been propagated. enough varieties of promise have originated in michigan alone (largely as a result of the work of prof. james a. neilson of east lansing) to preclude any obvious need, at present at least, of bringing varieties from farther south into this zone. in addition to these, a number of other varieties have been recognized from equal latitudes, as in new york and, west of lake michigan, in wisconsin, southeastern minnesota and northern iowa. adams--the adams black walnut is a rather small variety with an approximate size range of from to nuts per pound, and an average of . in a cracking test of the crop, conducted after the kernels had become too dry for most satisfactory cracking, the yield of quarters was . per cent; that of small pieces . per cent, and the total . per cent. the nuts are much elongated in form, being sharply pointed at each end. many are quite symmetrical, thin-shelled and, when not too dry, of excellent cracking quality. the kernels examined have been notably bright in color, firm in texture, very sweet and highly pleasing to the palate. the quarters are long and slender. the adams was first called to public attention in , when the late henry adams of scotts, kalamazoo county, michigan, was awarded first prize for an entry of nuts from the original tree which he made in a contest held that year by the northern nut growers association. in an article published in the michigan farmer of detroit, on july , , he stated that this tree grew as a sprout in a corn row on land which he cleared in the spring of . when the tree was seen by the writer in , and again in , it gave the impression of having been a moderate or slow grower. such facts as have been obtainable from time to time indicate that it is but a moderate bearer. however, the character of the soil in which it stands is not of the best, although it is far from being poor. in better soil it would doubtless produce heavier and more uniform crops. as nearly as it can be ascertained, the adams was first propagated by the late w. g. bixby of baldwin, long island, who procured scions in . it was again grafted six years later by j. f. wilkinson of rockport, ind., with scions procured by the u. s. department of agriculture. in april, , one of the resulting trees was shipped by the department to the kellogg experimental and demonstration farm, augusta, mich. trees are now growing on the grounds of the united states department of agriculture horticultural field station at beltsville, md., and records in the bixby file show that a tree was shipped by him to mr. harry r. weber, cleveland, ohio, probably about . no doubt the variety is growing in other plantings. an entry of adams black walnut won third prize in the michigan contest conducted under the direction of professor neilson of east lansing at the end of the crop year. during the same year dr. w. c. deming, chairman of the contest committee for the northern nut growers association, made the following comments regarding the adams: "shell thin, cracking quality good to perfect, color of kernel light, condition plump, texture tender, quality rich, flavor high." his summary was put tersely, "an excellent nut." in the event that this variety would do better in a richer soil than that where the parent tree stands, it might prove to be one of the most desirable of all kinds now known for use in the northernmost zone. the parent tree is now owned by a son of the late henry adams, mr. h. r. adams of scotts, who now lives on the old homestead. allen--the allen black walnut is another michigan variety which appears to be of considerable promise. it has been under observation by the u. s. department of agriculture at washington since the summer of , when it was called to the attention by the honorable charles w. garfield of grand rapids. the parent is a healthy double tree standing some twenty rods from thornapple creek on the farm of mr. glenn w. allen, r. f. d. , middleville, barry county. the local conditions of soil and moisture are highly favorable. the tree frequently bears heavy crops, although, like most others of the species, it tends more to alternate rather than to annual bearing. five pounds of the crop tested in washington showed a range of from to nuts per pound and an average of . the percentage of quarter kernels was . , that of small parts . , and that of bad, o. per cent, making a total kernel yield of . per cent. the cracking quality was good, the kernels were plump, the quality of the kernel rich and the flavor medium sweet. the allen was awarded first prize by professor neilson in the michigan contest of . it should be well worthy of test planting in the northern zone. it has been disseminated to a very considerable extent for use in small plantings. alley--the alley is a new york variety from the farm of miss amy a. alley, lagrangeville, duchess county. this farm is within fifteen miles of the connecticut line and some to miles above new york city. the alley was first brought to attention by miss alley in , when she was awarded first prize in the contest for that year of the northern nut growers association. the late w. g. bixby, in reporting for the committee in charge, said that the alley had a shell thinner than that of stabler and that the cracking quality was " per cent." in none of the tests conducted by the department has this variety ranked with the best of the more recent kinds, yet because of its latitude of origin and the fact that in general merit it is well above the average seedling, it is believed that it should be included in northern trial plantings. three pounds of the crop tested by the department counted , and nuts each, respectively. the range was to . the percentage yield of quarter kernels was but . , for out of nuts cracked , or . per cent, were bad. the total yield of kernel amounted to . per cent. the kernels that year were neither particularly plump nor especially well filled. beck--the beck is another michigan variety of black walnut which in many respects has compared favorably with the best varieties yet brought to light from any source. the parent tree was called to the attention of the u. s. department of agriculture in march, , by mr. howard harris, r. f. d. , allegan, allegan county, michigan. it was on a farm then owned by mr. daniel beck, r. f. d. , hamilton, also of allegan county. it is a double tree standing in an open field some rods back of the barn. like many other northern varieties of black walnut, the nuts are rather small, ranging in from to per pound, and having an average of . in that year it had the high percentage of quarter kernels of . , and a total percentage of kernel of . . the shell was thinner than that of the average black walnut, the cracking quality very good, and the kernel bright-colored, plump, rich and sweet. the beck has been successfully grafted in the bixby nursery at baldwin, long island, and at the e. a. riehl farm and nursery at godfrey, illinois; by j. w. arata, mishawka, ind.; by professor neilson, and probably by others. it is growing in the government test orchard at beltsville, md. bloss--the bloss black walnut was called to the attention of this department in january of by mr. joe bloss, r. f. d. , box , bristol, indiana, who at that time forwarded specimen nuts to washington. these averaged per pound and had a range of from to . in the test which followed they yielded . per cent of quarters and . per cent of small pieces, making a total of . per cent of kernel. the cracking quality was very good, the kernel bright, medium sweet, and fairly rich. on the whole this appeared to be a very good nut. because of the very creditable showing made by these nuts, it is believed that the bloss should be investigated further. it may prove valuable in the general locality of its origin, and as bristol is but a few miles below the michigan state line, it would seem that the variety should be given careful consideration in plantings throughout the milder portions of the northern zone. bruer--the bruer black walnut first came to attention in when mr. milo bruer of east main street, sleepy eye, minn., sent specimen nuts to dr. w. c. deming, hartford, conn., for entry in the contest being conducted that year by the northern nut growers association. dr. deming reported that he found the shell thin, the cracking quality good, the kernel white, plump, medium rich in quality, and of mild, nutty "pecan-like" flavor. later examination in washington of specimens of the same crop showed that the nuts averaged per pound. by that time they were dried beyond the most satisfactory point for cracking, and, consequently, in this respect, the quality was medium only. the kernels were then but medium plump. in other respects they appeared to be about as had been observed by dr. deming. as this is the best variety yet brought to attention from minnesota, it is believed that it should be used in all northern plantings until superseded by others of superior merit. cresco--the parent tree of the cresco black walnut stands in a creek bottom, on what is known as the patterson farm, two miles southwest of cresco, howard county, iowa. it is probably within ten miles of the minnesota state line. so far as known, with the exception of bruer (of minnesota), the latitude of its place of origin is greater than that of any other variety originating west of chicago. it was discovered by mr. w. a. bents, proprietor of cresco nurseries, cresco, iowa, by whom, in , specimen nuts of the crop were sent to the late s. w. snyder, of snyder bros., inc., of center point, iowa. scions of this variety were also sent to mr. snyder, by whom it was first grafted in . the cresco has since been disseminated to a considerable extent and is now growing in a number of widely remote plantings, including those of the e. a. riehl farm and nursery, godfrey, ill., and the u. s. department of agriculture at beltsville, md. seventy-three nuts of the crop examined in washington averaged per pound and yielded . per cent of quarter kernels, . per cent small pieces and . per cent bad, making a total kernel percentage of . . the latitude of origin, together with the apparent general merit of the cresco black walnut, makes this variety appear to be of special promise in the northernmost zone. edras--this is a particularly promising variety, brought to light by mr. gerald w. adams, of moorhead, iowa, in connection with the association contest; when it was no. of three entries made by mr. adams. (it was no. that was designated by the association as "adams" at that time and awarded twelfth prize. this variety received no prize.) the variety was first called "adams" in his honor, but as a michigan variety had previously been so designated, the name was changed to edras, after the first name of mrs. adams. the edras was rated as being "outstanding" by the late s. w. snyder of iowa (iowa state hort. soc. ann. rep. , p. ). prof. n. f. drake, of fayetteville, ark., in the proceedings of the northern nut growers association (p. ) for , stated: "i think this variety should be kept in mind, especially for breeding purposes where it is desired to develop a strain with a high percentage of kernel." in a test of nuts from the crop, the department of agriculture obtained a percentage yield of . for quarters and a total kernel yield of . . that year, . per cent of the kernels were found bad, and . per cent were of small parts. it is not improbable that another test would result in an even higher total yield and appreciable improvement in the yield of quarters. this variety has been quite widely disseminated. it is known to be growing on the riehl farm and nursery grounds at godfrey, ill.; at the morton arboretum, lisle, ill.; on the kellogg experimental and demonstration farm, augusta, michigan; on the farm of mr. harry w. weber, cleves, ohio; and on the governmental test orchard at beltsville, md. the latitude of moorhead is somewhat below that of the southern boundary of the northern zone, yet climatic conditions of extreme western iowa are probably no less severe than those of southern michigan. for this reason, and because of the excellent rating that this variety has received, it is believed that the edras should be included in further test plantings of the northernmost zone. germaine--the germaine black walnut, named in honor of mr. john w. germaine, r. , allegan, mich., owner of the original tree, was called to the attention of the u. s. department of agriculture in march of by mr. howard harris, r. f. d. , also of allegan, when he forwarded a few specimen nuts of the crop to washington. these were found to have very good cracking quality and plump kernels of rich quality and pleasing flavor. scions have been placed in the hands of various individuals and agencies. trees of this variety are now growing at beltsville, md., and at morton arboretum, lisle, ill. grundy--the grundy black walnut originated with a thrifty young seedling owned by mr. john rohwer, grundy center, iowa. it was brought to light in , when it received first prize in a private contest conducted by prof. n. f. drake, fayetteville, ark., and by him given the temporary designation of "iowa." according to president f. h. frey of the northern nut growers association, in a statement appearing in the proceedings for (p. ), mr. rohwer exhibited this variety during the missouri state fair of and was given first prize. the same year, according to this statement, the grundy was awarded second prize during the meeting of the mid-west horticultural show held in cedar rapids. in the opinion of mr. frey, the grundy is superior to rohwer in flavor of kernel and its equal in cracking quality. an entry of grundy made in the contest of the association was awarded fifth prize. little is known of the bearing habits of this variety, although mr. d. c. snyder, the surviving member of snyder bros., inc., of center point, wrote to washington on july , , that he was "afraid" that both this variety and rohwer might not prove to be "reliable bearers." an opinion of ex-president of the association, c. f. walker, expressed july , , by letter to the writer, was to the effect that the grundy walnut was "fair" only. three pounds of the grundy walnuts tested by the department at washington yielded . per cent quarters, . per cent bad, and . per cent small pieces, making a total of . per cent kernel. the nuts averaged per pound and had a range of from to . the cracking quality was very good, the kernels bright, plump, rich in quality and of agreeable flavor. considering the good points in favor of this variety, even though its latitude of origin is somewhat below that of the south michigan border, it would seem that until worthier nuts are found, this should be included in test plantings of the northernmost zone. harris--the harris walnut first became known to the department in december of , when mr. howard harris, r. f. d. , allegan, mich., owner of the original tree, submitted specimens for examination. the feature which attracted immediate attention was the superior cracking quality, due to the largeness and openness of its kernel chambers. the kernels were not as plump as might have been desired, but this is assumed to have been due to the light, sandy soil where the parent tree grows. in examining specimens of the crop, dr. deming noted that the nuts were "small, clean," the shell "thick," the cracking quality "good to perfect," and the kernel "not plump, light (in weight) and texture hard." he placed the flavor at "fair to sweet," yet felt that the variety should be given further consideration. many of the kernels of the nuts which he examined, like those from this tree during most years, were "shrunken." two pounds of the crop tested in washington yielded . per cent of quarters, . per cent of bad kernels, and . per cent of small pieces, making a total of but . per cent. this is a much lower rating than that of any other variety included in this list, and were it not for the superiority of its cracking quality and the latitude of its origin, it would hardly now be included. however, it should probably be included in all test plantings in the northernmost zone, especially if breeding is contemplated. the soil where this original tree stands is of a light, sandy nature. allowance for this should be made in evaluating the merits of the variety. hilton--the hilton black walnut came to the attention of the u. s. department of agriculture in early march of , when specimens were received through the courtesy of prof. l. h. macdaniels of ithaca, new york, by whom its propagation had already been successfully begun. professor macdaniels wrote that he did not feel that it was "outstanding," except that "apparently it does succeed rather far north and is much above the average in general merit." the nuts sent to washington averaged per pound, had a range of from to per pound, and were therefore quite large, especially for that latitude. the yield of quarters was . per cent, that of small kernel parts o. per cent, and the total . per cent. the cracking quality was very good, the kernel quality rich and the flavor very good. the original tree, according to professor macdaniels, is tall and difficult to climb. it stands on the lot of a next-door neighbor of mr. d. c. wright of hilton, through whom it came to the attention of professor macdaniels. as the town of hilton is within ten miles of the shore of lake ontario, the origin of the variety was practically on the extreme northern edge of western new york. in view of this, it is felt that the hilton variety should be carefully considered in connection with any planting in the northernmost zone. huber--the huber black walnut was brought to light by mr. ferdinand huber, cochrane, wis., in , when he made an entry in the association contest. although the nuts were awarded no prize, the bixby report made special mention of these nuts as being "notable for the high percentage of kernel ( proc. n. n. g. a., p. ), having yielded . per cent of total kernel." the variety has not been tested by the department, although several attempts have been made to procure specimens for the purpose, but each such effort has been coincident with a crop failure by this particular tree. lamb--the lamb black walnut is a variety propagated and grown for its wood only. the parent tree stood on a farm one-quarter mile east of ada, kent county, michigan, perhaps ten miles due east of grand rapids. after the log had been cut and shipped to a mill, discovery was made that the wood of the original tree had a highly figured grain. mr. george lamb, then secretary of the american walnut manufacturers association, south michigan avenue, chicago, traced the origin of the log back to its source, where the top was found to be still green, although the tree had been cut two months previous. scions were cut and sent by mr. lamb to the department of agriculture in washington, and also to dr. robert t. morris, merribrooke farm, stamford, conn. at the suggestion of dr. morris, mr. lamb also sent scions to mr. ford wilkinson, rockport, ind. some of the scions received by the department were placed in the hands of others, including the late messrs. jones, bixby and snyder, also prof. v. r. gardner, director of the michigan agricultural experiment station at east lansing, and dr. g. a. zimmerman, piketown, pa. drs. morris and zimmerman, professor gardner, and messrs. wilkinson and bixby, were all successful in their efforts at grafting. mr. bixby made new grafts as soon as the original could be cut for scions, and also made some distributions of scions. at the time of his death in august, , there were a dozen or more nursery trees of various sizes and degrees of condition among his stock at baldwin. from these, scions were sold to a number of association members during the spring of . while it has not yet been established that the character of figured grain is transmissible with scions, the value of such wood is so great that anyone interested in producing walnut trees of outstanding value would do well to investigate this variety to the extent of growing a few trees. in all likelihood the combined results from tests made by a large number of persons would be of great value to science. tasterite--the parent tree of the tasterite walnut, owned by everl church, r. f. d. , ithaca, new york, was discovered and named by mr. s. h. graham, a neighbor, living on route , also out of ithaca. the latter submitted specimens to the department in washington in , where they made a highly favorable showing. tasterite nuts entered that year in the contest of the northern nut growers association, although receiving no award by the committee were given the rating of "excellent" by dr. deming. in , prof. n. f. drake of fayetteville, ark., gave tasterite nuts a rating of " per cent on cracking quality." he obtained a total of . per cent of kernel. nuts of the crop examined in washington averaged per pound, ranged from to , and yielded . per cent of quarters and . per cent of small pieces, making a total of . per cent. the shell of the nut is thinner than the average and the cracking quality distinctly superior. the kernels of nuts promptly harvested, hulled and cured have been bright, plump, rich in quality, and especially pleasing in flavor. the one weak point of the tasterite appears to be in the matter of size, but this smallness is well offset by superiority in the points just mentioned, and also in what is perhaps more important, the latitude and altitude of the place of origin. any variety which will yield heavy crops of nuts distinctly superior to the average black walnut in cracking quality and kernel merit at a -degree latitude plus, and a , -foot altitude, should be potentially very valuable in the northernmost zone. wiard--this is another michigan variety, apparently of much merit. vague bits of information regarding it have reached the department at washington from time to time since june, , when greening bros., of monroe, stated to the writer that mr. everett wiard, a fruit grower near the eastern outskirts of ypsilanti, was grafting a promising seedling of his own origin. this clue was not successfully followed up until , when a few specimen nuts were obtained. these were found to be of medium size and of excellent cracking quality. the kernels were plump, bright, rich in quality, and of pleasing flavor. on february , , professor neilson wrote the department that this seedling had come to his attention during farmers' week, held shortly before, at east lansing. he stated that to him this appeared to be one of the best seedlings thus far discovered and that he was recommending it for propagation. he added that the nut was "of medium size, somewhat diamond-shaped, thin-shelled, easy to crack and of excellent extractive quality." very likely more will be learned of this variety in the future. butternut varieties the american butternut, juglans cinerea, although commonly held to be a slow grower, a tardy and light bearer, and a producer of thick-shelled nuts hard or impossible to crack without extreme difficulty, is frequently quite the opposite in one or more, or all, of these respects. under favorable environment the trees grow rapidly, bear early, and oftentimes the nuts may be easily cracked and the kernels extracted in perfect halves. probably more than a dozen varieties from various portions of the north have been named. a few of these appear to be of considerable promise. the northern range of the butternut extends from nova scotia over maine, across new hampshire, vermont, new york, the upper peninsula of michigan, and through wisconsin and southeastern minnesota to south dakota south to georgia and arkansas. butternut flavor is preferred by many people to that of any other nut. throughout new england the kernels are used to no inconsiderable extent in the making of highly pleasing food products. oftentimes the ground kernels are used in the home manufacture of pastries and confections which are either consumed at home or sold on roadside markets at good profit. the butternut is not without certain weak points which must not be forgotten. the timber is less valuable than that of black walnut, the trees grow to smaller size and seldom live more than or years; outside of the best growing sections of the north, it is possible that the majority succumb under years. being less symmetrical, butternut trees are not as suitable for ornamental planting as are nut trees of many other kinds. nevertheless, a tree or two of each of the best varieties now available should be included in all nut planting as far south as the species is indigenous, and perhaps farther down. alverson--the parent tree of this variety is owned by mr. m. e. alverson, howard city, montcalm county, michigan. it was first called to public attention when it was awarded third prize in the state contest held at east lansing under the direction of prof. james a. neilson, of michigan agricultural college. a one-pound lot tested in washington during april of the same year counted specimens. it yielded . per cent of quarters and . per cent of small pieces, making a total of . per cent kernel. the cracking quality was found to be good. the kernels were large, long, plump, medium bright, and the flavor distinctly pleasing. deming--this variety was called to attention by olcott deming, a son of dr. w. c. deming, hartford, conn., to whom it was awarded first prize in the contest of the northern nut growers association. dr. deming sought to have this variety called olcott, but the name became fixed when it appeared in the jones catalogue of , and later in various reports of the association. the deming butternut is probably an early bearer, as in notes prepared by the late j. f. jones for use during the convention held at lancaster, reference was made to two trees (nos. and ), which were in "bearing while still quite young," the latter of which "bore two nuts the next year after being grafted," and which was then "bearing its third consecutive crop." mr. jones began its propagation in , commenting to the writer at the time that it was "larger and had a thinner shell than aiken." irvine--this variety was awarded first prize ($ . ) in the northern nut growers association contest of . the parent tree is owned by mrs. l. k. irvine, menominee, dunn county, wis. in a washington test of three pounds, conducted in , the nuts averaged per pound and had a range of from to . the kernel yield was . per cent quarters, . per cent small pieces, and . per cent bad. the cracking quality was excellent, the kernels large and highly attractive, the quality good, and the flavor mild. this is apparently one of the finest although not the richest or sweetest, of any variety of butternut yet discovered. it is known to have been successfully propagated but to a limited extent only. love--this butternut originated on the farm of mr. frank love, r. f. d. , howell, livingston county, mich. it was discovered by chance, when the large size and generally sound condition of the parent tree caught the attention of the writer in . in a cracking test conducted later that year the nuts averaged per pound, had a range of from to , and yielded a total of . per cent kernel. the yield of quarters was . per cent, and that of small pieces . per cent. the love butternuts are considerably smaller than those of some other varieties, and in comparison with irvine of that year the kernels were much less attractive in appearance, but richer in quality and of more pleasing flavor. on the whole, these nuts now stand among the very best yet called to attention, although during a test made a year later of nuts also from the parent tree, the result was but . per cent of kernel, composed of . per cent quarters and . per cent of small pieces. these nuts have not appeared in any contest, and in all probability they would have received no award during any but the most favorable years. however, their record of placed the variety in a class at that time quite by itself. scions from the original tree, purchased by the department in , and placed in the hands of several commercial propagators, have resulted in at least one living grafted tree. this is being carefully guarded, and as soon as possible others will be grafted from it. as mr. love is quite averse to having the tree cut for scions, it may not be possible to obtain new scions from the original source. luther--this butternut came to light as a result of the contest held by professor neilson at the end of the crop year, when it received second prize. the entry was made by mr. f. luther of fairgrove, tuscola county, mich. in washington, nuts of the crop averaged per pound and yielded . per cent of quarters and . per cent of small pieces, making a total of . per cent of kernel. this test was made in april, after the nuts were rather too dry to crack to the best advantage. at that time the cracking quality was fair only. sherman--the sherman butternut first became known in , when mrs. e. sherman, montague city, mass., was awarded ninth prize in the northern nut growers association contest of that year. tested twice in washington, it has at neither time rated with the best in so far as cracking quality is concerned. in it made the high kernel yield of . per cent. however, only . per cent was of quarters. exactly the same percentage was of small pieces, and . per cent of kernels were bad. in , the total per cent of kernel dropped to . , that of quarters to . , and that of kernels to . , while that of small pieces rose to . . further studies will be made to see if under optimum conditions of handling after proper harvesting and curing the record of cracking quality cannot be improved upon. hickories according to alfred rehder, of harvard, in the standard cyclopedia of horticulture, six species of hickory are indigenous to that region east of the rocky mountains here discussed under the term of the northernmost nut zone. these are the shagbark, the shellbark, the sweet hickory, the pignut, the mockernut and the bitternut. the shagbark hickory, hicoria ovata, and the sweet hickory, h. ovalis, are the principal ones among this group offering promise as sources of varieties fit for cultivation in this zone. the former is well known as a rich-land species, having shaggy bark and a more or less sharply angled sweet nut; the latter, often called pignut, has recently been listed as "sweet hickory" to distinguish it from h. glabra, also called pignut, yet which is sometimes better. the sweet hickory is less exacting in soil requirements than the shagbark, although often nearly or quite as good a nut, popular prejudice notwithstanding. when shelled the kernels can be distinguished only with difficulty. of the other hickories indigenous to this zone, all are omitted from the discussion for definite reasons, chief of which is the fact that few or no seedlings of promise have been found. the shellbark, h. laciniosa, which is much like the shagbark in many respects, occurs in this zone sparingly and only in the southernmost part. nuts of this species, while very large, are thick-shelled and commonly more or less objectionable because of the frequency with which the kernels are imperfectly developed or entirely wanting. the pignut hickory, h. glabra, already mentioned, is omitted from further discussion because of being no better than the sweet hickory in any known respect, and because of the frequent bitterness of its kernel. the mockernut, h. alba, while indigenous practically everywhere that any other hickory grows, and producing a sweet, agreeable kernel, has too thick a shell to justify particular attention at this time. the bitternut hickory, h. cordiformis, is rarely palatable. the tree makes an attractive ornamental, but is relatively unimportant in so far as timber production is concerned. intermediate forms of hickory and hybrids originated from chance crosses under purely natural conditions are fairly common. quite a good many belonging to one or the other of these groups have been brought to light during the last two decades, largely as a result of discovery by the northern nut growers association. several of these will be discussed in alphabetical order along with varieties of pure species. anthony--the anthony shagbark originated with a seedling tree discovered by mr. a. b. anthony, r. f. d. , sterling, whiteside county, ill. it appears to be a particularly choice variety, and as the latitude of sterling is practically the same as that of chicago, it might do very well in the lower portion of the northernmost zone. in a cracking test of the crop the yield of quarters was . , that of small pieces . , making a total of . per cent. the nuts were large, averaging per pound; attractive in appearance, clean, and of nearly white color. the cracking quality was good, the kernel plump, bright, rich in quality and medium sweet in flavor, but not being equal to some others in this last respect. this is believed to be one of the choicest hickory nuts yet brought to light. cedar rapids--this shagbark is from cedar rapids, linn county, iowa, where the latitude is about degrees north, or about the same as that of chicago, ill., tecumseh, mich., and the boundary line between pennsylvania and new york. like anthony (of sterling, ill.) the merit of this variety is believed such as to justify its trial planting in the southern portion of the northernmost zone. the cedar rapids shagbark was discovered and brought to light by the late s. w. snyder, senior member of snyder bros., inc., nurserymen at center point, iowa. the exact or even approximate year of discovery and first propagation is not known to the writer, but a remark made by mr. snyder during the convention, and passed on to him by dr. deming, would indicate that grafts were made as early as . it was, "a cedar rapids shagbark grafted on a hickory (probably meaning shagbark), bore in its third year and has borne every year since, but the same variety grafted years ago on a bitternut has not borne." in various comments made by mr. snyder from time to time, especially in connection with the iowa meetings of the state horticultural society and of the mid-west horticultural exposition, he continued to rate this as one of the best varieties within his acquaintance. there are a number of grafted trees of this variety in various parts of the country, but very few yet in bearing. the department at washington has had no opportunity to test the nuts in detail. (there is also a variety of bitternut from iowa known as cedar rapids, but the two are quite unlike and should not be confused.) comins--the original tree of the comins shagbark hickory, awarded eighth prize in the contest, is owned by mrs. nancy e. comins, amherst, hampshire county, mass. this variety is probably worthy of further investigation, although specimens of the crop examined at washington did not appear to as good advantage as did many others. creager--the creager hickory is a supposed shagbark and bitternut hybrid known since about , when it was given a high rating, named, propagated and disseminated to a limited extent by snyder bros., inc., of center point, iowa. it was called to their attention by mr. w. o. creager, sumner, bremer county, iowa, discoverer of the original tree. the nuts are quite small, averaging in a test made in washington of the crop per pound. the yield of kernel was . per cent quarters, . per cent small pieces, and the total . per cent. as this test was made in february, , the nuts were more than a year old, and allowance should be made for this fact. the parent tree had been cut down in the meantime and nuts were not obtainable later. the shells of the nut are quite thin, easy to crack, and the kernels fairly sweet. like most others when their parentage involves a cross with the bitternut, a distinct bitterness of flavor hangs over in the mouth as an after-taste. the grafted tree is said to be a rapid grower and so highly ornamental as to be well worth growing for its beauty alone. a few trees of such a hybrid as this should be in any variety test planting wherever they will succeed. as the latitude of sumner is degrees, this hybrid should be of interest as far north as milwaukee, wis.; grand rapids, mich.; buffalo, n. y., and the northern boundary line of massachusetts. being primarily an ornamental, the creager might be grown with safety even farther north. dennis--the dennis shagbark hickory is another variety brought to light by snyder bros., inc., of center point, ia. the original tree was found near the city of cedar rapids and called to their attention by the late dr. a. b. dennis of that city. information is lacking as to the exact year, but according to mr. bixby's address before the convention of the association, snyder bros. used dennis in in top-working. no test of the nuts by the department has yet been possible. however, mr. s. w. snyder wrote in that he then considered the dennis "... the best shagbark yet discovered in iowa." he added further that "where the nuts are gathered and hulled promptly after ripening, the color of the shell is usually highly attractive." he also stated that the shell was quite thin, and owing to its inner structure the kernels could be extracted easily. he regarded the quality of the kernel as rich and the flavor sweet and pleasing. this variety is represented in several known plantings and abundant nuts for testing should soon be procurable. meanwhile, the variety should be included in further test plantings of the northernmost zone. drew--the drew hickory is a shagbark named in honor of mr. arthur drew of howell, livingston county, mich., by whom it was called to attention in . the parent tree stands on the lyman beach farm, marion township, about six miles southwest from the post office. it was then one of many young seedlings less than forty feet tall standing in a cattle pasture. when first examined the nuts were unimpressive, but later specimens received high rating. the tree is difficult to reach and its exact identity probably known only to mr. drew. the latitude of origin, the early age of bearing, and the superiority of nut, both with reference to cracking quality and merit of kernel, seem to call for further study. emerick--this shagbark was discovered by prof. l. h. macdaniels of cornell university, ithaca, new york. specimens of the crop were submitted to him by miss etta emerick, west camp, ulster county, new york. in washington seven of these nuts averaged per pound and yielded . per cent quarters, . per cent small pieces, and a total of . per cent kernel. the cracking quality was very good and the nuts otherwise appeared to be of considerable promise. fairbanks--this is a hybrid hickory, apparently the result of a chance cross between shagbark and bitternut. the parent tree was discovered by the late s. w. snyder, of center point, iowa, probably about . it then stood near a line fence on the farm of mr. c. a. fairbanks, nine miles northwest of anamosa, jones county, iowa. with reference to the merit of this variety, the late mr. bixby once commented, "a heavy bearer, nuts attractive, large, smooth and thin-shelled. the variety has about all the good points desirable except that its palatability is too low. it is the ben davis of the hickories." the latitude of anamosa is such that the fairbanks should be hardy in the south three or four tiers of counties of wisconsin, michigan, new york, and over much of massachusetts. it has been widely disseminated, and because of the popular feeling in its favor, will likely continue to be planted in experimental orchards. green--the parent tree of the green sweet hickory is owned by mr. steve green, r. f. d. , battle creek, calhoun county, mich. it was brought to attention in , when it was awarded fifth prize by the association among the hickory entries that year. this variety is the first of its species (hicoria ovalis) to have received a prize from the association. huber--the huber shagbark hickory originated with a seedling tree owned by mr. ferdinand huber, cochrane, buffalo county, wisconsin. it came to light in , when it was awarded second prize in the association contest. huff--like green, this variety is a sweet hickory, hicoria ovalis. the parent tree is owned by l. s. huff, white pigeon, st. joseph county, michigan. aside from the fact that it was awarded ninth prize in the association contest of , little is known as to its merits. laney--this variety was brought to light by the late john dunbar, first assistant superintendent of parks in rochester, new york, who wrote the department in washington on march , , that the original tree was on a farm owned by mr. r. j. sheard, superintendent of a cemetery in webster county, new york. it appears to be the result of a natural cross between the shagbark and the bitternut hickories. it was given the species name laneyi by sargent in his manual of the trees of north america, in honor of mr. c. c. laney, superintendent of parks, in rochester, by whom it had been called to his attention. this variety is probably of chief value for ornamental and breeding purposes. the nuts are large, like those of fairbanks, attractive, thin-shelled, easy to crack and of pleasing palatability to some people. upon becoming thoroughly cured, especially after a few months, the disagreeable taste characteristic of bitternut usually becomes quite pronounced. mann--this shagbark hickory came to light when awarded first prize in the michigan contest of , held under the direction of prof. james a. neilson, east lansing. the parent tree is owned by mrs. rae d. mann, r. f. d. , davison, genesee county, mich. in a cracking test of nuts from the crop of , conducted in washington, the average was per pound; the yield of quarters was . per cent, that of small pieces . per cent, making a total of . per cent. the cracking quality was excellent, the kernels large, plump, of rich quality and particularly sweet flavor. the kernels were a trifle dark, but otherwise this hickory appears to be one of the most promising kinds yet discovered. miller--this shagbark hickory is another apparently highly promising variety, brought to light as a result of professor neilson's efforts. it was awarded second prize in the state contest held under his direction. the parent tree is owned by mr. d. p. miller, route , north branch, lapeer county, mich. it and mann are from adjoining counties, and the parent trees are probably not over twenty miles apart. the two are of about equal merit and much alike, although miller nuts are somewhat smaller. in the cracking test of the contest, fifty nuts weighed one-half pound. of these, two were spoiled, yet the percentage of quarters was . , that of small pieces . , thus making a total of . per cent kernel. the cracking quality was excellent, the kernel a trifle dark, yet very plump, rich and sweet. sande--the sande shagbark hickory is from the farm of elmer t. sande, story city, story county, iowa, about sixteen miles north of ames. it was brought to light by the late s. w. snyder as early as november, , when he became responsible for having it mentioned (p. ) in the premium list of the seventh mid-west horticultural exposition held in cedar rapids, iowa, november to . it received seventh prize in the contest of the northern nut growers association. mr. snyder commented on this variety, as recorded in the proceedings of the northern nut growers association (p. ), to the effect that the cracking quality of the sande excelled that of any other variety of iowa origin known to him at that time. the variety has twice received awards during the state fair of iowa. mr. snyder stated that the parent tree was then rather young but bearing well. as the latitude of story city is slightly greater than degrees, this variety should do well throughout much of the northernmost zone. swaim--the parent tree of the swaim shagbark hickory stands on maplewood farm, r. f. d. , south bend, st. joseph county, ind., and is now owned by mr. i. h. swaim. it is one of a number of seedlings growing from local nuts planted during the early sixties by the late j. m. swaim, grandfather of the present mr. swaim. it was called to the attention of the department in by mr. h. h. swaim, father of the present owner of the tree, who is still living near by on the same mail route. the swaim was first propagated about by w. c. reed of vincennes, ind., who has found it a highly satisfactory variety, with reference to regularity and size of crops and general merit of nuts. the swaim is one of three varieties to tie for fourth place in the contest of the association held in . in a cracking test conducted in washington with one pound of the crop, the nuts averaged per pound and yielded . per cent of quarters, . per cent small pieces, and . per cent of bad kernels, thus making a total of . per cent of kernel. the cracking quality that year was excellent, the kernels large, plump, and bright. the quality was rich and the flavor sweet and pleasing. as the city of south bend is but a few miles below the michigan state line, this variety should be well worth considering for use in test plantings throughout the lower fringe of the northernmost zone. westphal--the westphal is a shagbark hickory from mr. otto westphal, r. f. d. , kendall, monroe county, wis. it was awarded fourth place in the contest of the philadelphia society of agriculture. so far as known, no other examination has been made of the nuts. however, the place they received in this contest, together with its latitude of origin, which is nearly degrees, should commend the westphal to the consideration of all who are interested in hickories for the northernmost region. the filbert the filbert situation in the north is difficult to characterize. repeated plantings have been established in this part of the country, probably since colonial days, only to perish in due time. filbert blight was responsible for much of this loss, but so also were destructively low temperatures. western new york now seems to be particularly favored, as trees there, notably at geneva, bear regularly. mr. bixby's trees at baldwin, long island, failed significantly during practically the whole of their life. similarly, a comprehensive collection of varieties in the orchard of dr. f. l. baum, boyertown, pa., fruits practically not at all. trees at arlington, va., on the government experimental farm, suffer sufficient winter injury each late winter or early spring to be quite regular in non-bearing. the varieties of all these plantings are much the same, and failure is not due to winter killing of the trees, as there is normally very little of this. it appears to be due to destruction of the flowers wrought by low temperatures following weather in january, february or march mild enough to start the flowers into bloom. at the present moment it looks as though european varieties of filbert might do much better where the trees bloom in april, as in western new york, than where flowers come out in february, as at arlington, or in march, as on long island. for the present not a great deal of encouragement can be offered regarding the european varieties of filbert in the east, except in the most suitable sections. certain hybrid varieties are now being developed, but they are not yet available for planting. the chestnut no species of chestnut now available through the usual nursery channels can be recommended at the present time for planting in the northernmost zone except for experimentation along somewhat doubtful lines. the american sweet chestnut appears likely soon to be wiped out by blight. no chestnuts from the old world, either european, japanese or chinese, have yet been found which are entirely hardy and otherwise satisfactory at this latitude. the european chestnut is quite as fatally subject to blight as is the american. the japanese is mostly of too low degree of palatability to offer much promise, and horticultural varieties of chinese chestnut are not yet available. varieties of the chinese hairy chestnut, castanea mollissima, apparently of much promise, are now being developed, but trees are unlikely to become available for foundation stock to nurserymen for several years. other species the persian (english) walnut, juglans regia, and the japanese walnut, j. sieboldiana, are both planted to some extent throughout the entire east and north, but neither promise to assume special prominence in this zone. fine appearing trees in small numbers or occasional orchards of the former may be seen in many places. these are usually near large bodies of water, as within a mile or so, or two or three at most, of the shores of the lower great lakes, the finger lakes of new york, long island sound, and various rivers and other smaller bodies of water within this general section. they are also to be found near buildings, especially in villages and small towns, but as orchard trees, or even single specimens out in the open, they are almost never met with except possibly while very young. the japanese walnut is likewise little more than a novelty in this region. it is probably somewhat more hardy than is the foregoing, but it is not its equal in desirability. it grows rapidly under favorable environment, often becomes a handsome ornamental, comes into fruit while young, and bears freely but seldom heavily. the nuts are small, variable in character, and not particularly popular on the market. in flavor the kernels resemble butternut, but are much more mild. the nuts of this species are of two distinct types, the larger being shaped like a guinea egg, having a rather thick shell, and of doubtful merit. the other, known as the heartnut, is small as a rule, distinctly heartshaped, and easily opened with a knife by splitting the shell in half. a number of varieties are available through nurserymen. between these two distinct types of japanese walnut there are numerous intermediate forms hard to classify but invariably less desirable than heartnuts. there are also numerous offspring of marked vigor, producing nuts distinctly butternut-like in form but having even thicker shells. these last do not commend themselves for any purpose other than that of genetic use. summary the black walnut, the shagbark hickory, the sweet hickory, the butternut and certain hybrid hickories are now believed to offer greater inducement to prospective planters of nut trees in the northernmost zone east of the rocky mountains than do other species. varieties of strictly northern origin are now available to those who are capable of doing their own grafting. many of these are of considerable promise, apparently, at least, equal in merit to any of the older varieties now being offered by nurserymen. the tour--september th on tuesday forenoon, september , the convention visited the kellogg factory and the battle creek sanitarium and at noon returned to the w. k. kellogg hotel, where a delicious luncheon was served to the members and guests. miss mary i. barber, director of home economics of the kellogg company, in behalf of mr. w. k. kellogg, graciously acted as hostess at the luncheon. on tuesday afternoon the convention went to the kellogg company farm by motor bus and auto to visit the nut trees. they then proceeded to the bird sanctuary and the kellogg estate. this was followed by a motor boat trip around beautiful gull lake and dinner at bunbury inn. a session followed the dinner. the president: i wish to present professor v. r. gardner, the director of the experiment station at michigan state college, east lansing, who has kindly consented to address us this evening. prof. gardner: in the field of horticulture we have many problems and these problems may be classified in different ways. from one standpoint, at least, there is a typical group or class of problems that arises in connection with a crop like the peach or apple or pear. if you knew that tomorrow or next week or next month you were to attend a meeting of peach or pear growers, you would have a pretty good idea of the type of questions that would be raised. they concern variety, insect and disease control, fertilization, and many questions relating to harvesting, packing and marketing the crop. on the other hand, suppose you were to attend a meeting of peony, delphinium, or dahlia growers. you would find not only an entirely different type of question under discussion, but an entirely different atmosphere. now, are the problems of those who are interested in nuts more like those of the peach or the delphinium grower? you probably have your own answer to that question. at least, answers are coming to your mind. to my way of thinking--though of course i may be wrong--the kind of problem that presents itself to the person who is interested in growing nuts is more like the type that presents itself to those who are interested in dahlias or delphiniums or sweet peas than the problems that present themselves to the pear or cherry grower. in other words, it seems to me as though the problems of the nut grower are essentially the problems of the amateur. that does not mean they are less important or less interesting than they would be were the industry on more of a commercial basis like peach growing. about a year ago i was talking with dr. magness of the u. s. bureau of plant industry and the discussion happened to turn to nuts. i knew that within the preceding six months dr. magness had covered most of the southern states where the pecan is grown commercially and had occasion to give considerable attention to the problems of the pecan industry. i asked, "what percentage of the commercial pecan growers at the present time are producing , pounds of cured nuts to the acre?" he replied, "don't ask me what percentage. we can't talk about it in those terms. you can probably list on the fingers of one hand the growers who, year in and year out, are producing pecans at the rate of a thousand pounds to the acre, and certainly you can on the fingers of two hands." to me that was a rather striking statement. dr. magness may not have been entirely correct in his answer, but he was probably not far off. anyway, the percentage of commercial pecan growers obtaining really large yields is extremely small. in the pacific coast states, a larger number and a larger percentage of the walnut growers regularly produce a thousand pounds of cured walnuts to the acre, though there are more who average or pounds. as yet, in any of our retail markets you may purchase first class named varieties of pecans at from c to c a pound. the same thing is true of english walnuts. if the cultivated varieties of the black walnut, hickory and the chestnut are to be put on the market in quantity, they will come into competition with the pecan, english walnut, almond and brazil nut. this means that they must sell at comparable prices. therefore, one of the principal problems of the nut industry, as i see it, just as with delphiniums or the peony or the dahlia or iris or in others that i might mention, is the problem of plant materials, more specifically, the breeding or discovery of varieties that are superior and that consequently can really compete with the english walnut and pecan and that likewise are productive and that can be produced at a low cost. as a matter of fact, in all of your meetings up to the present time the finding, testing, and the evaluating of chance seedlings that appear to be of promise has constituted not only an essential but one of the larger features to claim attention. furthermore, i believe it will continue to claim attention for many years to come. practically all of your present materials, from the fairbanks hickory to the thomas or stabler walnut, have just happened--that is, occurred as chance seedlings. they have been found and recognized as something a little better than the general run. someone has brought them to the attention of the public, your association placed approval on them, and they have been propagated and finally become more or less disseminated. i presume that by a more thorough combing of the territory more good material will be found and brought to the front. however, after you do a certain amount of combing, you eventually exhaust the resources. nevertheless, when that time comes in a matter of this kind, a good deal more can be done. if the plum or grape grower had stopped when he had scouted all of the territory where vines are native and had introduced into cultivation the best of the chance seedlings that nature had given us, we wouldn't have the grapes or plums or other fruits that we have today. at this point i wish to make a suggestion as to one thing that this association, as an association, and perhaps some of its members as individuals, can give some attention to as a part of your program in the years to come. it is the job of breeding superior varieties of nuts, because much improvement is called for in walnuts, hickories, and the other kinds before they are all that you or the consuming public wants of them. the situation is essentially the same with nuts as with other fruit and ornamental plants. we have some pretty good peaches, but ten years from now the producers in michigan will be growing very few of the varieties that they are growing today, and i dare say that twenty-five years from now they will be growing hardly any of them. we have some very attractive delphiniums and dahlias, but in few of today's favorites will be in cultivation. they will be superseded by new and superior varieties. in , or , we should be growing nut varieties that are far superior to what is available at the present time. to say that there is room for much improvement sounds all right, but who is going to effect it? nut trees are not the easiest things in the world to grow. they require a long time to come into bearing, and it is almost out of the question for a person of middle age to undertake a breeding project with a crop like the black walnut or northern hickory and expect to get anywhere. even if an experiment station undertakes a problem of this kind, there is the likelihood that it may be dropped before much will have been accomplished, for the person who starts it may go somewhere else or be compelled to divert his attention to something else, while the person who succeeds him has no interest in the project. that has happened time and time again with investigations of many kinds, but it has been particularly true of breeding projects. if we are ever to make any real progress in the breeding of nuts, one of the first things we need to know is the value of the different materials with which we have to work and the varieties that are used as parents. the stabler, thomas and ohio are relatively superior black walnuts, but we do not know which is the best of these for breeding for size or vigor of tree or productivity or quality of nut or any other quality. we haven't the slightest idea. yet before really scientific plant breeding work can be initiated, there is need of information as to which of these can be depended on for transmitting to its offspring certain specific qualities. through experiment and experience we have learned some of these things with regard to some of the other fruit and ornamental crops. for instance, we know that the j. h. hale is not only a wonderful variety in itself, but that it has the ability to produce superior progeny. certain other varieties lack this ability. so, doubtless, it is with nuts. how are we to obtain this information? if your association could get two or three growers, say here in michigan, to inbreed the stabler walnut and grow the resulting seedlings--perhaps a thousand in number--to fruiting age and someone somewhere else to do the same with the thomas and with the ohio and other varieties, it would not be long before a body of information would be collected that would furnish a definite basis for the scientific breeding of nuts. incidentally, the chances are that some of this first group of seedlings would be superior and i believe that the chances are better than - that the resulting nut orchard would be a fairly good one. where are you going to get these inbred seeds? that probably is what you can put up to your experiment stations. for instance, i am inclined to think that mr. neilson, if he found out that there is a member of this organization that is willing to grow a hundred inbred seedlings of the stabler or thomas to maturity, would undertake to hand-pollenize the flowers for that number of seeds, you would have a start in the direction of developing superior varieties of nuts. i don't mean to say that by undertaking a thing like this you should pay less attention to looking for native trees that are superior, but your problem now, and for the next thirty years, with northern nuts, is one of materials and the method of procedure that i have suggested would put it on a basis of a fairly definite breeding project. the president: i think it is self-evident that this association came here to battle creek for its convention this year principally because of the work that has been started by the michigan state college. we think that the states and the national government ought to do just what you are doing here, and the power of the association is going to be back of those projects in the future. to our sorrow, and i'd say to the loss of the entire nation, several very valuable plantings have been started and the passing of the owner has made it necessary that they be abandoned, and in some cases lost entirely; in others a few of the trees have been transplanted. we feel that if these specimen trees can be maintained on state and national property, it will serve to call attention to this nation's potential resources, which are not appreciated at present. the ohio black walnut contest _by_ carl f. walker, _cleveland heights, ohio_ the first prize contest confined to the state of ohio to discover superior seedling black walnuts was conducted in the fall of by the ohio members of the northern nut growers' association in co-operation with the farm paper, the ohio farmer. the original announcement was made in mid-september and several follow-up articles were published, including some illustrations. further publicity was obtained by mailing press copy to the rural newspapers throughout the state. the response was generous with persons mailing in samples of black walnuts. these came from all sections of the state, indicating a universal interest over the entire area. the first package of nuts arrived on september th and for the next six weeks few further sample lots were received. during the latter part of november and up to the date of close of the contest, december , the entries were mailed to the judges in quantity. this period coincided with inclement weather when outdoor farm work could not be carried on. the growing season had been abnormal due to a lack of precipitation and it is believed that the nuts were not as large nor as well filled as could be expected in a normal season. defoliation through caterpillar attack had been severe, especially in the northern third of the state, and this condition may also have affected the normal development. the kernels of many lots were shrunken and since these included some nuts which would otherwise be given a high score, the method of judging by points, partly mathematically determined, was used as a guide only, rather than an exact means of choosing prize winners. shell structure, together with the shape and relative size of kernel cavity, was the determining factor in choosing the prize winners. no differential for kernel color was made, for it was recognized that this was dependent in part upon the method used in harvesting and in handling the nuts. the varieties that were poorly sealed were discarded. all of the prize winners, on the basis of the merits of the nuts, are considered worthy of propagation for home or experimental orchard planting. the locations of the parent trees give a sufficiently general coverage for the entire state for the selection of a variety to propagate for almost all climatic and soil conditions in any part of the state. this, in itself, is considered the advantage and the justification of a contest confined to a single state or a limited region. also, when residents of a state, through a contest, discover promising seedlings within their own state, it is believed that there is created in the sponsors more incentive to compile continuous data about the new kinds than would exist when the prize winners are chosen from regions quite removed. that so many examples were submitted was the result of excellent publicity by the ohio farmer. the first prize was ten dollars, the second five dollars, the third three dollars and the remaining seven prizes were subscriptions to the ohio farmer of from five years to one year in length. the prize winners were as follows: first--mrs. willard brown, rock bridge, o. second--sam tritten, lisbon, o. third--b. a. cowle, defiance, o., rt. . fourth--w. w. janson, jefferson, ohio. fifth--harmon barnhart, mt. vernon, o., rt. . sixth--r. e. havice, bellevue, ohio, rt. . seventh--c. h. markey, beallsville, ohio. eighth--kermit c. hoover, glenford, o. ninth--ralph h. miller, monroe st., delta, o. tenth--f. c. murphey, sunbury, ohio. the final judging was done at the ohio state experimental station by dr. j. h. gourley, chief of horticultural department, walter h. lloyd, editor of the ohio farmer, and carl f. walker, assisted by homer l. jacobs of the davey tree expert co., john t. bregger, editor of the american fruit grower, and ray t. kelsey of the ohio farmer. the president: that concludes the program. there is just a little business to handle now. before we go on to that i would like to call attention to dr. deming's remarks about some of the old timers, which i thought very touching, interesting and instructive. there are two foreign members of the association whom i have never met. one is mr. spence, an englishman, and the other mr. wang of china. mr. wang was a life member. the reports that i sent to him came back. all letters came back. i took it upon myself to write the commissioner general of the united states at shanghai, china, and call his attention to the fact that some twelve years ago mr. wang secured through this association some black walnuts, wanting to plant them along a certain highway in china. the commissioner general answered, saying they could find nothing about him, and that the trees had not been planted where mr. wang had planned. i think mr. wang must have died or moved away. there is one item of business i think we should have, and that is a brief report from mr. ellis who was our delegate to the horticultural exposition at paris. mr. ellis: in i was appointed your delegate to represent you at the paris horticultural congress. i sent on the delegate's sheet. i received a reply making me a member of that congress. it went along about a month or two, then the terrible depression came on and before going i thought it better to investigate. so i wrote to washington and found out that no one was going from there. i wrote to canada and no one was going from there. they could not afford it. i said, "it's going to cost me $ if i go." then i found out that there was to be a similar congress in new york, so i switched off and went to the congress at ithaca, new york, and i was very glad of it because i met a great many more men that i liked to meet than if i had gone to paris. i wrote over to the congress at paris and sent another fee of the same amount, because i knew they needed it, saying that i'd decided not to go. they had the congress. the president was shot at about that time, and that kind of broke it up. i received accounts of all the proceedings. they treated me very fairly, in as much as they put me down as a delegate from the united states of america, and i was the only delegate from the whole united states. i don't suppose anyone else could afford to go, so if i had gone over, i should have been there all alone. i said to myself, "it only cost me a hundred dollars to go out to ithaca, so i saved $ . i'm not going to make anything out of this." so i took that $ and i gave it away for charitable purposes. you know i gave you some. i got a letter from one person privileged, and i never had a more grateful and appreciative letter in my life. the balance of that $ and more i gave to this purpose. i gave some to the catholic daughters of america, i gave some to the parent-teachers' association, i gave some to the schools, and lots to the poor in one way or another. i've sent five girls to different summer schools of religious education, and a girl scout to a summer camp. i helped them all out all around, not only in my own district, but in other places in different parts of the country. so you got everything. you got your delegate over there duly enrolled, and you got some money when you most needed it, and so did all those other people. not only to the amount of $ , but to a good deal more. i feel better satisfied and i think that you all ought to be better satisfied. if there is anyone that isn't satisfied, let him get up and i'll argue it out with him. the president: i might state at this time that there will be another contest this year, at least for black walnuts and hickories. the prizes will be as follows: first prize $ , second prize $ , third prize $ , fourth prize $ , fifth prize $ , and honorary mention for others. instructions will be issued and anyone desiring to enter this contest should write the secretary for instructions. it's understood, i might say, that the nuts will be sent to mr. c. a. reed of the united states department of agriculture at washington, who has kindly consented to look after that work and report to a contest committee which will be named later. the president: we will now have the report of the resolutions committee. resolution the northern nut growers association assembled in convention at the w. k. kellogg hotel, battle creek, michigan, september and , , expresses its sincere appreciation of the courteous hospitality of the local committee on arrangements, headed by prof. james a. neilson. it would mention in particular mr. w. k. kellogg, dr. john harvey kellogg, and the w. k. kellogg hotel management. it appreciates the use of the splendid auditorium and is grateful for the attractive bouquets arranged about the room. the association heartily commends the nut work being done in the state of michigan with the aid of mr. w. k. kellogg and under the direction of the michigan agricultural experiment station and actively under the lead of prof. neilson. the association records its pride in the establishment and maintenance of acres of nut trees for purposes of experimentation and variety testing. in so far as known to the association there is no other tract of equal area in existence for this purpose. be it resolved, that a copy of this resolution be spread upon the minutes of this meeting and that the secretary be instructed to send copies to mr. w. k. kellogg, dr. john harvey kellogg, the kellogg hotel management, director v. r. gardner and prof. james a. neilson. the northern nut growers association records its extreme sorrow at the death of its active and able, although but recently elected, treasurer, newton h. russell of south hadley, massachusetts, on april , . for many years mr. russell was a very active member of the association, a regular attendant at its conventions, and a loyal supporter of its various activities. the genial personalities of both mr. and mrs. russell are greatly missed at this convention. our deep sympathy is expressed to mrs. russell and her children in their bereavement. be it resolved, that a copy of this resolution be spread upon the minutes of this meeting, and that the secretary be instructed to send a copy to mrs. newton h. russell. resolutions committee, g. l. slate, chairman c. a. reed a. s. colby. dr. deming: i think that the thanks of the association are especially due to our president, mr. frey, for having so successfully stepped into the breach for the completion of the arrangements for this meeting, and for the very excellent program which he completed. i think he should also be thanked for the separate notices which he sent out, directing the attention of the persons coming to and going from this meeting to the nut orchards and other things of interest that may be seen on the way. the president: i thank you. i might say that the suggestion for visiting interesting trees and nut plantings came from mr. reed. i want to call to your attention again that next year's meeting will be held at rockport, indiana, on september and , . the dues of this association are now only $ . , and action taken at this convention will result in your receiving without additional charge the american fruit grower magazine, which has been adopted as our official journal and included with the dues. you also have the privilege of joining the american horticultural society for the fee of $ instead of $ . . we are affiliated with that society and they allow to their affiliated associations the privileges of the members. secure a membership and get the quarterly journal for the price of $ . . we certainly recommend this association. we think that you get your money's worth many times over and it does a great deal of good. the only other item of business is a report from the nominating committee. dr. deming: your nominating committee reports through the chairman the nomination of the following members as officers for the ensuing year: president--mr. frank h. frey, chicago, illinois. vice president--dr. g. a. zimmerman, of harrisburg, pennsylvania. secretary--mr. george l. slate, of geneva, new york. treasurer--mr. carl f. walker, of cleveland heights, ohio. for members of the executive committee--mr. frank h. frey, dr. g. a. zimmerman, mr. george l. slate, mr. carl f. walker, professor j. a. neilson and mr. d. c. snyder. as dean of the association--dr. robert t. morris, of connecticut. as field secretary--mr. zenas h. ellis, of vermont. i move that the secretary be authorized to cast one ballot for the election of the ticket nominated. the motion was unanimously carried, and the officers nominated by the committee were elected for the ensuing year. the president: i might say that i won't, at least, have to sing a "swan song," and i'm not going to take the time to make any speech of acceptance. i appreciate your confidence in re-electing me and i am sure the other officers feel the same way. we'll all do what we can for your interest and what we are all interested in. sometimes we may be a little slow in getting results but with your help i think we can make progress. the twenty-fifth annual convention of the northern nut growers' association adjourned at : p. m. tuesday, september , . letter from j. u. gellatly _british columbia_ i have just returned from a six weeks' trip to the b. c. coast scouting for new nut trees and selling nut tree nursery stock. the outstanding discovery of the trip is the rapier walnut tree. this young giant was planted years ago by mr. rapier on texada isl. i estimate this tree to be to feet in height, the measured spread is feet one way and at widest point, and other measurements as follows: from ground to first limbs there is feet of straight trunk with a girth of feet one inch taken one foot above ground, and at feet above ground girth is inches. the tree has cropped regularly since it was about years old. the largest crop to date was produced in totaling pounds. the shape of nut is long oval, size medium. the flavor of those i tasted of the crop certainly was the sweetest i have tasted to date for this class of nut. i have no definite information as to source of this tree, but judge it to be a franquette seedling as that was the class of trees sold by the nursery from which the tree was purchased. i have made arrangements for sample nuts from this year's crop and will send you some later. this tree is well worth testing for hardiness as it is evidently self-fertile, there being no other nut trees of the same age near by. another discovery of interest from the nut breeding angle is the mcdonald walnut. this is a hybrid english x. j. sieboldiana, growing at west vancouver, b. c. nut large and heavy shell, but the best kernel cavity i have seen in any of these crosses. the tree is a nice tree and leaves show distinct crossing. this is the first year it has borne and it had nuts. one shell i am sending you with other samples of new nuts. the watt english walnut at penticton, b. c., is proving a regular cropper of uniform large round nuts of good flavor. this tree is a seedling from my own nursery. i do not know from what tree it grew, but it is worthy of testing for hardiness in districts north of present location as there is some evidence of hardiness. i know this tree to be a good cropper but have no definite record of any one year's crop as the tree is located where many persons help themselves to the nuts. the lindy walnut from the beaches at kelowna, b. c., continues to make good tree growth and produce good crops of large round nuts with thin shells and well developed kernels of good flavor. this tree is a seedling grown from a nut brought from kulu hills, india, in . this tree is also worthy of trial for hardiness in districts north of present locations. i do not know how this tree is as a self-pollenizer as there are two other trees near by of the same stock and planting. i do know that seedlings grown from this tree make a good growth and look alike in the nursery row and are very uniform as to color and growth of leaf, in striking contrast to seedlings from some other trees which vary a lot in every feature. in heartnuts the newest i have of outstanding promise are from my own nursery. two are now growing at peachland, b. c. one, the mackenzie, is a vigorous, well grown tree and bears regularly heavy crops of large, rough-shelled heartnuts that are easily cracked. the kernels are light in color and of good flavor. the other, the rover heartnut, is a young tree just carrying a record crop. tree is in a poor location on the edge of wild timber competing for soil space. the nut is a big step in the elimination of the central division, so pronounced in most heartnuts. this is the outstanding feature of this nut. cracking and other features are still undetermined but promising. i have a number of others that are promising. one is the flavo heart, a heartnut and butternut cross. this is a seedling of callender heart and butternut. the outstanding features are the shape of nut, flavor of kernel and ease of extraction. this is its first crop. from b. d. wallace _portage la prairie, manitoba_ i will endeavor to give you a short account of our progress in the culture of butternuts and black walnuts. our success with butternuts has been due, very largely, to the method we adopted some twenty years ago and might be summed up in the following report. from one hundred pounds of butternut seed, which we secured in the fall of , and which we planted the same season in october, we got in the following year a splendid stand of seedlings which gave great promise the first summer. during the winter of a great number of those seedlings were partially or altogether destroyed, through the climatic conditions of the country. but quite a number of them stood up in splendid condition. after about three years we eliminated everything that did not stand up per cent and show a splendid growth. we had in the neighborhood of fifty trees and thus, through a survival of the fittest, the foundation of this industry became established. we distributed perhaps twenty or more trees to the experimental farm and other places. these have all stood up, as far as i can learn, with splendid success. this left about thirty of the original trees in our nurseries. these thirty have never shown any sign of frost killing nor are they in any other way affected. our trees commenced to bear in their sixth year, in and have increased in size and fruiting year by year, until today they are about thirty feet high with a spread of about thirty-six feet and are without question the most beautiful row of trees west of the great lakes. we have grown at least one hundred thousand trees from the nuts taken from these trees, which have been distributed over a very wide territory, reaching from the northern part of ontario to the rocky mountains. many of our customers have now their own trees bearing. in addition to our selling the trees, we offer to our customers one two-year-old butternut or horse chestnut with each ten dollar order sent in. we took this method to get our nut trees into the hands of a great number of the people. we have followed practically the same line with black walnuts, but with less success than with butternuts, as a very much greater percentage of the black walnuts went down. notwithstanding that we have a number of trees which have survived in splendid condition. one of these is bearing for its second year and one other is just bearing for the first time. however, we have a good deal of hardy wood, as our trees are growing bushy and we intend to use the butternut seedlings for stocks on which to graft the black walnut. by this method we will not have to wait so long to get a good supply of trees. there is no question whatever about the future success of the butternut, as we have this year the third generation of them bearing, which is ample proof that they have become entirely acclimated. the butternuts grow fully as large as in eastern canada, as do also the black walnuts, and as far as i can see the quality is equal if not better. in addition to the butternut and black walnut, we have made a complete success of the horse chestnut. ours were planted in , and commenced bearing about the same time as the butternut, and we have grown great crops of nuts continually from that date to the present. we are also trying out the heartnut, both from young trees and from seed. out of three different plantings that is planted the same year but in different sections, one planting of six trees has stood up completely for the last three years, whereas the other two freeze back a little. in addition to these we are growing from seed the filbert, which seems to be hardy, but is not old enough to fruit yet. however, there is no question in my mind whatever that we shall succeed with all those different trees, following our own method of only using wood and seed from those trees which are proof against the most severe climatic conditions. we used this same method thirty-five years ago in laying the foundation for fruit growing. out of twelve thousand of the hardiest fruit trees that we could buy from dakota and minnesota, after three years we eliminated all but fourteen trees. these were divided between standard apples, crab-apples, plums and plum hybrids. by using northern russia plum seed and siberian crab seed for roots, we have been able to lay a foundation for fruit growing in this western country that will live long after we are forgotten. from vera nekiassena _turkestan_ my opinion is there are two kin species growing in turkestan--juglans regia l and j fallasc dode; the first in the kopet-dag, the second in the fansha mountains, in guissar and darwas. the j. regia is further cultivated in turkestan gardens and in the lowawschan valley. the j. kamaonia dode is occasionally to be observed likewise in gardens. i did not chance to see it personally and am in possession of only one of its nuts. both species (the j. regia and the j. fallasc) produce a great variety of nuts as to shape, thickness of shell and size of kernel. both these species have been united by some authors (mr. m. popof in bull. of applied botany of genetics and plant breeding xxii n ( ), p. ) into one--that of j. regia but always distinguishing the kopet-dog nuts in the jsp. turcomanica popof; difference between them being certainly esctant. the number of leaflets of the j. fallasc amounts to - , they are rounder and more obtuse, the shell of the nut is thicker and also rounder and smaller. the number of j. regia leaflets is - , they are narrower and more pointed (lance shaped), the nuts more elongated, larger and their shell thinner. having been for my part mainly occupied with the geographical distribution of nuts without regard to the variation of the fruit shape, i would recommend you to apply for a choice of nuts to mr. gursey, (caucasus, pjabigorsx), who is making a special study of the problem. for cultivation in the north you will be interested in j. manshurica originating in the far east and very hardy. it is cultivated and produces fruit in leningrad, young specimens of it were planted on the solovetsky islands in the white sea and there outlived excellently. concerning the list of trees appended to your letter, i can give you the following information. _j. regia_ grows well in the park of botanic institute in leningrad, attaining - m.; in the southern part of smolensk district the tree produces fruit as far as minsk. there is a considerable number of fruit producing specimens in the masir district in the north of white russia. _j. sieboldiana_ freezes up in cold winters in leningrad. _j. cinerea_ is very hardy and effects self-polinasation in white russia; near kasan there is one specimen producing about fruits yearly. _j. rigra_ produces fruits in koslon. _corylus colurna_--a large old specimen esctant in leningrad rather frequently observed in many parks of european u. s. s. r. _c. acellana_ is widely spread in a wild state attaining ladoga-laxe. _c. mascima_ frequently in the crimea and the caucasus. _castanea sabiva_ grows in the caucasus only, and cultivated in urraina. castanea henryii corylus chinensis. c. lacquement and cticstica i do not know in u. s. s. r. _c. seguinu, c. crensta_ and _c. mollissima, separate_ strains probably to be had in suchum. from divisional forest officer _utilization division, baramulla kashmir_ there are two distinct species of of walnut growing here. one which grows from , to , feet above sea level near about habitations and on rich fertile soil has got good big sized nuts which are very easy to break even with the pressure of hand, and about which you probably seem interested. the other species grows higher in the forest up to about , feet elevation. it has hard nuts which cannot be broken easily and have moreover very little kernel as compared to former species. even the timber of both the species is distinctly different, in as much as the former has dark gray color and the latter has reddish gray. regarding nomenclature the botanists differ. the former species is named juglans regia hin. the latter species which is wild may be called juglans fallax, dode or juglans kamaonia, dode, but actually it is a bit different from either and is something midway between the two and so is yet to be determined properly. corylus colurna is the only species of corylus found here out of your list. b. the altitudes of walnut zone has been stated above. corylus colurna also grows between , and , feet. both the walnut species are confined to kashmir and chamba states, while corylus colurna grows all over the himalayas. c. the maximum height and girth of a tree i have felled was ft. and ft. respectively. this tree grew in a forest at , foot altitude amongst firs. trees growing outside in the fields in the open are sometimes bigger in girth but their bole is very short and the height also is small compared with forest grown trees. the trees growing in the fields in the open are of soft rind species. d. the trees growing in the fields and of soft rind species are generally fast grown and they have about to rings to an inch. the trees growing in the forest have about to rings to an inch. e. the length of frost-free season depends upon the situation and locality, generally from may to september there is no frost, the rest of the season has frost. f. the maximum temperature is degrees, while the minimum is many points below zero when the country is snow-bound all over. there is snow in the forests for about six months. g. the average annual rainfall is between and inches in the year, according to the locality. h. all the walnut trees are grown for extraction of oil from their nuts. this oil is used for cooking purposes, in place of fats and butter. when the tree gets old or gets diseased, it is felled and timber is used for making furniture and carving. kashmir walnut carving is well known. i. hazel trees grow wild in the forest, the hazel nuts are collected and are eaten. sometimes these nuts are exported to british india, where kernels are used chiefly to adulterate almond kernels. corylus has not been grown here as a garden tree and so i do not know its requirements of germination. i will however be thankful to you if you could kindly send me a little fresh seed, c. colema, to grow it here in kashmir. some years ago i had sent for the seeds of rhamnus purshiana from u. s. a. this was sown here but it did not germinate. i shall feel obliged if you could let me know the requirements of this species, that is, the situation, soil, et cetera, which this species demands. rhamnus dahuricus grows wild here as a small shrub. do you think i can get american species by grafting my species with rhamnus purshiana scions? communication from john w. hershey, i called at the experimental nut planting place of the late j. w. waite, at normandy, tennessee, on june st and found he had been dead about eight months. i talked with a native who told me he was one of the most plucky men he had ever seen, having had, because of some disease, both legs amputated, was all crippled up otherwise, and traveled in a wheel chair. he even use to milk cows and drive around in an old buggy. this setting at the waite place is going to be of immense value to the t. v. a. tree crop program. i met the daughter who knew very little about the trees, but the first thing she mentioned was the wonderful nuts they got off the mccalister tree. i could identify a few of the trees but will not make much progress at it until this fall, when the nuts are ripe. they are heavily set with bloom now. to assist me in this work, i am wondering if the association has anything in its files pertaining to the varieties that he has. as you know, one can identify a tree quicker if he knows what he is looking for. letter from mrs. e. w. freel _pleasantville, iowa, september , _ yesterday, when coming home, we drove around (which was not out of our way) to see those walnut trees about which you made inquiry. the freel tree has been topped and it has made a wonderful growth this year and is going to make a very pretty tree. the marion has a few walnuts on this year, but they are falling off due to the dry weather this year. last year it was loaded. the metcalf tree has some on but, like the others, most all of them have fallen off. it was also full last year. the worthington tree also had some on this year, but have all fallen off. it also had walnuts on last year. i have never known any of these trees to be a complete failure unless it would be this year due to the drought which has been pretty severe with us. we have had no garden to speak of and the crops in this section have almost been a complete failure. the wheeling tree had walnuts on last year but i have been unable to get out there this year. it is off the gravel road and it has been raining here for the last two days. i have not been able to get out to the hickory nut trees. they had some nuts on last year but not very plentiful. i have noticed along the highways, as we would be driving along, that some of the hickory nut trees were full and others would not have any on, but do not know as yet how the drought will affect them. i wish we could attend the convention, but it will be impossible for us this year. letter from geo. w. gibbens _godfrey, illinois, september , _ the mid-west nut growers' association is not functioning. there will be a normal crop of black walnuts in this section of the state. the hickory and pecan crop is very light. the chestnut crop will be light. many of our chestnut trees were killed by the drought this summer. some young trees on cultivated land will develop nuts, and a few of the older trees may do so. for many years here (e. a. riehl farm) we have been trying to grow the english walnut to bearing size. this year we have a young tree that is bearing. it is the alpine. i wish we could attend the convention. letter from fred kettler _platteville, wisconsin_ in regard to the kettler walnut tree here: it seems to be gradually dying; has many dead branches, which is caused by the drought we have had the last few years. we should get to inches rainfall a year and we had only or last year and about that same amount this year. the ground is wet down only about inches on top. below that it is dry. the old tree had quite a few nuts on this year. however, most of them were blown off by a cyclone six weeks ago. there is about a peck of nuts on the tree now. all walnuts here are only half a crop on account of the june beetle and the weather conditions, and they are quite small nuts, the weather being so dry. i grafted of the wisconsin no , or kettler walnut. it was boiling hot here in april and may and it again spoiled it for me. we watered them every day and shaded them, but the heat and dry, hot dirt was too much. all were grafted on young yearling trees close to the ground where i covered them with dirt. many started, but died later; anyway, i succeeded in getting six more nice trees started (one to three feet tall now). my tree from last year is about five feet tall and made some side branches; so you see i am getting started. i doubt if i can get any graft wood from the old tree next spring. we are in the nursery business just in a small way. we have only the best of varieties. i have discovered also a thin-shell hickory nut with a wonderful meat. i don't know if i will get any of the nuts this year as they have been stealing them every year, i am told by the man who owns it. i succeeded in getting one growing on a young pecan tree i had. i think it is even better than my walnut. i enclose one with a this year walnut sample. the hickory is a last year sample. what our country needs is timber on every farm from one acre to ten acres, according to size of farm, all over the united states. then we will get more rain. that would be a real crop control--instead of destroying crops like the new deal is doing. planting a strip of timber from canada to the gulf will not help anyone. we believe the "brain-trusters" need a doctor. telegram sept. , . dear dr. morris: the northern nut growers' association is in session in the w. k. kellogg hotel, battle creek, michigan. the members present are reminded that this is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the association. it recalls with interest the first meeting held in new york city, which was called to order by dr. deming, at which you became charter president, mr. t. p. littlepage of washington, charter vice president, dr. deming, charter secretary. it is the unanimous feeling of the present membership that the society for which you and the others so ably laid the foundation at that time has been abundantly justified by the accomplishments of the organization. we are especially indebted to you for the able leadership from you which the association enjoyed, not only while you served in an executive capacity, but during the many years which followed while you were an active leading member, and now for approximately ten years during which you have been dean. we regret that impaired health makes it impossible for you to attend meetings at present, but we assure you that your name is not being forgotten nor is the work which you inaugurated being allowed to lapse. (signed by the members present.) catalogue of top-grafted nut trees on the kellogg farm, kellogg school grounds, and kellogg estate. place and variety species stock year grafted kellogg school-- . fairbanks hybrid hickory pignut . pleas, des hicans pignut moines and mccallister kellogg farm (farm lane) . broadview english walnut black walnut crath english walnut black walnut . allen black walnut black walnut wiard black walnut black walnut . dennis shagbark pignut . creager hybrid hickory pignut (hickory block) . fairbanks hybrid hickory pignut . rohwer black walnut black walnut . crath english walnut black walnut (mcintyre) . haviland shellbark pignut . mccallister hican pignut . burlington hican pignut . des moines hican pignut . creager hybrid hickory pignut . dennis shagbark pignut . stanley shellbark pignut . wiard black walnut black walnut . ohio black walnut black walnut . des moines hican pignut . pleas hican pignut . cedar rapids shagbark pignut . mcdermid english black walnut . shinnerling shagbark pignut . stratford shagbark pignut . hand shagbark pignut . rockville hican pignut . rohwer black walnut black walnut . des moines hican pignut . stratford shagbark pignut . beaver hybrid hickory pignut . gerardi hican pignut . creitz black walnut black walnut . ohio black walnut black walnut . ohio black walnut black walnut howell black walnut kellogg farm ( acre field) . creitz black walnut black walnut . rohwer black walnut black walnut stambaugh black walnut black walnut wiard black walnut black walnut mcdermid english walnut black walnut crath english walnut black walnut . crath english walnut black walnut . wilkinson english walnut black walnut . wiard black walnut black walnut . adams black walnut black walnut . beck black walnut black walnut . wiard black walnut black walnut . franquette english walnut black walnut . ohio black walnut black walnut rohwer black walnut black walnut pasture field-- . ohio black walnut black walnut . ohio black walnut black walnut . des moines hican bitternut and pleas hican . ohio black walnut black walnut . ohio black walnut black walnut . wiard black walnut black walnut . ohio black walnut black walnut . crath english walnut black walnut . crath no. english walnut black walnut . mcdermid english walnut black walnut . corsan chinese walnut black walnut . carpenter black walnut black walnut beck black walnut black walnut . grundy black walnut black walnut franquette english walnut black walnut kellogg estate-- . fairbanks hickory hybrid pignut . crath no. english walnut black walnut . burlington hican pignut . stratford shagbark nursery tree . faust heartnut japanese walnut . crath english walnut black walnut . crath english walnut black walnut . alpine english walnut black walnut . turkish hazel tree hazel (colurna) seedling . mcdermid english walnut black walnut . burlington hicans pignut des moines . fairbanks hickory hybrid pignut dennis shagbark des moines hicans . fairbanks hybrid hickory pignut burlington hican des moines hican stratford shagbark exhibits mr. a. b. anthony, sterling, ill. bitternut no. bitternut no. shagbark--shellbark cross no. shagbark--shellbark cross no. shagbark--shellbark cross no. shagbark--shellbark cross no. mr. j. f. wilkinson, rockport, ind busseron pecan indiana pecan kentucky pecan major pecan greenriver pecan butterick pecan posey pecan mccallister hican hican variety mr. wilkinson suggests calling bixby in honor of the late willard g. bixby. ohio black walnut stabler black walnut thomas black walnut mr. f. h. frey, chicago, ill. wheeling black walnut, new find by mrs. e. w. freel, worthington black walnut, from mrs. e. w. freel, marion black walnut, mrs. e. w. freel, freel black walnut, mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, iowa metcalf black walnut, from mrs. e. w. freel stabler walnut, "one lobe," o. h. casper, anna, ill. oklahoma seedling, black walnut, evidently j. rupestris (per dr. waite, pg. -- ) rohwer black walnut, from john rohwer, grundy center, iowa grundy black walnut, from john rohwer, grundy center, iowa kettler or wisconsin no. , from fred kettler, platteville, wisc. shellbark hickory, seedling no. , mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, iowa shellbark hickory, seedling no. , mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, iowa cedar rapids shagbark hickory, from s. w. snyder, center point, iowa shinnerling shagbark hickory, from chas. shinnerling, amana, iowa hagen shagbark hickory, from s. w. snyder, center point, iowa g. h. corsan, echo valley, islington, ontario, canada duchilly and other european filberts grown on his place in canada jones hybrid filberts, corylus americana--corylus avellana photograph of corsan nut exhibit at canadian national exhibition craxezy, butternut, from union city, mich. from harry burgart, michigan nut tree nursery mitchel hybrid heartnut, from scotland, ontario stratford hickory, exhibited by mr. snyder, center point, iowa. mr. snyder says this is the best bearing hickory for his section in iowa. prof. j. a. neilson, michigan state college, e. lansing, mich. harris black walnut, allegan, mich. thomas black walnut everett wiard black walnut, ypsilanti, mich. glen allen black walnut, middleville, mich. dan beck black walnut, hamilton, mich. ten eyck black walnut adams black walnut, scotts, mich. m. s. c. campus heartnut, east lansing, mich. crawford heartnut mrs. henry hanel, heartnut, williamsburg, mich. gellatly heartnut, westbank, b. c. lancaster heartnut, graham station mckenzie heartnut, b. c. mitchell heartnut, scotland, ont. fred bourne, heartnut, milford, mich. w. s. thompson heartnut, r. , st. catherines, ont. english, chatham, ont. mitchell butternut, scotland, ont. col. b. d. wallace butternut, portage la prairie, manitoba, can. korean pine nuts, abbotsford, p. q. w. s. thompson filbert, r. , st. catherines, ont. harry weber hazel, r. , cleves, ohio beck english walnut, allegan, mich. w. s. thompson english walnut, r. , st. catherines, ont. larsen english walnut, ionia, mich. english walnut, from broadview, b. c. mcdermid english walnut, st. catherines, ont. clyde westphal pecan, marcellus, mich. fairbanks hickory, grown at grand rapids, mich. haviland hickory, bath, mich. green hickory, battle creek, mich. mrs. ray d. mann hickory, davison, mich. hill hickory, davison, mich. lyle house hickory, fowlerville, mich. miller hickory, north branch, mich. pleas pecan and bitternut hybrid hickory burlington hican rowley chestnut, orleans, mich. john e. dunham, chestnut, oshtemo, mich. chinese chestnuts, ridgetown, ont. registration frank h. frey, chicago, illinois a. s. colby, university of illinois, urbana, illinois a. b. anthony, sterling, illinois mr. harry burgart, union city, michigan mrs. harry burgart, union city, michigan mrs. charles halder, ceresco, michigan mrs. anton burgart, union city, michigan mr. gilbert becker, climax, michigan mrs. gilbert becker, climax, michigan carl f. walker, cleveland heights, ohio lennard h. mitchell, washington, d. c. mrs. lennard h. mitchell, washington, d. c. homer l. bradley, kellogg farm, augusta, michigan j. f. wilkinson, rockport, indiana g. h. corsan, echo valley, islington, ontario dr. g. a. zimmerman, harrisburg, pennsylvania mrs. g. a. zimmerman, harrisburg, pennsylvania oliver t. healy, union city, michigan mrs. anna h. bregger, bangor, michigan john t. bregger, bangor, michigan mrs. john t. bregger, bangor, michigan s. e. monroe, chicago, illinois j. a. neilson, east lansing, michigan mrs. j. a. neilson, east lansing, michigan mrs. c. m. mccrary, augusta, michigan c. m. mccrary, augusta, michigan mildred m. jones, jones nurseries, lancaster, pennsylvania mr. harry r. weber, cincinnati, ohio mrs. harry weber, cincinnati, ohio d. c. snyder, center point, iowa w. k. kellogg, battle creek, michigan dr. j. h. kellogg, battle creek, michigan rollin h. tabor, mt. vernon, ohio george l. slate, geneva, n. y. l. h. macdaniels, ithaca, new york. l. housser, cloverdale, ontario fae noverr, enquirer and news, battle creek, michigan zenas h. ellis, fair haven, vermont joan deming, hartford, connecticut mrs. oliver healy, union city, michigan mr. howard w. harris, allegan, michigan. r. d. no. mr. scott healy, otsego, michigan. r. f. d. no. mrs. scott healy, otsego, michigan. r. f. d. no. glen grunner, coldwater, michigan. r. d. no. leon ford, battle creek, michigan marshall moon, battle creek, michigan dean phillips, battle creek, michigan lawrence poole, battle creek, michigan evelyn alwood, battle creek, michigan martha richmond, battle creek, michigan irene vavn de bogart, vicksburg, michigan cleone wells, battle creek, michigan herbert bush, battle creek, michigan dorothy jenney, battle creek, michigan cecelia plushnik, battle creek, michigan vernice fox, battle creek, michigan edward a. malasky, battle creek, michigan c. a. reed, u. s. dept, of agriculture, washington, d. c. t. v. hicks, battle creek, michigan. r. norman crittenden, galesburg, michigan arnold g. otto, detroit, michigan miss mary barber, kellogg co., battle creek, michigan professor v. r. gardner, m. s. c., east lansing, michigan h. a. cardinell, m. s. c., east lansing, michigan e. p. gerber, apple creek, ohio lila m. gerber, apple creek, ohio dora e. gerber, apple creek, ohio h. w. kaan, wellesley, massachusetts r. s. galbreath, huntington, indiana mrs. r. s. galbreath, huntington, indiana dr. w. c. deming, hartford, connecticut everett wiard, ypsilanti, michigan mrs. e. wiard, ypsilanti, michigan books and bulletins on northern nut growing . nut culture in the united states, u. s. dept. of agriculture, . out of print and out of date but of great interest. . the nut culturist, fuller, pub. orange judd co., n. y., . out of print and out of date, but a systematic and well written treatise. these two books are the classics of american nut growing. . nut growing, dr. robert t. morris, pub. macmillan, n. y. nd edition , price $ . . the modern authority, written in the author's entertaining and stimulating style. . farmers' bulletin no. , , nut tree propagation, c. a. reed, to be had free from u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. a very full bulletin with many illustrations. . tree crops, dr. j. russell smith, pub. harcourt, brace & co., n. y., , price $ . . includes the nut crop. . annual reports of the northern nut growers' association from to date. to be had from the secretary. prices on request. . bulletin no. , northern nut growers' association, by w. g. bixby. nd edition, . to be had from the secretary. price cents. . farmers' bulletin no. , black walnut culture for both timber and nut production. to be had from the supt. of documents, gov. printing office, washington, d. c. price cents. . year book separate no. , , a brief article on northern nut growing, by c. a. reed, to be had free from u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. . filberts--g. a. slate--bulletin no. , new york state agricultural experiment station, geneva, n. y., december, . . leaflet no. , , planting black walnut, w. r. mattoon and c. a. reed, to be had free from u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. . harvesting and marketing the native nut crops of the north, by c. a. reed, , mimeographed bulletin, to be had free from u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. . dealers in black walnut kernels, mimeographed bulletin by c. a. reed, , to be had free from u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. . eastern nursery catalogues listing nut trees, mimeographed leaflet to be had free from u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. . twenty years progress in northern nut culture. a -page booklet of valuable information and instruction by john w. hershey. nuticulturist, downingtown, penna. price cents. . files of the american nut journal, to be had from the publishers, american nurseryman publishing co., state st., rochester, n. y. * * * * * ="happy is the man who has= =a hobby"= "_happy is the man who has a hobby_," runs the old saying. and still happier is the hobbyist who regularly receives and reads "hobbies--the magazine for collectors." here, in this interesting, profusely illustrated, -page monthly you will find news, pictures, and information, as well as buying, selling and swapping ads, in all branches of collecting. hobbies has a particularly fine and complete stamp collector's department-- or more pages each month devoted to stamp club news, notes, articles on stamps and stamp issuing countries, department on precancels, new issues, and airmails, and general information. (hobbies, by the way, is the official organ of the great society of philatelic americans.) hobbies is also the outstanding medium for the exchange of information, news, and advertising of interest to collectors of antiques, autographs, coins, indian relics, books, firearms, prints, minerals, shells, glassware, and many other collected articles. it's fun to have a hobby, and to know what others who share your interests are doing and thinking! let hobbies keep you posted! and if you haven't a hobby as yet, but would like to have one, let hobbies help you to find it! _subscribe to hobbies! sample copy, c_ _year's subscription, only $ . _ =lightner publishing corp.= = s. michigan ave. chicago, illinois= +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |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. | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ northern nut growers association report of the proceedings at the eighth annual meeting [illustration] stamford, connecticut september and , northern nut growers association report of the proceedings at the eighth annual meeting stamford, connecticut september and , annapolis pub. co. print. * * * * * officers of the association. _president_ w. c. reed vincennes, indiana _vice-president_ w. n. hutt raleigh, north carolina _secretary and treasurer_ w. c. deming georgetown, connecticut committees _auditing_--c. p. close, c. a. reed _executive_--t. p. littlepage, j. russell smith and the officers _finance_--t. p. littlepage, willard g. bixby, w. c. deming _hybrids_--r. t. morris, c. p. close, w. c. deming, j. g. rush _membership_--harry e. weber, r. t. olcott, f. n. fagan, w. o. potter, w. c. deming, wendell p. williams, j. russell smith _nomenclature_--c. a. reed, r. t. morris, j. f. jones _press and publication_--ralph t. olcott, j. russell smith, w. c. deming _programme_--w. c. deming, j. russell smith, c. a. reed, w. n. hutt, r. t. morris _promising seedlings_--c. a. reed, j. f. jones state vice-presidents california t. c. tucker california st., san francisco canada g. h. corsan avenue road, toronto connecticut henry leroy lewis stratford delaware e. r. angst dupont building, wilmington georgia j. b. wight cairo illinois e. a. riehl alton indiana m. p. reed vincennes iowa wendell p. williams danville kentucky prof. c. w. matthews state agricultural station lexington maryland c. p. close college park massachusetts james h. bowditch tremont building, boston michigan dr. j. h. kellogg battle creek minnesota l. l. powers hudson ave., st. paul missouri p. c. stark louisiana new jersey c. s. ridgway lumberton new york m. e. wile calumet st., rochester north carolina w. n. hutt raleigh ohio harry r. weber gerke building, cincinnati pennsylvania j. g. rush west willow texas r. s. trumbull m. s. r. r. co., el paso virginia lawrence r. lee leesburg washington a. e. baldwin kettle falls west virginia b. f. hartzell shepherdstown members of the northern nut growers' association alabama baker, samuel c., centerville arkansas *drake, prof. n. f., university of arkansas, fayetteville california dawson, l. h., llano kelley, m. c., san dimas tucker, t. c., manager california almond growers exchange, california st., san francisco canada corsan, g. h., university of toronto, athletic association, toronto sager, dr. d. s., brantford connecticut barnes, john r., yalesville bartlett, francis a., stamford barrows, paul m., may apple farm, high ridge, stamford deming, dr. w. c., georgetown deming, mrs. w. c., georgetown donning, george w., north stamford filley, w. o., state forester, drawer , new haven glover, james l., shelton goodwin, james l., hartford, box hungerford, newman, hartford, box irwin, mrs. payson, main st., stamford ives, ernest m., sterling orchards, meriden lewis, henry leroy, stratford *mcglashan, archibald, kent mikkelsen, mrs. m. a., georgetown *morris, dr. robert t., cos cob, route , box randel, noble p., grove st., stamford sessions, albert l., bristol southworth, george e., milford, box staunton, gray, stamford, route stocking, wilber f., stratford, route walworth, c. w., belle haven, greenwich white, gerrard, north granby williams, w. w., milldale delaware angst, e. r., dupont building, wilmington district of columbia close, prof. c. p., pomologist, department of agriculture, washington *littlepage, t. p., union trust building, washington reed, c. a., nut culturist, department of agriculture, washington taylor, dr. lewis h., the cecil, washington england spence, howard, eskdale, knutsford, cheshire georgia bullard, william p., albany van duzee, c. a., judson orchard farm, cairo wight, j. b., cairo illinois casper, o. h., anna librarian, university of illinois, urbana poll, carl j., maple st., danville potter, hon. w. o., marion riehl, e. a., godfrey indiana burton, joe a., mitchel phelps, henry, remington reed, m. p., vincennes reed, w. c, vincennes simpson, h. d., vincennes stadermann, a. l., s. seventh st., terre haute woolbright, clarence, elnora, r , box iowa snyder, d. c., center point (linn co. nurseries) williams, wendell p., danville kansas sharpe, james, council grove, (morris co. nurseries) kentucky matthews, prof. c. w., horticulturist, state agricultural station, lexington louisiana montgomery, dr. mary, weyanoke maryland darby, r. u., suite , continental building, baltimore fisher, john h. jr., bradshaw hayden, charles s., e. lexington st., baltimore hoopes, wilmer p., forest hill keenan, dr. john, brentwood kyner, james h., bladensburg littlepage, miss louise, bowie stabler, henry, hancock massachusetts *bowditch, james h., tremont building boston cleaver, c. leroy, hingham center cole, mrs. george b., mystic ave., winchester hoffman, bernhard, overbrook orchard, stockbridge ( park ave. n. y. city) simmons, alfred l., edison park, quincy smith, fred a., hathorne michigan kellogg, dr. j. h., battle creek, manchester st. linton, w. s., president board of trade, saginaw ritchey, paul h., south rose lawn drive, pontiac missouri bauman, x. c., sainte genevieve darche, j. h., parkville dod, mrs. nettie l., knox city stark, p. c., louisiana. nebraska kurtz, john w., bedford st., omaha warta, dr. j. j., first national bank building, omaha new jersey hoecker, r. b., tenafly, box jaques, lee w., waverly st., jersey city heights marston, edwin s., florham park, box ridgeway, c. s., floralia, lumberton roberts, horace, moorestown roffe, john c., boulevard, e. weehawken new york abbott, frederick b., ninth st., brooklyn atwater, c. c., the barrett co., battery place, new york city baker, prof. j. fred, director of forest investigations, state college of forestry, syracuse bixby, willard g., th st. and nd ave., brooklyn brown, ronald j., broadway, new york city buist, dr. george j., hancock st., brooklyn crane, alfred j., monroe, box ellwanger, mrs. w. d., east ave., rochester haywood, albert, flushing hicks, henry, westbury, long island hickox, ralph, white plains ave. new york city hodgson, casper w., world book co., yonkers holden, e. b., hilton *huntington, a. m., w. st st., new york city hupfel, adolph, w. th st., new york city mcglennon, james s., cutler building, rochester manley, dr. mark, monroe st., brooklyn martin, harold, continental ave., forest hills gardens, l. i. n. y. miller, milton r., batavia, box nelson, dr. james robert, main st., kingston-on-hudson olcott, ralph t., editor american nut journal, ellwanger and barry building, rochester palmer, a. c., new york military academy, cornwall-on-hudson. pannell, w. b., pittsford pomeroy, a. c., lockport rice, mrs. lillian mckee, adelano, pawling stuart, c. w., newark teele, a. w., broad st., new york city thomson, adelbert, east avon tuckerman, bayard, e th st., new york city ulman, dr. ira, w. th st., new york city wile, m. e., calumet st., rochester williams, dr. charles mallory, e. th st., new york city *wissman, mrs. f. der., westchester, new york city north carolina hadley, z. t., graham hutchings, miss lida g., pine bluff hutt, prof. w. n., state horticulturist, raleigh le fevre, revere, johns van lindley, j., j. van lindley nursery co., pomona ohio burton, j. howard, casstown cruickshank, prof. r. r., state college of agriculture extension service, columbus dayton, j. h., storrs & harrison co., painesville dysart, j. t., belmont, route ketchum, c. s., middlefield thorne, charles e., agricultural experiment station, wooster weber, harry r., gerke building, cincinnati yunck, e. g., central ave., sandusky oklahoma heffner, chris, collinsville, box pennsylvania corcoran, charles a., wind rush fruit farm, new albany druckemiller, w. c., sunbury fagan, prof. f. n., department of horticulture, state college heffner, h., highland chestnut grove, leeper hile, anthony, curwensville national bank, curwensville hoopes, wilmer w., hoopes brothers & thomas co., westchester hutchinson, mahlon, ashwood farm, devon jenkins, charles francis, farm journal, philadelphia *jones, j. f., lancaster, box kaufman, m. m., clarion leas, f. c., merion station murphy, p. j., vice president l. & w. r. r. co., scranton o'neill, william c., walnut st., philadelphia rheam, j. f., north walnut st., lewiston *rick, john, pennsylvania square, reading rife, jacob a., camp hill rush, j. g., west willow smedley, samuel l., stephen girard building, philadelphia *sober, col. c. k., lewisburg thomas, joseph w., jos. w. thomas & sons, king of prussia weaver, william s., mccungie *wister, john c., wister st. & clarkson ave., germantown wright, r. p., w. th st., erie south carolina shanklin, prof. a. g., clemson college tennessee marr, thomas s., stahlmam building, nashville texas burkett, j. h., nut specialist, state department of agriculture, clyde trumbull, r. s., agricultural agent, el paso & s. w. system, morenci southern r. r. co., el paso virginia crockett, e. b., monroe lee, lawrence r., leesburg smith, dr. j. russell, roundhill west virginia cather, l. a., murry st., fairmont hartzell, b. f., shepherdstown cannaday, dr. john egerton, charleston, box ~* life member.~ constitution article i _name._ this society shall be known as the northern nut growers association. article ii _object._ its object shall be the promotion of interest in nut-bearing plants, their products and their culture. article iii _membership._ membership in the society shall be open to all persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to place of residence or nationality, subject to the rules and regulations of the committee on membership. article iv _officers._ there shall be a president, a vice-president and a secretary-treasurer, who shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting; and an executive committee of five persons, of which the president, two last retiring presidents, vice-president and secretary-treasurer shall be members. there shall be a state vice-president from each state, dependency, or country represented in the membership of the association, who shall be appointed by the president. article v _election of officers._ a committee of five members shall be elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating officers for the following year. article vi _meetings._ 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 executive committee 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 executive committee. article vii _quorum._ ten members of the association shall constitute a quorum, but must include a majority of the executive committee or two of the three elected officers. article viii _amendments._ 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 a copy of the proposed amendment having been mailed by any member to each member thirty days before the date of the annual meeting. by-laws article i _committees._ the association shall appoint standing committees as follows: on membership, on finance, on programme, on press and publication, on nomenclature, on promising seedlings, on hybrids, and an auditing committee. the committee on membership may make recommendations to the association as to the discipline or expulsion of any member. article ii _fees._ the fees shall be of two kinds, annual and life. the former shall be two dollars, the latter twenty dollars. article iii _membership._ all annual memberships shall begin with the first day of the calendar quarter following the date of joining the association. article iv _amendments._ by-laws may be amended by a two-thirds vote of members present at any annual meeting. northern nut growers' association eighth annual meeting september and , stamford, connecticut. the eighth annual meeting of the northern nut growers' association was called to order at the hotel davenport, stamford, connecticut, at . a. m., the vice-president, prof. w. n. hutt, presiding in the absence of the president, mr. w. c. reed. the meeting opened without formalities with a short business session. the report of the secretary was read and adopted as follows: report of the secretary-treasurer. balance on hand date of last report $ . receipts: dues . advertisements . contributions . sale of reports. . contributions for prizes . miscellaneous . ------- $ . expenses: printing report $ . miscellaneous printing . postage and stationery . stenographer . prizes . litchfield savings society . ------- $ . ------- balance on hand $ . total receipts were a little greater than the year before, receipts from dues a little less. there are several new life members, ten in all now, and the secretary has followed the course adopted some time ago of depositing receipts from life memberships in a savings bank as a contingent fund. there are paid up members, compared with last year. fifty members have not paid their dues and there seems to be no other course but to drop them, after repeated notice, though some are old friends. four members have resigned and there has been one death, that of mrs. charles miller, of waterbury, connecticut. we have added but new members during the year, while we have lost . there have been members since organization, of whom we still have , having dropped out. mr. t. p. littlepage, as chairman of the committee on incorporation, reported at some length on the advisability and the possibilities. on motion of mr. r. t. olcott, the question of incorporation was left in the hands of the committee with power. the following nominating committee was elected: col. van duzee, mr. weber, mr. bixby, mr. smith, mr. ridgeway. the following committee on resolutions was appointed by the chair: dr. morris, mr. bartlett, mr. olcott. moved by mr. littlepage: that the association request the secretary of agriculture to include in his estimates of appropriations for the next fiscal year a sum sufficient, in his judgment, to enable the department to carry on a continuous survey of nut culture, including the investigation and study of nut trees throughout the northern states, such nut trees including all the native varieties of nuts, hickories, walnuts, butternuts and any sub-divisions of those varieties, and that a committee of three be appointed to interview the secretary personally to have this amount included in the appropriation. [motion carried.] mr. olcott recalled that last year the national nut growers' association secured an appropriation, and he suggested that this would make it easier for the northern nut growers to do so this year. mr. bartlett: it occurred to me that the boy scouts, with their great membership and being often out in the woods, would be valuable to the nut growers' association in hunting native nuts. i took up the matter with dr. bigelow of the agassiz association, who is also scout naturalist and i think he can tell us more about getting the boy scouts interested. dr. bigelow: i would suggest that you enlist also the interest of other organizations for outdoor life. if i knew a little more definitely what is wanted it could be exploited in definite terms in boys' life, the official organ of the boy scouts of america, which has a mailing list of over , , and which reaches ten or twenty boys each copy. so you have nigh on to , , members who would be reached in this way. my predecessor, mr. ernest thompson seton, has organized the woodcrafters, which consists of both boys and girls. it seems to me that their service should be enlisted. they have done remarkably good work. and there are other organizations such as the camp fire girls. i would suggest that some of you formulate a resolution and let me have a copy of it to publish in boys' life. dr. morris: i will say one word in harmony with dr. bigelow and the possibility of enlisting the interest of these organizations. one of our members, i think mr. weber, has found on a tributary of the ohio river a thin shelled black walnut that came down with the flood. he has found two specimens at the mouth of the stream and he knows that this particular thin shelled black walnut grows somewhere up that stream. he would give $ to anybody who would find that black walnut tree. i will give five dollars every year to any boy scout who wins any of our prizes. that is a permanent offer. or i will enlarge it perhaps, after we discuss the matter further by including the camp fire girls. i will add others to that list. i will give five dollars to any member of one of those organizations affiliated with us who wins any nut prize in any year, in addition to our regular prizes. furthermore we will offer to name any prize nut after the discoverer, so that his or her name will go down in history, perhaps causing much fame. dr. bigelow: i have had my attention called to the fact that in the west the beech trees are heavily laden with nuts. it suddenly dawned on me that in all of my boyhood experience as a hunter and tramper, i had never seen one edible beech nut in connecticut. i know there are many beech trees around stamford, but i have not been able to find any nuts. i have advertised for them but although i have received more than a hundred packages from over the rest of the country, i have not seen one single beech nut from connecticut. some of the old-timers say they were once plentiful. i wonder whether beech nuts have disappeared from connecticut as have potato balls. dr. morris: in the lime stone regions they commonly fill well. i have a great many beech trees on my place from one year to more than one hundred years of age, and they came from natural seeding, but the seeds in this part of connecticut are very small and shrivelled. they are not valuable like the ones in western new york, for instance, and i do not remember even as a boy to have known of eastern beech trees with well-filled nuts. many of these inferior nuts will sprout, however. mr. littlepage: i think dr. bigelow has hit upon a point of a great deal of interest. for example, on my farm in maryland i think there are perhaps three or four hundred beech trees of various sizes, probably none of them under ten years of age and up to fifty, and in the four years that i have been observing these beech trees, there has never grown upon them a single full, fertile beech nut. i have observed very carefully. on my farm in indiana i have been observing the same thing for probably ten or twelve years, and i have never seen a single filled beech nut. there are some beech trees there two feet in diameter. president's address. w. c. reed, indiana. (read by the secretary.) fellow members northern nut growers' association, ladies and gentlemen: our association convenes today under changed conditions not only in this country but throughout the world. upon the united states rests the burden of feeding the world, or at least a large portion of it. with seven-tenths of the globe's population at war, surely this is a mammoth undertaking. the government is urging the farmer to increase his acreage of all leading grain crops, to give them better cultivation, and is guaranteeing him a liberal price. crop values. crop values have increased until today there is land bringing more than $ . per acre for a single wheat crop. corn has sold above $ . per bushel, beans at cents per pound, and hogs at $ . per pounds on foot. labor advances. with these high prices all along the line the price of labor has advanced to the highest point ever known. surely it is up to the american farmer to husband his resources by the use of labor-saving machinery, by using the tractor and other power machines to conserve horse feed, by the cultivation of all waste land possible and by practicing economy and thrift. more intensive agriculture. in the more intensive agriculture that is urged upon us the northern nut growers' association can do a splendid work by the interesting of all land owners in the conservation of the native nut trees and the planting of grafted nut trees in gardens, orchards and yards, to take the place of many worthless shade trees. highway planting. with the government and states working together in the establishment of market highways and the building of permanent roads, now is the time to urge the planting of trees that will last for this generation and the ones that are to follow. in sections of the country the different kind of nut trees suitable could be selected and, if planted and given proper care, would be a source of large income in the years that are to come. community effort is needed for such work and if the members of this association will use their influence it will help to bring this about. there is one county in england where all the roadsides have been planted to damson plums, which has not only made the landscape more beautiful and furnished the people with much fruit, but the past season has furnished many tons of plums that were picked half ripe for the manufacture of dyes that had become scarce owing to the war. if such a movement as this had been taken in this country in the planting of nut trees in former years our roadsides today would be more beautiful, the country more healthy, the farmer more independent, having these side crops that require little labor and that could be marketed at leisure. our soldier boys might today have sealed cartons of nut meats included in their rations on the european battle fronts that would be very acceptable as food and add little to their burden. nut meats in place of pork. if every land owner had enough nut trees to furnish his family with all the nut meats they cared to use, and all the nut bread they would eat, it would go a long way in solving the high cost of pork and beef. the better grafted varieties of the black walnut are specially well adapted for use in nut bread and can be grown in many places where pecans and english walnuts will not succeed so well. what this association has accomplished. in looking backward over the past eight years since this association was organized it might be well to review some of the things accomplished. when this organization first came into existence there was a small demand for budded and grafted nut trees, but none were to be had in the hardy northern varieties. interest was created, best individual trees have been located and new varieties introduced. methods of propagation have been worked out, public opinion has been moulded, government investigation has been fostered, commercial planting of northern nut trees made possible, and today pecans, english walnuts and best varieties of grafted black walnuts may be had in quantity. this association has caused thousands of nut trees to be planted that would otherwise not have been. some may ask the question, has it paid? individually i would say it has not, but collectively it has, and will pay large dividends to future generations by making it possible for a larger food supply at a minimum cost. care of transplanted nut trees. it might be well to urge greater care in the cultivation of transplanted nut trees. trees should be set fall or early spring while perfectly dormant. if bodies are wrapped the first summer and first winter it will prevent much trouble from sun scald. if mounds of earth one foot high are banked around trees before first cold weather it will often prevent bark bursting which may be caused by freezing of the trees when full of sap, caused by late growth. this mound can be removed the next spring and in case of any winter injury you have plenty of fresh healthy wood to produce a top. cultivation should commence early in the spring and be kept up until september first. never allow weeds to grow or ground to become crusted. nut trees form new rootlets slowly the first summer and require special care. after the second summer they will stand more neglect, but extra cultivation will be rewarded with extra growth at all times. finances. in looking over the treasurer's report at washington i find a balance of $ . , reported at last meeting under date august th, . treasurer reports balance on hand of $ . and no obligations. i think he is to be congratulated on being able to make ends meet and issue the reports. after going over the budget for the coming year i think that we may be able to keep up this record if the membership committee will look after new members and see that all old members renew their membership promptly. place of meetings. owing to present war conditions the president would recommend that selection of the next place of meeting be left to executive committee to be fixed later after conditions and crops for next year are better assured. it would seem that some central location might draw the largest attendance and be of greatest benefit to the association for the coming year. nut exhibits. nut exhibits should be encouraged as much as possible and prizes offered when finances will permit, or where members offer special premiums. this effort will bring out varieties that are worthy of propagation and valuable trees will be saved to posterity. these exhibits can often be held in connection with local horticultural meetings. it is well for our members to keep a watch for such chances. reasons for our limited knowledge as to what varieties of nut trees to plant. prof. w. n. hutt, north carolina. agriculturally this continent is about three centuries old. horticulturally its experience has scarcely reached the century mark. practically all the commercial fruit industry of the united states is the product of the last half century. relatively speaking we are quite young and therefore there are a great many things about nut-growing that we may not be expected to know. in the older lands of europe and asia they have a horticultural experience going back from ten to twenty centuries. in this new country the pioneers had necessarily to confine themselves to the fundamentals and it is to be expected that their horticultural operations were confined to a very narrow maintenance ratio. as the country was cleared up and developed certain sections were found to be especially suited to fruit culture. about these centers specialized fruit-growing industries were developed. these planters tried out all available varieties and developed their own methods of culture. as these industries developed horticultural societies were formed for the exchanging of ideas and experiences. in the american pomological society was formed as a national clearing house of horticultural ideas. the first work the society undertook was to determine the varieties of the different classes of fruits suitable for planting in different sections of the country. patrick barry, of rochester, one of the pioneers of american horticulture was for years the chairman of the committees on varietal adaptation and did an immense amount of work on that line. at the meetings of the society he went alphabetically over the variety lists of fruits and called for reports on each one from growers all over the country. this practice was kept up for years and the resulting data were collated and compiled in the society's reports. in this systematic way the varietal adaptations of the different classes of fruits were accurately worked out for all parts of the country. a similar systematic roll call of classes and varieties of nuts grown by the members of this association would be of immense value to intending planters of nut trees. in northern nut-growing, however, it may be questioned if we are yet arrived at the patrick barry stage. what we need is pioneer planters who have the courage to plant nut trees and take a chance against failure and not wait for others to blaze the trail. it needs men of vision and courage to plant the unknown and look with hope and optimism to the future. so many are deterred from planting by the fact that nut trees are tardy in coming into bearing and uncertain of results. in these stirring times we want men of nerve in the orchard as well as in the trenches. we need tree planters like prof. corsan who, at a former meeting of this association when joked about planting hickories, replied that he wasn't nervous and could watch a hickory tree grow. it takes nerve to be an innovator and to plant some radically different crop from what your conservative neighbors all about you are planting. the georgia cotton planters wagged their heads and tapped their foreheads when col. stuart and major bacon turned good cotton land into pecan groves. but the thousands of acres of commercial pecan orchards now surrounding these original plantings showed that these pioneer pecan planters were not lunatics or impractical dreamers, but courageous men of vision, thirty years ahead of their time. nut tree planting is not all waiting. it will give the busy man some surprises as i have reason to know from my own limited experience. ten years ago when i planted my first experimental orchard i set about preparing several other lines of quick maturing experimental work, for i did not expect those trees would have any thing to report for a decade or so. you can imagine how surprised and delighted i was when on the third year there was a sprinkling of nuts, enough to be able to identify the most precocious varieties. the surprise increased to wonder the next year when there was an increased number of nuts on the trees that had borne last year and a number of new varieties came into bearing. in the eighth year when an -pound crop of nuts changed that experimental planting into a commercial pecan orchard, i was, to use a sporting phrase, "completely knocked out of the box." the man who thinks there are no thrills in tree planting has something yet to learn. it is the surest sign of a real true-blue horticulturist that he wants to set some kind of new tree or plant. it is the rarest kind of a plantation that has on it no waste land. fence rows, ditch banks and rough or stony places are to be found on practically every farm. such spots too often lie waste or galled or at best are covered with weeds, briars, bushes or useless scrubby trees. these waste places would make a fine trial ground for testing out nut trees. a few fine walnuts, pecans or hickories, or rows of chinquapins and hazels would add profit as well as beauty to these waste and unsightly places found on most farms. following old conservative methods the average farmer sets about his house and buildings unproductive oaks, elms and maples, with scarcely a question of a thought that there are as handsome shade trees that will produce pleasure and profit as well. on our lawns and about our door yards we could plant to advantage the japanese walnut and the hardier types of pecans and persian walnuts. it would be of interest to try a few seedlings of these classes of nuts. if such practices were followed in the planting of nut trees it would not be long until new and valuable sorts would be found and a great deal of data made available to intending nut planters. i believe that a great deal of good would result from the preparation and dissemination of a circular encouraging farmers in nut planting. this association is doing a valuable work in offering prizes to locate high class seedling nut trees that will be worthy of propagating. sooner or later valuable sorts will be found in this way. in this connection it will be wise for this association to solicit the active co-operation of the horticultural workers in the different states. the workers of the agricultural colleges, experiment stations and extension service do a great deal of traveling and have special facilities for getting in touch with promising varieties. the horticulturists of some states have made nut surveys of their states to ascertain their resources in the way of valuable varieties and of conditions suitable for nut culture. the interesting bulletin, "nut growing in maryland," gotten out by prof. close, when he was state horticulturist in maryland, is a very valuable contribution along this line. it would be well for this association to solicit the co-operation of the trained horticulturists in the northern states to make nut surveys and ascertain definitely the valuable varieties already growing within their borders and what are the possibilities for the production of these types for home purposes for commercial growing. a few of the state experiment stations have taken up definite experimental and demonstration nut projects and are doing valuable work in this line. this association should memorialize the directors of the other stations to undertake definite nut projects and surveys and get the work under way as soon as possible. while endeavoring to stimulate private, state and national investigations in nut culture, the author would be very remiss if he failed to recognize the very valuable work already done by the zealous, painstaking and unselfish pioneers of northern nut growing. messrs. bush and pomeroy have given to the country and especially to the north and east, two valuable hardy persian walnuts. our absent president, mr. w. c. reed, of vincennes, ind., is doing a great deal in the testing and dissemination of hardy nut trees. our first president, though an exceedingly busy surgeon and investigator in medicine, finds time to turn his scientific attention to the testing and breeding of nut trees. some of our brilliant legal friends, too, find time to pursue the elusive phantom of ideal nuts for northern planting. we cannot go through the growing list of nut investigators nor chronicle their achievements, but we know that when the history of american horticulture is written up ample justice will be done to their labors and attainments. let each of us do our part in the building up of the country by the planting of nut trees. let us plant them on our farms, in our gardens and about our buildings and lawns. let us induce and encourage our neighbors to plant and do all possible to make nut planting fashionable until it becomes an established custom all over the land. it will not then be long before valuable varieties of nut trees will be springing up all over the country. this association will then soon have a wealth of available data at hand to give to intending planters in all parts of the country. a member: in europe they raise a great many nuts that they ship to this country, chestnuts, hazels and persian walnuts. i understand they grow usually in odd places about the farms, but the aggregate production amounts to a great deal. we could very well follow the lead given by europe in that particular, at least. i think we could have for dissemination circulars which would stimulate people to plant nut trees more widely than at present. the secretary: this question of nut planting in waste places always comes up at our meetings and is always encouraged by some and frowned upon by others. i do not think we ought to recommend in an unqualified way the planting of nut trees in waste places. i have planted myself, lots of us have tried it, and found that most nut trees planted in waste places are doomed to failure. i do not recall an exception in my own experience. i understand that in europe the road sides and the fence rows are planted with trees and the farmers get a part of their income in that way. but with us in connecticut nut planting in waste places does not seem to be a success. it is quite different when you come to plant nut trees about the house and about the barn. they seem to thrive where they don't get competition with native growth and where they have the fertility which is usually to be found about houses and barns. in fact, i have advocated the building of more barns in order that we might have more places for nut trees. i think we should plant nut trees around our houses and barns where we can watch them and keep the native growth from choking them, and where we can give them fertility and keep them free from worms. the worms this year in connecticut have been terribly destructive. my trees that i go to inspect every two or three weeks, at one inspection would be leafing out, at the next would be defoliated. if such trees are about your house where you can see them every day or two you can catch the worm at its work. so for experimental planting i think places about our houses and barns can be very successfully utilized. when it comes to commercial planting, i think we must recommend for nut trees what we do for peach trees. we must give them the best conditions. i am hoping from year to year that somebody will come forward to make the experiment of planting nut trees in orchard form and give them the best conditions, as he would if he were going to set out an apple or peach orchard. the association has made efforts by means of circulars to interest the experiment stations, schools of forestry and other agricultural organizations. a number of the members of such organizations are members of the association. the work has been taken up to some slight degree in such places as the school of forestry at syracuse. i do not recall any others at this moment, although there are some. i will read part of a letter from professor record of the yale school of forestry: "the only reasons i can think of why the consideration of nut trees is not given more attention in our school are ( ) it comes more under the head of horticulture than forestry ( ) lack of time in a crowded curriculum ( ) unfamiliarity with the subject on the part of the faculty." we would like to interest these faculties in nut growing. we look upon them as sources of education but evidently we are more advanced than they are in the subject of nut growing and it is up to us to educate them. col. van duzee: right now when you are at the beginning of nut growing in the north you cannot over estimate the value for the future of records. my heart goes out to the man who comes to us as a beginner and wants to know something definite. our records are the only thing we can safely give him. the behavior of individual nut trees, the desirability of certain varieties for certain localities--those things are of tremendous value. no doubt you know that in california they have come to the point in many sections where they keep records of what each individual tree does. i began that some years ago with the commercial planting that i have had charge of for the last twelve years. we now have an individual tree record of every nut produced since these trees came into bearing--about trees. i went further than that--i kept a record of the value of the different nuts for growing nursery stock so that i might grow trees that would be the very best produced in our section. now the years have gone by and i have a ledger account with every tree in that and i know exactly what it has given me. i know how many nuts it has produced. you would be surprised to see the wide discrepancy in those records, the different behavior of individual trees. i wish i could talk to you longer on that subject. it is something i am very enthusiastic about. by virtue of the records we have kept for years i have found a source of supply for seed nuts and nursery stock which has proved to be a constant performer. i bud this nursery stock from trees with individual records that have proved themselves to be good performers, i have found that certain varieties have proved themselves not worthy of being planted, and certain other varieties have proven themselves at least promising. this last year i took schley, stuart, delmas and moneymaker trees and planted them all on the same land. now these trees, you understand, are grown from the stock grown from a nut that i know the record of for years. i know its desirability. the buds are from selected trees whose records i have. more than that, i alternated the rows and the trees in the rows. these trees are now where they have got to stand right up and make a record so that we will know ten years from today what is the best variety for our section. i do not think i can make myself as clear as i wish i could this morning, but here is the point. if anybody comes to me i can tell him definitely, and i have records in my office to show, what the different varieties are doing and what soil they are growing in. here in the north where the industry is in its infancy now is the time to start records. when i saw the subject of professor hutt's paper, the "reasons for our limited knowledge as to what varieties of nut trees to plant," it occurred to me that if you don't now start right in making records, ten years from today you will still have existing one of the principal reasons why you don't know. mr. kelsey: i started out four years ago with english walnuts. i read the account of pomeroy and so i got a half dozen trees from him. they all died. i got five or six trees from mr. jones. i think this is the third year and one of those has some nuts on. i have got now about trees planted in regular rows where i am cultivating them. but i was going to say that four years ago i sent to pomeroy and asked him if he wouldn't send me a few nuts as a sample. he sent me . i cracked two of them. fourteen of them i put in. i didn't know how to put them in so i took a broom handle, punched a hole in the ground and stuck them in the bottom. i never thought i would get any results from them. they came up in july. they did not come up quick. i suppose i had them so deep. i set them out three years ago. some of them are as high as this room in three years on cultivated land set out in rows. they have never borne any. no one knows how long it takes for a seedling to bear. it may be two years, or five years, or ten. dr. morris: i want to bear witness on the point that col. van duzee made, the matter of keeping records. the man who keeps good records is a public benefactor because what he learns becomes public property upon the basis of available data. every one of us should pay attention to that point which col. van duzee has brought out. unfortunately my records have been kept by my secretaries in shorthand notes and i have had four different secretaries in ten years, and each with different methods of shorthand. they have not had time to write up all the notes, and so i find it difficult to present good nut records when busily occupied with professional responsibilities, which must come first. i had one field filled with young hybrid nut trees. a neighbor's cow got into that field and the boy who came after the cow found her to be refractory. the boy began to pull up stakes with tags marking the different trees and threw them at the cow. before he got through he had hybridized about forty records of nut trees. the chairman: as a horticulturist along experimental lines i find the trouble is to get people to plant trees and properly plant them. i do not think that the average farmer knows how to plant trees. that is why they get such poor results. they plant them where anybody with intelligence would not plant them. we find in the south that we can grow trees if there is protection against fire and stock. if fire is kept out and stock is kept from grazing, nature will cover the land with forest trees. i think that will go a long way to getting nut trees. but a man planting something as valuable as a nut tree wants to take a little more pains than that. i have seen mr. littlepage's place where he is raising handsome trees, but he has planted crops around each tree and there is plenty of plant food. you can grow trees almost anywhere if you make the conditions favorable. in hedge rows and odd places, if the forest soil is preserved, you can grow almost any kind of a nut tree. these conditions must prevail or we must make them prevail. just another point on the matter of home planting. i wouldn't be a very good preacher if i didn't carry out my own practices. just to show my faith by my works i want to say that i took out every shade tree at home and put a nut tree in its place. down south where shade is very valuable they said "that man is very foolish to cut down nice elms and maples like that and put nut trees in their place." it did look so then for a while. now i have some handsome pecans and persian walnuts and japanese walnuts, and this year i get my first dividends from a tree five years old. of course we have taken care to preserve their symmetry, but i think our nut trees come pretty close to being our best shade tree. i will challenge anybody to find a handsomer tree than a well-grown pecan. it is a very stalwart tree with its branches of waving foliage, which is the characteristic of an ideal shade tree, and yet, in addition to that, it produces in the fall magnificent nuts. so the proposition of home planting is one that pays quick dividends on attention given. i think i have convinced my neighbors that it is a good deal better to raise handsome nut trees than poplars. my neighbor planted carolina poplars at the same time. he was out there the other morning raking up the leaves and that is all he will have to do until christmas time. the diseases of nut trees. s. m. mcmurren, washington, d. c. mr. president and members: it is a source of great regret with me that i cannot report to you some new and horrible disease attacking nut trees. this makes a more interesting talk. last year in washington i talked to you briefly about the persian walnut blight which we had definitely established as occurring in the east. last march the national nut growers' association got very busy and so amended the agricultural appropriation bill that all the funds for national nut investigation were spent for pecan investigation, so it left us up in the air for work in the north. we have, however, been able to continue our observations with the persian walnut blight and there is only one further point to be emphasized and brought out at this time. those of you who have informed yourselves on this matter know that the serious period of infection on the pacific coast is in the spring. it is a blossom blight. during the past two years the period of infection in the east has been in the late summer and it has not been serious on that account. it is well known that in certain dry springs on the pacific coast this blight does not occur and those years the growers are assured of good crops. i think that this investigation, and the bulletin which will soon be forthcoming, will not act as a discouragement for those who want to plant persian walnuts. i think it should not but should rather encourage planting of these nuts. in spite of the presence of this disease on the pacific coast the walnut industry has grown to be very profitable, and if it proves that late infection is the rule in the east there is every reason to believe that the disease will not be so serious. that is practically the only walnut disease worthy of attention at present. the filbert disease is a fungus disease and dr. morris and others are authority for the statement that it can be readily controlled by cutting out. dr. morris: i will show this afternoon that it can be controlled in a way. dr. mcmurren: we in the department have not been in a position to do any work on the hazel blight so far. the hazel blight is interesting in that it illustrates a principle in plant diseases which it is well to know, that most of our serious plant diseases fall in one of two classes; either a native disease on imported plants or an imported disease on native plants. this filbert blight is very slight on native hazels but very serious on imported european hazels. i do not think there is anything more on the filbert disease, but dr. morris will have some interesting things to show you this afternoon. i want to interject a remark here about the business of planting trees for commercial crops along the road sides. there is more to be considered than the mere matter of planting a tree. insect pests and diseases have to be taken into consideration. there is nothing that an apple orchard planter more hates to see than a tree out of the orchard. it doesn't receive proper attention and is apt to be a source of disease. i believe that wherever the nut industry has been established on an orchard scale it is a matter that should receive careful thought before trees are planted on the road side. when you have an adequate fertilizing department and can give it careful attention the same as trees in the orchard, all right. but they do not as a rule receive it. roadside planting perhaps sounds very attractive on the surface and is probably a very good plan in some cases, but i think it is open to grave objections where an orchard industry is in the same section. the secretary: i am sorry that mr. c. a. reed is not here to take up the discussion of the walnut blight, because i think he takes a little more serious view of it than mr. mcmurren. mr. mcmurren: i know he does. the secretary: that is right that mr. reed does, and i am glad he is here (mr. reed having just entered) to talk it over. mr. jones is also here. mr. jones is a close observer and has followed it in the field from the beginning. this matter of walnut bacteriosis is a very important one. here is the walnut industry just in its infancy. we want to know whether this walnut bacteriosis is threatening such proposed industry seriously or not. we know it is a very serious thing in california. can we safely begin planting english walnut trees or is the question of the seriousness of bacteriosis so serious that we should not plant extensively until we know more about it. mr. mcmurren has been saying a few words about bacteriosis in which he has not given us an impression of seriousness. i think mr. reed will give us some remarks on that matter. mr. reed: i do not like to go up against mr. mcmurren. he is the disease man. he is the last word in the government. i am only a second fiddle when it comes to diseases but i must say that i have not a very optimistic feeling over the blight situation. i have been depending very largely on him to give us information. the secretary: where did you find it, mr. reed? mr. reed: speaking for the east only, for the part of the country that we are directly interested in, i have visited a number of the walnut sections. i think i have tried to reach all of them and in nearly every place that i have been to in the last year or two there has been blight. several of the orchards that have been most widely advertised have blight, according to mr. mcmurren's identification. i went all the way from georgia to northwestern pennsylvania and northern new york state last year to be present when the crops were gathered from orchards of those sections, and in one of those orchards, one at north east, pennsylvania, the crop was what i would call about per cent failure due to blight. the other orchard, one near rochester, was not badly blighted, but there was a very light crop, not over per cent of a crop, but still there was some blight there. now, i do not know just what mr. mcmurren has said. i do know that he does not feel very badly alarmed over the blight situation in the east and i would rather hear him talk and mr. rush, and mr. jones. mr. bartlett: i would like to know what the chief characteristics of the blight are. mr. mcmurren: the ordinary late infection in the east begins with a little spot on the husk around the st of july, and that merely spreads until just about the time they fall off the tree. when the blight infection strikes it it stains the nut badly. the point i want to make is that you get the nuts anyhow. mr. littlepage, do you recall the trees in georgetown? the blight there is a very late infection. it is not a thing that i can say should be discouraging. blights are all over, the pear blight, the apple blight, the lettuce blight. if we can make the crop in spite of it i don't see why we should be unduly alarmed. i think there are a good many other factors to be taken into consideration in planting on a large scale and to make the question hinge on the blight is not right. spraying is of no avail. i don't think the walnut growers should be discouraged because even in california where it is most serious the industry is still profitable. mr. jones: some times the husk worm may spoil the husk and that may be confused with the blight. so far mr. rush has had the blight ever since i have known his trees. last year the blight was more prevalent than this year. this year i estimated the loss in the nuts about per cent. last year i think it ran one-quarter. the secretary: would those nuts be ruined? mr. jones: some of them would be and some of them not. the secretary: one-quarter would be affected by blight and some of those would be good but not all? mr. jones: i don't know what proportion. if the nut when taken out of the husk is black, it would not be worth much. you can eat them but they are not marketable. notes on the nut bearing pines and allied conifers. dr. robert t. morris, new york among the food trees of the world of the nut bearing group the palms with their many species of cocoanuts probably stand first, the pines next, and the chestnuts third in order, so far as food supply for various peoples is concerned. then come the almonds, walnuts, hazels, hickories and other nut bearing trees, the nuts of which have been somewhat carelessly looked upon as luxuries rather than as an important pantry full of good substantial calories to be turned into human kinetics. the pines and allied conifers like _araucaria_ and _podocarpus_ will take their respective places in furnishing food supply for us all when the need comes. such need is already close upon our new vista of war supplies. the squirrels and mice this year will eat thousands of tons of good food that our soldiers would be glad to have. the particular advantage in planting nut bearing pines rests in the fondness of these trees for waste places where little else will grow, and they need less attention perhaps than any other trees of the nut bearing group. for purposes of convenience in description i shall group all of the conifers together under the head of pines in this paper, although in botany the word "pinus" is confined to generic nomenclature. up to the present time we have not even developed our resources to the point of utilizing good grounds very largely for any sort of nut tree plantations. in accordance with the canons of human nature men work hardest, and by preference, with crops which give them small returns for their labor. riches from easily raised crops go chiefly to the lazy folks who don't like work. on the way to this meeting some of you perhaps noticed near rye on the west side of the railroad track, a chicken farm on a side hill and a rich bottom land which had been ditched and set out to about three hundred willow trees along the ditch banks. now if the owner of this property had set out english walnuts in the place of the willows, each tree at the present time, at a low estimate, might be bearing five dollars worth of nuts per year per tree, and i am, sure that would be a much larger income than the owner gets from his chickens--an income obtained certainly with much less trouble, because neighbors cannot break in at night and carry off walnut trees of such size. two or three weeks from the present time you will observe people everywhere in this section of the country raking up leaves from various willows, poplars and maples, when they might quite as well be raking up bushels of nuts of various kinds instead of just leaves. i presume that the extensive planting of pine trees for food purposes will have to wait until we have advanced to the point of putting other kinds of nut trees upon good ground first. pines will be employed for the more barren hillsides when the folks of three hundred years from now begin to complain of the high cost of living. among some thirty or more species of pine trees which furnish important food supply for various peoples i exhibit nuts from only sixteen species today, because much of the crop comes from europe and from asia. i could not obtain a larger variety of specimens on account of the present interest of people in the game which military specialists play wherever industrious nations have saved up enough money to be turned over to their murder experts. in the pine trees we have opportunity for combining beauty and utility. as a group they are mountain lovers preferring localities where the air drainage is particularly good, but many of them will grow thriftily and will fruit well on low grounds. fine nuts range in character from the rich, sugary, oily and highly nitrogenous nut of the mexican piñon to the more starchy _bunya bunya_ of australia, as large as a small potato and not much better than a potato, unless it is roasted or boiled. yet this latter pine is valuable for food purposes and the british government has reserved one forest of the species thirty miles long and twelve miles wide in which no one is allowed to cut trees. the nut of the _araucaria imbricata_ has constituted a basis for contention among indian tribes in chile for centuries, and perhaps more blood has been shed over the forests of this pine than over any other single source of food supply in the world. we do not know if the _pinus imbricata_ will fruit in the climate and at the latitude of new york, but i know that at least one tree of the species has lived for twenty years on the palmer estate here in stamford. some of the smaller pine nuts like those of the single-leaved pine, or of the sugar pine, are delicious when cracked and eaten out of hand, but the smaller pine nuts are pounded up by the indians with a little water and the thick, rich, creamy emulsion like hickory milk when pressed out, is evaporated down to a point where the milk can be kept for a long time without decomposition. in addition to the nuts of the sugar pine, the indians collect the sugar of dried juice which exudes at points where cuts have been made in the tree for the purpose. incidentally, the sugar pine is one of our finest american trees anyway. botanists tell us that it grows to a height of two hundred and seventy-five feet, and travellers say that it reaches three hundred feet. the latter people having actually seen the trees we may know which estimate to accept. aside from the beauty of most pines and the majesty of some of them, their utility is not confined to nuts alone. timber and sap products are very valuable. the sugar pine in the latitude of new york is hardy, but does not grow as rapidly as it does in the west. the same may be said of the jeffrey bull pine, but i shall show you some thriftier trees of this latter species tomorrow on my property. a very pretty striped nut is that of the _pinus pinea_. this is the italian pignolia, and you may buy them in the confectionery stores in this country. they are used as a dessert nut chiefly, but form an important food supply in some parts of europe. the swiss stone pine, _pinus cembra_, is one of the hardy nut pines, fruitful in this vicinity, and the _pinus armandi_, the korean pine and the lace-bark pine from central china, are hardy and fruitful in this vicinity, to our knowledge. two very handsome pine nuts are those of the digger pine, _pinus sabiniana_ and the big-cone pine, _pinus coulteri_. both trees are hardy in this latitude, but i have not been able to locate any which are of bearing age as yet. the nuts have a rich dark brown or nearly black and tan shading. the nut of the digger pine is very highly prized by the indians and is larger and better in quality than the nut of the big-cone pine which looks so much like it. nuts of the torrey pine have been somewhat difficult to secure for planting, because they are esteemed so highly for food purposes that they have been collected rather closely by local people in the small area in which this species is found, on our pacific coast. it is improbable that the torrey pine will be hardy much above our most southern states. we do not advertise dealers in our association as a rule, but mr. thomas j. lane, of dresher, pennsylvania, is not likely to make any great fortune from his sale of pine nuts to us. consequently, i am stating at this point that mr. lane has offered to go to the trouble of securing pine nuts from different parts of the world for our members who wish to plant different species experimentally. i have given him a list of species to be kept permanently on file, and the list is marked in such a way that ones which are known to be hardy, semi-hardy, or fruitful in the latitude of new york may be selected for experimental planting. i hope that some of our southern planters will plant south american, asiatic, african and australian species of nut pines for purposes of observation. mr. lane will get the seed for them. i have included among the specimens here today nuts of the ginkgo because that tree belongs among the conifers in natural order. it is an ancient tree which should not fit into this time and generation, but it has gone on down past the day when it belonged on earth. its prehistoric enemies have died out, so the ginkgo tree has come rolling along down the centuries without enemies and at the same time with many peculiarities. comparatively few of the trees are females, but the tree grows heartily in this latitude and one may graft male ginkgos in any quantity from some one female. the nut of this tree is rather too resinous to suit the american palate, but the chinese and japanese visitors to the capitol grounds at washington greedily collect the nuts from a bearing female tree growing there. most of the pine nuts have a resinous flavor, but as a class they are so rich and sweet that this is not disagreeable. the nuts of the single-leaf pine and our common piñon, _pinus edulis_, are delicious when eaten out of hand and both of these trees are hardy in this latitude, but they do not grow as rapidly here as they do upon the arid mountains and under the conditions of their native habitat. in europe and asia pine nuts for the market are cracked by machinery or by cheap hand labor, and i presume that we may eventually hull some of the smaller ones as buckwheat is hulled. if the contents of the smaller nuts are extracted by the indian method of grinding them up with a little water and then subjecting them to pressure, the waste residue will probably be valuable for stock food of the future, very much as we now use oil cake. when planting nuts of pine trees i would call the attention of horticulturists to one very important point. the nuts must be planted in ground that does not "heave" in the spring time when the frost goes out. many of the pine nuts send down a rather slender root at first without many side rootlets, and when the frost opens the ground in the spring the young trees are thrown out and lost. here is another point of practical importance. do not plant pine seed where stock can get at the young shoots in march. the little gems look so bright and green, so fresh and attractive when the snow goes off that cows and sheep, deer, squirrels and field mice will all try to collect them. young pines should be grown in half shade during their first two years. they will require weeding and nice attention on the part of a lover who wishes to be polite to them. question: is there any difficulty in harvesting the crops, do the cones shed? answer: with some species the cones are shed before they are fully opened. they are collected and stored until the nuts can be beaten out. other species retain the cones until the nuts have been shed. the branches are shaken and the nuts collected from tree to tree by the beaters and spread out upon the ground. sometimes coarse sheeting or matting is carried from tree to tree by the beaters and spread out upon the ground. question: at what age will they bear? answer: pines bear rather late as a rule. i doubt if very many of them will bear in less than years from seed. question: would it be possible to produce grafted trees? answer: yes, without much difficulty. undoubtedly you could get bearing wood from old trees and graft on young trees, or graft on other species. they may be grafted back and forth like the ornamental firs and spruces of the nurserymen. question: they don't compass, do they. if you cut them off, do shoots come out of the stumps? answer: not as a rule. adventitious buds belong to few pine trees. they graft conifers when the stocks are young. question: of those that you suggest, what would be the best here? answer: the korean, the bungeana or lace-bark, the swiss stone pine, and the armandi. these can be counted on to bear in the vicinity of new york. several other species not yet tried out may bear well here, but i have not gone over the trees on estates very extensively as yet with that question in mind. question: are any of these specially good for the south? answer: yes, most of the pine nuts that i have shown here will grow south of maryland and seven of the best pine nuts in the world belong to our southwest. question: is there any more trouble with the cows and squirrels over nut pines than there is with ordinary pine trees? answer: no, excepting that you don't miss the ordinary kinds so much. it is largely a matter of comparative interest. notes taken on an excursion to merribrooke, the country place of dr. robert t. morris, at stamford, conn., september , . dr. morris conducting the party. ( ) taylor shagbark hickory tree, overhanging the entrance-gate. a tree remarkable for annual bearing and for nuts of high quality, thin shell, large size, and excellent cleavage. among hundreds of hickories examined, many of them in response to prize offers, this tree at the entrance furnishes one of the very best nuts of the lot. ( ) buckley hickory (_hicoria buckleyi_) from texas. supposed not to be hardy in this latitude. perfectly hardy, but not growing as rapidly as it does at home. very large roundish thick shelled nut with a kernel of good quality if you can get it. kernel has a peculiar but agreeable fragrance. ( ) another southern species, the north carolina hickory (_hicoria carolinae-septentrionalis_). note the small, pointed, dark colored buds and beautiful foliage. the tree is perfectly hardy in connecticut. this shagbark bears a small thin shelled nut of high-quality and it will be particularly desirable for table purposes. the tree grows thriftly in connecticut. ( ) carolina hickory. grafted on native shagbark. ( ) a group of korean nut pines (_pinus koraensis_). raised from seed and now six years of age. one of the valuable food supply pines of northern asia. like most eastern asiatic trees the species does well in eastern north america. ( ) a central asian prune (_prunus armeniaca_). without value for the fleshy part of the drupe, but with a nut like that of the apricot, highly prized for its kernel. the tree is hardy and thrifty, but rather vulnerable to a variety of blights belonging to prunus. ( ) an ordinary black walnut grafted to the lutz variety. a very large nut with good cleavage, good color and good quality. ( ) alder-leaved chestnut (_castanea alnifolia_) from central georgia. one of the most beautiful of the american chestnuts, with more or less of the trailing habit, running over the ground like the juniper, and apparently not subject to blight. in georgia it is an evergreen, but in connecticut it is deciduous, although sometimes a few green leaves are found in the early spring if they have been covered by snow or by loose dead leaves during the winter. the nut is of high quality and fair size. there are a number of hybrids between this and other chestnuts at merribrooke, but not bearing as yet. ( ) a group of common papaws (_asimina triloba_), two of them grafted. the journal of heredity offered a prize of fifty dollars for the best american papaw, and the prize was awarded to the ketter variety, the fruits of which weigh about one pound each. seven little trees of this species were secured and two larger papaw trees grafted from cuttings when the seven were set out. papaws grow well in this part of connecticut, and because of the high quality of the fruit should be more largely planted. ( ) mills persimmon. one of a group of several varieties that are being cultivated in this country. hardy and thrifty in connecticut. ( ) a group of jeffrey bull pines (_pinus jeffreyi_) from colorado. one of the nut pines. supposed to do its best in the arid mountains of the west. perfectly hardy and thrifty with beautiful bluish-green foliage in connecticut. ( ) himalayan white pine (_pinus excelsa_). one of the nut pines and with remarkably handsome foliage. ( ) a group of chinese pistache nut trees (_pistacia sinensis_). at merribrooke it has the habit of frequently growing twice in one year and sometimes three times in one year. the shoots will grow a foot or more and then make resting buts early in july. after about ten days of resting the buds burst, new shoots grow again and rest for the second time in the early part of september. if we have a warm moist fall the buds burst for the third time and make a third growth. this third growth winter-kills without injury to the tree, however. the significance of the growth presumably relates to the tree being an inhabitant of an arid country, where it has adapted itself to the rainfall of that country. i do not know if the trunk adds a new ring of wood after each resting period, but it likely enough does so. ( ) moneymaker pecan. perfectly hardy and thrifty. it has not borne as yet and there may be a question of the season being long enough for ripening the nut. at the left a stuart pecan, that comes from the very borders of the gulf of mexico. sometimes the smaller branches winter-kill badly and at other times they do not. it is remarkable that a tree from the shores of the gulf of mexico should live here at all in the winter. ( ) a field of six-year-old trees. most of them the result of placing bitternut hickory pollen on staminate butternut flowers. the trees have not borne as yet and we can not tell if they are true hybrids or parthenogens. parthenogenesis occurs readily with many nut trees. pollen of an allied species which does not fuse with the female cell to make a gamete may, nevertheless, excite a female cell into division and the development of a tree. such a tree would be expected to show intensified characteristics belonging to the parent. this lot of trees notable for the fact that some are very small for their age and some very large. ( ) a group of japanese chestnuts. they blight and die and blight and live and are not given much attention as they are of little value anyway. the chestnut blight (_endothia parasitica_) attacks the japanese chestnut about as freely as it does the american chestnut. the trees do not die from it quite so quickly and may bear for some years before dying. ( ) a group of japanese persimmons in a protected corner of a west-facing side hill. most of the japanese persimmons are not hardy in connecticut, but an occasional variety given a moderate degree of protection will manage to live pretty well. they are uncertain trees, however, as two of the trees grafted to bennett japaneses persimmons from newark, n. j., had two-year-old shoots winter-killed this year. these were on low ground. i shall put my other bennetts on hill sides. ( ) american sweet chestnut grafted upon japanese stock. ordinarily asiatic and american chestnuts do not make very satisfactory exchange stocks. in this case the american chestnut happens to be doing very well. the variety is known as the merribrooke. among the many thousands of chestnut trees here when i bought the place this one bore the best nut of all, very large and of high quality, and beautifully striped with alternate longitudinal stripes of dark and light chestnut color. the parent tree was one of the very first to go down with the blight ten years ago, and the standing dead trunk was removed at the time when i cut out five thousand dead or dying chestnut trees. stump sprouts of the merribrooke variety survived for grafting purposes, and i have now kept the variety going by patient grafting ever since, on new stocks, hoping to carry the variety along until this epidemic of blight runs out of its protoplasmic energy. ( ) ordinary japanese chestnut. with fairly good crop of large nuts, but not of good quality, except for cooking purposes. ( ) a group of hybrids resulting from placing the pollen of the siebold japanese walnut upon the pistillate flowers of our butternut. the young trees have not borne as yet. ( ) hybrids between the common american hazel and the european purple hazel. there are a number of these hybrids, and none of them with nuts better than those of either parent, consequently i give them little attention. some of the hybrids, not as yet bearing, may prove to be more valuable. we have to make lots of hybrids in order to get a small percentage of important ones. in this particular lot the hybrid has taken on a habit of the mother parent, the common american hazel, growing long stoloniferous roots, an undesirable feature. ( ) the golden gem persimmon, laden with fruit. grafted upon the stock of a staminate common persimmon. ( ) early golden persimmon. bearing heavily, a variety grafted upon common persimmon stock. ( ) a group of chinese chestnut trees (_castanea mollissima_). very beautiful trees, worthy of a position on almost any lawn, the foliage is bright and shining, and the thrifty growth very attractive. the species is practically immune to blight, sometimes at a point of injury bark blight will appear, but it spreads very slowly, is easily cut out and does not reappear at that point. it will be a success in connecticut. the nut is not quite up to our native chestnut in quality, but it is larger in size and a first rate nut on the whole. the tree comes from the original home of the blight, and the two plants having lived together for ages the law of survival of the fittest has given us this chestnut tree, which can largely take the place of our lost american chestnut. the tree does not grow to be quite so large as our chestnut, but i am making hybrids between this species and three species of american chestnuts, and may find some remarkable ones eventually. ( ) two young nut pines with lost labels. i shall probably not be able to determine the species until they bear cones. ( ) a number of black walnut trees grafted with several varieties of english walnut (_juglans regia_). there is particular advantage in grafting english walnut upon black walnut stock for the reason that mice are extremely destructive to english walnut roots in winter time. furthermore black walnuts will grow in soil that is distinctly acid in reaction, while the english walnut demands a neutral or alkaline soil. the nearest tree of this group had new shoots of the rush english walnut nearly six feet long, which blew off last week in a wind storm because they had not been braced sufficiently. it is very important when grafting nut trees to fasten strong bracing sticks alongside of vigorous shoots and tying them with sisal tarred cord, which holds good for two years. ( ) appomattox pecan, busseron pecan, and major pecan. all three trees growing very thriftily and all set nuts this spring, but did not hold them. this is the habit of young hickories and walnuts rather largely. none of my pecan trees are old enough as yet to fruit well. i do not know what varieties will find our season long enough for ripening purposes. that particular feature of pecan raising is quite as important as the mere question of hardiness in connecticut. ( ) a little old butternut tree by my garden. this has been the mother of practically all my hybrids between butternuts and other species of walnuts. this little old tree bears flowers every year and is very conveniently situated for hybridizing work. ( ) an english walnut tree near the garden gate is growing thriftily, making sometimes four feet in a year, but as a seedling has not borne as yet. ( ) pecan seedling with buds of busseron recently inserted. they are fastened in place with waxed muslin and then painted with ordinary white paint. i use that a great deal in place of grafting wax, but make the paint thick and heavy so that little free oil runs in between the cambium layers when grafting or budding. paint seems to be harder and better than liquid grafting wax if it has no free oil. ( ) a rapidly growing chinese walnut (_juglans sinensis_). very much like _juglans regia_. the nuts have prominent sutures and the kernel is rather more oily than that of the english walnut, but of very good quality, nevertheless. ( ) a number of hickory trees of different species grafted by my favorite method, unless we call it "budding." i call it "the slice graft," and have not known any one else to try it. a slice of bark from one inch to four inches in length is removed from the stock and this area is fitted with a slice of about the same length and breadth, carrying a bud or spur cut from the guest variety. on one of these young hickories you observe i made three slice grafts and all of them have taken with a very thrifty growth of the taylor variety. one point of importance, i believe, is to have the slice from the guest variety a trifle smaller than the slice from the host stock. the guest slice is bound firmly to the host with waxed muslin. ( ) paragon chestnut heavily loaded with burs. this particular tree is said to belong to a variety that is much advertised, but there is some question if it is a peculiar variety of the paragon, because mr. engel, of pennsylvania, is said to have furnished his own paragon chestnut scions when the other people were short of stock. if the nursery firm that has put out this paragon chestnut on the market with so much vigor and at such expense had been a little more frank everybody would have profited. they have made a point of advertising the paragon chestnut as blight resistant, which it is not; consequently, the country is full of disappointed customers. the dealers should have said something more or less as follows: "this chestnut blights freely, but it bears so well and so abundantly and with such a good nut that people can afford to plant it in large acreage and let it blight, carrying it along with about the degree of attention that one would naturally give to good apple trees." had the dealers only said something like that, the members of our association who receive very many letters from all over the country asking about this particular chestnut would have advised its purchase in large quantities. prospective customers are shy of nurserymen in general. they write to members of our association asking who is reliable. people have learned what we stand for. ( ) a hybrid between a pecan and a bitternut hickory. a large handsome thin shelled nut, but bitter. the great vigor of growth of the seedlings of this hybrid, which comes from mr. g. m. brown, of van buren, ark., would seem to make this hybrid variety of remarkable value as grafting stock for other hickories. the nuts are exceptional in carrying the type form of progeny. ( ) two rows of many species of nut trees planted in thick glazed earthenware pots. the pots are about four feet in depth and with round perforations. i had these made to order. i sunk them in the ground to the level of the rim and then planted these trees in the pots under the impression that they would remain dwarfed on account of the confinement of the roots, and that i would have a conveniently placed series for experiments in hybridization. the experiment was not a success. i knew that growing trees would move rocks, but had no idea that roots protruding through these holes in heavy glazed earthenware would be able to break the pots. the roots have done just that, and whenever a tree in a pot becomes large enough the protruding roots break the pot to pieces, and the tree marches straight along to its original destiny. ( ) one of a group of european chestnuts from seed brought me by major l. l. seaman. the parent tree is famous in england for its enormous size and heavy bearing; it is said to be centuries of age and is growing upon the estate of sir george b. hingley, droitwich, worcestershire, england. my young trees are growing very thriftily. they are showing some blight spots, but this has been controlled by cutting out and painting. ( ) a group of vigorous young trees, the result of placing pecan pollen on the pistillate trees of siebold walnut. they show the siebold parentage so distinctly that i imagine them to be parthenogens, but we cannot tell to a certainty until they bear fruit. ( ) a hillside set out with a large number of common bush chinkapins from the east, tree chinkapins from missouri and a number of hybrids. the chinkapins and the alder-leaved chestnuts on this side hill have been so blight resistant as to require almost no attention, and for that reason i am making hybrids between the chinkapin and the alder-leaved chestnut and the chinese chestnut in the hope of making an excellent combination of chinkapin quality and chinese size. up to the present time none of my hybrids have been as valuable as either parent, with the exception of two. two of the hybrids bear nuts about the size of the average american sweet chestnut and of first rate quality. these two hybrid trees have shown no sign of blight as yet. ( ) a hybrid between an american chestnut and a chinkapin. it blights freely like its american parent. some of the hybrids do that while others show the resistance of the chinkapin parent. this particular tree grows lustily, and i have taken the trouble to cut out the blight every year. the leaves and general appearance are very closely like the common american chestnut. when it first began to bear, the nuts were of the chinkapin type, a single nut to the bur and hardly to be distinguished from other chinkapins. a year or two later the nuts changed in appearance, becoming distinctly lighter in color and with peculiar longitudinal corrugations of the shell. a year or so later still the tree made another change, and it now bears two or three nuts to the bur like the american chestnut, the nuts retain their light color and peculiar corrugation. ( ) a group of european hazels (_corylus avellana_). several years ago the prince of colloredo-mannsfeld was visiting merribrooke. his highness was much interested in the experimental work in nut trees and later sent me a number of hazel nuts from one of his estates in bohemia. among the hazel bushes which grew from these nuts there was one which bore large, long, thin-shelled nuts of high quality. this bush, as you observe, has rather small dark leaves and stout, crooked branches. at one of the meetings of the association i spoke of the bush as having a bony look, and prof. j. russell smith referred to it in discussion as the "bony bush" hazel, and that name has been retained. i have grafted a number of other american and european hazels from this bush and i have sent scions to friends. ( ) a cook shagbark hickory from moscow, ky., grafted upon bitternut stock. this variety bears a very large thin-shelled, irregular nut, with rather poor cleavage, but the quality of the kernel is of such distinct value that i prize the variety. ( ) an example of the spur graft. a common t cut is made in the bark of the stock and then a slice of guest bark carrying a small branch or spur is inserted. in this particular case i put in a branch about ten inches in length and you see that it is growing very well. ( ) my beautiful merribrooke chestnut grafted upon an ordinary american chestnut stock growing by the roadside. five years ago i noticed this little chestnut tree growing by the roadside with two stems. one of the stems was blighted and i cut it off and stopped the blight for the time being. the following year the other stem blighted and i trimmed out the blight and sprayed the stem with pyrox. in the following year i grafted the stock, but blight appeared at another point, the blight was cut out, and the stem again sprayed. in the following year blight appeared again, but at another point, and after cutting it out i put on tanglefoot, simply because i happened to have some with me when passing the tree. this year the stem has blighted again and i have cut out the blight and sprayed it, and i shall now whitewash a large part of the stock with whitewash containing a little carbolineum. the graft now in its third year is bearing one big bur. the interesting point is that this tree has blighted every year for five years, and i have kept it going along by giving it attention. this means if we are willing to take the trouble we can get the best of the blight, even with such a remarkably vulnerable tree as this one proves to be. ( ) a barren hillside covered with very handsome red pines eleven years of age, some of them grow nearly two feet per year. the soil is sandy and gravelly glacial till which will raise little else beside feather grass and sumac. the red pines are not nut pines, and attention is called to them incidentally because of their value for growing upon this sort of soil. ( ) a korean chestnut filled with burs. the korean chestnut does not blight quite so readily as the american chestnut, and certain individuals are fairly blight resistant. i raised several hundreds of them, but almost all of them are dead. a fairly large number are growing well and bearing without much attention. the nut is pretty good, but coarser than that of the american chestnut. ( ) a group of tamba chestnuts from japan. this is the favorite chestnut of the japanese. i secured a number of the nuts, sprouted them and planted them out here in rows, intending to transplant them to permanent sites later. finding that they were going to blight badly, i have neglected them and have allowed them to stand. one little tree among them bore a single bur at eighteen months of age and has borne steadily ever since with a heavy crop this year. this particular tree has not blighted, but its nut is coarse and of little value. ( ) when collecting walnuts i obtained a lot of nuts from a correspondent from the mogollon mountains in arizona. the nut resembles that of _juglans rupestris_, but is larger and thicker shelled. no one knows whether it is an undescribed species or only a distinct variety of _juglans rupestris_. several of the nuts sprouted, but various accidents happened to them and this tree now, seven years old, is the only one of the lot living. it looks very different from any american walnut i have ever seen. in fact, it looks so much like a stunted heart nut that i suspected that one of these nuts might have gotten into the lot by accident. in digging down about the stem, however, i found only the shells of a mogollon walnut. we can not tell what the tree will bring forth, as it is not bearing as yet. ( ) two groups of chestnut trees of the mcfarland variety, about eighteen years of age. they grow and blight and bear, but have not blighted to the point of killing altogether. they have been neglected because the nut has not much value. ( ) a group of merribrooke hazels. some years ago i devoted several weeks to examining hundreds of hazel bushes in this part of the country, where they are a pest, and i also visited other hazel localities at a distance. among all the bushes examined the best nut was found on my own property and i learned later that this particular bush had been known among the boys of the locality for a century. the nut is of large size for an american hazel, thin shelled, of high quality. this group consists of transplants of root progeny from the parent bush. ( ) a horn hazel (_corylus cornuta_, commonly wrongly designated as _corylus rostrata_). a species fairly abundant in connecticut, and i transplanted these bushes because they happened to have a tremendously long involucre. the nut of the horn hazel is not of such good quality as that of the common american hazel, and i have not succeeded in making hybrids between this and other hazels as yet. the hazels are very ancient in descent and each species likes to retain particular identity. ( ) a number of stocks of red birch, white birch and scrub oak grafted with european hazels and chinkapins, but the grafts all died. the grafting was done as an experiment in the hope that we might possibly utilize our waste lands which are covered with birch and scrub oak by grafting these trees with hazels and chinkapins. some of the grafts lived for such a long time and put out such long shoots that the experiment will be tried again next year. it would not seem worth while, excepting for the fact that it was a bad spring for grafting anyway, and hazels did not even catch on hazels, though they caught freely last year. the japanese do grafting on stocks widely different from the scions, but we have not developed that particular feature in this country as yet. ( ) asiatic tree hazels (_corylus colurna_). this species makes a tree as large as the common oaks and bears heavily. the nut is about the size of that of the common american hazel. the tree is very beautiful, and i am using it for grafting stock and for hybridizing. ( ) sprouting cages. a double row of galvanized wire cages sunk four inches into the ground and about four inches free above ground, filled with sandy loam and used for sprouting any nuts which are to be employed in experimental work. each cage is fitted with a cover of galvanized wire, the purpose of which is to keep out rodents which are so destructive to planted nuts. in these cages there are now a large number of hybrid nut trees growing, and they will be transplanted to permanent sites or to the garden for culture next spring. ( ) japanese heart nut (_juglans cordiformis_). the tree is supposed by some botanists to be a form of the siebold walnut, but it has quite a different appearance. it has an open habit with large leaves and nuts which are suggestive of the conventional heart. the quality of the nut is very good, much like that of the siebold, but the nut is larger and compressed. the tree is very hardy and is almost tropical in appearance. it has not been planted very largely in this county, but it undoubtedly will be eventually. ( ) siberian walnut. the tree looks much like the siebold walnut in general appearance, but with smaller leaflets, and the nut is very much like our butternut, but smaller and with much rougher shell. ( ) two pecan trees that i bought from a nursery about twelve years ago. they have not borne as yet and being seedlings we cannot know if they will be of value. i shall probably graft them next year and not wait for them to bear their own nuts. ( ) two large siebold walnuts only twelve years of age, but growing in rich ground and sometimes making five feet of growth in a single year. they were well filled with nuts two weeks ago, but the red squirrels have cut down all of the nuts including numbers which i hybridized with english walnut pollen this spring. on one of the lower branches of one of the siebold walnuts is a long thrifty graft of the lutz black walnut that i put in this spring, simply because i happened to cut off the lower branches of the siebold that were shading the garden, and i happened to have some of the black walnut scions with me at the time. it will not be allowed to remain on this tree. ( ) a cross between our siebold walnut and our butternut, now about eight years old, but growing thriftily. it has not borne nuts as yet. i have a number of these trees and they appear to be good hybrids. ( ) a group of kaghazi persian walnuts. a valuable variety and one of the so-called english walnuts, a term that we use for convenience because the name has become established in this country by the market men, not by the botanists. ( ) a thrifty young chinese seedling persimmon (_diospyros lotus_). ( ) little trees of one of the nut pines (_pinus edulis_). they are at their best in the arid mountains of arizona, and the species is very important as furnishing a food supply for the indians. the little trees are hardy here in dry soil among the rocks, but do not grow rapidly. mine have been in more than six years and are not more than six inches in height, but are very pretty. ( ) the chinese tamopan persimmon. the tree is very handsome, with large glossy leaves, but somewhat tender in connecticut and requiring protected exposure. the fruit of the tamopan is as large as a very large apple. ( ) several trees five years of age, the result of english walnut pollen on siebold walnut pistillate flowers. the trees are growing very thriftily, but they show the siebold characteristic without much evidence of the english walnut parentage. ( ) a field of pomeroy english walnuts, notable for their beautiful white bark. the trees have been in over eight years and set nuts for the first time this year. as seedling trees we cannot tell what they will do when in full bearing. ( ) two species of nut bearing pines from which the marking labels have become lost, and i shall not be able to determine the species until they bear cones. one of them is very beautiful, with long leaves and pleasing bluish green foliage. a visit to the estate of the late lowell m. palmer, notable for its collection of trees and shrubs, dr. morris conducting. here we see the ginkgo trees, two of them bearing. the ginkgo belongs by descent to the coniferous tree group. a very fine tree with nuts that are highly prized by the asiatics, but somewhat too resinous for the american palate. most of the ginkgo trees are males, but one may graft any number of males with bearing female scions. an _araucaria imbricata_ grew for twenty years on this place, and we have only just learned that it died last year. this pine is one of the most important of the nut pines and furnishes a large food supply in south america. the fact that one tree lived for twenty years in this latitude means a great deal. a number of european hazel bushes are growing on the property and bearing heavily. a large heart nut tree, but bearing small nuts, is growing well. several of the himalayan nut pines (_pinus excelsa_) beautify the property, and one of the trees, heavily laden with cones, is at least fifty years of age. another one of the nut-bearing pines (_pinus paviflora_, from japan) is represented by several specimens on the palmer property, and one little tree apparently less than ten years of age, is heavily loaded with cones. incidentally we may examine here a trifoliate orange filled with fruit. it is growing in a well protected corner of the grounds. mr. webber sent some valuable trifoliate hybrids to merribrooke. one variety lived through the winter, but made a crippled start in the spring. some day we may have good trifoliate orange hybrids in connecticut if the buckley hickory, stuart pecan, arizona walnut and imbricated pine grow here. * * * * * a dinner was held at the hotel davenport on the evening of the th, at which about thirty-five members and guests were present. after dinner the public was admitted and the following papers were read, mr. collingwood being a guest of the association: dr. kellogg: i feel a great interest in the work of this association and a great sympathy with it. i feel that you are all working for me and i am doing what i can to promote your interests also. that is, i am trying to create a market for your products. advent of nuts into the nation's list of staple foods. dr. j. h. kellogg, michigan. in these days when a condition of food shortage exists in the greater part of the civilized world, any question which concerns a nation's food supply is of public interest. food conservation is the great question of the hour. visions of vanishing steaks and chops alarm the overfed and rising prices of all foodstuffs pinch the bills of fare of the poor. it may easily be shown that most of all the hardships which the civilized world is suffering as regards food supply is due to lack of understanding and of foresight. the fundamental error is the popular faith in the high protein ration. the physiologists are at least partly at fault. liebig's dictum, which made protein the essential food factor in supporting work, has misled the whole civilized world for more than half a century. the dietaries of institutions, armies, whole nations have been based upon a conception which modern science has shown to be utterly false, and the result has been an economic loss which staggers belief, and a destruction of human life and efficiency which overshadows every other malign influence. to properly appreciate the place of nuts in the national dietary we must have in mind a clear conception of the nature of food as revealed to us in the light of modern laboratory studies of human nutrition and metabolism. food is to an animal what soil is to a plant. it is the soil out of which we grew. what we eat today is walking around and talking tomorrow. the most marvelous of miracles is the transmutation of common foodstuffs into men and women, the transfiguration of bread, potatoes and beefsteak into human intelligence, grace, beauty and noble action. we read in holy writ how the wandering israelites were abundantly fed in the assyrian desert with manna from the skies and marvel at the providence which saved a million souls from death, forgetting that every harvest is a repetition of the same miracle, that each morsel of food we eat is a gift of heaven conveyed to us by a sunbeam. food is simply sunshine captured by the chlorophyll of plants and served up to us in tiny bundles called molecules, which, when torn apart in our bodies by the processes of digestion and assimilation release the captured energy which warms us with heat brought from the sun and shines out in human thought and action. it is less than a century since liebig and lehmann and their pupils began to unravel the mystery of food. in recent years no subject has received more assiduous attention from scientific men, and none has been made the object of more constant or more profound research than the questions of food and food supply. the feeding of animals and men is without question the most pressing and vital of all economic problems. the labors of voit and pettenkofer, rubner, zuntz, atwater, benedict, chittenden, mendel, lusk and hindhede have demonstrated that there is the closest relation between food supply or food selection and human efficiency. in fact, it has been clearly shown that the quality of the food intake is just as directly and as closely related to the question of human efficiency as is the quality and quantity of gasoline to the efficiency of an automobile. in fact it has been established as a fundamental principle in human physiology that food is fuel. life is a combustion process. the human body is a machine which may be likened to a locomotive--it is a self-controlling, self-supporting, self-repairing mechanism. as the locomotive rushes along the iron road, pulling after it a thousand-ton cargo of produce or manufactured wares or human freight sufficient to start a town or stock a political convention its enormous expenditure of energy is maintained by the burning of coal from the tender which is replenished at every stopping place. the snorting-monster at the head of the rushing procession gets hungry and has to have a lunch every few miles along the way. after a run of a hundred miles or so the engine leaves the train and goes into a roundhouse for repairs; an iron belt has dropped out or a brass nut has been shaken off. every lost or damaged part of the metal leviathan is replaced, and then it is ready for another century run. the human body is wonderfully like the locomotive. it pulls or carries loads, it expends energy, it consumes fuel and has to stop at meal stations to coal up; it has to go off duty periodically for repairs. the body needs just what the locomotive needs--fuel to furnish energy and material for repair of the machinery. food differs from fuel chiefly in the one particular, that in each little packet of food done up by mother nature there is placed along with the fuel for burning a tiny bit of material to be used for repair of the machine. in other words, food represents in its composition both the coal and the metal repair materials of the locomotive. the starch, sugar and fat of foods are the coal and the protein or albumin is the metal repair stuff. here we see at once the reason why starch and sugar and fat are so abundant in our foodstuffs, while protein or albumin is in quantity a minor element. but there are other differences between food and common fuel which are worthy of mention. the water and the salts are essential to meet the body's needs, especially the various mineral elements, lime, soda, potash and iron. all these we must have--lime for the bones and nerves, soda and potash to neutralize the harmful acid products of combustion processes, and iron for the blood. all these are found in normal foodstuffs, but in greatly varying proportions, so that a pretty large variety of foods must be eaten to make sure that each of the different food principles required for perfect nutrition are supplied in ample quantity. in recent years science has discovered another and most surprising property of food in which it transcends all other fuel substances as a diamond from the transvaal outshines a lump of coal. natural food contains vitamines. it has long been known that an exclusive rice diet sometimes causes beri-beri, a form of general neuritis, and that a diet of dry cereals and preserved food in time gives rise to scurvy, but the reason was a profound mystery. in very recent years it has been learned that the real cause of beri-beri and scurvy is the lack of vitamines which are associated with the bran of cereals and so are removed in the process of polishing rice and in the bolting of wheat and other grains. vitamines do not enter into the composition of the body as do other food principles, but they are somehow necessary to activate or render active the various subtle elements which are essential to good nutrition. there are several kinds of vitamines. some are associated with the bran of cereals, other with the juices of fruits. some are easily destroyed by heat, while others survive a boiling temperature. the discovery of vitamines must stand as one of the most masterly achievements of modern science, even outshining in brilliancy the discovery of radium. it was only by the most persevering efforts and the application of all the refinements of modern chemical technic that the chemist, funk, was able to capture and identify this most subtle but marvelously potent element of the food. this discovery has cleared up a long category of medical mysteries. we now know not only the cause of beri-beri and scurvy and the simple method of cure by supplying vitamine-containing foods, but within a very short time it has been shown that rickets and pellagra are likewise deficiency diseases, probably due to lack of vitamines, and in a recent discussion before the new york academy of medicine by funk, holt, jacobi and others, it was maintained that vast multitudes of people are suffering from disorders of nutrition due to the same cause. osborne a few years ago conducted experiments which demonstrated that something more than pure food elements and salts is essential for growth and development. they found that rats fed on starch and fat lived only four to eight weeks. when protein was added they sometimes lived and grew and sometimes remained stunted or died. it was thus evident that proteins differ. their observations proved very clearly that there are perfect and imperfect proteins. the protein of corn, zein, for example, was shown to be incapable of supporting life. with the addition of a chemical fraction, tryptophan, obtained from another protein, the rats lived, but did not grow. by adding another fractional protein, lysin, the rats were made to thrive. a minute study of the subject by osborne, mendel and numerous other physiologic chemists have shown that a perfect protein is composed of more than a dozen different bodies called amino-acids, each of which must be present in the right proportion to enable the body to use the protein in body building. each plant produces its one peculiar kind of protein. the protein of milk, caseine, is a perfect protein. eggs and meat, of course, supply complete proteins, but among plants there are many imperfect proteins. mccollum has demonstrated that grains, either singly or in combination will not maintain life and growth. the same is true of a mixture of grains with peas or navy beans. another element is lacking which must be supplied to support life and growth. with these facts before us we are prepared to inquire what place in the dietary are nuts prepared to fill? with few exceptions nuts contain little carbohydrate (starch or sugar). they are, however, rich in fat and protein. on account of their high fat content they are the most highly concentrated of all natural foods. a pound of nuts contains on an average more than , calories or food units, double the amount supplied by grains, four times as much as average meats and ten times as much as average fruits or vegetables. for example, according to jaffi's table, ten of our common nuts contain on an average . per cent. of protein, per cent. of fat and per cent. of carbohydrate, as shown in the following table: protein fat carbohydrate almonds . . . peanuts . . . filberts . . . hickory . . . pine nut . . . walnut . . . pecan . . . butternut . . . beechnut . . . chestnut . . . ------ ------ ------ average . . . meat (round steaks) gives . per cent. of protein and . per cent. of fat, with no carbohydrate. a pound of average nuts contains the equivalent of a pound of beefsteak, and in addition, nearly half a pound of butter and a third of a loaf of bread. a nut is, in fact, a sort of vegetable meat. its composition is much the same as that of fat meat, only it is in much more concentrated form. there can be no doubt that the nut is a highly concentrated food. the next question naturally is, can the body utilize the energy stored in nuts as readily as that supplied by meat products, for example. the notion that nuts are difficult of digestion has really no foundation in fact. the idea is probably the natural outgrowth of the custom of eating nuts at the close of a meal when an abundance, more likely a super-abundance, of highly nutritious foods has already been eaten, and the equally injurious custom of eating nuts between meals. neglect of thorough mastication must also be mentioned as a possible cause of indigestion following the use of nuts. nuts are generally eaten dry and have a firm hard flesh which requires thorough use of the organs of mastication to prepare them for the action of the several digestive juices. experiments made in germany showed that nuts are not digested at all, but pass through the alimentary canal like foreign bodies unless reduced to a smooth paste before swallowing. particles of nuts the size of small seeds wholly escaped digestion. having been for more than fifty years actively interested in promoting the use of nuts as a staple food, i have given considerable thought and study to their dietetic value and have made many experiments. about twenty-five years ago it occurred to me that one of the above objections to the extensive dietetic use of nuts might be overcome by mechanical preparation of the nut before serving so as to reduce it to a smooth paste and thus insure the preparation for digestion which the average eater is prone to neglect. my first experiments were with the peanut. the result was a product which i called peanut butter. i was much surprised at the readiness with which the product sprang into public favor. several years ago i was informed by a wholesale grocer of chicago that the firm's sales of peanut butter amounted on an average to a carload a week. i think it is safe to estimate that not less than one thousand carloads of this product are annually consumed in this country. the increased demand for peanuts for making peanut butter led to the development of "corners" in the peanut market, and more than doubled the price of the shelled nuts and to a marked degree influenced the annual production. the nut butter idea also caught on in england. i am citing my experience with the peanut not for the purpose of recommending this product, for i am obliged to confess that i was soon compelled to abandon the use of peanut butter prepared from roasted nuts for the reason that the process of roasting renders the nut indigestible to such a degree that it was not adapted to the use of invalids. i only mention the circumstance as an illustration of the readiness with which the public accepts a new dietetic idea when it happens to strike the popular fancy. ways may be found to render the use of nuts practical by adapting them to our culinary and dietetic customs and to overcome the popular objections to their use by a widespread and efficient campaign of education. other nuts, when crushed, made most delicious "butters," as easily digestible as cream, since they did not require roasting. i later found ways for preparing the peanut without roasting. the fats of nuts, their chief food principle, are the most digestible of all forms of fat. having a low melting point they are far more digestible than most animal fats. hippocrates noted that the stearin of eels was difficult of digestion. the indigestibility of beef and mutton fat has long been recognized. the fat of nuts much more closely resembles human fat than do fats of the sort mentioned. the importance of this will be appreciated when attention is called to the fact that fats entering the body do not undergo the transformation changes which take place in other foodstuffs; for example, protein in the process of digestion is broken into its ultimate molecular units. starch is transformed into sugar which serves as fuel to the body, but fats are so slightly modified in the process of digestion and absorption that after reaching the blood and the tissues they are reconstructed into the original form in which they are eaten, that is, beef fat is deposited in the tissues as beef fat without undergoing any chemical change whatever; mutton fat is deposited as mutton fat; lard as pig fat, etc. when the body makes its own fat from starch or sugar, the natural source of this tissue element, the product formed is _sui generis_ and must be better adapted to the body uses than the animal fat which was _sui generis_ to a pig, a sheep or a goat. it is certainly a pleasant thought that one who rounds out his figure with the luscious fatness of nuts may felicitate himself upon the fact that his tissues are participating in the sweetness of the nut rather than the relic of the sty and the shambles. it is also worthy of note that the fat of nuts exists in a finely divided state, and that in the chewing of nuts a fine emulsion is produced so that nut fats enter the stomach in a form best adapted for prompt digestion. another question which will naturally arise is this: if nuts are to be granted the place of a staple in our list of food supplies will it be safe to accept them as a substitute for flesh foods? beef steak has become almost a fetish with many people, but the experiments of chittenden and others have demonstrated that the amount of protein needed by the body daily is so small that it is scarcely possible to arrange a bill of fare to include flesh foods without making the protein intake excessive. this is because the ordinary foodstuffs other than meat contain a sufficient amount of protein to meet the needs of the body. nuts present their protein in combination with so large a proportion of easily digestible fat that there is comparatively little danger of getting an excess. it is also worthy of note that the protein of nuts is superior in quality to that of grains and vegetables. the critically careful analyses made in recent years have shown that the proteins of nuts, at least of a number of them, contain all the elements needed for building up complete body proteins, in other words, nuts furnish perfect proteins, which are not supplied so abundantly by any other vegetable product. this fact places the nut in an exceedingly important position as a foodstuff. in face of vanishing meat supplies it is most comforting to know that meats of all sorts may be safely replaced by nuts not only without loss, but with a decided gain. nuts have several advantages over flesh foods which are well worth considering. . nuts are free from waste products, uric acid, urea, carmine and other tissue wastes. . nuts are aseptic, free from putrefactive bacteria and do not readily undergo decay either in the body or outside of it. meats, on the other hand, are practically always in an advanced stage of putrefaction, as found in the meat markets. ordinarily meats contain from three million to ten times that number of bacteria per ounce, and such meats as hamburger steak often contain more than a billion putrefactive organisms to the ounce. nuts are clean and sweet. . nuts are free from trichinae, tapeworm and other parasites, as well as the infections due to specific disease. nuts are in good health when gathered and remain so until eaten. the contrast between the delectable product of the beautiful walnut, chestnut or pecan tree and the abattoir recalls the story of the tennessee school teacher who was told when she made inquiry about a certain shoulder of pork which had been promised in part payment of services, but had not arrived: "dad didn't kill the pig." "and why not," said the teacher. "because," replied the observing youngster, "he got well." nearly all the cows slaughtered are tuberculous. they are killed to be eaten because too sick to longer serve as community wet nurses. that nuts are competent to serve as staple foods might be inferred from a fact to which professor matthews, of the new york museum of natural history, calls attention to, to wit, that our remote ancestors, the first mammals, were all nut and fruit eaters. they may have gobbled an insect now and then, but their staple food was fruits and nuts, with tender shoots and succulent roots, which is still true of those old fashioned forest folks, the primates of which the orang outang, the chimpanzee and the gorilla are consistent representatives, while their near relative, also a primate, civilized man, has departed from his original bill of fare and has exploited the bills of fare of the whole animal kingdom. the keeper of the famous big apes of the london zoo informed me that they were never given meat. even the small monkeys generally regarded as insectivorous, were confined to a rigid vegetarian fare and were thriving. whole races of men, comprising many millions, live their entire lives without meats of any sort, and when fed a sufficient amount are wonderfully vigorous, prolific, enduring and intelligent. witness the brahmins of india, the buddists of china and japan and the teeming millions of central africa. carl mann, the winner of the great walking match between berlin and dresden, performed his great feat on a diet of nuts with lettuce and fruits. the finn kilmamen, the world's greatest runner, eats no meat. weston, the long-distance champion, never eats meat when taking a long walk. the faramahara indians, the fleetest and most enduring runners in the world are strict vegetarians. the gorilla, the king of the congo forests, is a nut feeder. milo, the mighty greek, was a flesh abstainer, as was also pythagoras, the first of the greek philosophers, seneca, the noble roman senator, and plutarch, the famous biographer. the writer has excluded meat from his diet for more than fifty years, and has within the last forty years, supervised the treatment of more than a hundred thousand sick people at the battle creek sanitarium on a meatless diet. even carnivorous animals nourish on a diet of nuts with other vegetable foods and cooked cereals. the turks mix nuts with their pilaff of rice and the armenians add nuts to their baalghoor, a dish prepared from wheat which has been cooked and dried. that nuts are not only competent to serve as a staple food, but that they may fill a very important place as accessory foods in supplementing the imperfect proteins of the grains and vegetables is shown in a very conclusive way by an extended research by dr. hoobler, of detroit. before describing dr. hoobler's experiment i may be allowed to explain that some years ago, in , i was asked by the then united states secretary of agriculture to undertake experiments for the purpose of providing a vegetable substitute for meat. dr. dabney said there was no doubt that the time would come when such substitutes would be needed on account of the scarcity of meat. i succeeded in developing several products which have come to be quite widely known and used more or less extensively in this country and europe. among these were protose (resembling potted meat) and malted nuts, a soluble product somewhat resembling malted milk. it was noted that the malted nuts when used by nursing mothers greatly increased the flow of milk and promoted the health of the infant. recently dr. hoobler undertook an extensive feeding experiment with nursing mothers and wet nurses as subjects. he made use of these nut preparations as well as of ordinary nuts and compared the results with various combinations into which meat and milk entered in various proportions. he found that a diet of fruits, grains and vegetables alone gave a very poor quality of milk, but when nuts were added the result was a milk supply superior in quantity and quality to any other combination of foodstuffs, not excepting those which included liberal quantities of milk, meat and eggs. from this it appears that nuts possess such superior qualities as supplementary or accessory foods that they are able to replace not only meats, but even eggs and milk in the dietary. the full account of dr. hoobler's interesting observations will be found in the journal of the american medical association for august , . extensive feeding experiments are now being conducted at the research laboratory of the battle creek sanitarium, which it is hoped will develop still other points of interest respecting the superior nutritive properties of the choicest and most remarkable of all the food products which are handed to us from the fertile laboratory of the vegetable world. another and most interesting phase of my subject is the relation of nut feeding to anaphylaxis. this newly coined word perhaps needs explanation for the benefit of my lay hearers. for many years it has been known that some persons were astonishingly sensitive to certain foods which indeed appeared to act as violent poisons. oysters, shellfish, mutton, fish and other animal products, as well as a few vegetable products, especially honey, strawberries and buckwheat, were most likely to be the cause of these violent disturbances. more recently it has been found that cow's milk very often shows the same peculiarity. it is now known that this remarkable phenomenon is due to the fact that the body sometimes becomes sensitized to certain proteins which thereafter act as most violent poisons and may cause death. sensitization to animal proteins is much the more frequent. in such cases nut products become a very precious resource. this is especially true with reference to cow's milk. liquid nut preparations have saved the lives of hundreds of infants within the last twenty years. i have had the pleasure of meeting several fine looking young people who owed their lives to nut-feeding when other resources had failed. one case was particularly interesting. a telegram from a well-known senator at washington announced the fact that his infant daughter and only child was dying from mal-nutrition, as cow's milk and all the known infant foods had been found to disagree. i advised nut-feeding, and fortunately the prescription suited the case and the little one began to improve at once. when the physician in attendance learned that the child was eating nuts he vigorously protested, declaring that such a diet was preposterous and would certainly kill the infant, but the child flourished wonderfully on the liquid nut diet, eating almost nothing else for the first three years of her life, and today is a splendidly developed young woman, a brilliant witness to the food value of nuts. i have by no means exhausted the physiologic phases of my subject, but will now turn a moment in concluding my paper, to its economic aspects. the high price of nuts is constantly urged as an objection to their use as a staple. it is probable that a largely increased demand would lead to so great an increase in the supply that the cost of production, and hence the cost to the consumer, would be decreased. but even at the present prices the choicest varieties of nuts are cheaper than meats if equivalent food values are compared. this is clearly shown by the following table which indicates the amounts of various flesh foods which are equivalent to one pound of walnut meats. beef loin, lean . pounds beef ribs, lean . " beef neck, lean . " veal . " mutton leg, lean . " ham, lean . " fowls . " chicken, broilers . " red bass . " trout . " frogs' legs . " oysters . " lobsters . " eggs . " milk . " evaporated cream . " but the great economic importance of the encouragement of nut culture in every civilized land is best shown by comparing the amount of food which may be annually produced by an acre of land planted to nut trees and the same area devoted to the production of beef. i am credibly informed that two acres of land and two years are required to produce a steer weighing pounds. the product of one acre for one year would be one-fourth as much, or pounds of steer. the same land planted to walnut trees would produce, if i am correctly informed, an average of at least pounds per tree per annum for the first twenty years. forty trees to the acre would aggregate , pounds of nuts, or , pounds of walnut meats. the highest food value which could be ascribed to the pounds of beef would be , calories or food units. the food value of the nut meats would be , , calories, or twenty times as much food from the nut trees as from the fattened steer, and food of the same general character, protein and fat, but of superior quality. one acre of walnut trees will produce every year food equal to: , lbs. red bass (a ship load). , " beef (five steers). , " chicken broilers. , " lobsters. , " oysters. , eggs ( , dozen). , qts. milk. a ton of mutton ( sheep). , frogs. and when one acre will do so much, think of the product of a million acres. ten times the product of all the fisheries of the country. half as much as all the poultry of the country. one seventh as much as all the beef produced. more than twice the value of all the sheep. half as much as all the pork. and many millions of acres may be thus utilized in nut culture. and the walnut is not the only promising food tree. the hickory, the pecan, the butternut, the filbert and the piñon are all capable of producing equal or greater results. a single acre of nut trees will produce protein enough to feed four persons a year and fat enough for twice that number of average persons. so , , acres of nut trees would more than supply the whole people of the united states with their two most expensive food stuffs. cereals and fresh vegetables, our cheapest foods, would be needed for the carbohydrate portion of the dietary. just think of it. a little nut orchard miles square supplying one-third enough food to feed one hundred million of citizens. the trouble is the frogs and cattle are eating up our food supplies. we feed a steer pounds of food and get back only . pounds. if we plant pounds of corn we get back pounds. if we plant one walnut we get back in twenty harvests a ton of choicest food. in nut culture there is a treasury of wealth and health and national prosperity and safety that is at present little appreciated. * * * * * here is a veritable treasury of wealth, a potential food supply which may save the world from any suggestion of hunger for centuries to come if properly utilized. every man who cuts down a timber tree should be required to plant a nut tree. a nut tree has a double value. it produces valuable timber and yields every year a rich harvest of food while it is growing. every highway should be lined with nut trees. nut trees will grow on land on which no other crop will grow and which is even worthless for grazing. the piñon flourishes in the bleak and barren peaks of the rockies. the nut should no longer be considered a table luxury. it should become a staple article of food and may most profitably replace the pork and meats of various sorts which are inferior foods and are recognized as prolific sources of disease. * * * * * ten nut trees planted for each inhabitant will insure the country against any possibility of food shortage. a row of nut trees on each side of our , , miles of country roads will provide for a population of , , . with a vanishing animal industry, nut culture offers the only practical solution of the question of food supply. as the late prof. virchow said, "the future is with the vegetarians." the importance of nut growing. h. w. collingwood, new jersey. in these days the importance of most things is valued in figures. i never was good at figures. it seems to me that you can do anything you like with figures, except make them clear, yet it was the failure to figure that gave me my first idea of the importance of nut culture. some years ago a small boy on a new england farm could not, or would not, do his sums in the old coburn arithmetic. it made no difference that the teacher called it mathematics, and pointed it with the end of a hickory stick. by any other name it was not sweet. this boy got stuck on a question about a hare and a hound. it appeared that the hare jumped a rod at a time, and made jumps a minute. the hound started feet behind the hare. this hound made ft. at a jump, and made / jumps a minute. now, would the hound catch the hare before they got to a hickory tree half a mile away? i am glad they introduced that hickory tree because the question was a hard nut at best and needed brain food. i couldn't tell where the hare would be, and i can't now; nor do i believe that some of you wise heads, grown hairless with constant thinking, could really tell how the hare came out. if i saw one of my children headed for me with such a problem in hand, i confess that i should make a prompt engagement outside. the old folks who brought me up, had sterner ways of enforcing education. they decided that the boy should live on brown bread and water until he did that example. in order to assist hunger in bringing the boy to it, after the first day showed that the boy was still going, the old gentleman hunted up all the axes and hatchets, scythes and knives on the place, and made the boy turn grindstone while he held the implements on. greek met greek. the boy wouldn't give in, and the old man couldn't and preserve his dignity, but try as he might the old man could not tire out the boy; the old hands gave out first, and the old man straightened his back and gazed at that wonderful boy. now it wasn't in brown bread and water to sustain strength and will in that way. not when there are baked beans for supper and you can smell them! the old man had to acknowledge a higher power which beat him. he wouldn't do it openly, that was not the new england way, but he did it on the second night by helping the boy to baked beans and fried potatoes without a word. the old man went to his death thinking that he had a most wonderful boy, and the little fellow did not give his secret away. now we may have it as a slight contribution to the importance of nut culture. the sustaining power which carried the boy through his trial was the hickory nut. there was a pile of them in the attic, and the boy on the quiet, cracked and ate a quart of them every day. that boy could not spell protein to save his life, and carbo-hydrates would have scared him off the floor, but the nuts and the brown bread gave him a balanced ration which did everything except find out about the hound and the hare. i think it would have required a balanced ration fed to an unbalanced brain to settle that problem. now i think the importance of the nut industry must come to the general public in that way, through the stomach rather than through the mind. the human mind is a marvelous piece of mental machinery, so is the machine which sets type or weaves fine cloth, yet both are powerless unless the fire pot under the engine, or the stomach of the man, are kept filled with fuel or food. i have heard very old men tell of the prejudice which existed against coal, years ago, in new england, when attempts were made to introduce the new fuel. cord wood was the local fuel, people knew what it was, and its preparation provided a local industry. the introduction of coal meant destruction for this local business of wood cutting, and wiped out the value of many a farm. coal had to win its way against prejudice and local interest, and it only won out by showing power. i am sure that years ago, if some visionary yankee had said that coal would be so freely used in new england that cord wood would be almost unsaleable, the public would surely have given him that honorary title which goes with prospective and persistent knowledge, "nut." in like manner the importance of nut growing will not be truly recognized until we can show a man in the most practical way that nuts provide the energy to be found in beef steak. it is said that knowledge creates an atmosphere in which prejudice cannot live. i know an old man who is absolutely settled in his conviction that new england has degenerated because her people have given up eating baked beans and cod fish balls, and introduced the sale of these delicacies in the west. that man says, with convincing logic, that in the old days when new england lived on brown bread and baked beans, we produced statesmen on every rocky hillside, and we dominated the thought of the nation. now, he says, we have not developed one single statesman since the canned baked bean industry took our specialty away from us. the only way to convince him is to produce a dozen statesmen out of men who are willing to subscribe to a diet of nuts. i have a friend who says he feels like throwing a brick every time he passes a modern laundry. he says the invention of the linen collar kept him a poor man. his grandfather invested the family fortune in the stock of a paper collar factory. many of our older men remember the time when we all wore paper collars, and bought them by the dozen in boxes. it seemed like a sure thing when the old man put all his money into it. he figured that by there would be , people in this country, each one wearing at least paper collars a year, something like the hound and the hare, perhaps, but he didn't know that the hare in this case would drop dead, and the hound double his jump, as happened to paper and linen collars. some one invented the modern linen collar. the laundry service started up, and paper collars disappeared with the family fortune. now, my friend must work for a living, and throw mental bricks at the laundry. in a way every new habit, or every new interference with the thought and method of the plain people must run the gauntlet and submit to just such violent changes. now the future of the nut business, which contains the importance of the industry, depends upon our ability to make the plain, common people understand that in the future we must cut our beef steak and our chops off a nut tree. we have made some of the brainy people understand this already, but the hound is still chasing the hare, and he is several jumps behind. you may say what you will, or think as highly as you like of your own place in society, but the world is not run or pushed on by the brainy people. they may steer it for a while and master it, but only at the permission of what i may call the stomach people, who always sooner or later rise up and dominate things. a gild-edged, red line edition of nut knowledge will get the few or select class, but in order to make the industry truly important we must make a homely appeal to the plain people. it seems to me that one of the most effective nut documents yet issued is that bulletin by george carver, a colored man at the tuskegee institute. carver simply makes his appeal to the southern farmer, and he gives him ways of cooking and eating peanuts. i rather think that carver's work in trying to get the southern negroes to eat more peanuts and more cow-peas has done about as much for the race as the academic instruction given in the college. on the principle that "like begets like," i feel sure that the continued practice of cracking the shell to get at the sweet meat inside will tend to put more phosphorus and less lime into the skull of the race. i once explained the nut proposition to an energetic man and he said: "fine--the theory is perfect--now hire a man who lives on rare beef to get out and fight for your proposition and you will put it over!" last year i went up into new york state with a prominent public man, who was to make a speech. this man was delayed, and in order to get there he had to jump on the last platform of the last car. he had eaten no lunch, and only a light breakfast. he said he should surely fail in his speech because he was faint from lack of food. i asked him what he would eat if he had the chance. he said soup, half a chicken, potatoes and asparagus, and apple pie. i told the train boy to bring samples of everything he had, and we finally selected an apple from oregon, a banana from mexico, a box of figs from california, some pop corn from massachusetts, chocolate from venezuela, and salted nuts from louisiana. the air and the sunshine and the water seemed to be produced in new york, but nothing else. a great dinner for a new york man, but to his surprise it satisfied him, took the place of the chicken, and carried him through his speech with a strong punch. it seems to me that one trouble with our nut propaganda is that we go at it in such a way that the pupils regard us somewhat as "nuts," and why should the man who becomes a specialist on any subject, and airs it on all occasions, be called a nut? we shall have to admit that men are called such names. i think it is because we let our brains work somewhat like the oyster or clam, and secrete a hard shell of formal knowledge around the sweet meat of condensed human nature, for that is what all useful knowledge is. we must crack our shell of formal knowledge and grind it up finer before we can put it into the think works of the plain people. while i was working up the apple consumers' league some years ago, i ran upon the fact that corbett, the prize-fighter, consumed dishes of apple sauce every day while training. now, i had used the statement that j. p. morgan always had a baked apple for his lunch, but i got small results from that story. few people ever expected to make millions, and morgan was out of their class. every man carried a punch, which he wanted to enlarge and make effective. if corbett used apple sauce to oil his arm for a knock-out blow, every man with red blood wanted apples. now we must work our nut campaign in some such popular way, if we expect to put a nut on the wheel of progress. the fact that prof. johnson, or dr. jackson, or the rev. thompson, or judge dixon, or senator harrison, find strength and comfort from eating nuts, is very important and very pleasant, but per cent of our people never expect to enter the learned profession, and they must not get the idea that these professions stand around the full use of nuts like a barbed wire fence. most men must live and work in the rough and tumble of life, and at present they think red meat is the sustaining power for that sort of stuff. we must change their point of view. let us find athletes, baseball men, wrestlers, fighters, runners, men who stand well in popular sports and who will publicly state that they substitute nuts for meat in part at least. we must put this thing into the popular imagination of the plain people if it is to be of full importance. when some fellow with a new brand of cigarettes wants to develop a trade among young men, he gets some noted ball player to write a letter stating his love for that brand. i think we should follow that plan somewhat in putting our nut campaign before the people. two years ago the oregon agricultural college sent a football team east. the college was almost unknown here, but i asked one or two football men about it. they laughed at these pacific coast athletes. here was a college they said which had issued a bulletin advising the people to send their children to school with nut sandwiches instead of meat. this man said that such training could only result in puny, half grown men, and he doubted if this team would last half way across the country. those oregon boys lined up a team of giants. they simply wiped the earth with most teams of their class, and left behind the cracked shells of a long line of reputation, with the sweet meat well picked out. personally i believe that within years, at the latest, our people will be absolutely forced to accept a diet of nuts in place of our present proportion of meat. as i see it, the time is coming when increased population and shortage of available land will make prime, beef nearly as scarce as turkey and venison are today. not only so, but i think knowledge will slowly but surely lead men to change their diet from choice. my children will live to see the time when the acre nut orchard on the average farm will be considered just as useful and as much of a necessity, and far more profitable, than the present chicken yard. in that day i think the nut industry will rank in food importance second only to that of corn, and i believe that the greatest change will be found here in new england, for i believe that nut culture is to change history, and readjust population and industry to some extent. frankly, i expect my children to live to see the time when the hickory nut in new england will rank far above the walnut industry in california or in france. i think this nut culture will, in time, bring a greater income to the new england states than all its fruits and grain combined today. out in the wild woods on some new england hillside there are growing today strains or varieties of nuts which will do far more for this section than the baldwin apple, or the bartlett pear have ever done. they will be found, tamed and propagated. you may, if you like, call me a dreamer, or what is the same thing, a "nut." i can stand that, for have i not in my short span of life seen dreams come true. suppose the wandering hunter, or the farmer's boy, who discovered the baldwin apple in the woods of massachusetts, had gone back to his home and stated that the time would come when this beautiful red fruit would grow wherever it found a suitable climate, that it would revolutionize horticulture, bring millions of dollars to new england, and find its way throughout the world wherever the sails of commerce are blown. they might have hung him as a witch or dreamer, and yet, his dream would be no more improbable than what i say of nut culture in new england. i have seen the telephone, the flying machine, the gasoline engine, all grow from the vain dream of a crazy inventor to public necessities, and as surely as fate the nut industry is to bring back to the old hillsides of new england much of the profit and the glory of old days. the proper place of nut trees in the planting program. by c. a. reed, nut culturist, u. s. department of agriculture. in the planting of trees for most purposes, it is now possible to exercise practically the same degree of choice with regard to special fitness as is employed in the selection of men for positions or tools for a piece of work. the fruit grower in every part of the country has his special species and pomological varieties from which to choose. the foresters and landscape gardeners have their species and botanical varieties or improved strains to pick from. among the important purposes for which trees are planted the production of native nuts is singularly behind. the leading species of native nut-bearing trees include the hickories, the walnuts, the chestnuts, the pines, and the beech. of these, one of the hickories, the pecan, is the only species which has so far been developed by cultivation as to become of importance for the production of an orchard product. the timber of the pecan is less valuable than is that of most other hickories, and is in commercial use only as second-class material. however, it is the most important species of nut-bearing tree in the united states. its native and introduced range includes the fertile lands of the plains of practically the entire southeastern quarter of the country. it is neither an upland nor a wet land tree. in the united states it is not found in the mountainous sections, nor, to any important extent, south of middle florida. in mexico, it is occasionally found on mountain sides at considerable elevations and by some is supposed to be there indigenous. however, according to "pomological possibilities of texas," written by gilbert onderdonk, of nursery, texas, and published by the state department of agriculture in , its success at those altitudes is vitally dependent upon the water supply. in each case investigated by mr. onderdonk, while upon official trips made for the united states department of agriculture, he found the pecan trees to be adjacent to some stream, either natural or artificial. "at bustamente," says mr. onderdonk, "one hundred and seven miles beyond laredo, are pecan trees two hundred years old that have been watered all their lives and have continued productive. from these trees, grown from texas pecans, pecan culture has been extended until there are now thousands of thrifty pecan trees under irrigation. one owner of a small lot sold his water right when his trees were about seventy-five years old, and when the writer visited his grounds fourteen years later, every one of his trees was either dead or dying." we may yet find the pecan to be suitable for plateau or mountain land growth, but as mr. onderdonk reports was the case in mexico, it is also the case here. the species must have ample water. with the proper amount of moisture, neither too much nor yet too little, there is no way of predicting to what altitudes or even latitudes it may be taken. its northernmost points of native range are near davenport, iowa, and terre haute, indiana. iowa seed planted in , at south haven, michigan, on the eastern shore of lake michigan, at a latitude of about / degrees, have never been seriously affected by winter temperatures. however, they have fruited but little. so far as the writer can ascertain the crops of nuts have been insignificant both as regards quantity and character. dr. deming reports a large tree at hartford, conn., at a latitude of nearly degrees which, judging from a photograph which he took several years ago, was then feet in diameter and quite at home, so far as growth was concerned. other planted trees are fairly numerous along the atlantic coast between washington and new york. there is one in the southern part of lancaster county, pa., near colemanville, but so far as is known to the u. s. department of agriculture, important crops of nuts have never been realized from any of these northern trees. crops from the native trees in the bottoms north of latitude degrees or approximately that of washington, d. c., and vincennes, indiana, are fairly uncertain. northern nurserymen are now disseminating promising varieties of pecans from what has come to be known as the "indiana district," which includes the southwestern part of that state, northwestern kentucky and southwestern illinois. in many respects these varieties compare very favorably with the so-called "papershells" of the southern states. they are believed to be of very great promise for northern planting in sections to which they may be adapted. however, before any northern varieties are planted for commercial (orchard) purposes, they should be fully tested as to their adaptability in the particular section where the planting is to take place. the commercial propagation of northern varieties of pecans began less than ten years ago; the first attempts were not generally successful, and as a result there are no budded or grafted trees of northern varieties yet of bearing age. aside from the pecan there are no named pomological varieties of any native nut now being propagated, with very few exceptions. so far as these exceptions are concerned, it is probable that fewer than one hundred budded or grafted trees of such varieties are yet of bearing age, and of such as have attained the age at which fruit might be expected, exceedingly few have borne in paying quantities for any number of consecutive years. therefore, with reference to the planting of native nut species for profit, the truth of the situation is simply this: in the ordinary course of events, with the exception of the pecan, years of experimentation in the testing of varieties and in a study of their cultural requirements must be gone through before any native species of nut-bearing trees can be planted in any of the northern states with a certainty of commercial return from nuts alone which would be comparable with that of many other crops which already are upon a well established commercial basis in this part of the country. with reference to two of the foreign species of nuts which have been introduced, the situation is quite different. in order of commercial importance of the nuts now grown in this country, two foreign species, the persian (english) walnut and the almond, stand second and third, respectively, the pecan, which is an american species only, being first. with these exceptions, the foreign introductions are all in the experimental or test stage, and while possibly the european hazel (filbert) may now be making a strong bid for commercial recognition in the northwest, and the pistache in parts of california, neither species can yet be recommended for commercial planting. with the exception of a few hardshell varieties of almonds, which are practically as hardy as the peach and which are suitable only for home planting, as they are in no way to be compared with the almond of commerce, there is now no indication that this species is destined ever to be come of commercial importance east of the rocky mountains. the persian or so-called english walnut is of commercial importance in this county only in the far western states. in the south, it has thus far failed altogether. in the north and east it has held out gleams of hope, first bright, then dull, for more than a century. there is no way of telling the number of trees of this species which have been planted in the northeastern section of the country, but let us imagine it to have been sixty thousand. of these fully fifty per cent have succumbed to climatic conditions; twenty-five per cent have been but semi-hardy, and possibly twenty-five per cent have attained the bearing age. a part of each of the last two classes have borne crops of commercial size for a number of years. some have produced nuts of good size and quality. a great many of all those surviving are now proving susceptible to a walnut blight upon which mr. mcmurran is to report tomorrow. a liberal estimate of the present number of bearing persian walnut trees in this part of the country would be ten per cent of the original supposed sixty thousand or six thousand trees. of these, the writer has positive knowledge of none which are now bearing crops of nuts in such quantity, and of such size, and quality and with such regularity and which have so borne for such length of time as to encourage commercial planting. few of the eastern grown nuts are so free from tannin as to be really pleasing to the taste, or favorably comparable with the best nuts of the market. the writer is now closely watching the best known varieties which the nurserymen are putting out, but at the present time there is no variety which, in his judgment, should be commercially planted without further testing. the proper place for such partially improved species, as are most of the nut producers hardy in this section at the present time, is that in which they may be used for more than the single purpose of nut production. most of the species of the botanical family _juglandaceae_, to which the walnuts and hickories belong, are slow growers, and as such, are objectionable to the average planter. in answer to this, it may be said that among trees, slowness of growth is invariably associated with longevity of tree and its value when cut as timber. also, when due pains are taken, it is possible to select species which are exceedingly satisfactory in the landscape. several of the slides, which are to follow, illustrate the individual beauty of selected nut trees, and some show their effective use in the landscape. foresters are now advocating the planting of trees in waste places in the country, especially about farm buildings. there are, perhaps, no conspicuous waste places with a greater aggregate area than the strips along the public highway. in certain foreign countries, these strips are planted to fruit trees and the right of harvest awarded to the highest bidder. the revenue so obtained goes a long way toward keeping the highways in good condition. it is possible that this practice may sometime be introduced into the united states, but until public opinion is radically changed, the planting of fruit trees along the highways can not be expected to yield any satisfactory returns to the public. the experience of dr. morris who planted cherry trees along the public road past his farm here in connecticut, where we have just been, is typical of what, under present conditions, might be expected in any part of the country. when the cherries were ripe, automobile parties came for many miles to pick the fruit, and when that in the highway was gone, the cherries from the nearby orchard were taken. in both cases, the branches were broken down and the trees left in badly mangled condition. dr. morris then tried nursery-grown and expensive evergreens, but on sundays, automobile parties came again with spades and shovels and dug up the trees. the ratio of population to tillable land in this country is not such that, for a long time to come, the american people as a whole will be pressed into the using of highway land for the production of crops or into respecting the right of the public to harvest such crops as might be grown in its highways. therefore, for the present, except in densely populated, or in more than ordinarily well regulated communities, it would be useless to advocate the planting of ordinary fruit trees along the public roadways. irrespective of the possible value of their crops, fruit trees of most species are both too small and too short-lived to be suitable for highway planting. with nut trees, the situation is entirely different. the native walnuts, most species of hickories and the american beech are large-growing and long-lived trees. in addition, they are capable of withstanding severe temperatures; they are tough and strong and not liable to injury by storm or while being climbed by ordinary persons; and they readily adapt themselves to a wide range of soil, moisture, and climatic conditions. ordinary species of nut trees can not be recommended for the dual purpose of timber and nut production, as, for the former purpose, the trees should be planted close together in order to induce length and straightness of trunk with a minimum of top or bearing surface, while for the latter, they should be planted in the open and given space for the maximum development to bearing surface and a minimum length of trunk. the great demand for hickory in the making of axles, wheels, and other vehicle parts and handles for tools, and for walnut in the manufacture of furniture and gun stocks, makes it not only possible but common practice to use these woods in short lengths. therefore, both species planted along the highways and in other waste places might profitably be converted into their timber upon reaching maturity, if their crops of nuts should prove to be of small commercial value. the butternut, _j. cinerea_, is a less symmetrical grower than are the black walnuts. the timber is less valuable and the nuts are cracked with greater difficulty. nevertheless, it is the most hardy of any native species of _juglans_. its kernels are rich in quality and of a flavor more pleasing to some persons than that of any other nut. cracking the native butternut and marketing the kernels affords the rural people in many sections a fairly profitable means of employment during the winter months. its native range extends farther north than does that of either the eastern black walnut, or that of the shagbark hickory, _hicoria ovata_, and considerably beyond that of the shellbark hickory, _h. laciniosa_. therefore, in view of its hardiness, and the merit of its kernels, it is well worthy of consideration for planting in the most northern parts of the country. were it not for the blight which is now making practically a clean sweep of destruction over the eastern states, wherever the native chestnut is found, the american chestnut, _castanea dentata_, would certainly be entitled to leading consideration as a highway, an ornamental or a nut producing tree. unaffected by blight or other diseases, it is one of the largest-growing and most graceful species in the eastern united states. the european chestnut is nearly as susceptible to this blight as is the american species. the chestnuts from eastern asia now appear to be sufficiently immune to offer a practical solution to the situation by their introduction into this country. however, they commonly lack the sweet agreeable flavor of the american species and need hybridizing in order to improve their quality. this, the federal department of agriculture is now doing, and in due time, there may be something to offer in ample quantity which will make a satisfactory substitute for the native species. exclusive of the asiatic species and the government hybrids, there are now no available species which can be recommended for planting in the blight affected area, and these should be planted only for test purposes. the pines referred to at the outset of this article as being important nut producers are all western species found only on the mountains and nowhere under cultivation. there are at least fourteen american species. representatives are found in most of the rocky mountain states. the most important species is _pinus edulis_. it is found at altitudes of from five to seven thousand feet in the mountains of new mexico, arizona and northern mexico. in favorable years, the seeds are gathered in enormous quantities under the name of "piñons," or according to the mexicans, "pinyonies." the nuts are rich in flavor but small and difficult to extract from the shells. they are not well known in the eastern market, but in the southwest they form a highly important article of food for the indians and mexicans. these pines are exceedingly slow growers and not of graceful form. they could scarcely be considered for ornamental planting, except at the altitudes to which they are common, and then; probably, only where some more satisfactory shade trees would not succeed. among all american species of trees, it is probable that in a combination of beauty, longevity, strength and hardiness, the american beech, _fagus grandifolia_, is unexcelled. although commonly looked upon as being a northern species, its range extends south to northern florida and west to the trinity river in texas. it is most familiar as a clean-barked, spreading tree, with low head, and a height of from fifty to sixty feet. however, its form depends largely upon environment. the writer has seen it in the bottoms of southwestern georgia, in common with the magnolia, growing to a height of from seventy-five to one hundred feet and with trunks of two feet in diameter extending upward in a manner which, with regard to height and uniformity of size, compared favorably with the long-leafed georgia pine. the nuts of the beech are rich in quality and of excellent flavor, but owing to their small size and the great difficulty attending the extraction of the kernels, they are not ranked as being of direct importance for human food. their principal use in this country is as a mast crop for turkeys and swine, for which they serve a most useful purpose. crops which can be used in this manner to good advantage, thus practically obviating the problems of harvesting, storing and marketing, are certainly well worth thinking about in these days of labor scarcity. there are few large sections of the united states adapted to the growing of trees to which some nut-bearing species is not suited. most species of nut trees are as capable of producing shade and ornamental effect, and are as hardy and lasting as any others which might be mentioned. in addition, they produce an edible product which is entering into the list of staple food products with great rapidity. the present scarcity of meats and the consequent high prices are compelling the substitution of other products. the superiority of nuts over practically all other products which are available, as substitutes, scarcely needs argument. already, nuts are being pressed into service as rapidly as production permits, and perhaps more so than prices and comparative food values justify. singularly enough, this section of the united states, which is the oldest and most thickly populated portion of the country, and that within which the greatest number of edible species of nuts are indigenous, is today practically without pomological varieties for planting. within this area, individuals have made tests of species and varieties for many generations, yet little progress has resulted. the obvious need is for further test on a large scale. a better opportunity for the making of such a test could scarcely be imagined than that of highway planting. pomologists are firmly recommending the exclusive use of budded or grafted trees. but this advice applies only to orchard planting for the purpose of commercial production. until more and better varieties are known and their merits established, that portion of the country lying north of the pecan belt and east of the rocky mountains, must await the development and trial of new varieties. seedlings must be planted in large numbers from which to select varieties. the process is too slow and the percentage of varieties which may be expected to be worth while too small for it to be possible for the individual to make much headway during an ordinary lifetime. our present system of national highways by which all parts of the country are being connected is perfecting the opportunity. the general planting along these great national highways of elm, oak, poplar, tulip, cedar, hemlock, magnolia, pine or any other species which, unless cut, are capable of producing no crop other than that of shade, would hardly be in keeping with the present need for utility. it would be giving a questionable degree of thought to the welfare of future generations. to the list of nut trees as utility trees there might be added the sugar maple, and certain species of prolific-bearing oaks. the former could be drawn upon for the making of syrup and sugar, and the acorns from the latter could be put to good use as hog and turkey food. in wet sections, willows might prove useful from which to cut material for baskets, furniture, or tying bundles. a way of overcoming the objection of slow growth of some of the nut species might be the alternate planting of quick-growing species which would furnish shade in a minimum length of time, and which could be cut for pulp or other purposes by the time the nut trees reach maturity. a practical objection to highway planting of nut trees is that unless cared for, such trees are in danger of becoming breeding places for diseases and insect pests which would quickly spread to nearby orchards. however, such planting in numbers too small to be worth caring for is not to be considered. already the country is agreed that the maintaining of the middle of the road in such condition that it can render maximum service is a paying investment. the suggestion here made is only as the next step in highway investment. it is a proposition to make more comfortable and attractive the present system of roadways, and at the same time to help develop new varieties of nut trees for orchard planting. unless such new varieties are soon to become available, a large part of the country will presently find itself dependent upon outside sources for its principal substitute for meat and its main supply of vegetable fats. a little thought should be able to work out a sound program for the planting of utility trees on practically every highway in this country. since this manuscript was completed, attention has been called to a reference to a war use of the horse chestnut, which appears on page of the july number of "my garden," a monthly publication, with headquarters at bouverie street, fleet street, london. as the heading "new use for horse chestnuts," and its sub-head "cereal saving," both indicate it may be of interest to the american people, although the production of horse chestnuts in this country is not large. the article which is credited to the times, is as follows: "an important war time use has been found for horse chestnuts by the systematic collection and transport of all the nuts that can be obtained to the centre where they can be utilized. up to the present time cereals have been necessary for the production of an article of great importance in the prosecution of the war. under the direction of the food (war) committee of the royal society, which acts for and in consultation with the royal commission on wheat supplies, the minister of food, and the minister of munitions, experiments have been carried out during the winter to find a substitute for these cereals, and thus to set them free for food supplies. brilliant work has ended in the difficulties being overcome, and the proof that the seeds of the horse chestnuts answer the purpose admirably. except as food for deer and goats the seeds have, in the past, been practically a waste crop, and they can be used instead of cereals, essential for human consumption, without interfering with any existing industry or interest. "the organization for the collection and transport of all that can be obtained is being rapidly perfected. when the time comes it will be the privilege and duty of every owner of a tree or trees to help and to give facilities for the collection of the nuts. every ton of chestnuts collected will set free an equivalent amount of grain. the tree being chiefly grown for ornamental purposes occurs most freely in towns and private gardens. in some towns it is the practice to remove the young nuts from the trees in july so as to prevent them from being stoned and broken by boys later on when the "conker" demand begins. urban authorities and park-keepers must discontinue the practice this year. chestnut day, early in next autumn, will have a far wider observance and significance this year than any chestnut sunday at bushey, or than arbor day over here, or even in america. for once the small boy will collect the nuts with the full approval of the owner. "to prevent any misapprehension it should perhaps be made clear that the horse chestnuts will not themselves be used as food. they are required for another purpose altogether, and the only way in which they will help the food supplies of the country is by setting free cereals which have now to be consumed in the production of a necessary article." * * * * * thursday, sept. , . meeting called to order at . a. m. the nominating committee reported the renomination of all the officers. the secretary was instructed to cast one vote for these candidates. [carried.] moved and carried that the selection of the time and place for next meeting to be left to the executive committee with especial consideration of a joint meeting with the national association at albany, georgia. some insects injuring-nut trees. by w. e. britton, state entomologist, connecticut. nut-bearing trees, like other kinds of trees, are attacked by insect pests. some kinds are seriously injured by them; others scarcely at all. some of these insects are borers in the trunk and branches; some devour the leaves; some feed inside the nuts and ruin them; some suck the sap from the stems and leaves. i shall make no attempt in this paper to enumerate these pests. time forbids. i shall only mention a few of the most obvious and most serious, and where possible, point out control measures. the walnut caterpillar. _datana integerrima_ g. & r. during the month of august clusters of blackish caterpillars bearing white hairs, may be seen stripping the terminal branches of black walnut, butternut and hickory trees. this is called the walnut caterpillar, and it has been very abundant in connecticut this season. many small trees have been entirely stripped and large ones almost defoliated. there is only one brood each year in connecticut, though two occur in the southern states, and the pupae winter in the ground. the adult is a reddish brown moth, having a wing-spread of about one and one-half inches. clipping off the twigs and crushing the mass of caterpillars is perhaps the simplest control method on small trees. spraying with lead arsenate will prevent defoliation. the fall web-worm. _hyphantria cunea_ drury. though a general feeder attacking all kinds of fruit, shade and forest trees, the fall web-worm commonly feeds upon the foliage of nut trees, especially hickories, causing considerable damage in the south. the adult is a white moth, having a wing-spread of an inch or more, appearing in midsummer and laying its egg-cluster on the under side of a leaf. the young caterpillars make a nest at the end of a lateral branch by drawing the leaves together with their webs. these nests usually appear in july and august, though in connecticut there is a partial second brood and usually a few nests of the early brood may be found in june. in the south there are two complete generations. when the larvae have exhausted their food supply, they extend their nest by taking in fresh leaves, but always feed inside the nest, differing in this respect from the tent caterpillar which makes its nests here in may. when fully grown the caterpillars are about one and one-fourth inches long, with brown bodies covered with light brown hairs, and may be seen crawling about seeking a place to pupate. they soon go into the ground where they transform, the adults emerging the following year. the best remedies are ( ) clipping off and burning the nests when small, and ( ) spraying the foliage with arsenical poison. the walnut bud moth. _acrobasis caryae_ grote? inconspicuous nests containing small caterpillars are often found at the ends of the new shoots of _juglans regia_, seriously injuring them, and sometimes killing the trees. one small tree two feet high was killed, and thirty-five pupae were found in the nests at dr. morris' farm in . the adult is a small gray moth with a wing expanse of about three-fourths of an inch. there are three broods each season in connecticut, the larvae appearing about june , july and august . by spraying the foliage with lead arsenate ( lbs. in gals. water) this insect can be controlled. one application should be made about june , followed by a second about july . though this insect is thought to be _acrobasis caryae_ grote, it is often difficult to distinguish some of these species in this genus without a knowledge of their food habits and seasonal life histories. we possess such knowledge regarding this species which we have studied and reared in connecticut, but it is lacking in connection with adult specimens in the united states national museum labeled _caryae,_ which superficially seemed identical with ours. further study, therefore, may prove this to be an undescribed species. there are other bud-worms attacking nut trees, especially in the southern states, where they cause considerable damage to pecans. the walnut weevil or curculio. _conotrachelus juglandis_ lec. probably the most serious enemy of _juglans_, in connecticut at least, is the walnut weevil or curculio, _conotrachelus juglandis_ lec. the larvae tunnel in the tender shoots, often ruining the new growth, and they also infest the nuts. the adults feed upon the shoots and leaf petioles. observations on the different hosts indicate that _juglans cordiformis_ and _j. sieboldiana_ are preferred, and the most severely injured, followed in order by _cinerea_, _regia_, _nigra_ and _mandshurica_. though described as early as , little was known about the life history of this insect until the studies were made at the station in by mr. kirk and the writer. formerly it was supposed that this insect attacked and injured only the nuts or fruit, and dr. morris in seems to be the first on record to observe the injury to the shoots of _juglans regia_. it was on the trees of dr. morris here in stamford and those of mr. h. l. champlain at lyme that the life history studies were made. there is but one brood each year, and the winter is passed in the adult stage. the beetles appear the latter part of may and feed upon the stems and leaf veins during the egg-laying period, which extends from the last week in may up to august st. the eggs are laid in irregular crescent-shaped punctures, similar to those of the plum curculio, and hatch in from six to twelve days, depending upon the weather. from four to six weeks are necessary for the development of the larvae, and when mature they go into the ground where they remain for about ten days an inch or so beneath the surface. they then pupate, and from sixteen to twenty days later the adult beetles emerge. they fly to the trees and eat small holes chiefly at the base of the leaf petioles, but must early go into winter quarters as they are seldom seen after the first week in september. this insect occurs throughout the eastern united states, but seems to cause more injury in connecticut than has been noted elsewhere. the remedy is to spray the new shoots and under side of the leaves about june , with lead arsenate ( lbs. of the paste in gallons of water), to kill the beetles when feeding on the leaf petioles. the nut weevils. _balaninus_ sp. several kinds of nuts are attacked and injured by long-beaked snout beetles or weevils belonging to the genus _balaninus_, the chestnut probably being the most seriously damaged. all of them feed inside the nuts or fruit during the larval stage, and the larvae are without legs. as both the methods of attack and the life history are similar for all species, they will be considered here in a group. for the sake of distinguishing them, however, their names are mentioned. larger chestnut weevil, _balaninus proboscideus_ fabr. lesser chestnut weevil, _b. rectus_ say. hickory nut or pecan weevil, _b. caryae_ horn. hazelnut weevil, _b. obtusus_ blanch. common acorn weevil, _b. quercus_ horn. mottled acorn weevil, _b. nasicus_ say. straight-snouted acorn weevil, _b. orthorhynchus_ chittn. sooty acorn weevil, _b. baculi_ chittn. confused acorn weevil, _b. confusor_ ham. spotted acorn weevil, _b. pardalus_ chittn. all of these weevils pass the winter in the ground in the larval stage, transforming to pupae about three weeks before the adult beetles emerge, which varies from june, when they are usually few and scattering, to september, when they have become abundant. thus there is a single brood each year, and the larval period lasts from three to five weeks in the nuts and some ten months in the ground, from two to eight inches below the surface. the control of these weevils is difficult, and ordinary methods such as spraying are not effective. in fact little can be done other than destroying the weeviled nuts, which may be fed to hogs. when first gathered the nuts may be fumigated with carbon disulphide. about two fluid ounces of the liquid should be used for each bushel of nuts and placed in a shallow dish on top of the nuts, which should be enclosed in a tight box or barrel. the period of fumigation should be from to hours. where nuts are not to be used for seed they may be thrown into boiling water for about five minutes--just long enough to kill the weevils. the nuts are then dried and sold. most of the weeviled nuts will rise to the surface and may be discarded, but this test is not absolute and cannot be depended on to distinguish the sound from the weeviled nuts. hickory bark beetle or bark borer. _scolytus quadrispinosus_ say. outbreaks of the hickory bark borer occur periodically throughout the northeastern united states, and during the past five years many hickory trees in this vicinity have died. the adult is a small black beetle appearing in may and june, which eats holes in the axils of the leaf stems causing them to fall early--usually in july and august. brood galleries are then made longitudinally just under the bark of the trunk by the female, and a row of eggs is placed along either side of this brood chamber. on hatching the grubs, which are at first very small, tunnel at right angles to the central chamber, each making its own separate gallery. these galleries never meet or cross each other, but must necessarily diverge toward their extremities as they become larger. the effect of this is to girdle the tree which soon dies. the larvae pass the winter under the bark, finish their development in the spring, pupate, and the adults emerge in may and june from small round holes about the size of bird shot. for control measures, dr. hopkins advises examining the trees during the fall and marking all dead and dying trees within an area of several square miles. then between october and may , cut all such trees and dispose of the infested portion to destroy the insects before the adults emerge. many forms of treatment have been devised and recommended by tree doctors for the control of this insect. some of them may be worth trying; most are of doubtful value, and some are absolutely injurious to the trees. on july , , some affected hickory trees on the station grounds were sprayed heavily with powdered lead arsenate, lbs. in gallons of water, to which one pint of "black leaf no. " was added. two days later many dead beetles were found on the tar walks under the trees, and a few were observed each day up until about the middle of august. most of the trees treated, however, had been so badly injured by the insect that they were removed. since then this insect has caused little damage on the grounds, though a few hickory trees still remain. in an outbreak of the hickory bark beetle caused the death of trees on the hillhouse place in new haven; then the destructive work of the insect ceased and the few remaining hickory trees are still standing and in fairly good condition. i mention these instances to show that nature's control methods through parasites and natural enemies is far more effective with certain pests than any which man has yet devised. of course, we hope that in the future man will make better progress along this line. the painted hickory borer. _cyllene pictus_ drury. there are several borers attacking the wood of the trunk of the hickory, but one of the commonest is the painted hickory borer. it also occasionally attacks black walnut, butternut, mulberry and osage orange. in hickory especially the larval tunnels are often found in the wood when trees are felled. there is probably one brood annually and the winter passed in the pupa stage, though it may possibly hibernate as a larva. its life history is not fully understood. it is a common occurrence in connecticut, and specimens are sent me every year, for the adult beetles to emerge in march from firewood in the house or cellar and crawl about seeking a chance to escape. the housewife fears that a terrible household pest has descended upon her, and with fear and trembling invokes the aid of the agricultural station. the beetles appear outside in april and may, and probably oviposit soon afterward. they are about three-fourths of an inch in length and are black, prettily marked with golden yellow. the insect can be controlled only by the old arduous methods of digging out, and injecting carbon disulphide into the burrows. several other long-horned beetles are borers in the hickory and other nut trees. then, too, the leopard moth, _zeuzera pyrina_ linn., and the carpenter worm, _prionoxystus robiniae_ peck, may be found occasionally in most any kind of tree. the chestnut tree (if it has thus far escaped the blight or bark disease) may show small, deep tunnels into the wood of trunk and branch, made by the chestnut timber worm, _lymexylon sericeum_ harr. slow-growing woodland trees are more apt to show these galleries than trees of rapid growth standing in the open. there are a number of tussock moths, sawflies, beetles, etc., which feed on the leaves of nut trees. spraying with lead arsenate will prevent damage. there are also many sucking insects attacking them, such as the hickory gall aphis, and several species found on the leaves. some of these may be controlled by spraying with a contact insecticide such as nicotine solution or kerosene emulsion. in the southern states, pecan trees are attached by some of these insects which i have mentioned; there are also many more which cannot even be mentioned in the time allotted to this paper. information may be obtained regarding them, by any one interested, and for this purpose i have appended a short list of publications. literature. britton, w. e., and kirk, h. b. the life history of the walnut weevil or curculio. report conn. agr. expt. station for , page . brooks, fred e. snout beetles that injure nuts. bull. , west virginia agr. expt. sta., morgantown, w. va., . chittenden, f. h. the nut weevils, circular , bureau of entomology, u. s. dept. of agr., washington, d. c., . felt, e. p. insects affecting park and woodland trees. memoir no. , n. y. state museum, albany, n. y. vols., , . gossard, h. a. insects of the pecan, bull. , fla. agr. expt. station, gainesville, fla., . herrick, g. w. insects injurious to pecans, bull. , miss. agr. expt. station, agricultural college, miss., . hopkins, a. d. the dying hickory trees. circular , bureau of entomology, u. s. dept. of agr., washington, d. c., . kirk, h. b. the walnut bud moth. report conn. agr. expt. station for , page . * * * * * a member: early in the spring i noticed something on the hickory trees swollen and bright red in color, so that the trees were conspicuous from a distance. later insects emerged which appeared to be these little gnats that fly in swarms. dr. britton: from the description i am not able to say what it was, but it was probably one of those gall flies, a great many species of which exist and which attack all kinds of plants. they do not, as a rule, cause very serious damage, and i can not suggest any particular remedy. did it interfere with the growth of the tree? a member: i noticed what seemed to be the same insect on the grape vines. dr. morris: i would call attention to one pest that is very destructive to hazels; unless watched closely it will produce serious injury. that is the larvae of two of the sawflies. dr. britton was unable to determine off-hand the species of the specimens i sent him, but you may know the sawfly larvae by their habit of collecting in a row like soldiers around the edge of the leaf and when the branch is disturbed, their heads and tails stand up. these sawfly larvae need looking after and can be killed by spraying. they usually collect on two or three leaves at a time. i would like to ask about a bud worm that attacks the leaf of the hickory near the axil, sometimes very extensively, but not very injuriously. at the same time it makes deformities. colonies of this insect select certain trees, for instance, the taylor tree that you saw yesterday is infected with this particular bud larva. the base of a petiole becomes enlarged two or three times, and you will find one white worm at the bottom. this colony is confined to this one tree, and the very next tree adjoining the taylor has its branches interwining, but is not bothered at all, so far as i can determine. this colony habit is also true of the hickory nut weevil--the hickory weevil makes the taylor tree a colony house, whereas i haven't found a single weevil in nuts of the adjoining hickory tree that has its branches interwining. that colony habit is, perhaps, a weak point with the weevil, and it may enable us to eradicate them by concentrating our attention upon their colony trees. one point in regard to the chestnut weevil. when our chestnuts began to die here, i supposed that the chestnut weevils would immediately turn to my chinquapins for comfort. weevils attack the chinquapins so extensively in the south that mr. littlepage said chinquapins would not be acceptable to dr. kellogg because they furnished so much animal diet. (laughter). curiously enough, the chestnut weevils did not go to my chinquapins. these chinquapins bear full crops, heavy crops, and one will almost never find a chestnut weevil in the nuts. i have found now and then a little weevil, about half a dozen altogether, that attacks the involucre at its point of attachment to the chinquapin. this looks like the chestnut weevil, but perhaps, only according to my eye, very much as all chinamen look alike to one who has never seen them before. the matter of carbon disulphide for the painted hickory borer. i have used that apparently successfully, but i didn't tunnel through six feet of hickory tree afterward to see whether the borers were dead or not. it is a successful treatment for apple borers. i have no trouble with the apple borers now. i simply clean off the entrance of the hole, the "sawdust," and then with a little putty spread out with my hand make a sort of putty shelf below the hole, then i squirt in a few drops of carbon disulphide with a syringe, turn up the putty and leave it adhering to the bark, closing the hole. you can do that very quickly, and it spares a good deal of perspiring and backache. the black walnut. on one of my black walnut trees there is a serious pest, a very little worm which infests the involucre. the black walnuts of this tree fall early. i found that same worm last year also extending to the asiatic walnuts, so that a great many japanese walnuts fell early as the black walnuts fall, as a result of this little worm's working in large numbers within the involucre. i sent some specimens to new haven for the species to be observed. this will be a very serious matter if it is going to involve the english walnuts as it does on long island. i have found the same thing, apparently, on long island in the black walnut, in the english walnut, and in the pecan. it causes a serious drop of these nuts at dana's island, near glen cove, long island. the extent of the hardy nut tree nursery business. r. t. olcott, new york. for obvious reasons this subject may well be considered as constituting a gauge of commercial nut culture in the north; it is therefore of much more importance than the mere title would suggest. if there is merit in all that has been preached regarding the planting of budded and grafted trees instead of seedlings; and if it is still true, as we have long observed, that the propagation of named varieties of nut trees, and especially of hardy nut trees, is successful almost solely in the hands of experts, the progress of commercial nut culture in the northern states rests largely in the hands of the nurserymen. we may even go further and assert that it rests for the present mainly in the hands of a few nurserymen who have persistently studied the problems pertaining to the taming of a denizen of the forest, and have persevered with experiments in the face of repeated failure; for, as editor of the _american nurseryman_, i am in a position to state that with a few exceptions nurserymen generally have not attempted to prepare to supply a demand for hardy, northern-grown, improved nursery nut trees. seedling walnuts and hickories have been procurable for years from nurseries all over the country, as is shown by nursery catalogue listings; and at least two concerns--one at lockport, n. y., and another at rochester, n. y.,--have advertised nut tree seedlings extensively, despite the universal nursery practice of budding or grafting or layering practically all other kinds of trees and plants offered for sale as nursery stock--simply because it is not easy to propagate nut trees, and these nurserymen would take advantage of the growing demand for nut orchards. within established nut circles all this is commonly known. it was my purpose in referring to these conditions to direct the attention of those not posted to what has been done by a half dozen or more conscientious nursery concerns in an endeavor to supply material of quality for the starting of nut orchards or the planting of isolated trees in response to the arguments set forth in behalf of nut culture. my subject lies at the very base of the formation of this association; for was it not with the idea of directing into safe channels interest which might be aroused in nut culture that the pioneers of the industry in the north organized and convened repeatedly to select and propagate and recommend certain varieties? as the result of years of concentrated effort selections have been made and varieties have been named--and to some extent recommended--throughout the northern states. now and for some time past the public has had opportunity to purchase and plant carefully grown budded and grafted true-to-name nursery nut trees of varieties having in the parent trees exceptional characteristics deemed sufficient to warrant propagation and dissemination. i need not go into the matter of years of patient effort on the part of a few nurserymen and of a few investigators who entered the lists solely for the love of nature's developments. this, in brief, is the rise of the hardy nut tree nursery business. now, what of its extent? there are upwards of two thousand propagating nurserymen in the country, but those who have made a specialty of hardy, northern-grown nut trees are few. they include the vincennes nurseries, w. c. reed & son, vincennes, ind.; the indiana nurseries, j. ford wilkinson, rockport, ind.; the mccoy nut nurseries, r. l. mccoy, president, evansville and lake, ind.; the maryland nurseries, t. p. littlepage, bowie, md.; j. f. jones, lancaster, pa,; j. g. rush, west willow, pa.; c. k. sober, lewisburg, pa., and some in the northwest. as showing the extent of the business, mr. reed, of vincennes, reports demand for nut trees increasing. he had to return orders unfilled last spring. his nurseries have , to , persian walnut trees and about the same number of pecan trees for fall sales; also about , grafted black walnut trees. there are growing in the vincennes nurseries ready for budding and grafting , black walnut seedlings and , pecan seedlings. mr. reed said recently: "owing to the extreme difficulty of propagating nut trees in the north, i think the demand will keep up with the supply." mr. jones sold last year about , nut trees which went to points all over the country; not many to california, or to the far south; a good many to new jersey, new york, maryland, virginia, west virginia, pennsylvania, ohio, indiana, illinois, missouri, etc. the largest order was for trees. a number of orders were for to trees. new jersey leads in planting, he finds, with virginia a close second, in large orders. in small orders, pennsylvania leads with him. mr. mccoy has done a great deal of experimenting with grafts and he is still at it. he has acres mostly under nut tree cultivation, and has a considerable number of trees for sale. anyone who has seen the handsome nut tree catalogue issued by mr. littlepage, of the maryland nurseries, must have been impressed with the great care taken to produce the attractive trees and nuts there depicted. these nurseries have been recently established and not a great number of trees have yet been offered for sale, but mr. littlepage has , seedling nut trees in his nurseries for propagating purposes. mr. sober's nurseries are devoted almost entirely to the cultivation of chestnut trees. mr. rush's specialty is the persian walnut. mr. wilkinson naturally specializes in indiana pecan trees. at rochester, n. y., james s. mcglennon and conrad vollertsen have produced interesting results with filberts imported some years ago from germany. they have five-year-old bushes bearing; these have proved hardy in every way and they have no blight. the nuts compare favorably with the best of the imported kinds. nursery stock will soon be ready in quantity, and they now have plants suitable for transplanting. filbert and walnut are the only nut trees grown commercially to any extent in the nurseries of the northwest. a few almond and chestnut trees are grown there, but the demand for them is very light. j. b. pilkington, portland, ore., a well-known grower of a general line of nursery stock, advertises french, japanese and italian chestnut trees and the american sweet. filberts are being produced to a considerable extent. at present the nurseries cannot supply the demand for filbert plants, owing to the limited number of mother plants in the northwest. practically all the nurseries have barcelona and du chilly for sale, and a number have the avelines. from one nursery or another de alger, kentish cob and a few other varieties can be had. persian walnuts are grown on a larger scale. groner & mcclure, hillsboro, ore., are the largest exclusive walnut nurserymen in the northwest. they produce close to , grafted trees annually. these sell at c. to $ . per tree in lots of . the oregon nursery company, orenco, ore., produce a large number of both grafted and seedling walnut trees, asking up to $ . per tree for grafted and to c. for seedlings. many of the smaller nurseries procure their nut trees from california nurseries. each year the proportion of seedlings planted is less. franquette is the popular variety that is propagated. the northern nut growers' association and one or two other similar organizations have labored for years to extend interest in nut culture. the files of the secretary of this association will show in heaps of letters and piles of newspaper clippings the marked success in view of the means that were at hand. and it has all been upon a high plane. the campaigns have been marked by the utmost degree of conscientious effort to arrive at the truth regarding, adaptability of varieties and cultural methods. this work is still in progress--indeed, the need for it will never end. but in the opinion of the writer there should from this day go hand in hand with investigation and experiment a very practical application to orchard purposes of what has been learned. the sooner northern nut trees come into bearing in grove form the sooner will general interest in nut culture increase. i would urge constant effort in that direction; even, if need be, to the exclusion of some of the further study on varieties. there are now grown in northern nut tree nurseries approved by this association named varieties of pecans, persian walnuts, black walnuts, hickories and some other nuts amply sufficient to start orchards. the pecan growers of the southern states selected and experimented and discussed for a time--and then they planted. mistakes were made, but these were discovered quicker by grove planting. now they are shipping improved varieties of pecans by the carload, at $ , per car. naturally interest in pecan culture in the south is widespread. with bearing orchards of nut trees in the northern states, similar interest will be manifested; and then we shall all see the real progress which comes of producing commercial results. has not the time arrived to put into practical operation what has been learned in the last eight years? i believe this association could wisely consider the policy of confining discussion in the open session of its annual meetings to topics relating to behavior of varieties in orchard form and commercial cultural methods--at least to the handling of the planted tree by the public, whether isolated or in orchard rows--and reserve for executive sessions the discussion of varieties and methods not yet at a stage for formal endorsement by the association. it seems to me that any other policy obscures the issue which, i take it, is to foster the extension of nut culture. how can nut culture be practically extended if the public is constantly confronted with features of the experimental stage? persons mildly interested in nut culture, as the result, perhaps, of association propaganda, drift into our meetings or make ad interim inquiry and receive for membership enrollment, or otherwise, printed matter relating almost wholly to experimentation in nut work. no wonder their interest wanes a short time afterward and many of them are not heard from again. what most of them expected was information as to varieties of improved nut trees available, where to get them and how to treat them when planted. discussion by the experts is not for them; they will reap the result of that in due time. now, the extent of the hardy nut tree nursery industry is directly dependent upon all this. if that extent is not yet great, it is due undoubtedly to the newness of the industry. but it is also due in part to conditions which have been referred to. i wish especially for the purposes of this address that this association were an incorporated body so that i could speak of it as such and not seem to be criticising individuals. what has been done by our officers and members has been very necessary. it is of the future that i speak. nut brokers, wholesale grocers and manufacturers of confectionery are calling for crop and market reports of nuts. a letter from a large commission house in san francisco, importers and exporters, says that what is wanted is information as to growing crops of nuts and market conditions. other brokers and dealers ask the same thing. the _american nut journal_ has given crop and market conditions of southern pecans and california walnuts and almonds; and, in peace times, of foreign nut crops. what else is there to give? the native nut crop? but that concerns this association about as much as the blueberry and huckleberry crops of the michigan and minnesota barrens concerns the horticultural societies and the national apple growers. what the brokers, wholesale grocers and commission merchants want is crop and market reports on cultivated nuts. but where are they? the public and the middlemen are calling for nuts. and these people write that they are not interested in cultural methods. the hardy nut tree nursery business is what it is and will be what it will be just in proportion to the character of the crop and the market report. interest in nut culture generally will lag or increase in just the same ratio. this is the eighth annual convention of this association. will the sixteenth annual meeting see a greatly augmented membership without a practical incentive? i have said that this association has recommended to some extent the planting of nut trees--the named varieties. i believe that what is needed is a publicity campaign bearing upon the planting of the varieties now on the market. when other varieties come on they may receive proper attention. native nuts are in great demand. the varieties considered by this association are the best of the natives. is that not sufficient basis to proceed on? has not this association officially endorsed the varieties grown by the nut tree nurserymen we have referred to, by officially endorsing those nurserymen? having endorsed the named varieties grown for sale by the nurserymen on its approved list can this association consistently do otherwise then to urge without hesitation the planting of those varieties by the public? dr. morris: mr. olcott spoke on the almonds of the pacific coast. here in the east it was said yesterday that only hard shelled almonds would thrive. that has been my experience with one exception. i got from a missionary some soft shelled almonds of very high quality and thin shelled. there were about twenty of those almonds, i ate two and planted the rest. the ants enjoyed the sprouting cotyledons of all but one. that one lived and thrived and grew in two years to a height of about four feet. in its third winter it was absolutely killed. now that means that somewhere in syria there is a soft shelled almond of very high quality that will live three years in connecticut according to accurate record. it may live fifty years here if well started and protected when young. the chairman: you showed us some hard shelled almonds i believe from your place. dr. morris: the hard shelled almonds do pretty well on my place if looked after. i have had trees that bore nearly a bushel each, but the chief difficulty is due to the leaf blights. almond trees are quite subject to leaf blights. as long as i sprayed the almond trees frequently they did well but i had several other things to do and couldn't keep it up. a member: the association has a list of nurserymen who are reliable and who will furnish reliable trees. it occurred to me in line with the spirit of mr. olcott's paper, if it would be practicable, for the association to get up a little paper on approved varieties of trees for planting. that may seem foolish to suggest but a good many members who come in here are very green on the subject of nut growing. it may have been done but if it has i am not familiar with it. the secretary: a good many requests are received by the secretary for information as to what nut trees to plant. my advice usually is that they get the catalogues of all the different nurserymen on our approved list and select from those catalogues as many nut trees of each variety recommended by the nurserymen as they wish and give them the best cultural conditions they can. i don't see that we can recommend any particular varieties. there are few enough grafted varieties of nut trees obtainable, and i do not see that we can, as an association, recommend any particular varieties. i would like to have suggestions. mr. olcott: i don't think it is advisable for the association to go into that detail. i think that as the association has endorsed a list of nurserymen, so long as those nurserymen keep within boundary and retain that endorsement that is sufficient guarantee to the public. mr. reed: we cannot recommend the different varieties because they have not been tested out and fruited. in the national nut growers' association data are obtainable because they have been worked out by experiment stations and by individuals. but in this association where varieties are just being discovered and have not been disseminated and tried we have got to test them. we haven't got developed beyond the infant class in this northern nut growers' association. a member: i realize that the thing is in an experimental stage, but since i have been at this meeting i have been asked by two different people here if i could give them any information as to what varieties to plant. that is a very live question for a person here for the first time and he wants a primer. the secretary: we had a circular, now exhausted, giving the best information known at that time. it gave the method of procedure from the cultivation of the land until the nut trees were advanced several years in their growth, covering it in detail in so far as it lay in the secretary's ability to give it at that time. the same advice perhaps would not be given now but it would be practically the same thing. it may be desirable that we reprint something of the kind for the person who wants to begin the cultivation of nuts and has no knowledge on the subject. mr. jones: i think the association might do something of the kind. we could have a map of the states for instance, and have that outlined in belts and varieties specified that would be somewhat likely to succeed in those belts. mr. chairman: i think it is only a question of time when that will be done. in the national association that has been worked out, what they plant in florida what they plant in west georgia, what they plant in mississippi, and what they plant in all the different sections. i think it is only a question of time when it will be worked out by this association. every year will bring in new data. you will find in the national nut growers' association that good reports on new varieties of nuts from year to year keep accumulating. from that we get data very definite for certain varieties. i expect the members of this association will know lots of them. they have become past history in nut growing in the south. we have got past those poor things and in to something that is definite and satisfactory. mr. bartlett: would it be possible and advisable for the association to have such a thing as an experimental orchard, provided they could get somebody to take care of such a place? there is a man in this room who has plenty of room and facilities for taking care of an orchard. the chairman: that is worthy of attention but i do not know whether the association is in a position to take care of it. in my paper yesterday i spoke about putting it up to the experiment stations. col. van duzee: the experiment stations are at the service of the people and if you will call upon your stations repeatedly they will respond eventually. it is going to take some little time but it seems to me that they are the logical people to carry it out. we have found in the south that the behaviour of varieties in different localities was so different that we have been obliged to wait until each locality had something of history to guide us. i suppose it would be a very good plan if all who are interested in nut culture in the north would convey the information to their experiment stations that they are desirous of having these orchards established. eventually the country could be covered with little experimental plots where the information obtained would be reliable, where the work could be under the supervision and inspection of people who are paid by the state for that purpose. now in regard to the publicity. we have followed a plan for a number of years in the south of publishing frequently what we call nut notes. they were gathered together by the editor of the nut grower. whenever an item of interest to the public came to him in his exchange and from any other source, he made a paragraph of it and then at the end of the month, or perhaps two months, he would publish a little circular "nut notes," and that would be run off in some large number, and distributed to the nurserymen, or other interested people, and they would simply enclose it in their correspondence. they would send them to the local papers all through the south so that the things that were found worthy of dissemination in the way of new records and new ideas were constantly being sent to the local papers and to the interested people in that way. i have a vast sympathy for dr. deming. he is not drawing a princely salary and he has a lot of things to do. i know his heart is in this work and he would be glad to do these things but he must have help. these two ways i suggest to you are ways we have found in the south to accomplish a considerable work. make a demand upon your experiment stations that this work be taken up and get mr. olcott to print the slips and then get the nurserymen who are interested and the local newspaper people to publish the nut notes that become available from time to time. mr. olcott: i have knowledge of these circulars of nut notes sent out by dr. wilson in the south and have thought of doing something like it but have not gotten at it yet. i have exchanges and notices coming in that could be summarized just that way and even more extensively but i haven't had time to do this work. the secretary: i think this proposal of mr. bartlett's is very important and i promise mr. bartlett and mr. barrows that all the members of this association will help. i am sure dr. morris will be glad to give advice about planting this orchard. i haven't the slightest doubt that mr. reed will go there in his position as nut culturist of the department of agriculture. i think we ought to go ahead and do that without waiting for the connecticut authorities, but at the earliest opportunity begin to try to interest them. they are not interested enough to go into it now. some of the members of this association have got to start this thing and then we have got to interest the men at the agricultural experiment station. two of them were here yesterday and have expressed their interest in the subject. we hope eventually that they will take full charge of such work which really ought to be in the hands of self perpetuating institutions and not in the hands of individuals. i can assure mr. bartlett of the hearty co-operation of this association in any planting of that kind and i wish that the steps might be taken at once to begin such a planting. dr. morris: i would be only too glad to give him some trees to start with. mr. jones: the nurseries growing these trees would be glad to cooperate and supply these trees at reduced prices for this experimental orchard. the chairman: there seems to be lots of interest in this matter but it ought not to be on a voluntary basis. it might be interesting to you to have an idea of how we have done that further south. in north carolina we have definite nut projects on our experiment station's list. the work is outlined and funds appropriated for carrying it out, and workers and funds are assigned to that particular project. they have a regular definite program and when a project is once begun that project has to be reported on. it cannot be discontinued. it has to be continued until it is worked out. in that way we are getting something definite and we have some machinery to work with. at first we had no commercial nut growing. we instituted a nut survey of the state. we issued instructions for our extension men to look out for nut trees on the farms. then we made a list of the growers and orchards. there we made experimental planting and we made them in every section of the state so as to find out what varieties were best for the different sections. we had difficulty in finding varieties for all of our conditions. we had experiment orchards in all of the various sections of the state which have been conducted now for ten years and we have very definite data. the man who writes in to me for information can be answered shortly. every year we are getting new data. i think every tree that we can get from any nursery catalogue that i can find is in those experimental orchards. every year eliminates a few. if the stocks are good we work them over. there is no uncertainty about it. it is either a positive or a negative result. these results are published just as soon as they can be. it is part of our experiment work just as we experiment with cotton or apples or corn. i made a suggestion in my paper for work of this kind here and i thought it would be picked up by the committee on resolutions, but it was not acted on. to get this matter crystallized and get it to the attention of the experimental station i think that the secretary ought to be empowered to write officially to the directors of the experiment station in the various states asking that a nut survey be made of those states and that nut projects be entered upon and especially the testing of the varieties that have been found in the various states. dr. britton: representing the connecticut station i can say that the men there will be glad to help you, but they are in the same position as dr. deming, doing all they can at present, more than they ought to do, and most of the funds for that reason are arranged for in definite projects. that being the case, it will be necessary to provide for a future appropriation. during his war we are all short handed. i have four young men working in my department who have not had a day's vacation this summer--more work than they can do. at present we have no one connected with the station who is a specialist on nuts, and it would mean getting in a man to work up this subject. but i think that can be brought about in time. of course if the legislature is asked for any appropriation, this association or those interested in growing nuts would have to help get the appropriation for the state. the secretary: prof. hutt is state horticulturist of his state and he is also a specialist on nuts. he lives in a state where nut culture is much further advanced than it is here, consequently it has been, it seems to me, a good deal simpler for him to accomplish results there than it is for us here. i approve of grasping this opportunity and going ahead with it and at the same time following up the suggestions of dr. britton of trying to get the appropriation in order to enable the agricultural experiment station to take action. mr. olcott: i move that the secretary be asked to communicate with the experiment stations in the various states along just the lines you suggested for the purpose of getting started. the motion, duly seconded, was passed. mr. olcott: i would like to make another motion that the association do whatever it can to take advantage of this opportunity that mr. bartlett has just spoken about, and i would move that the matter be put in the hands of the secretary with power to act. mr. webber seconded the motion and it was carried. nut trees for shade. francis a. bartlett, connecticut. were we to limit our shade trees to those trees which alone produce edible nuts we would then have a greater assortment of trees than one could hardly suppose, and not only would be varieties be numerous but they would embrace many of our most noble and most beautiful trees. let us consider the varieties from which we may draw. in so doing let me ask why, with all these trees, we really need other trees which in themselves are no more ornamental and are non-producing. of the oaks there are many, while the nuts or acorns are seldom eaten by man, yet they have often composed his diet when other foods have failed. in many parts of the south this nut has been the principal food used in the fattening, or possibly the sustaining food, of the native razor-back hog. our native beech produces the small triangular nuts which have been sought by the boys and girls of centuries and are as popular today as of hundreds of years ago. the beech will grow to immense size and may live sometimes for centuries. a beautiful bright smooth foliage makes it very desirable as a park tree and it does not lose its charm in winter. on an extensive lawn it makes a very desirable tree but in close proximity to the house the one objection there may be is that the dead foliage seems to cling to the twigs sometimes the entire winter. this objection is more pronounced, however, in the younger trees than in the older ones. our native black walnut is a magnificent tree which can compare favorably with the finest oak in size, in shape, in picturesqueness and above all, in its huge nuts, which are both wholesome and delicious. were it not for the great value of its wood for making gun stocks and for cabinet work we would today have hundreds of these trees growing, where now but few can be found; yet there are individual specimens with spread of over feet and as magnificent and majestic as the finest oak. our native chestnut; let us not think of it in memory only, though the pride of our forests seems to have left us after the scourge of the chestnut blight. unless the history of all scourges has been upset we will find some tree somewhere sometime that is blight resistant and then from this tree we will produce and propagate the chestnut back to its own. at least, as far as an ornamental and useful nut-producing tree is concerned. should we find no tree in all this huge area which is disease-resistant we have at least one hope in the chestnut brought from china, where for probable centuries this disease has been present, but unable to destroy its host, the chestnut. already in this country there are thousands of these seedlings growing which are apparently disease-resistant. the tree itself compares very favorably with our native tree. we will yet grow our favorite chestnuts and our children will yet enjoy them as we have done in the days of our youth. we must not forget the chinkapin, the little brother of the chestnut, but a better fighter of its enemies, for this latter tree is almost resistant to the blight and will bloom and bear nuts while only a little tree, and the nuts are sweet and good. then, too, it is not necessary to climb the tree to gather the nuts for the tree being small the nuts can almost be gathered from the ground. for planting over rocky banks and hillsides nothing is more handsome. the dark green foliage dotted here and there with the bright green burrs always attracts favorable attention and comment. our butternut, too, cannot be omitted, for there are few better flavored nuts than the butternut. though hard to crack, this fault, if it may be a fault, will soon be overcome, for we will find a tree with thin-shelled nuts somewhere. they are no doubt present and when we do find such a tree we may all propagate from it. though the tree is a rather irregular grower and is susceptible to certain bark diseases yet it has its place in the home planting for its compound leaves and light bark always shows prominently in the landscape. this tree sometimes grows to an immense size. at my early home in massachusetts one huge butternut stood in the yard. though the tree died long before i became especially interested in old trees i remember that we counted the annular rings and as near as i can recall the figures for its measurements and rings were ft. in circumference and annular rings. the trunk was perfectly solid and showed no signs of decay. many bushels of nuts were gathered from this one tree yearly and i can remember the long winter evenings when we sat in the kitchen cracking the nuts from this old tree. some have said the butternut is unsatisfactory as an ornamental tree but let me add--do not neglect it in the planting plan for it will give you much pleasure, and, too, the meats are well worth the trouble in cracking the nuts even though a bruised finger may result. to the family of the walnut we are indebted to japan for the beautiful and tropical foliage of the japanese walnut, _sieboldiana_. although the tree has many characteristics of the butternut the foliage is much more luxuriant and it is an admirable tree for planting in the open lawn. the individual fruit of the _sieboldiana_ walnut is similar in appearance to that of the butternut and is borne in clusters or racemes, sometimes as many as twenty or more in a cluster, and is equal in every way to that of the butternut but the nuts being smaller contain a much less quantity of meat. the king of the walnuts, _juglans regia_, sometimes called madeira walnut, persian walnut, spanish walnut and english walnut, is the finest of the nuts as far as the fruit is concerned, and is a handsome tree growing to immense size with large spreading branches and almost tropical foliage. for over years this tree has been growing and thriving in our immediate neighborhood, producing bushels of nuts annually, yet few people whom we have met will hardly believe that the english walnut will thrive in this northern latitude. there is one specimen of this tree today with which i am familiar in tarry town, n. y., which is over feet in diameter, with a spread of feet or more and nearly feet in height. while the tree has not produced regularly yet it bears a few nuts each year and sometimes numbers of bushels. the english walnut always attracts attention on account of its symmetrical growth and its luxuriant foliage. as a shade tree there are few better. of the nut family the one truly american tree of which we should be duly proud is the hickory, this tree being found in no other part of the world, with the exception of china, but north america. as a park or roadside tree there are few trees that can compare with it,--upright in growth with a beautifully rounded head, sometimes growing to immense size and producing nuts almost annually. of this group of trees we have the shellbark, shagbark and pignut. the pignut being of little value as far as the nuts are concerned, yet having smaller and possibly more luxuriant foliage than the shagbark or shellbark. the shagbark is the nut most sought for by the younger generations and bids fair to become a nut of considerable importance. it seems strange that in the long history of the hickory or shagbark more has not been done in the improvement of the nuts in the growing of large thin-shelled and sweeter nuts. trees bearing such nuts do exist and i think most of us can recall certain trees in our boyhood days that produced nuts of far superior quality than are ordinarily found from the common tree. at least, i can recall one tree from which twenty-five years ago there was produced a very large fine sweet nut which was sought by all the children in the neighborhood. this tree, however, has passed away with hundreds of others, either by the hickory bark beetle or the axe. it is well to mention the filbert and hazel. while not really trees the filbert sometimes reaches a height of ft. or more with very luxuriant foliage in the summer and in the early spring the catkins are very prominent and attractive. there is no reason why the filbert should not be grown more extensively even though it is affected by blight or canker. we are assured that this can be readily cut away with less trouble than the ordinary treatment of trees. of the hazel there are two kinds, the common hazel and beaked hazel, both native here. while the nuts of these shrubs are really too small to be of any commercial value yet i believe we will find nuts growing somewhere that are as large as our imported filberts. of the pines and evergreens there are a number which produce nuts of which dr. morris has told us. some of them are rapid growing trees and there seems to be good reason why we should not plant out evergreens which produce fruit and are just as attractive and fine as those evergreens which produce shade only. i have not mentioned one tree which i believe to be the most promising for this locality--that is the pecan. it has been demonstrated that we can grow the pecan on our native hickories and from what i have seen of the wonderful growth of the first year of the bud i am sure we will be able to produce as fine pecans as can be produced in any section of the country, and further than that, we have an unlimited number of native hickories on which we can graft this finest of nuts. the pecan is hardy in this locality and farther north. i have seen it grown to a fair sized tree in connecticut. i have seen it on the south side of long island and have seen one tree planted possibly over years near oyster bay, l. i. which today is more than ft. in diameter and reaches possibly ft. in height. the pecan, too, is fruiting on long island and i believe we will have it fruiting in this locality within the next two or three years. during the last few years i have talked with numbers of people, many of them owners of large estates who could hardly believe it is possible to grow the english walnut and pecan in this latitude. i have said that were we to limit our shade trees to those trees alone which produce edible nuts we would then have a greater assortment than one could hardly suppose. each and every one of the trees i have mentioned were they not to produce a single nut would in themselves equal or surpass almost any tree in beauty and majesty. were we to develop a park and limit the plantings to nut trees alone how attractive such a park might be--the taller trees in the background to be of the black walnut and beech. these trees to be banked with the smaller trees of the butternut and english walnut. over the rocky places we could plant the chinkapin and hazel. we could then put in specimen trees of the hickory and pecans with groups of filberts, dotted here and there with plantings of nut bearing pines. i believe such a planting would be as attractive as a planting of an added number of our ordinary shade trees. let us imagine what the return from such a planting might mean to the public or the owners. in fifty years from this time, and in speaking of nut trees looking forward to fifty years is but a comparatively short time, our roadside trees could be replaced by nut bearing trees which are as attractive as any shade tree. i have no doubt that in this city alone were the roadsides planted with nut trees and these received reasonable care the returns from these trees would pay the entire city and town tax. * * * * * dr. morris: mr. bartlett said that the hickory belonged only to north america. that was supposed to be the case until very recently mr. meyer, an agricultural explorer, found an open bud hickory in china. mr. olcott: mr. bartlett said he hoped the day would come when the filbert and hazels would be produced in this country. i saw last week the report of a crop in rochester, new york, on five-year old filbert bushes that had been pronounced as good as imported nuts in quality and certainly were in size, and finer in coloring. i have some photographs of the trees on which they grew. these were the trees which were described in detail in a paper read at the national nut growers' association at nashville last year by mr. mcglennon, of rochester. he told me that all he said at that time stands, with the addition that since then he has had proof regarding the absence of blight and the extreme hardiness of the trees and their continued bearing. the trees are grown for propagating purposes and not for fruit, and therefore they are not in their best condition for bearing. mr. mcglennon is a business man of rochester, with no special experience except that he became interested in some southern pecan plantings. afterwards the filbert planting came up and he worked with mr. vollertson, who was experienced in this work in germany. he and mr. mcglennon imported kinds of filberts from europe. they are so far blight-proof and extremely hardy and are bearing. mrs. irwin: i would like to say that i do not think there is enough publicity given this organization. there are a number of people, to whom i casually mentioned yesterday, that i had become interested in this thing, but they had not seen the advocate and knew nothing about the meeting. they are interested, i think, and it seems to me that an organization for growth must have publicity and a lot of it. a member: we were discussing this morning why we did not have a larger number of people here from stamford and greenwich. it is the merest chance i saw the notice. i have been interested for some time. i think there should be greater publicity because only by large membership can we get the growth and the standing that we want. dr. morris: even a good many people in the vicinity who knew about this conference and said they would be interested to come, have not appeared. our meeting came to stamford this year because there are so many wealthy people interested in horticulture in stamford and greenwich. very large funds are required for development of this subject, experimental orchards, publication and publicity. we believed here we would strike the sort of men to further public interest in the subject. this is by all means the smallest local attendance, however, that we have ever had since the beginning of the association in any part of the country. the secretary: we have never had the advertising more thoroughly done. mr. bartlett and mr. staunton and dr. morris and i have all worked at it; notices have been in at least three of the new york papers, clippings of which have been sent me, and articles in ansonia and hartford papers; articles and programs have been sent repeatedly to stamford, greenwich, darien, port chester, danbury, ridgefield and new canaan papers. dr. morris has written personal letters. and then, too, there are the signs around here. i don't know what other measures could have been taken. dr. morris: my chauffeur, who is in the naval reserve, and doesn't know about nuts at all, dropped in casually yesterday, but stayed through the whole session. that shows what interest might be aroused if only you can catch people. no trouble to hold them when captured. every person who has come into this association has done so because of something from the heart within. mr. bixby: on this subject of publicity, i have done something in a very humble way that i thought might help, and this year i am planning to do it to a little larger extent. i have been very much interested in the butternut. the concern with which i am associated has a connection with general stores throughout the country, so i sent circulars calling attention to the butternut prizes to the general stores in the smaller towns throughout new hampshire and vermont. that circular invited the people who had specimens of butternuts that they thought superior to send them to dr. deming, and in the same circular i called attention to the fact that there were prizes for other nuts, and invited them to communicate with dr. deming. it was all done in the name of the association. prof. hutt: when we started our meeting we announced a question box. the secretary: we expected to have a revised proof of our question box to be distributed among the audience, but it has not come. i would like to ask any one who now desires to ask questions relative to nut culture to do so and i think he will be able to get answers from members present. i had better begin by propounding a question myself that has been asked often--what variety of nut trees to plant--and i am going to make a short answer myself, just to bring about discussion. for early bearing, and encouragement to the nut grower, plant chinkapins, hazels, or filberts, many varieties, so that they will pollenize one another, and plant japanese walnuts, early bearing and beautiful trees. for later results plant persian walnuts, the franquette and mayette varieties, which are old standard ones. if you want to go a little bit more experimentally, plant pecans, say the indiana and busseron varieties, both from the indiana district, and both hardy, though neither of them have fruited here. plant some black walnuts, say of the stabler and the thomes varieties, which are the best known, and plant a few shagbark hickories. there are very few varieties to be had in the shagbark. we don't know much about the kirtland, although that is one of the best nuts. we know little of the bearing records of these trees. i leave this answer for emendation, addition or correction. dr. morris: has anybody any kirtland hickories in stock grafted for sale? mr. jones: to . dr. morris: have you any weicker? mr. jones: yes, some are in stock for sale. dr. morris: hales's hickories? mr. jones: no, not grown. dr. morris: the hales' nut is big, too coarse and not very good. mr. jones: the kernel is yellowish. dr. britton: i would like to ask dr. morris what time of the year he would advise pruning the persian walnuts here in stamford. dr. morris: the editor of a horticultural journal at one time set out to get opinions about the best time for pruning peaches. there were opinions from all points as to whether peach trees should be trimmed in winter, spring, summer or autumn, and summing up all of the replies, the editor said, "we have come to the conclusion that the right time to prune peach trees is when your knife is sharp." i presume that that in a way will apply to almost all trees. pruning the walnut trees in the spring when sap is flowing freely would not be desirable, i should think. walnut trees need very little pruning. very few of the nut trees need pruning, excepting the hazels. these need to be pruned in order to put them in good head. and possibly some of the hickories, but for the most part i doubt if pruning is desirable, save for broken branches. i leave that to mr. jones. dr. britton: the reason why i asked the question is that when we were carrying on this investigation with the walnut weevil, we found that when branches were cut early in the spring there was nearly always a bad wound that did not heal over. it died back around the place. but when we cut branches later, from the first to the middle of june, when the growth was taking place, it healed over very smoothly without leaving any bad scars, and i was wondering whether that happened over the region where the persian walnut was grown. dr. morris: i am glad to have that observation that the wounds did not granulate and heal well. i have noticed that the shag bark hickory cannot be cut well for scions in the spring without injuring the rest of the limb on the tree. i have cut back the taylor tree's lower branches, in order to cut off scions, and almost every branch from which i have cut scions is dead or dying. that is perhaps in line with the observation of dr. britton. some of the juglandaciae cannot be cut in the spring. mr. jones: i have found that in cutting scions of walnut trees when the sap is running the tree bleeds and makes a bad wound and doesn't heal over. it dies back. but if you cut those any time in the winter when you have say two or three days without freezing, they will not bleed then nor in the spring when the sap comes up. also, if cut after the growth is well started, they won't bleed very much. mr. weber: are back numbers of the journal available? the secretary: all of our reports. mr. weber: i would suggest for the benefit of uninitiated persons that they get the back numbers, also send to each of the accredited nurserymen and get a copy of each, catalogue and then study the back numbers and the catalogues. they will be pretty well posted, as all the nut catalogues are well illustrated and contain a great deal of information, and it will take them out of the realm of hazy knowledge they now have on the subject. mr. jones: the government has some excellent bulletins in line with this work. mr. smith: i would like to get some information about spring and fall planting in massachusetts. a member: i advise planting in the spring. where the ground freezes heavily in the winter, plant in the spring. in the south you don't have any injury from cold. mr. weber: i have planted trees in the fall and the tops winter-kill down to the grafts. i had them wrapped and still they were winter-killed, or else the wrapping killed them. persian walnuts and indiana pecans. they threw a good shoot in the spring, however, and made a very good growth. i move that a vote of thanks be extended to the local committee for making this convention a success, and a rising vote of thanks to show dr. morris the appreciation of the convention. the convention thereupon adjourned. appendix. i report on soft shell almonds as follows: in february, , i ordered from armstrong nurseries, ontario, california, the following trees: four to six ft. jordon almond trees four to six ft. i. x. l. almond trees four to six ft. ne plus ultra almond trees the trees were shipped in march of the same year and healed in until may. the farm on which these trees were planted is situated on the south shore of lake ontario, in wayne county, new york. this district is a large producer of peaches and apples. the trees were planted twenty feet apart in a sandy loam soil in line with a young apple orchard. this soil is especially adapted to peach growing. the entire orchard was given clean cultivation with intercrops until the spring of . for two years potatoes were grown among the trees, and for one year cabbage. the land was limed and fertilized with both natural and chemical fertilizers. cultivation of the tree rows stopped about the st of august, the intercrops about the th of september. for the year the trees were grown in sod. the trees were pruned similar to the peach trees, and have made somewhat less growth than a peach tree would make under the same conditions. the lake on the boundary of the farm tempers the climate conditions of this location so that the opening of the season is about two weeks later than the average, and the date of the first frost is two to three weeks later. on this account the trees have had a better opportunity to ripen the wood for the winter period after cultivation ceases. during these winters the thermometer has gone as low as four degrees below zero without winter killing those trees which survived. six trees of the thirty originally planted are now living. all others died the first winter after being set out. unfortunately, the trees were not labeled at the time of getting out so i am unable to indicate what varieties lived through. of the six trees living, three blossomed scantily this year, but all the blossoms proved false. i think there is no particular cause for discouragement on this account, as we have the same experience with peach trees. that is, they often bear a number of blossoms the first year, and none of them come to maturity. all the trees appear to have buds for next year. some of these should develop into blossoms, and unless there is a frost after the blossoms come out in the spring of , there may be some nuts produced. the final test as to whether or not these trees can be brought into bearing, will come next spring. the site upon which the trees are planted, as mentioned before, on account of the proximity of the lake, is more favorable than most locations for peach growing, and if the experience of the peach growers in new york state is any index, there would be little opportunity for success with almond trees, except under similar conditions. m. e. wile. i am pleased to advise that the hardy soft shell pecan trees i have planted in virginia, and the hardy english walnut trees are all growing finely. i find it just as easy to get a budded pecan tree to grow as it is to get an apple tree to grow. i am telling my friends about this all over ohio, indiana, kentucky and tennessee as well as virginia. they have planted a good many trees and all report favorably. my advice is to plant pecan and english walnut trees as they are just as beautiful and useful for shade as any other kind, and in addition to this they will produce a large amount of the healthiest and most nutritious of food for the human family. i am very much indebted to the northern nut growers association for the knowledge obtained along this line. you can rest assured that i will try and pass it along as i go. john s. parrish. attendance r. t. olcott, rochester n. y. mr. and mrs. c. a. reed, washington, d. c. irwin r. waite, stamford, ct. prof. w. o. filley, state forester, connecticut. prof. record, state college of forestry. a. c. pomeroy, lockport, n. y. s. m. mcmurran, washington, d. c. harry e. weber, cincinnati, ohio. fitch a. hoyt, stamford, conn. wm. h. bump, stamford, ct. wilber f. stocking, stratford, ct. j. a. seitz, greenwich, ct. l. c. root, stamford, ct. john rick, redding, pa. f. a. bartlett, stamford, ct. j. f. jones, lancaster, pa. r. h. g. cunningham, stamford, ct. col. c. a. van duzee, cairo, ga. john h. hohener, rochester, n. y. c. l. cleaver, hingham, mass. fred a. smith, hathorne, mass. dr. lewis h. taylor, washington, d. c. w. h. druckemiller, sunbury, pa. w. g. bixby, brooklyn, n. y. mr. and mrs. c. s. ridgway, lumberton, n. j. miss marie brial, stamford, ct. j. e. brown, elmer, n. j. a. m. heritage, elmer, n. j. dr. r. t. morris, n. y. city. t. p. littlepage, washington, d. c. gray staunton, stamford, ct. j. l. glover, shelton, ct. dr. e. f. bigelow, stamford, ct. prof. w. n. hutt, raleigh, n. c. mr. and mrs. h. l. lewis, stratford, ct. h. w. collingwood, new york city. dr. j. h. kellogg, battle creek, mich. dr. and mrs. w. c. deming, georgetown, ct. mr. and mrs. m. a. mikkelsen, georgetown, ct. paul m. barrows, stamford, ct. g. w. donning, north stamford. mrs. payson irwin, stamford, ct. noble p. randel, stamford, ct. * * * * * ~vincennes nurseries~ w. c. reed, proprietor. vincennes, indiana, u. s. a. propagators and introducers _budded and grafted pecans, hardy northern varieties_ _english (persian) walnut grafted on black walnut_ _best northern and french varieties_ _grafted thomas black walnut_ _grafted persimmons, best sorts_ _hardy almonds_ _filberts and hazelnuts_ _also general line nursery stock_ special nut catalogue on request * * * * * ~stabler~ ~black walnut trees~ if you would provide for the future beauty of your lawn or roadside, plant at least a few trees of the new stabler black walnut. its luxuriant fern-like foliage and its weeping twigs make it unique among shade trees--its thin-shelled nuts and heavy bearing habit put it at the top of the list as a nut producer. the only black walnut that yields a whole kernel when cracked. order now for spring delivery. my trees, if you plant them in a fertile spot, will surprise you by their growth. fine grafted trees $ . to $ . . ~henry stabler~ hancock, md. * * * * * ~chester valley nurseries~ established choice fruit and ornamental trees, cherry trees on mazzard roots, hardy evergreens, flowering shrubs, hedge plants, etc. originators of the ~thomas black walnut~ ~jos. w. thomas & sons king of prussia p. o., montgomery co., penna.~ * * * * * ~chestnut trees~ best varieties grown. grown in section free from blight. descriptive pricelist. e. a. riehl, godfrey, ill. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |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. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ _northern nut growers_ _association_ _incorporated_ _affiliated with_ _the american horticultural society_ =report= _of the proceedings of the_ =twenty-fourth annual meeting= =downingtown, pa.= _september and , _ index officers, directors and committees state vice-presidents list of members constitution by-laws my butternut, a poem, by j. h. helmick proceedings of the twenty-fourth annual convention address of rev. g. paul musselman report of the treasurer j. f. jones' experimental work in hybridizing filberts and hazels--miss mildred jones commercial cracking of the black walnut--h. f. stoke walnut notes for --c. a. reed is information of general orchard fertility of value in the nut grove--prof. f. n. fagan forward march of the nut cultural project in michigan--prof. james a. neilson notes on the filbert orchard at geneva, n. y.--prof. g. l. slate developing a walnut grove as a side line by a bee-keeper--l. k. hostetter nut trees as used in landscaping--dr. lewis e. theiss my experience in growing nut trees on the home lawn--m. glen kirkpatrick developing a thousand tree improved black walnut grove--c. f. hostetter tribute to mr. bixby message to dr. morris a black walnut grove and why--dr. frank l. baum nut contests filbert pollinization green shoot grafting of trees--dr. r. t. morris communications from: robert t. morris, m.d. prof. a. s. colby j. u. gellatly notes on the "tour," tuesday, september , notes on the banquet, tuesday evening, september , address of al. bergstrom reports of standing committees reports of the resolutions committee list of member nurserymen having budded and grafted stock exhibits at the convention attendance books and bulletins on northern nut growing advertisements--"hobbies magazine" officers of the association _president._ frank h. frey, room , la salle st. station, chicago, ill. _vice-president._ dr. g. a. zimmerman, south th st., harrisburg, pa. _secretary._ geo. l. slate, state agricultural experiment station, geneva, n. y. _treasurer._ newton h. russell, burnett ave., south hadley, mass. _directors_ frank h. frey, dr. g. a. zimmerman, geo. l. slate, newton h. russell, carl f. walker, prof. j. a. neilson. _editor of publications_ dr. w. c. deming. _committees_ _executive._ frank h. frey, dr. g. a. zimmerman, geo. l. slate, newton h. russell, carl f. walker, prof. j. a. neilson. _auditing._ zenas h. ellis, carl f. walker. _finance._ t. p. littlepage, dr. w. c. deming, h. r. weber. _press and publication._ dr. w. c. deming, karl w. greene, dr. j. russell smith, zenas h. ellis, geo. l. slate. _membership._ newton h. russell, miss dorothy c. sawyer, j. u. gellatly, john w. hershey, d. c. snyder. _program._ prof. j. a. neilson, dr. w. c. deming, c. a. reed, h. burgart, karl w. greene. _hybrids and promising seedlings._ dr. g. a. zimmerman, prof. n. f. drake, miss amelia riehl, h. f. stoke, j. f. wilkinson. _survey._ carl f. walker, dr. a. s. colby, h. f. stoke, j. f. wilkinson. _exhibits._ j. w. hershey, miss mildred jones, h. burgart, prof. a. s. colby. _dean of the association_ dr. robert t. morris, of new york and connecticut. _field secretary_ zenas h. ellis, fair haven, vermont. _official journal_ national nut news, s. michigan ave., chicago, illinois. state vice-presidents arkansas prof. n. f. drake california will j. thorpe canada j. u. gellatly china p. w. wang connecticut dr. w. c. deming dist. of columbia l. h. mitchell england howard spence illinois prof. a. s. colby indiana j. f. wilkinson iowa d. c. snyder maryland t. p. littlepage massachusetts james h. bowditch michigan harry burgart minnesota carl weschcke missouri p. c. stark nebraska william caha new york prof. l. h. macdaniels new jersey lee w. jaques ohio harry r. weber pennsylvania john rick rhode island philip allen vermont zenas h. ellis virginia dr. russel j. smith washington d. h. berg west virginia dr. j. e. cannaday wisconsin lt. g. h. turner northern nut growers association list of members as of january , abbott, mrs. laura w., route no. , bristol, pennsylvania. adams, gerald w., r. f. d. , moorehead, iowa. aldrich, a. w., route , springfield, vermont. allen, edward e., hotel ambassador, cambridge, mass. allen, philip, dorance st., providence, r. i. andrews, miss frances e., clifton ave., minneapolis, minn. anthony, a. b., sterling, illinois. ballock, j. s., main street, springfield, mass. bartlett, frances a., stamford, connecticut. baum, dr. f. l., boyertown, pennsylvania. bennett, f. h., east nd st., new york, n. y. berg, d. h., nooksack, washington. betz, frank s. (personal), betz bldg., hammond, indiana. bixby, mrs. willard g., grand ave., baldwin, n. y. bontz, mrs. geo. i., route no. , peoria, illinois. * bowditch, james h., tremont st., boston, mass. boyce, daniel, rt. , winterset, iowa. bradley, homer, c/o kellogg farms, rt. , augusta, mich. brown, daniel l., state street, boston, mass. brown, roy w., spring valley, illinois. bryant, dr. ward c., federal st., greenfield, mass. buckwalter, alan r., flemington, new jersey. burgart h., c/o mich. nut nursery, rt. , union city, michigan. caha, william, wahoo, nebraska. canaday, ward m., home bank building, toledo, ohio. cannaday, dr. j. e., c/o charleston gen. hosp., charleston, west virginia. chipman, g. f., "the country guide," winnipeg, man., canada. close, prof. c. p., u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. colby, arthur s., university of illinois, urbana, ill. collins, joseph n., w. th st., new york, n. y. cooley, ralph b., hotel kimbal, springfield, mass. crysdale, stanley a., r. d. , auburn, n. y. curtis, elroy, brookfield, conn. deeben, fred, trevorton, pennsylvania. deming, dr. w. c, owen street, hartford, conn. * drake, prof. n. f., fayetteville, arkansas. elfgren, ivan p., sheldon place, rutland, vermont. * ellis, zenas h., fair haven, vermont. ellwanger, mrs. w. d., east ave., rochester, new york. ettari, oscar a., north ave., new rochelle, n. y. ferris, major hiram b., p. o. box , spokane, wash. fickes, w. r., route , wooster, ohio. fontaine, arthur, highland ave., ludlow, mass. frey, frank h., room la salle st. station, chicago, ill. gable, jas. b., jr., stewartstown, pennsylvania. gage, j. h., flatt ave., hamilton, ontario, canada. galbreath, r. s., huntington, indiana. garber, hugh g., fulton st., new york city, n. y. gellatly, j. u., box , west bank p. o., gellatly, british columbia. gerber, e. p., route no. , apple creek, ohio. graham, j. w., walnut orchard farm, ithaca, n. y. greene, mrs. avice m., ridge rd., n. w., washington, d. c. greene, karl w., ridge rd., n. w., washington, d. c. gribbel, mrs. john, box , wyncote, pennsylvania. hahn, albert g., rural route no. , bethesda, md. hale, richard w., state street, boston, mass. hammond, julian t., rd, d.d.s., newtown, pa. harman-brown, miss helen, croton falls, new york. harrington, f. o., williamsburg, iowa. hartzell, b. f., shepardstown, west virginia. healey, scott, r. f. d. no. . otsego, mich. healy, oliver t., c/o michigan nut nursery, rt. , union city, michigan. helmick, james h., columbus junction, iowa. hershey, john w., downington, pennsylvania. hilliard, h. j., sound view, connecticut. holden, frank h., west th st., new york city, n. y. hostetter, c. f., bird-in-hand, pennsylvania. hostetter, l. k., route no. , lancaster, pennsylvania. * huntington, a. m., east th st., new york city, n. y. hutchinson, galen otis, main ave., passaic, n. j. iowa state horticultural society, des moines, iowa. isakson, walter r., route no. , hobart, indiana. jacob, c. m., stockbridge, mass. jacobs, homer l., c/o davey tree exp. co., kent, ohio. * jaques, lee w., waverly place, jersey city, n. j. jones nurseries, j. f., lancaster, pennsylvania. kaan, helen w., wellesley, mass. kaufman, m. m., clarion, pennsylvania. kellogg, dr. j. h., manchester st., battle creek, mich. kelly, mortimer b., west st., new york city. kendrick, mrs. jay g., main st., shelburne falls, mass. * kinsan arboretum, lang terrace, north szechuan rd., shanghai, china. knox, loy j., c/o first national bank, morrison, ill. lamb, gilbert d., woolworth bldg., new york, n. y. lancaster, s. s., jr., rock point, maryland. leach, will, cornell building, scranton, pa. lester, henry, pintard ave., new rochelle, n. y. * lewis, clarence, park ave., new york city, n. y. little, norman b., rocky hill, conn. * littlepage, thos. p., union trust bldg., washington, d. c. macdaniels, l. h., c/o cornell university, ithaca, n. y. mcintyre, a. c., dep't of forestry, state college, pa. mehring, upton f., keymar, maryland. meyer, dr. r. c. j., third ave., moline, ill. middleton, m. s., district horticulturist, vernon, british columbia. miller, herbert, pinecrest poultry farms, richfield, pa. mitchell, lennard h., california st., n. w., washington, d. c. * montgomery, robert h., madison ave., new york city, n. y. * morris, dr. robert t., r. f. d., stamford, connecticut. morton, joy, lisle, illinois. neilson, jas. a., c/o michigan state college, east lansing, michigan. new york state agricultural experiment station, geneva, n. y. orner, george d., ridgewood road, maplewood, n. j. otto, arnold g., three mile drive, detroit, michigan. paden, riley w., rte. , enon valley, penna. park, j. b., c/o ohio state university, columbus, ohio. peters, e. s., folsom ave., st. louis, mo. pickhardt, dr. o. c, east th st., new york city, n. y. porter, john j., the terrace, hagerstown, md. pratt, geo. d., jr, bridgewater, connecticut. purnell, j. eiger, box , salisbury, maryland. putnam, mrs. ellen m., babson st., mattapan, mass. reed, c. a., dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. richardson, j. b., lakeside, washington. * rick, john, pennsylvania square, reading, pa. riehl, miss amelia, godfrey, illinois. rowley, dr. john c., ashburn ave., hartford, conn. russell, newton h., burnett ave., so. hadley falls, mass. ryan, henry e., sunderland, mass. sawyer, dorothy c., c/o living tree guild, th ave., new york. sefton, pennington, lake ave., auburn, n. y. schlagenbusch bros., rt. , fort madison, iowa. schlemmer, claire d., rt. , fredericksburg, virginia. schmidt, a. g., nazareth, pennsylvania. schuster, c. e., horticulturist, corvallis, oregon. scott, harry e., p. o. box , petersburg, n. y. sherer, j. f., c/o c. t. sherer co., worcester, mass. slate, george l., state agri. exper. station, geneva, n. y. smith, dr. j. russell, swarthmore, pennsylvania. smith, leon c., day ave., westfield, mass. snyder, d. c., center point, iowa. spence, howard, the red house, ainsdale, near southport, england. spencer, mrs. may r., west decatur st., decatur, ill. stark bros., nurseries, louisiana, missouri. steffee, jno. g., th ave., new york city, n. y. stiebeling, mrs. anna e., monroe st., washington, d. c. stocking, frederick n., cadillac st., detroit, michigan. stoke, h. f., watts ave., roanoke, virginia. stover, jacob e., springwood farms, york, pa. strickland, c. h., snow hill, maryland. taylor, c. w., eye st., eureka, california. theiss, lewis edwin, muncy, pennsylvania. thorpe, will j., divisarero st., san francisco, calif. tice, david, savings bank building, lockport, n. y. turner, lt. g. h., prospect ave., portage, wisconsin. university of illinois library, urbana, illinois. van meter, w. l., adel, iowa. von ammon s., c/o bureau of standards, washington, d. c. walker, c. f., e. overlook rd., cleveland heights, ohio. watson, john f., dumont apart, lynchburg, va. * weber, harry r., east th st., cincinnati, ohio. weidhass, william h., gaston st., easthampton, mass. wellman, sargeant, windridge, topsfield, mass. went, robert e., mcdonough st., brooklyn, n. y. weschcke, carl, lincoln ave., st. paul, minn. wigglesworth, alfred. wilkinson, j. f., rockport, indiana. williams, dr. chas. mallory, stonington, connecticut. williams, moses, tremont st., boston, mass. windhorst, dr. m. r., university club bldg., st. louis, mo. * wissman, mrs. f. de r., w. th st., new york city, n. y. * wister, john c., clarkson ave. and wister st., germantown, pa. wright, ross pier, west th st., erie, pa. zimmerman, dr. g. a., so. th st., harrisburg, pa. * life member. constitution article i _name._ this society shall be known as the northern nut growers association, incorporated. article ii _object._ its object shall be the promotion of interest in nut-bearing plants, their products and their culture. article iii _membership._ membership in this society shall be open to all persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to place of residence or nationality, subject to the rules and regulations of the committee on membership. article iv _officers._ there shall be a president, a vice-president, a secretary and a treasurer, who shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting; and an executive committee of six persons, of which the president, the two last retiring presidents, the vice-president, the secretary and the treasurer shall be members. there shall be a state vice-president from each state, dependency, or country represented in the membership of the association, who shall be appointed by the president. article v _election of officers._ a committee of five members shall be elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating officers for the following year. article vi _meetings._ 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 executive committee 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 executive committee. article vii _quorum._ ten members of the association shall constitute a quorum, but must include two of the four elected officers. article viii _amendments._ 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 a copy of the proposed amendment having been mailed by any member to each member thirty days before the date of the annual meeting. by-laws article i _committees._ the association shall appoint standing committees as follows: on membership, on finance, on programme, on press and publication, on exhibits, on hybrids, on survey, and an auditing committee. the committee on membership may make recommendations to the association as to the discipline or expulsion of any member. article ii _fees._ annual members shall pay two dollars annually. contributing members shall pay ten dollars annually. life members shall make one payment of fifty dollars, and shall be exempt from further dues and will be entitled to same benefits as annual members. honorary members shall be exempt from dues. "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 will 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 or the donation. article iii _membership._ all annual memberships shall begin either with the first day of the calendar quarter following the date of joining the association, or with the first day of the calendar quarter preceding that date as may be arranged between the new member and the treasurer. article iv _amendments._ by-laws may be amended by a two-third vote of members present at any annual meeting. article v members shall be sent a notification of annual dues at the time they are due, and if not paid within two months, they shall be sent a second notice, telling them that they are not in good standing on account of non-payment of dues, and are not entitled to receive the annual report. at the end of thirty days from the sending of the second notice, a third notice shall be sent notifying such members that unless dues are paid within ten days from the receipt of this notice, their names will be dropped from the rolls for non-payment of dues. my butternut the butternut crop is always sure and raised at easy cost, there is nothing it will not endure, it is never harmed by frost. the hopper and the cabbage worm care not to chew its leaves, comes weather hot or wet or cold, this sturdy tree ne'er grieves. it has no fear of 'tater bugs, or cultivation's errors, the measly scale from san jose, and green bug bring no terrors. no squash bug races o'er its frame, nor caterpillar weaving, it is never doped with paris green, yet never found a grieving. it has no use for bumblebees, no nodules on its feet, but when the frost is on the pumpkin oft has the hay crop beat. if you wish a crop that always comes without an "if" or "but," the surest thing in all the list, just plant a butternut. james h. helmick columbus junction, iowa [illustration: grand-pa come out to the butter nut tree, and crack some nuts for nicodemus and me.] =report of the proceedings= _at the_ twenty-fourth annual convention _of the_ =northern nut growers association= _incorporated_ _september , , _ _downingtown, pennsylvania_ the first session convened at : a. m., september th at minquas fire hall, with president walker in the chair. the president: "this is the opening of the th annual convention and i will introduce at once for his address of welcome, rev. g. paul musselman." rev. g. paul musselman: "thank you, mr. walker. it is my most pleasant duty to welcome you to downingtown. downingtown is quite an appropriate place for a convention because it is a place where we try to prepare beforehand for things we believe are going to happen, and try to get ready to prevent other things from happening." less than a mile from here to the north are stretches through the woods of infantry breastworks. occupying that woods and those breastworks was the regiment under the command of col. stewart. the british were down by the brandywine to the south, and it was supposed the british would do the logical thing, which they never do, and come up to take downingtown, which was at that time the most important industrial area in the united states. it was the arsenal of the revolutionary war. it has continued to grow in its industrial manufacturing until it is now important in paper manufacturing. that we are still trying to prevent nasty things from happening is strikingly evident in the fact that we have not had to call for help to take care of the people suffering from the depression. the community chest had, in the beginning, adopted a policy of preparing for an emergency by creating a fund for this purpose and has been able to do its work without any other than the usual annual drive for funds. the first paper mill in america was established by mr. rittenhouse and after that paper mills began to be built in this valley. we have gone through a great cycle. the farms in this community used to be farmed for money, later interest was shown in the mills and the farmer farmed without money. again they are being farmed with money by the industrialists and bankers and city men who are coming out and buying up these old farms for country places. i am happy to state that the farms are coming into their own again. it is this class of people that are interested in such things as nut trees as something new and different. it is downingtown's faculty of being prepared for what is to come that makes it a particularly appropriate place for your convention. it is always a little ahead of the parade. we are proud of our local nut nursery which, in line with the spirit of the town, is just a little ahead of the parade. you too are a little ahead of the parade, so in that spirit i welcome you. the burgess has directed me to welcome you to downingtown. i trust your stay will be interesting and helpful and we shall count it a privilege for you to call upon us for any further services you may require. i hope i shall be able to go on the bus trip with you but i am very busy and cannot make any promises for the moment. so, welcome! dr. zimmerman: fellow members of the convention! i am sure that it has been a pleasure to receive the fine welcome that rev. musselman has given us and i wish to assure him that it is a pleasure to be here. we are particularly glad to be in this district which is a land of plenty compared with other parts of the country which have suffered greatly from the depression. i am sorry that i do not live here. we nut growers have been in the habit of thinking of growing nut trees on land which is good for nothing else, so that it is interesting to find nurseries using this good land and making a success of nut tree growing. in fact nut culture had its beginning in this district through mr. rush, and mr. jones and then mr. hershey. i do not wish to take any more of your time as we have a heavy program and a lot of good speakers, and if they can add anything to nut culture, i shall be happy indeed. dr. zimmerman: we welcome members of the penna. nut growers association. it is their field day tomorrow in connection with ours and we welcome them to this convention. the president appointed the resolutions and the nominating committees. treasurer's report balance september , as reported to washington convention $ . stamps and canadian money redeemed by treasurer . balance in litchfield savings society . ______ receipts $ . $ . profit on bus trip at washington . memberships @ $ . old rate. no nut news @ $ . . memberships @ $ . new rate. no nut news @ $ . . memberships @ $ . --$ . to assn. $ . to nut news @ $ . . memberships @ $ . --$ . to assn. $ . to nut news @ $ . . memberships @ $ . without nut news @ $ . . membership @ $ . --mr. ellis . membership @ $ . with nut news--mr. neilson . miscellaneous receipts . _______ total receipts $ . $ . disbursements refund to d. c. snyder $ . programs washington convention . paid national nut news . membership american horticultural society . c. a. reed. expense washington convention . total $ . $ . balance to account for $ . litchfield savings society $ . cash on hand or in bank . _______ total $ . $ . j. f. jones' experimental work in hybridizing filberts and hazels _by_ mildred jones _lancaster, pennsylvania_ the first crosses of the hybrid filberts were made in the year . the small plants when taken from the nursery row were set x feet with the thought in mind of taking out every other bush in the rows when they began to crowd, and in case they were of value they could be transplanted to a permanent place. it was not thought that many of the plants would bear superior nuts promising enough to keep longer than to observe the type of nuts the bushes bore. the first lot of plants, which were mostly of the barcelona cross, bore in the fall of . the object in view mainly was to produce, if possible, a variety or varieties that could be made a commercial proposition here or elsewhere in the eastern u. s. not very much was thought at the time about the flavor or the quality of the kernel. the main thought was to get away from the corky substance adhering to the kernel of the most of the filberts. barcelona, the main commercial nut in the west, has a lot of this, which makes the kernel unattractive and is probably more or less injurious to the digestive system because of the tannin content. after this fault was eliminated it was going to be necessary to work for size and quality of the nut. the filbert blight has not been found on our place, so not much stress was put on the point of producing a blight-resistant or blight-free filbert. probably if we had the filbert blight we would consider it more seriously. the method used in crossing these hybrids was to remove the catkins on the pistillate plant at any time before they developed and scattered their pollen. the wood containing the catkins to be used for pollinating was observed closely in order to bring it in at the same time with the rush pistillates by cutting and holding back in a cold cellar after the catkins were swelling well. this was the barcelona which blooms very early. the italian red, cosford and giant de halles bloom later than the rush so this was another problem. these were forced by cutting and putting in a sunny window. in cutting wood for pollinating, the cuttings should be large. the stored up starch in the wood then gives the catkins more to draw on. apparently the filbert catkins and pistillates develop entirely from the stored up starch in the wood and do not draw on the roots at all. this being so it was figured they would develop just as well off the bush. the last pollinating on the rush was done in the spring of . the catkins appeared to be all right and the limbs were cut and stored in the cellar. these were taken from the duchilly. finding they did not respond promptly to warmth it was seen that the catkins were drying up and getting stiff. as father was very anxious to use this variety he tried soaking the limbs in water and then exposed them to the sun. some of the catkins only swelled and then appeared to stop. the soaking was then repeated making it several hours and again they were exposed to the sun and warmth. most of them developed nicely after this treatment. as those on the bush dried up and turned black it was thought probably the pollen used after treated as just mentioned was not good, but the pistillates developed promptly after being pollinated and the bush produced a large crop of nuts. i suppose these had been injured in the winter, but it would seem surprising that they could be made to develop artificially and the pollen be good. it was found that rush crossed cosford made the largest nuts but the kernels of these nuts were not of the best quality. on our eastern market i think it will be found that the longer type nuts will bring the premium in price. i find in selling the nuts that people mostly desire the longer nuts, but will take the other nuts if they cannot get the longer ones. this past spring we tried to graft several of the most promising hybrids in the older block of trees. we used the modified cleft graft method and we set the grafts on layered plants of the barcelona filbert which were lined out in april. we grafted them in may after the layers had started to grow. out of plants grafted we have growing nice plants from to inches tall, an % stand. the roots of the barcelona layers died also on the grafts that failed to live. i believe the main trouble in this experiment was that there was not enough root system to carry the graft rather than the fault of the grafting, as most of the grafts started to grow. we should have tried grafting on layers established one year and we will try this next spring. we have several very promising filberts in the older block of bearing plants. the buchanan, no. , was named for president buchanan, the only president of the u. s. from pennsylvania, whose home is in lancaster. no. is also an excellent plant and was classed by my father as one of the best in the collection. this plant has not been given a name as yet. i would like to have a name suggested that would be suitable. these two plants just mentioned bear nuts very much the shape of italian red. the kernels come out with little or no corky substance on the kernel. the flavor is very good and the plants have borne very well. we have a plant called "b." letters were given to the plants where mice got in the seed beds and mixed the nuts. the nut of this plant is more the shape of barcelona and is very good. it also bears well. in the younger block of plants we have quite a few promising plants but these must be tested further before we can say anything definite for or against them. i notice considerable leaf burn in the block of hybrids since the severe storm we had two weeks ago. quite a few of the nuts were knocked off too but there is still a good crop which you will see tomorrow. since my father died we have not done any hybridizing. we hope to do so in the future as the work is very interesting. mr. stoke: year before last i bought lbs. of supposedly stratified nuts. i planted them but only one or two came up. this year they have made a pretty fair start so i know it takes two years to germinate. it seems as though it sometimes takes three years because these were stratified for a year and it took them two years to come up after i had them planted. i think you could probably get some stratified nuts from carlton nursery co., carlton, oregon. i sent to carlton for mine but they were shipped by someone else. it is my belief that the carlton nursery co. controls the supply, so you will have to write to them for them. i have three or four dozen trees out of the first planting. they were planted in a very crowded position among walnut trees but are doing surprisingly well. the trees are now three years old and are shoulder high. prof. slate: i planted some turkish hazel nuts. they have been planted two years and have not yet come up, but i believe they will next year, as they take two years to germinate. the following is a list of houses where seed of different species can be obtained. submitted by the courtesy of miss jones: sources of corylus chinensis hillier bros., winchester, england. vilmorin & co., paris, france. corylus colurna carlton nursery co., carlton, ore. c. tibitica forest experiment station, dehra dun, british india. notes on the commercial cracking of black walnuts _by_ h. f. stoke, _roanoke, virginia_ a year ago i reported to this body an experiment in the commercial production of black walnut kernels by factory methods, including the use of a power-driven cracking device. during the past year the experiment was continued, with the variation that the shelling was done as a home industry rather than as a factory operation. ten families were furnished with hand-power cracking devices and the whole nuts were delivered to their homes. the workers received c per pound for cracking and picking out the kernels and in addition retained the shells for fuel. forty-five thousand pounds of nuts were used in the experiment for which a uniform price of $ per hundred weight was paid. the more efficient and conscientious workers produced as high as % of kernels per unit of whole nuts, which was slightly better than the production by factory methods. the general average, however, was around - / %, or about the same for both methods. as to quality of product there was no appreciable difference. it is necessary to exercise greater care in the selection of workers where the work is done in homes without supervision than in the factory. by actual experience it was found that some workers would produce less than half the percentage made by the more efficient workers. such workers were dropped. where relatively small quantities of nuts are to be shelled there is little to be chosen between the home-industry method and such factory method as was used by me. the cost of delivering the nuts to the homes may be roughly set over against the cost of operating a factory. based on the hours of work required to produce a given quantity of kernels, the factory method is more efficient. on the other hand, the home worker will work for a smaller wage per hour. where large quantities of nuts are available, commercial cracking by machine methods will be increasingly used in the future, especially if economic conditions so far improve that people will no longer work for starvation wages. point is given to this observation by the fact that local buyers paid from to c for country-produced kernels last season, while my bare cost, without overhead or profit, was c per pound. * * * * * the most notable advance that has come to my attention during the past year in the way of commercial production of black walnut kernels is that contributed by mr. c. e. werner, president of the forest park nut company, of ottawa, kansas. mr. werner, who is years of age and a veteran inventor with several notable inventions to his credit, has designed and built a machine that seems to mark a new era in black walnut kernel production. this machine, which is mounted on a truck, is not only used for the local operations of the company, but is moved from place to place in the performance of custom work, after the manner of a grain threshing outfit. mention is made in company correspondence of cracking twenty thousand bushels of nuts for one customer in southwest missouri. the following details were supplied by the manager of the company. the machine has a capacity of from to pounds of kernels per hour. as they come from the machine they carry not more than % shells, and run from to % full quarters. after being hand cleaned the net recovery of kernels represents from to - / % of the weight of the whole nuts. custom work is charged for at the rate of from to c per pound for the kernels produced. the cost of the final hand cleaning and packaging is given as c per pound, which makes a total production cost of from to c per pound. the operation of the machine may be briefly described as follows: the nuts are run through a revolving screen which separates and cleans them from all adhering husk and grades them into three sizes. they then pass through the cracker and thence, by conveyor belt, to the picker. this ingenious device holds the broken nuts with soft rubber rolls while a set of fingers literally pick the kernels from the shells. careful sifting is the last step as the kernels leave the machine, after which they are hand-picked to remove any remaining pieces of shell. the owners advise that the machine has been built primarily for their own use, and has not yet been offered for sale. they would, however, consider building the machines for sale. while the subject assigned me did not include the marketing of kernels, i cannot refrain from stating that no commodity is in greater need of orderly, organized marketing. in the meantime i would urge the small producer to cultivate his own local market as far as possible and refuse to produce at unprofitable prices. cracked black walnuts make an excellent supplementary feed for growing chicks and laying hens. i advertised in the rural new yorker, the american magazine and better homes and gardens. mr. hershey advised me i would go broke advertising but i wanted to see what would happen. the rural new yorker gave the best results. i got $ . for a -lb. package. the kernels were in clean, first-class condition. i noticed some were advertised as low as c for two pounds. some people in answering my advertisement said they had bought others that were not in first-class condition. i had no complaints about mine. in better homes and gardens i did not get enough orders to pay for my advertising. i would not advise anyone to advertise there or in the american magazine, as i got very poor results. i even got a bad check. the rural new yorker was very satisfactory. the prices i paid locally were from . to . and sometimes . to . to old customers. twelve and a half cents was the average price. i think maybe i should have advertised in a confectioners' journal in order to reach a large consumer source, but i felt at the time that i was using the only way i had of reaching a market. this carton (showing a mailing container) is a -pound carton which i used in shipping in response to mail orders. it makes a very nice package that is received in good condition. i might add that the contents are cubic inches. question: do you use a paper bag inside? mr. stoke: i line it with wax paper. i made a form and fold the wax paper around it to get the size. this makes a neat lining and then i just pour in the nuts and fold the top down. mr. graham: do you notice much difference in the kernels? mr. stoke: not in black walnuts. i found a few nuts which i could not use. the best nuts i found this year were in and about our locality. mr. smith: did you try offering prizes? mr. hershey and i once got almost tipsy testing a lot of walnuts in a prize contest. mr. stoke: no. the best nuts i got would score not higher than the thomas. they were brought in by different people and mixed together so that i was unable to tell their source. the president: do you do your separating of kernel and shell by hand? mr. stoke: yes. i use sieves, too. i use first a / x / inch mesh. it will take out most of the shell. then for a minimum size, the best is mesh to an inch, as used by the forest park nut co., ottawa, kans. this is smaller mesh and eliminates the smaller bits of shell. mr. hershey: did you have any correspondence with those people? mr. stoke: i was interested in their machine for cracking nuts and i wrote the company a letter. two or three months later i received a letter from mr. werner, a son of mr. c. e. werner, and who signed himself as len werner of the werner steel products co., and i received details and facts about the machine. he asked me if i would be interested in buying a machine or renting on a basis of kernel production. the younger mr. werner said they built the machine for themselves but could supply orders if they came in. miss sawyer: did you get any information on the price? mr. stoke: no, none whatever. it seems to be taken from place to place mounted on a truck and cracks the nuts right on the job. mr. reed: do you have any difficulty in cracking nuts when they are dry? mr. stoke: the nut cracks best when not too wet or too dry but just right. if too dry, they are too brittle and you break up the kernels too much, also get too many spalls of shells. if wet you have other troubles. in the south and southwest the summers get hot and so some nuts get rancid. the sweet type that have less oil seem to stand up better. question: do you ever steam nuts before cracking? mr. stoke: no, i haven't. to keep them in a damp atmosphere is also not good. nuts should be kept dry while in storage. kernels should also be kept in a dry place. i put them in trays of wire mesh and if the nuts are too green or i am in a hurry for them, i turn on the electric fan. last fall i put some in cold storage in december. i also put some in cold storage in may and i found that i would not have needed to put any in cold storage until may as they have kept just as nicely as those stored earlier. but i find it is essential to have the kernels thoroughly dried before they are put away. if thoroughly dried they will not mold, but if kept in too warm a place they will turn rancid. to keep them in a damp atmosphere is also not good. if they are treated right they will keep indefinitely. dr. zimmerman: mr. stoke, how many nuts did you crack? mr. stoke: about , or , lbs. mr. reed: what did you do with screenings? mr. stoke: i fed them to the chickens. some said that they would keep the chickens from laying but i found that by mixing about % with ordinary mash it worked fine. mr. hershey: did you find that it made the egg shells hard? mr. stoke: no, the chickens had too much sense. question: what percent do you lose in sieving? mr. stoke: when i did my fine sieving, i used a -inch screen. the shells were taken out entirely. i lost, maybe, %. prof. reed: do you people in virginia have local names for different types of walnuts? what is the swamp black walnut? mr. stoke: my own opinion is that there is only one black walnut in the east. we have a butternut that some people call the english walnut and some the white walnut. the japanese walnut is sometimes called an english walnut. we also have the english or persian walnut. prof. reed: i believe the botanists recognize only the one black walnut. prof. slate: i do not think there is more than one kind. mr. stoke: it is interesting to know that while the black walnut has been higher in price than the english walnut, so that manufacturers have been substituting the english walnut for the black walnut, this year the black walnut has dropped as much as c per pound under the english and is now about c, i believe. consequently the black walnut has come into its own and is now being substituted for the english walnut. mr. frey: i would like to mention alternate years in bearing. if apple trees can be made to give a fair crop each year by good care, feeding and spraying, it is my thought that walnut trees will do the same thing under the same conditions. but we must remember that forming the hard shell is a most difficult thing for a tree to do. prof. neilson: i should like to draw your attention to a drawing sent me by j. u. gellatly. (the paper was held up for all to see.) just look at the size of the leaves. that is a tracing of the leaf of a hybrid english walnut and heartnut. he sent it along as evidence of its vigor of growth. this large compound hybrid leaf measured inches from tip of the leaf to the bottom of the last leaflet, exclusive of the stem which was inches long. many of the larger leaflets measured � inches, shape, oblong ovate, edges of leaf, serrate, total width of compound leaf, inches. dr. smith: i should like to suggest to mr. frey that the theory he suggested might be supported if the tree were placed in a particularly favorable location. mr. hershey: i should like to remind the audience of judge potter who told me some years ago that on his farm in southern illinois he got three doubles of his meadow grove of about hickory trees, by using plenty of good horse manure, phosphoric acid, and potash. the increases were that he doubled the amount of growth and the size of the nut and changed the trees from alternate bearing to yearly bearing. black walnut notes for _by_ c. a. reed, _associate pomologist fruit and vegetable crops and diseases u. s. department of agriculture_ a number of developments in connection with the black walnut industry of the east have taken place during the last months which appear to be of such importance as to justify special record at this time. some of these have to do with the production and marketing of and prices received for, the wild product, others with certain features in connection with orchard and nursery management, and still others with walnut relationships both inside and outside of the genus. the black walnut kernel industry production of black walnut kernels in this country is fully per cent from seedling trees of the fields, forests, roadsides and dooryards. that from orchard and top-worked trees, while now considerably on the increase, due to recent activity in planting and top-working, will hardly become of relative importance for some years to come. the wild crop is actually on the increase each year, due partly to greater care now taken of old bearing trees and partly to the large number of young trees coming into bearing each year but more largely to the greater extent to which nuts are now being gathered and not allowed to decay on the ground. this increase in production is working both for and against the permanent welfare of the industry, and by this use of the term "industry", it is meant to include the cultivated as well as the uncultivated phases. consumption has increased tremendously. no figures are available as to either total production or percentage of total crop which is still allowed each year to remain on the ground until it becomes decomposed. however, it is the opinion of baltimore merchants who have long handled this product that in certain large districts the wild nuts are now gathered closely and that very few are allowed to decay on the ground. there is no available information upon which to base a curve as to the probable increase in production which may be expected from young trees just beginning to bear or the thousands still too young to bear or yet the other thousands to be planted by squirrels each year. whether or not the increase in consumption and its coincident change in eating habits of the american people will prove permanent after the return of normal times, remains to be seen, but it may be accepted as fact that the future of this country is likely to see greater competition in the home markets among foods than has been the case in the past and that, eventually, only those having the greatest values in nutrition and palatability will survive. salesmanship may defeat this for a while but ultimately, palatability assumed, cash values and human tastes will most certainly arrive at pretty much the same point. the ultimate future of the walnut would therefore appear to depend largely upon its ability to become one of the fittest survivers. one of the most important developments during the past year is of very recent occurrence. it is the fact that the season is opening with the highest prices received during the last two years. this may in part be due to reports that the outlook in the tennessee--kentucky--virginia and north carolina district is for a light crop. according to baltimore merchants who have recently been consulted, consumption last year was the greatest in history and, while prices reached the lowest level since the depression began, relatively speaking, the total drop has probably not been as great as for other food products during the same period. these merchants look forward with confidence to a continuance of increased consumption. this forecast is encouraging, but it is based on the assumption that there will be continued improvement in the manner of handling and packing the kernels for delivery. at present, considerable overhead is usually charged back to the farmers because of labor involved in cleaning, grading, and sometimes curing, after the kernels reach the city merchants. this handling is necessary with much of the output in order that it may be made acceptable to the manufacturers. one of the most desirable characteristics in connection with the sale of black walnut kernels is brightness of color. this is a matter largely due to the manner of handling during the process of harvesting, curing, and cracking. once the kernels become dark, they cannot be brightened except by bleaching and removing the pellicles. however, the importance of prompt gathering as soon as the nuts fall from the trees, removing the hulls, and curing the nuts cannot be overestimated. these are matters easily within the ability of the producers to adjust. the orchard industry on the orchard side of the industry, several developments may be listed, although the majority are merely old developments newly emphasized. black walnut trees, seedlings and grafted trees alike tend to bear full crops not oftener than during alternate years, and with conditions at all unfavorable, full crops may be delayed for several years. grafted trees of many varieties begin to bear their first fruits quite as promptly as with apples. not infrequently walnuts appear by the end of the second year after grafting. this is especially true with top-worked trees. recent adverse weather conditions the spring and summer season of made an adverse combination in some localities. in the ohio and mississippi river sections, the result was disastrous to a large part of the crop. in those sections, may was an exceedingly rainy month. june was equally hot and dry. it is in may that the blossoming periods of most varieties of walnut occur, also it is then that most of the nursery grafting is performed. insofar as pollination was concerned, there were probably enough hours of sunshine during the blossoming period for the distribution of pollen to have been adequate and effective. on some of the trees the rains came at just the right time to wash practically all of the pollen to the ground. had it not been for later pollinating trees either of the same variety, or of other varieties, or even of seedlings in the neighborhood, it is probable that no nuts would have set. however the actual set was about normal, but the heat and drouth which followed resulted in a drop which took the greater part of the crop. a pecan grower in southwestern indiana, with between and grafted trees now of bearing age, recently reported that in august he was unable to find a single nut in his entire orchard. the result has not been quite as serious with the walnuts. nevertheless, the crop prospects are reported to be not at all bright. nursery grafting in southern indiana had literally to be performed between showers. sap flow was excessive and the resulting stand below normal. the heat and drouth which followed killed outright many of the scions which had begun to grow. thus, in that section the orchardists lost most of their crops and the nurserymen most of their grafts. walnut relationships in regard to walnut relationships within the genus, continued studies have led to certain conclusions which would appear to bear mentioning. one of these is to the effect that not all so-called "butterjaps" appear to owe their origin to staminate parentage of butternut but that they may be due to chance crosses of either japanese walnut with persian or possibly black walnut, or quite as often to reversion to the true manchurian walnut, _juglans mandschurica_. hybrids and intermediate forms it is generally known that natural hybridity occurs so frequently between almost any two species of _juglans_ when growing together and blossoming simultaneously that it is unwise to plant the seed of either if pure types are desired. intermediate forms, evidently between persian (english) and black are fairly common throughout the east. the james river and o'connor hybrids are well known typical examples. such hybrids are most apt to occur in vicinities of persian walnut trees. crosses in which the persian walnut is the staminate or pollen producing parent may sometimes occur but if so, they have never come to the attention of the writer. crosses between these two species commonly have the persian walnut as the pistillate or nut producing parent. the most commonly seen forms which appear to be due to hybridity are in the case of certain japanese walnut seedlings in the east. the offspring of these trees frequently takes on much of the character of the american butternut. nuts of this type have been recognized by this association and other authorities as "butterjaps." in his manual of american trees, dr. albert h. rehder of the arnold arboretum, jamaica plains, mass., recognizes crosses between the japanese walnut and american butternut under the technical name of _juglans bixbyi_ after the late willard g. bixby of the association by whom the matter was called to his attention. however, it is not certain that nuts definitely known to represent a cross between these two species have yet been brought to notice. butterjaps it has been commonly assumed that nuts of the butternut type, from trees grown from japanese walnut seed are due to butternut hybridity, but the theory is clearly open to reasonable doubt. nuts of this identical type are common in the orient where the butternut does not occur and also they sometimes occur in this country on trees grown from imported japanese walnut seed. the late luther burbank wrote the department of agriculture in that in california where he had grown many thousands of seedlings from both imported and california grown seed, he was unable to detect the slightest differences in foliage, yet the trees were apt to produce nuts of any one of three types then known as _juglans sieboldiana_, _j. cordiformis_ or _j. mandschurica_. he wrote that "they all run together and are evidently all from the butternut family." an authentic case of butterjaps from imported seed was made public during the first annual meeting of the pennsylvania nut growers' association which was held in harrisburg on january of this year. butterjaps were on display during that meeting which had been grown by mr. ross pier wright of erie, pa., from seed which he had imported directly from japan. his trees are growing in the outskirts of westfield, chautauqua county, n. y., and within a mile of lake erie. in july of this year, dr. e. a. scott of galena, md., called the attention of the writer to a number of fine trees in his small town, all of which had been grown by him from _j. sieboldiana_ seed obtained from a tree nearby and "every one" of which was bearing "butternuts," as he and his neighbors call them. the american butternut does not occur in that part of maryland which is on the upper end of the chesapeake peninsula, probably miles from chesapeake bay. both black and persian walnut trees are very common in that region. the tree which bore the original seed is a typical japanese walnut. it stands at the end of a row of persian walnut trees along the driveway of a private country lane. there are several black walnut trees, perhaps yards to the southwest, but no butternuts for many miles. as the persian and japanese walnuts blossom at about the same time and the black walnut considerably later, it would seem altogether probable that if any cross had taken place it would have been japanese x persian, rather than japanese x black. the chances of a japanese x butternut cross would have been so remote as to be altogether improbable. many years ago, judge f. p. andrus of almont, mich., planted one tree each of persian and japanese walnuts in his dooryard. both soon came into bearing. squirrels planted nuts in the ground and presently the yard was filled with offspring, the majority of which were of the type now called butterjaps. the trees were extremely vigorous but the nuts were of so little value that all were finally cut down. butternut trees are common in michigan and butternut pollen may have been responsible for these crosses but circumstantially the evidence pointed much more strongly to japanese � persian crosses than to japanese � butternut crosses. other cases of these sorts might be cited, but the evidence which the writer has been able to bring together up to the present month, september, , strongly indicates that butterjaps may be due to either an actual cross with a persian or black walnut and possibly with butternut or to reversion to a parent oriental type. so far, it has been out of the question to hazard a reasonably safe assumption as to the staminate parent of all particular crosses by merely studying the botanical characteristics of the butterjap offspring. several years ago mr. bixby planted a number of butterjap seed nuts, hoping that under the mendelian law, the characteristics of the two parents would segregate themselves. the trunk and bark of some of the trees resembled black walnut quite distinctly, while none resembled the butternut. so far as is known to the writer, none of the trees have yet fruited. one of the several butterjap trees in galena, md., previously referred to, produced nuts rather more like black walnuts than butternuts. these two instances therefore, would suggest japanese � black walnut parentage. black walnut root toxicity on several occasions discussions of root toxicity between the black walnut and certain of its neighbors have taken place at association meetings. the theory that black walnut trees give off toxic properties from their roots, which are fatal to other plants, is therefore not new. some years ago the virginia experiment station definitely isolated a toxic substance which was held responsible for the death of tomatoes, potatoes, alfalfa, blackberry plants and apple trees when these other plants were grown in close enough proximity for their roots to come in contact with those of the black walnut. this work was reported in various publications and was written up by several different authors. since then, as well as before, the writer has looked for similar evidence, but, so far, in vain. each of these crops, including tomatoes, potatoes, alfalfa, blackberries and apples, have been seen growing in as close contact with black walnut as they could possibly be placed. oftentimes they have been found much nearer to black walnut trees than would have been wise to place them to oak, hickory, ash or other species of large growing trees. this does not mean that when the roots are in actual contact the toxic agent of the black walnut roots would not prove fatal to the other plants but it does indicate that in the great majority of cases there is no practical danger. anyone who has doubt about the healthy condition of these other species when grown close together with black walnut trees, may obtain evidence for himself by noting the frequent combination of this sort easily found in fields and gardens of the country and small towns. it is surprising how often these combinations of black walnut and other species are to be seen. any unprejudiced person could hardly fail to become convinced that, in the great majority of cases, the danger is of small practical consequence. the roots of the black walnut run deeply under ground and it is entirely conceivable that in deep soil they do not ordinarily come up to the shallower levels of the roots of most other species. summary a summary of the year's developments might be arranged about as follows: ( ) more black walnut kernels were harvested and consumed during the year than ever before. ( ) prices to the farmer reached about the same low level of the year preceding, but the total drop during recent years was probably not in proportion to the drop of most other food products. ( ) crop prospects in are unfavorable for another large crop. prices are starting out considerably higher than for several years. ( ) production of black walnuts from grafted trees under cultivation is altogether insignificant in comparison with that from chance seedlings receiving no special cultivation. ( ) grafting and planting are taking place at too moderate a rate to materially alter the ratio of production from seedling to that of grafted trees in the near future. ( ) there has been considerable improvement during recent years in the manner of preparing and packing black walnut kernels for market, but there is need for further advance along this line. ( ) merchants engaged in handling black walnut kernels predict that there will continue to be a normal steady increase in consumption, now that the market has become established, trade channels opened up, and consumers habits somewhat established. ( ) walnut hybrids occur frequently in nature. so far, none have appeared which were of special value because of the character of nuts which they produce. so-called butterjaps appear to be possible from either certain crosses or from reversion to parent oriental types. ( ) ordinarily, other crops may be interplanted with black walnuts with as great safety as with most other equally large growing and deep-rooted trees. is the information we have on orchard fertility of value in the nut grove? _by_ prof. f. n. fagan, _professor of pomology the pennsylvania state college_ many of the association members present are also general fruit orchard owners of this state. i am glad to meet with you and must confess that it has been many years since i have had the pleasure of attending the annual meeting of this association. to be exact, the last meeting i attended was the annual meeting held in lancaster some seven years ago. it is not that the pennsylvania agricultural experiment station lacks interest in nut culture that keeps it from doing work along nut investigational lines, but because the older and more extensive apple, peach, cherry, grape and berry industries have called upon the resources of the station to its working capacity. when mr. hershey wrote asking me to speak before this meeting i felt that the only information we had at the station that would fit into the picture was the information we have regarding orchard fertility. i therefore gave him the subject, "is the information we now have on general orchard fertility of value in the nut grove?" first, let me touch upon some of the papers given this morning. i think it would be well for the nut meat industry to look into the department of health's requirements governing the health inspection of workers handling food products. i also suggest looking into the possibility of the selling of nuts and nut meats by interested high school boys and girls in our many towns and cities. the question of annual bearing of nut trees is a subject needing investigation. i rather expect we shall find that this factor is closely connected with over-production of a tree one year, fertility and moisture supply, or, in other words, the nuts may be much like apples. while the nature of tree growth may tend to cause trees to be alternate producers, man may upset this natural habit to some extent by proper cultural practices and thus cause the tree to produce, not a full crop in the off year but at least some fruits that will be on the profit side. as to the toxic effect of some of our nut trees upon growth of other plants growing near by, i rather expect we shall find as time goes on that instead of the trees having a toxic effect they have a robbing effect upon soil moisture and food. one thing that leads me to this belief is that years ago we taught that one reason for seeding a cover crop in the orchard was to have the cover take the moisture from the soil in the fall of the year and in that way check tree growth. we now know that a mature apple or peach tree will reverse this during the growing season and will take its full share of moisture and food from the soil and really take these away from the cover crop. we saw this occur during the dry years of and with covers that had been seeded in june. during both these years, in our orchard blocks where the water holding capacity of the soil was low, the cover died over the tree root feeding spaces. some may have said that the trees were having a toxic effect upon the soil. this was not the case for, in and , both years of plenty of moisture supply, the covers have grown well around the trees in these blocks. i shall now ask you to refer to the conclusions on page of our bulletin no. , issued by the pennsylvania state college, which has just been distributed to you. these conclusions are, of course, based upon our work in an apple orchard but i believe they will apply closely to the management of nut orchards. lessons from fertility studies in the experiment orchard most of the experiments in this orchard have now completed years; there have been few changes and these minor ones. certain lessons may be drawn from this quarter century of research: . the fertility of an orchard soil is more than its plant food content. it involves the nature of the soil, its depth and topography, its previous treatment, the use of fertilizers and manures, the amount and nature of the cultivation and the covers or sods grown. fertilizers are only part of the problem of soil fertility. . in this orchard any treatment that has influenced the trees at all has done so in the following order: first, the cover crops; perhaps several years later, leaf color; shortly after, branch growth and circumference increase; and last of all, yield. . the reason for this sequence of results is that the treatments, whether chemical fertilizers, manure, or cover crops, have influenced yields chiefly by changing the organic matter content of the soil; that is, those treatments which have resulted in the production of larger cover crops have ultimately resulted in the production of more fruit. . the organic content of the soil has been a considerable factor in determining the amount of water in this soil. those treatments which have built up the organic content have kept the soil in condition to soak up rainfall rather than to lose it by surface run-off. a larger water supply, in turn, has produced more cover crops. . the site of this orchard seems nearly level to the casual eye; yet slope, with its accompanying erosion, together with differences in depth of soil, have created nearly as large differences in growth and yield as any treatment. good treatments have nearly offset the initial disadvantage of poor soil; but it is more economical to plant the orchard on good soil than to attempt the improvement of a poor soil. . a short, non-legume sod rotation is an efficient means of building up a depleted orchard soil. after a sod of any kind becomes thick tree growth is checked and yields decline. orchard sods should be turned under or partially broken, frequently. . moisture conditions often are more favorable in the sod orchard than in the cultivated orchard. runoff is checked by a sod and less water is used by a sod in mid-summer, after it has been mowed, than by a heavy cover crop. . under a non-legume sod the soil nitrate supply becomes very low in late may or early june, necessitating early applications of nitrogenous fertilizers. annual applications of pounds of nitrate of soda per tree, or its equivalent in sulphate of ammonia or other forms, have proved profitable in this orchard. superphosphate, in light applications, has increased sod and cover crop growth. . trees receiving annual tillage with july seeding of cover crops have not done as well as those under sod rotations. if the cover crops are seeded in early june, as has been practiced since , the difference may not be marked. . to maintain equal yields, stayman and baldwin must make longer branch growth than york. in addition to these conclusions i will say that any grower who will keep his orchard soil in a state of fertility (by use of manure, proper farm crop fertilizers--nitrate, phosphate or potash alone or in combination with each other--liming and, if necessary, drainage) which will permit growing clovers, alfalfa, soy beans, cow peas, vetch, or any of the legumes, and who really does grow them as covers in his grove or orchard, turning them back into the soil with a minimum period of spring cultivation--just enough to prepare a seed bed--will never need to worry about his soil fertility or water holding capacity. you note that i say a minimum of cultivation. we taught twenty years ago that cultivation should continue during june, july, and august. we now feel that this teaching was wrong. we can see no benefit from this long summer cultivation but do see some harm. cultivation during the hot weather of june, july, and august will only aid in burning out the organic matter in the soil, just the very thing we plant a cover for. many of the covers such as alfalfa, sweet clover and non-legume grasses can be harrowed very heavily in early spring after the frost is out of the ground, thus checking their growth for several weeks, and it is in early spring before the first flowers open, and while open, that the tree needs its nitrogen to aid in the set of fruit, and season's tree growth; the checking of the cover's growth in early spring gives the tree the chance to get its food. * * * * * dr. zimmerman: i am very grateful for the address of prof. fagan. * * * * * dr. smith: i want to express my appreciation of prof. fagan's paper. i want to call to the attention of this convention of people that this young man has actually admitted his hard headedness, that he has been willing to let a tree compel him to change his thinking. progress report on kellogg nut cultural project of the michigan state college _by_ j. a. neilson, _m. s. c., east lansing_ the nut cultural project so generously supported by mr. w. k. kellogg of battle creek made good progress during the season of . the various phases of this project are briefly discussed under their separate headings as follows: search for superior trees this feature of our nut cultural programme is of the utmost importance and will continue to be so until the entire state has been thoroughly explored. in our search we have been greatly helped by interested people throughout the state and elsewhere who report the existence of good trees or who send specimens of nuts from superior trees. this voluntary help is very useful and is much appreciated. of the various methods of searching for good trees, nut contests are the most efficient and economical. through the medium of national contests this association has discovered many good varieties, and several of these new varieties are now being propagated. in view of the discoveries resulting from the association contest in and our state contest in the same year, it was deemed advisable to stage another contest in . an article setting forth the terms of the contest was sent to all the daily, weekly, and agricultural and horticultural journals and was given very wide publicity by these press agencies. a great deal of interest was shown in our contest and more than exhibits were entered by approximately exhibitors. several good strains were brought to light by this contest, most of which were unknown before the contest was staged. the prize winners and the awards are as follows: =black walnuts= daniel beck, hamilton, mich. st $ . harry webber, cincinnati, ohio nd $ . e. gray, williamston, mich. rd $ . =hickories= mrs. ray d. mann, davison, michigan st $ . d. miller, north branch, mich. nd $ . lyle hause, fowlerville, mich. rd $ . =english walnuts= harry larsen, ionia, mich. st $ . d. b. lewis, vassar, mich. nd $ . j. w. jockett, hart mich. rd $ . =butternuts= claude mitchell, scotland, ont. st $ . m. e. alverson, howard city, mich. nd $ . frank luther, fairgrove, mich. rd $ . =heartnuts= claude mitchell, scotland, ont. st $ . fred bourne, milford, mich. nd $ . j. u. gellatly, gellatly, b. c. rd $ . =chestnuts (hybrids)= john dunbar, oshtemo, mich. st $ . d. n. dean, shelbyville, mich. nd $ . j. w. jockett, hart, mich. rd $ . =jap. walnuts= harold english, chatham, ont. st $ . harold evers, petoskey, mich. nd $ . bob cardinell rd $ . if and when another contest is held a larger number of prizes will be given provided sufficient funds are available. the experience gained in the and contests indicates the desirability of holding at least three contests and five would be better, and to have the contests held annually. it is very difficult to advertise a nut contest so that every person in rural sections knows of it and moreover, even if it were thoroughly advertised in any one year, it would not be possible to get nuts from all good trees because of the irregularity in fruiting habit of nut trees. the experience of others who stage contests will substantiate this opinion. it is a great satisfaction to record the discovery of some promising pecan trees near vandalia on the farm of clyde westphal. these trees were reported to me by mr. harry burgart of union city, and at the first opportunity i went with mr. burgart to examine the trees. there are trees in the grove and the largest and best fruited tree is about feet tall and nearly one foot in diameter at the base. the nuts are of medium size, crack easily, and contain kernels of good quality. a good crop was borne last year and other satisfactory crops have been secured for several years. it is quite likely that this tree would not mature nuts in a short growing season or in a season of low heat units, but the fact that it has done so well in recent years in growth and nut production is very encouraging, indeed. plans are being made to propagate this strain. another good pecan sample was received from mr. b. b. dowell of paulding, ohio. this tree is hardy and produces nuts slightly larger than the westphal tree. the nuts have good cracking quality and flavor of kernel and are worth propagating for northern regions. propagation the propagation of selected strains of nut trees is not primarily the function of an experiment station, with the exception of such work as may be necessary to establish on station property a sufficient number of trees to furnish scionwood for experimental purposes and to supply interested parties with what they require. we believe that nut tree nurserymen should undertake the propagation of new varieties of proven merit and we have endeavored to furnish our local nurserymen and others with scionwood of our best native selections or introductions. such propagation as we have done is with established trees and can properly be considered as top-working. this feature of our project is discussed under that heading. topworking our programme of top-working was carried on in to the full extent of time and funds available and a special effort was made to top-work some of the worthless pignuts and bitternuts with scions of hicans and hybrid hickories. in a former report, reference was made to the difficulty in grafting shagbark and shellbark scions onto pignuts; and here again i want to say my first observation still holds especially with the shagbarks. i do not have a single shagbark scion left on pignuts out of several hundred set during the last four seasons. our results with hybrid hickories and with hicans have been much more encouraging in so far as the set of scions and growth is concerned. the following varieties have done well on the pignut or bitternut--burlington, beaver, cedar rapids, creager, dennis, des moines, fairbanks, kirtland, laney, lingenfelter, mccallister, stratford, and shinnerling. it is definitely known that most of these varieties are of hybrid origin with the exception of cedar rapids and kirtland. the buds of the variety i have labelled as cedar rapids do not look like pure shagbarks and it is possible that a mix up has occurred in the labels. a satisfactory start was made in propagating the prize-winning shagbark hickories of our contest and further work will be done with these kinds in the present season. good progress has been made in propagating our best varieties of black walnuts, english walnuts, and chinese walnuts. we now have several trees some of which are quite large that have been top-worked to scions of wiard, allen, grundy, rowher, ohio, creitz, carpenter, and stambaugh black walnuts. in english walnuts we have carpathian no. , , and --crath, mcdermid, and broadview. this latter variety is above the average in size, cracks easily and has a good kernel. still more important it is believed to be hardy and is definitely known to have endured ° below zero f. this variety was sent by mr. j. u. gellatly, our enthusiastic nut tree hunter from british columbia. mr. gellatly has brought to light a considerable number of heartnuts and a few english walnuts. one of his latest finds is an english walnut that produces very large almost round thin shelled nuts. this tree grows on high bench land near okanogun, b. c. and is a seedling of a tree growing in the high altitudes of kashmir in northern india. some of the heartnuts sent by mr. gellatly are amongst the largest i have ever seen and possess good cracking and extraction qualities. scions of these varieties have been ordered from mr. gellatly and we hope to establish at least one good tree of each kind as a source of propagating material. we also have several grafts of an excellent chinese walnut which we obtained from mr. george corsan of islington, ontario. this variety bears a large nut with a thin well sealed shell and a first-class kernel, and has been named corsan. new plantings the planting programme for included the planting of about acres on the collver part of the kellogg farm near augusta, but this had to be reduced by % because of financial troubles caused by the closing of the banks in which mr. kellogg was a depositor. in addition to the new plantings a considerable number of replacements had to be made particularly in the chestnut groves. the following table shows the number of each species and variety planted: (a) black walnuts variety number allen wessell thomas beck bohamin edras grundy homeland howell grabill hauber heplar mintle patuxent ruddick stanley tasterite stover worthington mcmillen hunter birds eye carpenter miller ten ecyk ohio stabler (b) chinese walnut seedlings (c) english walnut seedlings (crath) alpine mayette (d) butternuts seedlings hickories (a) hybrids stratford (b) shagbark glover romig (c) shellbark stephens (d) pecans indiana niblack greenriver kentucky butterick posey carlyle jeffrey seedlings (e) hicans des moines gerrardi burlington wright burton norton hazels (a) turkish hazels seedlings (b) jones hybrids seedlings (c) corylus vilmorinii seedlings chestnuts (a) chinese seedlings (b) japanese seedlings good results were secured with all of the above mentioned kinds except the chinese and japanese chestnuts. the reason for this failure is given elsewhere in this report. demonstration work on grafting this feature of our programme has not received as much attention as should be given to it owing to lack of scionwood of local origin and to a desire to work over nearly all the trees on the kellogg farm before attempting much outside work. we now have a fair supply of scionwood on our station trees and are in a position to proceed with a modest top-working programme out in the state. * * * * * the principal object of this scheme will be to establish sources of scionwood at various places in the state and to instruct interested parties in the art of grafting. a total of demonstrations have already been given and in nearly every case improved varieties were established and local interest was aroused. it is a matter of satisfaction to report that at least four men have made a commendable start in top-working ordinary seedling trees with scions of superior sorts and one of these men, mr. charles pepper of berlamont, proposes to establish a small nursery of allen black walnuts. * * * * * for some time the writer has planned to interest the future farmers of america in planting nut trees, but was too busy with other duties to make the proper contact. just recently arrangements were made with dr. gallup, the state supervisor of vocational agricultural education, for a presentation of the scheme of nut tree planting to these enterprising and energetic young men. my object is to interest at least one member of each group in either top-working local seedlings with the best hardy varieties or in planting good nut tree varieties. plans are also made to interest the members of the state horticultural society in planting some of the best varieties of michigan origin. educational work this feature of our project has not been given a great deal of emphasis because it was believed we did not have enough information of local nature to justify us in conducting an extensive educational programme. we now believe we have enough information to make a start and i have arranged a series of meetings with county agents at their regional conferences in the southern part of the lower peninsula. each regional conference includes the county agents and associated workers in several counties and affords one an opportunity to present our programme to state officials who can give us most effective cooperation. this project along with a similar one for the future farmers of america should create more interest in nut culture. general notes the establishment of hardy blight resistant chestnuts of good quality is an important objective in our nut cultural project, and one in which only partial success can be reported. approximately chinese and japanese chestnut trees have been planted but only about of these trees are living. some of these casualties were due to dry weather, rabbits and woodchucks, but the major part were due to unsuitable soil conditions. our observations show that the asiatic chestnuts will not thrive in an alkaline soil, as nearly all the losses occurred on an area that had a heavy application of marl. on the area where the trees are now growing well the soil is acid and supports several acid tolerant plants. a superior strain of chinese chestnut was found in a lot of about trees which the writer sent to mr. w. r. reek of the experiment station at ridgetown, ontario, in . the best tree has made a good growth, and bears large nuts of good quality. scions of this tree were obtained last spring and grafted onto several chinese seedlings at the kellogg farm. an attempt will also be made to graft a few large--unfruitful japanese chestnuts at various places in the state with scions of this good chinese strain. * * * * * an interesting bit of information on the hardiness of the black walnut and butternut has just come to hand from col. b. d. wallace of portage, la prairie, manitoba. col. wallace reports the occurrence of a seedling black walnut in his nursery that is quite hardy and which bore fully matured nuts at an early age. he also has a fine grove of butternuts that are entirely hardy and which bear good crops of nuts. these butternut trees grew from nuts secured from france about twenty years ago. the trees are quite hardy but other butternut seedlings from ontario seemed to lack hardiness. no data are at hand to show where the french butternut trees came from, but inasmuch as the butternut is not a native of france it is almost certain that the trees came from north america and probably quebec province. in any case the trees are hardy and are reported to give satisfaction to the people in the prairie provinces. mr. kroodsma, extension forester, reports the occurrence of a moderately large black walnut which bears nuts of good quality and fair size at houghton in the extreme northern part of the upper peninsula. these accessions to our knowledge of the hardiness of the walnut and butternut are valuable and would suggest that these species can be grown much farther north than their native range. in a former report reference was made to an attempt while in the service of the ontario department of agriculture to interest the members of the womens' institute in ontario in planting nut trees, but not much progress was made until last spring. the writer had in ontario about fine seedling heartnuts which he was unable to sell and which had to be moved. it seemed regrettable to destroy them and finally the trees were given to mr. geo. putnam, supt. of institutes for distribution in my old home county and in another county where i worked for some time. the trees were readily accepted and much interest was aroused. so much in fact that i was kept busy writing letters to people who wanted to share in the distribution. unfortunately, i did not have enough trees to meet all demands and so had to refuse many an institute member who was anxious to try these heartnut seedlings. notes on the filbert orchard at geneva _by_ g. l. slate _experiment station, geneva, n. y._ winter killing of the wood and catkins is probably the limiting factor in growing filberts in western new york. satisfactory varieties must possess catkins hardy enough to provide sufficient pollen for pollination purposes. there must also be very little killing of the wood or the crop will be reduced in proportion to the amount of wood that is winter injured. several years observations in the station filbert orchard at geneva have shown a great variation in hardiness of filbert varieties. with some varieties the catkins are severely injured each winter, with others, very little injury occurs. because of this great variation in hardiness we must accumulate as much data as possible concerning the ability of varieties to withstand our winters, especially the mild winters, before we are in a position to make definite variety recommendations. last winter, - was especially hard on filberts, in fact, much more winter injury was experienced than at any time since the station orchard was set in . it was a good season to separate the hardy and tender sorts. throughout the winter the weather was exceptionally mild and favorable for that type of winter injury due to early growth activity. in a normally cold winter catkin killing as a rule is not very serious, except on a few tender varieties. although catkin killing was so serious at geneva, s. h. graham of ithaca, who is growing a number of varieties on an exposed location where winters are more severe than at geneva, reports that his trees suffered less catkin injury than at any time since he has been growing them. catkin killing does not seem to be due to extreme cold during the winter and rarely are the catkins injured before late february or early march. injury may be severe even though the temperatures are not lower than the catkins are thought to endure when in bloom. apparently the injury may be due to the cumulative effect of dessication throughout the winter months, this effect becoming apparent shortly before the catkins bloom. catkins forced into bloom prior to late february bloom normally and without apparent injury. the data on winter injury of catkins is being accumulated for two purposes. first, it is being used as a basis for recommending varieties as pollinators; and second, it is being used in selecting parents for breeding hardy varieties. the amount of winter killed catkins is determined by observation during the blooming season in late march. all catkins that fail to open, or open weakly and shed no pollen, are considered winter killed and the proportion that are killed is expressed in per cent. based on the amount of winter injury of catkins during the winter - , i am making four groups. first, those varieties in which all, or practically all the catkins were killed. in the varieties suffering such severe catkin injuries, much of the wood was killed, but this will be treated separately. the varieties in this group are nottingham, early prolific, garibaldi, kentish filbert, pearson's prolific, princess royal, the shah, webb's prize cobb, bandnuss, barr's zellernuss, berger's zellernuss, grosse kugelnuss, heynicks zellernuss, lange von downton, multiflora, sickler's zellernuss, and a corylus rostrata brought into cultivation from a glen a few miles away. the planting of varieties in this list is not recommended. the second group includes those sorts in which to per cent of the catkins were killed. the varieties are barcelona, daviana, fertile de coutard, montebello, cannon ball, duke of edinburgh, duchess of edinboro, prolific closehead, red skinned, kadetten zellernuss, kaiserin eugenie, kunzemuller's zellernuss, liegel's zellernuss, prolifique a coque serree, romische nuss, schlesierin, truchsess zellernuss, voile zellernuss, kruse, and littlepage, a variety of corylus americana from indiana. some wood killing occurred among the varieties in this group. none of these varieties should be depended upon for pollination purposes. the third group includes those varieties experiencing to per cent winter injury. the varieties are kentish cob, italian red, bollwiller, red aveline, white aveline, and vollkugel. these varieties may be planted with caution if too much dependence is not placed upon them as pollinators. in the fourth group are those with less than per cent of catkin injury. these are clackamas, cosford, minna, early globe, english cluster, medium long, oregon, purple aveline, red lambert, white lambert, d'alger, althaldensleber, ludolph's zellernuss, luisen's zellernuss, neue riesennuss, eickige barcelonaer, and winkler and rush, the latter two being varieties of corylus americana. varieties from this group and the third group should be used as pollinators and as parents in breeding work to develop catkin hardy varieties. winter killing of the wood has not been as extensive nor as serious as catkin killing. it is usually slight and confined to a few varieties but during the past winter - , many varieties killed back severely. the varieties are grouped according to the amount of winter injury of wood. varieties in which more than per cent of the wood was killed are nottingham, early prolific, garibaldi, princess royal, webb's prize cob, bandnuss, grosse kugelnuss, jeeves samling, kaiserin eugenie, multiflora, kurzhullige zellernuss, lange von downton, and the corylus rostrata previously mentioned. varieties experiencing from to per cent of wood killing were barcelona, red aveline, montebello, berger's zellernuss, einzeltragende kegelformige, heynick's zellernuss, prolifique a coque serre, sickler's zellernuss, voile zellernuss, and russ. in the following varieties from to per cent of the wood was winter-killed: minna, bollwiller, duchess of edinboro, pearson's prolific, the shah, barr's zellernuss, kunzemuller's zellernuss, liegel's zellernuss, romische nuss, schlesierin, truchsess zellernuss, vollkugel and littlepage. varieties which are not injured at all or less than five per cent were clackamas, cosford, daviana, early globe, english cluster, kentish cob, fertile de coutard, italian red, medium long, oregon, purple aveline, red lambert, white aveline, white lambert, d'alger, cannon ball, duke of edinburgh, kentish filbert, prolific closehead, red skinned, eckige barcelonaer, kadetten zellernuss, ludolph's zellernuss, luisen's zellernuss, kruse, neue riesennuss and rush and winkler. it is evident from this data that although many filbert varieties are subject to serious winter injury, there are still a number to choose from that are sufficiently hardy under western new york conditions. variety notes the station variety collection has grown considerably since i discussed filberts before you in . at that time the collection consisted of varieties; today there are under test at geneva varieties of corylus avellana, five varieties of corylus americana, five jones seedlings, and six species of corylus, or a total of forms. later observations on the original orchard have indicated that the original variety recommendations should be modified. certain varieties imported from europe and renamed, or were misnamed when imported, and that have been disseminated by nurseries are apparently identical with certain german varieties recently imported by the geneva station. preliminary observations indicate that some of these recently imported german sorts are worthy of further attention. barcelona which was the most productive variety during the first few years has been falling behind in yields the past two seasons. this, coupled with the winter killing of wood and catkins last winter, makes barcelona a doubtful variety to plant. italian red in averaged nearly eight pounds of nuts to the tree, the heaviest yield of any variety in the orchard. the crop this year promises to be satisfactory and one of the largest in the orchard, in a season when varieties generally are very light. s. h. graham of ithaca reports that "italian red has been the best and most regular bearer of any of the european filberts" that he has tried. kentish cob averaged five pounds per tree last year and cosford over four pounds. the latter variety is catkin hardy and should be in every planting. white lambert and red lambert, still light croppers, possess very hardy catkins and for that reason deserve trial. oregon, purple aveline, and english cluster bear heavy crops, but are difficult to husk and the nuts too small for market. for home use they should be very satisfactory. among the newer nuts fruiting last year for the first time, neue riesennuss, originating in germany in , is promising. it is one of the largest in the station collection, is a bright light brown in color with slightly darker stripes, and last winter experienced very little catkin injury and no wood injury. as yet nothing is known of its productiveness in this country, but in germany it is said to be productive. some of the nuts distributed in this country by mr. vollertsen of rochester are proving identical with some of the german sorts recently imported by the station. i do not intend to suggest now that the name of the varieties in this country be changed to those of the varieties with which they are identical. later when all of these imported varieties are in full bearing the matter of changing names will be brought to your attention again. red lambert (of vollertsen) is identical with beethe's zeller, and italian red (of vollertsen) is identical with gustav's zeller. minna (of vollertsen) is not the minna of german descriptions. filbert breeding the breeding work with filberts is following two lines. hardiness of wood and catkin is of prime importance and to develop varieties satisfactorily in these respects those varieties that have proved hardy are being crossed with different sorts that have desirable nut and tree characters. hardiness is also being sought by crossing the rush native hazel with varieties of corylus avellana. trees from this cross, made by mr. reed, are now growing in a fruiting plantation at the station, and several hundred more from other crosses are in the nursery row. with this wealth of material coming along, it is reasonable to assume that the day is not far distant when satisfactory varieties will be available for northern planting. developing a walnut grove as a side line job as a bee keeper l. k. hostetter _lancaster, pennsylvania_ in discussing this topic i shall give you some of my doings in my bee business and nut growing. about years ago, i started out in the bee business with three colonies of bees. this number increased gradually until i had colonies. during these years i would sometimes have a bumper crop of honey and then again sometimes a total failure. this past summer happened to be one of those off years. it is, however, the income from this bee business that started me off in the growing of a grove of black walnut trees, also a few shellbarks, pecans, heartnuts, english walnuts, hicans, hardshell almonds and filberts. in the spring of , i had a nurseryman graft small black walnut trees to the thomas and stabler varieties with catches, thomas and stabler. in the spring of , i bought the homestead farm and planted thomas, stabler, and ohio black walnuts, shellbarks, hardshell almonds and filberts. this spring i also planted about a bushel of seedling black walnuts and, as it happened we had an exceptionally wet summer, these seedlings made a wonderful growth. in the spring of i transplanted about acres to these seedlings. in i planted another acres, and in another acres. some of these trees were planted feet each way and some feet apart. some of these trees were grafted the same year they were planted but most of them were grafted two years later. at this time i had little experience in grafting and, naturally, my acres in getting catches were accordingly. when i started out i thought it would be cheaper to plant seedlings and graft them, as explained above. i have gotten along fairly well in getting my grove started but i found it to be far more work than i expected it would be and i would not do it that way again. because of some failures each year i still have many trees that have not yet been successfully grafted. i am not in a great hurry to get my grove on a paying basis as i am getting a lot of fun playing with the developing of it and i don't believe there will be so very much difference in the size of these trees years from now. i would say, however, that for the man who wants to get a nut grove developed as soon as possible, he should buy his trees from the expert nut tree nurseryman. my entire grove is now seeded to blue grass for a permanent pasture. about acres is pastured by head of sheep and the balance is cut for hay to feed the sheep in the winter time. my reason for seeding to blue grass is to prevent erosion. possibly if i should keep my trees cultivated during the summer they would make a better growth. but then my sheep will make quite a bit of manure and i spread much of this manure under the trees every winter and, as it is, my trees are making a very good growth every year. i now have a grove of about black walnut trees. these are mostly of the thomas, also quite a few ohio and stabler and a few ten eycks. the stablers, ohios, and ten eycks seem to fill the shell so full of meats with me that they are hard to remove in large pieces. i think i shall regraft most of these to the thomas and some of the later varieties. about of my trees are now years old from seed. these trees had about / bushel of hulled walnuts last summer and i expect to have about bushels this summer. last summer i also had about a peck of hard shell almonds from my two trees that were planted in . in my filberts had about / peck of nuts. these trees are now big enough to have at least a bushel or two of nuts if the catkins had not frozen this past winter. dr. zimmerman: mr. hostetter, i would like to suggest, from the fact that we know so little about pollinization of nut trees, that you do not be in too big a hurry to cut out your odd varieties. instead why not do this, let them come into bearing and then each year cut the variety out and note if there is any change in the bearing of the thomas, of which you say your orchard is mostly made up? should you happen to note a lack of pollinization or bearing in the thomas the year after a certain variety is cut out, you can then start checking and may find that variety the best pollinator for the thomas. i certainly would not be in too big a hurry to eliminate all my test varieties if i were you. the president: last year prof. reed gave us a very valuable paper on pollinization. dr. zimmerman: i have a taylor hickory at my place and every year it has several nutlets but as soon as they get any size they tumble off. i have never seen any catkins on that tree. i have been fooling around for several years with persimmons. i have particular reference to the kawakmi which is supposed to be a hybrid of munson. i have never had any fruit from that particular tree. i wrote to munson's and told them and they sent me some of the fruit. i wanted to get the seeds. my tree blooms heavily but has no pistillate flowers. nut trees as used in landscaping dr. lewis edwin theiss _muncy, pennsylvania_ i was asked to speak on the subject of "planting nut trees for those who have space for only a few," but i am going to speak on using nut trees in landscaping. we should know what is meant by the term landscaping. it may mean planting blue spruce or junipers around the house in a pleasing way, or you may use plants. the object is to make a picture which gives a certain impression of our home. we can just as well use nut trees in such a way as to make a beautiful picture, so that when one looks out any window of his home he gets a beautiful picture or vista, or when one goes by and sees your home, he sees a beautiful picture. we tend to follow too stereotyped ways of doing things. there is no reason why we should make a liability of our property. we can just as well have nuts to help make an asset. trees are very much like words. we have two words in the english language that express more than any others. they are "home" and "mother." we also have trees that connote much. of course, it depends on what picture we wish our homes to convey. i want mine to have a cozy yet prosperous look. now you ask, "how are you going to produce that look?" it is by the materials you use and how you use them. and you can use any you wish. we might divide plants into two groups, cultivated plants and wild plants. in trees we have some fruit trees which are never worth a cent. apple trees suggest home. if you are driving through the woods and come upon an apple tree, you immediately think, "someone had a home here once." of course, it might have grown from a chance seed but that is the thought you have at once. the apple tree connotes the thought of home. i happen to be a fruit tree as well as a nut tree grower. the difference between them is that you have to spray the fruit trees. longfellow said, "under the spreading chestnut tree the village smithy stands." that was probably very true as there were lots of chestnut trees at that time. so we have nut trees that give us this connotation of domesticity. they make us think of home. we must also consider the foliage. a tree with fine foliage such as the walnut is preferable for the lawn. the walnut gives a fine shade but does not interfere with the growth of grass. the english walnut makes a dense shade, nothing grows under it. hickory also gives a dense shade. all these things we have to consider when choosing trees to plant about our yards. in my own grounds i have black walnut, persian walnuts, pecans, filberts, hicans and some others. i feel we might as well have something around our places to help pay the taxes. we might as well get a little pleasure out of our property. some of us have vegetable gardens. nut trees can be an asset to your property in the same way if you will plant the proper kinds. you all know the black walnut. it grows to be a large spreading tree but it needs good soil. another nice tree is the japanese walnut. this tree is quite beautiful. a sport of this tree is the heartnut. it also is a very beautiful tree and a rapid grower. i have a little group of these trees and i have never seen trees grow so fast. i have a japanese walnut, a grafted heartnut, and a japanese seedling. they look exactly alike but bear different kinds of nuts. i have one tree which is a seedling. it is eight years old, beginning on the ninth year and is to feet high. i have a heartnut which is a little bit older which i bought from mr. jones. that tree has suffered a lot at my hands. i dug it up twice and changed its position, cutting it back, and still it is growing fine and a big tree for ten years. it has a spread close to feet and reaches to the house top. it certainly looks more than years old. i think a tree like that is very useful planted by a house because of its rapid growth. the foliage is very lovely. i have measured some of the leaves and some are a yard long. another tree i have growing near the house is a potomac english walnut. it is a very vigorous tree, has a dense shade and a very good grower. a very lovely tree to have in the yard. i have also, the butterick, busseron and indiana pecans in the side yard. they bear quite well, particularly the butterick but i like the busseron better. i think they are going to be very large trees. i think they will be like the elms in new england. the foliage is not so large and coarse and is a little different from the black walnut. they have been very successful for us. we do not know much about getting revenue from our trees as we use all our nuts in the family. a pound of nuts i raise myself is worth much more to me than a pound i would buy in the grocery store because of the fun i get in growing them. i have chestnuts that have escaped the blight so far. they say the japanese variety is very hardy and very resistant to blight. as to the nuts, i do not know much about them. another nut tree that we do not often think of is the beech tree. i have never seen a beech tree that had nuts on big enough to amount to anything. we have heard a lot about filberts this morning. filberts make beautiful hedges. i shouldn't advise anybody to grow a filbert hedge along the road or where it would be a temptation to people to steal. but where you wish to erect a screen to shut out an undesirable view, they make a very nice hedge. they are very pleasing as to foliage. we have a very nice crop of filberts this fall. if you have a little place that you want to screen in, why not do it with a hedge that is both beautiful and productive. we also have a peach almond. that is worth growing just for its blossom. people go to washington to see the japanese cheery blossoms but they are no more beautiful than the ridenhower almond when in bloom. the blossom is inches in diameter. the hull dries and parts through the middle leaving the nut easy to get out. my farmer calls my tree "the dried peach tree." the fruit looks more like a peach seed than an almond. it is more difficult to crack than the usual almond but it certainly is interesting in the springtime. i hope in your landscaping you will make use of nut trees, and when you want a hedge you do not have to have a privet or a barberry one. you can make a hedge of roses or of filberts. dr. deming: will your pecans have a good crop? are they well filled? dr. theiss: yes, they are well filled and have a very delicious flavor. in the market you could not offer them in competition with the paper-shell variety, but we are quite well pleased with them. dr. deming: isn't that rather a record for distance north? dr. theiss: i do not know. mr. reed, how far north do pecans grow well? mr. reed: i believe our best authorities are dr. deming and dr. theiss. i am surprised as we have some pecans in washington with which we were discouraged, although they are now developing. dr. theiss: i must say we have very satisfactory trees and lots of nuts. mr. hershey: about six weeks ago i saw a tree which had been bearing for years. it was at schuylkill haven near pottsville, in the mountainous country where it gets very cold. an old man told me the tree was years old. imagine my utter amazement since we believed that the pecan would not bear that far north. i showed the old man some busseron nuts and he stated that his were slightly smaller but very thin shelled. the seed of this tree came from the wabash in illinois. he had another tree there about years old which has been bearing for quite a few years. prof. neilson: have you had any experience with turkish hazels? dr. theiss: no, i have barcelona, du chilly, red aveline, white aveline, and jones-rush hybrids. prof. neilson: it appears that they are very ornamental and very symmetrical and hardy trees. there is a possibility of using nuts in a new confection made of honey. there is a new method of drying honey perfected by dr. philips and dr. dyke, and when this is mixed with nuts it forms a really good confection. my wife has worked out several good recipes. mrs. neilson: the new method of drying the honey allows it to be wrapped in wax paper without sticking to the paper. this is quite an advantage in marketing it. prof. neilson: the broadview persian walnut is a very ornamental tree and can be grown by those who live very far north. my experience in growing nut trees on the house lawn _by_ m. glen kirkpatrick _orchard editor, farm journal, philadelphia, pa._ coming at the end of a program such as you have had here today, i am reminded of a story my father used to tell me as a boy. "there was once a mouse that lived in a cellar. one day he was attracted by some moisture on the floor that was seeping from a barrel of cider. the cider was in the stage of becoming vinegar. the mouse took two or three helpings and then said, 'now bring on the cat!'" i would be just as foolish as the mouse if i tried to contribute any technical matter. ten minutes will be ample to tell you of my experiences. my interest in nut trees is due to mr. john w. hershey. i wish now that some of my apple trees were replaced by walnuts. i planted my trees about years ago. the pecan is about feet high, the english walnut about feet high. the english walnut has blossomed but has never borne fruit. the pecan has blossomed this year for the first time. my barcelona has about a pound of nuts on this year. it is from to feet high. my du chilly has produced fruit one year. the thing i like about nut trees is their cleanness. my english walnut has never been troubled by pests, neither has the pecan, except there is one thing i hold against the pecans and that is the borers on the branches. it is ten times as bad as english walnuts. but the trees are clean and nice to have, and i really prefer them to apple trees. with apple trees you are at all times troubled with apples on the lawn and it is a job to keep them cleaned up. you have nothing of that sort to contend with in nut trees. my trees have not been given special advantages. the pecan is in with a lot of shrubs and the english walnut is surrounded by roses. the filbert has just taken pot luck with the rest. that is my experience and if i can tell you anything further i shall be glad to do it. dr. zimmerman: i would like to ask you a question about the japanese beetle. have you had any trouble with your black walnuts? mr. kirkpatrick: i have had one black walnut die. dr. zimmerman: do you know if the japanese beetle attacks the chestnut or chinquapin? mr. shaw: maybe i can answer that question. in new jersey the japanese beetle attacks the chestnut but i do not know about the chinquapin. developing a thousand tree nut grove _by_ c. f. hostetter _bird-in-hand, pennsylvania_ the natural title of this paper should be "why i planted a nut grove." some years ago, especially when we were in the war, it occurred to me that with all the modern machinery and scientific methods on the farm it wouldn't be long before we would be producing much more food than could be consumed, hence the prices for farm commodities would fall so low there would be no profit in them. the last few years have proven my contention was right. so i got to looking around for something to specialize in and became interested in the new improved thin shelled black walnuts that the late j. f. jones was introducing. i know there is danger in specializing in any one thing but, in summing up the following regarding black walnuts, it looked to me like as good or better a bet than any thing else. first, we know that the demand for the high black walnut flavor has caused it to be profitable for carloads of kernels to be cracked and shipped to the cities from the natural black walnut belt. although this seedling product has been somewhat improved in quality the last few years i still feel that the demand for this high flavored nut for home use, in confections and baking and ice cream making, will make a high demand for an improved and uniform meat such as can be produced with the grafted trees. with the growing interest in natural foods, and less animal meat, i believe the demand will increase as our groves come into bearing. in i hazarded a planting of trees, the next year i was steamed up to the place where i decided i should plant more, and then each year following, until my last planting this year, gives me one thousand thrifty growing black walnuts, mostly thomas variety which i think is the best from what i have observed in my own grove. in planting i set the first ones x ft. some thought it was too close but i couldn't see it. the next planting i made x feet and then at the next planting i started to wake up after seeing how rapidly the first ones were growing, and i decided to make them x feet. the last planting i made this year x feet and i would advise x feet to any one who asks me how far apart to plant. to me it seems queer just why more people don't plant them. on the basis of x feet you could farm indefinitely, with the tree crop coming on and even bearing for many years, while you are contenting your heart growing annual crops to lose money on. as to bearing, two years ago i had the older planting and many of the younger trees loaded. one five year thomas had about nuts. three to five year trees had to and nuts. my crop that year was fourteen bushels which i sold for c per lb or $ . and $ . per bushel. last year i didn't have so many but this year i first said i would have bushels. i'm starting to believe now i was a little high in my guess but many trees are nicely loaded. now regarding cost of carrying the grove, as i'm a sweet corn drier i have the most of my farm in corn. i farmed the grove in corn the first five years and hardly missed the space used for trees. i proved what i stated above that one can plant trees and keep on farming and hardly miss the tree space. if planted feet apart one can farm still more land. in cultivating the corn the trees are cultivated, which cuts down the extra cost of caring for them, although of course one must cultivate them if he expects to have them grow and develop rapidly. i now have my oldest trees in sod, mostly weeds this year, but i intend to sow it to grass. i expect then to mow it early in june and use it for a mulch and then mow it maybe a couple of times more for looks sake and let the grass lie. now another interesting point i want to present to the intending planter of a nut grove is the error of following the foolish advice given out by some of planting seedlings and then grafting them. i say this not for the benefit of the nurserymen but for the financial benefit of the planter. first, the grafting of nut trees is a highly technical job and requires an enormous number of moves, from the first thing of cutting the grafting wood at the proper time in the winter and carefully storing it, until the cutting off of the stocks and knowing how long to let them bleed, and then grafting at the proper time, the proper shading of the graft, sprouting, staking, and tying up of the rapidly growing graft until the end of the growing season, so that the average man will have fallen down long before the season is over. and even if he has the time to do this, which the busy man hasn't, it will take him several years to learn to graft. by the time he has his legs run off over a period of five or seven years going from tree to tree set or feet apart doing more duties than he ever thought were needed, he will have a spotty grove of trees from one year old to bearing age, and then he will wake up and find that the first grafted ones are bearing so well, that should he have bought grafted trees and set them all out at one time the crop would have paid for the complete planting and he would have saved the long agony of trying to get a grove started. even then he might not have one started, for grafting nut trees is a job every body does not seem able to grasp. at the same time i feel that everybody who has a planting should learn the art of grafting. the few nurserymen now growing grafted nut trees are very willing to teach you and it is nice to be able to turn the fence row seedlings into profitable trees, it's nice to have the kick of feeling you can develop a wonderful tree with your own hand. and again, although i have had, i would say per cent of my planted trees to grow, still here and there a top will die and suckers come up. as the tree roots are established it's nice to be able to stick a graft on these and save waiting a year to replant them with nursery trees. in closing i wish also to suggest that, in making a large planting of black walnuts, plant a few pecans, hicans, hickories and any other good trees recommended by the nurserymen. they are all ornamental and bear fine nuts for home use and maybe local trade. if any wish to ask questions i will attempt to answer them now. and don't forget to come up to see my place on the bus tour tomorrow as i shall be very glad to welcome all and have you learn anything you can from what i have done and mistakes i have made. please bear in mind that in every move we must remember that this is a new industry of the soil and, although we believe it has a great future, all groving procedure must be felt out and experimented with as we have no guide to go by, just ideas, and you can expect to make some mistakes. but that is life. * * * * * the president asked dr. deming to speak of the death of mr. bixby. dr. deming: on august th not a single member of this association, so far as i know, was aware that mr. bixby was even ill, and yet on that day he was dead. mrs. bixby has written me an account of his illness and his life. he had pneumonia in march from which he never fully recovered. the cause of his death was not known until after his death. i knew mr. bixby very well and came to appreciate his very sterling qualities. he was always willing to take any amount of trouble and spend any amount of money on his nut culture experiments. i will now read mrs. bixby's account of his life. willard g. bixby was born july , at salem, massachusetts, the son of henry m. and eliza (symonds) bixby. in , he married genevieve cole who died in . he married second, ida elise tieleke who survives him. his early education was received in the public schools in salem and, after graduation from high school, he entered massachusetts institute of technology from which he was graduated in with the degree of s.b. and the highest honors. after receiving this degree, he remained at the institute as an instructor in mechanical engineering, later becoming associated with the pneumatic dynamite gun company of new york, following which he became connected with the american bell telephone company of boston. in , he entered the employ of s. m. bixby and company, manufacturers of shoe blacking. the firm became involved financially in and until was conducted by a receiver. mr. bixby interested capitalists and organized a corporation to take over the business of the old company. mr. bixby was elected treasurer and held that position until , when he was chosen vice-president. he paid special attention to the manufacturing department. under the new management the company met modern trade conditions and the business which developed was one of the largest and most prosperous in this line in the country. following the merging of the bixby firm with the makers of the in shoe polish, mr. bixby retired from that business, and devoted his time to the propagation and cultivation of nut trees. on his grand avenue property in baldwin, where he resided, he had gathered approximately , trees of almost every variety from all over the world. his experiments in grafting and in crossing varieties, were subject of several articles in national magazines and newspapers. one article, under the title of "growing timber for profit," appeared in a recent issue of the american forests. he was also interested in curly black walnut and birdseye maple woods. his latest experiment on which he was working at the time of his death was rooting hazels from leaf cuttings, and at this he was partly successful. mr. bixby was deeply interested in civic affairs. he was a charter member of the baldwin united civic association, trustee of the baldwin public library, director of the baldwin savings and loan association, former fire commissioner, chairman of the baldwin lighting commission, member of the methodist episcopal church in baldwin, and organist of the men's bible class, as well as a teacher of the sunday school. mr. bixby's conservative new england training made him a valuable worker for any cause he espoused. he never sought honor and publicity, rather preferring to do his share quietly and modestly. besides his wife, three children survive him, willard f., a student at the massachusetts institute of technology, katherine e., just recently graduated from the baldwin high school, and ida t., still at the baldwin high school. the president: i will also call on dr. smith. dr. smith: mr. bixby had a great many fine qualities, but first of all he had that great characteristic, intelligent inquiry. he had great persistency and great industry, and a wide-awake mind. now the average american has no interest in anything but his job and his own particular pleasures. in other words, he has no avocation. we are here because we have the avocation of nut growing. one of the most interested members of this association was mr. bixby. he had applied to it his great brain and statistical equipment. he might have had a yacht or spent his money on race horses, but instead of that he picked out something new. it is a great pity that his life had to be snuffed out just when he was needed most. he used his spare time in having a useful avocation. on motion of prof. neilson the organization expressed its appreciation of mr. bixby by rising and standing one minute in tribute to his memory. at the suggestion of mr. reed the following night letter was sent to dr. morris who has been confined to his home for a long time and has not been able to attend the conventions. downingtown, penn. sept. , dr. robert t. morris merribrooke farm stamford conn. the northern nut growers association in convention at downingtown, pa., sends you its affectionate greetings. your long years of association with us and your priceless service to the association and to nut growing and the gracious charm of your presence have so endeared you to us that our meetings are quite incomplete without you. we pray for your speedy restoration to health and return to our councils. northern nut growers association the meeting was then adjourned to mr. hershey's nursery and nut grove and the members and visitors were privileged to inspect his large stock of nut trees and plants and the specimen plantings, some of which are very rare varieties. a delicious supper was then served by mr. and mrs. hershey on the lawn of the hershey home. those present expressing their appreciation by a rising vote of thanks. a black walnut grove and why _by_ dr. f. l. baum _boyertown, pennsylvania_ i will give you the "why" first. early in , we realized the need of a diversion, something which would take us out into the open every day of the year and bring us closer to nature, which would be a source of pleasure with prospects of a material return in the future when i wish to retire from the active practice of medicine. after investigating several projects, we finally decided that a black walnut grove would best meet our needs. in the december issue, , of the american nut journal, i read "eventually, why not now?" in that article, mr. t. p. littlepage said: "the time will come when the northern states will produce big groves of nut trees." the journal's comment was "what are we waiting for?" i too wondered because, long before the trees had leaves, i had visions of them bearing to the extent of breaking the limbs from the weight of nuts. when this picture was taken, i asked myself this question, "was it a venture of fools rushing in where angels fear to tread?" also i began to think that the quotations in the article i read were sales propaganda put forth by high-pressure salesmen. encouragements came later when we discovered thirteen nuts on this tree and when my grafts grew on seedlings. about this time pests came such as caterpillars, rose chafers, leaf hoppers, bud worms and, now my worst enemy, a borer which i believe is a cherry tree borer. i have placed a section of a tree on the table which was attacked by this insect. the question has been asked if it were not a blight canker which killed this tree. when i noticed the tree in distress the leaves were drooping and the bark was intact and smooth, with a wet spot the size of a pin point about three feet above the ground. a stab wound revealed the bark loose and full of holes which extended into the sapwood. all of our trees have been treated for the destruction of this pest. next spring they will receive a second treatment. by this method we will overcome our difficulty. in july of this year my men who were picking caterpillars came with this information, "there is no necessity for hunting caterpillars as there is a fly stinging them." the insect, the size of a wasp, is part black and part yellow. in the evening they said that if some of the trees in the backfield were not propped, they would break down due to the pressure of so many nuts on them. (lantern slide pictures of individual trees were then shown and described by dr. baum.) the vision i had a few years ago is becoming a reality. i now wonder if it might not have been a case of angels rushing in and other fellows staying out. we may conclude "now, not eventually." question: do caterpillars give you any trouble? dr. baum: yes, they give me considerable trouble. i sprayed this year with arsenate of lead. for a few years i burned them off but last year i sprayed. question: do seedlings come up? dr. baum: a few, i mow them down. * * * * * dr. smith: i want to talk to you about the possibility of making some small cash contributions next summer for a nut contest. we have not had any contributions for a nut contest for some time and it is the only way we can get any new varieties. i would like to start this nut contest next september. it will be necessary to get a lot of people interested and a lot of publicity in the newspapers. we could give a first prize of $ . , some $ . and some $ . prizes. it means we would have to have $ . or $ . . perhaps we can make a more definite call next september. dr. theiss: i would like to get any information that is available on the pollinization of filberts. the difficulty seems to be in getting pollinators. the president: there is full information on that subject in the bulletin issued of prof. slate of the geneva experiment station. prof. slate, what can you tell us about it? have you any information other than what was published in that bulletin? prof. slate: we have this difficulty, that the pollen bearing catkins seem to ripen very early and then the first cold snap freezes them. dr. smith: i would like to know something about the market for shagbarks and if the market is for cracked nuts. the president: there is a very small market for them in cleveland, ohio. is there any information about hickory nuts? prof. neilson: hickory nuts frequently sell for about c a pound, sometimes as low as three pounds for a quarter. after the discussion closed three telegrams were read, from the kellogg hotel, the agard hotel and the chamber of commerce of battle creek, mich. inviting the association to hold its next meeting in that city. a motion was unanimously adopted to hold the next convention there september th and th, . motion was made to give mr. z. h. ellis a life membership in return for his contribution of $ . . the motion carried. miss sawyer: is the mollissima chestnut blight proof? the president: i should like to have dr. smith answer that question. dr. smith: the mollissima chestnut came from china where it has been exposed to the blight for ages. it is blight resistant but not blight proof. an occasional tree gets the blight and dies; an occasional tree gets the blight and recovers. it is the opinion of mr. g. f. gravatt, of the united states department of agriculture, that the physical prosperity of the tree has much to do with its ability to throw off this disease. for example, some of the trees at bell, maryland, got to be a foot in diameter and bore crops, without any sign of blight until the terrible drought year of when some of them developed blight and then later recovered from it. i think mollissima chestnuts are less likely to die than cherries or peaches, and probably less likely than apples. while the subject of blight resistance in chestnuts is up, i should like to call attention to the fact that there are many japanese chestnuts in the eastern part of the united states that have survived the blight. some of them bear good nuts, very good nuts, although most of the japanese have a properly bad reputation for flavor. doubtless an experimenter has a chance of producing something very valuable by breeding from the best blight resistant japanese chestnuts now surviving in the eastern united states. green shoot grafting of trees _by_ robert t. morris, _m. d. new york_ in the course of experimental work with trees i grafted scions of several species and varieties into stocks of their respective genera at times of the year when grafting is not commonly done. scions were taken directly from one tree and placed at once in another tree. to this method i gave the name of "immediate grafting" in order to distinguish it from grafting with stored scions which might be called "mediate grafting" indicating the intermediate step of storage. immediate grafting was successful in mid-winter in connecticut but i had no thought of making it a practical feature of our work beyond the recording of a research fact. immediate grafting was successful in mid-summer in connecticut. the procedure was very different from that of winter grafting. in summer the new green growth of the year was cut away completely from a scion and the remaining wood of one or more previous year's growth was depended upon for sending out shoots from latent buds. that is what happens after accidents to limbs or to trunks of trees and it occurred in the same way with my scions. furthermore, it seemed to offer new hope for the propagation of walnuts, maples, and grapes, for example, because the free flowing sap of such species in the spring and early summer has led to attacks upon the sap by bacteria and fungi which ruin repair cells. i have already published elsewhere the statement that immediate grafting may be done in the way described in any month of the year with many kinds of plants. exceptions to this rule will doubtless appear here and there. for example, the grafting of trees in august would not be safe in connecticut because the new young shoots would be killed by september frosts. that is the reason for august cutting of brush by farmers. the tender new shoots that are sent out from latent stump buds become frosted and the entire plant may die. on account of an illness that had kept me confined to the house most of the time for some months, i had allowed the spring grafting season to pass this year. stored scions of many kinds lay under a heap of leaves at the rear of my garage. the drying-out process had been intensified by an employee who made a spring clean-up of the yard and who looked upon this heap of leaves as something upon which creditable showing for his work might be made. a month or so later i kicked over the few remaining broken remnants of scions for no reason in particular. down near the ground i observed that two hybrid chestnut scions which had been trampled into the ground had retained some moisture. each one had sent out a pale canary-colored shoot of the sort with which we are painfully familiar. the shoot on one scion was about an inch and a third in length with well-formed unfolding sickly yellow leaves. the other scion had a shoot of the same kind but only about one-third of an inch in length and with yellow leaves barely out of bud-bursting form. it occurred to me that my old method of waxing the entire scion, leaves and all in this case, might be done as an experiment in order to see how long these greatly started shoots would hold up if desiccation was prevented and always with the possibility of a surprise. some years ago i had waxed some hazel scions from the west that had burst their buds and they all grew but the test was by no means so severe as it was with these yellow chestnut upstarts. the rule of discarding scions that are not wholly dormant was about to be rudely broken; waxing changed the whole situation. a miser does not scrutinize his treasure more acutely than we horticulturists do when getting out scions that have been stored during the winter and the voice of demeter is calling us to the side of our own wards. how sadly a million nurserymen have thrown away a billion started scions of valuable kinds. my two chestnut scions had gone far beyond the hopeless stage but now perhaps i could be a doctor to them. if my two canary birds could be made to sing then would i also sing. they were dipped in a dish of melted parafin wax for an instant and then quickly shaken in the air before scorching could occur. the scions were then grafted into a small chinquapin stock. a few days later one of the larger leaves of the larger shoot had cleared itself from the wax coating and had begun to expand widely, turning to a natural green color. the stem of the shoot turned to a normal brownish red. two tiny shoots then broke through the wax of the larger shoot, looking like axillary bud shoots until closer examination showed them to be scale bud shoots. that should interest plant physiologists. eventually the cramped leaves remaining under wax coating that was unnecessarily dense finally dropped away useless. the single green leaf and the two scale bud shoots went on to natural development. the smaller shoot of the other scion managed to burst through the wax completely and made normal growth. after these scions were well under way i went out and searched in the loose dirt and leaves of the old heap and found another hybrid chestnut scion that presented the allusive emblem of a canary bird. this one had a shoot of about half of one inch in length and it burst completely through the wax, to make a fine little twig. so much for an experiment that led immediately to one of far greater importance. if canary bird shoots could be made to break rules of horticultural theory and of recorded fact perhaps we might note the principle and apply it to the experimental grafting of green shoots of the year in tree propagation. this is what lawyers might call a _non sequitur_. such grafting had always been a failure so far as i knew, and certainly my own attempts had failed in former years. grafting of new growth of the year upon new growth of the year in the growing season is an established feature of horticultural experiment with certain annual plants. why had it so signally failed with perennial plants and most impressively with trees? doubtless plants produce in their leaves a hormone which directs certain enzymes that conduct wound repair by cell division. if plants which do not lignify for winter manage to direct successful wound repair after grafting and if plants which do lignify for winter do not conduct successful repair of grafted new growth it occurred to me in a speculative way that the reason might perhaps be sought in the nature of the two different kinds of hormones or of enzymes belonging to annuals and to perennials respectively. the difference might possibly depend upon the arrangement of ions, anions and cations upon two sides of the permeable membrane of a repair cell. the cell is an electrolyte and therefore division of the cell in course of preparation for multiplication might perhaps depend upon an electric impulse so delicately in balance that nature for some cryptic reason might prefer not to allow the necessary balance to go toward cell division in grafts consisting of green growth of the year in perennials. perhaps i might defeat natural processes by leaving a leaf or part of one at the distal part of a green graft shoot. this leaf might perhaps elaborate the necessary hormones or enzymes for wound repair purposes--and also for conducting polarity of sap movement toward maintenance of that scion and leaf. we need not speculate further upon the philosophy of the subject because i took it up at this point for pragmatic tests experimentally. the horticulturist does not have to go to the theatre for thrills. my advance report at this moment comes at a time when a scientist would demand more works along with faith and my only reason for presenting incomplete notes at this time is that they seem to be fascinating in their outlook and no one knows how much experiment may be permitted me for next year at merribrooke. the summer was well along when my canary bird shoots opened a vista. the vista appeared at a time of drought when plant propagators wait for better days. it seemed to be necessary to get in a part of the work at least on july th and we then had the drought intensified by five more days of great heat, temperatures ranged above degrees f. in the shade and above degrees f. in the sun. after this period of heat and drought we had abundant rains. all grafts were wax treated in these experiments. in no case was an entire leaf left at the distal end of a graft because it was felt that even one-fourth of one leaf would attend to the required functions. exp. no. . a growing persimmon shoot about two feet long was cut up into scions with a few buds each, and about one-fourth of a leaf allowed to remain at the distal end of each scion, other leaves on each scion being snipped off. each scion including its remnant of leaf was dipped in melted parapin wax. two of these were grafted upon green shoots of another persimmon, the latter cut back to make stubs for reception of cleft grafts. three of the scions were inserted in bark slots in older wood. note, sept. th, green leaf part including its petiole had dropped off from all five scions. a small slit in the bark of each graft for investigation showed that the cambium was green in four grafts, the fifth graft was completely dead. exp. no. . on july th three persimmon scions consisting of last year's wood and each one carrying a couple of inches of new growth with a terminal trimmed leaf were grafted into last year's wood on another persimmon tree. note. sept. th. all three grafts dead including both old and new wood. exp. no. . july th. one green persimmon scion with terminal leaf inserted in bark slot of branch one inch in diameter cut back for purpose. note sept. th. dead. on august nd the drought had been broken. all trees seemed to have put up top buds on account of drought and heat. the following experiments were made with green growth of the year but with new top buds much to my regret at having no actively unfolding shoots for furnishing scions. exp. no. . aug nd. persimmon tree (a) one graft, green on green; one green graft on old wood. note. sept. th. terminal leaves remained green several days after grafting but by sept. th all had fallen off. small slit in bark showed cambium of grafts still green. persimmon tree (b) two green grafts on green. one green graft in bark slot of older wood. note sept. th. terminal leaves had finally died but two of the buds of green graft on green have burst forth into leaf. these will probably winterkill. green in old wood has green cambium but no swelling bud. exp. no. aug nd. persimmon tree (c) one green on old wood. sept. th. leaf dead, cambium of stem green. exp. no. . aug nd. persimmon tree (d) one green on old wood. sept. th. leaf dead, cambium of stem green. exp. no. . aug. nd. persimmon tree (e) three greens on old wood. sept. th. leaves dead, one stem dead, cambium of two stems green. exp. no. . aug. nd. papaw tree. two greens on green, two greens on old wood. sept. th. two greens on green have buds enlarged and ready to burst. one green on old wood is not enlarging its buds. one green on old wood is dead. exp. no. . aug. nd. english walnut. four greens on green. sept. th. leaflets dead on all. petiole dead on one, stem cambium green. petioles bright green on three and the cambium green on these. comment. i could not take daily notes which would have been very important. a general statement will cover the point that the terminal leaf on a scion seldom died until it had functioned for at least a week. some of them functioned for more than two weeks and one of them for at least four weeks, failing only a day or two ago. this would seem to mean that the terminal leaves in scions conducted or helped to conduct repair in green graft wounds to a point where buds are now bursting on two persimmon scions. two pawpaw scions have enlarged buds to the point of bursting. the terminal leaves on scions seemed to conduct repair up to a point where lignifying for the winter is now going on. this cannot be determined until winter passes but i have never obtained anything like this effect until experimenting with the terminal leaf theory for the first time this year. the most striking effect so far as appearance goes is with the english walnut grafts with their bright green stems. if i may have opportunity for conducting experiments next summer i shall begin earlier by pinching off the buds of growing shoots, giving them a week of rest and then cutting these shoots up into scions. if buds then start off like those of two persimmons and two papaws they will have time for lignifying. my whole lesson of this season would seem to mean that after properly checked experiments we may perhaps add what i call "green grafting" to the other form of immediate grafting. the practical feature of this whole new phase in grafting method is an extension of the grafting season to include every month of the year. scion grafting of perennials in the latitude and longitude of connecticut had formerly been confined to about two month's in the farmer's rush season, and with general failure in the grafting of some species which may now be grafted successfully. * * * * * _letter from prof. colby_ _agricultural experiment station urbana, illinois_ i regret very much indeed that i cannot attend the meeting of the nut growers association this year. this letter bears my very best wishes and hopes for a successful meeting. we shall miss mr. bixby's pleasing and helpful personality. some time ago i promised to give you a report on some of our activities here and if you think it is worth while, i would appreciate your reading it to the group. there is an increasing interest in nut culture in illinois. wholly aside from the commercial aspects which have been so profitably developed in southern illinois is a project of recent development, one in extension work in top working seedling walnuts and pecans with improved varieties. this project is sponsored by the department of horticulture, university of illinois, and the extension forester of the state natural history survey, with the cooperation of the county farm advisers. last fall in gallatin county native pecans of the best grades sold for cents per pound on the market, while the average tree run stock was bringing six cents. with a native pecan crop from one county in illinois, more or less ungraded, selling for $ , in a recent year, thinking horticulturists in the state are beginning to feel that there are potential profits in nut culture where better varieties are planted or top worked. seedling trees for top working are already growing in abundance in many sections of the state with an ideal climate and soil for northern nut production. last year seven counties in illinois carried on the top working project. this year approximately three times that number have been enrolled. in addition, groups from neighboring counties have been present at the demonstrations. growers from iowa and indiana have also attended. the total attendance has run into the hundreds, both men and women, most of them actual growers. all the meetings are held out of doors in the orchard or nursery and the group is instructed in the propagation of nut trees through grafting and budding. nut growers of the immediate locality are glad to assist with the work. after the discussion and demonstration, all present are invited to learn how to do the work by actual participation and many become sufficiently skilled to top work their own trees upon their return home. possibilities of this type of extension work are almost unlimited. * * * * * _letter from j. u. gellatly_ i enclose a short chart or graph of the flowering habits of some of my leading walnut trees. i started in to keep a record of some of the trees and have added a number since till this year when i kept a record of different trees. the ones shown cover the full time from may th to june th. some new ideas in budding procedure that may be of value and interest i also include herein that others may test them out as i am doing. but even if they fail with me it will not prove that they have no value, for the generally approved methods have failed to give commercial results here. my main idea was to try to find a new system of handling the budding operations that would give more definite results and if possible to eliminate the use of a wax melter and the waxing of buds. my first trial consisted in the use of florist's tin foil. cutting bud from bud stick with my new style bud cutter, i cut out the patch from stalk and placed bud in place and with two or three turns of raffia, or rubber bands, secured bud in place, then put wraps of tinfoil around the bud and stalk extending from one inch below to one inch above bud, then with hand pressed tinfoil tightly to shape of bud and stalk, then completely wrapped with raffia and tied securely. this makes a neat job and is pleasant and convenient to work with. i have today examined some buds so treated and put on the th of august and they appear to be in prime shape, no apparent flooding or souring of the bud patch. as this tin foil cost me c per pound, i had a happy thought of using cellophane which is much cheaper and is equally easy to use, on the whole, as the tinfoil as, while it is in the first operation of actually applying to stalk not just as easily put on, it has an important advantage that offsets this, which is the ease with which one can see that the bud is in the exact place, while the tying is taking place. my present method of using the cellophane is to apply a double wrapping of cellophane directly over the bud then to securely wrap from one-half inch below bud to one-half inch above bud. this makes a good air and moisture proof job. experience may modify or eliminate some parts of this procedure, and it is with this in view that i pass this on that others may take it up and work out the best procedure from a wider experience than one can give. from my experience i would suggest that if one is marking or cutting the patch on the stalk or days ahead of placing the bud thereon, that one be very careful not to cut too deeply as a large percentage of those i so cut were so badly discolored that i had to cut a new place when placing the bud, as those done days previous showed a one-eighth inch dead and discolored portion around the cut that extend one-sixteenth inch into the trunk of the tree, and no union could possibly take place on such a spoiled cambium surface. bus tour september th _by_ j. w. hershey _downington, pennsylvania_ leaving the hotel swan at : a.m. with a bus load and cars the tour proceeded to dr. truman w. jones' grove of trees, and years old, miles west of coatesville on the lincoln highway. dr. jones has continually farmed his land which has helped greatly to carry the planting. the next stop was at the nursery of the late j. f. jones, now operated by his daughter mildred, south of lancaster. here we saw the interesting test orchard of english walnuts, pecans and black walnuts. most interesting was the test block of hybrid filbert-hazels started by mr. jones some years ago. the next stop was at c. f. hostetter's , tree grove at bird-in-hand, east of lancaster, where we saw what mr. hostetter told about in his paper yesterday. his trees all looked nice and many trees were well loaded with nuts. next stop was at l. k. hostetter's grove of trees near oregon. here very interesting observations were made in tree and grove procedure. part of the grove is now in blue grass and sheep, making a very beautiful setting. part is interplanted with locust trees, the idea being to feed the ground with a legume tree and get something in return from the wood. as the locusts crowd the walnuts they will be cut. demonstrations were given in hulling walnuts with a ford car which was done by jacking up one rear wheel. a trough is inserted under the wheel lined with a piece of truck tire. a mud chain is put on the wheel and as the wheel revolves, nuts are poured in via a metal chute and the nuts fly out the other end very well hulled. the jack is used to adjust the wheel to different sizes of nuts. lem's next eye-opener was a brand new method of separating the hulls from the nuts. two -inch pipes are laid on an incline the thickness of a walnut hull, about a half inch, apart. the pipes revolve and the hulls and nuts are poured on at the top. as they roll down the incline, and the rolls revolve, the hulls are caught by the rolls or pipes and pulled through the crack between them. a most remarkable and simple method solving one of the major problems in commercial walnut growing. the last stop was made at dr. frank baum's grove at yellow house, miles east of reading on the boyertown highway. here luncheon was served by dr. and mrs. baum, the outstanding feature being walnut ice cream and walnut kisses. after the luncheon at dr. baum's the following business was transacted: dr. deming, chairman nominating committee, presented the following nominations: president frank h. frey vice-president dr. g. a. zimmerman secretary george l. slate treasurer newton h. russell on motion duly made and carried these officers were elected by acclamation. motion was made, seconded and carried that the annual dues be $ . same not to include a subscription to our official journal the national nut news. motion by mr. reed was seconded and carried that where the member wished to do so one check could be submitted to our treasurer to cover both dues and subscription to the official journal and the treasurer will remit the subscription to the national nut news. mr. reed then explained for the benefit of those present the arrangement whereby our association is affiliated with the american horticultural society and by maintaining its membership in that society each member of our association may secure a membership in the american horticultural society on payment of $ . dues per annum instead of the customary dues of $ . . each member of the society receives the national horticultural magazine of which mr. reed is the nut editor. the magazine is issued quarterly, at present, and it is the intention to have one or more articles on nut trees in each issue. on motion by dr. smith, duly seconded and carried the board of directors are required to authorize a budget of expenditures for each year and this was fixed at $ . for expenses for year ending september th, . the president to advise the officers each year of the sums appropriated for certain expenses. on motion by mr. russell, seconded by dr. weber and carried, article two of the by-laws was revised to cover the proper dues for various memberships and will be so recorded in the by-laws on page . on motion by mr. hershey, seconded by dr. weber and carried it was agreed that five copies of each annual bulletin be mailed by the secretary or the person in charge of printing the bulletin to each officer for distribution as he sees fit; and that one copy of the bulletin be sent gratis to each non-member who participates in the program at our annual conventions. a rising vote of thanks was given dr. and mrs. baum for the delectable luncheon served by them. an inspection was then made of dr. baum's , tree grove. many trees were loaded and all looking good. here two cultural problems were discussed. relative to the walnut blight, he showed us one tree that was afflicted near the ground and he started to mound soil around it. after three years of increasing the mound it is now - / feet high and the tree is thriving and bearing, with every indication that it has overcome the disease. opinion was expressed that it threw out new roots above the wound to save itself. the experiment is of immense value to orchard procedure. in observing a few of such trees opinion was expressed that in walnut orcharding, as in fruit orcharding, there will be a few trees that will have to be replaced the first few years and is something not to be worried about. dr. g. a. zimmerman said, "why worry about the blight? the wild ones have always had it to a small extent. spread is so slow it isn't perceptible, damage being almost nil, so let's forget it." banquet tuesday evening september th the convention closed with a banquet held in the private dining room of the swan hotel. on request of the president mr. john w. hershey introduced the speakers of the evening. rev. g. paul musselman spoke briefly and was followed by the after-dinner speaker, mr. al bergstrom, superintendent of police of coatesville, pa. his subject was "nuts--i crack them as you like them," and with many interesting jokes and humorous stories he portrayed an interesting picture of the many problems that have to be met and solved by police officers. each one privileged to hear this forceful speaker was deeply impressed with the responsibility that goes with citizenship. business session the president: we will now hear the report of the committee on hybrids and promising seedlings. dr. zimmerman, chairman, gave an oral report calling attention to some of the more important hybrids and new seedlings described by other members during the sessions of the convention and concluded by stating that the most important step in testing hybrids was to have interested people plant a number of promising hybrids of hickories and black walnuts and keep accurate records of these seedlings (second generation hybrids). there was some discussion as to whether the norton was a pure pecan or a hybrid. mr. c. a. reed stated he had seen the parent tree himself and believed it to be a pure pecan. mr. j. w. hershey stated that he believed it to be a hican, basing his opinion in part on its showing hybridity as it is such a strong grower. he said he had a number of norton trees in the nursery and would be glad to sell them at a nominal price to those who would be interested in testing them further. the president: we will now have the report of the resolutions committee. report of the resolutions committee be it resolved: that we express our appreciation of the generosity and public spirit of mr. w. k. kellogg in making possible one of the largest experimental projects in nut culture in the northern united states. that we express our sincere thanks to mr. and mrs. hershey and dr. and mrs. baum for the delicious luncheons served our members and guests. that we express our sincere thanks to the swan hotel management and to the citizens and business men of downingtown for accommodations and services rendered: to the program committee and committee on local arrangements for the very complete plans and their efficient execution; to the speakers who have taken part in the program; to the exhibitors and to the officers and members who have provided a most interesting and educational program and to messrs. hershey, l. k. hostetter, c. f. hostetter, the jones nurseries and drs. baum and jones for the privilege of inspecting their nut tree plantings. and we again express our regrets that dr. morris could not be with us and trust his health will improve. that we express our sincere thanks to mr. o. c. lightner for the efficient manner in which articles and papers submitted by our members were published in our official journal, the "national nut news," and for the excellent printing of our annual report. we wish to express our deep sorrow over the loss of our faithful member, past president and secretary, mr. willard g. bixby whose passing was so touchingly referred to in our business meeting. resolutions committee, prof. james a. neilson, chairman dr. harry r. weber frank h. frey a motion was made and seconded to accept the report of the resolutions committee. (carried unanimously.) professor a. c. mcintyre of the pennsylvania state forestry service was then called upon and discussed the black walnut as a timber tree. he called attention to the fact that the black locust is a legume of high value and acts as a stimulant to the growth of other trees and are themselves excellent for use later as fence posts. in considering the relative value of various nut trees as shade trees he stressed the fact that the time of leafing out in the spring and the dropping of the leaves in the fall are important factors. motion was carried that the board of directors should formulate requirements for honorary membership and have a proposition ready for discussion at the convention. list of officers and committee members was then read. same are recorded on pages and . the president: attention is called to the fact that the annual dues are now only $ . and surely there are a large number of people interested in nut tree growing who will wish to join our association. i am sure each member will wish to subscribe for our official journal, the national nut news, the subscription price of which is only $ . per year (in the united states) and remittance may be made through our treasurer or direct to the news at south michigan ave., chicago. those who desire to secure budded or grafted nut bearing trees will have their orders given proper attention by any of the following who are members of our association: w. r. fickes, route , wooster, ohio. gerardi nurseries, o'fallon, ill. john w. hershey, downingtown, pa. indiana nut nursery (j. w. wilkinson, prop.), rockport, ind. j. f. jones nurseries, box n. , lancaster, pa. michigan nut nursery (h. burgart), rt. , union city, mich. e. a. riehl farm and nursery, godfrey, ill. snyder bros., inc., center point, iowa. sunny ridge nursery (dr. j. russell smith), round hill, va. w. g. bixby nursery, grand ave., baldwin, n. y. j. u. gellatly, west bank, b. c., canada. the living tree guild, fourth ave., new york. the latter has distributed a great deal of information on northern nut culture and i think a paper at our next convention outlining its work and accomplishments would be most valuable. each one present is cordially invited to attend our convention next year, september and , at battle creek, michigan. as there is no further business, this the th annual convention of the northern nut growers association will be adjourned. the convention adjourned at : p.m. exhibits =by clermont co., ohio= hill hickories. =by dr. deming= metal tree labels. =by w. r. dunlap= japanese walnut. heartnut � butternut cross. seedling english walnut. =by f. h. frey= black walnuts: hillabolt, from mrs. c. w. freel, pleasantville, ia. marion, from mrs. c. w. freel, pleasantville, ia. metcalf, from mrs. c. w. freel, pleasantville, ia. wheeling, from mrs. c. w. freel, pleasantville, ia. worthington, from mrs. c. w. freel, pleasantville, ia. kettler, from fred kettler, plattesville, wisc. oklahoma seedling (j. rupestris, pp. report). rohwer, from j. rohwer, grundy center, ia. grundy, from j. rohwer, grundy center, ia. stabler (one lobe), from o. h. casper, anna, ill. sample package of new method selling black walnuts, sliced shell and meats together. mat made of cross sections of black walnuts fastened together with copper wire. =by j. u. gellatly= leaf tracing of bitternut � english walnut hybrid. =by samuel graham= collection of black walnuts and hickory nuts from ithaca, n. y. =by j. r. hershey= little giant nut cracker. little giant walnut huller. =by john w. hershey= collection of black walnuts, hickory nuts and pecans. one thomas black walnut tree four feet tall, one year from graft bearing a thomas walnut. john w. hershey nut cracker. =by l. k. hostetter= monterey black walnut. =by f. f. jones nurseries= ohio black walnut. thomas black walnut. ten eyck black walnut. pleas hicans. buchanan filberts. jones hybrid hazels and filberts. alpine english walnuts. hall english walnuts. wiltz-mayette english walnuts. =by h. f. stoke= homeland black walnut. exhibit of commercial -lb. package of black walnut kernels. =by harry r. weber= weber walnut. =by dr. g. a. zimmerman= collection of nuts. attendance-- convention mrs. laura woodward abbott, r. d. no. , bristol, pa. john alcorn, paoli, pa. dr. frank l. baum, boyertown, pa. mrs. frank l. baum, boyertown, pa. miss dorothy baum, boyertown, pa. h. k. beard, schaefferstown, pa. mrs. h. k. beard, schaefferstown, pa. miss elizabeth beitler, downingtown, pa. al. bergstrom, coatesville, pa. carl p. birkinbine, cynwyd, pa. a. r. buckwalter, flemington, n. j. g. y. clement, west chester, pa. mrs. g. y. clement, west chester, pa. oliver croshaw, hightstown, pa. elroy curtis, brookfield, conn. wm. curtis, new york, n. y. dr. w. c. deming, owen st., hartford, conn. milton dull, schaefferstown, pa. mrs. milton dull, schaefferstown, pa. c. e. endy, yellow house, pa. mrs. c. e. endy, yellow house, pa. prof. f. n. fagan, state college, pa. frank h. frey, chicago, ill. joseph b. gable, stewartstown, pa. s. h. graham, ithaca, n. y. paul w. hafer, lorane, pa. j. w. hartman, sligo, pa. dr. julian t. hammond, newtown, pa. john k. hershey, ronks, pa. j. r. hershey, kinzers, pa. john w. hershey, downingtown, pa. mrs. john w. hershey, downingtown, pa. c. f. hostetter, bird-in-hand, pa. mrs. c. f. hostetter, bird-in-hand, pa. l. k. hostetter, lancaster, pa. mrs. j. f. jones, lancaster, pa. miss mildred jones, lancaster, pa. m. m. kaufman, clarion, pa. mortimer b. kelly, morristown, n. j. m. glen kirkpatrick, c/o farm journal, philadelphia, pa. mrs. mary laudermilch, lebanan, pa. e. j. leitenberger, w. park ave., philadelphia, pa. wm. s. b. mccaleb, st. davids, pa. a. c. mcintyre, state college, pa. mrs. william mcpherson, downingtown, pa. upton mehring, keymar, md. mrs. upton mehring, keymar, md. f. k. miller, clarion, pa. lennard h. mitchell, washington, d. c. mrs. lennard h. mitchell, washington, d. c. mrs. i. e. murray, downingtown, pa. rev. paul musselman, downingtown, pa. prof. j. a. neilson, east lansing, mich. mrs. j. a. neilson, east lansing, mich. charles s. phillips, parkersville, pa. prof. c. a. reed, dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. john rick, reading, pa. j. s. rittenhouse, lorane, pa. newton h. russell, south hadley, mass. mrs. n. h. russell, south hadley, mass. miss dorothy c. sawyer, new york, n. y. adam s. schultz, hereford, pa. george l. slate, geneva, n. y. samuel m. smedlet, west chester, pa. dr. j. russell smith, swarthmore, pa. ella h. snavely, r. d. no. , manheim, pa. h. r. snavely, r. d. no. , manheim, pa. j. m. somerville, rimersburg, pa. j. w. sparks, r. d., williamstown, n. j. c. d. setler, yellow house, pa. h. f. stokes, roanoke, va. miss ruth stokes, roanoke, va. jacob e. stover, springwood farms, york, pa. mrs. jacob e. stover, springwood farms, york, pa. c. a. tenney, clear spring, md. dr. r. e. theiss, lewisburg, pa. mrs. r. e. theiss, lewisburg, pa. carl f. walker, cleveland heights, ohio. robert wallace, paoli, pa. wm. s. weaver, macungie, pa. dr. harry r. weber, cincinnati, ohio. mrs. harry r. weber, cincinnati, ohio. dr. g. a. zimmerman, harrisburg, pa. mrs. g. a. zimmerman, harrisburg, pa. books and bulletins on northern nut growing . nut culture in the united states, u. s. dept. of agriculture, . out of print and out of date but of great interest. . the nut culturist, fuller, pub. orange judd co., n. y., . out of print and out of date but a systematic and well written treatise. these two books are the classics of american nut growing. . nut growing, dr. robert t. morris, pub. macmillan, n. y. nd edition , price $ . . the modern authority, written in the author's entertaining and stimulating style. . farmers' bulletin no. , , nut tree propagation, c. a. reed, to be had free from u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. a very full bulletin with many illustrations. . tree crops, dr. j. russell smith, pub. harcourt, brace & co., n. y., , price $ . . includes the nut crop. . annual reports of the northern nut growers' association from to date. to be had from the secretary. prices on request. . bulletin no. , northern nut growers' association, by w. g. bixby. nd edition, . to be had from the secretary. price fifty cents. . farmers' bulletin no. , black walnut culture for both timber and nut production. to be had from the supt. of documents, gov. printing office, washington, d. c. price cents. . year book separate no. , , a brief article on northern nut growing, by c. a. reed, to be had free from u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. . filberts--g. a. slate--bulletin no. , new york state agricultural experiment station, geneva, n. y., december, . . leaflet no. , , planting black walnut, w. r. mattoon and c. a. reed, to be had free from u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. . harvesting and marketing the native nut crops of the north, by c. a. reed, , mimeographed bulletin, to be had free from u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. . dealers in black walnut kernels, mimeographed bulletin by c. a. reed, , to be had free from u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. . eastern nursery catalogues listing nut trees, mimeographed leaflet to be had free from u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. . twenty years progress in northern nut culture. a -page booklet of valuable information and instruction by john w. hershey, nuticulturist, downingtown, penna. price cents. . the national nut news, official organ of the northern nut growers' association, south michigan ave., chicago, illinois. monthly, one dollar a year. . files of the american nut journal, to be had from the publishers, american nurseryman publishing co., state st., rochester, n. y. _______________________________________________________________________ | | | "happy is the man who has | | a hobby" | | | | [illustration] | | | | "_happy is the man who has a hobby_," runs the old saying. | | and still happier is the hobbyist who regularly receives and | | reads "hobbies--the magazine for collectors." | | | | here, in this interesting, profusely illustrated, -page monthly | | you will find news, pictures, and information, as well as buying, | | selling and swapping ads, in all branches of collecting. | | | | hobbies has a particularly fine and complete stamp collector's | | department-- or more pages each month devoted to stamp club | | news, notes, articles on stamps and stamp issuing countries, | | department on precancels, new issues, and airmails, and general | | information. (hobbies, by the way, is the official organ of the great | | society of philatelic americans.) | | | | hobbies is also the outstanding medium for the exchange of | | information, news, and advertising of interest to collectors of | | antiques, autographs, coins, indian relics, books, firearms, prints, | | minerals, shells, glassware, and many other collected articles. | | | | it's fun to have a hobby, and to know what others who share | | your interests are doing and thinking! let hobbies keep you | | posted! and if you haven't a hobby as yet, but would like to have | | one, let hobbies help you to find it! | | | | _subscribe to hobbies! sample copy, c | | year's subscription, only $ . _ | | | | lightner publishing corp. | | | | s. michigan ave. chicago, illinois | |_______________________________________________________________________| +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |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. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ northern nut growers association report of the proceedings at the twelfth annual meeting lancaster, pennsylvania october and , contents officers and committees of the association state vice-presidents members of the association constitution and by-laws proceedings of the twelfth annual convention report of the treasurer nut trees for public places, dr. r. t. morris roadside planting, prof. a. k. chittendon roadside planting legislation in mich., senator henry a. penny cultivation and culture of the european filbert, james s. mcglennon report of the committee on uniform bill for roadside planting, t. p. littlepage where may the northern pecan be expected to bear, willard g. bixby constitution and by-laws amended report of nominating committee, secretary olcott proceedings of the tree planting ceremonies at long's park, lancaster county, pa a national program for the promotion of nut culture, dean watts appendix officers of the association _president_ james s. mcglennon rochester, new york _vice-president_ j. f. jones lancaster, pennsylvania _secretary_ william c. deming danbury, conn., r. _treasurer_ willard g. bixby baldwin, nassau co., new york committees _auditing_--c. p. close, c. a. reed _executive_--j. russell smith, w. s. linton and the officers _finance_--t. p. littlepage, willard g. bixby, w. c. deming _hybrids_--r. t. morris, c. p. close, w. g. bixby, howard spence _membership_--james s. mcglennon, h. r. weber, r. t. olcott, w. o. potter, w. g. bixby, w. c. deming _nomenclature_--c. a. reed, r. t. morris, j. f. jones _press and publication_--r. t. olcott, w. g. bixby, w. c. deming _programe_--james s. mcglennon, w. c. deming, r. t. olcott, c. a. reed, r. t. morris, w. g. bixby _promising seedlings_--c. a. reed, j. f. jones, w. g. bixby state vice-presidents alabama h. m. robertson st ave., birmingham arkansas prof. n. f. drake university of arkansas, fayetteville california t. c. tucker california st., san francisco canada g. h. corsan avenue road, toronto china p. w. wang, kinsan arboretum chuking kiangsu province colorado c. l. cudebec boulder, box connecticut ernest m. ives sterling orchards, meriden dist of columbia b. g. foster g. st., washington england howard spence eskdale knutsford cheshire georgia a. s. perry cuthbert illinois e. a. riehl alton indiana j. f. wilkinson rockport iowa d. c. snyder center point kansas james sharp council grove kentucky frank m. livengood berea maine alice d. leavitt high st., bridgton maryland p. j. o'connor bowie massachusetts c. leroy cleaver commonwealth ave., boston michigan dr. j. h. kellogg battle creek missouri p. c. stark louisiana nebraska william caha wahoo new hampshire henry b. stevens durham nevada c. g. swingle hazen new jersey c. s. ridgway lumberton new york dr. g. j. buist hancock st., brooklyn north carolina dr. harvey p. barrett vail ave., charlotte ohio harry r. weber e. th st., cincinnati oklahoma dr. c. e. beitman skedee oregon knight pearcy salem, r. f. d. , box pennsylvania f. n. fagan state college south carolina prof. a. g. shanklin clemson college texas j. h. burkett clyde vermont f. c. holbrook brattleboro virginia john s. parish university washington william baines okanogan west virginia fred e. brooks french creek wisconsin dr. g. w. patchen manitowoc members of the northern nut growers association april, , alabama robertson, h. m., st ave., birmingham arizona heyne, fred w., douglas arkansas *drake, prof. n. f., fayetteville, univ. of arkansas dunn, d. k., wynne california cajori, f. a., byron st., palo alto cress, b. e., tehachapi thorpe, will j., divisadero street, san francisco tucker, t. c., california st., san francisco canada bell, alex., milliken, ontario corsan, g. h., christie st., toronto corcoran, william, port dalhousie, box , ontario haight, p. n., st. thomas, canada china kinsan arboretum, chuking, kiangsu province, p. w. wang secy. colorado bennett, l. e., cory butterbaugh, dr. w. s., engleburg, las animas co. cudebec, c. l., boulder, box hartman, richard, kremmling connecticut barrows, paul m., stanford, r. f. d. no. bartlett, francis a., stanford benedict, samuel l., south main st., so. norwalk bielefield, f. j., middleton, south farms bradley, smith t., new haven, grand ave. craig, joseph a., washington ave., west haven deming, dr. w. c., hartford, main st. glover, james l., shelton, r. f. d. no. hilliard, h. j., south view hungerford, newman, torrington, r. f. d. no. , box ives, e. m., meriden, sterling orchards lewis, henry leroy, stratford, main st. *morris dr. r. t. cos cob route , box pomeroy, eleazer, bloomfield ave., windsor sessions, albert l., bristol, bellevue ave. southworth, george e., milford, box staunton, gray, howard ave., new haven white, gerrard, north granby district of columbia beatty, wilbur m. l., georgia ave., washington close, c. p. prof., pomologist dept. of agriculture, wash. foster, b. g., washington, g. st., n. w. *littlepage, t. p., union trust building, washington reed, c. a., dept. of agriculture, washington **van fleet, walter, u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington england spence, howard, eskdale, knutsford, cheshire georgia bullard, william p., albany patterson, j. m., putney perry, a. s., cuthbert steele, r. c., lakemont, rabun co. wight, j. b., cairo illinois buckman, benj., farmingdale casper, o. h., anna heide, john f. h., oakwood blvd., chicago illinois, university of, urbana (librarian) hon. w. a. potter, marion harry j. rickelman, weed bldg., effingham reihl, e. a., godfrey, route shaw, james b., urbana, box , univ. sta. swisher, s. l., mulkeytown sundstrand, mrs. g. d., garfield ave., rockford wells, oscar, farina indiana crain, donald j., north st., logansport jackson, francis m., n. main st., south bend reed, w. c., vincennes redmon, felix, rockport, r. r. , box rowell, mrs. george p., north th st., goshen simpson, h. d., vincennes staderman, a. l., south th st., terre haute wilkinson, j. f., rockport iowa bricker, c. w., ladora finnell, j. f. c., hamburg pfeiffer, w. f., fayette skromme, l. j. (skromme seed company), roland snyder, d. c., center point snyder, s. w., center point kansas bishop, s. l., conway springs gray, dr. clyde, horton sharpe, james, council grove kentucky baker, sam c., beaver dam, r. d. no. livengood, frank m., berea maine leavitt, mrs. alice d., high st., brighton maryland auchter, e. c., college park littlepage, miss louise, bowie keenan, dr. john f., brentwood o'connor, p. j., bowie massachusetts *bowditch, james h., tremont bldg., boston cleaver, c. leroy, hingham center jackson, arthur h., fayerweather st., cambridge mass. agriculture college, library of, amherst scudder, dr. charles l., beacon st., boston michigan beck, j. p., james, saginaw charles, dr. elmer, pontiac cross, john l., division st., bangor graves, henry b., dime bank bldg., detroit guild, stacy r., so. th st., ann arbor hartig, g. f., bridgeman, r. f. d. no. henshall, h., harper st., detroit house, george w., ford bldg., detroit kellogg, dr. j. h., battle creek, manchester st. *linton, w. s., saginaw, pres. board of trade mac nab, dr. alex b., cassopolis mckale, h. b., lansing, route olson, a. e., holton penny, harvey a., saginaw, so. jefferson ave. smith, edward j., so. union st., battle creek mississippi bechtel, theo., ocean springs missouri crosby, miss jessie m., harrison st., kansas city hazen, josiah j., (neosho nurseries co.) neosho rhodes, j. i., maple st., neosho spellen, howard p., a w. papin st., st. louis stark, p. c., louisiana nebraska caha, william, wahoo thomas, dr. w. a., lincoln new hampshire stevens, henry b., n. h. college of agriculture, durham nevada swingle, c. g., hazen new jersey brown, jacob s., elmer, salem co. *jaques, lee w., waverly st., jersey city landmann, miss m. v. cranbury, r. d. no. marshall, s. l., vineland marston, edwin s., florham park, box phillips, irving s., madison st., west new york price, john r., ridgdale ave., madison ridgeway, c. s., lumberton salvage, w. k., farmingdale westcoat wilmer, knight ave., collingswood new york abbott, frederick b., tabor court, brooklyn adams, sidney i., powers bldg., rochester ashworth, fred l., heuvelton babcock, h. j., lockport bixby, willard g., grand ave., baldwin, l. i. borchers, h. chas., wenga farm, armonk brown, ronold k., broadway, new york city buist, dr. g. j., hancock st., brooklyn clark, george h., state st., rochester crane, alfred j., monroe coriell, a. s., broadway, new york city diprose, alfred h., clinton ave., south, rochester ellwanger, mrs. w. d., east ave., rochester gager, dr. c. stewart, brooklyn botanic garden, brooklyn gillet, dr. henry w., w. th st., new york city goeltz, mrs. m. h., creston ave., new york city graham, s. h., r. d. , ithaca hall, l. w., jr., cutler bldg., rochester (l. w. hall co., inc.) harper, george w., jr., broadway, new york city hodge, james, kingsbridge road west, kingsbridge, n. y. c. hodgson, casper w., yonkers, (world book co.) hoffman, arthur s., church st., white plains kains, m. g., pomona jewett, edmund g., elliott place, brooklyn johnson, harriet, m. b., th & th ave., new york city *huntington, a. m., w. st st., new york city macdaniel, s. h., dept. of pomology, new york state college of agriculture, ithaca mcglennon, j. s., cutler building, rochester meyers, charles, adelphi st., brooklyn olcott, ralph t. (editor american nut journal), ellwanger and barry building, rochester pomeroy, a. c., lockport richardson, j. m., columbus circle, new york city ritchie, john w., yonkers, a beach street ryder, clayton, carmel stephen, john w., syracuse, new york state college of forestry solley, dr. john b., lexington ave., new york city teele, arthur w., broadway, new york city vollertsen, conrad, gregory st., rochester wetmore, w. j., elmira whitney, arthur c., manila st., rochester whitney, leon f., barclay st., new york city wile, m. e., harvard st., rochester williams, dr. chas. mallory, w. th st., new york city *wisman, mrs. f. de r. westchester, new york city north carolina hutchings, miss l. g., pine bluff c. w. matthews, north carolina dept. of agriculture, raleigh van lindley, j., (j. van lindley nursery co.), pomona ohio burton, j. howard, casstown dayton, j. h., (storrs & harrison), painesville fickes, w. r., wooster, r. no. jackson, a. v., linwood rd., cincinnati ketchem, c. s., middlefield box pomerene julius, east th st., cleveland ramsey, john, freeman ave., cincinnati truman, g. g., perrysville, box *weber, harry r., cincinnati, east th st. yunck, edward g., central ave., sandusky oklahoma beitmen, c. e., dr., skedee oregon marvin, cornelia, oregon state library, salem nelson, w. w., r. , box , portland pearcy, knight, oregon building, salem pennsylvania althouse, c. scott, north th st., reading balthaser, james m., wernersville, berks co. bohn, dr. h. w., no. th st., reading bolton, charles g., zieglerville bomberger, john s., lebanon, r. f. d. no. chapin, irvin, shickshinny clark, d. f., n. th st., harrisburg druckemiller, w. h., sunbury fagan, prof. f. n., state college fritz, ammon p., e. franklin st., ephrata heffner, h., leeper hess, elam g., manhein hile, anthony, curwensville irwin, ernest c., st. nicholas bldg., pittsburg jenkins, charles francis, philadelphia--farm journal *jones, j. f., lancaster, box kaufman, m. m., clarion leas, f. c., merion station mellor, alfred, w. walnut lane, germantown, philadelphia minick, c. g., ridgway murphy, p. j., scranton, vice-pres. l. & w. r. r. co. myers, j. everitt, r. d. no. , york springs neagley, c. h., greencastle, r. d. no. patterson, j. e., north franklin st., wilkes barre *rick, john, pennsylvania square, reading rittenhouse, dr. j. f. s., lorane robinson, w. i., fort loudon rose, william j., market st., harrisburg "personal" rush, j. g., west willow russell, dr. andrew l., wabash bldg., pittsburgh shoemaker, h. c., main st., northampton smedley, samuel l., newton square, r. f. d. no. smith dr. j. russell, swarthmore *sober, c. k. col., lewisburg spencer, l. n., east new st., lancaster taylor, lowndes, west chester, box , route walter, r. g., willow grove, doylestown pike weaver, william s., mccungie wilhelm, dr. edward a., clarion *wister, john c., wister st. & clarkson ave., germantown south carolina shanklin, a. g., prof., clemson college kendall, dr. f. d., hampton ave., columbus tennessee waite, j. w., normandy vermont aldrich, a. w., springfield, r. f. d. no. holbrook, f. c., battleboro virginia harris, d. c., capital landing road, williamsburg jordan, j. h., bohannon parrish, john s., charlottesville, route no. roper, w. n., petersburg washington baines, william, okanogan turk, richard h., washougal west virginia brooks, fred e., french creek cannaday, dr. j. e., charleston, box hartzel, b. f., shepherdstown mish, a. f., inwood wisconsin lang, robert b., racine, box patchen, dr. g. w., manitowoc * life member ** honorary member constitution article i _name._ this society shall be known as the northern nut growers association. article ii _object._ its object shall be the promotion of interest in nut-bearing plants, their products and their culture. article iii _membership._ membership in the society shall be open to all persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to place of residence or nationality, subject to the rules and regulations of the committee on membership. article iv _officers._ there shall be a president, a vice-president, a secretary and a treasurer, who shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting; and an executive committee of six persons, of which the president, the two last retiring presidents, the vice-president, the secretary and the treasurer shall be members. there shall be a state vice-president from each state, dependency, or country represented in the membership of the association, who shall be appointed by the president. article v _election of officers._ a committee of five members shall be elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating officers for the following year. article vi _meetings._ 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 executive committee 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 executive committee. article vii _quorum._ ten members of the association shall constitute a quorum, but must include two of the four elected officers. article viii _amendments._ 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 a copy of the proposed amendment having been mailed by any member to each member thirty days before the date of the annual meeting. by-laws article i _committees._ the association shall appoint standing committees as follows: on membership, on finance, on programme, on press and publication, on nomenclature, on promising seedlings, on hybrids, and an auditing committee. the committee on membership may make recommendations to the association as to the discipline or expulsion of any member. article ii _fees._ annual members shall pay two dollars annually, or three dollars and twenty-five cents, including a year's subscription to the american nut journal. contributing members shall pay five dollars annually, this membership including a year's subscription to the american nut journal. life members shall make one payment of fifty dollars, and shall be exempt from further dues. honorary members shall be exempt from dues. article iii _membership._ all annual memberships shall begin either with the first day of the calendar quarter following the date of joining the association, or with the first day of the calendar quarter preceding that date as may be arranged between the new member and the treasurer. article iv _amendments._ by-laws may be amended by a two-thirds vote of members present at any annual meeting. proceedings at the twelfth annual convention of the northern nut growers association lancaster, pa. october and , the convention was called to order at a. m. thursday, october , , by the president, hon. william s. linton, of saginaw, michigan, in the convention hall of the brunswick hotel, lancaster, pa. the president: it certainly is a pleasure and a privilege for us to meet in the prosperous and historic pennsylvania city of lancaster. i am sure that we will have a successful meeting, and i am certain also that during the past year progress has been made in our work which when read into the records will show that we have accomplished material good. without further preliminary remarks, and with the statement that my address or report will come later during the session, we will proceed immediately with our programme. i have the honor to call upon the representative of the mayor of lancaster, oliver s. schaeffer, for the welcoming address. oliver s. schaeffer, esq.: mr. president, members of the northern nut growers' association, friends and guests: on behalf of the mayor and the people of lancaster i extend to you their greetings and bid you a most hearty and cordial welcome. we feel honored that you have selected for the second time this city for the holding of your convention. your esteemed president referred to lancaster city as an historic city, and no doubt all of you know that lancaster is frequently called the garden spot of the world. historically lancaster city was the capital of pennsylvania for thirty-three years, i think from to . during the revolutionary war when the british troops occupied philadelphia the continental congress met here for a while in a building that formerly stood at center square where you now see the soldiers' and sailors' monument. i was talking to your secretary a few minutes in the hotel lobby this morning and he told me that while some of you were in the nut business with a majority of you it was a hobby. that is the altruistic spirit that counts in these days when most of us look upon things in a materialistic way. there was a time when i thought that most nuts came from brazil, but i am glad to learn that we grow the nuts we eat here in the good old u. s. a., and some right here in pennsylvania and in lancaster county. i cannot help but think of the chestnut blight that has worked havoc throughout our state and some other states. it has occasioned a big material loss. yet i think too of another side of the loss and that is the spiritual side because our "chestnut parties" are now becoming a past memory. it is up to men like you to retrieve that loss and to bring back to our youth the chance of experiencing that innocent pleasure the gathering of chestnuts. as i look into your faces here this morning (and while you are not numerous you make up in quality what you lack in quantity), i cannot help but congratulate you on showing the spirit that means progress. i cannot help but feel also that you are optimists, and they are what we need at the present time. i will not trespass upon your time any longer. i again bid you a most warm welcome to our city and on behalf of the mayor hand you the symbolic key of this city to enable you to go where you please. the president: working with us unselfishly for the past two or three years has been a michigan man who has had in mind the benefit of his locality, the state of michigan and the united states. it was his privilege to introduce the first bill into a state legislature that became a law making it obligatory upon state authorities to plant useful trees along the roadside throughout the entire state that he represented so well in the senate. i take pleasure in calling upon that member to respond to the eloquent words of the mayor's representative. i would ask senator penney to reply to mr. schaeffer. hon. harvey a. penney: mr. chairman and gentlemen of this convention, and mr. mayor: we all appreciate this warm and hospitable greeting. some of us are a long way from home. mr. linton, and i come from a town somewhat the size of this. we have about sixty-five thousand people, a large and growing city with a lot of prosperous and very wealthy men in it. we feel that in coming here we are coming to a city something like our own. we have been very much impressed with your city since we have been here. i am glad to see that colonial spirit, the spirit of ' , which permeates your people here. up in saginaw, of course, we do not have the same things to remind us of the past that you have. you have your monuments and those things that call your attention continually to it; but i am sure that our people are as patriotic as your people. however, i think that the spirit of ' which still permeates the east helps to keep the whole country in line for the patriotic upholding of our governmental institutions. while most of the men here are interested especially in the scientific investigation and promotion of the nut industry, my friend mr. linton and i have been more particularly interested in road-side planting. along with the promotion and building of good highways we fell into the idea of beautifying those highways. at the time the people in the east were having their trouble in the colonial days, the revolutionary days, our town was unheard of. it was simply way back in the forest and the wilderness and it was not until very early in this past century that saginaw was even thought of. mr. linton and i talked last night about different things connected with the history of our country and we spoke of de tocqueville, the great french traveler and explorer who came to america way back in . he wished to go into the wilds of this country and see for himself what was here. he went to buffalo and crossed the lakes to detroit. detroit was then a city of about two thousand inhabitants. and then he had the desire to go up into the wilds where nothing but wild animals and wild people lived; so he went up on a trail that led to what is now pontiac perhaps thirty or forty miles northwest of saginaw; that was about the end of the trail. there were one or two settlers who lived there. he picked up a couple of indian guides and started through the trackless forest, sixty or seventy miles up through the northwest to what is now saginaw. he had his desire fully satisfied. he was eaten up by mosquitoes and rattlesnakes in the swamps and marshes; he could not sleep nor anything else; so he came back. that was away back in , fifty years or more after your people were fighting and struggling for the liberty of this country. i wish to say in closing that we all highly appreciate the welcome that has been extended to us on behalf of the mayor of this fine city. the president: next on the program will come the report of the secretary. the secretary: i regret the smallness of the secretary's accomplishment for the past year. except for the editing of the annual report--which is much a matter of cutting out superfluous words--and the effort to get speakers for this convention, he has attempted very little. this is not, however, for lack of things that could and should have been done. an energetic campaign for new members is the most obvious desideratum. the committee to prepare and issue a bulletin on the roadside planting of nut trees, arranged to give information for every part of the country, has been innocuous as well as useless. perhaps this meeting will afford stimulus and material enough to get it to work. i think that few of the members realize how the inactivity of the secretary has been more than made up for by the industry of the treasurer. perhaps they are reciprocally cause and consequence. not only has the treasurer discharged the usual duties of that office but he has also attended to most of the correspondence and clerical work. he has conducted the nut contests which, under his management, have developed to formidable proportions requiring immense expenditure of time and effort. these nut contests have now become so widely known as to return us a good idea of what we may expect of the native nuts of the country. undoubtedly we have not yet found the best nuts that this country produces, except perhaps in the case of the pecan. but mr. bixby's labors, continuing the work begun by dr. morris, have reached such results that i think he will be willing to say that we have nearly reached the limit of natural excellence in the nuts already discovered. in fact it seems to me that we have reached the point where further improvement in nuts for cultivation is to be looked for especially from purposeful hybridizing by man. it should be another of the chief aims of this association to induce self-perpetuating institutions to get together the material necessary for such work. such material already exists in incomplete form--incomplete, that is, especially in horticultural varieties--as in the arnold arboretum and in the public park at rochester. the arnold arboretum, through our treasurer's efforts, has agreed to give more attention to nut growing and breeding. the st. louis botanical garden and the brooklyn botanical garden, through the efforts and generosity of mr. bixby and mr. jones, have made special plantings of horticultural varieties, and this summer the new york botanical garden was induced to set out a number of grafted and seedling nut trees given by mr. jones, mr. bixby, mr. w. c. reed, the mccoy nut nurseries and others. but unless this association can keep their interest alive it is likely that some of these institutional plantings will be neglected, especially as regards the highest development of their possibilities. in one botanical garden visited this summer the casual nut tree plantings running back thirty years have been entirely neglected and the trees are stunted almost to extinction. i hope that our members will lose no opportunity to visit these institutions and ask to see the nut tree plantings. one or two such visits in a year will help to keep our wards in the institutional mind. we cannot expect from these gardens, at present at least, interest in breeding experiments. that is more properly a function of agricultural experiment stations. these are so short manned and short funded, so absorbed in problems offering quicker results, that it is difficult to get them even to consider nut growing. i do not recall a single experiment station in the country where any nut breeding experiments are being conducted. a few manifest a little interest in planting horticultural varieties but the only breeding experiments that i know of, or at this moment recall, are those of dr. morris, dr. van fleet, mr. forkert and mr. jones. all of these experimenters have produced results that more than indicate great possibilities. therefore i think that more of the energy of this association should be expended in influencing the self perpetuating horticultural institutions to see the importance of nut culture. attention should be called also to our treasurer's initiative, perseverance and industry in issuing bulletin no. on nut culture, in improving and reprinting our accredited list of nut nurserymen, in visiting, photographing and describing many of our important parent nut trees, in securing and distributing scions, in promoting experimental topworking of native nut trees in promising localities, in developing a varietal and experimental nut orchard which in time will be second to none in these respects, and in many other promotions of the objects of our association, unsparingly of his energy and his means. it is curious that the biggest development in nut tree planting, for which we are responsible apparently, and practically the only considerable development of the roadside planting of nut trees, about which we have been talking so much, is on the other side of the earth, in china, where mr. wang, one of our members, and associated with the kinsan arboretum, is planting along the new model highway from shanghai to hangkow, a ton of black walnuts bought in this country and shipped to him through mr. bixby. two public horticultural institutions in canada have written me about making nut plantings. we seem, perhaps, in this land, too busy making what we call wealth, and armaments to protect it, too busy to give attention to the food supply of the future race. to summarise, the association may feel that its purpose as originally stated, and never changed, "the promotion of interest in nut bearing plants, their products and their culture," has been furthered consistently though results are slow. for the future we should work, . for a greater membership. . to stimulate interest in horticultural institutions, especially in nut breeding. . to give definite information that will encourage nut tree planting for profit by individuals. . to promote roadside, memorial and public place planting of nut trees. . to discover still more of our valuable native nut trees through our prize contests. mr. c. a. reed has made a suggestion which i will lay before you and which may be considered at a later hour. he suggests that it might be better to have our conventions once in two years, every other one to be held in washington. this is so radical a proposal that it should have prolonged consideration before adoption. the affairs of the association are not getting from the secretary the attention they deserve and he does not foresee better attention in the future. he wishes that some more active person could be found for the place and would be very glad to have the association elect another secretary. the president: the secretary's report will be received and filed with the proceedings. are there any remarks in connection therewith? personally, i wish to endorse emphatically what the secretary has said relative to treasurer bixby who has worked early and late and has promoted the affairs of this association to a very great degree. his work is along practical lines and brings results. the secretary finds fault with himself. no member of the association endorses that particular phase of his paper because his work has been good, he has had the best interests of the association at heart at all times--that i personally know--and i sincerely hope that he may change his mind relative to his successor. we will now listen to the report of treasurer bixby. northern nut growers association in account with willard g. bixby, treasurer receipts balance on hand oct. , : | | | | special hickory price, $ . ; life | | | | membership, $ . ; for regular | | | | expenses, $ . | | | |$ . from annual members including joint | | | | subscriptions to american nut | | | | journal |$ . |$ . |$ . | reports | . | . | . | contribution for prizes | . | . | . | contribution to meet expenses | | . | . | bulletin no. | . | . | . | cash discount on bills paid | . | | . | postage returned | | . | . | advertising in report | | . | . | life membership p. w. wang | | . | . | funds received for transmission to | | | | other parties | | . | . | salary check returned by secretary | | . | . | |_______|_________|_________|_________ |$ . |$ , . |$ , . |$ , . deficit october , : | | | | balance special hickory prize |$ . | | | life membership | . | | | deficit for regular expenses[a] | . | | | . |_______| | |_________ net deficit | | | | , . expenditures american nut journal, their portion | | | | of joint subscriptions |$ . |$ . |$ . | convention | . | | . | printing bulletin no. | | . | . | stationery, printing & supplies | . | . | . | postage, express, etc. | . | . | . | prizes nut contest | . | | . | advertising nut contest | . | | . | printing report th meeting | . | . | . | printing report th meeting | | . | . | funds received for transmission to | | | | other parties | | . | . | salary secretary | . | | . | |_______|_________|_________|_________ |$ . |$ , . |$ , . |$ , . forty-seven new members have joined the association since the last report, making since organization, of which we have , making who have resigned or otherwise dropped out. it will be noticed that the number of members received last year, , is less than the number reported a year ago, . this in the judgment of the treasurer is entirely due to the less amount of energy expended for a smaller proportion of members have dropped out than a year ago. while the gaining of members is not particularly easy it can be done and the number gained to quite an extent is in proportion to the energy put on it. the finances of the association this year are in a more troublesome situation than any year since the undersigned had charge. two reports each at double normal cost each is quite enough to cause it. an inspection of the treasurer's accounts have made it evident that during no year in the history of the association have the dues received been equal to the cost of carrying on the association. each year some members interested have contributed in addition to paying dues. during the year past these sums have been considerable. it is believed that with only one report a year there will be only normal difficulty in handling the finances of the association. the orderly conduct of the finances of the association makes it very desirable that normal receipts of dues take care of normal expenditures with a little margin for contingencies. the matter of classes of membership would seemingly help on this. the treasurer would not recommend changing the annual membership from its present figures, $ . , but would suggest that this meeting consider making a class of contributing members at $ . per year including the american nut journal. this would give the association double the income from each such member that it now gets for most members accept the combination offer of membership in the association and subscription to the american nut journal at $ . for both which nets the association $ . per year. respectfully submitted, sept. , . willard g. bixby. the president: mr. bixby is certainly a first class treasurer. he makes a recommendation in his report. do you desire to act upon it at this time? i refer to his recommendation relative to a new class of membership. it is a first class suggestion and a motion covering it would be in order. the secretary: i move that a committee of three be appointed by the president to consider the recommendation of the treasurer relative to different classes of membership and to report at this meeting. mr. a. c. pomeroy: i second the motion. the motion was carried. the president: i will appoint as that committee the treasurer, mr. bixby, the secretary, dr. deming, and mr. r. t. olcott. mr. reed, the chairman of the committee on road-side planting, is in california, and unable to be with us at this session. if a report is to come from that committee it must necessarily come from some other member, so we will defer action on that particular report at this time. we also regret the absence of dr. morris the first president of the association. he is unable to be with us at this meeting but he has forwarded a paper and unless there are objections we will receive it at this time and have it read by the secretary. nut trees for public places dr. robert t. morris, new york the question of the planting of nut trees along highways and in parks and other public grounds falls into classification under two separate and distinct heads. first, the abstract proposition of planting useful trees upon ground which is not usefully occupied otherwise. second, the reaction of human nature to the different phases of the proposition. the latter part is the larger part of the question, otherwise the work would already have been done. let us take up the smaller part of the question first. nut trees which are indigenous to any locality, or allied species from other countries having similar soil and climatic conditions, will grow and thrive on public grounds quite as well as upon private property. they will be as beautiful and as useful upon public grounds as they are upon private property, speaking in a large way, although disposal of their products will go along different channels perhaps. nut trees of various species will be quite as beautiful and distinctly more useful than any of the other trees that are commonly selected for planting upon public grounds. because of the inclusion of the economic factor the question as to whether nut trees may well supplant the kinds of trees commonly selected is not a debatable question. let us leave this part of the subject however and take up question number two, relating to the human nature side. a little examination into this phase of the matter will disclose reasons why nut trees are not already along our highways and in parks and other public grounds. the supplying of trees on a large scale for such a purpose is commonly done by contract with nurserymen. nurserymen find it more profitable to raise certain kinds of trees instead of other kinds. nurserymen are prone to raise kinds which are most profitable. public officials who are making contracts sometimes look for perquisites. these include acceptance from nurserymen of bonuses for letting the contract. here then we have at the very outset of the problem two large obstacles to the purchase of nut trees for public places. the carrying forward of any large project of this sort means reliance upon someone with legislative resources. in my experience legislators are commonly keen to approve of any project which will render public service when they are fully convinced of that fact. if not fully convinced of that fact and reserving the feeling that private interests are being served they wait until somebody who knows how to see the legislator has seen him. another phase of the question relates to the attitude of the people toward public property in a so-called free country. people are prone to take anything that they please from anything which is so impersonal as a country. nut trees planted in public places would have their crops carried off by every passer by to such an extent that revenue for the upkeep of the trees would be difficult to obtain. in some of the european countries this obstacle has not been insurmountable. there are many villages in europe in which privately owned fields are not even fenced and fruit and nut trees growing for the benefit of the village are left untouched by the passer by in this older civilization. a man would no more think of taking what belonged to the town than he would think of taking property from the storehouse of a neighbor. in this country we have not yet arrived at that point in civilization. the distinction between _meum_ and _tuum_ in a free country is sometimes blurred. what are we to do about this whole question? that is the practical point. change human nature and educate the public. in towns belonging to our system of government there is some question if the public would ever allow nut trees to bring revenue sufficient for their upkeep and to yield a profit for the town. on the other hand, by means of education the public may come to desire the planting of nut trees along the highways and in other public places to the extent that it will submit to taxation for the purpose. the public planting of nut trees belongs to progress. if we are to remain boastful of progress in this country the question will gradually be developed in a practical way. the president: you have heard the reading of dr. morris's paper. are there any remarks thereon or any discussion? mr. a. c. pomeroy: some years ago there was objection raised at los angeles to the use of sewage water for irrigating purposes in raising tomatoes and other vegetables. the city then bought the property and set out orchards of english walnuts. i understand that they are growing and that the revenue goes to the city of los angeles. as to the road-side planting of nut trees in europe, to which dr. morris refers, the very first battle fought in the great world war when the belgians were resisting the germans was along where there were thirty miles of english walnut trees on both sides of a highway. i understood that every tree was demolished. i think our secretary or treasurer could find out about the los angeles park and the nut trees. as to monument trees, about twelve or fifteen years ago, at my home, i set out a grove in our cemetery in memory of my father and it is doing fine. it seemed quite appropriate for he took such an interest in nut growing. the secretary: i would like to speak a word in defense of our american civilization, as evidenced by something that mr. bixby and i saw this summer at lockport, new york. we observed that one of the main highways leading from the town of lockport to one of the principal lakeside resorts, was unfenced, lined with fruit trees on both sides--cherry trees which overhung the sidewalk. the sides of the road also were planted with tomatoes and other vegetables apparently unharmed. the trees certainly did not show any evidence of injury from depredations. whether the products of the trees were taken or not i do not know but they still had fruit on them. possibly those who live in that neighborhood--mr. olcott and mr. pomeroy--could tell us more in defense of american civilization as to depredations on road-side property. mr. pomeroy: there are some people--what do you call them--dung hills--in this world, and i have had a little trouble with them but not much. they run around in automobiles and get out and take fruit. dr. deming and mr. olcott know how close the school house is to my home. the fact is the children walk under the nut trees when they take the cut through the private driveway, but i have very little trouble with them. i think the greatest object lesson was given last year, when two young men, who were hunting pheasants, took a half bushel of nuts and were caught at it. they did not think it amounted to anything. they came along up to the house and the nuts were taken and put upon the drying rack. while they were arguing an automobile stopped and the nuts were sold. they came to nine dollars and a few cents by the pound. one of these young men--he was in the retail tobacco business,--threw up his hands and said, "i admit it; i would not want you to walk into my store and grab nine or ten dollars' worth of goods; i admit this is all wrong." mr. r. t. olcott: i have been very much surprised in the discussion of road-side planting, of fruit and nut trees at the prominence given to that feature of it which deals with the public taking the crop. that seems to me to be such a minor part of the proposition as to be almost negligible, and while it continues to arouse discussion i cannot see the vital importance of it. in a great many undertakings there are drawbacks but the undertakings go right on and when the difficulties arise they are met in turn. i think the thing for this association, and all others in favor of road-side tree planting to do is to go ahead with the proposition and forget the question of the crop and what is going to be done with it. as a matter of fact farmers are complaining continually of the depredations on their orchards resulting from the increase of automobile parties--perfectly respectable people going out on the road-side and helping themselves. if fine fruit and nut trees were planted along the road-sides and the crops were being picked, it seems to me that, under a general understanding that the public was to let these trees alone, and that any one caught or seen picking the crops would be reported by the one following, it would automatically police itself. the finger of ridicule would be pointed at a person who was so doing by somebody other than a uniformed officer, in other words by an ordinary citizen. i speak of that because in rochester during the war when it was deemed necessary not to run automobiles on sunday it was as much as his life was worth for a man to be out with his car on sunday, not because of any police officer but because of the other fellow who was staying at home. i think that the other travelers along the road will take care of the fellow that violates the understanding about roadside fruit and nut trees. the vice-president: i come from rochester, new york, and i know that in and around rochester there are fruit-bearing trees planted along the roadside. out on the road to honeoye falls there are a number of apple trees and out through the webster section there are a number of cherry trees. i do not know what the results have been in the garnering of crops, but the appearance of the trees indicates that they are well cared for and that they are producing abundant crops of fruit. in albany, georgia, planted on the street side in front of the court house, are a number of pecan trees. i have seen them loaded to capacity with splendid seedling nuts. i understand that any one walking along the sidewalk under the trees has the right to pick up any nuts that are on the walk but is not permitted (at least it has been suggested that he do not) to reach up into the trees to take the nuts. i understand that the request has been very faithfully regarded and that it is very rare that the nuts are picked from the trees. just what is done with the crop of nuts from those trees i do not know but i assume that it is harvested and marketed and the returns made to the town. the trees indicate that they are splendidly cared for and the citizens take a great deal of pride in their splendid appearance. i talked with the man who planted them, an employee of the court house, and he himself was simply delighted that he had been responsible for such a splendid monument. and property owners referred to in my home section, before whose premises these cherry trees and apple trees were planted, i feel very sure would not complain at all bitterly, if at all, about any filching that might be indulged in. so that i think, as mr. olcott has suggested, that maybe we are trying to cross the bridge before we get to it; that the thing to do is to urge the planting of nut trees on the roadsides and to stimulate a sense of pride in our american citizenship. mr. olcott: we all agree that trees of this kind planted along the sides of city streets would never be touched. i have been at miami, florida, and have seen the bearing coconut trees there. no one would think of knocking off one of those coconuts and thousands of people pass under them. the secretary: i think it is very important to have brought out this optimistic view on the question of depredations on road-side fruit trees. i think it is only a question of time, as mr. olcott says, when the public will be educated to respect such products. if they have done it in other countries we can do it in this country. it is a question of the people becoming accustomed to it when we have enough of such products. when the whole country is covered with such products i think there will be no difficulty about maintaining respect for them. you know that sometimes after the loss of a very small amount of property there will be very great reaction. some people feel that because robins take a few cherries or strawberries all robins ought to be exterminated. there are two other remarks in dr. morris's paper which should have consideration. i refer to those bearing upon nurserymen and public officials. mr. olcott: if there is any question relating to nurserymen, we are very fortunate in having one of the most prominent nurserymen in the united states at our meeting today. i refer to mr. john watson, of princeton, new jersey. the president: we certainly would be glad to hear from mr. watson. if i may be permitted to make a statement from the chair i agree fully with what mr. olcott has had to say as to depredations. possible depredations in connection with the trees that may be planted along the road-side, either fruit or nut, are hardly worthy of consideration. with my good wife in passing through new york state recently i drove through rows of fruit trees on either side of the roads, as did dr. deming and treasurer bixby, and we were surprised to see that they were loaded with apples. the fact that the trees were loaded with fruit of course proved that the fruit had not been stolen or taken from the trees. they had not been disturbed in any way. a number of years ago while holding the position of postmaster in saginaw i planted a black walnut. that walnut has produced a fine walnut tree. i selected a nice place on the post office grounds at a corner where two of our prominent streets meet in the business portion of the city. last fall for the first time that tree bore walnuts--about a bushel and a half; and the employees of the postoffice gathered those walnuts and sent them in a complimentary way to me. now that tree being in a public place, you would naturally expect the boys to have taken the nuts from it, but they did not do it. so that i know that that particular phase of this question as mr. olcott has said is hardly worthy of consideration. suppose now and then the boys do get a few fallen walnuts or apples. no harm is done. just that much more food is produced for their benefit by this way of planting. i now take pleasure in calling upon mr. watson relative to dr. morris's reference to the nursery business. mr. john watson: i am afraid that mr. olcott's suggestion might possibly have given you the idea that i have something to say on this question or that i wanted to say something on it. i assure you that that is not the case. i am not a member of your association much to my regret. i am just visiting here trying to learn something from your meeting (this is the first one that i have attended) rather than to try to tell you something. the question is whether i have any objection to make to dr. morris's two statements. i can say that they are both very reasonable. as a nurseryman i have no objection. of course, i cannot speak for any other nurseryman. i was rather surprised upon looking at the roll of those in attendance at this convention at the absence of nurserymen. i should think that those who produced the things that you people are trying to interest the country in would be the very men who would be the most interested in being here. it seems to me that you are trying to make a market for the goods that they are producing. i am rather surprised not to see at least half the attendance here made up of nurserymen. it is entirely possible that i have not have understood those two statements made by dr. morris and i may be rather careless in saying that i do not object to them. they were, i believe, that nurserymen prefer, naturally, to produce the things that they can produce most easily and at least cost, and, in the second place that they produce the things that they can sell. that is what most manufacturers do. i could not find fault with either statement. the nurseryman as a manufacturer or as a merchant of course produces the things that people want to buy. he may go a certain distance in producing the things that are worth while, that are better than other things; but in the last analysis he must depend upon the buying public and the buying public is always going to get from the nurseryman just exactly what it demands. the secretary: in regard to the presence of so few nurserymen at our meetings i would like to say that we have long tried to interest the nurserymen in nut growing. we always have had a few nurserymen with us; but i think without exception they have been those who had either previously become interested in nut growing or had become interested in it through some other influence than that of this association. it has been a great disappointment to us that we have never been able to interest the nurserymen generally. although we have at times sent special communications to a great many nurserymen i think we have universally failed to get any response except from those who were already interested in nut growing. the president: i do not think there is a movement in the country today that will amount to as much for the nurserymen of america as this particular movement that we have been promoting for a few years back. i know that it is becoming universal. during my short experience as your president i have found that inquiries have come from all over the united states asking how they may procure these trees and especially asking how they may procure the finest varieties. it is along that particular line that the nurserymen certainly could extend their business greatly; because as this movement of road-side planting goes along the man who has a good farm, the general farmer in his business, or any man with a small piece of ground that he can call his own, will want to plant a good nut tree thereon of a most improved variety. now so many of these trees will be called for in the next few years (i do not think i am over-optimistic in the matter at all) that it will be impossible to supply the demand. so i am sure that any man who is regularly engaged in the nursery business will find that he will be called upon to supply a demand for the better class of trees that really cannot be filled for years to come. in this way his business will be largely benefited. are there any further remarks on this particular phase of the question? mr. olcott: as editor of the american nurseryman i am especially interested in this discussion. there is scarcely a catalogue of a southern nurseryman of any consequence but lists nut trees; and yet we have the northern nut growers' association convention here now, and we will have a national convention in mobile next week right in the heart of the pecan growing section at neither of which will there be a half dozen nurserymen. i think both of these associations should have more nurserymen members. they list nut trees but do it in a perfunctory way. i do not believe nurserymen know what this northern association is doing nor how near they are to the demand for the trees which will be wanted in the very near future. i think it is up to this association to make special efforts to acquaint them with the facts, and then i think they will come in and be active members. all persons connected with nut culture and all nurserymen ought to be most active members of such an organization as this. the subject should go before the membership committee. mr. samuel l. smedley: i have had a little experience with black walnuts and have found that they do not mix at all with farm crops nor with fruit. possibly you folks from michigan can solve the problem but i would not thank anybody for planting black walnuts along the road in front of my place. i am in favor of road-side planting but i do not think black walnuts would be acceptable in this part of the country, from what my experience has been. the treasurer: let me ask why it is you think they would not be acceptable. mr. smedley: i had a grand big walnut tree on my place at one side of the road. i tried to get apple trees to grow on the opposite side of the road but could not and it could not be accounted for by any other reason. i know other people have come to the some conclusion that certain things would not grow near a walnut tree. some grasses will. if you go down through lancaster county along the lincoln highway you will find a quantity of locust trees thriving there. wheat and things will grow right up to the roots of those trees, but i do not think you will find that they will grow up to a black walnut. the treasurer: i had a chance to observe, last summer, a black walnut tree out in the field with a crop planted right under it. it seems to me it is a question of shade. with this walnut tree with branches low down the corn seemed to be stunted where it grew a little way under the branches. on the other hand i saw another one where the branches were high up and cabbages growing almost up to the tree and about as luxuriantly as outside of its branches. it seems to me that it is a matter of shade rather than the tree getting the fertility in the ground. it may be that if the fertility in the ground is not sufficient for both tree and crop the tree will take it and let the crop suffer. but i imagine if there is enough for both, and the crop is not shaded, the crop can be grown much nearer the tree than we have any idea of. mr. j. g. rush: i want to say a word about this way-side planting in our neighborhood. i do not think it is the general practice in lancaster county where land is valued at two or three hundred dollars an acre. if you plant a walnut tree on a public thoroughfare there is temptation for children to go there to gather walnuts, endangering their lives on account of the automobiles. one gentleman said something about a walnut tree damaging the crops. in my experience with black walnut nursery trees some have what is called a very strong top root while others have a deep root. it is the first kind, the surface rooted, that will do your crop damage but not the deep-rooted kind. now another thing. suppose one plants a cherry tree. to whom do the cherries belong? to the man who planted the tree practically on his premises. but the limbs extend out on the public highway. if i, the owner, take a ladder out there and pick cherries and an automobile comes running past and throws me down i am practically a trespasser on the public highway. i believe i would not plant along the public highway with the idea of getting any fruit from the trees. i think however when you have a railroad going through your premises it is entirely practicable to plant your nut trees alongside the railroad, especially where there is a fill. where the roots will grow under it and thrive luxuriantly. nearly every farmer has a small stream running through his premises. you plant your walnut trees or your filbert trees along that stream, and you will have magnificent results. i do not want to be understood as disparaging nut tree planting. mr. d. f. clark: i would like to know if the planting of black walnut trees is discriminated against because of the difficulty of getting the meat out of the nut. i have made a great many experiments and have not been able to get the meat out of the nut in large pieces. is there some kind of a machine made for that purpose? black walnut kernels bring a splendid price and if we could get them open right it would be fine. the secretary: that difficulty is being taken care of by the improved varieties which are being raised and which you can get on grafted trees. i am inclined to agree with mr. bixby in regard to its being the shade of black walnut trees that affects the crops growing near them rather than the roots of the trees. i have seen the same thing that mr. bixby describes, a high-pruned black walnut tree with wheat growing clear up to the trunk. i have photographs of a number of fields in europe where the english walnut is grown. the trees are pruned high and the wheat grows up close to the trunks of the trees. i would like to say also that i think it is the purpose of those who advocate the road-side planting of trees not to do it forcibly nor to compel anybody to have trees planted in front of his premises if he does not want them, but to give him a voice in the selection of the kind of trees that should be planted in front of his property. i think that is a necessary thing for the success of the movement, that the co-operation of the property owners should be invited by giving them a voice in the selection of the trees that are planted in their location. dr. rittenhouse: i feel that this matter of the injury caused by a black walnut to surrounding vegetation should be more thoroughly thrashed out. it is doubtful to my mind whether the injury that a black walnut produces on surrounding vegetation is solely due to shade. seven years ago i planted an apple orchard and some of the young trees began to be injured by a large walnut tree possibly seventy five feet away. the walnut tree happened to be on the line and i got the permission of my neighbor to cut the walnut tree down. the apple trees immediately began to thrive. i thought perhaps it was due to the roots demanding too much moisture from the soil because it was impossible for the shade to do any harm to those young apple trees. there is a superstitious idea among the people of our locality that the black walnut root is injurious to growing vegetation. mr. smedley: in my case the walnut tree was on the opposite side of a public road thirty feet wide and the influence was shown to the second row of apple trees on the other side. i do not think it was the shade in that case. the limbs were pretty high too. it was a public road. i do not think there were any roots that reached the apple trees at all. mr. mcglennon: mr. rush's reference to the ownership of the crop on trees planted on the road-side is a thought that has occupied my mind, and i have found some consolation in the belief that the ownership of land applies from the center of the roadway. i am not sure about that and i think it is a point that ought to be clarified. mr. smedley: i think in pennsylvania the public just have the right-of-way there; they have no claim to anything that grows. the president: in michigan, the law applies that the ownership goes to the middle of the highway. the recent act of the legislature of our state causes the state highway commissioner to plant trees for the maintenance of the roadway. the planting of the trees he claims benefits the roadway, so that under that application he plants the trees for the maintenance of the road. the distance from the fence line varies. the state highway department of michigan has a department for the planting of trees since the law introduced by senator penney some two or three years ago came into effect. the commissioner varies his planting, sometimes in groups and sometimes in a formal way, according to the stretch of road; but the basis of it all, perhaps, would be thirteen feet from the lot line on each side of the road. our roads, or at least ninety per cent of them, are sixty-six feet in width. thirteen feet from the lot line on each side would take twenty-six feet, and planting them forty feet apart in the other direction makes those trees forty feet apart each way. a great majority of the trees being planted in michigan follow that particular plan, so they are thirteen feet from the property holder's fence line. i might say that occasionally the highway commissioner would run across an obstinate individual who would not plant trees in front of his place nor permit such trees to be planted as would conform to the other plantings. but the law passed at the last session of our legislature leaves it entirely in the control of the planting department of the highway department. the law reads that the owner of the adjacent property shall have the privilege of gathering the fruit or nuts or whatever may come from that tree. he has no better right, perhaps, than any other citizen of the state of michigan, but he is there and can get the first ripe fruit or nuts which come from the tree. the president: are there any further remarks upon this subject? if not, i have a paper prepared by prof. a. k. chittendon, professor of forestry in the michigan agricultural college, which i will ask the secretary to read. roadside planting _prof. a. k. chittendon_ the improvement and beautification of our highways is one of the best investments that can be made. particularly in the middle west where we do not have the panorama of hills and mountains, much of the beauty of the road depends upon the roadside trees. they frame the long vistas of farmlands, woods, lakes and rivers and lend enchantment to the road. under recent legislation michigan has taken a leading place in the care and planting of roadside trees. provision has been made by the legislature for the planting of ornamental and food-producing trees along the highways and for their protection. the highways offer an almost limitless field for ornamental planting and they also offer opportunities for raising certain food producing trees of which at present the nut trees are the principal species used. a time may come when we can safely plant fruit trees along the roadside but until provisions can be made for their systematic care and spraying, such trees would be liable to spread disease to nearby orchards. roadside trees increase the value of adjacent property. they attract birds and thus assist in keeping down insect pests. they may be used to prevent erosion on steep slopes. they increase the life of certain kinds of improved highways by protecting the roadbed from the direct heat of the sun. they serve as a source of food if nut-bearing or sugar-producing trees are used. they invite tourists to travel over the highways. they may serve as a windbreak to prevent the drifting of sand. roadside trees may, however, be too close together or by their shade injure crop production in adjacent fields. some species of trees are particularly harmful if planted on the edge of a cultivated field. they send out their roots under the cultivated land and sap the moisture essential to plant growth. this can be avoided by using trees with deep or compact root systems. the desirability of planting trees of any sort along the highways is sometimes questioned. there are places where it is urged that trees are not desirable. on stretches of road where the soil is naturally wet the heavy shade cast by certain species of trees is undoubtedly objectionable; but there are also trees whose shade is very light. some trees make such a dense mass of foliage that they tend to prevent air currents and thus keep the moisture in the road from drying out. along such stretches of road the method of planting may affect the matter of light and air, and species of trees can be chosen which will be practically unobjectionable. most of the highway planting in the past has been a matter of chance and there have been few definite plans for any long stretch of roadway. in selecting trees for planting the probable rate of growth and appearance of the tree at maturity should be borne in mind. what might seem entirely satisfactory in young trees may prove objectionable in the cost of mature ones. the size and shape of the tree at maturity should be considered as it affects the spacing of the trees. also the amount of care which it will be possible to give the trees should influence the choice of species; for certain trees will produce good results with a small amount of attention while others require a great deal of care. the matter of interference with telephone and electric wires must also be considered. a species should be selected which is relatively free from the attacks of insects and fungi. it would be very difficult to find a tree which is entirely immune but there are some trees which are more resistant than others. the amount of shade cast by the tree is of a great deal of importance in connection with the moisture conditions; trees are often placed too close together which prevents their proper development. where quick results are desired two species are often used, a fast growing one planted in between slower growing trees; the idea being to cut out the fast growing tree after the slower growing ones have reached good size. this is alright in theory but seldom works well in practice. the fast growing trees are seldom cut at the proper time and the result is often the stunting and injuring of the better and more durable trees. the fast growing trees usually die before many years. the result is seldom satisfactory. the question of litter while of importance with city street trees does not matter so much in the case of highway trees, but the cottony seed from poplars is very objectionable anywhere. the longevity of a tree is important. the desire for quick results often outweighs other considerations. many of the trees which give results such as silver maple, box elder and carolina poplar do not last long and the effort spent on them is wasted. more time and money is needed within a short time to remove and replace such trees. it is better to plant well in the first place. trees do not grow at the same rate throughout their life. they usually grow slowly at first and then fairly rapidly between the tenth and thirteenth years, after which the rate of growth usually falls off gradually. if small trees, about ten feet high are used for planting they should reach the following sizes in twenty years on favorable soil: american elm inches basswood " chestnut " hard maple " red oak " pin oak " white ash " black walnut " hackberry " certain trees such as the horse chestnut and the evergreens generally appear to better advantage alone or in groups while others like the elms, maples and box elder show to fine advantage in long rows. it is doubtful if the planting of windbreaks along the highways is advisable. windbreaks are sometimes planted with the idea of preventing the drifting of snow but the snow will collect and form great drifts on the leeward side of a windbreak and the shade from the windbreak may prevent the snow from melting so rapidly. hedges may be used, however, to prevent the shifting of sand or the erosion of steep slopes. the highways offer excellent opportunities for nut production and such trees as the black walnut and hickories may often be used to advantage. the presence of birds may be encouraged by planting hackberry and other trees or shrubs of which they are fond. the michigan agricultural college was authorized by the legislature to raise trees for roadside planting. the college is raising red oak, black walnut, oriental sycamore, sugar maple, elm, hackberry, snowdrop tree, juneberry, hickory, european larch, norway maple and box elder for this purpose. other trees may be added to the list from time to time. in addition to the planting of trees we need also the proper care of those already planted or growing naturally along the roads. the commonest source of injury is due to improper pruning for telephone lines. a great many trees are badly injured in this way. we already have a large investment in highway trees and it is only the part of wisdom to protect this investment. michigan has started active work in highway planting and we hope in a few years to be able to point with pride to our highways, not only because of the good roadbeds but also because of the trees and shrubs that line those roads. the president: is there any discussion on prof. chittendon's paper? if not, it will be received and filed in the proceedings. it is now near the noon hour and i think it would be well to have mr. jones or mr. rush state what program has been arranged for this afternoon. mr. j. f. jones: i believe the plan is to get dinner here, and then to go to our nursery at willow street. from there some machines will take the parties who do not have conveyances, around to other points. the secretary: mr. president, in accordance with article v of the constitution, i move that a committee of five members be elected for the purpose of nominating officers for the ensuing year. (motion seconded and carried.) the secretary: mr. president, i move that mr. olcott be named the chairman of that committee. mr. j. f. jones, mr. john rick, mr. ernest m. ives and mr. c. s. ridgeway were nominated as members of said committee. messrs. olcott, jones, rick, ives and ridgeway having been nominated were on motion duly elected members of a committee to nominate officers for the ensuing year in accordance with article v. of the constitution. on motion the meeting adjourned until p. m. same day. evening session october , , p. m. _hotel brunswick_ president linton: a recess was taken from the morning session until this time for the purpose of considering a roadside planting bill that might be recommended by this association to the authorities of every state in the union. in order to bring this about we will have presented to you by senator penney, who was the introducer of the original bill that became a law in the michigan legislature, a copy of the laws practically as they exist in our state today. we take a little pride in michigan in being the first state to work along this particular line. our agricultural college staffs, the highway department and several other branches of the michigan government, are heartily and enthusiastically co-operating in this work. i have in my hand a notice that has been sent out by the state highway commissioner of michigan to every highway commissioner in the state. we have about two thousand of the latter. we have in the neighborhood of two thousand townships six miles square and in each of these townships we have a supervisor, we have a highway commissioner and we have members of what is known as the township board. this notice that i have, and you will see it is quite complete and goes into a number of details, is sent by our state highway commissioner to each one of the township commissioners of north michigan, and he closes his letter accompanying it with this: fourth: (president linton reads). you will see from that that we are well under way in connection with roadside planting in our state of michigan. i now take pleasure in presenting to you a member of our legislature who introduced the first bill that became a law along these particular lines, senator harvey a. penney of michigan. senator penney: in the legislature of michigan several bills have been introduced by its members, but as i stated at the last convention they were not drawn up in such a way that they were fitted for our laws. as mr. littlepage said it takes quite a while to figure out a law that fits your own state law. these several laws were introduced but in some way or another the committees of the legislature never took kindly to them and they were not passed. but two years ago i had a bill passed. since then we have seen some imperfections and we passed another law at the last session of the legislature which provides that the cost of planting trees and caring for them shall come out of the maintenance fund, that is, the maintenance fund that provides for the maintenance of highways. i don't know how the laws are in most of your states but in michigan the law is that the owner of land owns not only his farm but the land to the center of the highway subject to the right of the public to have the use of it for travel. then how are you going to plant trees on a man's land if the highway belongs to that man? they did it on the theory that the trees were necessary for the maintenance of the highway. there never has been a test case on this law but the highway department has a very able lawyer who was in the attorney general's office and since then has been elected circuit judge of the county in which lansing is located. his idea was that the trees should be planted on the highway for the purpose of protecting the highway, and the cost of planting them and taking care of them should be taken out of the maintenance fund. so that is the theory upon which they are working under this bill. +------------------------------------------------------------------+ |transcribers note: the format in this section has been transcribed| |exactly as in the original. | +------------------------------------------------------------------+ a bill to provide for and regulate the planting of useful, memorial, ornamental, nut bearing and other food producing trees, shrubs, and plants along the streets, highways and other public thoroughfares and places within the state of (michigan); and for the maintenance, protection and care of such trees and shrubs as a part of the maintenance of the roads in certain cases; and to provide a penalty for injury thereof, or for stealing the products thereof,-- _the people of the state of (michigan) enact:_ section . the (state highway commissioner) is hereby authorized and empowered and it shall be his duty to select and plant by seeds, scions or otherwise, useful, ornamental, nut bearing and other food producing trees, shrubs and plants suitable for shade, maintenance and protection of the highways along state trunk line and federal aided roads and for the use and benefit of the public, and to care for and maintain all such trees, shrubs or plants. the care of such trees shall be deemed a part of the road maintenance work. the varieties or species so planted shall be subject to the approval of the (state department of agriculture) and may be supplied by the (state agricultural college) or other state institution or department, or elsewhere acquired by the (state highway commissioner). the (state highway commissioner) shall make and publish rules and regulations for the planting and proper placing of trees, shrubs or plants and for their proper pruning, care and protection under the provisions of this act, and all such planting shall belong to the state, but the owner of the adjacent land shall have the right to take and use the products thereof. all expenses incurred in planting or caring for such trees and shrubs along trunk line and federal aided roads of the state shall be paid in the same manner as is or may be provided by law for the payment of the cost of maintaining trunk line or federal aided roads. sec. . counties, townships, cities and villages of the state are hereby authorized to appropriate money for the purpose of planting, caring for and protecting useful, memorial, ornamental, nut bearing and other food producing trees, shrubs and plants along and within streets, highways, thoroughfares and other public places other than trunk line or federal aided roads, within the respective limits of such municipalities and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. the expenditure of any such fund raised hereunder in a township shall be vested in the (highway commissioner) of the township subject to the approval of the township board. any such fund raised by a county shall be expended by and under the direction of the (board of county road commissioners;) and any such fund raised in a city or village shall be expended by the highway or other proper municipal board or authority thereof, in accordance with its charter laws or ordinances or under the direction of the common council or legislative body of such city or village. all such appropriations made under this section by any municipality shall be made in the same manner as is or may be provided by law for the raising of money for highway or park maintenance purposes. sec. . trees may be planted along the highways or other public places by proper authorities and designated as memorial trees for the purpose of commemorating important military or civic events, or in memory of any person distinguished for noteworthy acts, or for conspicuous service in behalf of the nation, the state of michigan or any local community thereof. suitable tablets, boulders or other markers of a permanent character may be contributed by any person, or by any civic or military association and placed in conjunction with such memorial trees subject to the approval and consent of the proper authorities in control or in direct charge of such highways or public places. that sec. . the owner of any real estate in the state of (michigan) that borders upon a public highway other than a trunk line, federal aided or county road shall have the right to, plant useful, ornamental, nut bearing and other food producing trees and shrubs along the line of said highway adjoining said land, and within the limits thereof, and shall receive annually a credit of twenty cents upon his highway repair tax for each tree so planted and growing in good order: provided, however, that all such planting shall be done in accordance with the rules and regulations prescribed by the (state highway commissioner) for the planting of trees along trunk line and federal aided roads. said trees and shrubs and the products thereof shall be subject to the same incidents as to ownership and use as are provided for in section hereof with respects to trees planted along and within trunk line highways. no bounty shall be paid or deduction allowed under the provisions of this section upon any tree or trees for a longer period than five years. the owner of the adjoining land shall have the care of such trees and shrubs and shall have the duty and responsibility for the trimming, spraying and cultivation thereof unless otherwise provided in the charter, ordinances, or other regulations of incorporated cities and villages. in case any such tree or shrub should become diseased or shall in any manner interfere with the public use of the highway the authorities having jurisdiction over such highway may by written notice require the owner of the adjoining land to cut and remove such trees or shrub. if such notice is not complied with within thirty days after service thereof such authorities may cut and remove such diseased or obnoxious tree or shrub. sec. . the (state board of agriculture) and other state departments having lands and facilities therefore are hereby authorized to acquire and grow suitable seeds, scions, and trees for planting under the provisions of this act and to establish proper rules and regulations for the distribution thereof at nominal cost, or otherwise, to the state, to municipalities of the state, and to private citizens for the purposes hereby contemplated. sec. . it shall be unlawful to cut, destroy or otherwise injure any shade or ornamental tree or shrub growing within the limits of any public highway within the state of michigan without the consent of the authorities having jurisdiction over such road. in the case of a trunk line of federal aided road the (state highway commissioner) shall be deemed to have such jurisdiction in all cases. it shall also be unlawful to affix to any tree or shrub any picture, announcement, notice or advertisement, or to negligently permit any animal to break down or injure the same. any person violating any of the provisions of this act shall be deemed to be guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars or by imprisonment in the county jail for a period not exceeding thirty days, or by both such fine and imprisonment within the discretion of the court. now some of the farmers along the road say that the trees will be diseased, but i don't think that nut trees as a rule, or shade trees, are affected very much with pests. the elm trees have been troubled somewhat. in the west where we live i don't think there is any trouble of that kind. there may be with apple trees and fruit trees. our agricultural college at lansing has at the present time one hundred thousand trees ready to plant under this bill. there are some that they have been raising for a long time and some they have recently planted. they hardly knew what to do with them. now they have agreed to turn them over to the state to be planted on our highways. one thing that we had trouble with in michigan was the telephone and telegraph companies stringing wires along the public highway. they have cut the top of the tree right straight off and disfigured the tree and disfigured the appearance of the highway. this bill is supposed to prevent that. our highway department has been trying to get the telephone and telegraph companies to get the right from private owners to put their poles on private land, or to put a pole and let an arm stick out through the tree without cutting the tree down. i recently came from detroit. there the telephone companies have started to string lines and to cut trees. the highway commissioner has notified them that they must not cut the trees down or cut them off or disfigure them and he has introduced the state constabulary to enforce this ruling. undoubtedly sooner or later there will be a test case to determine whether or not the state has this authority. i listened this afternoon to a discussion about walnut trees shading the highway. i have no practical experience to know whether these trees do any damage to crops on account of the shade, but supposing you raised a fine walnut tree along the highway and the tree begins to bear. would not the products you get from that tree more than offset the damage it does to a crop close to the tree? i once had an aunt, when i was a very small boy, and it seems to me she said that she raised forty bushels of black walnuts on one tree. i saw that big hickory tree today. they claimed they raised fifteen bushels on that tree. i thought forty bushels was a lot to come off of one tree. mr. bixby: that was in the husk. there have been records of that kind in the husk. senator penney: this bill has been introduced and passed and mr. linton, who is practically the author of this bill, is desirous of having this followed up in the different states. i think it would be a good plan. what better investment could you make to beautify our highways than the planting of good trees? in the southern part of the state of michigan there are quite a lot of good trees, black walnuts, butternuts, which not only add beauty to your highways but are useful in many ways. during the war we know that the government scoured the whole country to find walnut trees to make stocks for guns, and to use in airplanes for propeller blades. they used the shucks to make gas masks. the trees could be made of further service to man by planting them as memorial trees. and again they furnish food, not only bear leaves but food. i would like to hear a discussion upon this bill from those who are from other states. i would like to hear what their opinion might be as to the different provisions of this bill. president linton: the subject is now open for discussion. i am sure that there are those here who would perhaps offer amendments to that bill. they might desire to modify it some. they might desire to add other features to it. for instance, it might be well to recognize the desire at the present time to save useful bird life throughout the country. that might be stated in the title to this bill as one of the purposes of roadside planting. certainly that would be one of the results of road side planting. senator penney: the bill provides not only for planting trees, but for planting shrubs along the highway. that created quite a fight in the legislature. one fellow thought we were going to buy a whole lot of nursery stock and spend a pile of money. we are not. but here was the idea. those shrubs are useful not only for furnishing food for birds, that are necessary to farmers, but are useful sometimes to prevent shifting sand, and also snow from covering the highways. you have often noticed that the railroad companies put up fences at different points to prevent snow from drifting on the tracks. bushes can serve the same purpose. president linton: the subject is now before the body for discussion. mr. littlepage: to print the newspapers in the united states it requires enough wood each year to make one cord of timber from boston clear across the american continent and across to the hawaiian islands and further. most of that, perhaps half of it, comes from canada. there is cut from the forests of the united states every year timber to make wood pulp enough to make one cord of wood from boston to liverpool. that is just for newspapers. that has nothing to do with furniture, with houses, with cross ties, with everything else, which are estimated to take four times as much. now if that be true there is cut every year from the forests of the united states enough timber to make four cords from boston to liverpool. that is going on every year. we met here seven years ago. in that seven years there has been enough timber cut from the forests of the united states to make twenty-eight cords of wood from boston to liverpool. now when you begin to contemplate that you see what is happening. roadside planting furnishes one of the greatest opportunities. there are many details that will have to be worked out. the bill which the senator and our distinguished president have given much consideration to seems to be working along the right lines. many difficulties will come up from time to time but this is one of the things that this association ought to get behind. here is a great need, a fundamental need, when you think of the figures which i gave you. here is one of the opportunities to fulfill that need. we, as an organization of tree planters, ought to get busy to help to work out the details and difficulties that cannot be all foreseen in the application of the machinery of roadside planting and the particular laws of each state. some people think sometimes that because a fellow is a lawyer he knows all the laws. there are forty-eight different states in the union. i know that every state in the union has a statute of limitations. it is three years in the district of columbia. it is six years here. the fundamentals, the machinery of laws, are different in these particular states. now then, what are the duties and what are the opportunities? a duty and an opportunity are rather more or less synonymous after all. it is for this association to get actively behind this proposition, and help adapt this legislation to each particular state, keeping in mind that the fundamental thing is to plant trees. we are meeting here in lancaster, pa., a city to which i have always turned my thoughts with great pride, because here was the home of the founder of the great common school system of america, thaddeus stevens. do you suppose when he began to originate the system which has made america that he could foresee all the difficulties, that he could foresee the difficulties in texas, in indiana, in new york? he started with a principle, and that principle has been adopted and developed and worked out in each particular state, until we have the great forty-eight different big school systems of america. we can take this proposition and by working it out, adapting it to the particular machinery, the particular laws, and meeting the particular difficulties, we can work it out until it becomes a great monument. we must plant trees. mr. mcglennon: i want to say a word with regard to senator penney's reference to the importance of shrubs as a protection to the roadways from shifting sand. mr. volbertsen, my collaborator in my filbert enterprise in rochester, got his early education in horticulture in germany when a young man of twenty years of age, and he informed me the other day that along the side of the railroads' right of way, filberts were planted very extensively, in different parts of germany, for the maintenance of the roadbed, to protect them from shifting sand. not only that but they garnered wonderful crops of nuts. mr. o'connor: concerning the planting of trees along the roadside, what enemies have they? i have watched this very closely since i have been connected with mr. littlepage's farm and i find that the walnut trees and pecan trees have very few enemies. i think that he has something like four hundred trees, and there were not three of them that were troubled with caterpillars. what better could we have along our road sides than nut trees when from the oak, the elm and other trees there are pesky worms dropping down when you go along with an automobile or carriage. president linton: i want to say to the ladies present that the ladies of michigan are greatly interested in this work. we recently established a state trunk line highway known as the colgrove highway, named for the president of our michigan state good roads association. senator penney was the introducer of that bill also and it became a law. that particular road runs across our state in such a way that it is about three hundred miles in length. one county that it crosses is known as montcalm county. at a meeting we had in their court house we had a committee named in each township through which the highway passed for the purpose of properly planting trees and beautifying that highway. upon my return home i received a letter from the county judge saying that the people of montcalm county would not stand for planting and beautifying that one road alone but the whole county has been organized and every township in it and half of the membership of each committee is composed of women, and they want these trees and plants on every township road as well as on that state road. that is the way in which the work is going along in many sections of our state and it will soon cover it all with the same enthusiasm. so that the ladies can be of great good in this organization also. there is not a home or a residence street but desires fine shrubs and fine trees. it is especially so with the farmers. they want these beautiful things that the city people have been having for many years in their front yards. they are going to demand shrubbery and trees beyond any call that ever has been made for them in the past. so you can readily see from our work, although much of it is to be carried on in a public way by our agricultural colleges and state institutions of that kind, that they will be able to furnish only one tree or one plant in a hundred of those that will be demanded. that feature i wish especially to impress upon the minds of any nurserymen that may be present. the call in the next decade is going to be along those lines, for ornamental shrubbery and for useful trees, just as the fruit tree has been called for in the past. mr. fagan: i don't know that i have anything constructive to add to the road side planting idea. i know that our landscape gardener at the experimental station in the college has, in the past few years, been giving it serious consideration, and if i am not mistaken he has taken the question up with our forest and state highway commissioners in the state. how far it is going to go i don't know. there is a feature of the roadside planting which has been mentioned indirectly this evening that we must not overlook. just as soon as we consider a program of roadside planting we must also consider a program for the control of pests. regardless of whether they be pecan trees or hickories or walnuts we are bound to meet with these pests. whenever we begin a systematic planting, or collection of plants, it does not make much difference whether oak trees, or catalpas or chestnuts, or what not, we can look forward to the time when we will be confronted with a pest control proposition. as to roadside planting in new england it would not make much difference whether it was a walnut or butternut or pecan. a gipsy or brown tailed moth would just as soon eat the foliage off a butternut tree as off an elm. we have here in new jersey at the present time the japanese iris beetle and it will eat anything in sight. as soon as we turn nature upside down, as we have nearly done in many sections of the country, we are bound to bring in these pests. it would be well in any law--and i know in this state we would consider a law, and an experimental station could have charge of work connected therewith--that one of the provisions we would insist on being put in the law would be one to control the pests which may come. right in our district today the tent caterpillar is playing havoc with our walnuts; the oyster shell scale is going through our timber in center county; and i can take you into the mountains five miles from any residence and i can show you oyster shell scale on half a dozen of our native species. it is nice to kid ourselves along to think our butternuts and our hickories would never be subject to these pests, but they will be. when the northwest started to plant apple orchards they said they had no codling moths up there. there were some orchards that didn't but sooner or later they came. the time to nip those things is in the bud, and not let them spread. lack of foresight has cost new england millions and millions of dollars just because they would not take the advice of one man when he told them that the gipsy moth and brown tail moth had gotten away from him. they laughed at him. i wonder whether this association could not get our federal road department back of this idea of roadside planting. i know that back of the federal aid movement there is an important point of contact in roadside planting. senator penney: our bill provides that the highway department shall care for and maintain the trees. i think the bill is broad enough to cover that subject. i think we all realize that we cannot stop planting trees for fear of some pest that might come, but we have got to provide the means of fighting it if it does come. our highway department in michigan has employed a man, a graduate of yale college who is an expert in horticulture and all this work of planting and caring for the trees is to be turned over to him. dr. canaday: in many parts of germany the practice of planting trees along the state highways has been in vogue for perhaps half a century. they have used fruit trees and it has been found to be very feasible. the state has found that the proceeds of the trees has gone a long way towards keeping up the highways. of course they probably have had their population under more rigorous control than ours has been. they have been able to collect the proceeds of the trees better. the question of the railroad rights of way might be taken up. a few of the railroads in the united states have already begun planting trees along their rights of way looking forward to a future supply of cross ties. it seems to me the greatest difficulty that will be encountered in this work will be the conflict with the telephone companies and the power lines. if that can be satisfactorily solved, i think the rest of it will be comparatively easy. mr. smedley: in pennsylvania near our large cities, the highway department has become aware that the roads are all too narrow. there was a bill passed in the last legislature giving the commissioner of highways a right to establish the width of roads at thirty-three feet, i think it was, with one hundred and twenty feet as the maximum. the department is now making a survey of all the main highways near the large cities. i happen to live just out of philadelphia, about fifteen miles, on the line between philadelphia and west chester. it is a continuation of market street the principal east and west street of philadelphia. it was laid out sixty feet wide. that was one of the first to claim the attention of the department and it will soon be, i understand, established on the map as one hundred feet wide or probably one hundred and twenty feet. that primarily is to stop the encroachment of the buildings near philadelphia so that when the question of opening this road to its new width comes up damages will not be excessive. some of us living along there take great pride in that road and want to see it developed but it is going to be some time before this is opened to its full width and it is needless to plant trees until it is. i don't know how you have things in michigan but a great many of our pennsylvania roads are old highways that have worn down with banks ten or fifteen feet high, and it is oftentimes a question where to put the trees. president linton: our highways in michigan are, ninety per cent of them perhaps, four rods in width. that you will know is a good ample width, sixty-six feet wide. the basis of the planting as adopted by our state highway department, as i understand it, is thirteen feet from each line fence, making trees forty feet apart on opposite sides of the roadways. the main portion of the planting will be forty feet apart but that is simply a detail and the entire matter is left with the state highway commissioner and those who assist him. and, as stated by senator penney, they are very competent men in that department. of course some trees would be placed further apart than others. there is no absolutely fixed distance. i don't know of any movement that will more quickly cause the planting of more trees than the one we are outlining at the present time in undertaking to cover the highways of this country. michigan alone has six thousand miles of state trunk line highway. that is only a small portion of the highways in our state. these are the important roadways connecting our largest cities and business points. just as an estimate i would say that we have ten times as many miles of roadway in michigan as we have trunk line highways. if that average should be maintained throughout the country in each one of the states, and i imagine our state is an average one as to the number of miles of roadway, you would see that there would be three hundred thousand miles of trunk line highways alone, saying nothing about all the other highways and by-ways. so that i believe within the next five or ten years this roadside planting will cause more trees to be planted, and useful and valuable trees too, than all the efforts made in this country up to date in re-forestation. the people are alive to this subject and are asking for this very thing. it is only for us to map out a plan, arrange the details, and provide the sources from which they can obtain their supply and the trees will be planted. it was my lot and good fortune last fall, following our meeting in the city of washington, to visit mount vernon and there meeting the superintendent mr. dodge. he said to me that our association could have the products of the black walnut trees at mount vernon upon condition that that crop should not be commercialized in any way but used for public purposes. in behalf of the association i accepted the crop of walnuts, and, as i recall it, got in the neighborhood of thirty bushels of fine walnuts. they were selected walnuts the best and larger ones. it so happened that they arrived late in saginaw, where my home is, and it was simply impossible to distribute them generally throughout the country. when it became known that we had these walnuts, and it became necessary to distribute these nuts and have them planted in our immediate locality, our people were delighted with the fact, and every school in every school district in the country called for them, and every city school called for some of these walnuts. they were planted in every school yard, in many cases with appropriate ceremonies along patriotic lines, and that did a great deal of good. our citizens as individuals called for them. i was surprised to see the interest in it. they wanted them in their yards and at their city homes. following all this i had about two thousand of these walnuts left. i wondered just what i could do with these. it was impossible to arrange a program for distribution so i asked the superintendent of parks of our city if he would plant and care for them and he readily agreed to do it. so that what was left of the consignment was placed in our finest and largest park. shortly after having planted these, and the papers having noticed what had been done, i sent a copy to our honored first president, dr. morris. soon thereafter i received a letter from him saying that he disliked very much to predict disappointment, but disappointment certainly was coming to us for our efforts in saginaw, because, he said, "mr. linton, i have gone through this experience and the squirrels and other rodents will certainly get every one of those nuts. you will be disappointed in the results in the spring and i am telling you this so it won't come to you all at once. i want you to be prepared for the disappointment when it comes." i rather imagined it would come. i knew that the trees in that particular park harbored a good many fox squirrels and others, and i imagined they would get these walnuts. but i was very much astonished this spring to see the entire crop come up through the ground. i imagine it was a ninety-five per cent crop. so that we have about two thousand young walnuts growing about as high as this table from last year's planting. they are thrifty and they will be distributed around the state of michigan this coming spring, and at other places. to show the interest manifested in that particular movement i will say that i received letters from perhaps half of the states in the country asking if they could not be supplied with some of these walnuts from george washington's former home at mount vernon. i even got letters from the state of virginia asking that some of them be sent from saginaw, michigan, to them in virginia for planting at their home. so you can see how far reaching a thing of this kind can be. i know that we have started something here that will sweep from one end of the united states to the other, and will do more good along the lines of re-forestation than any organization up to date has been able to do. mr. littlepage: i move that a committee be appointed to report at the morning session the best method of getting this bill before the various legislatures. i thought first of attempting to formulate what idea i might have in the form of a resolution, but it appears to me that it is something that may require a little thought. therefore i move the appointment of a committee of three to report in the morning the best form of a resolution or whatever seems best to adopt by this association to get action. this motion was put by president linton and unanimously adopted. the president appoints on this committee mr. littlepage, senator penney and dr. canaday. president linton: this action will close the discussion relative to the tree planting law. any other subject that you desire to discuss can be brought before the meeting in any proper manner. mr. bixby: as the secretary noted this morning, perhaps the most extensive program of nut tree planting which has yet been carried out has been on the other side of the world, in china. one of the members of the association is mr. wang who lives near shanghai and is secretary of the kinsan arboretum there. some time ago he obtained some american black walnuts from japan. he planted them and they grew so much faster than he had anticipated, and i think faster than any other tree with which he was familiar, that he conceived the idea of planting the new highway, which was being made from shanghai to hankow, with these american black walnuts. in due course he sent a money order to pay for two thousand pounds to the secretary. last year was not the best year to get black walnuts, and the secretary forwarded the money order to me and asked me if i could get these walnuts for him. there was more trouble in getting them in new york last year than there usually is, but finally i did get them and had them made up in twenty-two bags and shipped to mr. wang at shanghai. in due course they arrived and he is anticipating great things from them. the growth that he reported of this first lot of black walnuts was something astonishing. it seems to me that they grew the second year ten feet high. it was a very astonishing growth, a much more vigorous growth than i ever heard of their making here. at any rate there are two thousand pounds of american black walnuts that have been shipped to china, and if nothing happens to them they will grow and adorn that new road from shanghai to hankow. mr. jones: a matter that will be of interest is that mr. wang wrote me a letter in which he says that the black walnut grows three times as fast in china as the japanese walnut. here in the nursery we find the japanese walnut doubles the black walnut in the first two years in growth. president linton: we would like to hear from those present who are familiar with trees, as you all are, as to the merits and demerits of the various kinds of trees that we desire to plant. in michigan the only ones we are considering are the black walnut, the hickory, the butternut and the beech. the beech in our state grows to be a beautiful tree, as it does in most states in our country. in addition to that our state agricultural people are suggesting that we plant the hard maple, which is a fine tree in michigan, and the basswood, and one or two others, to provide food along certain lines. the hard maple, for instance, produces maple sugar, the basswood the bees draw honey from. the simple and useful trees and shrubs are the only ones in our state that we are giving any consideration to. dr. canaday: what would be the best way to start a hickory along the roadside? from the nut? president linton: from my experience with the black walnut i would say that would be the proper way to plant these hickories, to plant the nuts where the trees would be. it is far less expensive than any other method. it is easily cared for by the road men who take care of a section of the road. mr. mcglennon: i am interested in the cultivation and culture of the european filbert at rochester and have been for a number of years, and i believe successfully. in different meetings of this association that i have attended and in correspondence with the officers of the association, filbert culture in this country has been referred to as still in the experimental stage. now when you have been in a thing for ten or twelve years and have not had any set-back but progress along all lines of activity, i believe you have passed out of the zone of experimentation and have gotten down to doing something. that is what we have done in rochester with our nursery which i believe is the only thing of that particular kind in the country. mr. vollertsen, my collaborator, came to me with this idea years ago. he told me what he believed could be done and what had been done in filbert culture where he had been until about twenty years of age, having worked in a nursery from the time he had been able to do manual labor. in this nursery they had given especial attention to the cultivation of filberts and he had learned their method of propagation. he told me about this and believed it could be done in this country. i corresponded with some of the prominent nurserymen in the new england states and they told me it would be folly to attempt anything like that in this country, that i would be wiped out by the blight. they had tried it with some of the european varieties. nevertheless i went ahead and imported five plants of twenty leading german varieties from hoag & schmidt, a prominent firm of nurserymen in germany. i turned them over to mr. vollertsen having rented land for him and furnished the funds for the fertilization and cultivation of the land, paying a wage to him to go ahead and make the experiment. i wanted to know rather than to believe. his method of propagation was from the layer. now we have fruited these propagated plants and found them true. we started in with half an acre. we now have two and a half acres, probably fifty thousand plants altogether. we have never had the semblance of blight. our cultivation has been thorough. our fertilization has been consistent. mr. vollertsen has been on the job very steadily and understands his business thoroughly. i think that this talk of blight is something that we should not take so seriously to heart. on half a dozen occasions some of our good friends have said, "what about the blight; don't you think it will wipe you out?" i think it is well to be prepared for the truth but the same thing might be said if i plant a peach orchard, that in a few years it will be wiped out by the yellows. i can't make myself believe that the matter of blight in filbert culture in this country is a serious menace. the consensus of opinion in this association seems to have been that even if it does appear there are remedies for it. our esteemed first president, dr. morris, when he visited our place in rochester some years ago when the convention met there, said that he thought we should not worry about it. he was satisfied that if blight appeared it could be controlled by the removal of the blighted part. i believe that the same principle applies to the development of filbert nurseries as to any phase of life, that eternal vigilance is the price of safety. i believe that thorough cultivation, keeping the plants strong and healthy, will help them resist disease. but if blight does appear, by watching closely it can be removed and i think controlled, as suggested by dr. morris. maybe it has been all right up to the present time to be on our guard but there is my work that has been going on for ten or twelve years. during these last two or three years we have been sending our plants all over the country, to california, virginia, pennsylvania, ohio, illinois, iowa, indiana, canada, and we have been getting fine reports with not a single reference to the appearance of blight. on the contrary they report that our plants are fruiting and they ask for more plants. as a specific instance i can cite a prominent doctor in louisville, kentucky, who some years ago got some plants from us and some filbert plants from some other nursery. we had a letter from him the other day in which he spoke in most complimentary terms of the plants he had gotten from us, that they had fruited, were true, and he wanted to know if we could furnish him from fifteen hundred to two thousand plants within the next few years. william rockefeller on the hudson, another customer of ours, reports plants doing splendidly and fruiting well. mrs. jones of jones & laughlin steel company reports plants growing splendidly there. those are just a few of the instances i could cite. as i suggested to some of the gentlemen today at the next meeting it might be well for me to bring specific references from different parts of the country where our plants have been planted and are bearing fruit and are doing well, with no reference whatever to blight having appeared, and i shall be very glad to do that. * * * * * it seems to me, too, that the filbert is one of the best nut producing plants for use here in the north. usually it is grown in bush form. it is very hearty and begins to bear early and abundantly under proper care. in view of the exceptionally wide range of climates and soils it seems to be one of the good nut producing plants for this association. now it can be consistently considered that i have an ax to grind as i am producing filbert plants for sale, but i assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that it is not with this thought in mind that i make these references. i have the interests of this association very much at heart. my whole time and attention and money is given to nut culture. i am extensively interested in the culture of paper shell pecans in georgia. successfully, i might also add. and i want to be equally successful with the filbert because i believe that it is the one great nut bearing plant that this association can stand back of and urge the people to plant, not because i am producing them but because i am a member of this association, and i want to see this association a success. three weeks ago last monday, on account of my interest in pecan culture in the south, and having a good crop at our grove this year, i went to new york and spent the day there conferring with a big commission man down in the washington street section who handles large consignments of nuts. the subject of the filbert was discussed and i found a very great interest on the subject. they were one and all, i think i can say, appalled when i told them that there was a nursery in new york state producing filbert plants and filbert nuts. mr. james, vice-president of the higgins & james company, showed me a very fine filbert, a variety with some unpronounceable name, i think italian, and he said, "isn't it a beauty?" it was. but when i told him that we had just as fine in rochester and some finer he looked aghast. i invited him to come to rochester and be convinced. he told me, as others did, that there was a wonderful future for the filbert in this country. the filbert, too, i think, is especially adapted for waste lands on farms. a great many farms have considerable areas of waste land which, i believe, could be made very profitable by the planting of the filbert, because just ordinary farm soil with ordinary fertilization, according to our experiments, demonstrates that the filbert will make "the desert to bloom as the rose." and it is a beautiful shrub for ornamental purposes. come to rochester and go down to jones square, and you will see a beautiful border of the purple filbert. some of our customers are purchasing it, william rockefeller for instance and mrs. jones, for the borders of walks and drives. i think that we should try to reach the gardeners and the agricultural and horticultural societies of the country in our campaign for the furtherance of nut culture. in dr. kellogg's recent list of diets, fruit and grain and vegetables, covering two pages of his pamphlet, he gives there as the food value of the pecan in protein, fats, and carbo-hydrates . , and next to them the filbert, . , and next the english walnut at . , and next to that the almond, at . . mr. bixby: i really think that mr. mcglennon has done more than anybody else to get the filbert on a practicable basis. he has also mentioned why the association has been a little bit cautious in saying too much about the filbert. in some of the early plantings the blight made serious inroads. there has been a lot learned about the blight since that time and apparently it can be controlled by cutting out the blighted portions. i have seen filberts in certain sections of the country where the blight went half way around the twig. apparently that can be controlled by cutting out that blighted portion. or, if the worst came to the worst, by cutting off the limb. but there have been a number of filbert plantings made the last few years where that blight has not appeared at all. one of the greatest difficulties with the european filberts was that while the bushes would grow all right they would not fruit, or fruit only once in a few years. mr. mcglennon, when he imported those plants from germany, apparently took all the varieties the man had. i believe that is one reason why mr. mcglennon is raising filberts when most of the plantings of one bush, or two bushes of one kind have failed. he has enough varieties to properly pollinate the hazel flowers. that is a thing that must be borne in mind. any one wanting to plant filberts must not ask what is the best filbert and plant one. he must say, what are the best filberts, and plant several varieties. i believe that is one of the things that has enabled mr. mcglennon to raise filberts when many previous attempts have failed. mr. mcglennon: replying to mr. bixby's remarks they are well taken. i overlooked mentioning in my talk a fact, because i believe it is a fact, that it is due to the number of varieties we have that every variety has fruited. now they are in the nursery and the principal consideration is wood. we are working every plant for wood. we have not been able to supply the demand for plants and won't be for another year or two. next year i shall probably have ten to twelve thousand plants. we layered some twenty-five thousand plants last year, and we are layering some twenty-five thousand this year. mr. vollertsen has been very persistent with regard to the maintenance of the smaller nut varieties, has insisted upon it, because we have found that they are very much freer bloomers than the larger fruited varieties. we have made up our selection, as catalogued, carefully to that end, including some of the smaller fruit varieties. a party asked me the other day if i would send them a plant this fall. i said, "no, but i will send you three plants," meaning one of the small fruit and two of the larger fruit. it is the larger fruit that the consumer is going to demand. he is going to buy the larger nut, although the smaller nut is really better for eating. convention adjourned until : a. m., october , . morning session friday, october , the convention was called to order at ten o'clock by president linton. the president: the first on our program this morning will be the report of the committee on uniform bill for roadside planting. i will ask the chairman, mr. littlepage, to make the report. mr. littlepage: the committee met last night after adjournment and considered different methods of getting this bill (a copy of which i now present) before the various states, and after some deliberation it was decided to report, on behalf of the committee, as follows: that the committee,--the same committee which has been appointed,--be authorized by the association to prepare in proper and simple form a sufficient number of copies of this bill, to be accompanied by a letter, formulated by the committee, which letter will set out substantially three things: first: call the governor's attention to the fact that this bill is the one adopted by the state of michigan, but that it should, of course, be modified to comply with the special judicial or road machinery of each particular state. secondly: a short argument in behalf of this character of legislation. thirdly: a request to each governor that he refer the bill to his attorney general to put it in proper form to fit into the machinery of his particular state, and that he also refer it to his appropriate state board of forestry, agriculture or what-not. we suggest, as i said before, that this committee be authorized to prepare a letter along those lines, to be accompanied by a copy of the bill, and that, after it is prepared and ready, it be sent out by either the president or the secretary of the association. it was also thought by the committee to be desirable, at the same time that this is sent to the governor of each state, to send copies to the various agricultural and horticultural journals of the respective states, that being done with the view of getting some publicity. then, too, the committee thought that it might be well, at that time, for the respective members of the association in these various states to write to their representatives in the legislature calling attention to this bill. now that is the report of the committee, and, mr. president, i move that this report be adopted and the committee instructed to act along those lines. (motion seconded and carried, and the report of the committee was adopted unanimously.) the president: now, ladies and gentlemen, i consider that we have performed a most important task in the pioneer work connected with roadside planting in america. there is no question but that with this association the idea first originated; and the work to date along those lines in the united states has been brought about by the northern nut growers' association. it is a work in which i, personally as well as officially, as you know, have been greatly interested and the unanimous adoption of the committee's report, endorses that line of work. i wish to thank you, individually and collectively, for your interest and the action which you have taken. mr. littlepage: i feel that our president in this instance has hit a high-water mark. he has taken hold of a very important idea and has developed it. after making an observation or two i am going to move a vote of appreciation to our president and accompany it with a vote of thanks to senator penney for coming down here from michigan and lending his aid and enthusiasm. we listened last night to a discussion about this roadside planting. as i observed before it is not without its difficulties the same as everything else; but this proposition extends to the various state boards of horticulture, highway, or what-not, one of the greatest and finest opportunities. personally i believe in nut trees; but you must first get the public with you. suppose you had a highway into lancaster lined on either side for a half mile with pink weigelias in the spring. you would have the whole population going up and down that highway looking at the display. and the pink weigelia is almost a fool-proof shrub. it grows without cultivation and grows very rapidly and blooms in the greatest profusion. suppose in mid-summer you had another highway lined with hydrangeas. i believe a particular one that is hardy is called paniculata grandiflora. it is a fool-proof shrub also, requires very little care and comes on after the other flowers go. it also can be produced very cheaply. you would have the population looking at and admiring the blooms and it would inspire, in each one of those individuals, a desire to go and do likewise. suppose you had a half mile of sweet gum trees. if you go down through the counties of pennsylvania now you will see the sweet gums--some of them a deep dark purple, some of them a bright golden yellow, some of them red, some of them with all the colors and all summer a beautiful foliage--suppose you had a half mile of those leading into a street of any city in america. the population on sunday would drive out there and admire their beauty. it affords a wonderful opportunity. the individuals who care for those trees and shrubs, while moving up and down the highway caring for them, will be carrying with them a little university of horticultural knowledge. the average farmer thinks it is a terrible thing to spray. it is the simplest thing in the world as you know. this machinery by which these trees and plants and shrubbery would be cared for would be a moving university up and down the highway teaching the farmers how to care for their trees. mr. rush's trees which we saw yesterday were the finest examples of well cared for trees. you could not travel over the country and find trees showing a finer degree of care. nobody could look at those trees without feeling that he would rather give a little more care to his trees. so that, if this idea is carried out, as it will be, it will become popular with the various state boards. they like to do things that are popular or that please the people. as i said at the commencement of my remarks i am going to take the liberty of moving a vote of deep appreciation to the president (mr. linton), and also a vote of thanks to senator penney. (motion seconded and carried unanimously.) the president: i desire to thank you, one and all, for this vote of appreciation. my connection with the northern nut growers' association has been of a most pleasant character. i have found a group of men and of women who are interested not only in their own welfare but in the welfare of the race. what we have started today--or rather completed so far as organization is concerned--will do as much good in the united states in the next decade as any movement that has been started by any organization or association. it means re-forestation on a larger scale with right trees and right plants, as stated by my friend mr. littlepage. a new start will be made along those lines. the poor trees will be cast aside and the next generation will have trees and bushes and plants that not only will be beautiful to the eye but will be beneficial to mankind and to those birds and animals that we desire to have around us. the greatest credit should be given to those of this association who in a scientific way have endeavored to bring about better varieties of nuts, better varieties of the products of trees, and their names certainly should go down in history with that of burbank, or with those of other men who have devoted their lives to this kind of advancement. i am sure that will be the result. i know that as the message goes down along the line to the various states, their efforts will at least be recognized as having been beneficial and advantageous to all. i want again to thank every one of you for the kindness that you have extended towards me and to my colleague, senator penney, who is most actively engaged in this work. situated as he was--a most prominent member of the michigan legislature--he was able to promote the very work in our wolverine state that we today are undertaking to bring about in the united states, and i would call upon senator penney to say a word in this connection. senator penney: mr. president, it seems to me that after all these remarks have been made, this subject has been very well covered. i was very much interested in the remarks of mr. littlepage because he spoke of different ornamental trees and shrubs with which i am not familiar and which are not grown in our part of the country. our esteemed president, mr. linton, is doing wonderful work up in saginaw at the present time in conjunction with our superintendent of public parks. he is helping to lay out some of our parks and to plant trees and shrubs there. one gentleman of saginaw furnished the means to buy one thousand trees and the matter was put in charge of mr. linton to see that they were properly planted. this work and similar work that mr. linton and i have undertaken to promote and to push. we have done similar things in regard to the promotion of good highways. we have absolutely no interest in stone quarries or gravel pits or in any kind of contracts for the building of roads; yet we have spent several hundred dollars or more in going about michigan giving talks at different meetings and promoting roads. one of the things that mr. linton tried to promote was this tree planting bill. inasmuch as i was in the legislature i had the opportunity of helping to put this work across. we have a wonderfully good highway commissioner in our state. he is enthusiastic over this proposition. while our bill was passed just a short time ago, he has already planted eighteen miles of trees in one locality, and, he said, at very little cost. just think what might be done throughout the united states. suppose the prominent highways throughout the united states were planted with useful and ornamental trees, beautiful shrubs and things of that kind. wouldn't it be a wonderfully beautiful and useful thing for the country? in closing i wish to thank mr. littlepage and the other members of this association for the very kind treatment we have received here. the president: we are fortunate in having a paper that was prepared and will be presented by our esteemed treasurer mr. bixby, and i take pleasure in calling upon him at this time. where may the northern pecan be expected to bear _willard g. bixby, baldwin, nassau co., n. y._ in the january issue of the american nut journal is an article by meredith p. reed read before the western association of nurserymen at their annual meeting in kansas city, mo., december entitled the pecan areas of the united states, describing the limits between which the pecan may be grown. in this paper the matter of the pecan belts of the country are discussed and their extent determined pretty largely by the length of the season (in average years), that is by the number of days between the latest spring frosts and the earliest fall frosts. a map was shown on which these areas were marked out, and it has been very useful to the writer in answering inquiries from persons who want to know if pecans can be grown in _a_ given section. mr. john garretson, aspers, adams co., penn., has on his place bearing stuart and schley pecans, two of the standard southern varieties. these bear nuts of typical shape but which are only a fraction of the size that these nuts would be if grown in southern georgia. this clearly shows that some of the standard southern pecans require something which they do not get at aspers to enable them to properly mature their nuts. the trees stand the cold of winter but the fruit does not properly mature. mr. jones has suggested that it is heat that is lacking and has advanced the idea that even though the trees are hardy to winter cold they have not sufficient summer heat at aspers to enable them to mature their crops. this has brought up the question as to whether there was any method of measuring the summer heat available for causing pecan nuts to grow and mature. observations on northern pecans (and some southern ones) on my place at baldwin caused me to note that no pecans started to vegetate at baldwin before may. may is the first spring month here when the pecan will leave out. may is also the first spring month when the average monthly temperature here will reach °f. it occurred to me that if we note the excess average monthly temperatures over ° and sum these items for a season we would get what might be termed a figure for "pecan growing heat units." this figure of ° is doubtless capable of some refinement. there is no reason to suppose that further study may not show that it should be somewhat more or less but it is the best we have so far and seemingly it is proving useful. if we calculate these figures for evansville, ind., for , for example, and show the method of doing it we will have average monthly average monthly temp. temperatures in excess of deg. january . february . march . april . . may . . june . . july . . august . . september . . october . . november . december . _____ total . the pecan growing heat units, pecan units they may be called for short, for evansville, ind., in were . . from this we might conclude that a place where the pecan units for would figure out . would be likely (as far as climatic conditions are concerned) to grow pecans as well as evansville, that is, of course if other years should show similar figures. with the idea of seeing if the experience of those who were growing pecans would be anything like what might be calculated from the weather bureau records, letters were written to all members of the national nut growers' association to find out if pecans grew and bore well in their sections and if so which varieties. from the replies received it has been in a number of instances difficult to judge just how well pecans grow in some sections. for this reason i have interpreted the replies somewhat on the basis of my own knowledge and on certain facts told me by mr. c. a. reed. apparently at least pecan units are to be found in most places where the southern pecan is successful commercially. this corresponds to a line through augusta, milledgeville, macon and columbus, georgia and montgomery, alabama. there seems little question but that pecans can be grown north of this line but until i get more positive information than i now have i shall doubt if the planting of southern varieties of pecans much north of this line is nearly as advisable as it is south of it. when we come to compare this figure with the pecan units for ocean springs and pascagoula, miss., where a number of the fine southern pecans originated which are now being propagated we find an average of about pecan units. to reduce this to a percentage we find that many of the standard southern pecans grow and bear well when the pecan units are as low as % of those of the place of their origin. in other words the adaptability of the southern pecan is %, that is it will grow and bear well where the pecan units are as low as % of those of the place of its origin or to use rough figures, %. when we come to ascertain the pecan units of the locations where the northern pecan grows and bears well we will consider evansville and vincennes, ind., as places where it bears well; burlington, ia., as a place where it does quite well, but not as well, as in evansville; clinton, ia., as a place where trees are growing well but where they bear a large crop only once in several years; and charles city, ia., as a place where the pecan does not mature its nuts. the pecan units are also shown for several important places outside of the native pecan area. highest lowest average evansville, ind. ( ) . ( ) . . vincennes, ind. ( ) . ( ) . . burlington, ia. ( ) . ( ) . . clinton, ia. ( ) . ( ) . . charles city, ia. ( ) . ( ) . . new york city ( ) . ( ) . . lancaster, penn. ( ) . ( ) . . gettysburg, penn. ( ) . ( ) . . cincinnati, o. ( ) . ( ) . . baltimore, md. ( ) . ( ) . . washington, md. ( ) . ( ) . . hartford, conn. ( ) . ( ) . . if we consider that evansville and vincennes are the center of the pecan district near which most varieties have originated and that a place should have % as many pecan units as in this evansville district in order to have the northern pecan do well, a place should have pecan units in order for one to feel reasonably certain that the northern pecan will do well there. it will be both interesting and instructive to see how well the applications that may be made from the conclusions compare with observed facts. we know that there are large numbers of pecan trees at burlington, ia., and that the trees grow and bear well. its pecan units are . . we should conclude that at baltimore and washington with pecan units at . and . respectively that pecans would grow and bear well. there are pecan trees over years old at marietta, md., which is half way between baltimore and washington. these trees bear nuts and although it has not been possible to get bearing records it is evident that they bear considerably for on the roads of that vicinity are hundreds of young pecan trees which evidently came up from nuts borne by these old trees. we should expect the pecan to do well at cincinnati, o. in fact i have been expecting to find it native there, but, so far all inquiries have failed to do so. at fayetteville, however, which is about miles east of cincinnati and somewhat north of it, are bearing pecan trees raised from seed brought from shawneetown, ill., which is in the evansville district. seed from these fayetteville trees planted at baldwin have shown nearly % germination. there is some question as to how well pecans should bear at gettysburg, and lancaster, penn., and at new york city where the pecan units are much like those at clinton, ia., where, on forest pecan trees, we get a fair crop but once in several years. perhaps with our present knowledge these places should be considered on the borderland between the country where the pecan is likely to do well and that where it will not mature its nuts. we know that pecan trees have borne nuts at aspers, pa., near gettysburg, at lancaster, pa., and at westbury and glen cove, long island, near new york city but so far it has not been possible to make sufficient observations to form definite conclusions as to what to expect. it seems quite likely that fertilization and care may help materially the maturing of crops in those sections which in our present knowledge we must consider on the borderland. probably we should not expect pecan nuts to be borne at charles city, ia., where pecan units are but % of those at vincennes, and pecan units at hartford, conn., are not so very different. there are northern pecan trees at charles city, ia., which many years ago were brought there, but the information i have about them is that they have never borne. there is a large pecan tree at hartford, conn., but i have never been able to learn of its bearing nuts. as the northern pecan trees now being planted get to bearing age we shall have actual experimental data as to what they will do in the different sections. until that time by the method outlined herein and with the weather bureau records for several years at hand inquiries regarding its probable adaptability for a given section can be answered with far more confidence than was possible heretofore. * * * * * the president: is there any discussion upon the excellent paper just read by our treasurer? mr. jordan: may i ask if, according to that theory, the stuart and the schley would not be expected to do well in washington? mr. bixby: i should say not. my intention was to indicate roughly a dividing line between where the pecan would be an important commercial crop and where it would not. we know the stuart pecan bears pretty well at petersburg, virginia; it bears at aspers, pa., which is near gettysburg, but the nuts are a fraction of the normal size and not very well filled. the secretary: we all appreciate the amount of work that is represented by this report of mr. bixby and how valuable it is from a scientific as well as from a practical point of view. i wonder if it could be made more useful if mr. bixby could make a little map showing the isothermal lines on the basis that he has followed in his investigation. mr. bixby: that could be done in a very general way, but altitude makes such a difference that there would be many places included in any belt at which, probably, certain pecans would not grow nor would not mature. it is very evident that local conditions make a great difference. i should say that a map to be useful would probably have a series of dots all over the country indicating what pecans would be best grown in that section; and while that would, to a certain extent, form belts yet there could be selected many places in any one belt where another pecan would be preferable. mr. j. w. ritchie: i started in this nut-growing business knowing nothing about it. i found that there were men in it who had been working at it for years who knew many things that i wanted to know. they forgot that i knew nothing and that i might want to know some of the things that they had in their minds which gave them a background. i think there ought to be some way by which all this knowledge that we have can be brought together so that a beginner could pay a dollar or a dollar and a half or, if necessary, two or three dollars and get it all at once. i have visited washington and have seen mr. littlepage. he showed me some kentucky hickories and stabler walnuts and i then decided that if i could raise any nuts there would be no trouble about selling them. i can sell just as many of those nuts as i can produce; but yet i do not know a thing about how many nuts will grow on a kentucky hickory in one year. if you will lay the facts before me and let me judge them i will take the risk myself. i do not want anybody to tell me whether to plant nuts or not to plant them. i will decide that question for myself if you will give me the data to work on. i want a book that will give me the varieties. i want to know what particular nuts can be put out in this region here that would have a chance of commercial success. then i would like to know as much as i possibly can about those varieties, their respective qualities, what they will produce and especially how to propagate them. i happen to have a place where there are a great many walnuts, butternuts and hickories. i would like to know, in detail, how to propagate those nuts. in a conversation with the secretary he spoke of northern pecans. i have read about the marquardt, the burlington and the witte. i do not know whether the term "northern" included those three or not. treasurer bixby: i would be very useful if i could directly answer a good many of the questions that are asked. a great many people would like to know the pecan they can plant in their sections and be sure of success. that i would like to tell them. i do not have the information. it is frequently more difficult to answer questions than to ask them. regarding the burlington and the witte pecans, they come from the most northern section where good pecans have been found, where the heat units are the lowest. they come from burlington, iowa, where the heat units are , if i remember correctly. if we assume a place where the heat units are per cent of those at burlington, those pecans should grow and mature there. they would probably do fairly well in new york city. i think we might feel justified in saying that they would not do well at charles city, iowa, because pecans from near that section, or back north of that section, have been growing for twenty-five or thirty years, and have not fruited. there the pecan units are very low, only . it would seem reasonable that at places where the pecan units are somewhat over , including new york city, lancaster, southern pennsylvania, and of course practically all sections south of it, they ought to do well. those are the safest pecans, the marquardt, the burlington, the witte, and the green bay, to plant in the northern section. mr. littlepage: the stuart pecan originally stood within fifty feet of the gulf of mexico. there is where it originated. it is one of the leading southern nuts; and yet i saw a stuart bearing nuts in mr. roper's orchard down at petersburg, virginia. it has grown beautifully. there is a strictly southern pecan, nurtured by the waters of the gulf of mexico, which has the widest latitude. you can find the same thing up north. the fact that the burlington grows at burlington, iowa, means this, that it ought to grow in all similar latitudes, or else violate known laws of horticulture. but it does not mean that some other pecan that grew miles south of that might not grow still further north. the questions asked are important. why does not the association, just as fast as it gets information, stick a pin there and fasten it down? for example, will pecan trees grow, say, on the thirty-ninth parallel, which runs through my grove down in maryland. they will. will they bear? there is one major there that has this summer fifty pecans on it; another one there with perhaps a dozen. on the th day of march of this year, which was easter sunday, the temperature dropped sixty-eight degrees in twenty-four hours. it is a wonder it did not kill the forest trees. but with all that the pecan stood there just as hardy as the oak. it destroyed some of the ends of the swelling buds, not the dormant buds but some of those that had begun to swell a little, and that no doubt affected the crop or we would have had, perhaps, all the varieties, the butterick, the warrick, the niblack, the busseron, the major, and the green river fruiting. do we want to grow a major? i do not know. but the man that makes the mistake is the man who fails to set nut trees. how about the stabler walnut bearing? it bore matured nuts at the age of four years on my farm in maryland this year. the nuts are here. that answers that question. i have very grave doubts about pecan trees thriving in the lancaster latitude; yet it may be that i am wrong about that. there may be some particular variety that will thrive here. if i lived in this section i would set out the trees so that when the one, two, three or four varieties are found that will thrive here we will have something to work on. there isn't any question about the black walnut or filbert thriving here, or the hickory, because we find them growing. if you go through southern michigan and northern indiana, you will see the shagbark hickory by the thousands growing along the railroad. this association should endeavor to get some affirmative data and distribute it among its members. i have a row of indian hazels. i put them on the side of my garage to make a sort of a screen because they grow those big crinkling pretty leaves. that row is probably fifteen feet long. if i had forty acres of those hazels with the same quantity of nuts on that are on there this year i could buy another farm. mr. olcott: i would like to ask about evansville, indiana. mr. littlepage: evansville, indiana, is almost exactly on the thirty-eighth parallel. the busseron pecan tree grows almost exactly on the thirty-ninth parallel which is the northern boundary of the district of columbia. the big orange groves in california are at the lancaster latitude, which shows just how such things twist and turn, how difficult it is to learn them and why it is going to take a lot of experience to work them out. the secretary: i knew that mr. jones was a very patient and a very courteous gentleman; but i did not suppose that his patience and his courtesy would enable him to sit there for nearly a half hour with, lying in his lap unopened, the new book on nut culture which has just been published by dr. morris, probably the first copy that you or i have seen. i see that mr. jones has finally yielded to temptation and has uncovered the book. perhaps that is the book that will supply mr. ritchie's needs. i mention it now because i think that you all ought to know that such a book has been published by dr. morris and that it can be bought of the macmillan company, publishers, of new york city. mr. mcglennon: i think mr. jones has overlooked the following on the fly leaf of dr. morris's book: "_to j. f. jones, first authority in the world today on the subject of nut growing. with the compliments of one of his pupils, robert t. morris. "new york, october , _" (applause). the president: if there is no further discussion along this particular line, we will now receive the report of the committee on grades of membership. treasurer bixby: the committee recommends that article ii of the by-laws be amended so as to read as follows: "annual members shall pay two dollars annually, or three dollars and twenty-five cents including a year's subscription to the american nut journal. contributing members shall pay five dollars annually, this membership including a year's subscription to the american nut journal. life members shall make one payment of fifty dollars and shall be exempt from further dues. honorary members shall be exempt from dues." it was moved and seconded that the report of the committee be adopted and the amendment to the by-laws made as therein recommended. (motion carried unanimously). the treasurer: i would like to give notice of our intention, at the next regular meeting, of moving to amend article iii of the constitution, by adding to the same the following: "there shall be four classes of members: annual, contributing, life and honorary. annual, contributing and life members shall be entitled to all rights and privileges of the association. honorary members shall be entitled to all rights and privileges of the association, excepting those of holding office and voting at meetings." the president: notice has been duly made and will be filed in the proceedings of the session. we have with us prof. f. n. fagan to whom i am sure you will be glad to listen at this time in connection with the work that is being carried on at state college with which institution he is connected. professor fagan: at the rochester meeting we reported on an english walnut survey that was made in pennsylvania. since that time we have not done anything except with mr. jones's and mr. rush's help, to gather information about the parent trees of which we located definitely about three thousand and indefinitely probably two thousand more. all of these trees but one were in bearing. they were seedling trees and as much variation was found in the trees as we would naturally expect to find in seedling trees. our problem is to determine the trees worthy of propagation. it is necessary also to solve better the propagation problem. we cannot expect to get any large amount of planting of any of our nut trees until we can put the trees to the public at a price at which it will feel that it can afford to invest. to the members of this association, or to other people vitally interested, two or two and a half or three dollars is not anything for a good tree; but to the average planter of home ground or farmstead that is too much money. we all know that it is not an easy task to propagate these trees and we are not condemning the nurserymen. we know that they cannot afford to grow a budded or a grafted tree of known parentage for any less. so the problem of propagation is one of the largest that we have before us, and it is one to which our station and i myself are giving all the thought and time that we can. we realize the importance of the nut industry in the state if for no more than roadside and home planting. whether commercial planting will extend through the north with our black walnuts, our butternuts, our hickories and our english walnuts, to the extent that it has in the south with the pecan, is a question which time alone can solve. we now have new land at the station suitable for the planting of nut trees. it is going to be the best land that we have on our new farm and we hope next spring to make a collection planting of varieties. we have not much money but we can make a start. it is not going to be at a place that will be set aside and not cared for. it is going to be along the public road, where we will have to take care of it or we will be criticised. until we solve our problems of selection and propagation we will go along at a fair rate of increase in regard to our plantings; but we will not reach the man who has a piece of ground and who says, "i would like to plant that ground in walnuts, maybe fifteen or twenty trees but i cannot put thirty dollars into those trees, or twenty dollars when i can buy apple trees for twenty cents." yet the future looks just as bright to me as it did the day i started to make the english walnut survey, just as bright because we will overcome these obstacles. i might close by saying that while we are ready at the college and at the experiment station to go ahead we are not ready to plunge into any extensive experiments. it requires money and the money does not come in such quantities that we can plunge into anything in fact. but we are ready to begin to build a foundation on which we expect later on to experiment, and i hope that in ten more years, or in nine more years, if this association comes back to pennsylvania, we can invite them to the experiment station to see what foundations we have laid and what progress we have made in the experimental work of nut culture. the president: will there be any discussion on the subject so ably covered by prof. fagan? are there any questions that you desire to ask the professor? the secretary: i would like to ask prof. fagan if he has a good word to say for the english walnut in pennsylvania and in other parts of the country as a profitable tree to plant, from the result of his inspection of the trees of the state. prof. fagan: we get a letter probably on an average of once a week, from some one in the state of pennsylvania who wants to plant anywhere from five acres to a hundred acres in english walnuts. we tell him to go slow, to feel his ground out pretty well and to remember that he is planting a tree that is a greater feeder, probably, than any other fruit tree; that it must have food or it won't grow; and instead of planting a hundred acres to plant maybe half an acre and select the best varieties that information at the present time indicates, those that lived through the winter of - . we have seedling trees in pennsylvania, that probably date back to near revolutionary war times; in fact there are some around germantown that no doubt were growing at the time of the revolutionary war, around the old germantown academy. personally i would not hesitate to plant as good an acre of land as there is in lancaster county, or ten or twenty or fifty acres, to the better types of english walnuts that we have today. it probably would not be profitable in my time; i do not know; but it certainly would be profitable in the lifetime of my children. i would not, however, want to plant the nuts on cheap and poor mountain land where the most of our larger plantings, even of chestnut, have been made throughout the country, on land that was not worth the attention of other crops. when people write to us that they have certain types of land we always tell them if they can grow an average crop of corn, wheat, clover or potatoes on that land there probably isn't any question but that if they plant english walnuts they will be successful in raising some english walnuts. whether they will raise them profitably or not is another question. but nothing can take the place of one or two good trees on every farm, especially in southeastern pennsylvania. there isn't much question but that those trees can be grown successfully from a line through allentown to the susquehanna river, and on over to the general range of the allegheny mountains, down to the mainland and west virginia line. even in our higher elevations of sixteen or eighteen hundred feet i can show you some good old bearing trees that are ten or twelve inches in diameter. no dwelling houses there. they are out in the country and they are high up. the secretary: as has been stated the essential thing in the successful growing of persian walnuts, and probably other nuts, is high fertilization. i believe that many of our failures to grow the persian walnut are due to lack of sufficient food. the treasurer: i do not suppose that any one in the association has made more of an effort to get better records than i have--at least i have made a good deal of effort. i have learned that in , if i remember correctly, the stabler bore sixteen bushels of hulled nuts and it was estimated that two were washed away by the rains. in another year, i was informed the weiker tree bore twelve bushels. in following up other trees i found it impossible to get any results. i tried to get information as to the parent hales hickory and the most i could learn was that the family had gathered as high as two or three bushels in one year. but when i saw that the tree stood on the side of a well traveled road with only a low stone wall to get over, and that the squirrels were plentiful and the children undoubtedly likewise, i thought it a wonder that the hales got any of the nuts. in the case of most of our fine parent nut trees they are either situated in out-of-the-way places where it is a task to get to them, or else they are situated on the side of a traveled road where the passersby are pretty likely to get a great many of the nuts. take the case of the fairbanks hickory in alamosa, iowa. it stands on the side of the road on top of a hill outside of the limit of the houses of the town. i do not see how it can help being that a great proportion of the nuts are picked up by passersby. when we have grafted trees planted where they can be protected and the crop can be watched we can get reliable data for our records; but i am afraid that except in a few instances, we cannot get such data for the parent trees. mr. rush: california is the leader in the persian walnut industry and i think it would be better for us to fall in line and adopt some of their varieties. i find that they are perfectly hardy here, just as hardy as are varieties that have been grown here for a hundred years. mr. l. n. spencer: right back of the postoffice are some english walnut trees. they are growing very nicely. they have withstood all kinds of weather. i have not noticed any dead limbs on the trees nor any other indications that the climate here is not adapted to the growing of these trees. we would be glad indeed to show you the trees if you would come to the postoffice. they are not on ground belonging to the united states government but on private ground. i have been very much interested in your discussion. i came here because i expect to set out some more nut trees. the president: there are two items of business left for the convention. one is, receiving the report of the nominating committee; the other is, to determine upon a place for holding our next convention. if there is nothing further to be brought before the session by the members these two items will now receive our consideration. the first of the two would be the report of the nominating committee. mr. olcott: your nominating committee respectfully reports the following nominations for officers of the northern nut growers' association for the coming fiscal year: president--james s. mcglennon, rochester, n. y. vice-president--j. f. jones, lancaster, pa. secretary--william c. deming, wilton, conn. treasurer--willard g. bixby, baldwin, n. y. your committee begs leave to suggest that as the details of an aggressive campaign to increase the membership of the association entail a considerable amount of correspondence and other work, the secretary should be relieved to as great an extent as is practicable, and to that end particular attention should be paid to the selection of a membership committee. it is the belief that this is one of the most important committees of the association and that systematic endeavor upon definite lines should be made to extend the membership; that this work should begin at once and be maintained earnestly throughout the coming fiscal year. ralph t. olcott, j. f. jones, john rick, c. s. ridgway, committee. mr. littlepage: i move the adoption of the report. (motion seconded and carried, and the officers therein referred to were declared elected.) the president: the second item is to determine the place of the next meeting. a motion would be in order covering that. the treasurer: inasmuch as we have in rochester, new york, an orchard of filberts which is beginning to bear real crops--and that is something none of us has ever seen--if rochester would like to have us come i move that we go there next year. mr. olcott: rochester would like to have you come. mr. mcglennon: i was going to ask that the convention be brought to rochester next year. i would certainly like to see it there. i second mr. bixby's motion. (motion carried unanimously.) it was moved and seconded that the next annual convention be held on september and , . (motion carried unanimously.) mr. littlepage moved (seconded by mr. mcglennon) that mr. harrison h. dodge, superintendent of mount vernon, be elected an honorary member of this association. (motion carried unanimously.) the president: i desire to say that in this package i have four seedlings from the walnuts that were supplied from mount vernon. a few of the walnuts left from last year's supply were placed in the hands of a nurseryman or florist in saginaw too late for planting--the ground had become frozen--and those few nuts be placed in pots in his greenhouse. they grew very vigorously and i have four of those in little earthen pots for planting this afternoon. mr. mcglennon: i make a motion that a vote of thanks be extended to dr. morris and the others whose papers were read by our secretary yesterday morning and that they be notified accordingly. senator penney: i second the motion. (motion carried unanimously.) the secretary: i feel that we should express our appreciation of the efforts of the local committee and the management of this hotel. i therefore move a vote of thanks to mr. rush and mr. jones for their work in the management of this convention, and to the management of the hotel for the kindness they have shown us. mr. littlepage: i second the motion. (motion carried unanimously.) the president: we will now adjourn to gather here at two o'clock in order to go on a sight-seeing trip or excursion around the city and county and then to long's park at : o'clock for the tree planting. proceedings of the tree planting ceremonies at long's park, lancaster county, pa. : p. m., october , president linton: the four young walnut trees that we have before us are grown from walnuts from trees at mount vernon near the tomb of general washington. the trees there were planted unquestionably during the lifetime of washington, and have grown to be fine specimens of their particular species. last fall the ladies of the mount vernon association gave to the northern nut growers association all of the walnuts upon the trees at washington's home. they divided those nuts into two lots and the best ones were presented to the association for the purpose of public planting. under no circumstances were the nuts to be commercialized or sold for gain but were to be planted by the school children of the land, if it could be satisfactorily arranged in the short time that we had before the end of the planting season. we found it impossible to distribute these walnuts throughout the country, although the demand kept coming for them from many states, so they were distributed first to the district schools outside of the city of saginaw in the county of saginaw and there planted by the school children with appropriate ceremonies. then our city schools asked for them and in every school yard in the city of saginaw are some washington walnuts growing today. following this distribution to the schools we had still several bushels of the nuts, and one bushel was presented to what is known as merlin grotto, a branch or division of the masonic order. as general washington was a member of that organization it seemed fitting that that society should have some of the nuts. so in the beautiful grounds outside of our city that are owned and controlled by merlin grotto there were also planted some of these mount vernon walnuts. then we still had about two dozen of them left, and they were planted in what is known as the ezra rush park in saginaw, our largest city park. they are there in rows to be transplanted this coming spring and will be again distributed to the schools, or to public places desiring them, as long as they may last. the four specimens that you have before you, gentlemen, are from nuts from trees planted during president washington's time at his home. we trust that they may live in this beautiful park in lancaster and that they may go down in history showing the source from whence they came. prof. herbert h. beck: gentlemen: it is a very great privilege to represent franklin and marshall college in extending a word of greeting as well as comradeship to the northern nut growers' association. i use the word comradeship advisedly because we have interests that are indubitably kindred. our two institutions are both concerned with the cultivation of something that will contribute to the strength and happiness of each as americans--your institution in the cultivation of useful trees--our institution in the cultivation of useful men. it may well be said, show me a man who loves and cultivates trees and i will show you a man who loves his fellow men and puts that love into practice. that cannot be said, unfortunately, of every man who graduates from college. it is to be doubted whether the name of john harvey, considered abroad as worthy of a higher place in the annals of american horticulture, is greater than the name of johnny appleseed, the man who took apple trees out into the frontier of the open road. my only regret is that i have never been in a position to do so. i can say, though, with dr. holmes, for whose opinion on such things i have a most profound admiration, that i have an intense, passionate fondness for all trees in general and for certain trees in particular. when i go out among the trees i have a kinship there. i am never lonely when i am in a forest and i cannot say that when i am alone in a big city. i like to look upon an old tree as a patriarch with not only an honored past but an interesting story locked up under its bark. as i go to such a place as valley forge, i like to lay my hand on the rough bark of an old tree and say, "oh, but that you might tell your tale; you are the only thing left which looked upon the scene in which a few were crucified that many might live." such are the thoughts that come to me when i stand by an old tree. i like to let my mind run back to the beginnings of trees, to the pre-historic times when this bed rock was laid down, when all this region was an inlet or bay from the atlantic ocean and the upland was treeless as our rock record shows. then there were the beginnings of low fern-like growth and clotted mass which gradually increased in size until they assumed the enormous proportions which made the coal beds possible. and then i like to follow the growth of trees on to the broad leaf. we have the beginnings of the broad leaf, the sassafras, the poplars, the maples, and the oaks, and then, as the crowning feature of the evolutionary process, the nut tree. i like to let my mind run ahead a bit, particularly at such a time as this when we are setting out new trees. what sort of people will these trees live to see? will there be a decadence of the taste and fondness for trees, which we hope is growing? will these trees live to see a race of people who take no interest in such things except a commercial one, who have no thought for the beauty of the trees nor for the rights of posterity? will these trees perchance live to see an upheaval of the happy affairs which now exist in this country? in one hundred and fifty years many things can happen. there is much in the existing turmoil of war conditions that suggests possible disaster within the next couple of centuries, and possibly that the fair constitution of franklin and washington may be submerged in a chaos of something that means nothing. the remote possibility of the invasion of a conquering race to destroy all these things--but banish the thought. god grant, that these young trees may grow up to furnish shade and fruit in proper season to thousands of happy people, that they may always be useful and that they may not live to see the time when disaster may come to this fair land. in closing, gentlemen, i wish to compliment you on what seems to me to be the excellence of your personnel and organization. i am strongly impressed with the fact that your organization has a prime scientific value as well as a profound practical significance. i congratulate you on these excellent qualities and traits of your association, wish you all success and thank you for the privilege you have given me. dean r. l. watts: this seems to me almost like a sacred moment. as i stand here in this circle, the ground upheaved there and that hole in the ground, i think of something else that we stand around sometimes. in a very large degree, especially in considering the remarks of professor beck, it is a sacred occasion. what could be more sacred? what could we regard with greater solemnity than the planting of trees that will help all mankind. particularly in connection with the planting of young trees i think of my own boyhood experiences. whenever i think of the boys and girls in the woods picking up nuts it is pretty hard for me to think of those boys and girls going wrong. one of the biggest things we have to look at in this country is the question of maintaining high standards of manhood and womanhood. in that the safety of our country rests. i wonder why i was asked to speak at this meeting of the nut growers' association. i do not know whether my friend professor fagan suggested that i be placed on the program or not. perhaps he had heard about what happens in my own home. i have never gotten away from liking a little manual labor. i do not want too much of it but i do like a little of it, making garden and taking care of the furnace. mrs. watts sometimes blames me for wanting to take care of the furnace in the cellar in the winter time from the fact that i have always a bag of nuts down there. when i go down she hears me cracking nuts. from my earliest boyhood days i have been tremendously interested in the whole nut proposition. what i have to say here today i have put in written form. a national program for the promotion of nut culture _dean watts_ i am highly honored in being invited to present a paper before the members of the northern nut growers' association. for twelve years your association has stood for all that is good in american nut culture. you have considered the different classes and varieties that are worthy a place in american horticulture. you have discussed how the various classes may best be propagated and cultivated and have disseminated whatever information is available concerning the control of fungous and insect enemies of nut bearing trees. some of your members have conducted investigations of great value to the industry and others have made a special study of the food value of nuts as compared with other standard foods. the eleven annual reports of the association are indicative of the broad field of study and service which has been covered by a zealous and enthusiastic body of nut specialists. surely there is no doubt in the mind of any member of this association concerning the importance of nut culture in the united states. from the standpoint of food alone, we are more than justified in waging a vigorous campaign for the planting of millions of trees. who can mention any article of food that is more nutritious, more wholesome, more delicious than any and all of our native nuts as well as many imported species? and what other class of trees even approaches the nut as a dual purpose tree? in fact, as is well known, nut trees have four distinct values; namely, to furnish food, shade, timber and ornamentation to the landscape. in view of the important place which nut trees should have in american horticulture, can we not manage in some way to plan and carry out a comprehensive national program for the promotion of this proposition? surely there are thousands of people and hundreds of organizations and institutions of various kinds which would consider it a privilege to have a real part in such a worthy cause. for one who has been a member of this association for only a few hours, it may seem a little presumptuous to even suggest a national program for the promotion of nut culture, to say nothing of what should constitute such a program. but, running the risk of someone hurling a chestnut burr at me, i will venture a few suggestions, though they may be as old as the sweetest of american nuts. research the great fundamental need of all american agriculture is research. this statement applies to nut culture more than to any other branch of horticulture because it has received less attention from well trained investigators. much credit is due the members of this association for their patient and painstaking studies. but instead of having a mere handful of men devoting their time to nut investigations, there ought to be several men in each state engaged in working on the numerous problems of vital importance to the nut industry. prof. reed of the united states department of agriculture should have a staff of several specialists, in order that he might make greater progress in working out projects of national importance. the state agricultural experiment stations have shown very little interest in this matter. funds should be made available in each state to undertake nut investigations that promise results of economic value. however, if the united states department of agriculture and the state experiment stations are to make real expansion in nut investigations, there must be demands and outside pressure from prominent people; as for example, from the members of this association. more and more the farmers of the country are petitioning their experiment stations to make certain studies and it is unlikely that these institutions will do very much for the nut industry unless the rural population indicate that they want this line of work included in the experimental program. mr. president, cannot this association block out at least a tentative nut research program for the whole united states? what are the problems that should have first consideration? what do you think the pennsylvania agricultural experiment station should do for nut culture in this state? as director of the pennsylvania station, i would like to have this question answered by the nut enthusiasts of the state. dr. fletcher and prof. fagan stand ready to carry out your wishes and i pledge them my heartiest co-operation. many of you know that the pennsylvania station is now working under a great handicap financially, but this situation may change within a few years. teaching i have been wondering whether all of the agricultural colleges give instruction in nut culture. if they do, just how much consideration is given to this important matter. it is one thing to give a careful, thorough, systematic course, covering a whole term or semester but quite another proposition to give a few disconnected lectures. if a committee of this association could look into the matter and formulate a suggestive program for the colleges, it would stimulate greater interest in the subject in all of the agricultural colleges. in this connection let us not lose sight of the fact that the number of college boys on our farms is increasing very rapidly. not long ago i attended a farm bureau meeting in washington county, pennsylvania, at which there were twenty-five to thirty young men who had taken agricultural courses at the pennsylvania state college. we can readily see what an opportunity it is to teach these college boys the benefits of planting nut bearing trees on their home places. again, we should manage in some way or other to permeate our town and rural schools with the nut planting spirit. thousands and thousands of shade trees are planted where nut trees would be much more desirable. every country school ground might well serve as a demonstration center of the best nut producing trees for that community. if such a scheme were carried out intelligently, our farmsteads would soon abound with nut trees. let us not lose sight of the value of the demonstration idea in any nut propaganda work that may be undertaken. extension service the united states has the best and most wonderful system of agricultural extension of any country in the world. are we using this system to extend the planting of nut bearing trees. do we not know of classes and varieties which may be planted under suitable conditions that will be certain to give satisfactory results? if so, why not get this information in definite form before our county agents and farm bureaus and let them pass it along to the soil tillers. perhaps the time is not far off when the colleges might appoint nut extension specialists who would work through the county agents and public schools and handle this matter in a thorough, effective, systematic manner. surely we have the machinery for the dissemination of whatever knowledge is available relating to the selection, planting and care of nut bearing trees. state departments all of the numerous state departments of agriculture, forestry, game conservation, etc., in this and every other state should be vitally interested in the nut proposition. perhaps some of the officials in these state departments don't realize the possibilities of nut planting? is there any way of educating them? for example, our game commissioners are worrying over the disappearance of the chestnut as a source of food for squirrels. do they realize that the bush chinquapin might be substituted with success, in some sections at least? and why not get game and squirrel lovers and tree planters in general to enthuse about the planting of black walnuts with a liberal sprinkling of butternuts? the result would be food for the squirrels, for the kiddies and some for the old folks, besides useful timber trees and also beautiful roadsides and farmsteads. the press we ought to manage in some way to get more material relating to nuts published in country papers and magazines, especially in the farm papers. millions of copies of the agricultural papers reach our farm homes every week. they are read largely by the boys and girls who are always very much interested in nuts. state laws i do not know how much can be accomplished by passing laws that will encourage the planting of nut bearing trees, especially along the roadside. all of us will watch with much interest the penney law of michigan. a very careful study should be made of this phase of the problem and then urge the passage of such laws in each state as will be most favorable to the development of the whole proposition. associations for real aggressive work we must rely very largely upon numerous associations, national, state, county and local. this association should take the lead and many others can render tremendous assistance in carrying out a national program. enthusiasts in every community should see to it that the subject is properly represented at the local meetings of horticultural associations and other organizations which discuss rural problems. in closing this paper may i again urge the importance of a constructive research program, if nut culture is to make any considerable progress in the united states. appendix members and others present: e. m. ives, meriden, conn.; jacob e. brown, elmer, n. j.; jacob a. rife, s. j. rife, j. s. rittenhouse, loraine, pa.; christian lefevre, w. lampeter, pa.; john rick, mr. and mrs. samuel l. smedley, prof. h. h. beck, j. e. fortney, j. f. jones, harvey a. penney, james m. balthaser, james s. mcglennon, ralph t. olcott, john watson, j. g. rush, t. p. littlepage, mr. and mrs. c. s. ridgway, prof. f. n. fagan, a. c. pomeroy, c. m. leiter, ralph w. leiter, elam g. hess, w. n. roper, mr. and mrs. w. g. bixby, mrs. n. r. haines, wilmer wescoat, patrick o'connor, postmaster spencer, dr. w. c. deming, w. s. linton, j. s. ritchie, dr. c. a. cannaday, dean r. l. watts, mr. and mrs. w. c. rhodes, ammon p. fritz, mr. and mrs. blockhauser, d. f. clark, rev. and mrs. geo. a. stauffer, harry stuart, oliver s. shaefer. exhibits: black walnuts, ohio, stabler from original tree at brookville, md.; thomas, considered the best of the larger sorts, and perhaps the best cracker among these, tree a very rapid grower and a good and reliable bearer; persian walnut, alpine, from benj. mylin, willow st. pa. grafted tree; juglans sieboldiana or sieboldi, japan walnut, rapid grower and beautiful tree; juglans cordiformis, japan walnut, tree similar to the sieboldiana but a better nut, grafted trees bearing very early; indiana pecan from original tree wabash river bottoms, oaktown, ind.; niblack pecan from original pecan in indiana; weiker hickory seedlings, , , , , , from seedlings years old from the parent tree years old at lampeter, lancaster co., pa., showing marked variation from the type of the parent tree, which is believed to be a cross between the shagbark and the shellbark; kirtland shagbark from original tree at yalesville, ct.; laney shagbark-bitternut hybrid from original tree in rochester, n. y. city park; fairbanks shagbark-bitternut hybrid from topworked tree, original tree near cedar rapids, iowa; leaves, burrs and nuts of morris hybrid chestnut no. , american sweet chestnut pollen on chinkapin. high quality, good size, prolific. tree has not blighted to date after twelve years exposure to blighting chestnuts and chinkapins. leaves, burrs and nuts of morris hybrid chestnut no. , american sweet chestnut pollen on chinkapin. high quality, bright color, good size, not so prolific as no. and no. as it leaves some of the racemes of burrs unfilled. the tree has not blighted to date after twelve years of exposure to blighting chestnuts and chinkapins. leaves, burrs and nuts of morris hybrid chestnut no. , american sweet chestnut pollen on chinkapin. many japanese and korean chestnuts were blossoming in the vicinity and this may be an accidental pollination from them instead of from pollen of the american chestnut. quality not so good as that of no. and no. . nut dull in color instead of bright. tree prolific, has shown blight but once during twelve years of exposure among blighting chestnuts and chinkapins. blight took place at a place where the tree was injured by a falling limb from a dying chestnut tree. the blighted spot was cut out and did not reappear. filberts, emperor, du chilly, montebello, noce lunghe, italian red, des anglais, red aveline, cornucopia, imperial daviana; nelubium luteum, american lotus, also called water chinkapin, yonkopin, etc., an aquatic plant; nelubium speciosum, egyptian lotus, much cultivated for its large, beautiful flowers. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |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. | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ rd annual report of the northern nut growers association incorporated affiliated with the american horticultural society _annual meeting at_ rockport, indiana august , and , table of contents officers and committees - state and foreign vice presidents constitution and by-laws call to order, forty-third annual meeting address of welcome--hilbert bennett business session treasurer's report--carl prell committee reports president's address--l. h. macdaniels the future of your nut planting--w. f. sonnemann the value of a tree--ferd bolten methods of getting better annual crops on black walnut. panel discussion led by w. w. magill the hickory survey--h. f. stoke a discussion of hickory stocks--gilbert l. smith filbert varieties. panel discussion led by g. l. slate my experiences with chinese chestnuts--w. j. wilson persian walnuts in the upper south--h. f. stoke varieties of persian walnuts in eastern iowa--ira b. kyhl commercial production and processing of black and persian walnuts--edwin l. lemke black walnut processing at henderson, kentucky--r. c. mangelsdorf nut shells: assets or liabilities--t. f. clark the propagation of hickories--panel discussion led by f. l. o'rourke a promising new pecan for the northern zone--j. w. mckay and h. l. crane the hickory in indiana--w. b. ward the merrick hybrid walnut--p. e. machovina producing quality nuts and quality logs--l. e. sawyer colchicine for nut improvement programs--o. j. eigsti and r. b. best an early pecan and some other west tennessee nuts--aubrey richards scab disease in eastern kentucky on busseron pecan--w. d. armstrong further news about oak wilt--e. a. curl life history and control of the pecan spittle bug--stewart chandler insect enemies of northern nut trees--howard baker tuesday evening banquet session resolutions and election of officers chestnut breeding--arthur h. graves and hans nienstaedt effect of vermiculite in inducing fibrous roots on tap rooting tree seedlings--herbert c. barrett and toro arisumi eastern black walnut survey --h. f. stoke crath's carpathian english walnuts in ontario--p. c. crath nut tree plantings in southeastern iowa--albert b. ferguson rockville as a hickory interstock--herman last a fruitful pair of carpathian walnut varieties in michigan--gilbert becker suggested blooming data to be recorded for nut tree varieties--j. c. mcdaniel note on chinese chestnuts--harwood steiger scott healey--an obituary a letter from dr. w. c. deming sweepstakes award in ohio black walnut contest--l. walter sherman attendance record, rockport, ind. membership list--northern nut growers association officers for - 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 - 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, , korbeek-lo british columbia, canada j. u. gellatly, box , westbank california thos. r. haig, m.d., highland ave., carlesbad colorado j. e. forbes, julesburg connecticut a. m. huntington, stanerigg farms, bethel delaware lewis wilkins, route , newark denmark count f. m. knuth, knuthenborg, bandholm district of columbia ed. l. ford, austin st., s. e. washington florida c. a. avant, n. w. th ave., miami georgia william j. wilson, north anderson ave., fort valley hawaii john f. cross, p. o. box , hilo hong kong p. w. wang, des voeux rd., central idaho lynn dryden, peck illinois royal oakes, bluffs (scott county) indiana edw. w. pape, rt. , marion iowa ira m. kyle, box , sabula kansas dr. clyde gray, central ave., horton kentucky dr. c. a. moss, williamsburg louisiana dr. harald e. hammar, court house, shreveport maryland blaine mccollum, white hall massachusetts s. lathrop davenport, 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 , saint charles montana russel h. ford, dixon nebraska harvey w. hess, box , hebron new hampshire matthew lahti, locust lane farm, wolfeboro new jersey mrs. alan r. buckwalter, route , flemington new mexico rev. titus gehring, p. o. box , lumberton new york stephen bernath, route no. , poughkeepsie north carolina dr. r. t. dunstan, greensboro college, greensboro north dakota homer l. bradley, long lake refuge, moffit ohio christ pataky jr., hickory lane, route , mansfield oklahoma a. g. hirschi, north robinson, oklahoma city ontario, canada elton e. papple, cainsville oregon harry l. pearcy, route , box , salem pennsylvania r. p. allaman, route , harrisburg prince edward is. canada robert snazelle, forest nursery, route , charlottetown rhode island philip allen, dorance st., providence south carolina john t. bregger, p.o. box , clemson south dakota herman richter, madison tennessee w. jobe robinson, route , jackson texas kaufman florida, box , rotan utah harlan d. petterson, jefferson ave., ogden vermont a. w. aldrich, r. f. d. , box , springfield virginia h. r. gibbs, linden washington h. lynn tuttle, clarkston west virginia wilbert m. frye, pleasant dale wisconsin c. f. ladwig, st. lawrence, beloit constitution of the northern nut growers association, incorporated (as adopted september , ) 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 , ) 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 ($ . ). article ii. contributing members. persons who are interested in the purposes of the association who pay annual dues of ten dollars ($ . ) or more. article iii. life members. persons who are interested in the purposes of the association who contribute seventy five dollars ($ . ) 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 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 ( ) 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 st through the following september th. all annual memberships shall begin october st. article ii. the names of all members whose dues have not been paid by january st 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 st. 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 st 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: . membership . auditing . publications . survey . program . research . exhibit . 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 $ . 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 , , , spencer county court house, rockport, ind. the opening session of the forty-third annual meeting of the northern nut growers association convened at : 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 and . 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 ? why was i on that committee in ? why am i on that committee in ? 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 , 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 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 . now here i am in 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. * * * * * st. _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. nd. _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. rd. _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. th. _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. th. _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. th. _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. th. _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. th. _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 . 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 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 , and in 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 . 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 or ' . at the last meeting the delegates from japan recommended that they meet in the united states in . 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 cents a year. since the first of july this year their rate is 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 st, 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 $ . and $ . per year. some of us feel we can't pay any more than $ . for our membership; others will be able to support the organization financially by taking memberships at the $ . or $ . rate, and we are still offering our life membership at $ . . another matter discussed was offering the set of volumes of back reports in the nutshell at the price of $ . for the 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 cents a member to cents a member, which is cents of our $ . , which with the cents secretarial expenses leaves but $ . 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 $ -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 --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 $ , 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 $ of collecting enough money this year to pay our expenses. it was over $ 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 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 , of these people on , farms. the farms in this state produce a wealth of $ , , a year. with , farmers in this state and population of , , with a wealth of $ , , a year, it would seem to me that the state of indiana should have more than only members. out of that group we should certainly increase that ten times. we should have members, and if the same proportion is carried throughout the nation, why, this organization can easily obtain a roll of to , 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 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 members, hopped up to , and mr. best's make . and just this morning they got two others from illinois, making . so i think illinois has the second place position firmly nailed down. last year we had members all together. this year now we have new members. we can't add that to , because in every organization there is a loss of membership every year, and it's to be expected that our membership should have a 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 members to date. treasurer's report august , to august , receipts membership dues $ , . sales of annual reports . interest on u. s. bonds . donations . u.s.p.o. unused balance, permit . petty cash . total $ , . disbursements st annual report (pleasant valley) $ , . plates and printing, copies $ , . envelopes, . mailing . the nutshell . printing & mailing vol. , no. . printing & mailing vol. , no. . american fruit grower . subscriptions at ¢ . subscriptions at ¢ . urbana meeting . general expenses . reporting & transcribing . secretarial help, ¢ per member . stationery and supplies . association promotion . application folder, . supplemental folder, . things-of-science . secretary's expense . treasurer's expense . dues, american horticultural society . total $ , . cash on deposit, first bank, south bend $ , . disbursements , . $ , . -- -- -- -- on hand august , $ , . receipts , . $ , . -- -- -- -- u. s. bonds in safety deposit box $ , . 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 . 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 , 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 $ . 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 , 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 $ , 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 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 $ . we had a membership of . it dropped to about ; a loss of or . mr. prell: we in effect raised dues 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 cents of their dues are going to the fruit grower; now they aren't getting the fruit grower. mr. machovina: they were getting for $ . what they will now get for $ . . 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 , probably about . 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 acres of land, who about or 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 $ , 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 , and in the national body put in its by-laws a provision that there could be state sections formed. that is article and also article , 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: . 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. . 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. . wherever a local section has become established, the local chairman shall serve as vice president of the n. n. g. a. for that area. . the n. n. g. a. shall refund to the treasurer of each local section ten percent ( %) 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 . 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 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 , it appears that many of our problems are about the same as they were in 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 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 $ . 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: ( ) increasing the number of members; ( ) providing different types of memberships to encourage larger contributions; ( ) gifts; and ( ) 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 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 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 -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 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 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 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 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 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 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 to 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 $ 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 and , 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 , 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 miles from lexington, in a place that most of you folks wouldn't want to live in and call home, a little farm, probably acres, with a widow lady probably 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 $ 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 to 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 $ 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 ' by '. 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 , , and . 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 report by mr. zarger in which he reported the bearing habits of some trees over a -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 cents apiece, and if you only used cents apiece for ammunition, you have made cents off of the deal and had $ 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 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 or 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 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 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 pounds to 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 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 . 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. . _c. pecan_ . _c. cordiformis_ . _c. ovata_ a. _c. ovata_, var, _fraxinifolia_ b. _c. ovata_, var. _nuttali_ . _c. laciniosa_ . _c. tomentosa (alba)_ a. _c. tomentosa_ var. _subcoriacea_ . _c. glabra_ a. _c. glabra_ var. _megacarpa_ . _c. ovalis_ a, b, c. _c. ovalis_ var. _odorata_ d. _c. ovalis_ var. _obovalis_ e. _c. ovalis_ var. _obcordata_ . _c. ovalis_ var. _pallida_ . _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 . 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 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 parts resin, 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 -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 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. , 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 # 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? ( 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 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 : . adjournment at : o'clock, p.m. monday evening session called to order at : 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 or 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 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 and , 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 ' '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 seedlings that clarence reed sent us in the early ' '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 , filbert seedlings there at geneva. these have all been evaluated and discarded, except possibly or 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 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 or 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 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 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 th. it was unseasonably warm. it was 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 th and st parallel. i'd say anyone who lives from iowa to the east coast within one hundred miles north or south of the th 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 rifle. it works. in my back yard there is a brixnut filbert, which originated in oregon. i guess it's been there years. there are four trunks to it, the largest about 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 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 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 feet apart and then interplanted with the filberts at 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 inches in trunk diameter 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 , 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 , 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 , only one fruited in . it bore only - / 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 , i started grafting in , to nanking, meiling, and kuling, and finished this spring, except for a few replants. i also grafted ten trees in 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 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 four trees out of this lot, were outstanding in precocity. the earliest started dropping nuts the fifteenth of august and bore - / pounds. the next matured september th and produced - / pounds. the third tree is unusual. i noticed it the th 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 - / pounds. the fourth tree i found on the th of october with all of its nuts on the ground, the tree retaining the burs. the yield of this tree was - / 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 . 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 , one bore nuts in . 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 to 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 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 : . at : o'clock, p.m., the meeting adjourned. tuesday morning session (called to order at : 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 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 . 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- is an extremely large nut, considerably larger than its seed parent which it somewhat resembles. l- is of somewhat similar type, but smaller. l- and l- , on the other hand, are of entirely different type. much smaller, they are smooth, thin-shelled and well filled, with kernels running % 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- , 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 . 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- , all these seedlings are later vegetating than the seed parents and any of the suspect pollen parents. of the lancaster seedlings l- , l- and l- 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 in , april in and march , in , 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 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 or varieties and now have or varieties and trees most of which are doing well. some are superior in hardiness and vigor. in eastern iowa at degrees n. latitude minimum winter temperatures vary from to degrees below zero. usually the minimum is to degrees below zero, but last winter it was degrees below zero for several days. only the hardier varieties will endure - degrees without injury, but - to - does not injure any variety very much. schafer is my favorite variety and it was not injured at - 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 - 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 - degrees of last winter. crath no. , crath no. , 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. , crath no. , sg no. , crath no. , graham and crath special. seedlings in the nursery row that stood severe temperature are carpathian d, nwf nos. and , 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 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 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 inches in diameter and inches high. it is made of / ths 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 / th 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 inch feed hole into which the nuts are fed. a inch furnace pipe elbow runs from the hole to the serving trough into which the nuts are poured. a 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 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 - / inch diameter shaft that runs through the disc and is held central as it revolves in a flange containing a / 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 / h.p. motor. i have hulled up to bushels of clean nuts in 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 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 / inch opening where they fall into a rotary sieve. the sieve has three sizes of mesh. mesh, mesh and / mesh. the larger pieces go on through and are returned to the cracker. this cracker will crack up to pounds per hour, and uses a / 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 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 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 -ounce vacuum-packed tins or -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 . 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_,[ ] _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 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 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 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 , presented by states, totaled more than , tons for the 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- , "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 - / tons per hour of ground shell products will cost upwards of $ , . 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 , 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 . table .--uses for ground nut shells and fruit pits +------------------------------------------------+--------------------+ | applications | size | | | | | deburring, cleaning, burnishing and polishing | | | in metal stamping, electroplating and | no. to no. | | plastics industries | | | soft-grit blasting | no. to no. | | fillers for plastics and plywood adhesives | finer than no. | | insecticide diluents and carriers | finer than no. | | explosives | no. to no. | | fur cleaning | no. to no. | | poultry litter and mulch (almond and peanut) | / to / inch | | fillers for fertilizers (almond and peanut) | finer than no. | +------------------------------------------------+--------------------+ 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 $ , 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 -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 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. to no. , 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 : 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 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 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 days to 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 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 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 per cent of the seeds failed to germinate. they were planted in warm greenhouse, with a minimum of, about degrees at night and about 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 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 . 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 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 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 you get 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. president macdaniels: this last discussion certainly shows that, there is more than one way to get results. the fact remains that all these different men are producing hickory and other trees by various different means of grafting and budding. they have their own techniques which worked. what there is behind it from a scientific basis we probably don't understand too well at the present time. i now call on dr. mckay to present his paper. dr. mckay. a promising new pecan for the northern zone j. w. mckay and h. l. crane[ ] in late professor a. f. vierheller, extension horticulturist at the university of maryland, college park, obtained two small pecans from an exhibit at the prince georges county fair, upper marlboro, maryland, which he sent to the office of nut investigations at beltsville, maryland. these nuts were very thin shelled and contained solid, well developed kernels very light in color and attractive. we gave them no particular heed until the fall of , when the authors together with professor vierheller, p. e. clark, county agent of prince georges county, visited the tree on which they had been produced. we found also a number of other pecan trees nearby. all of them were on an old southern maryland estate known as brookfield. the present owner is john c. duvall, whose address is naylor, a small southern maryland community located about miles southeast of washington, d. c. in the heart of the tobacco growing area. _origin of the duvall trees_: the present trees probably grew from nuts sent to maryland from the vicinity of iron mountain, missouri, by a friend of the duvall family named mrs. mary medora johnson. mrs. johnson had lived in maryland as a neighbor of the duvall family and when she moved to missouri she apparently was so impressed with the native pecan that she sent nuts to her friends in maryland for planting. this must have happened about since the oldest trees at brookfield are estimated to be about years old and mrs. johnson was a friend of john c. duvall's grandmother. in terms of the human life span the trees are thus three generations removed from the time of planting, a time period which fits fairly well the estimated age of years based upon size of the trees. _description_: the three largest trees are approximately equal in size and undoubtedly represent the original planting. the eight other trees are all smaller and could well have originated as seedlings of the original three. five of the largest trees have been given numbers to and will be referred to by number. duvall no. , and are the three large trees situated more or less in a circle surrounding the old mansion, each about yards from the others. the smaller trees are located more or less between and around the larger ones, the old mansion being on a slight knoll in the center of the planting. the original dwelling of brookfield is now crumbling ruins, part of the building being more than years old, according to mr. duvall, who lives in a modern new country home across the road from the original mansion. the three large trees have a diameter at breast height of approximately feet and all of them have a branch spread of more than feet. they are to feet tall. all of the trees have very narrow and pointed leaflets characteristic of texas and southwestern varieties, and they are remarkably free of insect pests and diseases. the nuts from this group of seedlings are variable in size and appearance as might be expected of those from any group of pecan seedlings. however, one of the most striking characteristics of all the nuts is that the kernels are solid and well developed. this is an unusual characteristic for pecans grown in the latitude of washington, d. c. in all of the varieties that are usually grown in this area none which regularly fill their nuts well are known. another outstanding characteristic of all of the nuts produced by these seedlings is the bright, attractive color of the kernel. in fact, when the nuts of duvall no. are promptly harvested and dried in the fall, the kernels are almost white. nuts that stayed on the ground months during the winter of - were harvested in late march and the kernels were still in good condition. some of the nuts were on display at the rockport meetings. small size of nut is without question the chief undesirable characteristic of these trees. duvall no. produces the largest nuts of all the seedlings but they are so small that more than are required to weigh a pound. duvall no. produces the smallest nuts and almost are required to weigh a pound. _past yields_: the one characteristic that sets these trees apart from all other pecan trees that we have observed in the maryland area is that they yield heavy crops of nuts every year. we have known the trees only since the fall of but have observed two crops and mr. duvall has observed their performance for many years. in the fall of duvall no. yielded an estimated to bushels of nuts. mr. duvall harvested bushels and he knew that bushels were harvested by friends of the family. an unknown quantity estimated at several bushels was plowed under when wheat was sown shortly before we visited the tree in the fall of . the tree had a heavy set of nuts in august and mr. duvall predicted that it would probably yield as much this year as last. he told us that the three oldest trees always have had annual crops of nuts except for or years when one of the trees failed to produce as much as usual. he could not remember which of the trees produced the light crops but he was certain that light crops were borne at only very infrequent intervals. _sweeney tree_: the two nuts originally sent us by professor vierheller were produced by a tree growing approximately yards from the nearest duvall tree on a part of the farm recently subdivided and now occupied by a tenant named sweeney. mrs. sweeney placed the plate of nuts on exhibit at the prince georges county fair and from this plate professor vierheller procured the sample which he sent. hence this tree has become known informally as the sweeney tree. its nuts are very long and pointed but in other respects resemble very closely those produced by the other trees. the sweeney tree is undoubtedly a seedling of one of the three large duvall trees. this tree also has an impressive yield record, as mrs. sweeney said that she has harvested a bushel or more of nuts from the tree every year during the ten or more years that she has lived on the place. in the sweeney tree was bearing a heavy crop of nuts. _soil_: the trees growing on soil that is classified as sassafras fine sandy loam in the heart of the southern maryland tobacco growing district. this soil type, one of the best agricultural soils of the area, is not generally regarded as one of high fertility. this soil is well drained and aerated and friable to a considerable depth, thus permitting the trees to root deeply. none of the trees are growing under crowded conditions since they are located around the margins of the building sites of the old homestead. the question now is whether grafted trees propagated from the best of the duvall seedlings will yield heavy crops of well filled nuts that will mature early under other conditions of soil and climate in other localities. we are inclined to believe that some or all of these trees may represent a line of pecan genetically constituted to bear heavy crops of nuts every year under conditions in maryland. if trees propagated from the duvall trees will perform elsewhere in the northern zone there will be available for this area a new type of pecan that we feel will be distinctly worthwhile notwithstanding the small size of the nuts. present varieties of the so-called northern pecan grown in the northern zone perform erratically at best and when many of the varieties produce crops the nuts fail to mature and fill properly. footnotes: [footnote : horticulturist and principal horticulturist, bureau of plant industry, soils, and agricultural engineering, united states department of agriculture, beltsville, maryland.] the hickory in indiana w. b. ward, _department of horticulture, purdue university, lafayette, ind._ mr. charles c. deam, forester, naturalist and botanist, in his book "trees of indiana," revised , lists seven distinct types of hickory in the state and nine sub species. as deam is approaching his th year (august ), he makes this statement: "i thought i knew trees, and hickories especially, but at this time when i can hardly see and write i find there is a great need for reclassification." what is true in indiana is no doubt true in other areas where _hicoria_ grows--each year new seedlings and hybrids are found that just step out of any previous description and a new tree may result or change the published data. some trees develop five leaflets, while others have seven and nine leaflets. the bark may be smooth, rough, scaly, or shag. the nuts will vary in size and form with a thin to quite thick shell. this, of course, applies to the seedlings as the grafted or budded varieties vary only with the location, season, and growing conditions. the present classification, according to deam, is as follows: . _carya pecan_--pecan. . _c. cordiformis_--bitternut. . _c. ovata_--shagbark and sub species--_fraxinifolia_ and _nuttali_. . _c. laciniosa_--bigleaf shagbark (shellbark). . _c. tomentosa (alba)_--mockernut--one sub species. . _c. glabra_--pignut and sub species--black hickory. . _c. ovalis_--small-fruited hickory and sub species. . _c. pallida_ } . _c. buckleyi_ } --minor species of lesser importance. the hickory species thrive in indiana, doing very well in all sections except in certain portions of the northwestern part of the state and on muck or sandy soils. the tree loves company or does well alone. when the hickory stands alone, the trees are well formed and make a good specimen tree. many hickory trees are found growing in the river bottom land from central to southern indiana with fewer trees found north of a line extending from terre haute through indianapolis to richmond. this southern area also contains the largest population of pecans. there are some woods that contain only pecan trees while a mile or so away no pecans are found but all are hickories and occasionally some woods contain both pecan and hickory. the trees in the woods areas, many of which seem to be the same species, produce a wide variety of fruits. when the trees are more closely examined there is a difference in the bark, the branch, the leaf, pubescence, shape of nut and shell structure. as there are all seedling trees in this particular woods, several outstanding trees have been checked and especially as to cracking qualities of the nuts. at harvest time a hammer is part of the equipment and the nuts are cracked at the tree and the tree marked for discard or further consideration. future possibilities of the hickory the hickory nut has not reached the popularity of the pecan, although the hickory contains more protein and slightly less fat, carbohydrates, and calories per pound than the pecan. where the pecan does not fruit, the better hickories, which are hardy, fill the need. the named varieties are good and trees are available from some nurserymen. the propagators have developed a few new crosses but man is far behind nature in this work. the many new seedling trees scattered all over the regions where the hickory grows require only propagation and distribution for wider acclaim. the development of a new hickory is a long-time process, yet may be hastened by first planting the nuts for new seedlings and when the growth is mature to bud or graft the seedling on large rootstocks. when old trees have been top-worked it is only two or three years' time until the fruit develops and, if worthy of propagation, much time may be saved by this method. most of the hickories have either or chromosomes, except pecan which varies from to to possibly . the chances of making suitable crosses between the pecan and hickory are most difficult yet it appears that these chance crosses result from time to time as in the hican through natural cross pollination. how extensive will be the plantings of the hickories is yet to be determined but it is a known fact that many people, especially north of the route of federal highway , prefer the hickory to the pecan. this may be due to the fact that from childhood the hickory was the local fruit. the fruit and tree hold great promise for the future. if the hickories are to be of commercial importance, the work must be done by all concerned and not left to a few eager individuals to carry on the work alone. mr. machovina: mr. chairman, members of the association, i hope you will bear with me if i run seconds over. perhaps i had better point out that my training is that of an engineer and not a botanist, hence this report on the merrick tree is that of a layman. i have not bothered to go into detail on the various features of the tree, such as leaves, buds, and so forth, because i have slides which you will see afterwards. the merrick hybrid walnut p. e. machovina, _columbus, ohio_ the merrick hybrid walnut is a natural cross between persian and black walnut and is distinguished from most other such hybrids by the good crops it usually bears. the tree is located in rome township, athens county, ohio, on property owned by mr. m. m. merrick a farmer and fruit grower. in august, , mr. merrick first described his "english" walnut to the writer and arrangements were made to view the tree. most striking at first sight was the large crop of nuts. the general outward appearance of the tree suggested it to be pure persian; however, upon closer examination, mixed parentage became evident. as a hybrid, the tree's history was a matter of interest and the owner was happy to supply what information he could. mr. merrick purchased the property on which the hybrid is located, in . a few years prior to this, the previous owner had planted six persian walnut trees obtained from a nursery in northern ohio. these young trees bore their first crop of nuts during mr. merrick's first year of ownership. it is known that the nursery owners were also proprietors of a commercial persian walnut orchard located in the vicinity of niagara falls. with this combination of date and orchard location, it seems not illogical to presume that the six nursery trees were of the pomeroy strain. from mr. merrick's description of the nuts produced by these trees, they appear to have been two each of three different grafted varieties. in the early nineteen-thirties, mr. merrick planted several nuts from the persian trees and raised a number of seedlings. one of these seedlings, transplanted to its present location, is the subject of this discussion and is presumed to be a cross between one of the six persians and a native black walnut. during the late nineteen-thirties, all of the trees, persians and seedlings, with the single exception of the existing hybrid, were killed by an unusually hard winter. the merrick hybrid walnut, now about years of age, is an extremely vigorous and healthy tree. its height is between and feet and its spread nearly as great. trunk diameter is at present about inches at breast height. the location of the tree is very favorable, being near the crest of a high ridge and with protection from the northwest by the house. a chicken yard is near and the kitchen drain empties close by to supply moisture. in nearly all aspects excepting the nut itself, the tree favors its pistillate parent. this is evidenced by the general shape of the tree, by the texture and color of the bark of limbs and twigs, and by the shape and color of the leaves, the buds, the flowers, and the nut hull. hybridity is indicated by the (usually) eleven leaflets to the leaf stem, by the nut, and in the disintegration of the hull which, after falling, quickly changes into a most disagreeable, dark-brownish, semi-liquidlike mess. the nut itself is much more like a persian walnut in appearance than a black walnut. the shell surface is slightly rougher and somewhat darker than most persian nuts. the suture of the persian parent is prominent. black walnut parentage is exhibited by the thick shell, the interior configuration and in the flavor of the small kernel. nut size varies somewhat with diameters ranging from to - / inches and lengths ranging from - / to - / inches. the bloom, which is strikingly like that of pure persian trees, is always profuse and precedes that of the surrounding native black walnuts by a week or two. in the two years during which the writer has observed the tree, the greater part of the staminate bloom has preceded the pistillate by several days. this was noticeably the case during the current year, and either this, or the rainy weather, has resulted in a small set of nuts which the owner states to be unusual. during the years observed, the tree appeared to be self-pollinating. it is recognized, of course, that the merrick hybrid is worthless as a producer of edible nuts. the possible value of the tree lies in opportunities it offers in being the forbearer of more worthwhile progeny. we know of the vast possibilities in hybridization. we know of the difficulties involved in obtaining nuts from controlled crosses between persian and black walnut trees; and we know that seedling trees raised from the nuts of such crosses are almost always sterile. the merrick hybrid, yielding good crops, offers possibilities both in crossbreeding and in the raising of seedling trees from the nuts of the tree itself. in the latter connection, drs. crane and mckay, of the u.s.d.a., requested several pounds of merrick nuts for planting purposes this spring. the writer himself planted five such nuts, of which four germinated. of the four trees, one died early in the season, while the remaining three have thrived. the heights attained by the three remaining trees thus far this season are , , and feet, respectively. these trees have the general appearance of young persian seedlings. the only crossbreeding attempted thus far ended in failure when a storm destroyed most of the bags prior to application of pollen. persian pollen was used on the few bloom remaining covered but, unfortunately, no nuts were set. the experiment will be continued. also, the merrick will be topworked onto producing walnuts, both persian and black, in the hope of obtaining nuts from which interesting and perhaps better second generation hybrids can be raised. an interesting point of conjecture on which to terminate this report, and one to which nut experts will likely give little credence, may be found in a statement made by mr. merrick and vouched to by mrs. merrick. the statement is to the effect that the nuts borne by the merrick during its early years, that is, prior to the time the adjacent persians were killed, were of much better quality, being more like persian walnuts both in appearance and in flavor. we've heard of "pollen influence" with chestnuts. did it occur here? tuesday afternoon session producing quality nuts and quality logs l. e. sawyer, _director, division of forestry and reclamation, indiana coal producers association_ i was trained as a forester and having worked at the profession for nearly thirty years, my first thought of trees is for their utility in building or in cabinet work. in school we were taught that the fruit of forest trees was a by-product. its economic importance was not emphasized nor was the possibility of establishing stands of some species specifically for the production of their fruit. through the years the value of the nut crop from some species has increased so that the fruit is now the primary crop and any wood materials that may be derived are the by-product. this production of valuable food and necessary materials of high quality for the building of quality furniture and interior finish is a combination that will work well together. black walnut, the most highly utilized of any of our native timber for furniture, veneer, and cabinet work is becoming increasingly more difficult for the mills to obtain in larger sized logs. native chestnut, almost completely destroyed in our timbered areas by the chestnut blight, is in demand for interior finish. pecan, which has had only a limited use in the past, is now enjoying a market for the manufacture of flooring. the production of nuts from plantations or orchards of these three species will no doubt produce greater economic returns for many years after the initial planting than could be derived from the sale of the trees for the wood they contain. there will come a time in the life of any tree when it is no longer a profitable producer and should be replaced by a younger, more thrifty tree. when that time comes, the tree to be removed will have no economic value unless it contains products that industry can use. with the thought in mind that the wood from the tree is to have some future economic value the trunk of the tree should be kept free of all limbs to a height of about nine feet above the ground. the development of a large spreading top above that point will be desirable for nut production. the space below that top will give ample head room for maintenance work in the orchard and that clear length of trunk will produce a high quality log eight feet long. that is the minimum standard length normally used by the lumber industry. some shorter lengths are utilized by the veneer industry but those lengths usually command a lower unit price. the production of figured walnut could be combined with the production of one log per tree but it would take several more years to bring the trees to nut producing age. mr. wilkinson has successfully demonstrated that the figure of the lamb walnut does carry over through a graft or bud. a double budding operation should not be difficult to perform. it would simply consist of budding the figured stock on the root at as low a point as possible, then when the figured growth has reached sufficient height, of budding again to the desired variety for nut production. this procedure would no doubt require a few additional years before the first crop of fruit would be harvested but it would produce an extremely valuable log when the tree is finally cut. i would be remiss in my present job if i did not bring the revegetation program of the indiana coal stripping industry into the discussion. that industry produces over fifty percent of the coal mined in indiana today and is recovering coal that could not be mined by any other means. in driving to rockport many of you no doubt passed by areas of newly mined land, rough, barren desolate looking areas with no vegetation. they have the appearance of complete desolation and give the impression that those lands are forever lost. in that same vicinity you no doubt passed plantations of pine, or mixture of pine or locust with our native deciduous species. those too were mined areas that a few short years ago were just as desolate in appearance as the bare areas you saw. these plantations are the direct result of a reclamation program started by the members of the indiana coal producers association, a program that has attracted national attention. the first record of an attempt at the reclamation of coal mine spoil is here in indiana. in , the rowland power company, now owned by the maumee collieries company, planted peach, apple and pear trees on mined land in owen county. the records show that for a period of years the trees thrived and were good producers. then, because the topography was rough and no spraying was done, disease and insects took their toll of the peaches and apples. seedlings of the original apple and peach tree still grow on the area. the original kieffer pear trees still stand and produce large crops of fruit. in , the larger, more far sighted companies began a definite program of reforestation of their mined lands under the direction of ralph wilcox, at that time assistant state forester and fortunately our state forester today. that voluntary program was carried on until when the indiana coal producers association, the association of the mining companies, sat down with representatives of the indiana department of conservation, representing the state, and the indiana farm bureau, representing the people, and drafted a bill which was enacted into law. this law required each company to obtain a permit from the state to operate and required that each company revegetate an area each year equal to % of the area they had mined. to insure compliance, a bond was required. this law remained in effect for ten years. in , representatives of those same groups again sat down together and drafted several amendments to the original act. some grading is now required where areas lie adjacent to public roads. access roads must be provided and areas to be devoted to pasture must be graded so that they can be traversed with agricultural machinery. under this program, sponsored by industry, the farm bureau, and the department of conservation, % of the area that has been mined to date has been successfully revegetated. the remaining % is a natural lag and represents lands newly mined or areas that have not weathered to the point where they will support revegetation. the demand for recreation lands and home sites where water is available is constantly increasing. at least % of the revegetated area is now being used for public recreation or for home sites. near the more heavily populated sections the price commanded by mined territory containing good lakes often exceeds the value of the land before it was mined. these lakes, formed in the final cuts and in low lying areas of the strip mines, furnish the only clean, clear water available for public recreation and fishing in the south western part of the state. the reforestation being carried on under the reclamation program consists of planting several species of pines, as well as a large variety of our native deciduous trees. the older plantations are being used as a guide as the research started in the last eight years has not progressed far enough to give conclusive results on many points. until the last few years the agricultural experiment station has devoted little or no time to the problem of reclaiming strip mine spoil. the area of the state that is involved, less than / of %, has been too small to justify the use of their limited funds. however, since funds have been made available to that station, through the industry, to establish research fellowships, the station has given whole hearted cooperation. the information being obtained through these fellowships and through work being carried on cooperatively with the central states forest experiment station is going to answer many of the questions on reclamation we have been confronted with. included in our reforestation has been a liberal scattering of black walnut. a breakdown of species is not available on much of the earlier work but since , when accurate records have been maintained, we have planted , black walnut seedlings or seed. initial survival is not high, averaging only about percent but we still have a general distribution of seed trees that are providing a source of seed for natural reproduction. trees from plantings made in to have grown well and we now have walnut trees over inches in diameter and feet in height. the average for all areas would probably not exceed inches but individual trees have made remarkable growth. these trees are only seedlings, but they are bearing heavily and their fruit is sought by the local people. in and , budded stock of walnuts and pecans and seedlings of chinese chestnut were obtained from mr. wilkinson and were set out on six selected areas. a wide variety of sites were picked and a wide variation in both survival and growth has been obtained. no special treatment was given the areas where the trees were to be planted nor were the trees mulched or watered after planting. even under these rugged conditions we have a survival of over percent of all trees. the walnut trees now range from to feet in height and the pecans up to feet. the chestnuts vary in form from low spreading plants - / to feet in height and as much as feet across to well formed trees to feet tall. pruning on all three species to produce a clear butt log has been started. pasture seeding on areas high enough in available lime to support legumes is following a pattern laid down by three years of graduate study, financed by the indiana coal producers association, at purdue and by work done by the illinois agricultural experiment station under a similar arrangement with the illinois coal strippers association. unfortunately, we have only a small portion of the spoil area in indiana that is suitable for the development of improved pasture. not over percent of the area mined to date is good enough and that percentage will decrease. modern operations are deeper than the early ones and are exposing more hard rock and shale. fortunately, most of these areas can be reforested after three or four years. in exceptional cases less than percent of the area mined the exposed materials contain large amounts of sulfides. these break down into acid that in some cases require ten to twelve years to leach out before revegetation can be undertaken. the fact that these stands of trees established on raw spoil will produce merchantable timber has been proven. in , an area was clear cut at the enos mine in pike county. the pines on this tract were planted in - . the products from that cutting, peeled posts and poles, were sold to the indiana wood preserving company at the rate of $ . per acre. an increase in value of $ . per acre per year. pasture, forests and fishing are not the only products. game of all varieties is abundant in the worked out areas. one of the largest herds of white tailed deer in the state, now referred to as the strip mine herd, is located in northern warrick and southern pike counties. in the indiana deer season of , the first open season since , the second largest recorded kill came from the strip mine herd. the pitman-robertson report of the division of fish and game carries the following comment on deer from that area. "the superiority of the diversified range of the strip mine herd was reflected in above average weights and measurements in most age classes." from the evidence at hand, there is every reason to believe that most of the mined area will again be highly productive forest land. it has completed the entire cycle of land use. originally it supported magnificent stands of hardwood timber. this timber was cut and the lands devoted to farming. poor management and erosion soon depleted the supply of top soil and many areas were abandoned to broom sedge, blackberries and gullies. because it was close enough to the surface the coal has been removed and the areas replanted to many of the same species of trees. with this reestablishment of the forest cover and the creation of the lakes in the final cuts, we can again have our forest resource combined with fishing, hunting and other forms of outdoor recreation, some areas of pasture and, i believe, others that can be profitably devoted to the production of nut crops and the by-product of quality logs for the veneer and lumber industry. president macdaniels: if you ever think you are going to sell your logs for veneer or lumber, don't nail hammocks or other things on the trees. the metal is very soon buried and causes no end of difficulty. we will go to the next paper, which is, "colchicine as a tool in nut breeding," mr. o. j. eigsti, funk brothers seed co., bloomington, illinois. mr. eigsti: three years ago this project was conceived in a discussion between mr. best and myself. then during the two-year period, all i did was turn over some colchicine to mr. best. mr. best took the material, treated the trees and performed as well as any graduate student i had ever graduated in the years that i was in university work. it is through his fine cooperation that we are able to start this project, and i look forward to this developing into a rather important nut breeding venture. but as you all know, it will take a long time. i have this paper written. it's only four pages double-spaced. colchicine for nut improvement programs o. j. eigsti and r. b. best, _normal, illinois, and eldred, illinois_ colchicine ( , ) as a plant breeders' tool is universally well known. only limited use has been made of this technique for nut improvement. early work was started by dr. j. w. mckay, a member of the n.n.g.a., but numerous other problems demanded his attention and the colchicine project was not carried to final completion. other reports are at hand from sweden and japan but these results do not shed direct light on the problems under discussion today at rockport, indiana. colchicine, acting on cell-division, ultimately causes a doubling of the number of chromosomes within those cells in contact with the substance at the time of division. such changes are transferred to succeeding generations by the hereditary chain familiar to plant breeders. several species of nuts are among this class of plants with doubled chromosomal numbers, however, such duplications occurred in nature. a report on this phase was given at a recent meeting of the n.n.g.a. therefore such excellent nut producing species as the pecan are naturally doubled types, called polyploids. we find numbers such as representative of a polyploid situation. since colchicine is effective in doubling the chromosome number and that variations in chromosome number exist among species, the authors planned a series of experiments to determine the best methods of applying colchicine toward a nut improvement program. seedlings of pecan were available and out of this experience a schedule is submitted that may be of use for other members of this association confronted with particular problems applicable to colchicine techniques. the most satisfactory schedule for doubling the number of chromosomes is given in a number of steps as listed below. ) select expanding vegetative buds in the earliest stages of development. ) use seedlings or branches from mature trees. ) prune leaves and probe to the growing cone without damage to tissue. ) pack a small wad of cotton into the terminal point. ) soak this cotton by dropping . % aqueous solution of colchicine on same. ) add glycerine to cotton to improve penetration of colchicine. ) place drop of colchicine on cotton morning and evening for four days. ) remove cotton wading from bud on th day. ) if sufficient tests at hand, allow cotton to remain on some buds. ) try for at least one hundred buds treated. ) observe growth during first season and also next season. ) if treated bud dies, watch for growth among lower laterals. ) evidence of changes appears in the new leaves, darker, thicker, greener. ) conclusive evidence of doubling rests with microscopic and anatomical analysis which is a task for trained technicians only. the above procedures are suggestions for a start and everyone will wish to make changes suited to his particular needs. the concentration of colchicine need not be exact as in an analytical experiment in chemistry. one gram dissolved in ml. water is an adequate and a sufficiently careful measurement. the local pharmacist or physician is well acquainted with colchicine in the practise of medicine since this drug is a standard for gout. effective use may be made from two specific areas of plant breeding. first, doubling of chromosomes changes sterile hybrids into fertile individuals. this is a promising field and whenever such hybrids are discovered, efforts should be made to apply the colchicine technique. second, doubling of the chromosome number makes possible hybridization of individuals heretofore unsuccessful in such effort. in both instances germ plasm of wide genetic difference is incorporated into a new propagating breeding stock. in the case of the sterile hybrid transformed into fertile individuals, no counting of chromosomes is necessary because restoration of fertility is evidence of changes in the chromosomal makeup. however, the second type of experiment requires microscopic analysis. there are a number of fundamental research problems in the plant sciences associated with the treatment of plants with colchicine. from horticultural subjects such as the apple,( ) pear, cranberries,( ) and grapes, it is obvious that periclinal chimeras will be of prime importance in analysis of results in treatment of nut trees. following the treatment of a growing point with colchicine the outer layer of cells may be doubled by colchicine but the lower layers may remain unchanged. or a reverse of this situation may obtain, and even other types. since the formation of pollen takes place from a certain layer it is very important that such specific layers are changed. the course of plant breeding can be altered by these kinds of changes. to our knowledge, no investigations of periclinal chimeras have been made with nuts, following treatment with colchicine. specific experiments were conducted at eldred, illinois in the spring of with seedlings of pecan. the cooperation of the r.b. best farms and nut plantation made this project possible. several types of treatment were tried. out of this experience the above schedule listed in steps was developed. other details may be obtained by contacting the authors direct. observations of the new growth in and were made and the shape of leaves, color, texture and general appearance suggest that doubling of chromosomes has been induced. up until the present time, no microscopic analysis has been made but this is a contemplated step and facilities are at hand to complete this work. while this paper is not a completed research, the authors hope that the presentation of technique will aid and stimulate interest in this new approach to nut improvement. in such instances where certain members may have a particular problem such as a true hybrid-sterile as a result of hybridity, it is hoped that the suggestions given in the above pages may lead into a new field of improvement. there are rewards in store for the plant breeder willing to master this new technique, but the mastery requires careful study and diligent work. literature cited . eigsti, o. j. and dustin, p.--colchicine bibliography. lloydia : - . . . ----, ----.--colchicine bibliography. lloydia : - . . . dermen, h.--ontogeny of tissues in stem and leaf of cytochimeral apples. am. jour. bot. : - . . . dermen, h. and bain, h. f.--periclinal and total polyploidy in cranberries induced by colchicine. proc. am. soc. hort. sci. : . . president macdaniels: the resolutions committee for this meeting is: john davidson, chairman, and dr. rohrbacher working with him. if you have anything in mind that should be brought up in the resolutions, see one of these two men. the next paper is: an early pecan and some other west tennessee nuts aubrey richards, m.d., _whiteville, tenn._ mr. richards: there came under my observation in the latter part of last summer a seedling pecan tree growing in the city limits of my home town. it seemed that this tree had been growing unnoticed for possibly years, judging by the size of the tree. the outstanding thing about this tree and what called it to my attention was a patient who came into my office complaining with a backache from picking up pecans on the th day of august. i wrote my friend, mr. j. c. mcdaniel, about this pecan, and when he visited me during the christmas holidays i gave him a sample. the only thing that he could say bad about the pecan was that it was slightly on the small side. i know personally that at least three or possibly four bushels of good quality nuts were harvested from that tree, most of them on the ground by the th of august. in my section the stuart pecan, which we use more or less as a yard-stick, was ripe the latter part of october, and we thought that possibly this tree, since it had undergone an unusually low temperature the winter before of below zero, might have possibilities. but let's dispense with this pecan and say that we believe in the old adage that one raindrop doesn't make a shower. it has a fair crop this year, and they are just as green as my stuarts now. there is another tree that originated in west tennessee which mr. mcdaniel chose to call this nut "rhodes heartnut." this tree is years old from a dormant bud on a -year-old black walnut seedling growing on my back yard. it bore two clusters its second growing season, and since that time it has borne annually, the crops increasing in proportion to the size of the tree. this year's crop consisted of clusters of nuts, with an average nut count of . nuts per cluster, giving a total of almost nuts on this -year-old tree. there is one more figure i'd like to give you. the count of clusters compared to the number of terminals we had this spring is better than per cent clusters. i have a few bud sticks here cut from green water sprouts. that's the only kind i can find a sprout on. i brought them up to mr. mcdaniel. if anybody can talk mr. mcdaniel out of a bud he wanted to try, but i don't really know what plans he had for these bud sticks. the or other varieties of heartnuts i have growing don't have any that have clusters like the rhodes. scab disease in eastern kentucky on the busseron pecan w. d. armstrong, _university of kentucky, princeton, kentucky_ mr. armstrong: mr. chairman, ladies and gentlemen: it is nice to be here at the northern nut growers meeting. this is my second session. i attend all the pecan and nut sessions in the country. i have attended georgia-florida pecan growers association and oklahoma and texas pecan growers association. these plates that i have contain some of the busseron pecans affected with pecan scab. the disease has shown up in southeastern kentucky, about a hundred miles southeast of lexington, a hundred miles west of the virginia line, and about a hundred miles north of the tennessee line, on a straight line west of roanoke, virginia. these trees were planted in bottom soil, rather well drained, and they made a rapid growth. in the original planting there were two green river pecans, one major, one busseron and two walnuts, a stabler and a thomas. about we noticed that all of the pecans on the busseron were like these that we have here--did not mature, completely covered with scab fungus and dropped off the tree. the shells were so thin that you could just crush the whole pecan, hull, shell and all with no meats in them. the major tree right beside it and the two green river trees had none of this trouble, and they have none of it as yet. and each year now that this busseron tree has borne there, practically all of the nuts have been like this. at the time we located this disease first in , i sent samples to the u.s.d.a. at washington and also to the southeastern pecan laboratory at albany, georgia, and dr. cole, there identified it as pecan scab. i reported the presence of the disease to mr. wilkinson and to dr. colby and they were surprised to see the disease on busseron in any location, and particularly that far north. in the south this disease frequently affects schley, delmas, alley and van deman and some others. formerly the trees were sprayed with bordeaux mixture. i think they are using zerlate now. it's a problem to be reckoned with. it occurs on the nuts and on the leaves, and it is carried over winter on the stems and the one-year shoots. further news about oak wilt e. a. curl, _illinois natural history survey, urbana, ill._ in a review of the oak wilt situation was given in a paper, "present status of the oak wilt disease", at the forty-second annual meeting of the n.n.g.a. at the university of illinois. the following report is aimed at bringing up to date the present known distribution of the oak wilt disease, recent developments in scientific research on the disease, and possible control measures. the oak wilt disease is caused by the fungus _chalara quercina_ henry and is characterized by a very noticeable bronzing and wilting of leaves that drop prematurely. brown streaks are usually present in the outer sapwood. these symptoms may be seen from june to september or until normal autumn colors of the foliage develop. more than species of oak are known to be susceptible to the disease. other susceptible genera of the family fagaceae are chinese chestnut, _castanea mollissima_, golden chinquapin, _castanopsis chrysophylla_, tanbark oak, _lithocarpus densifiora_, and _nothofagus_ from south america. the red and black oaks seem to be most susceptible and are often killed within weeks after infection. distribution during the past few years the oak wilt disease has spread with such rapidity and destructiveness among valuable forest and shade oaks in parts of the eastern half of the united states that its seriousness is now well recognized. at present oak wilt is known to be in the following states: wisconsin, iowa, minnesota, illinois, missouri, indiana, northern arkansas, eastern kansas, southeastern nebraska, ohio, pennsylvania, west virginia, northwestern virginia, western part of north carolina, eastern tennessee, northeastern kentucky, western maryland and southern michigan. aerial surveys for are not yet complete, but there are indications of extensive new infections in pennsylvania, ohio, and west virginia while the other states show a moderate increase in the number of infections. the first case of oak wilt in illinois was seen in rockford in . today of the counties in the state have oak wilt areas. the disease is present in both the extreme northern part and the southern-most tip of the state. practically all wilt areas in the southern half of illinois consist of trees or less that appear to have died within the last years, indicating a recent spread of the disease southward. a similar condition exists in southern missouri and northern arkansas. developments in research in a report from the wisconsin agricultural experiment station revealed that the oak wilt disease was caused by a fungus, and research programs were started early in wisconsin and iowa. neighboring states were quick to follow as surveys showed a wider distribution of the disease. now almost every state in which oak wilt occurs is taking part in efforts to learn more about the disease and its causal agent so that practical control measures may be applied before the spread of the disease gets out of hand. the national oak wilt research committee at memphis, tennessee, supports in part an intensive oak wilt research program in coordination with several midwestern universities and with the u.s.d.a., bureau of forest pathology. until recently the causal fungus of oak wilt was known only in its asexual or imperfect form living in the sap stream of infected trees. the most important question to be answered now is how the fungus spreads over long distances from diseased to healthy trees. before this could be accomplished, however, we had to know how the fungus escapes from the inside to the outside of diseased trees where it can be exposed to agents of dissemination. in the late summer of clearly visible mycelial mats of the oak wilt fungus were found in illinois under the loose bark of wilt-killed trees. these mats were usually located beneath cracks in the bark; thus, they were exposed to the outside air and to visiting insects. most wilt-killed trees contain beneath the bark numerous insect larvae of wood and bark boring beetles. larvae were frequently found in direct contact with mycelial mats of the fungus. larvae of the two-lined chestnut borer, _agrilus bilineatus_, were most abundant, but larvae of species of the families scolytidae and cerambycidae were also present in large numbers. in addition to the mycelial mat under the bark there was often present a thick dark pad usually in the center of the mat. it is not known yet what part this pad plays in the life history of the fungus but we do know that it is produced by the same fungus which causes oak wilt. we also found in illinois that the oak wilt fungus often develops into visible mats from chips of bark and wood that have been chopped from wilt-killed trees and allowed to lie on the moist forest floor. this should be remembered when considering sanitation as a partial means of controlling the disease. in the sexual or perfect form of the oak wilt fungus was produced on laboratory media in missouri by crossing different strains of the fungus. the sexual form is recognized by the appearance of microscopic, black, short-beaked fruiting structures or perithecia that are filled with sticky ascospores. this sexual form is a species of _endoconidiophora_. the sexual form of the fungus was first found in nature in illinois in the autumn of . the perithecia are produced on the mycelial mats beneath the loose and sometimes cracked bark of diseased oaks. both the ascospores of the sexual form and the endospores or conidia of the asexual form will cause wilt if the spores are injected into oak trees. from the foregoing information it is apparent that several methods by which the disease might be spread over long distances are possible. first, and what seems to be most probable, is transmission by insects. adult beetles, such as the two-lined chestnut borer, which emerge from dead trees in the spring and feed on the leaves of healthy trees might transmit the spores of the fungus. other insects might feed on the fungus mats that are exposed through cracks in the bark and carry both the sticky ascospores and conidia to other trees. additional agents that must be considered are woodpeckers, squirrels and air currents. besides searching for the vector or vectors that spread the disease other important studies are in progress. among these is the consideration of chemotherapy as a possible means of controlling oak wilt. for our purpose, plant chemotherapy may be defined as the control of disease by chemicals which are introduced into the plant. according to dr. paul hoffman of the illinois natural history survey, a number of chemicals have shown promise in curing small diseased oak trees when treated in a very early stage of the disease. in one instance, trees that were inoculated with the oak wilt fungus then treated with chemicals years ago are still alive. the most promising results were obtained by injecting the chemicals into the soil where they are taken up by the roots and by applying chemicals directly to the foliage in a spray. trunk injection showed least promise because of the limited distribution of the chemicals through the tree. the use of chemicals for curing wilt-infected trees is still in the early experimental stage and is not yet recommended as a practical control measure. in wisconsin workers demonstrated the local spread of oak wilt through natural root grafts. they found that the poisoning of a single healthy tree with sodium arsenite often killed as many as other trees nearby, indicating that their roots were connected. recently the results of experiments in wisconsin explained in part what causes the leaves of diseased trees to wilt. when a tree becomes infected it is stimulated to produce tyloses or swellings in the vessels of the wood. therefore, the flow of water from the roots to the tree top is restricted and the leaves wilt and die. it is also known that the fungus itself produces a toxin which might be responsible for the actual killing effect on the tree. in illinois experiments are being conducted with insects in relation to the spread of oak wilt. insects of various species are collected from wilt-killed trees and allowed to run over or feed on laboratory cultures of the oak wilt fungus. the insects are then caged on parts of healthy trees to feed on the leaves. a single red oak treated in this way contracted the disease and died. this shows that the disease can be transmitted by an insect. controlling the disease the spread of oak wilt in local areas may be stopped by preventing the underground movement of the disease from tree to tree through natural root grafts. this can be done by ( ) poisoning all healthy trees within feet of diseased trees, ( ) cutting a ditch inches deep with a small trenching machine between diseased and healthy trees to sever root connections or ( ) severing root connections with a tractor drawn plow on which a knife blade is attached. unfortunately the use of such heavy equipment is not practical in rocky and hilly areas. chemicals used for killing trees are sodium arsenite and ammate. ammate is safe to use but does not kill trees as rapidly as the other poison. in some localities , , -t used as a trunk spray has given satisfactory results in killing small trees. if infected trees are left standing mycelial mats with their numerous spores develop under the loosening bark. it is therefore advisable to cut and burn all parts of diseased trees as soon as possible after symptoms appear. a combination trenching and eradication program was started in the summer of in the forest preserve district of cook county in illinois. according to mr. noel b. wysong, chief forester, newly wilted trees were found in the forest preserve in , trees in , trees in , and trees in . the count for is not complete but a continued decrease in the number of new infections would indicate good control. there is no information on resistant species of oak. in very rare cases, however, trees have been observed to recover after showing symptoms in the early spring. future outlook among the many things that we need to know yet about the oak wilt disease and its causal fungus one is outstanding. how does the disease jump from one infection center to healthy trees yards, miles or even miles away? although spread through root grafts may be controlled by severing root connections, the value of such a control measure is limited as long as the agent or agents responsible for long distance spread remain unknown. the discovery of other methods of spread might result in the development of control measures that are cheaper and less drastic than those known at present. a great deal remains to be done and research is increasing in the various states concerned. there is reason to believe that oak wilt can be checked before it reaches devastating proportions comparable to chestnut blight which wiped out our american chestnuts. mr. slate: what is the origin of the fungus? is it a native fungus, or imported? mr. curl: yes, it is a native fungus, as far as we know. mr. slate: any evidence that the fungus is mutating to make more virulent strains? mr. curl: that's something that hasn't been found yet. there are several strains of the fungus, what we call strains, because they will form the sexual stage, and a strain alone will not. there is not too much known about that yet, the strain business. mr. gravatt: just a word. we had a conference in beltsville all day sunday about the recent developments on the oak wilt. there has been very extensive spread in pennsylvania, ohio, west virginia and maryland this year. we are very much alarmed about the situation. the chinese chestnut is very severely affected. we have learned that in missouri. one year there were three chinese chestnuts killed by the fungus, the next year . the oak wilt is a serious threat to the chestnut orchards. life history and control of the pecan spittle bug stewart chandler, _associate entomologist, ill. nat. history survey, urbana, ill., consulting entomologist, southern illinois university_ since it was a year ago that this subject of spittle bug was first brought to the attention of the northern nut growers association, it might be well to review briefly the high lights of that report. i told you at the annual meeting at urbana, something of the life history. there are two broods, one appearing in june and one in july. the adult is a small sucking bug about an eighth to a quarter inch long. the species at that time was uncertain but now has been determined by specialists in that group as _cercoptera achatina_ germ. this insect, i reported, is not the same as the one occurring on meadow and other field crops, not only the species but the genus being different. the distribution was found to be in every area where pecans are grown. as to its importance i pointed out that in illinois it had become very serious in the past three or four years, apparently causing a marked reduction in crop. control measures were directed against the nymphal stage, which is protected by the spittle which the insect emits continuously while feeding. three insecticides were tested at anna, illinois, lindane, parathion, and tetra ethyl pyro phosphate, known as tepp. lindane proved to be approximately % efficient, parathion roughly % and tepp about %. in the work was resumed in the orchard of conrad casper near anna, illinois and was begun at the richard best place at eldred, miles northwest. in five phases of the work with pecan spittle bug were undertaken as follows: . a study of the importance of the pecan spittle bug. . the hibernation of the insect. . life history and occurrence of the various stages and broods of the insect in relation to nut development of the pecan. . control measures. . varietal susceptibility to the insect. . importance of the insect _hibernation studies_ to learn to what extent if any the insect reduces the crop of pecans, terminal shoots from trees sprayed the previous season with three different materials were compared with the unsprayed check. these are shown in table . table . pecan spittle bug effect of sprays on terminal shoots in spring of =================================================== dead shoots treatment per hundred check tepp parathion lindane =================================================== since these terminals shoots later develop most of the nuts it would appear that the pecan spittle bug is responsible for much of the loss of crop under these heavy infestations. it was planned to follow this up with later examination of nuts, and this was done with the assistance of mr. j. c. mcdaniel, but unfortunately it was found that this was the off year and the crop was very small, so we could not definitely settle that point. this will be a job for the future. . hibernation studies. in august of , i introduced adult bugs into a cage placed over a branch of an unsprayed pecan tree for the purpose of determining whether there was possibly a third brood. finding none the branch was removed and examined to study the hibernating eggs and the egg slits in which they were layed. the slits were not over a quarter inch long and frequently in pairs. eggs were deep enough that they were rarely seen without opening the slits. many slits were found containing egg shells, presumably from the previous brood, but possibly from a season earlier as the slits are corked over. following this study branches were cut from the sprayed and unsprayed blocks and gone over very carefully to find the numbers and location of the egg splits and the numbers containing live eggs and egg shells. each split would contain as many as or eggs. table show their numbers and locations, and table the effect of sprays on numbers of live eggs. table . pecan spittle bug location of egg slits in branches ================================================================= diameter of branches, inches / to / / / / / to inch ----------------------------------------------------------------- live eggs egg shells ----------------------------------------------------------------- table . pecan spittle bug effect of sprays on number of eggs examinations made march , ======================================================= inches wood number of slits with treatment examined live eggs egg shells ------------------------------------------------------- check tepp lindane ------------------------------------------------------- . life history and correlation of stages of insect and nut development. it was soon found that the pecan spittle bug was putting in its appearance earlier according to the calendar than in so an effort was made during the season to correlate insect life history and nut development during the season. table give some of the principal points in both. table . pecan spittle bug and nut development anna, illinois, -------------------------------------------------------------- insect date tree -------------------------------------------------------------- egg stage apr. catkins / to / inch first nymphs may catkins to - / inch many nymphs and spittle may catkins to inches fruit buds peak hatch may female flowers spittle drying june nuts developing st. nd brood june hatch mostly over july spittle drying july -------------------------------------------------------------- another phase of life history which is of practical importance is the increase of second brood over first. records were made both at anna and at eldred in unsprayed blocks at approximately the peaks of occurrence of nymphs and spittle, and are tabulated in table . table . pecan spittle bug infestation, first and second broods, number of spittle masses per terminals ========================================================== first brood, june second brood, july ---------------------------------------------------------- anna eldred ---------------------------------------------------------- this table shows an increase of approximately % at anna and % at eldred. it is thought that a inch flash flood which occurred at anna might have reduced the first brood infestation somewhat after the counts were made and been responsible for no greater increase and possibly that the heat and drought in both places might have resulted in a reduction. be that as it may the total infestation was not as severe in as in . . control. _first brood sprays_ it was originally planned to spray in both places but at anna the owner sprayed all but the check block with parathion early and the infestation was reduced to the point where later hatch did not build up to a sufficient point that good results could be observed so no spraying was done at anna till the second brood. at eldred two materials only were available, lindane and dieldrin. at eldred we had two difficulties in spraying. one was the type of machine with which i was not familiar and the other the inaccessibility of some of the trees. the machine is probably more fitted for field crop work than for large trees. it is called a mechanical aresol generator, manufactured by the hessian microsol corporation of darien, conn. the engine is a wisconsin air cooled motor made in milwaukee, wisconsin. the machine was mounted on a platform and transported in the orchard on a truck. two fifty gallon barrels constitute the tank. due to the nature of the machine and to lack of agitation only liquid materials can be used in it. it uses a much smaller amount of material than i had been accustomed to, and my first job was to learn to what extent the materials must be concentrated to compensate for the small output and how to get a comparison with the amounts used in regular orchard sprayer. in concentrate tests on fruit trees we arrive at this by judging the number of gallons which a tree would normally receive with a standard sprayer. there was little background to go on with nut trees and the problem was further complicated by the arrangement of trees which were not planted but grafted in their original positions in the woods. a clump of trees which could not be approached individually might have to receive not much more material than one tree which could be hit from both sides. sizes of trees also varied. it was decided to use only gallon lots of material and even this small amount sprayed from to trees of varying sizes. it was soon seen that the tops of the moderate and large sized trees were not covered very well. for the first brood sprays at eldred about six times as much material per gallons was used as had been successful at anna the previous season. the results are shown in table . table . spittle bug control, eldred, first brood, sprayed may , examined june ========================================================= treatment amount in spittle masses gallons terminals --------------------------------------------------------- dieldrin gal. of - / % lindane gal. of % check ------ --------------------------------------------------------- it will be seen that the reduction over the unsprayed blocks was about % with dieldrin and % with lindane. for second brood sprays at eldred materials were increased to about times normal in hopes of getting better results. in this test trees were selected in each block that could be reached moderately well and sprayed separately before the entire block was sprayed. records were made the day before spraying, days after spraying, and days after spraying. four materials were available, making five blocks with an unsprayed check. the results of these sprayings are given in table . table . spittle bug control, eldred, second brood, sprayed july ============================================================ treatment amounts in in terminals gallons july july july ------------------------------------------------------------ lindane qts. of % bhc qts. of . % dieldrin qts. of - / % toxaphene qts. of % check ------ ------------------------------------------------------------ due to the natural reduction in the check by july most attention probably should be given to the july examination. this table shows approximately % reduction from lindane, % with bhc, % from dieldrin, and % from toxaphene on july . at anna trees are all very big, from to feet high. they are planted in rows. a regular orchard sprayer was used with pounds pressure using one gun and sprayed from the top of the rig. approximately gallons was used per tree. as will be noted the dosage was much smaller than at eldred, and for ordinary use these are probably the proper dosages. table gives the results of these tests. table . pecan spittle bug control, anna, ================================================================== treatment amounts in in terminals gallons july july july ------------------------------------------------------------------ lindane lb. of % bhc - / lbs. of % dieldrin and / pints of - / % toxaphene qt. of % check ------------------------------------------------------------------- the reduction in the check block july may be due to proximity to the sprayed block which was not true in eldred. this check was small. table shows on july an approximate reduction of lindane %, bhc %, dieldrin %, and toxaphene %. from these tests in both places it appears that we have a choice of three very good materials, lindane, benzene hexachloride called bhc and dieldrin, and for that reason we can ignore the less efficient material, toxaphene. at eldred, since first brood sprays were applied in a sizeable area records of infestation were made shortly before time to spray for the second brood to determine whether the first brood spraying would eliminate the need for second brood spraying. however, the infestation was found to be practically as great in this area as the unsprayed part of the woods. it appears that the control was not good enough to allow this. in part this was due to failure to reach the tops of the trees. records were made in the lower parts. . varietal susceptibility. at anna where there was a limited number of trees, the orchards were plotted on paper and location of each tree with variety indicated records were made of each tree separately, in hopes that some varietal susceptibility would be shown. there is nothing very clear in this respect except that of the varieties in the casper orchard, butterick, busseron, indiana, posey, stewart, osburn, major, green river, the indiana and posey may be a little more heavily infested than the others. at eldred for the second brood infestation, the variety of each of the record trees was reported, but there were so many varieties and they did not occur often enough in the five plots to make variety infestation data reliable. however, the rather high average on the indiana variety did seem to corroborate the findings at anna. there was some foliage burn in two of the record trees in the dieldrin plot at eldred, both being the variety rockville. another tree in another part of the plot was also found to be burned and also found to be the same variety, so it appears that this may be particularly susceptible to spraying especially in this concentrated form such as we used. there were no rockville trees in any of the other plots, so we have no way of knowing whether the lindane, bhc or toxaphene would have done the same or not. president macdaniels: the next paper, the last paper of the afternoon, is control of insects injuring nut trees, by howard baker, u.s.d.a. bureau of entomology and plant quarantine, beltsville, md. mr. baker: mr. chairman, members of the northern nut growers association: it is a great deal of pleasure to be back here speaking before a group of nut growers. back some years ago my first assignment to a station of which i had charge was an investigation to count insects in louisiana and eastern texas, so it is a pleasure to be back before a group of nut growers. insect enemies of northern tree nuts howard baker, _u.s.d.a., agr. res. admin., bureau of entomology and plant quarantine_ the small number of requests for information on insect pests of northern tree nuts received in the bureau of entomology and plant quarantine is a strong indication that such pests are of little concern to northern nut growers. this is fortunate, because intensive, all-season spray programs, such as are necessary to produce most other crops without serious losses due to insect injury, are laborious and expensive and not always as effective as desired. however, as your acreage is increased and as your trees become older and larger, insect problems are likely to increase in number and intensity and require more of your thought and attention. a somewhat similar situation prevailed in the pecan industry at one time in the south. i well remember the statement of one of the larger pecan growers in louisiana to the effect that all the pleasure of growing pecans would be gone the day he had to start spraying to control insects and diseases. only a short time later it became necessary for him to initiate a regular spray program. he still took great pride in growing pecans, however. it is well, therefore, for you to watch your trees closely for insect damage and keep informed concerning the habits and control of the species that show up in your plantings or in those of your neighbors. because of the scattered nature of the northern nut industry, the small size of most plantings, and the more pressing demands for information on the control of pests of more intensively planted crops, it has not been possible for the bureau of entomology and plant quarantine to give attention to many of the pests of northern nuts. a great deal of work has been done on the pests of pecans in the south, and some work on those that attack filberts and chestnuts. in addition, some of the pests with which you are concerned, or others similar to them, are receiving attention in connection with studies of pests of tree fruits. the results of these studies will give you up-to-date information applicable to your particular problems. the timely use of insecticides is the most effective means of combating most injurious insects, but if spraying is not possible, other methods can often be used to prevent or reduce damage. a great many new insecticides have become available during the last six or seven years. work with them has resulted in the development of treatments effective against a number of pests for which there was formerly no known means of control and markedly more effective treatments for the control of others. it is my purpose to bring to you as much of this new information as is applicable to your problems. leaf-feeding caterpillars the fall webworm[ ] and the walnut caterpillar[ ] are the leaf-feeding caterpillars most commonly reported as attacking northern tree nuts. fall webworms[ ] are the insects usually responsible for unsightly webs on or near the end of the branches of the trees during the summer and fall. they enlarge the webs as they need more leaves. when nearly full grown they scatter to complete their feeding. the full-grown caterpillars are a little more than an inch in length and are covered with long black and white hairs. they spend the winter in cocoons in trash on the ground or just below the surface of the soil. there are two broods a year in many areas, the second usually being the more numerous. control can be obtained by applying a spray containing pounds of lead arsenate with an equal quantity of hydrated lime (to prevent possible injury to the foliage), pounds of -percent ddt wettable powder, or pounds of -percent parathion wettable powder per gallons of water. apply the spray when the caterpillars are still small. follow the precautions furnished with each package. parathion is a particularly dangerous material to use. if you are not equipped to spray or have only a few trees, you can control this insect by removing the webs from the trees with a long-handled pruner or a long bamboo pole with a hook at the end. the walnut caterpillar feeds in groups, or colonies, and commonly eats all the leaves on small trees or on certain limbs on large trees. the winter is spent in cocoons in the ground. the moths appear late in the spring or early in the summer and lay masses of eggs on the underside of the leaves. from time to time as they grow, the stout, black caterpillars go down to a large limb or to the trunk of the tree to molt, or shed their skins. after molting they return toward the ends of the branches and resume their feeding. this insect can be controlled with the same spray treatments that are recommended for the fall webworm, and also by crushing or burning the caterpillars when they are clustered on the lower limbs or tree trunks. pecan phylloxera[ ] swellings called galls sometimes appear on leaves, leafstalks, succulent shoots, or nuts of the current season's growth of hickory and pecan. these galls are caused by small insects known as phylloxera, which are closely related to aphids, or plant lice. several species are involved, but only one, known as the pecan phylloxera, causes serious damage. it causes twigs to become malformed, weakened and finally to die, and destroys the crop on the infested terminals. the insect passes the winter in the egg stage in protected places on the trees. the young appear in the spring about the time the buds begin to unfold. the phylloxera can be controlled by spraying the trees thoroughly with a mixture containing / pint of nicotine sulfate plus - / gallons of lime-sulfur or quarts of lubricating-oil emulsion to gallons of water during the delayed dormant period or by the time buds show about an inch of green. sprays containing pounds of bhc ( -percent gamma) or - / pounds of -percent lindane wettable powder per gallons are also effective, and their use is increasing. other materials have given good control when applied about the time the buds begin to swell. they are -percent dinitro-o-sec-butylphenol liquid, quarts per gallons, and a mixture of -percent dinitro-o-cyclohexylphenol powder, pounds, and lubricating-oil emulsion, quarts, per gallons of spray. do not use the dinitro materials after the buds begin to open. twig girdler a stout, brown beetle about / inch in length, known as the twig girdler,[ ] often cuts off the twigs of hickory, pecan, and many other trees in the late summer and early fall. the larvae spend the winter in the cut twigs, which are gradually broken off and fall to the ground. injury can be reduced by collecting and destroying the fallen twigs before the larvae complete development the following spring. recent work on pecans in florida indicates that most injury can be prevented by applying a spray containing pounds of -percent ddt or pounds of -percent parathion wettable powder per gallons of water. three applications appear to be necessary, the first when the injured branches are first noticed, usually sometime in august, and the second and third two and four weeks later. when handling parathion be sure to follow the precautions on the package. weevils and curculios weevils and curculios are small, hard-shelled, grayish to brown beetles about / to / inch long, with stiff, slender snouts or beaks. they feed and lay eggs in the nuts and/or shoots of many kinds of nuts, including hickory, walnut, pecan, chestnut, hazelnut or filbert, and butternut. there are a number of species, but most of them attack only one kind of nut. the species usually called weevils most often lay eggs and injure the nuts from the time the meat begins to form until it is mature, whereas the group known as curculios generally emerge and cause most serious damage during the early part of the growing season, when the new shoots are developing and the crop starts to set and grow. the chestnut weevils are probably the weevils best known to most of you. e. r. vanleeuwen, of the bureau of entomology and plant quarantine, has added much to our knowledge of these weevils in recent years. two species, the small chestnut weevil[ ] and the large chestnut weevil,[ ] are commonly present together and cause similar injury. the small chestnut weevil appears as an adult over a period of about weeks beginning near the first of may in the vicinity of beltsville, md., but it does not lay eggs until about the middle of august. the larger species does not emerge until about the middle of august and begins to lay eggs soon thereafter. eggs are laid in the developing nuts, and injury is caused by the feeding of the larvae therein. most of the small weevils require two years to complete development, and most of the larger weevils but one year. some control of these weevils can be obtained by collecting and destroying the infested nuts before the larvae leave them to enter the soil. better control can be obtained by spraying the trees with ddt. apply a spray containing pounds of -percent ddt wettable powder per gallons of water ( level tablespoonfuls per gallon) days before the first mature nuts are expected to drop, and make two additional applications at intervals of days. if you are not equipped to spray, you may obtain some control by treating the soil under the trees with ethylene dibromide at a depth of inches. make injections at intervals of foot in each direction and also in the center of each square formed by these injection holes. place milliliter of -percent ethylene dibromide or an equivalent quantity of another dilution in each hole. make the application in the fall immediately after the nuts are harvested and close the injection holes by pressing with the foot. the soil should preferably be loose to a depth of inches. the pecan weevil,[ ] also known as the hickory nut weevil, often causes heavy losses of pecans and most species of hickory. two or three years are required for the insect to complete its life cycle, but some specimens reach maturity every year. adults emerge from the ground from the middle of july until early in september, according to locality and seasonal conditions. injury is of two types--( ) that resulting from attack before the shell-hardening period in july and august, causing the young nuts to drop, and ( ) that resulting from attack after kernel formation, the kernel being destroyed by the developing larvae, or grubs. egg deposition in the nuts usually begins late in august. to control this weevil spray the trees twice with pounds of -percent ddt or -percent toxaphene wettable powder per gallons of water. make the first application when at least six weevils can be jarred onto a sheet on the ground beneath any tree known to have been infested in previous seasons, and make the second to days later. the first application will be needed sometime between the last week in july and the first week in september. if the soil is hard and dry, it will delay emergence of the weevils. if you are not equipped to spray, you can reduce weevil injury about percent by jarring the limbs of the trees lightly and gathering the weevils on a sheet during the period of emergence. the dislodged weevils will remain quiet on the sheet long enough to be picked up and destroyed. begin jarring about the last week in july and confine it to two or three trees until the first weevils appear. then jar all trees at weekly intervals until about the middle of september, when egg laying will have been largely completed. the butternut curculio[ ] attacks native butternuts and introduced nuts of a similar type. it passes the winter as an adult in trash or other shelter it can find in the vicinity of nut trees. it is a small, hard-shelled, rough-backed snout beetle. late in the spring it makes its way to the trees, and lays eggs in the young shoots. on hatching, the young larva penetrates into the young shoot or leaf stem or nut and feeds there, causing the leaf or nut to dry up and fall off. upon completing development in the fallen leaf or nut, the mature larva enters the soil. after a month or so in the ground the adult emerges, feeds on the foliage for a while, and then enters hibernation. there is but one generation a year. the black walnut curculio[ ] is similar to the butternut curculio in seasonal history, but it attacks principally the fruit of the black walnut and butternut, apparently preferring the former. the hickory nut curculio[ ] is much like the preceding two species, but it attacks chiefly partly grown hickory nuts, causing a heavy dropping in midsummer. the hickory shoot curculio[ ] attacks chiefly the shoots of various kinds of hickory. the damage is seldom of much importance except to newly transplanted trees. on pecan it attacks the unfolding buds and shoots. pecans most commonly attacked are those that are uncultivated or are adjacent to woodlands containing native pecan and hickory trees. for many years these curculios have been controlled by spraying the trees soon after growth starts with lead arsenate, pounds per gallons, plus an equal amount of hydrated lime. one or two additional applications may be needed as new growth appears or as the nuts increase in size. recent experimental work indicates that bhc or lindane may be more effective for controlling these insects. a spray containing or pounds of technical bhc ( -percent gamma) or - / to pounds of -percent lindane wettable powder per gallons, applied when the buds show from / to inch of green growth or when jarrings show adults are present, has given fairly good control. walnut husk maggot the walnut husk maggot[ ] attacks black and english walnuts, butternuts, and a few other nuts. the feeding of the larva, or maggot, in the husks impairs the quality of the kernels, discolors the shell, and often causes the shells to adhere to the nuts. it causes the most damage to english walnuts. this insect hibernates in the pupal stage in the ground. in midsummer it transforms to the adult fly stage, leaves the soil, and flies to the nut trees. after to weeks the flies lay eggs in the husks of the developing nuts. the eggs hatch in a week or days, and the young maggots burrow within and throughout the husks of the nuts; they mature in the fall. the walnut husk maggot can be controlled by spraying the trees with lead arsenate or cryolite the latter part of july and again to weeks later. use or pounds of lead arsenate plus an equal quantity of hydrated lime or pounds of cryolite per gallons of water. filbert moth the filbert moth,[ ] a serious pest in some filbert orchards in oregon, also causes some injury to chestnuts. adult moths begin emerging toward the end of june and lay their eggs singly on the leaves beginning early in july. the newly hatched larvae tunnel through the husk and feed between the husk and the chestnut shell before entering the nut. this feeding produces a gummy substance, which causes the husk to adhere to the nut. the larvae may tunnel into the center of the kernel or excavate an irregular cavity in the side. they reach maturity about the time nuts are ripe, and then leave the nuts and construct cocoons in the soil in which to pass the winter. control can be obtained by spraying the tree with lead arsenate or ddt early in july. use pounds of lead arsenate or pounds of -percent ddt wettable powder in gallons of water. mites two general types of mites sometimes damage nut trees, eriophyid mites and spider mites. the most important eriophyid mites are the wormlike gall mites and bud mites, most of which overwinter in the buds and cause deformities of the buds and leaves and otherwise limit their development. the spider mites may overwinter in the egg stage on the twigs or as adults in protected places on or beneath the trees. these mites feed primarily on the foliage. the filbert bud mite[ ] is occasionally of economic importance as a pest of filberts in oregon and has been of some concern recently in new york. it attacks the leaf and flower buds and catkins. infested catkins become distorted, rigid, and brittle, and yield no pollen. in oregon this pest has been controlled with gallons of a dormant oil emulsion or - / to gallons of liquid lime-sulfur in water to make gallons of spray just as the buds are opening. related species of similar habits that attack walnuts have been controlled with or gallons of liquid lime-sulfur in water to make gallons of spray applied at the time the buds break or soon thereafter. the feeding of the spider mites on the foliage of infested trees causes it first to have a bronzed or scorched appearance, and later to dry up and fall. these mites frequently become abundant following the use of some of the new organic insecticides, such as ddt and bhc, which destroy their natural enemies and perhaps have other effects on the trees favorable to mite activity. the european red mite, which overwinters on the trees in the egg stage, can be controlled by application of -percent oil-emulsion spray in the late-dormant period. the two-spotted spider mite and related species, as well as the european red mite if it is not controlled with the dormant spray, can be controlled with a spray containing pound of a -percent parathion or - / pounds of a -percent aramite wettable powder per gallons. apply the spray before many leaves show the typical bronzing or leaf scorching. if the infestation is heavy, a second application may be necessary in about or days. be sure to follow the precautions on the container, especially if you use parathion. president macdaniels: we greatly appreciate your care in getting this thing together, and we know it is going to be a great help to us when we get it printed as a matter of reference. mr. o'rourke: i'd like to ask dr. baker if insects are getting stronger or if the chemicals are getting weaker. i refer to the rates of application. formerly we were told that one-half pound of parathion for one hundred gallons and one pound of ddt would control almost all insects. i note the rates are going up. mr. baker: that's true, particularly with parathion. the first year that we tested parathion on any scale we thought a quarter to a half a pound would control mites for days or more and would control curculio for or days, but the next year we used it we found that was a little optimistic. it seems that each year since we have had to use more of it or use it more often, or with mites, particularly, there are a number of instances where it just doesn't control them at all. two years ago that came to notice in the wenatchee area of washington on apples. mites in a certain orchard just couldn't be controlled with parathion. a year ago the area in the pacific northwest where that was true was extended and included several orchards of the yakima valley. this year it also includes orchards in the east, in new york. we have seen an orchard where two pounds of parathion and a hundred gallons of water just didn't have much effect on the mites, and we have had to use other materials. we hear of instances of codling moth on apples where ddt doesn't seem to be as good as it was in the beginning. i have talked with some of the people working on the problem, and they find that there is quite a difference between different brands of some of these insecticides. possibly that is the answer. mr. machovina: after spraying for shuck maggot with ddt do you encourage the presence of mites? mr. baker: it's very possible that you might. that has happened where ddt has been used. with some of our work with chestnut weevils, mites seem to be a little more abundant where we used ddt. we have had reports of this happening in california where they used ddt on walnuts. so it is a possibility, and that's why i brought into the paper a little information on the control of mites. session closed at : o'clock, p.m. footnotes: [footnote : _hyphantria cunea_ (drury).] [footnote : _datana integerrima_ g. & r.] [footnote : _clastoptera achatina_ germ.] [footnote : _phylloxera devastatrix_ perg.] [footnote : _oncideres cingulata_ (say).] [footnote : _curculio auriger_ casey.] [footnote : _c. proboscideus_ f.] [footnote : _curculio caryae_ (horn).] [footnote : _conotrachelus juglandis_ lee.] [footnote : _conotrachelus retentus_ say.] [footnote : _conotrachelus affinis_ boh.] [footnote : _conotrachelus aratus_ germ.] [footnote : _rhagoletis suavis_ loew.] [footnote : _melissopus latiferreanus_ (wlsm.)] [footnote : _phytoptus avellanae_ nal.] tuesday evening banquet session we will now have the report of the resolutions committee. mr. davidson: "to royal oakes, chairman of the program committee, and to j. ford wilkinson, the city of rockport and its hospitable people, the northern nut growers association extends its grateful greetings to you and to your loyal helpers, mentioning only a few; that is, mrs. negus, mr. and mrs. sly, mr. richard best, a group of people who say little and who do much, our very hearty thanks to you and to your helpers. we have had a splendid meeting, good attendance, good fellowship and tomorrow a good field trip. "resolution: the sincere and grateful appreciation of this association is hereby tendered to j. c. mcdaniel, who has so faithfully and fruitfully served it as secretary for five years. your creation of new avenues of service, such as _the nutshell_ is sufficient evidence of your resourcefulness in a difficult and most important office. "resolution: be it resolved, that this association instruct its secretary to communicate the following action to the responsible agencies of federal and state authorities in all areas where the oak wilt disease is present or threatens: "'the oak wilt disease threatens severe damage to our eastern and southern oaks and chinese chestnut trees. recently reported spread of the disease in ohio, west virginia, maryland and pennsylvania indicates a very serious and critical situation. all state and federal authorities are urged to take prompt and appropriate action before it is too late.'" all nnga members are asked to write to their state and federal senators and representatives urging immediate preventive measures against the spread and for the eradication of the oak wilt disease. please write those letters. they are important. "to dr. deming, greetings and congratulations from your association on the occasion of your th birthday, september , . may your years continue to be golden and happy. may our organization deserve in the future the gifts of inspiration and accomplishment that you have had so large a part in giving it in the past." "to dr. j. russell smith: the northern nut growers assembled at rockport send greetings and best wishes to you. we miss you this year and hope to see you at rochester, new york, next year." "to mildred jones langdoc. mildred: we have missed you at our meeting. your absence is noted by all who know you. may the illness in your home be short. may we see you and your family in rochester in ." "resolution: on behalf of the members of the northern nut growers association the secretary is asked to send our affectionate greetings to two well-loved, absent members, mrs. c. a. reed and mrs. g. a. zimmerman: 'best wishes to you both for speedy recovery of good health and with our hope to see you next year.'" president macdaniels: is it your pleasure to adopt these resolutions all at once, or do you wish to separate them? i take it that you wish to adopt them, all at the same time, and to that end a motion to accept the report of the resolutions committee and to adopt the resolutions and to send the greetings would be appropriate. the report of the resolutions committee was accepted unanimously. mr. mcdaniel: before this meeting convened we planned a bud wood exchange at the convention. mr. gerardi and i brought some buds, and mr. richard brought a few of the rhodes heartnut. we have persimmons, some buds of the new crandall apple, and a few sticks of chinese and hybrid chestnuts. they are for anyone who would like to experiment with them. president macdaniels: next year at rochester we are going to have opportunity for putting on a considerable exhibit of nuts, and i think that it would be much to the advantage of the association, if we could have an outstanding exhibit there where there is a good chance to have a large number of people see the exhibits and become interested. to that end i think that all of us who have nut trees bearing this fall, should save some samples with extra care; that is, clean them up, make them look attractive and have them on hand ready for the exhibit next fall. a good sample for exhibit should be about or a dozen for black walnuts and the persian walnuts and perhaps to for the hickories and the smaller nuts, the hazel, particularly. i think that we have a good chance next year to forward the cause of the association, and certainly having these exhibits will be much to our advantage. at this time, towards the end of our session, it is our usual custom to elect our next year's officers. before going on with that election, i would just like to say that i personally, as president of the association during this year, wish to thank all of the other officers who have worked with me. it has been a pleasure to work with them and with the committee chairmen, and i think the meeting here at rockport and the work during the year attest to their effective service. the nominations committee report. for president next year, mr. r. b. best; for vice-president, george salzer of rochester, new york; for treasurer, carl prell of south bend, indiana, who continues in the office; and for secretary mr. spencer chase of norris, tennessee. the slate presented was elected unanimously. a nominating committee consisting of max hardy, gilbert becker, george slate, dr. william rohrbacker, and ford wilkinson was unanimously elected for . president macdaniels: i will now call upon our newly elected president to come forward. it is usual at these meetings for the retiring president to present the gavel to the incoming president, and here it is. this gavel is made of pecan wood presented to the association by mr. t. p. littlepage, who was born in this locality. i hope you will have as much fun and pleasure as president of the association as i have had. it's all yours. mr. wilkinson: that gavel was made from the wood of a pecan tree. mr. t. p. littlepage planted the nut when he was years old on a piece of land that he inherited as a boy. i cut the wood and sent it to him in washington to have the gavel made of it. chestnut breeding report for - arthur h. graves[ ] and hans nienstaedt, _connecticut agricultural experiment station, new haven, conn._ weather conditions two serious enemies of the chestnut, if we disregard parasitic organisms, are drought and extreme cold. the winter of - was unusually mild--scarcely cold enough to freeze the ground. the precipitation was plentiful during the winter months so that the water table was sufficient to tide over a slightly dry june and a much more serious drought in september and early october. but the latter dry period came when the nuts were matured, or nearly so. the winter of - was again mild except for a short cold spell at the end of january, with plentiful precipitation up to the first week of june, and then a long drought with the driest july since . however, the heavy rainfall of august, . inches,[ ] made amends for this, and with the normal rainfall of . inches of september, prepared the trees to endure the long drought of october and early november. this serious drought,[ ] which resulted in disastrous forest fires filling the air with smoke over much of the new england states, came late, however, after the nuts were nearly matured, some of the early kinds being ripe as early as the first week in september. the excessive heat of july, in which month occurred the greatest number of days on record with a maximum temperature of degrees or above, was probably the chief cause of somewhat smaller results from our cross pollination work. there is evidence, indeed, that for effective fertilization, considerable heat is needed, but not the extreme temperatures that occurred during this period. in spite of the mild winter of - , the attacks of _cryptodiaporthe castanea_ (tul.) wehmeyer caused considerable twig blight, especially on our crosses of _castanea mollissimax seguini_. this is not surprising since _c. seguini_ comes from a warmer region in china, but why these attacks should occur during a mild winter is a puzzle. evidently other factors, such as the drought of the preceding fall, entered in. hybridization in and a total of hybrid nuts was harvested in the season and in . this compares with the nuts reported for . the increased production over past years can in part be ascribed to a concentration of the efforts on a fewer number of different crosses; while were made in , the total was in and in . the pollinations followed the same general program in the two seasons, the emphasis being on the chinese � (japanese � american) hybrids. this is our most promising timber tree hybrid, and it seems worthwhile to test it on a somewhat larger scale under forest conditions. therefore, some of the best early crosses have been repeated, new parent trees are being tried and selected hybrids intercrossed. back-crosses to the native chestnut with the c�ja hybrids were made in an attempt to improve the form of the hybrid. another cross which has attained some importance in the last years is the hybrid between japanese chestnut (forest type, from u.s.d.a.) and s- , the latter being a hybrid between japanese chestnut and _c. pumila_, the common chinquapin. this cross has a high degree of resistance and a sufficiently good form to make it a possible timber tree (fig. ). it is also a fairly good nut bearer with nuts which ripen early, perhaps due to the influence of the chinquapin parent (fig. ). selected individuals of this hybrid were intercrossed, and some crossing with the native chestnut was done. in the last two seasons the total harvest from some older chinese trees ( yrs.) was recorded. the best tree yielded . lbs. in and . lbs. in ; on other trees the yield varied between to lbs. the average size of the nuts varies considerably from year to year on the same tree. on one japanese tree the average weight per nut was . g. in and . g. in ; on a chinese tree the same values were . g. and . g. other trees showed a - per cent increase in the average weight per nut in over . this seems to indicate a marked influence of the climatic conditions during the latter part of the growing season on the weight of the nuts. a long-term study of this relationship might yield some interesting results. [illustration: fig. . hybrid of s- and _castanea crenata_, u.s.d.a, forest type, years old. about ft. high. good forest type and also good nut bearer. blight resistant. sleeping giant chestnut plantation, hamden, conn. photo by louis buhle, brooklyn botanic garden. sept. , .] [illustration: fig. . fruiting branches and nuts of s- � _crenata_, sleeping giant chestnut plantation. about / natural size. photo by b. w. mcfarland, conn. agric. expt. sta. sept. , .] grafting a considerable amount of grafting has been done since and the results have been good. two year old chinese transplants are usually used as rootstocks and all grafting is done in the field. the best results have been obtained where the rootstock plant was transplanted one year prior to the grafting. the simple splicegraft, or the bark or rind graft are used, depending on the size of the scion compared to that of the rootstock, the latter technique being used when the stock is considerably larger than the scion. there is some evidence of incompatibility; thus, scions from chinese trees, or hybrids that show a dominance of chinese characters, give a higher percentage of takes when grafted on chinese rootstocks than scions from the native chestnut, or from hybrids between japanese and native chestnut. some indications of incompatibility between european and chinese chestnut in grafts have also been encountered where scions received through the cooperation of dr. c. schad, centre de recherches agronomiques du massif central, france, and count f. m. knuth, knuthenborg, denmark, were used, but in some cases these grafts were successful. topworking, using the veneer crown graft, has been quite successful as long as sufficient sap drawers are left on the stock (fig. ). inarching the senior writer has already explained in detail ( ) the simple method by which blighted chestnut trees can be restored to health and vigor by cutting out blighted areas in the bark, painting them over, and inarching or ingrafting one or more basal shoots into the healthy bark above the lesion. we do this work from mid-april to mid-may, and make a systematic canvas of all the trees in all our plantations, inarching all those where if is necessary or might be advantageous. each operation requires only a few minutes. last year we put in many hundreds of inarches, altogether, which later showed nearly % "take". owners of chestnut orchards should take advantage of this method of keeping valuable nut-bearing trees, although with cankered areas, in healthy, vigorous condition. we believe that, in cutting out the diseased bark, it is advisable to cut out also a few of the outer annual rings of wood (of course tangentially), especially if the canker is one of long-standing, since we know that the fungus eventually penetrates the outer rings of wood. since that is true, the canker might enlarge later on from this same source of infection. further it may also be possible for spores or bits of mycelium to be transported upward in the sap stream and cause new infections higher up in the tree. a thorough painting of the cut surfaces should go far toward remedying this situation. one can usually judge the extent of damage caused by the blight by the number and vitality of the basal shoots, a large number of basal shoots indicating a heavy attack. however, if the roots have been severely injured, perhaps by short-tailed mice, as sometimes happens, no basal shoots appear, in which case the tree is doomed. if no blight is present, but one or more basal shoots appear (sometimes due to shrubby ancestors), it is advisable to inarch these as an insurance against possible trouble in the future. this inarching process has not received the attention it deserves. there is absolutely no reason why, if this method is followed, there should be _any_ death from blight in resistant hybrids or in japanese or chinese chestnuts, barring, of course, cases where roots are attacked by mice (or _phytophthora_ in warmer regions). those of our trees in connecticut which have been blighted have continued in health and nut-bearing ever since we began the inarching method in (fig. ). if the inarches become blighted, they can themselves be inarched, as shown. [illustration: fig. . veneer crown grafting on chestnut. photo by b. w. mcfarland, conn. agric. expt. sta. may, .] research on blight resistance [illustration: fig. . japanese-american chestnut, yrs. old, showing inarching begun yrs. ago. original trunk, long since dead and now rotting, shows in center. kept alive and vigorous because valuable for hybrid vigor and future breeding. sleeping giant chestnut plantation, hamden, conn. photo by louis buhle, brooklyn botanic garden. sept. , .] a study has been made of the factors that cause the chinese and japanese chestnut to be resistant to the endothia canker, and a close correlation was found between the tannin content of the bark and the relative resistance of the three species, i.e., chinese, japanese and american chestnut. the total tannin concentration in the bark of the asiatic species is only slightly higher than in the american, and native trees can be found with as high a concentration as is found in the asiatic. a similar overlap in resistance does not occur and it is therefore clear that the total tannin concentration as such cannot account for resistance. there is, however, good evidence that the tannins in the asiatic species, as a result of the way in which they are bound to other colloids in the cells, are more soluble than in the american species. this, of course, would have a marked bearing on the effectiveness with which the tannins could check the spread of the parasite. furthermore, it has been found that the types of tannins in the three species differ. in the american and japanese species they are a mixture of catechol and pyrogallol tannins, while they appear to be pure pyrogallol tannins in the chinese species. considering the specificity of the enzyme systems of fungi it is quite possible that different tannins show different degrees of toxicity to a certain fungus. the following hypothesis has been suggested to explain the relative resistance of the three species: in the american chestnut bark the concentration of the available toxic tannin never reaches a level where it can stop the advancing parasite. the tannins in the japanese species, although of the same type as in the native tree, are more soluble and reach a level toxic to the fungus. in the chinese trees all the tannins of the bark belong to the toxic pyrogallol groups, and this, combined with their high solubility, results in the high degree of resistance in this species ( ). the information available at present regarding the formation of tannins in plants is not conclusive. in some plants, apparently, they are formed in the leaves, and the presence of carbon dioxide and light is required; in other plants the tannin concentration can increase when the plants are grown in darkness ( ). a more general formation of tannin in tissues with a high metabolic rate throughout the plant has also been suggested ( ). it would be important to know the centers of origin of the tannins in the chestnut, their translocation, and whether they are translocated through or over graft-unions. in other words, will a susceptible scion when grafted on a resistant rootstock become more resistant because antibiotic substances formed in the roots of the resistant rootstock are translocated into the scion? from a number of older grafts of non-resistant japanese-american hybrid scions on japanese or chinese rootstocks it appears that this indeed might be the case. these grafts, some of which are years old, appear to be more resistant than the original hybrid tree, even if not as resistant as the rootstock. this would indicate the possibility that the antibiotic substances are produced in the roots and translocated into the scion. however, the possibility still remains that the compounds are formed also in the leaves and translocated to the base of the tree. to clarify this whole problem an experiment with chinese-american grafts in different combinations is under way. preliminary results show that antibiotic substances are formed in upper parts of the plants, but that they are not translocated downward across the graft union. thus it was found that chinese branches grafted on two year old american seedlings remained resistant, without the american seedlings showing any increase in resistance. in future experiments the upward translocation will be studied in detail on grafts of american scions on chinese seedlings. some abnormal conditions . _sterility_ sterility occurs quite commonly in interspecific hybrids either because the chromosomes fail to pair in meiosis or because the parent genes when brought together in the hybrid interact in some way deleterious to the formation of sex-cells. furthermore, cytoplasmic sterility is likely to occur in a wide cross. sterility has been encountered in several instances in american � chinese and japanese � american hybrids. in most cases it is a case of pollen abortion only; either anthers fail to develop completely as shown in fig. , b, or the anthers develop but are much reduced in size and contain no functioning germ cells. pollen sterility is not sporadic in a given individual: it is uniform throughout the flowering branches. the individual flowers are arranged on the catkin axis as in the normal flowers (fig. ). but when the flowers open, a hand lens reveals - tiny, membranous perianth-segments for each tiny flower, whitish in color, and more or less connected at their bases. a minute rounded mass appears in the center of the flower, perhaps primordia of abortive stamens, but this does not develop further. the catkin begins to take on a brownish color and at length the whole catkin, in case it is staminate, drops off. if it is androgynous, the staminate part drops off, or withers. these male sterile trees appear to have a normal, sometimes excessive, development of the females, and are quite prolific nut producers. information on the occurrence of female sterility in the hybrid trees is incomplete, but the indications are that at least partial sterility is frequent. [illustration: fig. . a. normal androgynous catkin (female flower at base); b. androgenous catkin with sterile pollen. from sleeping giant chestnut plantation, hamden, conn. photo by mary alice clark, conn. agric. expt. sta. july, .] . _triploid hybrid_ in we produced a cross of chinese and american chestnut which proved to be unusual in several respects. the leaves are enormous-- inches to foot in length, and or inches in width. the hybrid is not particularly blight resistant but more so than its american parent. it died back from the blight about and the present tree has developed as a shoot from the old roots. the growth is rapid and vigorous. the flowers appear normal, but we have never been able to make a cross with its pollen, nor to effect fertilization of its pistillate flowers. it may be triploid, that is, with sets of chromosomes instead of the normal double set, and this would account for its barrenness. in the spring of some of the vigorous shoots of this tree were successfully grafted on shoots from an old stump of chinese chestnut, using the veneer crown graft method. the scions had not been taken when dormant, but were transferred directly from the tree to the stock in late april. this grafting was done in order to impart greater resistance, if possible, to the ca hybrid by means of the roots of the chinese stock. . _systemic defect_ since the early 's we have seen occasional individuals with abnormal foliage--somewhat mottled, usually curled and often misshapen. thinking that a virus might be the cause of this trouble the senior author tried grafting some of the shoots on to healthy stocks. the grafts were in no case successful because the scions were too weak. finally he succeeded in grafting a branch from an affected tree on to a branch of a normal individual. the only result was an increased vigor of the healthy branch. this year he rubbed juices from leaves of such an abnormal individual on to wounded healthy leaves, without result. moreover, such sick individuals, although growing for years close to healthy trees, have never communicated the malady to their neighbors. growth is comparatively slow, and there is much dying back or dying out of the slender branchlets. the evidence indicates that this is _not_ a virus trouble, but a systemic defect, probably caused by chromosome aberration or gene abnormality. it is significant that this trouble occurs only in hybrids. such trees never flower. we have known four such cases, two of which are now dead. similar types appear in other species as inherited deviations from normal. insect injuries a heavy attack from the spring canker worms developed in , but spraying with ddt on may th prevented serious damage. no outbreak of canker worms appeared in the spring of . the japanese beetle has been very little in evidence. the principal bad actors are the mites, _paratetranychus bicolor._ although barely visible to the naked eye, the effect they produce of whitening the leaves is conspicuous, especially on the chinese chestnut and its hybrids. these insects overwinter in egg form on the surface of the bark. last winter they were so numerous on some of the trees that the bark had taken on a red color--especially on smooth-barked trunks just below a branch. an application of "scalecide" on april , while the trees were still dormant, followed by two heavy applications of "aramite" ( - lbs. per acre) on june th and th, gave good control for the rest of the summer. spraying with ddt for weevils was done on august th and september rd in with good results. cooperative hybrid chestnut plantations in the first hybrid chestnut plantation under forest conditions was made in cooperation with the u.s.d.a. bureau of plant industry, division of forest pathology. the plantations are made in order to test the hybrids under normal forest conditions and different climatic conditions. in general, each plantation consists of about trees, u.s.d.a. hybrids and connecticut hybrids. the trees are planted at a ' by ' spacing, and the overstory is girdled at the time of planting in order to give the plants better light conditions without causing an abrupt change in the microclimate of the forest floor--a method developed by dr. j. d. diller of the division of forest pathology ( ). ten plantations at locations have been established since . these are listed below: no. of plots location year established ------------------------------------------------------------------- edward childs estate, norfolk, conn. tennessee valley authority, norris, tenn. table rock state park, pickens, s.c. antioch college, yellow springs, ohio upper perkiomen valley park, green lane, pa. so. ill. univ. fish & wildlife service, cartersville, ill. russ state forest, decatur, mich. nathan hale state forest, coventry, conn. ouichata nat'l. forest, hot springs, ark. ------------------------------------------------------------------- connecticut state ownership of sleeping giant plantations on april , , at a meeting at the "little red house", sleeping giant mountain, the lands on the sleeping giant mountain, hamden, connecticut, about acres, on which about chestnut trees are now growing, including nearly every chestnut species known to science, and many valuable, blight resistant hybrids, were formally deeded over to the state of connecticut by their owner, the senior writer of this report. the meeting was attended by officials of the sleeping giant park association, the connecticut state park and forest commission, the connecticut agricultural experiment station, and the yale school of forestry. the transfer to the state was made with the understanding that the connecticut agricultural experiment station would continue the chestnut breeding work. the whole region is now undergoing a fairly rapid housing development, and in the ordinary course of mortal events this plantation would have been divided into building lots within the next few decades. the state ownership will obviate this, and the connecticut agricultural experiment station sponsorship will assure a continuation of the breeding work. literature cited . diller, j. d. growing chestnuts for timber. th ann. rept. of northern nut grower's assn. for . - . . . graves, arthur harmount. a method of controlling the chestnut blight on partially resistant species and hybrids of _castanea_. st ann. rept. of northern nut growers assn. . - . . . hauser, willibald. zur physiologie des gerbstoffes in der pflanzenzelle. iii. protoplasma : - . - . . nienstaedt, hans. tannin as a factor in the resistance of chestnut, castanea spp., to the chestnut blight fungus, _endothia parasitica_. phytopathology : - . . . nierenstein, m. the natural organic tannins. j. & a. churchill. footnotes: [footnote : also of the division of forest pathology, u.s.d.a., plant industry station, beltsville, maryland.] [footnote : records furnished by the u.s. weather bureau at new haven, conn.] [footnote : october, , was among the six driest octobers on record. these were: , , , and . from u.s. weather report, new york city.] effect of vermiculite in inducing fibrous roots on tap-rooting tree seedlings herbert c. barrett[ ] and toru arisumi[ ] when seedlings of nut trees and other tap-rooted species are transplanted from nursery to orchard, the percentage of survival in often quite low. perhaps the chief reason for this failure is the marked and pronounced tendency of most tap-rooted plants to produce little or no fibrous, branched roots in lieu of the long, straight, and seldom branched tap roots. the common practice of undercutting seedlings during the dormant season to induce a branched root system requires additional labor, and often results in reduced growth and vigor during the following season. the use of hardware cloth or other close-meshed wire is effective, but this method also has the disadvantage of being relatively expensive for the nurseryman. preliminary work carried on during the past two years has shown that with certain nut trees and other tap-rooted plants, it is possible to induce fibrous roots by growing such seedlings in vermiculite. the methods and results of this work are presented in this paper. material and methods seeds of black walnut (_juglans nigra_), persian walnut (_juglans regia_), chinese chestnut (_castanea mollissima_), pignut hickory (_carya glabra_), shellbark hickory (_carya laciniosa_), shagbark hickory (_carya ovata_), pecan (_carya illin_), pawpaw (_asimina triloba_), and three persimmons (_diospyros kaki_, _d. lotus_, and _d. virginiana_) were stratified in moist sawdust for three months at a temperature range of to degrees f. after this period of stratification the seeds of each species were divided into three lots and planted in flats x x inches containing one of the following media: ( ) sharp sand of the type used in potting soil, ( ) potting soil, and ( ) vermiculite. seeds were kept moist with ordinary tap water and allowed to germinate and grow in the greenhouse. when the seedlings had grown two or three true leaves, they were carefully removed from the medium and examined for the type of root system developed. results in the first eight species listed in table , the differences between branched and tap-rooted seedlings were quite pronounced. the few tap-rooted seedlings growing in vermiculite medium showed some laterals and were less strongly tap-rooted than those in soil or sand. pawpaws in soil and sand media were practically devoid of laterals, and their fibrous root system in vermiculite was not as pronounced as with the walnuts, hickories, and pecans. of the species studied, the persimmons table . sand soil vermiculite species number of plants tap rooted fibrous tap fibrous tap fibrous black walnut persian walnut chinese chestnut pignut hickory shellbark hickory shagbark hickory pecan pawpaw d. kaki d. lotus d. virginia showed the least tendency to produce tap-rooted seedlings. typical branched or fibrous-rooted seedlings grown in vermiculite are illustrated in figure . [illustration: fig. . seedlings grown in vermiculite medium. left, _juglans regia_; right, _castanea mollissima_.] summary the chief difficulty encountered in transplanting several nut tree and other commonly tap-rooted seedlings is thought to be due to the lack of a branched root system. the methods and results of a fairly simple technique of inducing fibrous roots, that of growing seedlings in vermiculite, have been presented. footnotes: [footnote : first assistant in plant breeding, university of illinois, department of horticulture.] [footnote : formerly half-time assistant in plant breeding, university of illinois, department of horticulture.] eastern black walnut survey, h. f. stoke, _roanoke, va._ the northern nut growers association, at its annual meeting, adopted a resolution directing that a survey covering the eastern american black walnut, _juglans nigra_ be conducted during the ensuing year, and that the services of the state and regional vice-presidents be utilized in making the survey. in carrying out this mandate fifty questionaires were sent out, and replies were received. of these, were from the states, including the district of columbia, three were from canada, including british columbia, ontario and prince edward island, respectively, and one was from belgium. from these replies, as compiled, it is apparent that the natural range of the american black walnut may be defined approximately as follows: beginning at the atlantic seaboard at massachusetts bay curving slightly northward then westward across northeastern new york to toronto and on westward across lower ontario, lake huron, michigan, wisconsin and minnesota, in which state the line curves south-westward, crossing about the northwest corner of iowa. from this point the line runs approximately south across the eastern parts of nebraska, kansas, oklahoma and texas. as the line approaches the gulf of mexico it turns eastward, crossing the southern parts of louisiana, mississippi, alabama and georgia, back again to the atlantic. the natural range of the black walnut may be said to have been limited on the north by winter cold, on the west by lack of sufficient rainfall and on the south by a winter climate too mild for the required dormant rest period. where these limitations are removed the american black walnut appears to do well far out of its natural range. in its native state it seemed to thrive best along water-ways and in hollows among the hills and mountains, though it was also to be found on the uplands wherever the soil was fertile and other conditions favorable. the overflow of streams undoubtedly did much to distribute and plant the seed, aided always by the ubiquitous squirrel. twenty-nine of the states reported the trees as thrifty and bearing well-filled nuts. eastern maryland reported the trees as thrifty but the nut crop light. michigan reports the nuts as having been well filled formerly, but poor in recent years. west virginia makes a similar report, and attributes poor crops to the presence of anthracnose, a fungus disease of the leaves causing early defoliation. the nut crop of the wild trees appears to be ungathered to a large extent, taking the country as a whole. eleven states report whole husked nuts being marketed in a limited way and six report the marketing of home-produced kernels. prices for the whole nuts are quoted as low as $ . per bushel, with a top of $ . per bushel for kansas-produced named varieties. accurate statistics as to whole nut and kernel production are not available. tennessee reports black walnut cracking plants, as follows: one each at lebanon and morristown, and three located at nashville. a west virginia report estimates the state's kernel production at $ , per annum. a cracking plant in st. louis is reported as processing - / million pounds of whole nuts annually, for which it pays - / cents per pound. other cracking plants reported are one at stanford, kentucky, one at broadway, virginia and one or two in west virginia, location unstated. no statement was received as to the amount of business done by these. a new one is starting operations at henderson, kentucky in . production of black walnut kernels as a home industry has languished since the federal ruling that the kernels must be pasteurized as soon as produced. most of such kernels are now consumed locally, so as not to run afoul of inter-state regulations. no epidemic has, as yet, been traced to such local use. a question designed to disclose what named varieties give the best results in the various localities was not very effective. replies usually came in the form of lists of varieties being planted with little definite indication as to the ones that have proven superior. as might be expected, thomas led the list by being mentioned times. elmer myers was listed times, stabler , ohio , mintle , snyder , (new york and tenn.), sifford , (kentucky and kansas), and the following one each: adams, grundy, korn (michigan); rohwer, vandersloot (kansas); sparrow, victoria, homeland (north carolina); ten eyck (new jersey); creitz (virginia); and impit (british columbia). a study of the geographical distribution of the preferred varieties fails to produce any significant conclusions as to the varieties best adapted to any specific state. doubtless thomas heads the list because it has had the longest and largest distribution. a new york state survey gave thomas the preference times, snyder , myers , ohio , and one each to several other varieties. a similar survey in new jersey gave thomas preference , stabler , ten eyck and ohio . one new jersey correspondent reported ohio as "excellent", another listed ten eyck as "fair", and a third reported thomas as "terrible". one kansas producer reports thomas his best and ohio his worst. another kansan reports the exact opposite. pennsylvania reports ohio as best, stabler as worst. her neighbor to the east, new jersey, rates stabler highly, as does ohio, immediately to the west. the notable leaf-disease resistance of the ohio variety is worthy of the consideration of planters in districts where early defoliation causes poor filling of the nuts. for a late comer, the thin-shelled myers makes a strong showing, which may be significant. it is worth watching. until there is wider planting and production of the named varieties, it will not be possible to name the varieties best adapted to any specific state or location, in the opinion of your reporter. the possibilities of profit in planting black walnut orchards have not been determined. from pennsylvania comes the report that of the several black walnut orchards planted twenty-five years ago, only three are now being given care. a ten-acre orchard at wharton, md. that, presumably, was being given special care, is reported as nearly all dead--"too much commercial fertilizer, or the wrong kind." the report on several small west virginia plantings is submitted as "inconclusive". the main general interest at present appears to be the planting of the better walnuts on home grounds and on the farm. twenty-four states reported such use, with varying degrees of interest. considering that the black walnut is our finest cabinet wood, and one of the best in the world, forestry planting may be truthfully said to be lagging deplorably. the state of pennsylvania has shown some interest and made some small plantings. ohio has done some planting. the sunny hill coal company of new lexington, ohio, is reported to have planted seedlings. in indiana ford wallick has reported the planting of bu. of seed, the seedlings to be budded later to the lamb curly walnut. tennessee and west virginia report small plantings. kansas reports some interest in planting walnuts on lands that have been destroyed for agricultural purposes by strip coal mining. as a whole, the forestry plantings of the walnut of the future, as of the past, appear mainly dependent on the untiring squirrel. there has never been an adequate supply of walnut timber since pioneer days when walnut logs were rolled together for burning in the clearing of land, or split for fence rails, nor is an adequate supply in sight for the future. in producing districts buyers are always ready to pounce on the owner of any walnut tree of marketable size. prices paid are usually much lower than the real value of the timber, partly because the stand is so scattering as to prevent the use of efficient means of logging and transportation. of all the agencies tending to destroy the black walnut, war is the most devastating. the superb qualities of the wood for the making of gun stocks causes the country to be combed more and more closely by buyers in each succeeding war. however, from the standpoint of human interest, the picture is not wholly dark. it is perhaps too much to expect that private enterprise will enter into the long-time investment necessary for extensive forestry plantings, but the states can and should do so in connection with their park and forestry programs. as already indicated some few states are working in that direction. of perhaps more immediate concern and value are the possibilities of interesting the -h clubs and similar organizations of youth in making home and farm plantings. refreshingly encouraging is the following excerpt from the report of the arkansas state vice-president, mr. a. c. hale, a vocational instructor of camden, arkansas. "when a student comes into the class of vocational agriculture in the ninth grade i try to get him to plant some black walnuts so they will get big enough to graft while he is in high school. the use of this method is helpful in getting many trees started. by grafting one or more of the persian walnuts, interest is also added." "one way that has helped me get people started with a tree on the home grounds is to pot a few sprouted nuts and when a neighbor is sick take a seedling walnut instead of a flower. i usually go back to help with the transplanting of it." such practical methods, if widely used, would bring far more valuable results than any legislative program. the virginia polytechnic institute is showing some interest, and conducted a field clinic in top-working the walnut in the shenandoah valley area in the spring of . county agents have become interested, and a county-wide black walnut contest will be held at harrisonburg, va., nov. and th of this year, in which vpi is collaborating. it is hoped this idea will spread. on prince edward island, just off the canadian east coast, there does not appear to be enough summer heat to mature the nuts, though the tree is grown somewhat on home grounds. in the fruit-growing sections of british columbia the black walnut appears quite at home, trees of a diameter of from three to four feet being reported at chilliwack, in the fraser river valley. j. u. gellattly also reports the walnut at brooks and medicine hat, alberta. confirmation of the ability of the black walnut to stand extremely low temperatures is to be found in a letter of aug. , from w. r. leslie, superintendent, dominion experiment station, morden, manitoba, as follows: "black walnut is doing fairly well in such places as the provincial horticultural station, brooks, alberta, (p. d. hargrave, supt.), and at portage la prairie, winnipeg and morden, manitoba. apparently the black walnut enjoys a heavier soil than the butternut (or white walnut). the white has been more widely planted than the black. the manchurian seems hardier than either and is the most rapid grower of the three _juglans_ on test here. however, the two natives usually give us a fairly abundant crop of nuts." "our source of black walnut was from around new ulm, minnesota; the butternut came from around sault ste. marie, at the lower end of lake superior. i am not aware of either indigenous species being native closer than the points mentioned." belgium reports the black walnut as thriving in door-yards and along roadways, where the nuts are mentioned as a menace to traffic. in conclusion it is urged that friends of conservation and a sound economy should lend their every effort to the extension of black walnut plantings. some progress has been made since the days of pioneer plunder, but much remains to be done. thanks are extended to all those who have contributed to this survey. crath's carpathian english walnuts in ontario [ ]p. c. crath, _ felbrigg ave., toronto , ontario_ introduction the english walnut (juglans regia) in england is known as persian walnut. some think that the nuts originated in persia. the primeval forests of english walnut trees, which in many places cover the southern as well as northern slopes of the caucasian mountains show that caucasia is the country of the origin of those trees. but in the western carpathian mountains in europe geologists had excavated ancient walnuts in the salt rocks of the pits of weliczka. in some places of the eastern carpathians walnuts could be found in a wild stage; and of course domesticated walnuts flourish in every ukrainian orchard from the northern slopes of the carpathians up to the southern banks of the pripet river, and all over ukraine as far as the don. but there they could not be found in a wild form. walnuts in such countries as italy, spain, france are probably of persian origin. since canada was discovered by cartier european settlers have many times tried to introduce the southern european walnuts in to the new world, but without success. only in california, along the ocean's shore, europeans succeeded in acclimatizing some, as they think, "english walnuts"; though in reality the california walnuts are halfbreeds. in old ontario the people enjoyed the local wild black walnuts, butternuts and hickory. up to the present english walnuts are imported into this province. when in i settled in toronto and found that even in the southern part of the province, so rich in different fruits, no english walnuts grew there, i was amazed. in my old home in the ukraine walnut trees were as common as elms in ontario. and i have found that the southern ontario climate is warmer than the climate of kiev or poltava regions in ukraine. it has seemed to me that english walnuts from the carpathian region should thrive well around toronto. my experiments in my old home i have heard gardeners say: "where apples grow, walnuts will grow there also." and around toronto there i have seen nice apple orchards producing splendid fruits. the ontario apple trees withstood winter colds well, and that fact encouraged me to try to plant english walnuts from ukraine in the neighborhood of toronto. at the end of the first world war ukraine revolted against the russian empire and at the same time she was fighting for her independence with poland. at that time my father's family lived in the city of stanyslaviv at the northern foot of the carpathians. i asked my sister to send me as many local english walnut seeds by mail as she could. giving such an order to my sister i expected that the nuts would arrive not later than the end of october, just in time to be planted before the freeze up. this was in . i remembered from my boyhood that planting of english walnut seeds was surrounded by some mystery. it seemed to me that people in ukraine regarded it as a very difficult matter to cultivate walnut trees. being under such a notion myself i asked a horticulturist how long the germination power of a walnut seed would last. he told me that it could prevail in a fresh walnut not longer than a week. he advised me in order to prevent walnuts from drying to dip them in melted parawax. following that information i wrote my sister to parawax the walnut seeds before sending them to canada. owing to the polish-ukrainian war at that time the shipment of the walnut seeds got to toronto not late in the fall, as had been expected, but in february when the farm land around toronto was frozen. and the worst of it was my sister did not parawax the nuts! being sure the kernels were dead i allowed the children to do what they pleased with them. but before they cracked the last one my wife advised me to plant a dozen of the nuts in our flower pots, as she said, "for fun". i did it. other nuts the children destroyed, and in spite of my sorrow and anguish in two weeks the walnut sprouts came up in the pots. everyone of them came up, proving that you do not need to protect walnut germination by dipping the nuts into melted parawax. from the flower pots the walnut seedlings were transplanted that spring of into our city garden at peterboro ave., toronto. at least a thousand of the kernels of several varieties were thus destroyed and i was obliged to wait until another fall when the _juglans regia_ nuts were sent again by my sister. they came also late in the winter and were dry as pepper. in the spring of i took the walnut seeds of the second shipment to the farm of my friend mr. m. kozak located a couple of miles north of the scarboro golf club. there i soaked them in water in a tub for five days and then planted in rows - / ft. apart, row from row, and the nuts inches apart nut from nut and two inches deep. in a couple of weeks nearly every nut produced a sapling. i kept them well cultivated the whole summer, and in the fall the seedlings were from six to eight inches tall. the nuts on the kozak farm were of different varieties; some were small, some large, some were round, some oblong, some paper-thin-shelled, some hard shelled; some varieties had sweet kernels, some had a little slightly bitter taste, some were flat. according to their variety the bark of the seedlings, some of them at least, was shiny brown, while other varieties had their bark shiny dark green, light gray, light green. now i have known how to produce walnut seedlings. then another worry came--could the seedlings stand the ontario winter? they had stood the winter of - very well. only the tops of those were spoiled, which were injured by buffalo tree hoppers. it seemed that the regular ontario caterpillars did not like the sap of the english walnut foliage. but the worst enemies of the carpathians was the bacterial disease. the leaves and young shoots curled, turned black, being infested by the disease. in such a case the spraying is needed. acquaintance with the vineland government experimental farm somehow, but very soon after i started my experiments with english carpathian walnuts in ontario, mr. james neilson, the nut specialist in the government experimental farm, vineland, ont. discovered me. by him i was introduced to the late mr. g. h. corsan of islington, ont. who was known as a prominent nut grower in ontario. in the year , when we met the first time, mr. corsan already was interested in the culture of black walnuts and butternuts, in hickories, pecans, hicans and filberts. soon i transferred my english carpathian walnut nursery to corsan's place at islington. mr. corsan, with a great deal of enthusiasm broadcasted my carpathians all over the american continent, but under different names: english walnuts, persian, russian, carpathian, etc. soon we were joined by a third walnut enthusiast mr. l. k. davitt, a teacher in a toronto high school. prof. c. t. currelly the founder and at that time the director of the royal ontario museum of archeology in toronto, also became interested in my walnut experiments. then later on some other prominent torontonians followed us and the nut growers society of ontario was organized. americans also became interested in the carpathian walnuts. first among them was a graduate from cornell university, a farmer near ithaca, n. y., mr. samuel graham. mr. george slate of the geneva experiment station was one of the first americans who early got interested in the carpathians. there in the states is the northern nut growers association. following mr. corsan i also became a member of the association. my research in english walnuts in ukraine from the year until i spent most of my time as a presbyterian missionary in western ukraine, which was then under polish occupation. from time to time i used to come to canada on furlough. every time, coming from ukraine, i brought also a box or more of carpathian english walnuts for planting. then i liked to tell dr. palmer, the director of the vineland government experimental farm about my research in walnuts in ukraine. in western ukraine my headquarters were in the city of kolomyja, province of galicia, at the foot of the eastern carpathians. thus i was in the center of the culture of the carpathian walnuts. though my circuit was very large (provinces of galician and volynia) and there was a time when i served congregations, nevertheless i had a little time also to study the english walnuts in their native environments. before starting the research in that country i decided for myself what in my conception should be the ideal english walnut. i have come to the conclusion that the nut should be of large size, thin shelled, its kernel well filled up, being of a pleasant sweet taste; inside of the nut there should be no partitions, thus allowing the kernel to roll out unbroken. then i printed questionnaire blanks for each individual nut tree to be examined. beside the above mentioned questions i added: what is the name and address of the owner of the tree, and its location? how old, tall and thick the trunk of tree is? how many pounds of the nuts the tree yielded that year? in what kind of soil does it thrive? what enemies attack it? what fertilizer, or manure, has been used in the particular case, or none? is there in the nuts, leaves and bark any sign of cross-pollination? regarding the grafting and budding i found that the local nut-growers had not the slightest idea how to go about it. they also did not care to prevent their walnut trees from cross-pollination. soon i found that there in galicia alone could be found several hundreds of varieties of carpathian english walnuts. anyway till , i sent to toronto varieties of the carpathians. some of those english carpathian walnuts were - / inches long, or five nuts to a foot; others were only one third of an inch. some very small carpathians produced nuts in clusters, like grapes. in some carpathians it was possible to detect cross-pollination with asiatic walnuts by their harder shells, by partitions, by the shape of nuts, by the construction of the leaves and their odor, and in some cases by the color of bark. by kernels all the carpathian halfbreeds are english walnuts, differing group from group by the taste. i remember that only in in the bourg of loubni, and in in the city of kolomyja i came across two trees which resembled our black walnut. in both towns some people used to live in america, and coming home they could bring with them some american nuts. in the region around kossiv i came across groves of american black walnuts and butternuts. those trees were planted there by the austrian government or so years ago. of course they did not cause all the hybridizing i mentioned above. maybe the asiatic nuts were brought in eastern carpathians when the tartar hordes crossed the mountains in the region of pokouttia (kossiv) in the year . not far from kossiv, westward, in the village of kosmuch in the carpathians feet above sea level i found english walnut trees of small size ( feet tall, inches thick) with light gray bark, producing inch long nuts of speary shape, like our canadian butternuts but of english walnut shells and kernels. the kernels were tasty. there was no question but that they were halfbreeds, english plus mongolian nuts. there in kosmuch, not far from the historical tartar passage, through which in th century ghengis khan hordes invaded the danube plains, in winter the temperature falls to degrees below zero. owing to the hardiness of the strain and pleasant taste of the nuts i picked up about pounds of them to be tried in colder parts of ontario, (and some of them already are bearing north of toronto and true to the type.) i called the nuts hutzulian pointies, as they grow in hutzulia the country of the ukrainian mountaineers. the year . my last trip to western ukraine in ontario farmers were slow to grasp the idea of cultivating my carpathian english walnuts. either they did not believe the english walnuts could thrive in this province, or waited till my trees would start to bear. nevertheless some thousand of my seedlings were planted here and there all over ontario and smaller quantities in the maritime provinces, manitoba and alberta. the late sir wm. mulock hired mr. corsan to graft with the carpathian scions tops of many of his black walnut trees in orillia, ont. fred gaby, the engineer who built the ontario hydro, ordered through me from ukraine to feet tall carpathians of bearing age and planted them on acres near cooksville. ont. prof. currelly has bought acres near his estate west of pt. hope, ont. for my use in experimental work. the late col. mcalpyne planted one thousand of my yearlings on his estate at fenelon falls, ont. two young farmers, papple bros., in the georgian bay region also started an english carpathian walnut orchard. in i moved my carpathian walnut nursery from islington to prof. currelly's estate, and mr. l. k. devitt sold his lot of the trees through the dominion seed co., georgetown, ont. in the states, mr. carl weschoke, a manufacturer in st. paul, minn., who in the year was elected the president of the northern nut growers association, also got interested in carpathians. his son-in-law about that time started a walnut nursery on their estate some miles east of st. paul. that year mr. weschoke sponsored my expedition to northeastern poland (northwestern ukraine) to find the geographical line north of which english walnuts do not thrive in europe. my expedition was successful. i discovered that northward from the pripet river, which flows from west to east toward the dneiper, english walnuts could not be found. if i had come across there some english seedlings nearer to the lithuanian boundary and the baltic sea shore, they would have been planted there recently and not before the year . farther north, though there english walnuts do not thrive, around the lake peipus i came across filberts not as bushes but as large trees. every fall peasants in that district go in the woods and bring bags of filberts for winter use. such filbert trees i found also in the carpathian mountains near the ukrainian settlement of vizhnytza in the province of bukovina. west of the town of sarny and south of the pripet i came across a grove of ancient english walnut trees. in the year when ukrainian hetman bohdan khmelnytzky led a war against poland those trees already were years old, and they still were bearing in when i visited that region. indeed their limbs were broken and they presented a sad sight, but they proved how long the ukrainian english walnut could live. the seeds of those ancient trees i also shipped to mr. weschcke. beside that i brought to my sponsors thousands of selected walnut seeds, seedlings and scions. my english carpathian walnut tree in the back yard of peterboro ave. toronto, ont., being planted out there from the pot in the spring of started to produce nuts in . the nuts were exactly to the type: oblong, pointy, inch and a half long, the shell semi-hard, partitions large, the kernel of pleasant taste. it started to produce female bloom when it was years old, but till there were no catkins of male bloom. the crop of the nuts, that year and following years was usually carried away by marauding black squirrels. other people who got from us the carpathian english walnut seedlings reported that their plants also started to bear the seventh year or around that. but the papple bros. reported that they had a case when a seedling produced by them straight from the carpathian walnut bore a nut in the second year of its life. on the other hand there were cases where some carpathian english seedlings, as well as grafted ones, still produce no nuts though they are years old and over. i think the cause lies in the soil. on the gravelly hills over ithaca, n. y. carpathian walnuts are slow to bear, even being grafted. the undersoil in the valleys miles north of pt. hope, ont. is not favorable, not only for english walnuts but even for native black walnuts, though very favorable to hickories. on another hand, north-east of toronto and near unionville at the place called hagerman cornor on the farm of mr. m. artymko there is an orchard of crath's carpathian english walnuts over years old, each fruiting now every year. the trees are feet tall, - inches thick, situated on a knoll of clay, well drained soil, lying open toward the northwest. when the trees were younger they were subject to attacks of the bacterial disease and their barks were cracked by frost. now the trees are in nice shape, no trace of the bacterial disease injuries and the frost's scars disappearing. some of those trees produced a bushel of the nuts each. among artymko's trees there is a tree bearing the walnut of giant type, and the tree--hutzulian pointie. the success of the artymko's farm lies probably in the soil and its high elevation. there in toronto mr. t. h. barrister, has in his backyard two carpathian english walnuts, producing nuts of the giant size--five nuts to a foot. the bacterial disease had touched them slightly, and the tree never has been sprayed. we should expect that the ontario agricultural college at guelph would find out what is the best soil for english walnuts and what fertilizer to be applied for them. chicken wire fences should protect the walnut orchard from squirrels and the trees should be sprayed against bacterial disease. about walnut trees bearing and fertilizer--let us return to their native abode in the carpathians. there in the village of peestynka i have come across a large english walnut tree feet tall and about years old which, as i was informed by the people there, never fruited till the first world war. during the war an austrian horse squadron had put a stall around the tree. the horses well manured the soil around there and since that time the tree was bearing nuts regularly and abundantly when i saw it in . at last success! the year should be regarded as the final establishing of the culture of the carpathian english walnuts in ontario. the three decades of experimentation have passed leaving a splendid result. the fact is established that the carpathian english walnuts have become aclimatized in south ontario. this fall i had an opportunity to examine my walnut trees at many points in the province. everywhere i have seen the tree bearing. in toronto in many a backyard, in thorold south, in welland, in port colboren, in islington, near port hope on prof. currelly's estate, around scarboro, ont. and so on, the carpathians are in good shape and all are bearing. the more the trees mature, the better they look. on the average they are years old, feet tall and inches thick. the summer of in ontario was more cloudy than usual, and it caused the carpathian walnuts in this province to turn out smaller than their size, should be about one quarter smaller. the people who knew carpathian english walnut trees in galicia agree that in ontario the carpathians grow more slowly than they do in their native land. it is not in ontario, but on the university farm at madison, wisconsin, one of our carpathian trees is nearly feet tall and bearing. in galicia i had seen many a carpathian walnut tree as high as feet. polish government interested in my activity during the time of my activities, in the town of kessiv, there used to live a famous physician, dr. tarnawski. outside of his clinics he was much interested in the welfare of the country. my activities could not be hidden from his sight. "what does that "american" see in our nuts? are there in america no nuts?" he asked. soon i was introduced to him. it was in the fall of . he was not well and in bed at that time. he liked to talk with me about the walnut culture and wished to know why i was collecting the nuts, scions and seedlings for canada. and then it seemed to him impossible that there in ontario and the northeastern states english walnuts were not yet cultivated. then i turned his attention to the fact that in poland they know little about their own trees. my challenge awoke him to activity, and through his intervention starosta, the county governor, planted the first twenty-five acres with walnut seedlings along the south side of the highway leading from kessiv to the town of kooty. dr. tarnawski wrote also an article to a horticultural magazine on english walnuts on what he learned from me. when in the fall of i was going back to my home in toronto, dr. tarnawski wrote about me to the department of agriculture in warsaw introducing me to the minister. i had an opportunity to give a talk on the carpathian english walnuts in the presence of many horticulturists in the government experimental farm at skieerniewice near warsaw. late in i came back to canada and till the second world war continued to cultivate the carpathian walnuts and other horticultural material brought by me from western ukraine. the second war cut me off from my field in europe. a decade and a half has passed. the carpathians have been acclimatized, have grown, and have been bearing nuts in ontario. when such success has been achieved, it seems that there in canada all the enterprise is forgotten. of course, the carpathian walnuts could not advertise themselves--they are "dumb critters." in the states the situation with the carpathians is entirely different. interest in them is growing steadily, and as i said previously the american nurseries have already put the carpathians on the broad market. in at the annual meeting the northern nut growers association made me an honorary member of the association. in the association held a contest and the "crath" carpathians won most of the prizes. culture of crath's carpathian english walnut trees . _propagation by seeds_ pick up the largest and heaviest nuts from a certain tree. dry them in a windy place, but not in the sun. gather the nuts into a jute bag and hang for the winter in a dry and cold place protected from squirrels. around may th put the nuts into a vessel with lukewarm water, soak about one week. prepare a bed of rich soil manured previously with horse manure. the land should not be of a wet kind. plant the nuts in rows, inches nut from nut, and two feet, row from row. protect your nursery from squirrels. in a week or two the nuts should come up. keep the nursery free from weeds. it will protect the seedling from the buffalo tree hoppers. if the signs of the bacterial disease are detected spray the seedlings at once. for the first winter leave the seedlings as they are in the field. the next spring dig them up, every one. cut off the leading root of each plant and transplant the seedlings again in rows a foot apart seedling from seedling and two feet row from row. the amputation of the leading root causes the seedling to grow up instead of down and will make them start to bear nuts earlier. in europe instead of cutting off the walnut seedling's main roots they put under them a flat stone, or start in an earthen pot. the next spring the walnut seedlings are ready for the permanent planting. being permanently transplanted they should be cultivated at least two or three years. whitewash the walnut trunks in the late fall to protect bark from bursting by the winter sun. put a screen around the trunks to protect them from mice and rabbits. though, if a walnut is gnawed by rodents do nothing about it, the tree will produce a stalk--a new one--from the root. . _propagation by grafting_ take canadian black walnut seedling, one or two years old early in the spring, if you have a greenhouse and can graft them one inch above the root line, tie up with raffia, cover with melted parawax and put in boxes covering each row with light soil mixed with the moss. after th of may when the danger of frost is over transplant in your nursery. the grafting of walnuts should be called a barking method. cut off the upper part of the stock horizontally. split the bark with your grafting knife as much as needed and lift up the bark as far as the wood and insert the scion. tie up with raffia and do the rest as said previously. the top grafting on the large canadian black nuts gives good results also. . _budding_ we bud the walnuts in the middle of august. regular "t" cut has to be done, the bud put in and wrapped with raffia. then it should be covered with parawax and left for a couple of weeks. after that time the budding should be examined and the raffia removed. if the leaf by the bud remains green it indicates that the grafting is successful. the next spring, cut off the upper part of the stalk about two feet over the bud. you will tie up to it the budded shoot, which by the fall might be up to feet high. spraying and cultivating is required as has been said above. owing to the fact that the budded plant in its first year continues to grow deep into fall and in many cases its upper part does not harden well, wrap the budding with straw for winter. . _harvesting_ in the carpathian mountains when they gather the walnuts in the fall they mash them down with a very long and quite thin hazel sticks. doing that they beat off the thin tops of the walnut branches. they say such an operation causes a better crop of the nuts next season. . _giant walnuts and their problems_ some giant walnuts on the same tree have sometimes small kernels or withered ones. in the carpathian region they do not know what to do with such a problem. it seems to me that we in canada have to solve it. maybe it is because of the bacterial disease, or it may be a lack of the proper fertilizer. in warsaw i have seen the giant walnuts sold not being dried. . _reforestation with the carpathian walnuts_ crath's carpathian english walnuts could produce for canada a very valuable forest and in shorter time than other trees do. we should always remember that in the caucasian mountains there are huge walnut forests. some trees are of primeval age. before the first world war english buyers often paid a caucasian farmer from , to , rubles for a tree. walnut wine there in the town of kooty mrs. babiuk, a good wife of a local burgher told me about the walnut wine as follows: "in my girlhood in this region there raged an awful epidemic of cholera. many people died. but those who drank the wine made of green english walnuts did not die." the recipe that she gave me is as follows: take equal parts of walnuts in which the shells are not yet hardened, and the same quantity of sugar. cut each green walnut in half a dozen parts, mix them with the sugar. in a couple of days the juice will be extracted by means of the sugar and ensuing fermentation which continues about one month. in two months it is ready to be consumed. on my return to canada i made wine from the canadian black walnuts. the color of the wine was dark brown and quite pleasant. it stops stomach ache. also we should not forget the walnut oil and the use of walnuts in confectionary. walnut candies take equal quantities of walnut kernels and honey. mix. boil, watching that the honey does not over-run. mix with a wooden spoon. in half an hour cool to see if the honey has turned into taffy. if not, boil longer. when it is ready put upon a wooden board, with a spoon. when cooled the candy is ready. footnotes: [footnote : mr. crath died late december ] nut tree plantings in southeastern iowa albert b. ferguson, _center point, iowa_ last year on our return from the nut growers assn. tour, mr. snyder and i stopped to see the schlagenbusch brothers and their nut plantings. we thought at the time that it would be profitable to the association to have a report on their work. mr. snyder and i went down a month ago to visit them again. sidney and carl schlagenbusch live in the southeastern part of iowa. the walnut orchard is on high land overlooking the mississippi river bottom. the ground was formerly oak and hickory timber. most of their other plantings are near the farm buildings which are just below the higher ground. the first planting of the walnut orchard was made in and was completed or years later. it consisted of trees. later additions have been made. there are about grafted trees in the orchard at present, most of them of bearing age. the trees are spaced feet by feet in staggered rows. some of the branches are beginning to touch. the diameter of the larger trees is inches. the orchard is in grass which is not grazed close. the larger portion of the orchard is the thomas variety. they have a selection of their own which was first in the iowa contest a few years ago. i thought it outstanding, but they consider it a little small. the nuts are gathered in a wagon and run through a corn sheller, then cleaned in a device they made themselves. the nuts are then floated and dried. over half of the crop is cracked and sold as kernels. they have been getting around a $ . per pound in fort madison. no crop to date has exceeded a thousand dollars in value. they also have several hickories and hybrids. the shellbark variety, wagoner, is outstanding--the best i've seen. it is large, thin shelled, cracks easily, and is of good quality. a small tree grafted on shagbark is bearing well. they have the common varieties of pecans, a few chestnuts, a few english walnuts, japanese walnuts and hybrids. the winkler hazel has not been very productive with them. they had several trees of stabler, which were not satisfactory so they cut the trees off close to the ground and put or bark grafts in the stump. they saved the largest one as the main trunk and taking a graft or a large sprout from the opposite side of the stump, inarching it into the main trunk two or three feet up. this prevents the wind from blowing the graft off of the stump. it also makes it possible to utilize the strength of the roots from the opposite side of the stump. they had several trees worked this way which are now of good size. in addition to caring for their large farm, nut orchard and a choice herd of hereford cattle, carl has found time to do some breeding work with oriental poppies from which he has made some very choice selections. they have also worked with several other perennials. sidney and carl schlagenbusch are true horticulturists by nature and are fine folks. on the way home from this recent trip, we stopped to see corliss williams near danville. his brother wendell williams, located the winkler hazel, before the first world war in which he served and never returned. we saw a persian walnut, or years old, in mr. williams front yard. it was a u.s.d.a. introduction from russia. it seems to be perfectly hardy, bears well and is of excellent quality. the shagbark hickories are plentiful in his locality. he has top-worked or more, many of them to burlington, which is productive and fills well with him. rockville as a hickory interstock herman last, _steamboat rock, iowa_ as a nut-grower i am afraid i have been over-rated; i make my living tilling the soil and dabble in my nut grove only when i can find a few moments to spare--in fact all i know about nuts and nut-grafting, i owe to my good friend, edgar huen. i shall always remember that balmy may morning years ago when mr. huen came over with a kit full of hickory scions, and suggested we go out in my pasture and do some grafting. in that bag were stratford, rockville, des moines, marquette, hagen and monahan. we grafted all that day--that is mr. huen did the grafting and i watched him. today these trees are living monuments of our work. the only tree of these varieties that has ever borne enough nuts to feed a squirrel is the stratford. meanwhile i have been doing a little grafting myself. i acquired a few pecans for understocks but the only variety that was congenial with pecan as far as i knew was rockville, but it produced no nuts--it was just a nice tree to look at. one spring my brother-in-law who lives just across the line in missouri sent me some shellbark scions from a tree in his pasture. i grafted these scions on a pecan and they took off like a house on fire. this variety proved to be a rugged individual and bore every year but the nuts were no good--all cavities like a true shellbark. then one spring morning i grafted some of these shellbark scions on rockville; the grafts took and i soon noticed a transformation. the grafts had blended with the understock and the offspring was different from either parent. the best part of the new hybrid was that it bore abundantly and the nuts are of fine quality. to those who have some young rockville trees for top-working, i can furnish a limited amount of scionwood of this shellbark which i have named my super x, it being so rugged and hardy. to me the grafting of trees is a noble work. someone has said that he who plants a tree is a true lover of his race and i don't know of anything that will live longer in the memory of our children and those who follow in our footsteps than a row of hickories laden with nuts. a fruitful pair of carpathian walnut varieties in michigan gilbert becker, _climax, mich._ i would like to tell you briefly my experience with the difficulties of persian walnut pollination. it took years before i got any nuts, although they had nutlets time and again! it was after i had crath # bearing, that all proceeded to fruit, and then heavier every year, until when the freeze of november eliminated the nuts. crath # has done so well that i feel it well worthy of being a commercial prospect for us. the size and shape are so attractive. (the accuracy of the numbering was once questioned by mr. stoke, so i do not know if it is the same no. that others have had from crath. this was named by prof. nielson. it definitely is not broadview, as stoke at first thought.) my crath # had over four bushels of hulled and unhulled nuts (as they are picked up, after shaking) this fall. it was grafted on black walnut in . at my folks' place i planted a grafted crath # , and a carpathian "d", side by side. there are no other persian walnuts near, and they have always had nuts, since they started to bear. i feel that this is a proper combination. i do not know whether the blooming periods overlap. suggested blooming data to be recorded for nut tree varieties j. c. mcdaniel, _univ. of illinois, urbana, ill._ such experiences as mr. becker's (extracted from a letter to me) are well worth knowing, and we need similar information for several years and at different locations, for all the promising persian seedlings and new varieties. i would suggest that all of us who have them flowering in our plantings (even if only one tree) make an effort in to record as much as possible of the phenological data on them. a form such as the following might be used, for flowering, fruiting, and related data. year: _____ location: ____________________ data by: _______________ first freeze previous fall: (date) _______________ minimum temperature previous winter: _____°f. on (date) _______________ last killing frost this spring (date) ______________________________ +---------+-----+-------+---------+--------+---------+----------+-----+-------+ |variety |age |date |first |end |date |nuts |yield|remarks| |(or |of |from |catkins |of |pistils |harvested | | | |seedling |tree |new |shedding |shedding|appear |(date) | | | |no.) |or |growth |(date) | |receptive| | | | | |graft|scion | | | | | | | +---------+-----+-------+---------+--------+---------+----------+-----+-------+ | . | | | | | | | | | +---------+-----+-------+---------+--------+---------+----------+-----+-------+ | . | | | | | | | | | +---------+-----+-------+---------+--------+---------+----------+-----+-------+ | . | | | | | | | | | +---------+-----+-------+---------+--------+---------+----------+-----+-------+ under "remarks" could be recorded such information as the distance and direction to trees furnishing pollen in the period when a given variety has sticky appearing pistils, the abundance of pollen shed, apparent winter killing of catkins, etc. the list of items could be expanded, if desired, but it is thought that those included here are among the most important in determining the potential performances of varieties and variety combinations in specific climates. a compilation of such data for a period of about three years, supplemented with data on the nuts themselves, would be of very practical value as a basis for selecting varieties most promising to plant or propagate. the same data form would be applicable to other walnuts, hickories, pecans, and filberts, and perhaps to a lesser extent with chestnuts. note on chinese chestnuts harwood steiger, _redhook, n. y._ my earliest chinese chestnuts are ripening. stoke hybrid is earliest and the nuts are so attractive, too bad they are not better in quality. it is an exciting time here as there are always a few seedlings that are ripening for the first time. honan, which ripens later, has been one of my best grafted trees. one of my seedlings has very large nuts, very early ripening, nuts are now falling, and it is prolific, nearly every burr has from two to three large to very large nuts. the quality seems good. we like the large nuts as they are easier to peel and we like them boiled and served as a vegetable. the boiled nuts keep well when frozen. i think this tree is superior to any of my grafted and named varieties. scott healey--an obituary scott healey was born december , , in wheatley, ontario, canada, and came to otsego, michigan, in . he married in . mr. healey was a chiropractor for a number of years. in , mr. healey and his cousin, lewis healey, formed the healey & healey lumber and coal company, in otsego, which they operated together until a few years ago, when mr. healey retired due to ill health. mr. healey was a director of the state savings bank in otsego for many years. he was a member of the first baptist church in otsego. he became interested in nut culture while the late professor james a. neilson was nut specialist at the michigan state college. mr. healey planted a nut orchard of about eighty grafted nut trees in , which professor neilson helped him plan. most of the trees were black walnut varieties, chiefly thomas. however, there were some ohio, stabler, allen, crietz, stambaugh, ten eyck, and rohwer trees. there were also some filberts, several chinese chestnuts, and some heartnuts he had raised from seed. one nice tree of the mccallister hican makes good shade, but has never borne any nuts. he did some topworking in a large black walnut tree in the backyard, where he got a persian walnut to grow. mr. healey was very much interested in nut culture, and had planned on having a nut grove for a hobby to keep him busy when he retired. mr. healey joined the northern nut growers association in . he and his wife attended the battle creek meeting one year later. they also attended the rockport, indiana meeting in , and the one at geneva, new york in .--"the rest of the time he couldn't go or was in too poor health to go." they sold their home, with the nut planting, to a young couple, mr. and mrs. lewis lovett, in , moved into otsego; and retired. mr. healey died, january th, at their winter home in port richey, florida. surviving are his wife, mabel, and one son, virgil. gilbert becker a letter from dr. w. c. deming, the only living charter member of the association northern nut growers association, dear old friends: the nd annual report has recently come to me. think of it, the nd annual report! how familiar to me are a great many of the names of the officers and members! i can even recall the very features of many of them. i am myself now ninety years old and practically house-bound. though yesterday, a day almost like summer, i did take a taxi and a drive through the park amid the brilliant foliage, with miss dorothy hapgood, who by the way is a member of our association a thing with which i may have had something to do. recently i was in the veterans hospital at newington for a couple of weeks. the doctors called it "_polycythemia_", the direct opposite of "_anaemia_", did phlebotomies taking pints of blood which they said they used for transfusions on ward patients, much to my gratification. i now have in, or had put in me, a dose, of radio-active phosphorus p which, they assure me will be getting in its good work for the next three months. nothing like being up to date, even if valetudinarian. you have made me dean of the association. in the beginning clarence reed was always back of me with his abilities and vast fund of information. although i believe i am, by virtue of my office, exempt from dues and entitled to the annual reports, i wish my five children to be at least once represented in the membership. i append their names and addresses: hawthorne, the eldest, is with the gen. electric co. in new york. i don't know what he does but presume that with the other new york millionaires he is busy accumulating wealth. this hint may guide you in soliciting alms for the association some day. his home is in hamilton lane, larien, conn. but i don't know if he knows a nut from a lunatic. he has two kids, one now preparing for korea. god preserve him. benton is already a member. he has a few acres in the town of avon, conn. where, among the rocks and the native rattlesnakes and copperheads he tells me he has chinese chestnuts growing. recently he got two of the copperheads. he is an energetic chap. he rises at a.m. and drives the several miles into hartford where he broadcasts from to , for people's breakfasts, i suppose, and is released at a.m. he has just contracted for a television program once a week in new haven. olcott is a consul in the u.s. embassy in tokio, transferred from a similar position in siam. if there is something you want from japan i guess he is your boy. mention my name! he has a lovely wife and three children. una king, my elder daughter, whose husband was killed in an accident, interviews vip's on the same radio station as brother ben. joan howe (mrs. paul) and her husband, who is in a bank in new york, live in my old home on umpawaug hill, redding, conn. she writes of having had a crop of black walnuts from one of the trees i planted. i've forgotten all the others there may be there. nothing of value i guess. joan has two daughters. ben has a son and daughter. that makes five children i'm responsible for and they have acknowledged the eleven grandchildren for me. i want you to make four of my children (ben is already ensnare) members of the association, for which i will enclose a check for $ . (if i don't forget.) (the many typing mistakes of this letter are due mostly to the age of the machine, not mine.) my two sisters who live in our old home in litchfield and who are close behind me in years, recently sent me a handful of nice chestnuts, chinese, from a tree feet or more high in our backyard. they have to divide them, very unequally, with the squirrels. the only other noteworthy trees in our little place are a few papaws. asimina triloba, too shaded to bear. this fruit might be worthy of a little attention from the nut growers. the dictionary speaks of several other species of papaw. any of you who have outgrown the labor of caring for nut trees might find interest in mycology in which i found diversion and edibles for a while. only beware the deadly amanita and others of that ilk. i cannot adequately express to you my heartfelt joy at the prosperity of our association. for one thing the great increase in the membership, for another the birth of three branch state associations, but above all the success in the production of nuts. in my time we had mostly, if not entirely, the promising production of specimen nuts only. we had nothing like the jacobs persian walnut with its imposing spread and its production of pounds of nuts in one season; mr. kyhl's orchard with its many varieties of persian walnuts; his success in grafting and his reporting of a tree which bears three or four bushels of heartnuts yearly; mr. best's , grafted pecan trees; mr. hirshi's chestnuts; the splendid results of the persian walnut contests; and the almost spectacular increase in the number of nurseries selling grafted nut trees of many varieties. these facts, and many that i have not mentioned, make it certain that nut growing is now a firmly established and surely increasing industry. you may be sure that these facts give me great delight. some years ago while i was in possession of a mind as good as it had been at any time, i did a little grafting of nut trees in a commercial way for people at their country places, and i had the nerve to charge them fifty dollars a day. what's more i got paid and never got kicked, nor did i hear mutterings or see scowls. but then, you see, there was no other grafter, of the kind, around my part of the country. almost a monopoly and, of course, a wicked one. but here my mind goes blank. i can't recall what luck i had with the grafting, nor can i recall the name of a single one for whom i did such work. i strongly advise every one of you to have a good book in which you keep personal and geographic records of all your work with nut growing. all the details are vividly in your mind now, but when you get to be ninety you may find them, as i do, faded away and all washed up. please go on with the good work. some more good friends have just taken me for a round trip to litchfield where my little sister, who is , has just partly circumvented the squirrels and by going out very early in the morning to the chestnut tree has succeeded in getting a good big double handful of chestnuts, nice big ones. she also called to my attention a good-sized persian walnut which she says i once grafted on a black walnut and this year was quite well covered with nuts which she says the squirrels cut off while green, and she says they were helped by one of the black plumaged birds. some time ago she gave me one of the nuts and i tried to husk it with my knife. but it was too immature. they would have matured this fall, i think but for the pests. _william c. deming_ sweepstakes award in ohio black walnut contest l. walter sherman, _canfield, ohio_ this i believe, is the third report to the northern nut growers association concerning the black walnut contest held in ohio in . the first report was given soon after the close of the contest. during the year following the contest ( ), i visited each of the ten prize winning trees, photographing them, and getting as complete a case history of each as was possible. this, the third report, concerns mainly the process used to determine the winner of the $ . sweepstakes award given in for the best performance of a black walnut tree for a five-year period. the owners of the ten prize-winning trees in the contest were asked to report the amount of crop harvested each year as well as to send in samples of the nuts for a cracking test. complete data were recorded each year from the samples just as they had been for the contest. the average weight of nut, recovery of kernel at first cracking, total kernel content, and per cent of kernel content were recorded. from these data tables and charts were compiled to make a visual comparison between the various nuts. walnuts other than the prize winners were not excluded from this five-year competition and quite a few were submitted. however, only one of them, the "chamberlin" was of special merit and it was given a place on these charts. no samples or crop records were received from the davidson (sixth prize) and the jackson (tenth prize) nuts, and so they are not shown on all the charts. one sample from the crop of penn walnuts was lost to a pilfering squirrel, and the data used on the chart for the penn walnut was therefore the average of all other samples of this variety. the weight of total crop harvested in , however, is actual. table no. gives the average weight in grams of the sample nuts. the duke, (first prize) was the largest nut of all, in , averaging just over grams; but the orth, in , averaged almost a gram more. the kuhn, which was the smallest of the eight nuts in and again in , was the largest nut in , and its size in was exceeded only four times by any of the other nuts during the contest. the nuts were large in size during the off year when only a small crop was produced and they were small when there was a heavy crop. in table no. the weight in grams of the kernel recovered on first crack, secured without the aid of nut pick, is recorded. in this comparison the duke, because of large size, might be expected to be an easy winner and it was in and in ; but in , though second in average weight of nut for that year, it was in fifth place in recovery of kernel at first cracking. table no. records the average weight in grams of the kernels. here the duke, due largely to its size, is a consistent winner in all three years it produced nuts. however, in , a small crop year for the kuhn, the nuts of this variety were large and contained more kernel than the duke did in or in . the per cent of kernel in the nuts as recorded in table no. is interesting. the burson, which was the smallest nut in , had the highest per cent of kernel and also had the highest total kernel content of any sample in that year. evidently the per cent of kernel is higher in well-filled nuts and this is largely determined by the weather and available food supply late in the season. a comparison of the numerical score of the various nuts, figured out according to the t.v.a. score system, is given in table no. . by this system, no variety had a consistent high score, but each varied greatly from year to year. the nut characters studied so far in charts to inclusive have varied so much from year to year that any judgment based on these characters for any one year could not be relied upon. what characteristic of a black walnut, then, can be used in evaluating it? in table no. the percentage of the total kernel that is recovered at first cracking is given. oliver and penn show considerable consistency in that they remain above per cent in all samples, but look at the kuhn. it was perfect in but in only per cent of the kernel was recoverable in the first cracking and duke was nearly as bad, varying from to per cent recovery. after careful study of these six charts, i am sure you will have to admit that any judgment of a black walnut variety based on these characters only is none too dependable. these are the nut characters that we have been using in our contest! some further method of evaluation is needed! individual nut characters alone are not enough. a good farmer is concerned in quality of his produce but quantity is of more importance for financial success. the elberta peach well illustrates this. there are many peaches of better quality, but the elberta peach is a prolific producer and this is one reason more elberta peaches are raised than any other variety. quality without quantity means little. with this in mind, the $ . sweepstakes prize was offered for the tree with the best five-year record. the judges interpreted this to mean the most pound of kernels produced that were recovered on first crack. going back over the records, we find some trees have been much more productive than others. at first it would seem unfair to compare the crop from trees of different size and age, but this time luck was with the judges. take a look at table no. which gives the ages and sizes of the trees. there is not too much difference in size or age to make reasonable comparisons possible. however, it should be clearly understood that only trees of the same age growing in the same orchard and receiving the same care can be accurately compared. the trees we are dealing with were in different localities, with vast differences in soil conditions, air drainage, climate, etc. table no. gives the total production for the five-year period for each tree, in bushels, the total amount of kernel as well as the amount of kernel recovered at first cracking. only five trees had produced over four bushels of nuts each during the five year period. the oliver tree produced . bushels and pounds more kernels than the penn tree. the kuhn tree, though producing four bushels less nuts than the penn tree, did produce . pounds more kernels, with the same amount recovered on first cracking from the nuts of each tree--almost a photo finish for second place. the sweepstakes award of $ . was therefore given to mrs. oliver shaffer, of lucasville, ohio, who sent in the oliver entry. referring to the case histories of these trees as written up in , you will find that the oliver, kuhn, penn, and orth trees were reported on favorable sites, while the duke and burson were on very unfavorable ones so that the above results are only what might have been expected. the orth tree, however, is in a favorable location and better production could have been expected of it. table . size, as weight of unshelled walnuts (approximate). ==================================================================== grams average[ ] per nut -------------------------------------------------------------------- orth duke duke penn oliver orth duke kuhn penn orth duke duke athens penn williamson penn penn orth williamson oliver oliver oliver orth williamson kuhn duke oliver chamberlin burson williamson oliver penn athens kuhn burson burson burson burson, athens burson kuhn athens athens chamberlin williamson kuhn chamberlin kuhn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- judges for the contest were c. w. ellenwood and o. d. diller of the ohio experiment station and l. walter sherman, then with the department of agriculture, commonwealth of pennsylvania. footnotes: [footnote : average of five years for duke, oliver, burson and kuhn; four years for penn, which was not cracked in , but interpolated in charts. note: to save time and the expense of redrawing and reproduction, these seven tables are printed instead of mr. sherman's graphic charts. with a ruler and pencil, lines can be drawn through the "d's of duke", and so forth, to give an approximation of the original graphs.--editor.] table . kernel recovery at first crack, in grams per nut (approximate). ======================================================================== grams average[ ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ duke orth orth williamson duke penn, kuhn duke, orth williamson duke oliver athens kuhn burson, w'ms. athens duke burson, williamson ch'lin athens, burson orth, oliver penn, burson penn burson, kuhn kuhn, oliver athens orth oliver, kuhn penn oliver, penn ch'lin duke bur., wms., ath. oliver chamberlin kuhn -------------------------------------------------------------------------- footnotes: [footnote : see note with table .] attendance register, rockport, ind., ontario, canada o. filman, aldershot district of columbia howard baker, washington mr. & mrs. e. l. ford, washington florida mrs. r. b. pattie, st. augustine georgia max b. hardy, leesburg mr. & mrs. w. j. wilson, fort valley illinois mr. & mrs. r. b. best, eldred c. r. blyth, urbana s. c. chandler, carbondale t. f. clark, peoria a. s. colby, urbana e. a. curl, urbana albert dahlberg, chicago o. j. & karl eigsti, normal mr. & mrs. o. h. fuller, joliet mr. & mrs. louis gerardi, caseyville j. c. mcdaniel, urbana mrs. r. e. norris, shawneetown mr. & mrs. royal oakes, bluffs elizabeth sonnemann, vandalia mr. & mrs. w. f. sonnemann, vandalia a. m. whitford, farina cullen zethmayr, westmount gordon zethmayr, west chicago indiana ralph andrews & son, john, marion howard bloomethol, evansville ferd bolton, linton l. e. cooper, rockport virginia m. darning, rockport k. a. dooley, marion peter glaser, evansville jo ann hall, rockport a. w. hamilton, vincennes ray kaufman, peru charles myer, evansville george oberman, evansville edward w. pope, marion carl prell, south bend adolph risko, monticello l. e. sawyer, terre haute ralph schruber, new albany barbara sly, rockport mr. & mrs. raymond sly, rockport j. e. talbott, linton ford wallick, peru mr. & mrs. w. b. ward, west lafayette j. f. wilkinson, rockport iowa a. b. ferguson, center point e. f. huen, eldora ira m. kyhl, sabula elizabeth rohrbacher, iowa city wm. rohrbacher, iowa city d. c. snyder, center point kentucky mr. & mrs. robert alvis, henderson w. d. armstrong, princeton w. w. magill, lexington j. e. mcclure, owensboro maryland john flick, riverdale g. f. gravatt, beltsville j. w. mckay & family, college park mr. & mrs. herbert negus, hyattsville michigan mr. & mrs. gilbert becker, climax j. a. becker, climax w. n. beckert, jackson ralph emerson, detroit frank j. keplinger, farwell edwin w. lemke, detroit mr. & mrs. f. l. o'rourke, east lansing l. l. ricky, east lansing missouri h. w. guengerich, louisiana r. e. mangelsdorf, st. louis new york mr. & mrs. s. bernath, poughkeepsie david caldwell & family, syracuse l. h. macdaniels, ithaca mr. and mrs. george salzer, rochester rodman salzer, rochester g. l. slate, geneva alfred szego, jackson heights ohio g. e. craig, dundas f. l. davell & family, masillon mr. & mrs. john davidson, xenia john a. gerstenmaier, massillon edward a. grad, cincinnati frank m. kintzel, cincinnati shumzo kodera, columbus & tokyo, japan paul e. machovina, columbus christ pataky, jr., mansfield sylvester shessler, genoa mr. & mrs. r. e. silvis, massillon mr. & mrs. john underwood, urbana martha weber, cincinnati pennsylvania mr. & mrs. r. p. allaman, harrisburg w. s. clarke, jr., state college john rick, reading tennessee spencer chase, norris h. o. murphy, chattanooga dr. & mrs. audrey richard, whiteville mr. & mrs. w. j. robinson, jackson virginia bessie j. gibbs, linden h. r. gibbs, linden miss eloise saddler, fazewell h. f. stoke, roanoke northern nut growers association membership list as of february , * life member ** honorary member § contributing member + sustaining member alabama east alabama nursery, auburn. chestnut, pecan and persimmon nurserymen +hiles, edward l., hiles repair shop, loxley. auto repair long, pope m., box , cordova. real estate arkansas +hale, a. c., fairview school, camden schlan, mrs. agnes, rt. , mountainburg vaile, joseph e., dept, of horticulture, u. of ark., fayetteville wade, clifton, forest ave., fayetteville. attorney wylie, w. d., dept, of entomology, u. of ark., fayetteville. entomologist belgium vanderwaeren, r., bierbeekstraat, , korbeek-lo. horticultural adviser california andrew, col. james w., box , hamilton a. f. b. brand, george, see nebraska +buck, ernest homer, three arch bay, n. portola, south laguna fulcher, e. c., fulcher ave., north hollywood +haig, dr. thomas r., highland dr., rt. , box , carlsbad gililland, guy s., l.v.s.r. box , lucerne valley jeffers, harold w., lt. u.s.n., uss dixie, ad , c/o f.p.o., san francisco kemple, w. h., w. ralston st., ontario linwood nursery, rt. , box , turlock pentler, dr. c. f., martin ave., palo alto. american friends service committee pozzi, p. h., s. dutton ave., santa rosa. brewery worker, farmer serr, dr. e. f., jr., agr. experiment sta., davis. pomologist stewart, douglas n., f st., davis sullivan, c. edward, garden highway, box , yuba city welby, harry s., buchanan st., taft. private and corp. hort. canada collens, adam h., seaton st., toronto , ontario **crath, rev. paul c, felbrigg ave., toronto , ontario english, h. a., box , duncan, b. c. farmer, fruit and nut grower gage, james m., water st. e., burlington, ontario gellatly, j. u., box , westbank, b. c. plant breeder, fruit grower, nurseryman harrhy, ivor h., rt. , st. thomas, ontario. fruit grower and poultry holmes, b. t., deloraine ave., toronto, ontario housser, levi, rt. , beamsville, ontario. fruit farmer +lefevre, h. e., st. catherine st. e., montreal , quebec lossing, elgin, norwich, ontario *neilson, mrs. ellen, macdonald ave., guelph, ontario papple, elton e., rt. , cainsville, ontario porter, gordon, rt. , harrow, ontario. chemist smith, edward a., box , sparta, ontario. farmer +snazelle, robert, forest nursery rt. , charlottetown, p.e.i. nursery supt. trayling, e. j., richards st., vancouver, b. c. jeweller wagner, a. s., delhi, ontario +walker, j. w., mccarthy & mccarthy, university ave., toronto , ontario wharton, h. w., rt. , guelph, ontario. farmer white, peter, pear ave., toronto , ontario willis, a. r., rt. , royal oak, vancouver island, b. c. accountant woods, david m., s. front st., west toronto, ont. vice pres., gordon mckay, inc. young, a. l., brooks, alberta. dairy farmer colorado boyd, a., clayton, denver. salesman +forbes, j. e., julesburg. banker connecticut corcoran, h. f., international silver co., colony st., meriden daniels, honorable paul c. see ecuador david, alexander m., s. main st., west hartford deming, benton h., radio wtht, hartford deming, hawthorne, hamilton lane, darien **deming, dr. w. c, litchfield. dean of the association frueh, alfred j., rt. , sharon +graves, dr. arthur h., p.o. box , wallingford. consulting pathologist, conn. agr. expt. station, new haven hapgood, miss dorothy a., farmington ave., hartford henry, david s., blue hills farm, rt. , wallingford howe, mrs. paul, umpawang hill, rt. , west redding *huntington, a. m., stanerigg farms, bethel. patron king, mrs. una, meadowbrook rd., west hartford *newmarker, adolph, rt. , rockville pratt, george d., jr., bridgewater schukoske, john a., rt. , box , saybrook rd., middletown white, george e., rt. , andover. farmer delaware brugmann, elmer w., c thomas dr., monroe pk., wilmington. chemical engineer +logue, r. f., gen. mgr., andelot, inc., du pont bldg., wilmington denmark butzow, o., bredgade, copenhagen carøe, mr. j. f., "meulenborg", helsingor granjean, mr. julio, hillerod knuth, count f. m., knuthenborg, bandholm pers, mr. plantageejer e., edelgaard, vejstrup reventlow, johan otto, damgaard, fredericia sørensen, director k. kaae, dyrehavevej , klampenborg district of columbia american potash inst., inc., th st., n. w., washington ford, edwin l., austin st., s. e. washington kaan, dr. helen w. see md. reed, mrs. clarence a., piney branch rd., n. w., washington woycik, dr. peter w., i st., n. w. washington. dentist ecuador, south america daniels, the honorable paul c. american ambassador, american embassy, quito o'rourke, prof. f. l., trop. agric. exp. sta., pichilingue, c/o u.s. consul, guayacil florida +avant, c. a., n. w. th ave., miami. real estate, loans, (pecan orchard in ga.) +estill, gertrude, navarre dr., miami springs georgia avant, c. a., jr., rt. , box , albany cannon, j. w., jr., cordele funsten r. e. company, sandison, arthur o., p.o. box , albany +hardy, max b., leeland farms, p.o. box , leesburg. nurseryman farmer hunter, dr. h. reid, lake shore dr., n.e., atlanta. teacher, nut farmer noland, s. c, box , atlanta . owner, skyland farms sasseville, exra m., rhodes bldg., atlanta wilson, william j., north anderson ave., fort valley. peach and pecan grower hawaii keaau orchards, john f. cross, mgr., p.o. box , hilo. macadamia growers hong kong +wang, p. w., china prod. trading corp., des voeux rd., central idaho bailey, robert g., main st., lewiston. print shop dryden, lynn, peck. farmer hazelbaker, calvin, rt. , box , lewiston horn, anton s., n. th st., boise. ext. horticulturist illinois allbright, r. d., allbright nurseries, western ave., western springs allen, theodore r., delavan. farmer anderson, ralph w., rt. , morris andrew, col. james w. see california anthony, a. b., rt. , sterling. apiarist baber, adin, kansas barrow, j. m., p.o. box , urbana §best, r. b., columbia seed co., eldred. farmer best, mrs. r. b., columbia seed co., eldred best, r. c., eldred best, r. l., eldred best, virgil, rt. , mattoon §blyth, colin r., math. dept. u. of ill., urbana *boll, herschel l., hort. field lab. u. of ill., urbana. pomologist booth, earl, rt. , carrollton borchsenius, wayne l., rt. , sheridan brock, arthur s., n. mcvicker ave., chicago canterbury, c. e., cantrall carlson, dr. r. j., sherman ave., macomb chandler, s. c, southern state univ., carbondale churchill, woodford m., oakenwald ave., chicago clark, thomas f., northern regional research lab., peoria. chemical engineer colby, dr. arthur s., univ. of ill., urbana crabb, richard, box , wheaton +dahlberg, dr. albert a., harper ave., chicago +daum, philip a., n. sixth st., carrollton decker, honas h., r.f.d. rutland. factory worker dietrich, ernest, rt. , dundas. farmer dinkelman, l. f., state st. rd., belleville dopheide, henry a., jackson st., quincy douglass, t. j., - / north st., normal draner, willard g., rt. , mendota. farmer eigsti, dr. o. j., funk bros. seed co., bloomington. research botanist estill, mrs. harry, power farms, cantrall fordtran, e. h., rt. , box a, palatine frey, frank h., w. th place, chicago . asst. to v. p., cri & p rr frey, mrs. frank h., w. th place, chicago . housewife +fuller, owen h., oneida st., joliet gerardi, louis, rt. , caseyville. nut and fruit nurseryman gettings, wm. a., rt. , eldred glidden, nansen, w. lincoln highway, dekalb govaia, r. m., o.d., room , greer block, vandalia. optometrist grefe, ben, rt. , box , nashville. farmer griffith, chris, w. filmore st., rfd, vandalia hall, e. l., rt. , drew ave., hinsdale hall, dr. william a., s. broadway, aurora *heberlein, edwin w., rt. , box a, roscoe helmle, mrs. herman c, s. grand ave. w., springfield hermerding, ted, russell miller millg. co., jerseyville *hockenyos, g. l., e. jefferson st., springfield hoelscher, bernard, rt. , mt. sterling ikesty, q. j., funk bros. seed co., bloomington jennings, charles l., box , grayville *jungk, adolph e., rt. , jerseyville kammarmeyer, glenn, e. th st., chicago knoeppel, j. a., bluffs *kreider, ralph jr., rt. , hammond. farmer krug, carl b., rt. , el paso. farmer kruse, william, honey lee apiaries, godfrey. apiratist langdoc, mrs. mildred jones, p.o. box , erie. nursery, farm, housewife laatz, mrs. lenore, rt. , morris leighton, l. c., arthur mcdaniel, j. c., hort. field lab. univ. of ill., urbana. horticulturist mcdaniel, j. c., jr., urbana mckee, mrs. myrtice, mt. morris marsh, mrs. w. v., rt. , aledo moeser, william v., rt. , belleville *musgrave, carl, s. laflin st., chicago . machinist newman, roy, p.o. box , martinsville. orchardist *oakes, royal, bluffs *opat, joseph c., opat chinchilla ranch, rt. , hinsdale. pharmacist, chinchilla rancher peers, frank b., box , highland park pierson, stuart e., carrollton. bank president price, harold g. sr. see utah raab, irvin m., rt. , belleville ried, robert j., winona st., chicago *reisch, louis c., rt. , carrollton. farmer robbins, w. j., n. la salle st., chicago . insurance robertson, virgil e., virginia. retired farmer schubert, kenneth, rt. , millstadt seng, chas. w. & son, lafayette ave., p.o. box , mattoon sokolowski, f. w., m.d., donald ave., alton *sonnemann, w. f., experimental gardens, vandalia. lawyer, farm operator sparks, maurice e., ash, lawrenceville turner, jonathan b., fayett co. farm bureau, so. th st., vandalia voiles, william, eldred vortman, elmer, rt. , bluffs whale, fred, rt. , fieldon whitford, a. m., farina. nurseryman wright, william, vandalia zethmayr, gordon, rt. , box , west chicago indiana andrew, john, matter park rd., marion. student *andrew, ralph, matter park rd., marion aster nut products, inc., george oberman, mgr., main st., evansville babcock, dan, rt. , box , indianapolis bauer, paul j., south th st., lafayette boller, g. evert, rt. , box , marion. farmer bolten, ferd, rt. , linton. farmer, fruit and nut grower boyer, clyde c., nabb buchner, dr. doster, w. washington blvd., ft. wayne. physician and surgeon clark, c. m., c. m. clark & sons nursery, rt. , middletown. nurseryman, fruit farmer cole, charles w. jr., madison rd., rt. , box a, south bend coleman, robert g., indiana farmers guide, huntington. field editor, the indiana farmer's guide cunningham, earl e., e. th st., anderson doeden, johan, rt. , attica. farmer *dooley, kenneth a., rt. , marion. gardener eagles, a. e., eagles orchards, wolcottville. walnut grower, apple orchardist eisterhold, dr. john a., southeast riverside dr., evansville . medical doctor *fateley, nolan w., central ave., franklin. auditor and cashier glaser, peter, rt. , box , koering rd., evansville *grater, a. e., rt. , shipshewana harrell, franklin m., rt. , griffith jasperson, marion e., rt. , box , indianapolis . clerk johnson, raymond m., manderlay dr., indianapolis kaufman, ray, rt. , peru kem, dr. charles e., rt. no. , box , richmond kenworthy, owen, rt. , crown point. farmer kyburz, benjamine e., rt. , idaville larue, a. r., box , bloomington layman, j. c., rt. , peru lennon, robert e., rt. , warren letsinger, j. e., lower huntington rd., ft. wayne . electrical engineer lukemeyer, edwin j., line st., evansville moldenhauer, carl j., rt. , huntington neimeyer, harry d., west lebanon. high school principal and farmer newman, jesse d., jr., rt. , culver oare, william t., associate bldg., south bend *pape, edw. w., rt. , marion §prell, carl f., e. colfax ave., south bend . nnga treasurer. office: j.m.s. bldg., south bend reed, frank, daleville. toolmaker rehm, walter t., rt. , logansport richards, e. e., york rd., south bend. studebaker corp. risko, a., tioga orchards, monticello *russell, a. m., jr., marine st., south bend schram, emil, rt. , peru schreiber, ralph, cherry st., new albany *shafer, john, jr., n. roselawn dr., logansport skinner, dr. chas. h., rt. , thorntown sly, miss barbara, rt. , rockport sly, donald r., rt. , rockport. nurseryman, nut tree propagator summers, floyd, rt. , box , winchester talbott, john e., rt. , linton §wallick, ford, rt. , peru ward, w. b., horticulture bldg., purdue univ., lafayette. ext. horticulturist westerhouse, george f., e. ohio st., monticello whitsel, gilbert l., jr., rt. , peru wichman, robert p., rt. , washington. general farming wilkinson, j. f., indiana nut nursery, rt. , rockport. nurseryman wittick, eugene c., box a, rt. , valparaiso woodward, howard, rt. , syracuse iowa berhow, seward, berhow nurseries, huxley boice, r. h., rt. , nashua. farmer cole, edward p., chestnut st., atlantic eads, carroll, rfd, miles. farmer eller, w. e., eldora ferguson, albert b., center point. nurseryman *ferris, wayne, hampton. president of earl ferris nursery goodwin, william t., s. riverside dr., iowa city greig, john e., box , estherville hoke, russell o., rt. , anamosa. laborer huen, e. f., eldora. farmer *inter state nurseries, hamburg. general nurserymen iowa fruit growers assn., c/o sec'y. state house, des moines *kaser, mrs. j. d., winterset kern, dr. w. r., rundell st., iowa city kosek, frank j., sixteenth ave., s.w., cedar rapids kyhl, ira m., box , sabula. nut nurseryman, farmer, salesman lysinger, addison, lomoni *martzahn, frank a., rt. , davenport. farmer mcleran, harold f., mt. pleasant. lawyer meyer, clemens, rt. , west union orr, j. allen, w. th st., sioux city petsel, george e., w. park rd., iowa city rohrbacher, dr. william m., e. college st., iowa city. practice of medicine schlagenbusch bros., rt. , fort madison. farmers snyder, d. c., center point. nurseryman, nuts and general tolstead, w. l. see nebraska troyer, ralph, rt. , kalona *wade, miss ida may, rt. , la porte city. bookkeeper welch, g. l., mt. arbor nurseries, shenandoah white, herbert l., box , woodbine. rural mail carrier *white, rev. l. p., greeley williams, wendell v., rt. , danville. farmer williams, r. alan, th ave., maion japan deming, olcott, u. s. embassy, tokyo yoshizaki, chiaki, international collaboration of farmers ass'n., ichi bancho chiyodaku, tokyo kansas baker, fred c., troy. entomologist borst, frank e., shawnee st., leavenworth §breidenthal, willard j., riverview state bank, th & central, kansas city . bank president funk, m. d., w. paramore st., topeka. pharmacist gray, dr. clyde, central ave., horton. osteopathic physician harris, ernest, box , wellsville. farmer jackson, walter, osage city leavenworth nurseries, carl holman, proprietor, rt. , leavenworth. nut nurseryman mondero, john, lansing stark, m. f., hawthorne pl., hiawatha. supt. city schools thielenhaus, w. f., rt. , buffalo. retired postal worker underwood, jay, riverside nursery, uniontown *wales, max, macvicar st., topeka kentucky alves, robert h., clay st., henderson armstrong, w. d., western kentucky exp. sta., princeton. horticulturist bray, terrell, bray orchards, bedford funsten, r. e. company, robert walker, p.o. box , henderson hopson, j. r., rt. , cadiz magill, w. w., horticulture dept., univ. of ky., lexington *miller, julien c., sycamore dr., paducah moss, dr. c. a., box , williamsburg. bank president *rouse, sterling, rt. , box , florence. fruit grower, nurseryman shakelford, thomas b., p.o. box , compton tatum, w. g., rt. , lebanon. commercial orchardist usrey, robert, star rt., mayfield widmer, dr. nelson d., lebanon louisiana hammer, dr. harald e., usda chemical lab., court house, shreveport . chemist smith, dr. c. l., usda pecan laboratory, court house, shreveport perrault, mrs. h. d., rt. , box , natchitoches maine hamilton, mrs. benj. p., waterboro maryland barrett, harvey e., p. e., maple ave., catonsville . naval architect crane, dr. h. l., usda plant industry sta., beltsville. principal horticulturist, usda dengler, harry william, ext. forester, univ. of md., college park diller, dr. jesse d., usda plant industry sta., beltsville. forest pathologist *eastern shore nurseries, inc., p.o. box , easton. chestnut growers §gravatt, g. f., plant industry station, beltsville. forest pathologist jones, george r., rt. , aberdeen kaan, dr. helen w., grubb rd., silver spring. research associate kemp, homer s., bountiful ridge nurseries, princess anne. general nurseryman mccollum, blaine, white hall. retired from federal government mckay, dr. j. w., plant industry sta., beltsville. horticulturist *negus, mrs. herbert, th ave., roger hgts., hyattsville *porter, john j., the terrace, hagerstown. farm owner quill farm, attn. philip s. parkinson, barclay *shamer, dr. maurice e., w. north ave., baltimore . physician massachusetts babbitt, howard s., dawes ave., pittsfield. service station owner & farmer barthelmes, george a., rt. , leicester. machinist *bradbury, rear adm. h. g., hospital point, beverly brown, daniel l., esq., state st., boston *bump, albert h., p.o. box , brewster *davenport, s. lothrop, creeper hill rd., north grafton. farmer, fruit grower *faulkner, luther w., rfd, westford fitts, walter h., baker st., foxboro. general foreman, instrument company *ganz, dr. robert norton, beacon st., boston kendall, henry p., moose hill farm, sharon *kerr, andrew, lock box , barnstable la beau, henry a., north hoosic rd., williamstown. engineer murphy, john d., boulevard rd., wellesley rice, horace j., main st., wilbraham, attorney *russell, mrs. newton h., burnett ave., south hadley stewart, o. w., milton ave., hyde park vance, dr. robert g., beacon st., boston . physician viera, manuel, main st., vineyard haven *wellman, sargent h., esq., windridge, topsfield wood, miss louise b., pocasset, cape cod york, stanley e., branch st., mansfield. supervisor michigan allen, howard h., francis st., jackson andersen, charles, rt. , box , scottville. nurseryman armstrong, dr. robt. j., rt. , box , kalamazoo. physician, farmer barlow, alfred l., flanders ave., detroit . secretary, mnga *becker, gilbert, climax. president, mnga *beckert, w. m., mich. dept. of conservation, p.o. box , jackson boylan, p. b., rt. , cloverdale breitmeyer, howard t., dale ave., detroit bumler, malcolm r., dickerson, detroit . insurance trustee burgart, harry, michigan nut nursery, box , union city. nurseryman burgess seed & plant co., e. battle creek st., galesburg burr, redmond m., s. th ave., ann arbor. railroad telegrapher chester, dr. william p., maccabees bldg., detroit corsan, h. h., rt. , hillsdale. nurseryman dennison, clare, avery, detroit *desmet, mrs. agnes, houston ave., detroit dillow, harold r., p.o. box , franklin drake, virgil, rt. , bangor emerson, ralph w., cortland ave., highland park estill, miss gertrude. see florida groos, alfred p., rt. , gladstone hagelshaw, w. j., rt. , box , galesburg. grain farmer, contractor *hav, francis h., ivanhoe pl., lawrence. farmer hubbard, w. g., box , hudsonville. dealer, bottled gas johnson, leonard a., e. buno rd., rt. , milford. mechanical engineer kennedy, robert m., deneweth rd., mt. clemens keplinger, frank j., farwell klever, edward f., rt. , grant korn, g. j., n. burdict st., kalamazoo *lee, michael, p.o. box , milford lemke, edwin w., townsend ave., detroit . engineer, nut orchardist long, louis c, state rd., goodrich maycock, harry j., fairground st., plymouth michigan nut growers association, flanders ave., detroit *miller, louis, n. broadway, cassopolis. forester nitschke, robert a., tilbury pl., birmingham o'rourke, prof. f. l. see ecuador pickles, arthur w., elmwood ave., jackson prushek, e., rt. , niles. plant breeding ricky, lowell l., a birch st., east lansing schmidt, wilhelm g., poinciana, detroit . printer simons, rev. r. e., flat rock *somers, lee, rt. , perrinton. farmer, nurseryman sweet, dale v., south capitol, lansing *tate, d. l., westchester way, birmingham tolles, g. s., rt. , south haven ullrey, l. e., rt. , vicksburg wieber, giles e., fowler *wyman, miles l., north st., highland park . certified public accountant minnesota *dubbels, charley, elgin hodgson, r. e., department of agriculture, s.e. experiment station, waseca hormel, jay c., austin sanders, parker d., fifth & jefferson sts., redwood falls wedge, don., rt. , albert lea. wedge nursery weschcke, carl, s. wabasha st., st. paul. proprietor hazel hills nursery co. mississippi *gossard, a.c., u.s. hort. field sta., rt. , meridian. horticulturist *king, john andrews, tolten rd., lodi meyer, james r., delta branch exp. sta., stoneville. cytogeneticist missouri bauman, ivan t., bauman brokerage co., taft ave., st. louis biggs, dutton, elm ave., glendale brecheisen, paul, forest ave., kansas city buck, charles l., lacrosse. farmer degler, roy h., moreland ave., jefferson city funsten, r. e. company, don walker, delmar blvd., st. louis hay, leander, gilliam heuser, wesley e., rich hill howe, john, rt. , box , pacific huber, frank j., weingarten. farmer *james, george, james pecan farms, brunswick lambert, j. o., laclede. farmer *logan, george f., oregon marquardt, fred, rich hill §nicholson, john w., ash grove. farmer ochs, c. thurston, box , salem. foreman in garment factory oliver, l. p., monroe ave., campbell owens, leroy j., willow springs richterkessing, ralph, rt. , st. charles. farmer rose, dr. d. k., linden, clayton sims fruit & nursery farms, hannibal stark bros. nursery & orchard, atten: h. w. guengerich, louisiana stephens, a. f., g. m., & o. r. r., olive st., st. louis. gen. agr. agt. tainter, nat a., jackson st., st. charles wuertz, h. j., rt. , pevely wylie, wilber j., grand ave., doniphan. assistant postmaster montana ford, russell h., dixon nebraska *brand, george, rt. , lincoln brandenburgh, a. r., rt. , bellwood caha, william, w. th, wahoo hess, harvey w., the arrowhead gardens, box , hebron manning, arch j., emmet st., omaha sherwood, jack, nebraska city tolstead, w. l., dept. of botany, univ. of nebraska, lincoln ziegenbein, mrs. helen m., box , wasau. housewife new hampshire demarest, charles s., lyme center *lahti, matthew, locust lane farm, wolfeboro. investment banker new jersey anderegg, f. o., rt. , sommerville audi, dr. eugene j., s. maple ave., glen rock blake, dr. harold, box , saddle river bottoni, r. j., robertson rd., west orange. pres. of harbot die casting corp. buckwalter, alan r., jr., rt. , box , flemington buckwalter, mrs. alan r., rt. , box , flemington cherry, george d., paulsdale, hooten rd., moorestown cox, philip h., jr., hyde rd., blodmfield cumberland nurseries, william well, prop., rt. , millville. nurserymen *donnelly, john h., mountain ice co., neward st., hoboken dougherty, william m., broadacres-on-bedens, box , princeton. sec'y. u.s. rubber co. *ellis, mrs. edward p., strawberry hill, rt. , box , keyport grosshans, george, summit terrace, linden lamatonk nurseries, a. s. york, prop., neshanic station. nut nursery lehman, edwin l., n. th st., camden lippencott, j. c., mundy ave., spotswood mcdowell, fred, ocean ave., belmar parkinson, philip p. see quill farm, maryland ritchie, walter m., rt. , box r, rahway *rocker, louis p., the rocker farm, box , andover. farmer schroeder, harold w., rt. , boonton *sheffield, o. a., hamilton place, hackensack. dun & bradstreet sorg, henry, chicago ave., egg harbor city. manufacturer van doren, durand h., redmond rd., south orange. lawyer new mexico gehring, rev. titus, box , lumberton new york barton, irving, box , montour falls. engineer bassett, charles k., main st., buffalo . manufacturer beck, paul e., becks guernsey dairy, transit rd., e. amherst. dairy executive *benton, william a., wassaic. farmer, benton and smith nut nursery bernath, mrs. stephen, rt. , poughkeepsie bernath, stephen, bernath's nursery, rt. , poughkeepsie. nurseryman *brook, victor, rockingham st., rochester . sales engineer brooks, william g., brooks nut nurseries, monroe. nut tree nurseryman caldwell, david h., n.y. state college of forestry, syracuse. instructor in wood technology *cassina, augustus, valatie center, bernard m., van buren st., massapequa park conner, mrs. charles j., flint st., rochester dunckel, lewis a., s. salina st., syracuse *feil, harry, hilton-spencerport rd., hilton. building contractor ferguson, donald v., l. i. agr. & tech. inst., farmingdale flanigen, charles f., greenfield st., buffalo . executive manager freer, h. j., midvale rd., fairport. typewriter sales and service *gibson, stanfard j., fair st., norwich *glazier, henery s., jr., s. william st., new york gould, mrs. gordon, e. th st., new york graham, s. h., bostwick rd., rt. , ithaca. nurseryman granjean, julio. see denmark *hasbrouck, walter, jr., grove st., new paltz. post office clerk hill, francis i., sterling. letter carrier hirshfeld, dr. j. w., w. upland rd., ithaca hirshfeld, mrs. j. w., w. upland rd., ithaca ingalls, chester w., chestnut st., cooperstown *irish, g. whitney, fruitlands, rt. , valatie *kettaneh, f. a., th ave., new york knipper, george m., chestnut ridge rd., churchville knorr, mrs. arthur, central park, w., apt. , new york kortright, w. e., rt. , liberty §kraai, dr. john, s. main st., fairport. physician larkin, harry h., van rennsselaer st., buffalo *lewis, clarence, park ave., new york lowerre, james, rt. , middletown *macdaniels, dr. l. h., cornell univ., ithaca. head, dept. of floriculture and ornamental hort. metcalfe, ward h., five mile line rd., webster. fruit grower *metcalfe, mrs. ward h., five mile line rd., webster. fruit grower miller, j. e., canandaigua. nurseryman *montgomery, robert h., e. th st., new york mossman, dr. james k., black oaks, ramapo newell, palmer f., lake rd., rt. , westfield norman, norman b., rocklidge rd., hartsdale o'brien, esmonde m., south st., p.o. box , new york perrault, mrs. h. d., fieldston rd., riverdale , new york pura, john j., rt. , hopewell junction. prison guard renshaw, alfred, fiddler's lane, loudanville reynolds, c. l., rt. , binghamton roat, gordon j., rt. , canandaigua salzer, george, garford rd., rochester . milkman, chestnut tree grower salzer, rodman g., garford rd., rochester *schlegel, charles p., so. ave., rochester *schlick, frank, munnsville schlick, john, mill rd., vernon center schmidt, carl w., linwood ave., buffalo shannon, j. w., box , ithaca sheffield, lewis j., n. magnolia st., pearl river §slate, prof. george l., exp. station, geneva. fruit breeder smith, jay l., nut tree nursery, chester *spahr, dr. mary b., n. geneva st., ithaca steiger, harwood, red hook. artist-designer *szego, alfred, - th st., jackson heights, new york volcko, andrew, w. colvin st., syracuse . postoffice clerk wadsworth, millard e., rt. , oswego *wheeler, robert c., th st., albany *wilson, frank c, liberty st., arcade windisch, richard p., w. e. burnet company, wall st., new york *wissman, mrs. f. de r. retired north carolina andrus, e. rex., rt. , franklin. farmer bass, claude d., rt. , kenley. farmer *dunstan, dr. r. t., greensboro college, greensboro ellis, w. j., rt. , advance. bricklayer finch, jack r., rt. , bailey. farmer henry, w. v., rt. , candler mccain, h. c., box , tryon moorman, l. l., n. washington st., rutherfordton poe, d. w., p.o. box , hickory north dakota bradley, homer l., long lake refuge, moffit. refuge manager ohio ackerman, lester, rt. , ada allaman, william w., trotwood antioch college, glen helen dept., yellow springs barden, c. a., morgan st., oberlin. real estate beede, d. v., rt. , lisbon bitler, w. a., rt. , shawnee rd., lima. general contractor borchers, perry e., w. hillcrest ave., dayton boye, dr. e. l., wildfern dr., youngstown brewster, lewis, rt. , swanton. vegetable grower bridgwater, boyd e., cherry st., akron . v.p. bridgewater machine co. bungart, a. a., avon. secretary, o.n.g. bussey, roy k., jr., florida ave., akron button, fred, rt. , mcarthur cinadr, mrs. katherine, coath ave., cleveland . housewife clark, richard l., westdale rd., south euclid . sales manager cook, h. c., rt. , box , leetonia cornett, charles l., r.r. perishable inspection agency, w. front st., cincinnati. inspector craig, george e., dundas. fruit and nut grower cunningham, harvey e., front st., marietta daley, james r., rt. , foster park rd., amherst. electrician davidson, john, e. second st., xenia. writer davidson, mrs. john, e. second st., xenia davidson, william j., e. second st., xenia diller, dr. oliver d., dept, of forestry, ohio exp. sta., wooster donaldson, robert g., rt. , wooster dowell, dr. glenn c, jr., th st., ne, canton *dowell, dr. lloyd l., north ave., ne, massillon. physician farr, mrs. walter, rt. , kingsville fickes, mrs. w. r., rt. , wooster garden center of greater cleveland, east blvd. at euclid ave., cleveland §gerber, e. p., kidron gerstenmaier, john a., pond s. w., massillon. letter carrier goss, c. e., dover ave., akron grad, dr. edward a., chase st., cincinnati hake, hanrey, edon hammock, edwin h., e. state st., columbus *hansley, c. f., box , sugar grove heinzelman, edward g., southern ave., chillicothe *hill, dr. albert a., pearl rd., cleveland hinde, john g., rt. , sandusky hlywiak, andy, s. tod ave., warren *hornyak, louis, rt. , wakeman houlette, william r., rt. , columbiana howard, james r., fleming rd., middletown *irish, charles f., e. th st., cleveland . arborist jacobs, homer l., davey tree expert co., kent kappel, owen, bolivar *kerr, dr. s. e., rt. , north lawrence *kintzel, frank m., briarcliffe ave., cincinnati . principal, cincinnati public schools kodera, shunzo, e. th ave., columbus laditka, nicholas g., stickney ave., cleveland . electrician leaman, paul v., rt. , creston lechleitner, rev. r. d., westview ave., worthington lemmon, r. m., vinita ave., akron lippa, julius, lee hts. rd., warrenville heights lorenz, r. c., n. arch st., fremont lynn, edith, rt. , canfield *machovina, paul e., northwest blvd., columbus . college professor manbeck, willard o., croyden rd., cleveland mckinster, ray, south th st., columbus meister, richard t., editor, american fruit grower, willoughby meister, robert t., sre. def., apo , c/o postmaster, new york. farm in ohio *metzger, a. j., euclid ave., toledo oches, norman m., rt. , brunswick. mechanical engineer osborn, frank c., w. th st., cleveland . tool and die maker page, john h., box , dundas *pataky, christ, jr., hickory lane, m.r.s., mansfield. chairman, o.n.g. pattison, aletheia, dexter pl., e. w. h., cincinnati pomerene, walter h., rt. , coshocton. agricultural engineer pomeroy, howard a., rambo lane, toledo purdy, clyde w., public sq., mt. vernon *ranke, william, rt. , box , amelia robb, harry c., rt. , carrollton rogers, t. b., p.o. box , lakemore *rummel, e. t., laverne ave., cleveland . sales manager scarff's sons, w. n., new carlisle. nurserymen *schoenberger, l. roy, green pines farm, rt. , nevada seas, d. edward, so. main st., orrville sebring, r. g., lincoln rd., columbus shelton, dr. elbert m., w. clifton blvd., lakewood sherman, l. walter, fairview ave., canfield *shessler, sylvester m., genoa. farmer short, robert m., e. park st., westerville. high school teacher *silvis, raymond e., lindbergh ave., n.e., massillon. realty smith, sterling a., w. south st., vermillion. telegrapher, nyc rr spring hill nurseries co., tipp city. general nurserymen steinbeck, a. p., rt. , ravenna. rubber worker, firestone tire & rubber co. stevens, robert t., jr., rt. , lucas *stocker, c. p., lorain products corp., f st., lorain swope, wilmer d., rt. , box , leetonia thomas, fred, bedford rd., masury toney, hewitt s., rt. , cedarville. mathematician toops, herbert a., cambridge blvd., columbus . college professor underwood, john, rt. , urbana urban, george, ardendale rd., south euclid . mayor van voorhis, j. f., hudson ave., apt. b , newark von gundy, clifford r., nordyke rd., cincinnati *walker, carl f., e. overlook rd., cleveland . consulting engineer warren, herbert l., w. central ave., delaware weaver, arthur w., rfd box b, cass rd., maumee wheatly, robert, rd st., marietta *williams, harry m., grandon rd., dayton . engineer *williams, l. f., box , mt. vernon yates, edward w., parkview ave., cincinnati . mechanical engineer yoder, emmet, smithville. farmer zimmerman, erle c., firestone bldg., akron. chemist oklahoma butler, roy j., rt. , hydro. farmer, cattleman cesar, farin g., state board of agr., state capitol bldg., oklahoma city cross, prof. frank b., dept. of hort., oklahoma a&m college, stillwater dean, marion, jr., tuxedo rd., bartlesville gray, geoffrey a., elm ave., bartlesville hartman, peter e., hartsdale nursery co., s. boston pl., tulsa . nurseryman hirschi's nursery, n. hudson, oklahoma city. dry cleaning business, nurseryman hughes, c. v., rt. , box , oklahoma city keathly, jack, marland mayfield, w. w., general delivery, sallisaw meek, e. b., rt. , box , wynnewood pulliam, gordon, osage ave., bartlesville riter, john r., e. st st., bartlesville oregon bebeau, a. v., box , mcnary countryman, peter f., rt. , box , ontario graville, ed, rt. , box , junction city miller, john e., s. w. childs rd., oswego pearcy, harry l., h. l. pearcy nursery co., rt. , box , salem. nurseryman smith, earl g., rt. , newberg. manager, dundee nut growers trunk, john e., gen. mgr., northwest nut growers, n. columbia blvd., portland pennsylvania allaman, h. c., so. pine st., york *allaman, r. p., rt. , harrisburg. farm superintendent *amsler, e. w., main st., clarion anthony, roy d., hillcrest ave., state college. retired horticulturist *arensberg, charles f. c., first national bank bldg., pittsburgh . chinese chestnut banks, h. c., rt. , hellertown beard, h. k., rt. , sheridan. insurance agent beck, dr. william m., race st., sunbury berst, charles b., w. th st., erie. inspector, lord mfg. co. blittle, george, lincoln highway, penndel bowen, john c., rt. , macungie brewer, j. l., yellow house *bricker, calvin e., rt. , mercersburg brown, morrison, ickesburg burket, j. emory, rt. , claysburg. fruit grower §clarke, william s., jr., p.o. box , state college clewell, gen. edgar l., dimde farms, rt. , harrisburg. retired u. s. a. comp, alton, no. nd st., newport damask, henry, doyle st., wilkinsburg . telephone man deagon, arthur, e. main st., mechanicsburg ebling, aaron l., rt. , reading etter, fayette, p.o. box , lemasters. foreman, electric company gardner, ralph d., plymouth st., colonial park, harrisburg. assistant state fire marshall glasgow, joseph m., s. second st., bellwood good, orrin s., n. fairview st., lock haven. retired gorton, f. b., rt. , east lake rd., harborcreek. electrical contractor, chestnut & evergreen nurseryman hales, alfred r., jr., apt. c, cloverleaf village apts., pittsburgh halsey, a. louise, walnut st., forty fort *hammond, harold, so. poplar st., allentown hartman, dr. g. w., keystone hospital, rd & briggs sts., harrisburg *hostetter, l. k., rt. , bird in hand. farmer, black walnut grower hughes, douglas, e. st st., erie hull, miss margaret l., n. nd st., harrisburg johnson, robert f., greentree rd., pittsburgh jones, mildred m. see mrs. langdoc, illinois *kaufman, mrs. m. m., box , clarion kirk, h. b., north st., harrisburg knouse, charles w., colonial park, harrisburg. coal dealer krone, herbert b., rt. , box , lancaster krone, mrs. herbert b., rt. , box , lancaster leach, will, rt. , box , scranton. lawyer *mattoon, h. gleason, box , narberth. consultant in arboriculture *mckenna, philip m., p.o. box , latrobe mecartney, j. lupton, w. beaver ave., state college. pomologist *miller, elwood b., mill & chapel sts., hazleton miller, robert o., rd & ridge sts., emmaus moyer, philip s., - u.s.f. & g. bldg., harrisburg. attorney murray, james a., rt. , cambridge springs. teacher niederriter, leonard, state st., erie nonnemacher, h. m., front st., alburtis. line foreman, bell tele. co. of penna. oesterling, h. m., rt. , marysville *reidler, paul g., front & chestnut sts., ashland. manufacturer of textiles reighard, e. don, box , rt. , nut hill nursery, halifax. nurseryman rhoades, frank s., rt. , sigel *rick, john, penna. sq., reading. fruit grower and merchant ritter, c. marshall, dept. of horticulture, penna. state college, state college schaible, percy, box , upper black eddy schieferstein, william b., box , temple shreffler, mrs. w. b., w. main st., clarion smith, dr. j. russell, elm ave., swarthmore. retired teacher, writer smyth, c. wayne, prospect st., troy. attorney springer, herbert w., penrose st., quakertown stewart, e. l., pine hill farms nursery, rt. , homer city theiss, dr. lewis e., univ. ave., lewisburg. retired professor §thompson, howard a., w. swissvale ave., pittsburgh tomm, joseph g., rt. , mcdonald toomy, t. luke, wila §twist, frank s., box , northumberland. salesman washick, dr. frank a., welsh & veree rds., philadelphia . surgeon weaver, william s., weaver orchards, macungie weinrich, whitney, engle rd., rt. , media. chemical engineer *wister, john c, scott foundation, swarthmore college, swarthmore. horticulturist *wright, ross pier, w. th st., erie. manufacturer zimmerman, mrs. g. a., r. d., linglestown rhode island *allen, philip, dorance st., providence loomis, charles b., elisha st., east greenwich south carolina bregger, john t., soil conservation service, clemson gordon, g. henry, union dry cleaning co., main st., union. returned mariner south dakota hanson, oliver g., rt. , box , yankton +richter, herman, madison. farmer tennessee alpine forest reserve, atten: j. edwin carothers, alpine. forester byrd, benjamin f., jr., m.d., granny white pike, nashville. surgeon caldwell, sam, rt. , holt rd., nashville . radio and writer carter, oscar w., m.d., woodlawn dr., nashville. surgeon +chase, spencer b., t. v. a., norris. horticulturist collier, robert h., lutie rd., rt. , knoxville. public administration cox, dr. t. s., hotel ave., fountain city. dentist +dulin, charles r., brownsville. fruit grower dye, mrs. sherman, howell nurseries, sweetwater. chestnut & ornamental nursery garrett, dr. sam young, hayes st., nashville. surgeon hardy, j. h., mennekahda pl., chattanooga . accountant +holdeman, j. e., n. mcneil st., memphis hoyt, prof. garner e., byan university, dayton jones, d. t., rt. , midway mcswain, barton, m.d., hampton rd., nashville. surgeon mattern, don h., union bldg., knoxville +meeks, hamp, jackson elec. dept., jackson. electrical engineer murphy, h. o., sweetbriar ave., chattanooga. fruit grower patterson, dr. r. l., suite , interstate bldg., chattanooga richards, dr. aubrey, whiteville. physician roark, w. f., malesus. farmer, chestnut grower robinson, w. jobe, rt. , jackson. farmer saville, chris, church st., greeneville sells, paul s., boylston st., chattanooga shipley, mrs. e. d., century court, knoxville southern nursery & landscape co., winchester. general nurserymen waterhouse, carmack, p.o. box , oak ridge. engineer zarger, thomas g., t.v.a., norris. forester texas arford, charles a., box , dalhart. r.r. engineer, amateur horticulturist florida, kaufman, box , rotan hander, nelson h., star rt., belton kelly, paul, box , seymour +kidd, clark, arp nursery co., p.o. box , tyler. nut nurseryman lancaster, carroll t., rt. , box , palestine. electrolux dealer mason, g. l., rt. , hico. farmer praytor, t. j., box , seymour reasonover, j. roy, rt. , kemp rubrecht, j. f., plant experiment station, box , paris shelton, david, box , gonzales thomas, j. w., overton winkler, andrew, rt. , moody. farmer and pecan grower winkler, charlie, rt. , moody utah burton, j. o., meadow. rancher dabb, clifford h., rt. , box , ogden ericksen, keith, n. state st., orem petterson, harlan d., raymond ave., south ogden. highway engineer price, harold g., sr., e. crystal ave., salt lake city . (farm in illinois) shurtleff, wm. h., d.d.s., rt. , box , ogden vermont aldrich, a. w., rt. , box , springfield ellis, zenas h., fair haven. perpetual member, "in memoriam." johnson, john r., deer valley farm, townshend reynolds, t. h., main st., middlebury spahr, dr. mary b., stannard (see new york) virginia acker black walnut corp., box , broadway. walnut processors burton, george l., college st., bedford cooper, lawrence e., belle meade. nurseryman-landscaper curthoys, george a., p.o. box , bristol dickerson, t. c., jr., th st., newport news filman, o., box , va. tech. station, blacksburg (temporary from ontario) gibbs, h. r., linden. carpenter, wood worker jenkins, marvin, brightwood. farmer jones, e. w., virginia tree farm, woodlawn lee, dr. henry, medical arts bldg., roanoke miller, t. r., sword's creek. farmer moore, r. c., virginia agricultural experiment station, blacksburg narten, perry f., n. washington blvd., arlington . geologist pinner, henry, p.o. box , suffolk +stoke, h. f., watts ave., n. w., roanoke stoke, mrs. h. f., watts ave., n. w., roanoke stoke, dr. john h., highland ave., s.e., roanoke thompson, b. h., rt. , harrisonburg. manufacturer of nut crackers trump, v. a., crewe washington bechtoe, o. w., coulee city. farmer eliot, craig p., p.o. box , shelton. electrical engineer, farmer erkman, john o., symons, richland. physicist fulmer, w. l., boylston, n., seattle . lily grower latterell, miss ethel, n. flora rd., greenacres. greenhouse worker linkletter, frank d., th ave., seattle . retired naderman, g. w., rt. , box , olympia. caretaker of summer resort ross, verel c., rucker ave., everett shane bros. nut growers, vashon §tuttle, h. lynn, lynn tuttle nursery, the heights, clarkston. nut nurseryman west virginia bartholmew, miss elizabeth ann, w. va. univ., morgantown +cook, dr. e. a., first st., oak hill eckerd, john k., william st., martinsburg. engineer, steam +engle, blaine w., mutual fire ins. co. of w. va., goff bldg., clarksburg *frye, wilbert m., pleasant dale. retired gold chestnut nursery, mr. arthur a. gold, cowen. chestnut nurseryman haines, earl c., shanks haislip, fred, p.o. box logan. farmer §hale, dr. daniel, princeton hartzell, benjamin, shepherdstown howard, mrs. carl e., the charleston gazette, charleston. garden editor +long, j. c., box , princeton. civil engineer mcdonald, dr. walter, augusta mcgraw, s. l., athens mcneill, john hanson, box , romney. chem. engineer +miller, edward, romney mish, arnold f., inwood. associational farmer pease, roger w., dept, of hort., univ. of w. va., morgantown +reed, arthur m., glenmont nurseries, moundsville. prop., glenmount nurseries williams, mrs. dan, romney wisconsin conway, w. m., jefferson st., madison coulson, l. w., rt. , slinger eiler, william, benton jach, peter, no. th st., milwaukee ladwig, c. f., rt. , beloit. grocer and farmer martinson, john l., n. lake, madison mortensen, m. c., stanson ave., racine raether, robert, rt. , augusta running, m. h., n. st., milwaukee snowden, dr. p. w., the monroe clinic, monroe w. f. humphrey press inc. geneva, n. y. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |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. | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ northern nut growers association incorporated affiliated with the american horticultural society st annual report annual meeting at pleasant valley, new york august , and , table of contents _cross-pollinating chestnut trees_ officers and committees, - state and foreign vice-presidents attendance at the meeting constitution by-laws proceedings of the forty-first annual meeting. starting on secretary's report--j. c. mcdaniel treasurer's report--sterling a. smith report of publications--lewis e. theiss discussion of time and place of meeting report of nominating committee president's address--mildred jones langdoc association sends greetings to dr. deming talk by the oldest member---george hebden corsan the persian walnut contest with notes from persian walnut growers--spencer b. chase plans for the carpathian walnut contest--spencer b. chase carpathian scions for testing the persian walnut in pennsylvania and ohio--l. walter sherman notes on persian walnuts in england--sargent wellman prospects for persian walnuts in the vicinity of st. paul, minn.--carl weschcke discussion on persian walnut climatic adaptation grafted black and persian walnuts in michigan--gilbert becker the carpathian walnut in indiana--w. b. ward notes on nut growing in new hampshire--matthew lahti is the farmer missing something?--john davidson how to lose money in manufacturing filbert nut butter--carl weschcke filberts, walnuts and chestnuts on the niagara peninsula--elton e. papple nut varieties: a round table discussion--h. l. crane, chairman second day's session discussion on the bunch disease of walnuts the japanese beetle and nut growing--j. a. adams insecticides for nut insects--e. h. siegler _nut insects and injuries_ , , and observations of effects of low temperatures in the winter - on walnuts and filberts in oregon and washington--john h. painter effects of the winter of - on nut trees in british columbia--j. u. gellatly recipes--j. u. gellatly description of filazel varieties--j. u. gellatly experiments with tree hazels and chestnuts--j. u. gellatly our experience with hickory nut varieties--gilbert l. smith how about the butternut?--l. h. macdaniels progress in nut culture at the pennsylvania state college--w. s. clarke, jr. nut tree culture in missouri--t. j. talbert chestnut breeding: report for --arthur harmount graves a method for maintaining blight--susceptible chestnut trees--arthur harmount graves experiences with chestnuts in nursery and orchard in western new york--george salzer chestnuts in upper dutchess county, new york--alfred szego demonstration of method of propagating nut trees in greenhouse--stephen bernath experiences in nut growing near lake erie--ross pier wright discussion of mulches nominating committee elected resolutions report of auditing committee election of - officers note on the annual tour, august , obituaries letters list of members, etc. officers of the association ~president~--william m. rohrbacher, m.d., e. college, iowa city, iowa ~vice-president~--dr. l. h. macdaniels, cornell university, ithaca, new york ~treasurer~--sterling a. smith, w. south st., vermilion, ohio ~secretary~--j. c. mcdaniel, dept. of horticulture, u. of i., urbana, illinois ~additional directors~--mildred jones langdoc (ill.) and h. f. stoke (va.) ~nominating committee~--dr. h. l. crane, (chairman) plant industry station, beltsville, maryland; spencer b. chase, norris, tenn.; raymond e. silvis, massillon, ohio executive appointments, - ~program~--dr. a. s. colby, chm. (ill.); j. c. mcdaniel (ill.); prof. geo. l. slate (n. y.); royal oakes (ill.); prof. w. d. armstrong (princeton, ky.); dr. h. l. crane (md.); d. c. snyder (ia.); w. w. magill (ky.); prof. f. l. o'rourke (mich.); ira m. kyhl (ia.); h. gleason mattoon (pa.) ~publications~--editorial section: dr. lewis e. theiss, chm. (pa.); dr. w. c. deming (conn.); dr. j. russell smith (pa.); prof. george l. slate (n. y.); h. f. stoke (va.); john davidson (o.); dr. l. h. macdaniels (dept. of floriculture and ornamental horticulture, cornell university, ithaca, n. y.) printing section--john davidson, chm. (o.); j. c. mcdaniel (ill.); prof. george l. slate (n. y.); carl f. prell (ind.) ~place of meeting~--j. f. wilkinson, chm. (ind.); r. p. allaman (pa.); john a. gerstenmaier (o.) ~varieties and contests~--spencer b. chase, chm. (tenn.); g. j. korn, (mich.); j. f. wilkinson (ind.); a. g. hirschi (okla.); l. walter sherman (mich.); sylvester shessler (o.); dr. l. h. macdaniels (n. y.); fayette etter (pa.); gilbert l. smith (n. y.) standards and judging section of this committee--spencer b. chase, chm. (tenn.); dr. l. h. macdaniels (n. y.); dr. j. russell smith (pa.) ~survey and research~--h. f. stoke, chm. (va.); and the state and foreign vice-presidents. ~membership~--d. c. snyder, chm. (ia.); stephen bernath (n. y.); sterling a. smith (o.); raymond e. silvis (o.); carroll d. bush (wash.) ~exhibits~--j. f. wilkinson, chm. (ind.); r. p. allaman (pa.); fayette etter (pa.); a. g. hirschi (okla.); g. j. korn (mich.); h. f. stoke (va.); g. h. corsan (ont.); edwin w. lemke (mich.); carl weschcke (minn.) ~necrology~ mrs. herbert negus, chm. (md.); mrs. c. a. reed (d. c.); mrs. g. a. zimmerman (pa.) ~auditing~ raymond e. silvis (o.); carl f. walker (o.) ~finance~ sterling a. smith, chm. (o.); carl weschcke (minn.) ~legal adviser~ sargent wellman (mass.) ~official journal~ american fruit grower, willoughby, ohio state and foreign vice presidents alabama edward l. hiles, loxley alberta, canada a. l. young, brooks belgium r. vanderwaeren, bierbeekstraat, , korbeek-lo british columbia, canada j. u. gellatly, box , westbank california thos. r. haig, m.d., highland ave., carlsbad connecticut a. m. huntington, stanerigg farms, bethel delaware lewis wilkins, route , newark denmark count f. m. knuth, knuthenborg, bandholm district of columbia edwin l. ford, austin st., s.e., washington, florida c. a. avant, n.w. th avenue, miami georgia william j. wilson, north anderson ave., fort valley hong kong p. w. wang, des voeux rd., central idaho lynn dryden, peck illinois royal oakes, bluffs (scott county) indiana ford wallick, route , peru iowa ira m. kyhl, box , sabula kansas dr. clyde gray, central avenue, horton louisiana dr. harald e. hammar, court house, shreveport maryland blaine mccollum, white hall massachusetts s. lathrop davenport, creeper hill rd., north grafton michigan gilbert becker, climax minnesota r. e. hodgson, southeastern exp. station, waseca mississippi james r. meyer, delta branch exper. station, stoneville missouri ralph richterkessing, route , saint charles nebraska harvey w. hess, box , hebron new hampshire matthew lahti, locust lane farm, wolfeboro new jersey mrs. alan r. buckwalter, route , flemington new mexico rev. titus gehring, p. o. box , lumberton new york george salzer, garford road, rochester north carolina dr. r. t. dunstan, greensboro college, greensboro north dakota homer l. bradley, long lake refuge, moffit ohio a. a. bungart, avon oklahoma a. g. hirschi, n. robinson, oklahoma city ontario, canada george h. corsan, echo valley, toronto oregon harry l. pearcy, route , box , salem pennsylvania r. p. allaman, route , harrisburg prince edward island, canada robert snazelle, forest nursery, rt. , charlottetown rhode island philip allen, dorance st., providence south carolina john t. bregger, p. o. box , clemson south dakota herman richter, madison tennessee w. jobe robinson, route , jackson texas kaufman florida, box , rotan utah harlan d. petterson, jefferson avenue, ogden vermont joseph n. collins, route , putney virginia h. r. gibbs, linden washington carroll d. bush, grapeview west virginia wilbert m. frye, pleasant dale wisconsin c. f. ladwig, st. laurence, beloit attendance at the meeting pleasant valley, new york dr. j. alfred adams, new york state agricultural experiment station, route , poughkeepsie, new york mr. r. p. allaman, th st., harrisburg, pennsylvania mrs. r. p. allaman, th st., harrisburg, pennsylvania mr. r. d. anthony, state college, pennsylvania mrs. lillian v. armstrong, earl street, toronto, canada (now mrs. george hebden corsan) mr. richard barcus, massillon, ohio mr. alfred l. barlow, flanders ave., detroit , michigan mrs. irene m. barlow, flanders avenue, detroit , michigan miss betty barlow, flanders ave., detroit , michigan mr. leon barlow, flanders ave., detroit , michigan mrs. alice m. bernath, pleasant valley, new york mr. stephen bernath, r. d. , poughkeepsie, new york mr. charles b. berst, erie, pennsylvania mr. harold blake, saddle river, new jersey mr. harold blake, jr., saddle river, new jersey mrs. katherine blake, saddle river, new jersey mr. george brand, r. d. , lincoln, nebr. (now in california) mr. william g. brooks, monroe, new york mrs. alan r. buckwalter, flemington, new jersey mr. redmond m. burr, s. th avenue, ann arbor, michigan mrs. r. m. burr, s. th avenue, ann arbor, michigan mr. david h. caldwell, w. hickory street, canastota, new york (new york state college of forestry) mr. spencer b. chase, norris, tennessee mr. william s. clarke, jr., box , state college, pennsylvania dr. arthur s. colby, university of illinois, urbana, illinois mrs. arthur s. colby, urbana, illinois mr. george hebden corsan, echo valley, toronto , ontario mr. george e. craig, dundas, ohio dr. h. l. crane, plant industry station, beltsville, maryland mrs. h. l. crane, hyattsville, maryland mr. l. h. dowell, north avenue, n.e., massillon, ohio mr. aaron l. ebling, r. d. , reading, pennsylvania mr. ralph w. emerson, highland park, michigan mr. edwin l. ford, washington, d. c. mr. wilbert m. frye, pleasant dale, west virginia mr. charles gerstenmaier, massillon, ohio mr. john a. gerstenmaier, massillon, ohio mrs. j. a. gerstenmaier, massillon, ohio mrs. bessie j. gibbs, linden, virginia mr. h. r. gibbs, linden, virginia mr. ralph gibson, williamsport, pennsylvania mr. s. h. graham, bostwick road, ithaca, new york mrs. s. h. graham, bostwick road, ithaca, new york mr. henry gressel, r. d. , mohawk, new york mrs. nora gressel, r. d. , mohawk, new york mr. earl c. haines, shanks, west virginia mr. walter hasbrouck, new paltz, new york mrs. walter hasbrouck, new paltz, new york mr. andrew kerr, barnstable, massachusetts mr. frank m. kintzel, cincinnati, ohio mr. ira m. kyhl, sabula, iowa miss bertha landis, marion avenue, mansfield, ohio mr. james d. lawrence, r. d. , middletown, new york mr. frederick l. lehr, hamden, connecticut mr. james lowerre, r. d. , middletown, new york dr. l. h. macdaniels, ithaca, new york prof. j. c. mcdaniel, horticultural field laboratory, university of illinois, urbana, illinois mr. j. w. mckay, plant industry station, beltsville, maryland mr. elwood miller, hazleton, pennsylvania mrs. elwood miller, hazleton, pennsylvania mr. louis miller, cassopolis, michigan dr. james k. mossman, ramapo, new york mrs. herbert negus, mount ranier, maryland mr. royal oakes, bluffs, illinois mrs. royal oakes, bluffs, illinois mr. f. l. o'rourke, hidden lake gardens, michigan state college, tipton, michigan mr. john h. page, dundas, ohio mr. philip p. parkinson, broadway, newark, new jersey mrs. philip p. parkinson, broadway, newark, new jersey mr. christ pataky, jr., mansfield, ohio mrs. christ pataky, mansfield, ohio mr. gordon porter, windsor, ontario mrs. penelope porter, windsor, ontario mrs. c. a. reed, piney branch road, washington , d. c. mr. john rick, penn street, reading, pennsylvania dr. william m. rohrbacher, iowa city, iowa mrs. elizabeth i. rohrbacher, iowa city, iowa mr. george salzer, rochester, new york mrs. george salzer, rochester, new york mr. rodman salzer, rochester, new york mr. l. walter sherman, harrisburg, pennsylvania mrs. l. w. sherman, harrisburg, pennsylvania (the shermans now in michigan) mr. raymond e. silvis and family, massillon, ohio mr. george l. slate, geneva, new york mr. douglas a. smith, vermilion, ohio mr. gilbert l. smith, millerton, new york mr. jay l. smith, chester, new york mr. sterling a. smith, w. south street, vermilion, ohio mr. harwood steiger, red hook, new york mrs. sophie h. steiger, red hook, new york mr. h. f. stoke, watts avenue, roanoke, virginia mrs. h. f. stoke, watts avenue, roanoke, virginia mr. alfred szego, - a th avenue, jackson heights, new york, n. y. prof. t. j. talbert, columbia, missouri dr. lewis e. theiss, lewisburg, pennsylvania dr. frank a. washick, philadelphia , pennsylvania mr. harry r. weber, cincinnati, ohio mr. sargent h. wellman, topsfield, massachusetts mrs. laura l. whiteford, pleasant valley, duchess county, new york mr. j. f. wilkinson, rockport, indiana, mr. william j. wilson, fort valley, georgia mrs. william j. wilson, fort valley, georgia mrs. g. a. zimmerman, route , linglestown, pennsylvania complete membership list is in back of this volume. constitution of the northern nut growers association, incorporated (as adopted september , ) 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, 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 , ) section i.--membership classes of membership are defined as follows: ~article . annual members.~ persons who are interested in the purposes of the association who pay annual dues of three dollars ($ . ). ~article . contributing members.~ persons who are interested in the purposes of the association who pay annual dues of ten dollars ($ . ) or more. ~article . life members.~ persons who are interested in the purposes of the association who contribute seventy five dollars ($ . ) to its support and who shall, after such contribution, pay no annual dues. ~article . 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 . 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 become 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 .~ 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 to 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 .~ vice-president. in the absence of the president, the vice-president shall perform the duties of the president. ~article .~ 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 .~ 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 .~ 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 .~ 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 .~ 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 .~ for the purpose of nominating officers for the year and thereafter, a committee of five members shall be elected annually at the preceding annual meeting. ~article .~ a quorum at a regularly called annual meeting shall be fifteen ( ) members and must include at least two of the elected officers. ~article .~ all classes of members whose dues are paid shall be eligible to vote and hold office. section iv.--financial matters ~article .~ the fiscal year of the association shall extend from october st through the following september th. all annual memberships shall begin october st. ~article .~ the names of all members whose dues have not been paid by january st 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 st. ~article .~ 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 st 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 .~ 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 .~ the association shall publish a report each fiscal year and such other publications as may be authorized by the association. ~article .~ the publishing of the report shall be the responsibility of the committee on publications. section vii.--awards ~article .~ 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: . membership . auditing . publications . survey . program . research . exhibit . varieties and contests section ix.--regional groups and affiliated societies. ~article .~ 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 .~ 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 $ . 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 .~ 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. report of the proceedings at the forty-first annual meeting of the northern nut growers association, inc. held at pleasant valley, dutchess county, new york on august , and , together with other papers on nut culture monday morning session the meeting was called to order by the vice-president, dr. l. h. macdaniels, in the absence of the president. dr. macdaniels: i have here the official gavel of the northern nut growers association, which was sent to me by mildred jones langdoc, who unfortunately is not able to come to this meeting. she, of course, is our president. she expected to come until fairly recently but on her doctor's orders changed her plans and wrote to me a very short time ago asking me if i would preside at this meeting. does anyone present know the history of this gavel? mr. george slate: it was presented to the association by mr. littlepage, and was made from indiana pecan wood. dr. macdaniels: but anyway here it is, and we declare the association in session. this morning the meeting is quite brief. we will start the meeting with the report from the secretary, mr. mcdaniel. secretary's report j. c. mcdaniel mr. j. c. mcdaniel: my report before the meeting will be very brief. it may be extended a little later for the publication. the last count for this association's membership made last week shows the association has paid members, plus subscribers and one foreign exchange membership, totalling . there have been a few more members come in since then, so i might say we have in round figures about members to date in , a few less than last year. i probably owe the members an explanation on the delay in the printing of the fortieth annual report. that was finally taken up by the printing company and should be printed by now. it was ready to put on the press--in fact, some of it was on the press when i left nashville two weeks ago, and we have every reason to believe that it will be ready for mailing in about another week. the treasurer said he heard me say that six months ago. that's six months nearer to being the truth now. i requested that the printer send up two copies, whether they are bound or not, so they may be in to show you later during the meeting. i believe that's about all i will say at this time, mr. president. dr. macdaniels: this matter of the report not being here i know is the cause of considerable dissatisfaction, and it arises out of our attempt to get the report printed cheaply. we have had the same trouble before. the corse press did this at one time and did it cheaply, because they would work it in with the other business. the last time they did it, and other business was so heavy that it was delayed. the printers who do it at nashville also did the legislative printing and other things cut in, so that it was not carried on. now, i think that we have some ideas in mind for printers for the next issue, so that if we get the papers in on time, the report will be coming out fairly promptly. is the treasurer ready with his report? mr. sterling smith. treasurer's report sept. , to aug. , receipts: annual membership dues $ , . (contributing members: arp nursery co. and mr. hjalmar w. johnson $ . each) life membership (herschel l. boll) . contributions mr. a. m. huntington . mr. geo. l. slate . sale of reports . interest on u. s. bonds . worcester county (mass.) hort. society . advertisement . miscellaneous . ------- total income $ , . disbursements: u. s. bond "g" $ . american fruit grower subscriptions . supplies, stationery, etc. for secretary . secretary's c per member . secretary's expense . treasurer's expense . reporting beltsville meeting . mr. reed's memorial . bank service charge . miscellaneous . ------- total disbursements $ , . cash on deposit at erie county united bank $ , . petty cash on hand . disbursements , . --------- total $ , . on hand sept. , $ , . receipts sept. . , to aug. , , . --------- total $ , . u. s. bonds in safety deposit box $ , . dr. macdaniels: thank you, mr. smith. i think it is usual to accept the report and then refer it, i believe, to an auditing committee. a member: i so move. dr. macdaniels: it is moved that the report be accepted and turned over to the auditing committee. mr. szego: second. dr. macdaniels: seconded. any remarks? (no response.) (a vote was taken on the motion, and it was carried unanimously.) dr. macdaniels: i'd like to appoint mr. royal oakes and mr. weber as auditing committee, and i think they report at the final business session, which comes at the banquet. i will say that matter of $ . i didn't know anything about, except now i recall the circumstances. at the convention i took over what was left of the exhibits--nobody wanted them--and took them back to ithaca, thinking i would send them to the massachusetts horticultural society. i didn't have time to do that, but i did send them to worcester (mass.) horticulture society, and apparently i was out of the country and they sent the award to the treasurer, and that accounts for the $ . . it's the first i have heard of it, but anyway, we have it. the treasurer's report indicates we have some little surplus in the treasury, but after our report is paid for, that will be reduced to the amount of about $ . . that is the net surplus at the present time, and if we face the facts of the matter, it means that we are not living within our income, that is, with printing costs going up. the reports used to cost $ . , instead of $ . , and what not. the reason we have kept going has been the use of life memberships and the extra contribution of mr. archer huntington. the matter of deficit financing seems to be good for the government, but i don't think it is any good for the society. i think, however, we can adjust our affairs so as to get along. it is proposed we make a change in the by-laws which will set up another type of membership. that is, at the present time we have an annual membership of $ . and a contributing membership of $ . and life membership for $ . . taking the pattern from some other societies, it at least was discussed that we put up a membership of $ . , which was a sustaining membership, and anybody who felt that he could do that easily could do so, not receiving any additional benefits, except, perhaps, a star in front of his name,--just considering it a contribution to the society. what we had in mind is that we know that there are some of the membership that find the $ . is plenty high enough. there are others to whom probably it means another dinner, or something of that kind, and it doesn't make so much difference. and what we propose to do is to make it easy for those who can to give that additional support. that amendment will be proposed at the last business meeting in some form, and it will have to go over until the next meeting, according to our constitution, which provides for the amendment of the by-laws. mr. secretary, do we have a report of the editor? mr. j. c. mcdaniel: yes, i have that here, a short report from dr. lewis e. theiss, who will be at the meeting in the morning. report of publications and publicity dr. lewis e. theiss, chairman the annual report, which should be issued very soon, will speak for itself. delay more than usual was occasioned by an effort to make the publication fully complete. to that end, printing was held up so that, for one thing, we could include dr. j. russell smith's remarkable summary or survey of nut experimentation in the u. s. and canada. we cannot overemphasize the great services of our secretary, mr. mcdaniel, in the preparation of this work. he collected the material, forwarded it to me for editing, did much editing himself, secured the printing contract, and in general oversaw the production of the volume. to edit the manuscripts for a book of this size is in itself quite a chore. proof reading is a great burden. in the preparation of this report, we have had the hearty cooperation and help of mrs. herbert negus (md.); professor george slate (new york); dr. a. s. colby (ill.); mr. spencer chase (tenn.); and mr. alfred barlow (mich.). we are indebted to all of these members for their fine support. we hope that this present issue will be a worthy successor to the many fine ones that have preceded it. lewis e. theiss, chairman publications committee read at meeting / / . mr. j. c. mcdaniel: i might say, by the way, it will be pages larger than last year's, totalling pages. dr. macdaniels: thank you, mr. secretary. the question is going to arise as to the size of our report. that is, the reports up to the last two have been something less than pages, i believe. this one is running over considerably, and the question comes up as to whether or not we should economize by reducing the size of the report. it was the general opinion of the directors in discussing the matter that perhaps somewhat closer editing should be done, but we realize that for many members of the association the report is the one tangible thing that they get out of the whole picture and that the reports should be kept, certainly, at a good length and high grade. i think those are all of the officers' reports. are there reports of the committees? program committee, mr. slate, do you have a brief report? mr. george l. slate: the report of the program committee has been published, and the programs are on this table in the rear of the room. dr. macdaniels: brief and to the point. in other words, mr. slate has written around to the persons who are going to be on the program, sort of cranking them up. this society is in a situation where its members don't just flock to the call of requests for papers, and they have to be solicited. well, mr. slate has done a very good job of soliciting papers, and the report speaks for itself in the program which has been prepared. reports of any special committees? do we have a committee on contests?--of the carpathian walnut contest? mr. mcdaniel: i believe that will be taken up in the afternoon program. dr. macdaniels: the matter of old business. do we have any old business, mr. secretary? mr. mcdaniel: i don't know of any that's carried over now. discussion on time and place of meeting dr. macdaniels: coming to new business. there is always the time and the place of the next convention. i think that that is usually in the hands of a committee, but in the open meeting the matter is discussed, and we are open for any suggestions. i have heard that dr. colby of illinois is going to have a suggestion that we come to illinois. mr. mcdaniel: that's my understanding, and he should be here a little later. dr. macdaniels: anybody else have any suggestions? i think, with regard to our time and place of meeting, we have in mind alternating between the east, and the middle west. the center of membership appears to be about central ohio, is that right? and i don't think we have gone any farther west than center point, iowa. mr. weber: that was back in . dr. macdaniels: that probably is about as far west as we are going to get, unless we get a lot of members out farther. now, suggestions that have been made have been that next year the meeting would be in illinois--at the university of illinois--and the year following somewhere in the east, possibly pennsylvania, although we haven't been invited to pennsylvania. i don't know whether we can get one or not. and the next year west again, possibly michigan, and beyond that we haven't thought. but i think there is a real advantage in having time blocked out in advance for at least two years so that people can make their plans as to where they will go. that is, i think often in planning vacations and what not, it goes that far ahead. mr. jay smith: mr. chairman, the last week in august seems to be better than the first week in september, from the point of view of the school openings in early september. mr. wellman: i think we should wait a little while and see what kind of attendance we get at this meeting this time of the year. mr. rick: if we could arrange it, we'd like to appeal to the membership to have a meeting in lancaster county. i think mr. hostetter has quite a number of things that could be shown and perhaps some others in the neighborhood that might make it quite interesting. dr. macdaniels: we can refer that to the committee. mr. allaman: mr. president, i think that is a very fine suggestion. one of our nut growers in pennsylvania lives in lancaster county, and he has told me he has , nut trees, including filberts, and is still planting. dr. macdaniels: that sounds almost like the government debt, only not quite. we will let that matter go until the committee reports when dr. colby arrives. is there any other business which we ought to transact at this time? if not, i think the next item is the president's address, which has just arrived. mrs. bernath just brought it in. it just came in under the wire, i guess. dr. crane: mr. stoke has just come in. dr. macdaniels: we will have the report of the nominating committee, mr. stoke. report of nominating committee mr. stoke: we bore in mind when we were making nominations for the presidency that we will probably hold our next meeting in the west, so we have nominated dr. william rohrbacher of iowa for president, and dr. macdaniels, our perennial vice-president be nominated again and hope that we get him across next year as president. he has served a pretty good apprenticeship. our secretary, j. c. mcdaniel, has been nominated for re-election and sterling smith as treasurer. the last two ex-presidents will be on the board of directors. those, with the other officers named, constitute our entire board of directors. dr. macdaniels: thank you, mr. stoke. you have heard the report of the nominating committee. dr. crane: move that they be accepted. mr. allaman: second. dr. macdaniels: are there remarks? (no response.) if not, we will take a vote. (whereupon, a vote was taken on the motion, and it was carried unanimously.) dr. macdaniels: the election comes at the time of the banquet, and nominations may be made from the floor at the time of election. dr. colby, i believe, came in. do you want to say something about illinois as a meeting place for next year. dr. colby of the university of illinois. dr. colby: i don't know whether there was any malice aforethought in that committee nomination! before i left urbana a few weeks ago, dean h. p. rusk of our college of agriculture asked me to invite you people to come to urbana, illinois for your meeting next year. so that, mr. president, is an official invitation. we hope that you can all come. i see some of our illinois friends here, and we are all working together to provide an interesting meeting at that time. now, as to the date, that will have to be settled a little later. dr. macdaniels: thanks very much, dr. colby. that makes it official. mr. weber: mr. president, i move we accept the invitation. mr. jay smith: i second. dr. macdaniels: moved and seconded we go to illinois, the time to be arranged by the committee. any remarks? (no response.) (whereupon, a vote was taken on the motion, and it was carried unanimously.) dr. macdaniels: that fixes that, and the time will depend somewhat on the availability of dormitories. if the meeting is held the last week in august, the dormitories would be available, would they not? mr. weber: get away from the labor day problem, too. dr. macdaniels: any other business? has anyone else come in in the meantime who has a report? if not, we will go ahead with the next item, which is the president's address, and i will ask mr. weber of cincinnati to read this. i am much pleased to do this because of mr. weber's friendship for the president. president's address mildred jones langdoc, erie, illinois i have been a member of this organization for a good many years, and i have always had a deep interest in its success. our members are in a position to encourage the planting of good varieties of nut trees which may some day be appreciated even more for food and other uses as our population increases than we as a nation appreciate them today. tree crops are a means of conserving our soils, both from the point of erosion and moisture holding content. i like the opportunity we have to be far-sighted in encouraging the planting of nut trees which will play a large part in the future well-being of our country. our n.n.g.a., as it is today, has been built on the unselfish efforts of a number of far-sighted men who had an ideal and a will to see that ideal accomplished. i think i was fortunate to know a number of the early founders of the organization either through their visits to my home where my father and they would talk their favorite subject of nut varieties known, just found, or the ideal variety they hoped they'd locate--perhaps in the next nut contest. in lighter mood--usually around the dinner table--they would sometimes reminisce about this joke or that which some member played on another. altogether our early founders and officers were really great men, bringing experiences from various walks of life. today we have a still wider variety of occupations listed among our membership, and an even greater opportunity to make acquaintances and friends. i hope every member will make full use of his leisure time here at this convention to make new acquaintances and to renew old ones. knowing the members as i do, i know you will treasure these acquaintances during your entire lifetime. the association can serve its members in a number of ways, but i would place special emphasis on our reports carrying from year to year a progressive report on varieties. in other words, i think our survey reports are one important part of our means of learning about the performance of varieties in various sections of the country where they are being tried. i would urge every member to make a definite effort to co-operate with the survey committee in sending the information they require, because these men making the survey are busy men, too, just like the rest of us, and they have to make a real effort to find time to tabulate the information they receive, and they want to receive more, so they are willing to do their part to tabulate the information which will help us as an organization to be more definite about encouraging or discouraging the planting of a certain variety. there is a question in my mind whether the very best nut so far as cracking quality is concerned will be the best variety for the average home planter. i think we should consider whether the variety will bear good crops consistently, and if it doesn't bear well--why? perhaps it is a matter of soil condition which can be corrected, a matter of a variety being planted in a climate where it cannot bear well, and perhaps elevation above sea level is another factor. we may even find with the hickories and walnuts that certain varieties will perform better with certain other varieties as pollinators. when we think of these things there is much to be done in the evaluation of varieties, although there has been a start in the right direction. it seems to me that nut contests at regular intervals help to stimulate interest in better varieties of nuts and we do gain a certain amount of free advertising through newspapers and magazines. the results of the contest should state, in my opinion, the comparison of the varieties selected as the best of the contest with the ratings of varieties already named and now in propagation. this would mean using the same score card always. remembering that the very best rated cracking nut is not always the best bearing variety, it would help to accompany this variety report with data as to the location of the tree--soil it is growing in--soil type--good drainage or a damp location--rainfall during the year--days between frost--whether the tree has had good care or not--whether it's a heavy bearer--and any other information which may have a bearing upon the health and vigor of the tree. if notes can be taken on the blooming and bearing habit of other trees of the same species close by which may influence this particular variety through cross-pollination, then we would have a good record immediately on each variety. i realize in stating the above that we must rely on the human mind which colors and evaluates everything our senses perceive, so it's up to us as individuals to try constantly to train ourselves to evaluate a variety as it really is. i feel that much of the success of our organization in the gathering of nut tree varieties has been due to an honest effort towards reporting only facts and we will do well to enlist the aid of our college trained scientific minds to help us individuals in asking ourselves the necessary questions about our nut tree varieties. according to the phrase "life begins at ," we are now just beginning to live as an organization. let us then examine every means to set our course towards the definite goal of evaluating the worth of all the named varieties of northern grown nut trees, let us report our findings without prejudice, let us continue to make our annual reports so necessary as a clearing house for the year's progress in nut culture, so valuable, that anyone interested in nut culture can't afford not belonging to and being an active part of our group. i would especially like to see other active state groups as the ohio group all bringing together their yearly information in one book form--our annual report. the ohio group deserves special recognition on the wisdom of their officers to work towards a unified northern nut growers group, each helping the other where they can. i want to express my appreciation to our secretary, mr. mcdaniel, for his work this year which can be doubly appreciated by those who know the excellent job he has performed in spite of many adversities. i hope he will continue as secretary. our treasurer, mr. smith, has been right on the job, and we can all be of special help to him by sending or giving to him here and now our dues for the coming year. we would not waste any time by paying our dues promptly, but we would save a tremendous amount of time for him. we can in this way make his association and work for us most pleasant and in that way show him how much we appreciate his help. i express the hope that mr. smith will be our treasurer for a long time. i want to thank the board of directors and all of the committees who have labored so faithfully during the year. our convention program for this year is evidence that our program committee has spent much time in thought, correspondence and work and we all appreciate and give them our hearty thanks. since i cannot be with you this year, dr. macdaniels has consented to occupy the chair and the st annual meeting will now go forward under his able direction. i am with you in thought. sincerely, mildred jones langdoc * * * * * mr. weber: by the way, since i am on the floor and i am on my feet, i will pass this attendance record. will you all please sign your names and addresses. it doesn't bind you to anything. mr. corsan: you might tell the audience--there are some strangers here--who the president is whose address you just read. mr. weber: i read her name, the former mildred jones, whose father was the late j. f. jones who was one of the pioneers in the propagating of nut trees, and was formerly living in lancaster county, pennsylvania, three miles south of lancaster on u. s. . his daughter continued his work after his death, has since married and is now living out at erie, illinois, which is west of chicago near the mississippi river. her name now is langdoc. dr. macdaniels: our president brought out two points in which i most heartily concur. one is our search for new varieties and the evaluation of varieties, and the other, the more extensive rating of the varieties we already have. there will be this round-table this evening on evaluation of varieties, of which dr. crane will be the chairman. association sends greetings to dr. deming dr. mckay: i'd like to bring up this matter--i'd like to make this in the form of a motion, that in view of the long and active service of dr. w. c. deming to this organization, i think it would be appropriate for this organization to send him greetings. i would like to make that in the form of a motion. mr. bernath: i second it. dr. macdaniels: moved and seconded to send dr. deming greetings from the meeting. we had hoped that he would be here. he may come yet, unless somebody knows definitely to the contrary. george slate saw him a while ago and said he hopes to get here.[ ] [ ] dr. deming was present at the lunch stop on the wassaic state school grounds during the third day's tour.--ed. mr. weber: i have just been informed that dr. deming will be years old on september first. dr. macdaniels: that's something. how old is mr. corsan? mr. weber: the question arises: how old is mr. corsan? the gentleman is here, and he will speak for himself. talk by the oldest member mr. corsan: i don't know how old i am. i know i was born near rockport, new york, and my father brought me across the river to hamilton, ontario, when i was seven, and according to my aunts and uncles and people who told me, they say i was born june , . so here i am kicking around, but i am not blowing how long i will live. i don't know, but i will try my best. i have joined the vegetarian society many years ago, and i am still hanging onto that idea, and i hope that we have a vegetarian banquet some of these times, because nearly all vegetarian associations are very deeply interested in the northern nut growers association. that's what they all told me at the convention at lake geneva last august a year ago. and i just came back from visiting rodale. i thought i'd see rodale. he looks a good deal like this gentleman here (indicating mr. bernath), our friend here, about the size and appearance of him. but he is of the greatest ancestry in the world. he is jewish, and he doesn't know exactly how to eat, because he has jowls and dewlaps and he is too fat, but he is a very fine man; beautiful, clear, honest eyes, he has, and i hope to have him consider the planting of nut trees on his place. he has a disgraceful looking place in comparison to mine. this year my place is just loaded down with nuts, except filberts. last year i had so many filberts that i have half a ton left over yet. and i want to see people beautify the country. i started off one day with a thought that came to my head. i heard that there were a half a million widows and orphans buried in the hudson hill cemetery. and i thought: why, those dead people can be working; they can be doing something. let them feed the roots of the japanese heartnut. and as a try, i sent them seeds just as a start. and the japanese heartnut, a stranger to this country, isn't anywhere near any other nut, and it grows true to form, and a lot of the trees are much hardier up on lake ontario. it does not grow well on the north of the lake, but south of the lake it grows enormous crops every year, and the nuts come out whole. but there is a better shaped nut without that kind of groove in the center, and it's the father or the mother--father, probably--of the finest heartnuts in the world, and there is nothing that beats a heartnut for eating. every time i sell heartnuts to eat i have ruined myself, because they won't eat any other nut. so that shows just exactly what the general public thinks of it. even italians. there i have a half a ton of filberts. i bring the heartnuts down to florida, the fairchild and my hybrid trees and butternuts and japanese heartnuts, and i have a package of almonds and another package of brazil nuts, and i let them taste those. they are woody in comparison to our heartnuts and hybrids. they are not anything, they are just like so much wood in comparison. now, i have received from john w. fowler, secretary to albert williams of the department of corrections on center street. new york, a beautiful letter accepting those nuts, and i had my housekeeper--i was down in florida--send them to them early in february, and they are planted. and the breezes going up and down the hudson are going to wave the two-foot-long leaves of the most beautiful deciduous trees in the world, the japanese heartnut, healthiest, hardiest nut in the world, and these dead people will be feeding them. just think! five thousand children without a name or number. now, they have erected a monument just recently, but the real monuments are the living trees. i am going to send them a lot more, because i want to see them working. i might come back and eat some of these nuts myself. * * * * * dr. macdaniels: thank you, mr. corsan. (applause.) dr. macdaniels: mr. corsan is certainly well on his way to being a hundred, and i think if eating nuts and other vegetables will do that, more of us ought to pay attention. i think we voted on that motion. i think it was unanimous that we send this greeting to dr. deming in his eighty-ninth year. (the following telegram was sent to dr. deming: "at this forty-first annual meeting of the northern nut growers association in convention assembled at pleasant valley, new york, the members send you their love and also extend their best wishes for your continuance of good health.") any other business? mr. mcdaniel: there is one elective committee that probably will need to be acted on, which is always done at the meeting before, and that's the nominations committee for next year. that's elective. dr. macdaniels: the resolutions committee. mr. allaman, will you take chairmanship for that? and mr. porter of windsor, will you help mr. allaman on the resolutions committee? mr. porter: do i act now, in this meeting? dr. macdaniels: yes, during the time you are here work out with mr. allaman the resolutions that pertain to this particular meeting. anything else? if not, this first session is adjourned. meet again promptly this afternoon at one o'clock, (whereupon, at : o'clock, a.m., the meeting was recessed, to reconvene at : o'clock, p.m. of the same day.) monday afternoon session dr. macdaniels: i will call the meeting to order, the afternoon session. this afternoon we have the session given over mostly to the carpathian walnut. the first paper, by spencer chase of norris, tennessee. mr. chase: first, with the president's permission, i thought perhaps a short report of the contest would be in order. as you probably recall, we conducted a persian walnut contest last year for northern nut growers members only. in this contest we had entries submitted. the persian walnut contest with notes from persian walnut growers spencer b. chase, contest chairman tennessee valley authority norris, tennessee the persian walnut contest of attracted entries from association members. the following sent nut samples: e. w. lemke (michigan) ( ), ray mckinster (ohio) ( ), s. shessler (ohio) ( ), f. s. hill (n. y.) ( ), r. c. lorenz (ohio) ( ), benton and smith nut tree nursery (n. y.) ( ), a. s. colby (illinois) ( ), e. m. shelton (ohio) ( ), and n. w. fateley (indiana) ( ). the contest committee appreciates their interest in this informal contest. it was not practical for all of the judges to convene at one place to evaluate the samples. therefore, the following system was used: one nut from each sample was sent to h. f. stoke (va.), gilbert becker (michigan), g. j. korn (michigan), and j. c. mcdaniel. these four judges were asked to select the best five of the entries. the chairman then made the final selections based on their findings. therefore, the samples were actually subjected to five evaluations. the results indicate that this method was very satisfactory. first place went to the sample submitted by ray mckinster, columbus, ohio., it is significant that four of the five judges selected this sample as the best entry. mr. mckinster reports that his tree is a carpathian obtained as seed from the wisconsin horticultural society in . the year old tree has a circumference of inches at the base and has withstood degrees below zero without injury. it began bearing in and yielded approximately one-half bushel in . the yield is an estimate since squirrels play havoc with the crop. the nuts weighed . grams with . grams of kernel. four judges considered this an outstanding carpathian. second place went to a sample submitted by sylvester shessler, genoa, ohio. three judges selected this sample for second place, one placed it first and the other selected it for third place. again it was significant that the judges were in close agreement. the parent tree is growing in clay center, ohio, and is estimated to be years old. it began bearing in . it yielded an estimated two bushels in , three pecks in , and one bushel in . it has withstood degrees below zero without damage. the source of this seedling is unknown. the nut weighed . . grams with . grams of kernel. the nut is round with a smooth shell and has a very attractive kernel. this selection has been named ~hansen~. third place, after some disagreement, also went to mr. shessler for his entry now named ~jacobs~. this sample received one vote for second place and one for third place. two judges agreed on another sample for third place but in a comparative test involving more nuts the jacobs sample was selected. the nut weighed . grams with . grams of kernel. the parent jacobs tree is located in elmore, ohio, and is estimated to be years old. bearing since , it yielded an estimated pounds in , pounds in , and pounds in . the tree has withstood degrees below zero. the seed which produced this tree came from germany. fourth and fifth places were awarded to samples s- and s-xd submitted by benton and smith nut tree nurseries, millerton, n. y. three judges selected these two entries for fourth and fifth places while the other two judges selected other entries. s- weighed . grams with . grams of kernel. s-xd weighed . grams with . grams of kernel. both selections were raised from carpathian walnuts obtained from the wisconsin horticultural society in . the nuts entered in the contest came from -year old grafted trees located at the wassaic state school, wassaic, n. y. they began bearing a few nuts at six years of age. both have withstood degrees below zero. in addition to the five prize winners other entries are worthy of mention. four additional benton, and smith selections (s- , s- , s- , s- ), selection illinois from dr. colby, and a sample from mr. lorenz were all considered in the first five by at least one judge. the carpathian sample from n. w. fateley was outstanding for size of nut and kernel. unfortunately, the kernels were shriveled. since this sample arrived late all of the judges did not have an opportunity to evaluate it. mr. lemke also entered a very large persian walnut. it was considered for third place by two judges but was discarded in the final judging because of shriveled kernels. both of these large selections should be tested further. it must be borne in mind that in this, as in all similar contests, only nut characteristics of one year's crop could be evaluated. whether these selections are adapted to our varying conditions will have to be determined. in other words, this contest should be considered as a preliminary exploration and not as a final selection of suitable varieties. following is a summary table containing data on the prize winners: results of persian walnut contest -------------------------------------------------------------------------- nut kernel kernel rank entry name and address weight weight per- centage -------------------------------------------------------------------------- no. ray mckinster, s. th st., columbus , ohio . . . hansen s. m. shessler, rfd, genoa, ohio . . . jacobs s. m. shessler, rfd, genoa, ohio . . . s- benton & smith nut tree nursery, rt. , millerton, new york s-xd benton & smith nut tree nursery, rt. , millerton, new york . . . -------------------------------------------------------------------------- to obtain information on the culture of hardy persian walnut a questionnaire was sent to members known to have experience with ~juglans regia~. the following information, based on the reports of thirteen growers, should prove valuable to those interested in testing persian walnut. the members contacted are testing named varieties in addition to many seedlings. of the varieties, broadview appears to be represented in more plantings than any other variety. gilbert becker (michigan) has most of the named crath selections in addition to seedlings. h. f. stoke (virginia) has a large assortment of crath and other persian varieties. fayette etter (pennsylvania) reports that he has approximately persian walnut trees while royal oakes (illinois), sylvester shessler, and gilbert becker each report trees. many others have from to grafts or trees while ray mckinster has only one seedling carpathian which took top honors in the contest. most of these members have been testing persian varieties for more than years. mr. stoke has some trees years old. ~yields~--most trees reported on began bearing at five to eight years. topworked trees start bearing several years sooner. it is generally agreed that persian varieties bear annually. many trees are bearing only small nut crops. lack of pollination is given as a reason for these low yields. in addition, winter injury and spring frosts can seriously reduce nut crops. apparently, none of the trees have borne more than a bushel of nuts at years of age. accurate records of nut crops were generally lacking. since this is a very important factor in the selection of varieties, growers should keep accurate yield records for each variety. where pests are a factor in reducing final yield, a crop estimate should be made early in the season. ~varieties~--mr. stoke considers bedford, broadview and lancaster best under his conditions. mr. becker's choice is mcdermid but he thinks crath no. a potential commercial variety. mr. oakes likes crath no. and ill. no. . mr. etter lists burtner and alleman as his best varieties. mr. fateley especially favors one tree because of nut and bearing qualities. other growers have not as yet evaluated their varieties. ~hardiness~--only several growers in the colder regions felt that lack of winter hardiness was a serious limiting factor with their varieties. those with winter temperatures ranging from to degrees below zero report little damage. spring frosts are serious to many, especially in the southern states. ~pests~--several insects causing damage to persian walnut were reported. the butternut curculio was most frequently mentioned. others included leaf hoppers, tent caterpillars, and husk maggots. few effective control measures have been developed. squirrels are an ever present threat to nut crops in some localities, as are blackbirds. ~cultural practices~--most growers apply varying amounts of fertilizer or manure to their trees in some form or other. few mulch their trees. all do some pruning, mainly of a corrective nature. ~pollination~--most growers agree that usually, but not always, pistillate flowers are produced several years before the occurrence of catkins. generally, persian varieties do not adequately pollinate themselves but exceptions are reported. the problem is one of variable dichogamy. some varieties shed pollen before pistillate flowers are receptive; others shed pollen when pistillate flowers are no longer receptive. this unfortunate situation probably explains the low yields experienced by some growers. mr. stoke lists the flowering dates of varieties in the nnga annual report which clearly illustrates dichogamy in persian walnut. some varieties are considered sufficiently self-pollinating to produce at least light crops. however, this may be influenced by weather conditions. during an unusually warm spring catkins develop more rapidly than terminal growth containing the pistillate flowers. mr. stoke reports that ~bedford~ produces both flowers simultaneously and that ~caesar~ is practically self-pollinating. mr. etter finds ~burtner~ fully self-pollinating and ~alleman~ partially. mr. mckinster's tree is apparently self-pollinating. to overcome dichogamy it is necessary to have varieties which pollinate one another. again mr. stoke's list referred to above is useful in selecting varieties for cross-pollination. mr. becker finds that ~crath no. ~ and ~carpathian d~ pollinate each other under his conditions. more information on the pollination of persian varieties is definitely needed. members are urged to record the flowering date of their varieties. such information will be very helpful in variety selection. ~handling the nut crop~--the nuts are harvested and dried promptly. methods of drying vary. some have drying screens in which the nuts are placed several layers deep. some dry the nuts in the sun; others prefer a shady place. following drying, the nuts are stored in a cool place. at least one grower has enough walnuts to sell locally; others feel that local markets would take all they could produce. many of the growers sell the nuts for seed purposes. of course, all have a supply for home use. ~future prospects~--growers see good prospects for persian walnut in most of their respective regions if improved varieties are developed. many growers are planning to increase the size of their plantings with promising varieties. others would like more trees but lack the necessary space. the contest uncovered several very promising selections. the national contest should produce many more. (applause.) dr. macdaniels: i believe, mr. chase, your second paper has to do with the carpathian walnut contest, which is just a matter of explanation, i take it, as to what is going to happen. plans for the carpathian walnut contest spencer chase, norris, tenn. mr. chase: the contest plans have not been fully formulated. our main problem will be one of advertising. our good secretary has agreed to help out on that. mr. sherman and dr. anthony have agreed to help out in their region. i was successful in getting mr. neal of the ~southern agriculturist~ to promise to give us a little southern publicity on contest. mr. mcdaniel: i wrote him; also wrote mr. niven of the ~progressive farmer~ at memphis and chet randolph with the ~prairie farmer~ at chicago. mr. chase: as i say, we plan on handling it the same as we did the contest. it will be simply the submission of entries. we may want to consider the method of judging a little further. the problem of prize money needs to be resolved, how much the association is going to offer--feels that they could stand to offer--for first, second, or how many prizes we are going to have. that's about all that we have to report now concerning the contest. but we do need, before we can proceed too far, some commitment on prize money. last year we did not offer prizes simply because it was for the membership, and there has been some question whether prizes are necessary. of course, it wasn't necessary from the association standpoint, but it probably will stimulate some others not in the association to submit samples from their trees. do any of the contest committee or members have any suggestions? we'd be very happy to have them. dr. macdaniels: will this include all persian walnuts? mr. chase: that was another problem that came up the last time, and we talked about it as being a carpathian contest, and we decided, who can tell a carpathian from another persian, and we decided to make it a persian walnut contest. dr. macdaniels: no persian walnut will be refused? mr. chase: yes, sir. dr. macdaniels: should they be sent to you? mr. chase: yes. dr. macdaniels: mr. spencer chase at norris. mr. chase: then, shall we exclude the northwestern states? mr. mcdaniel: last year we limited it to those trees which stood at least zero temperature. that would eliminate most of california, at least. dr. macdaniels: that makes sense. mr. sherman: how many nuts are expected? mr. chase: last year we asked and received fifteen. we'd like to have twenty-five. that gives us a better opportunity for the tasting department. we have a lot of tasters. we don't have many crackers, but a lot of tasters. mr. mcdaniel: i found that the mice in the state capitol at nashville weren't very particular as to variety. they took to any that were open. dr. macdaniels: are we men, or are we mice? mr. chase: in case you didn't notice, downstairs we have all the entries in the contest with the exception of some which human mice got from me, two samples, i believe. but all the rest i managed to save. and i, of course, have not seen too many persian walnuts, being down there where the spring frost gets them. i was very favorably impressed by the appearance of all these samples. we simply picked five, as i said, and pointed out that this should be considered a preliminary finding and not definite, but all those samples were fine. some were, of course, more bitter to the taste than others. that's where we lost a lot of nuts, trying to find out the least bitter. but many were an improvement on the commercial varieties, as far as i was concerned. i think if we all get active on hunting out these persians the way we have blacks, we can make very good progress. mr. mcdaniel: even on appearance i think some of them beat what you see in the stores. mr. chase: yes, on appearance. of course, some of them were handed back and forth and competing against each other, that's what happened. dr. mckay: i'd like to ask how much importance you ascribe to tree characteristics and not the nut itself. mr. chase: i asked for that information and tabulated it, and it didn't mean much. we found we couldn't do it. so then we came back to the nut first. carpathian scions for testing~ there is one other point i might mention. last year you may recall that i reported on our planting of carpathian seedlings at norris, some of them, which were frosted every single year. we have babied them along now for almost ten years, and i don't see any prospects of getting any nuts on them. now, among those there must be one good one, and i will be very happy to collect scion wood of all those trees and send it to members who are willing to top-work them and see what they will do. so if any of you folks are interested in some of these varieties--not varieties yet, but seedlings--i'd like to see them fruit, and i am sure we never will at norris. dr. macdaniels: where did you get the seed? mr. chase: from the wisconsin state horticultural society. dr. macdaniels: in other words, it's just as good seed as any other. mr. frye: you are in a frost pocket. mr. chase: the whole place is a frost pocket. they are up on the hill--the frosty spot. a member: when were they planted? mr. chase: in the spring of . mr. corsan: let me understand that. you say there are trees that did nothing at all? mr. chase: we have approximately of the crath seedlings, and each year they are frosted. mr. corsan: let me explain that. i have had the same trouble. mr. crath, not knowing the nature of my place, put some of the best nuts in wet places, in frost pockets, but he had two rows of one kind of nut that grew very rapidly the first year, but they are not any bigger now, and that was many years ago, back in they were planted. and there were about varieties he got from russia, he being able to speak four russian dialects, his father being the burbank of russia and the gardener to the czar, he had a lot of information, and he knew just what he was doing. but he was too hopeful and got some varieties from the foothills, some up a little higher, some up half way, some up towards the snow line, and they are tremendously hardy. now, i have given these nut trees away to people south of lake ontario. you see, i am north of lake ontario, and those are around st. catherines. there trees will grow and succeed. i have been told there is no check by frost on them. i have given a lots of those away. but with me they are absolutely worthless north of the lake, and there is a vast difference in them. now, i thought, looking at a great, big nut, the rumanian giant, thought sure a nut that big would be bitter. i thought sure that it wouldn't be hardy, but at any rate, i planted a few, and i have a nearly perfect reproduction of those nuts, and one is very hardy and very productive, and the other is not quite so hardy. it's a huge nut and not so productive. however, size has nothing to do with it. i noticed a certain type and shape of nut was sometimes quite tender, and then again the same shape of nut but different variety was quite hardy. i sold a lot of trees in varying sizes, keeping the small and the runts and those that were injured by the tractor and other trees for myself, but i have enough varieties every year to come down and see some wonderful results. for instance, i slashed one up badly to dwarf it, and it had a little, wee nut that big (indicating). when i cracked that nut, the shell was crammed full of meat, and it was exceedingly sweet, and it tasted like a hickory nut. so i cut my own throat, as it were. * * * * * dr. macdaniels: mr. chase's problem right now is to get these trees out somewhere where they can be tested further, and he has asked any of you if you want scions to get in touch with him. mr. corsan: i say, send them south. dr. macdaniels: the farther south you go the worse they are. mr. h. f. stoke: may i also say a word? also send them north. sometimes the winter sun will start the growth activity, and then wind comes along and kills it. the original crath that was started in toronto, i had it killed back to five-year-old wood thick as my wrist one winter, when the sun moved it to activity. it was hardy in toronto, but it wasn't hardy in roanoke, virginia. dr. macdaniels: let's have a showing of hands of those who have that trouble, starting in the spring and freezing back. (showing of hands.) about five or six. * * * * * the next paper will be, "the persian walnut in pennsylvania and ohio," mr. l. walter sherman. mr. sherman: ladies and gentlemen, mr. chairman: first i'd like to tell you who i am. some of you have been to my place and know who i am, but last fall pennsylvania started something new--a little bit different. they put on a survey of the nut trees of pennsylvania. two of us were selected for the job, and i would like to introduce dr. anthony--stand up so they can see. he and i were the two that were selected to put on the tree crop survey of that state of pennsylvania. pennsylvania is a big state, and there is lots to see. they not only made it a survey of the nut trees, but any trees that are potential food for wildlife. well, that made it the acorns and the honeylocust and, well, what have you, how big a job they hung on two fellows! well, we have done the best we can, and we want to bring you this afternoon just a little of those results. the persian walnut in pennsylvania and ohio l. walter sherman, harrisburg, pennsylvania pennsylvania department of agriculture tree crop survey, harrisburg, pennsylvania as members of the northern nut growers association, most of you are familiar with the early history of the persian walnut, its introduction into the united states by the early settlers, and how it finally found a home in california. you also know of the more recent introduction into this country of nuts and other material from the carpathian mountains by the rev. mr. crath, who was assisted by members of your organization. ( ) these recent crath introductions are supposed to be much hardier than the former ones, and probably able to establish themselves in northern united states and southern canada. when the pennsylvania legislature authorized a survey of the nut trees of the state, very few people realize the foothold that the persian walnut already had in pennsylvania. early in this survey, we visited fayette etter, who is pennsylvania's luther burbank with nut trees. he is well informed concerning the persian walnut in his section, and he surprised us by his estimate of several thousand trees in his county of franklin. the adjoining counties of adams, york, and lancaster, along the southern border of the state, have fully as many trees of this species, so it is a very conservative estimate that there are ten thousand of these trees in pennsylvania. these are located, for the most part, in the southeastern corner of the state below one thousand feet elevation. local grown persian walnuts were found on sale last fall in the farm markets of york, lancaster, and harrisburg and at many grocery stores. wherever we found such local nuts on sale, we asked where and by whom they were grown. many of them came from halifax and linglestown, in dauphin county; from lampeter, lancaster county; and from seven valleys, york county. farther investigation revealed the facts that in all but one of the centers of production, the trees were seedling trees and that there were from four to trees planted relatively close together. in one instance, a lone tree produced the nuts being sold, and in another case the nuts were from several grafted trees. the lone tree, which produced three bushels in , was of interest. investigation revealed that the nearest persian walnut tree was at least a city block distant. was this lone tree self pollinating or receiving pollen from a tree this far away? we still are not sure of the answer. jacob houser, of lampeter, was selling pomeroy seedling nuts and nuts from three rush persian walnuts grafted on black walnut stock. they were growing close enough for cross-pollination. driving through the counties of southeastern pennsylvania, we found many thousand seedling persian walnut trees as shade trees about the farm homes. investigations revealed that most of these trees never produced any nuts. repeatedly we are told that, "my tree never has any nuts, but a certain tree on an adjoining farm always produces," or "i have two trees, one of which bears quite regularly but the other never has borne." they are the same age and both seem to be growing equally well. some produce only a few handfulls of nuts when they should be producing five to ten bushels, judging by their size. you as nut growers know the answer, but the general public does not. even some of you have made the mistake of planting one tree by itself and expecting it to produce. this seldom happens. mixed plantings of several varieties or several seedlings planted close together is the safe rule to plant by. i know of one planting of ten grafted trees of one variety of persian walnuts, now twenty years old, that has never produced any nuts even though they are planted so that cross-pollination would be expected. in only a few catkins developed. these produced pollen early and were on the ground before the pistilate bloom opened and was receptive. i never saw a nicer pistillate bloom on any persian walnuts than these trees had, yet not a single nut set. they are in the center of a fifty-five acre black walnut orchard, and when the pistillate bloom was at its peak, the black walnuts surrounding were shedding pollen. do not try to tell me that native black walnuts will satisfactorily pollinate the persian walnut. after this demonstration, i know different. were all the persian walnut trees of pennsylvania properly pollinated, the crop of nuts, in my estimation, would be increased a hundredfold over what it is normally. lack of pollination is probably the greatest factor causing non-production in our persian walnuts. it is far more important that the fertility factor which is so important in production of the common black walnut. ( ) fayette etter and milo paden both feel that the broadview variety is self-pollinating, but even this variety may prove to be benefited by cross pollination. the persian walnut has developed in pennsylvania and ohio in a rather interesting pattern. trees planted fifty to a hundred and fifty years ago managed to live and produce nuts. from these trees, seedlings were grown and planted by neighbors and friends. these trees and their seedlings in turn have now grown to producing age. some few that produce good crops of nuts you hear about, but the vast majority are just non-producing shade trees. until you look for them you little realize how numerous they are. at linglestown, dauphin county, however, we find a striking exception to this. here all the trees are productive. the question there is not why don't my trees produce, but is quite spirited as to who harvests the largest crop and best nuts. about seventy-five years ago alfred kleopfer planted some persian walnuts of unknown origin, but probably from germany. he grew three trees which were planted, one beside the village blacksmith shop, one across the street, and the third at a neighbor's. one tree lived for only a short time. the blacksmith shop has been replaced by a modern dwelling but the walnut tree was saved and has grown to be a tree ' " in circumference and probably feet high. the one across the street is of nearly equal size but the top has been damaged by storm and the tree is not as tall. these two trees were able to cross-pollinate and one tree was especially productive. miles bolton recognized its value and began growing seedling trees and distributing them to his neighbors. some of them were quite skeptical and even refused to take them as a gift and plant them. however, he got the village pretty well planted to persian walnut trees, so that today there are nice trees within the village, and two small orchards on farms nearby. standing in the village square, one can see at least six persian walnut trees higher than the house tops. pollination is not a problem, and all trees are good producers. young trees are in demand for planting, and seedling trees, coming up in the flower beds, compost piles, fence corners, and other places where squirrels have hidden nuts, are carefully transplanted to permanent locations. the story of the development of the persian walnut at linglestown, with minor variations of course, can be repeated many times in southeastern pennsylvania. in linglestown, the development has been concentrated within a village, whereas in most places it has been spread over a farming community, with less opportunity for cross-pollination. the result has been a very high percentage of barren trees. however, persian walnut seedling trees have taken over and are making good in this milder climate area of pennsylvania. about the same can be said of northern ohio, though the development is probably years behind that in pennsylvania. the climate there apparently is not so well suited to the persian walnut, and fewer trees have been able to thrive. a few, however, are growing nicely and their seedlings are rapidly spreading. the jacobs tree at elmore, ohio, produced pounds of nuts in , at years of age, and many nuts from this tree are being planted. the ohio nut growers are propagating vegetatively from the outstanding trees and rapid development is taking place. named varieties are thus being developed from superior trees, and future success will be based on these named varieties rather than on seedlings. during the last few years, some of the seedlings developed from the crath carpathian importations are coming into bearing in parts of pennsylvania and ohio, and wherever i have seen them they look very promising indeed. the crath carpathians are doing well at mt. jackson, lawrence county, pennsylvania, along with broadview, for riley paden and howard butler. a. w. robinson, of pittsburgh, has five trees of crath seedlings, two of which are in bearing. all these trees seem to be perfectly hardy. the nuts of course vary, but all are good. riley paden, at mt. jackson, is grafting broadview on black walnut stock, and for him this variety is doing well. he has about forty trees of it from two to fifteen years of age. his prize fifteen-year-old tree produced one bushel of nuts in . a sample of these nuts is on the table for your inspection. paden says he can grow broadview anywhere peaches will do well. fayette etter at lemasters, franklin county, considers broadview too bitter flavored for him. he thinks burtner, which is a local seedling, superior for his section to all other varieties that he has tested. with an estimated ten thousand persian walnut seedlings growing in pennsylvania, the pennsylvania nut growers are faced with a big task to sort out the best and get them tested in different sections of the state. we should find the best half dozen varieties for each section. the persian walnut is established in pennsylvania and in northern ohio. there are not just a few scattered trees having a hard time to survive but there are many thousands of them, growing vigorously, some producing big crops of fine nuts, others not producing any. they are ready now for the intelligent development you can give to them. nature has gone about as far as she will without your assistance. the job now is up to you nut growers. references ( ) northern nut growers annual report vol. page persian walnuts history of in penna. rush history of in cal. reed, c. a. introduction of carpathian. crath distribution of carpathian. rahmlow survey in penna. fagan ( ) persian walnut protandrous. craig discussion mr. frye: how about butternuts for pollenization? mr. sherman: i don't know. i have one hybrid, and that's a sample downstairs that i think is an english walnut crossed with a butternut. the nut looks like a butternut; the tree looks like an english walnut, but it has the butternut bark. they will occasionally pollinate, i think, but don't depend on them. mr. corsan: i'll tell you how you can tell. that butternut-english walnut cross is the most powerful tree i ever came across, especially for good wood. i got a tremendous one. mr. stoke: i produced, i think, seedling trees from the lancaster persian walnut. about five per cent are hybrids. there was one strong-growing black � persian hybrid that i am sure of. there are three or four very dwarfish trees that undoubtedly were crossed with the heartnut. they were all dwarf. i haven't been able to get one to bear. i have had one grafted five or six years on a black walnut, but that was the heartnut and not the butternut. mr. sherman: that study of the hybrid is another story and really doesn't belong in this discussion at all. mr. corsan: here is a point on that. when they are only that high (indicating)--if they are only babies, i can tell them. you know, occasionally. look at the leaflets on the compound leaf, and if there are over seven, they are hybrids, and if they are extra vigorous growing, they are hybrids, because they occasionally pollenize. mr. sherman: those are all characteristics of the hybrids, but here is what i want to bring out now, and dr. anthony is going to stress it on his chestnuts a little bit later: you people have a wealth of material to select from. nature has gone about so far, and i am just a believer enough in what the bible says, that god made the heavens and the earth and put man here to tend and keep it, and made him master of everything above the earth and every creeping thing on the earth and everything beneath the earth, and it is up to you fellows to direct intelligently this mass of material you have to direct. you have got nuts growing where they are hardy, you have got big nuts, you have got little nuts, you have got everything under the sun you can think of. what more do you want for a nice job ahead? it's up to you fellows to do. it's going to be not a one-year job, not a two-year job, not a five-year job; you will be at this, and your children and your grandchildren. mr. corsan: make you live long. mr. sherman: maybe you will live long enough, but it's a century's job, and not the job for one man's lifetime. (loud applause.) dr. macdaniels: thank you, mr. sherman. any questions? mr. chase: yes, sir. i want to ask mr. sherman, should i be thinking about receiving , entries in this contest? mr. sherman: no, because there aren't , trees producing. out of that , maybe there are a thousand of them producing. the nine thousand others are nothing but shade trees, and never produce any nuts. you don't hear of them, but if you travel through york, lancaster, and adams counties down there and look for persian walnuts, you will find them on--i was going to say per cent of the farm homes. you can see them along the road everywhere. my wife travels with me a good deal of the time. she will say, "why don't you stop and look at that persian walnut? there are some over there. why don't you stop there?" a member: don't they bloom a month later than most of the others? mr. corsan: did you find a good french variety? mr. sherman: but those french varieties--i can't take you to a good french variety in southeastern pennsylvania that has been producing the nuts. they produce the nuts, but folks won't even pick them up. a member: they are good for pollen. mr. sherman: if you want a good pollenizer go to fayette etter and get his burtner. it's a very late pollen producer. this year i took some buds from his burtner and put them in the top of those ten trees in that -acre black walnut orchard to see if i can't do something. maybe it won't stick--maybe i hadn't better tell you. mr. corsan: mr. chairman, there is one point raised by the last speaker that's not understood; that the young black walnut trees, when they first blossom, they come out with a mass of male blossoms. then the english walnut, when it comes out, it sometimes comes out with a mass of pistillate flowers which people might not know are the female flowers. they make the nuts, but there is not even one catkin. i have seen that time and again. those trees in russia would be dependent upon larger trees to pollinate them. but here you have young trees, and you have to wait till they get a certain growth, and then they produce their catkins. dr. macdaniels: thank you, mr. corsan. the next paper, by mr. j. f. wilkinson of rockport, indiana, "observations and experiences with the persian walnut in southern indiana." mr. wilkinson. (paper not available for this report.) dr. macdaniels: we have a choice of doing several different things. there are several other papers we have here, the authors of which are not present. then the other possibility would be to go on and have some papers that require the use of the lantern, as long as we have this all fixed up. perhaps the thing to do is to have dr. anthony's paper on chestnuts, using the lantern, and then have these other papers on the persian walnut summarized after that. does that seem to be a reasonable thing to do? (chorus of yeses.) dr. macdaniels: we will go ahead on that basis, then. dr. anthony has the talk on chestnuts. (this talk, withdrawn for revision, may appear in next report.) mr. corsan: dr. anthony, i knew captain sober very well, and he showed me quite a group--a double handful--of korean sweet chestnuts. they were a little thicker than the native pennsylvania chestnut, they are rounder and a little larger, but they weren't as large as some of the chinese or nearly as large as the japanese. what about those nuts, because, you see, the blight killed all his paragon chestnuts--you know, the cross between the european and the american chestnuts--killed them all off completely, as it did with me. dr. anthony: in our detective work we were instructed to follow down that plantation. mrs. sober is still alive, living in lewisburg. the planting has practically disappeared. i am going over there next week. it is still with the man who wrote "chestnut culture in pennsylvania." mr. corsan: it broke his heart. dr. anthony: we are going over there next week, but i think that whole planting has disappeared. when these things change hands, another man comes in who is not interested, and things disappear very rapidly. (continue with paper.) mr. corsan: i want to tell you how to keep the deer out of the chestnut orchard. plant filberts five feet apart all around the place, and after while just put one single electrified wire five feet from the ground, and the deer won't get in through that. dr. anthony: glad to hear that, because deer is one of our problems. (continue with paper.) dr. anthony: there is a tree beside the blacksmith shop, and the old man used to go there early in the morning as a boy to get chestnuts. today he has taken down the old blacksmith shop and built a home, but he preserved that tree in linglestown. it practically covers his house, six feet six inches in trunk circumference, feet high and a spread of feet. it isn't too long before we will have chestnuts that big to eat alongside the old blacksmith shop. dr. macdaniels. it is about three o'clock. we will take a five-minute recess. (whereupon, a short recess was taken.) dr. macdaniels: for the first paper after the recess, we will call on sargent wellman to speak to us about the persian walnuts in england. mr. wellman. notes on persian walnuts in england sargent wellman, topsfield, massachusetts mr. wellman: members of the association: i was fortunate enough to be in england last summer, and i agreed that i would say a few words about nut growing there. what i am really going to do is largely to read you a few things from some articles that i found there. i was very much impressed with the little interest that there is in nut growing in england, and i was very much surprised at it. of course, you all know that the walnut grows there. the chestnut grows there. there are some fine, marvelous trees in kew gardens, of course, that i saw, and if you read the english poets, you will remember how they talk about chestnut blossoms on chestnut trees, but curiously enough, there is now very little interest. mr. mcdaniel. when they speak of the blossom, they speak of the horsechestnut, do they not? mr. wellman: not always, but there are pink flowered horsechestnuts in france, particularly, whole avenues of pink ones. the cob nut, as they call the filbert, is very common there, grown in hedges. one year when i was in england previously i brought home a few in my pocket, and i have a seedling which grew from one of those, which is comparable to the filberts i have, but apparently there is no interest in that, so far as i can see--i mean, any investigation and any experimentation and encouragement of its planting. but there is about the walnut. that's the one nut tree in which they are interested. i picked up two reports, both of them made by elizabeth m. glenn, who is the woman connected with the east malling station down in kent and is the one person who is doing more with walnut work than anybody else, as far as i could find out. unfortunately, the day i was there she was on vacation, so i couldn't see her, but they were very kind to me and took me around and showed me everything. as you know, the east malling station is the place where they have done all that work with apple root stocks. this one is a reprint from the annual report for the east malling station for . and then "the men of the trees," which is a forestry society there which some of you may have heard of, have reprinted in the autumn, , number another article by elizabeth glenn on "the selection and propagation of walnuts." and i think if i make a few comments and read a few things from these, you will be interested. she says, "the earliest record of a walnut tree in england is , but remains of walnut shells have been found in roman villas, and it is probable that the romans planted some nuts and raised trees in this country." she says, "there is a large tree of it"--black walnut--"at kew, near the entrance to the rock garden." of course there are some rootstocks, and they are all specimen trees, but they are not used for nuts. she says somewhere here, "in this country the nuts are of little value, although in america they are used for confectionery purposes." the east malling station is really a fruit research station, as i said, and they are the ones who are primarily interested in walnut crops and not timber production. "however, there is no reason why a tree shouldn't produce both good crops and good timber." "the french, have been grafting walnuts for well over years, and the famous grenoble nuts all come from grafted trees of named varieties." she emphasizes the fact that almost all of the english walnuts are grown on seedling trees and are very much inferior to those that come from the continent and from this country. and of course that was the purpose of their work, to encourage the use of grafted trees. i was interested in this sentence: "the late mr. howard spence began the survey and collection of good varieties growing in this country and abroad, and collaborated with east malling in the trial of selected varieties." he was always interested in our society and was an honorary member of it for a good many years prior to his death. i was interested in the fact that the problems that they have over there in the way of climate and some other things are very similar to our problems. she speaks a good deal about the matter of climate. i will come to that as i go along. "work on walnuts, started at east malling in , soon showed that the budding or grafting of walnuts out of doors was far too chancy in this climate to be relied upon as a means of raising young trees," so that all their grafting is done in the greenhouse, and they don't try to do anything outdoors. "outdoor grafting can be done successfully only where the mean temperature from may to september is above ° f." then she gives a description of the greenhouse grafting, bringing in the seedlings and potting them in november, in the fall, and then starting along in february in grafting, and then taking them out and planting them in the spring. i won't go into that; there is nothing particularly interesting i think, for us about that. patch budding she also describes.... she says it's a much cheaper method than grafting under glass but at the moment the results are far less reliable. "the walnut will tolerate a wide range of soils so long as the drainage is good and the soil is not too acid. lime should be applied before planting, unless there is plenty present in the soil. "the site should not be in a valley or frost hole, because, although the dormant tree is quite hardy and can stand severe frost, the young growths and catkins are very easily killed by spring frosts." they are talking about the same problem we have. in fact, in spite of the fact that the weather is warmer than in boston and new england, they don't have the severe winters, but they do have this late frost. manuring. they recommend mulching with farmyard manure or compost put on the soil and worked in and no artificial nitrogen because that again gives too much late growth, and you have trouble with killing back. she goes over the problems that we have been talking about this afternoon, about the time of leafing out in the spring and what the difference in the varieties is and the effects of that on the winter killing. now, i am not going to read much more. i will just read over the names of the varieties which may interest you. this first article, the one, lists franquette, mayette, meylanaise, chaberte, excelsior of taynton, northdown, clawnut, and secrett. the latter article, which was published last year, says that in , with the help of dr. taylor, the royal horticultural society held a walnut competition. "over entries were received and were subjected to severe tests. most of the nuts were far below the required standards, but five were selected for propagation and further tests. the owners of the trees from which these nuts came supplied scion wood to raise grafted trees for trial at east malling." the best ones came from a tree which they called "champion of ixworth." the second one was called "excelsior of taynton," which was in the list i read previously. another variety is called "lady irene." i am not going into the description of these varieties here, because if any of you are interested, you can get hold of these publications and get it. she lists the stutton seedling and then the northdown clawnut. also in this article she mentions the french varieties, of course, which were mentioned before. well, i thought it might just interest you that in another part of the world they are doing the same sort of thing we are, and they are having the same sort of problems and working on it. (applause.) dr. macdaniels: several of these papers which were scheduled will be either summarized or read. one of them will be read now by mr. silvis of ohio. the paper is by carl weschcke. prospects for persian walnuts in the vicinity of st. paul, minnesota carl weschcke although i was asked to prepare a paper on the carpathian walnut, i feel that my other experiences with persian or so-called english walnut (the botanical name of which is _juglans regia_) are also of some value to those who might be tempted to try this species of walnut in cold climates. when i first started my experiments with nut bearing trees, i included the english walnut among the possibilities for our section. mr. j. f. jones of lancaster, pennsylvania, gave me much information and a great deal of help in trying out what he considered hardy strains. there was a walnut tree in boston, known as the boston walnut, of which he sent scions, and which i grafted on butternut. this was about the year , and was included in my grafting experiments together with black walnut, heartnut, hickories, and hybrids between hickory and pecan. later on, he sent me scionwood from other known hardy varieties which i placed on butternut, and many of these made tremendous growths but were winterkilled the very first winter. none of the english walnut with which i continued experiments lived over the first winter until i received scionwood from prof. james neilson of canada, who sent the broadview. these broadview scions were grafted on butternut and black walnut, and a few of the scions survived for possibly three seasons, even producing staminate and pistillate blossoms and small nuts which grew only to about the size of a quarter and then dropped off. clarence a. reed arranged to have some small seedling chinese strain of _juglans regia_ sent from chico, california; these were planted in favorable places and survived a few winters. i also planted seeds of the chinese strains which gave me no better results than the seedlings. then i bought walnuts from a. c. pomeroy, of lockport, new york. these were even more tender than other varieties with which i had experimented, although they were very much publicized by mr. pomeroy in the nut grower during that era as being extra hardy, because they were growing near the south shore of lake erie. i next went to mr. jones, who was then selling quite a quantity of wiltz mayette and franquette strains of english walnut grafted on black walnut. these proved to be among the most tender varieties i have ever tested here. then he sent me scions of the hall and holden varieties, which he felt were considerably more winter hardy, but here they failed to survive even one winter. we have not neglected the rush english walnut either, which was tested in a similar manner without any good practical results. this now brings us to the convention at geneva, new york, in when the rev. mr. crath and george h. corsan presented a new strain of english walnuts, known as the carpathian strain, originating in the carpathian mountains in poland. this so impressed me that after talking it over with my father we decided to finance a trip into the same region that mr. crath had been in, to locate new and better varieties for a real test. the story of the rev. mr. crath's and my adventure along these lines, during the winter of - , has been printed in the records of the northern nut growers association, and i will bring out only the high spots that seem to be important years later. in the shipments of hardy material collected were some , scions of possibly a dozen different good strains of what mr. crath considered hardiest and best. in addition to that, there were around trees ranging in size from small whips of one foot long to some that were over eight feet; also there were some pounds of nuts to be planted to produce seedlings. these nuts had been gathered from superior hardy trees with the expectation that the seedlings would produce nearly true imitations of their parents in the quality of their fruit and hardiness. these seedling nuts produced somewhat over , seedling trees, which were planted in about six large strips of land so as to give room for cultivation. the trees received from poland were planted in favorable locations and many of them are still alive. the scionwood was put on native butternut and black walnut. some of it was grafted to young nursery stock, but most of it was put on large mature trees, being top worked. grafting was started in april and continued into the early part of june. the later grafts were much more successful than the earlier ones, although some of the april grafts grew and flourished. many of these grafts bore flowers and had little nutlets but none of them ripened nuts. after about three seasons some of the grafts that continued to live produced a few nuts. three varieties were practically mature, and then the native insect pests caught up with them. also, there was a black rot or wilt which i am fairly sure was walnut bacteriosis disease, although specimens sent out to competent authorities did not corroborate this diagnosis. what turned out to be the butternut curculio attacked all grafted and seedling trees with such vigor that there was no way to combat it. i sprayed some of the grafted specimens and kept it up for several years, trying to hold on to them, but it became too much for me and my equipment; i doubt now whether any amount of poison would have saved the trees because the butternut curculio is difficult to kill with poison. one of the varieties, known as the kremenetz, grafted on black walnut, was sent to harry weber. it thrives and bears nice crops at his country estate in cleves, ohio, near cincinnati. he has sent me scions of this variety, and this spring i grafted them back on black walnut, as the butternut curculio is not nearly as bad as it was when there was so much english walnut foliage for them to feed on (this foliage is their choice over all other foliage). these insect pests also wiped out several heartnut varieties which came from j. u. gellatly, of westbank, b. c, canada; for next to english walnuts the curculio loves heartnut foliage and its new branch growth. we have about to acres of woods which contain a large percentage of butternut, therefore it is next to impossible to wipe out their native food. i doubt very much whether this would have benefited the situation at all, as the curculio would have then centered all its activities on the english walnut foliage and perhaps have attacked hickories, pecans, and black walnuts, on which they sometimes try their appetites. hybrids between butternut and black walnut are viciously attacked by this curculio. hybrids between english walnut and other species of walnut which i have here also become a prey to curculio. so there is no trick species which would be immune to their attack. the english walnut usually vegetates too early in the spring to escape some of our late frosts. because this new growth generally contains the flowers, the fruiting of such trees would be very unreliable and only occasional. we even have trouble with black walnut and butternut in this respect. the hickory is much better, and the pecan is even later in respect to vegetation. i mention this because even though everything had gone well it is doubtful whether reliable crops of english walnuts would ever have been produced from the so-called hardy carpathian series. a year or so following the experiment with the carpathian walnut, i imported about pounds of seeds from austria. they came in two different lots: one of them was more expensive than the other seed, and it proved to be much the hardier. the larger lot of smaller seeds was not as hardy. although we have several hundred trees of this better seed lot which remain alive, they are no better off in any respect than the carpathian seedlings. in fact, i could not see much difference between the behavior of these seedlings and the behavior of the carpathian walnut strain. while in california in i picked up about five pounds of seeds from a hardy tree growing in the sierra nevadas in sonora, also some native black walnuts. these survived a few years but finally were winter-killed entirely, root and all. the carpathians are never killed out entirely but continue to grow from the root systems, even though they are frozen back to the ground; but the insect and the fungus have destroyed many thousands of the original group of trees so that there are today perhaps between and living trees, which sprout up each spring and kill back each fall with clock-like regularity. among these; however, are a few outstanding varieties which extend some hope that there may be among these survivors one or more trees which resist the butternut curculio and have become acclimated, to such an extent that they do not entirely kill back but only a little of their new growth is killed. these specimens usually are the ones that make a shorter growth during the summer, in fact have more of a tendency to be a genuine dwarf type of tree. three such seeding trees were known to have sprouted from exceptionally large and very thin-shelled walnuts, which i believe the rev. mr. crath calls the giant type. i will now summarize and express my own private opinion regarding the future possibilities of introducing the english walnut into such an extreme northern latitude as we are in. first, experiments started thirty years ago, which period gives a reasonable period of time that any man should feel is necessary to devote to giving a species a try-out. secondly, we have used material from every reasonably known source. third, persons in charge had a reasonable amount of skill and success with other varieties to have insured success if the material had been responsive. my opinion, for what it may be worth, is that the species is out of its range in this northern latitude, more particularly because it is too tender to fight its own battles as to insect life which attacks it, particularly the butternut curculio. grasshoppers, leaf eating insects, and worms of different sorts, also attack it more than they do other nut tree foliage. the possibilities of a break in the strong cycle of insect life is a hopeful prospect which we are helping by breeding tens of thousands of toads and frogs. this might allow some, of the more vigorous specimens to acquire sufficient size to overcome this weakness. in my opinion, the climate itself is not the main governing factor which would kill out all hope of raising english walnuts here; but certainly, coupled with the disastrous attack of insect life and susceptibility to blight, these three foes are almost insurmountable. and then in view of the early vegetating habit of these species, there is the possibility that even though you had a hardy tree, immune to insects, you would never get much fruit. discussion dr. macdaniels: remember, the climate up around st. paul is a bit rugged, and i think that work of that kind is certainly of value to give us an idea of the limits at which we can grow these trees, but i don't think that we have by any means explored the whole field. in the morris collection at ithaca there is a little persian walnut about the size of the end of this finger (indicating), a very small nut, that was given to dr. morris by a consul from the interior of asia up in the himalaya mountains in tibet, from of an elevation of about , feet. that little walnut had a hard shell, harder than some of our shellbark hickory nuts, and a bound kernel that i would say was much less promising than many of the nuts which we discard. somewhere, it seems to me, in this vast range of material we ought to be able to find some variety or clone of these species that would be adapted to practically every part of the united states. there at ithaca we have the difficulties with the persian walnut mainly of winter cold. that is the absolute low temperature that wipes out the trees, now that i have seen them come and go in my place there and in the vicinity. the old pomeroy strain is killed at about below zero fahrenheit. it stayed there in fairly good condition up in the lockport region until the extreme cold of - . once the temperatures went down to nearly below zero, except for a small region around the niagara peninsula, where it hit only . those trees are still there in that little circumscribed area around niagara, and we saw a picture of one of them in mr. sherman's collection. but the pomeroy trees, i have learned--i haven't seen them myself--were practically wiped out, as were the others, in what was thought to be the protected area along lake erie. i remember the trees on the whitecroft farm along keuka lake. some of you saw those when the nut growers association met at geneva. they are on a bench close to keuka lake, which up to - had not been frozen over for many years. they had grown, produced good crops, were in excellent condition, but that year the temperature went down to about below zero and stayed there for a number of days. the lake froze over, and the trees were severely damaged. a california redwood which was there--had been there for years--was killed outright, and so it goes. now, just for these carpathian strains it seems to me that we have pretty well--perhaps you might say--licked this question of winter cold; that is, at least down to perhaps , below zero fahrenheit, but we certainly haven't licked the problem of early vegetation. that is, it starts out with warm days in the spring, the shoots get about this long (indicating), you get temperature going down to, say, , , , and your shoots are all killed back and you have lost your year's crop. so that's the problem which in the selection of varieties for this northern country, we have got to keep in mind, as i think that's one thing to look for among your carpathian trees. it's one which will mature its foliage in the fall fairly early and which does not start out too quickly in the spring. now, we know there are some that don't start out in the spring, like these chinese types, but what we want is a combination of short-season, late-starting, winter-hardy walnuts, and i think we can find them if we keep at it. i didn't start out to talk so long, but i thought that was perhaps a sort of a summary of some of these things which we are looking for. dr. crane: i'd just like to make a few comments. there is one thing that you have got to be very careful about, i think, in watching for these late-blooming persian walnut trees that start in to grow, in oregon, particularly, although the same thing is true in some areas of california where we are growing large quantities of persian walnuts. you know that a deficiency of boron will cause trees to go into a condition which the growers out there now call "sleepers." they will stay dormant for quite a long period of time in the spring before they start growth. that's due to a severe boron deficiency. now, we have a lot of boron deficiency here in the east, and in areas in which we have trouble with growing vegetables, like cauliflower that has a hollow stem, or beets or turnips that split and crack, or where we have so-called drouth spot or internal corking in apples, you can be sure that you can't grow a persian walnut, because the boron requirement alone is many, many times that of an apple or of most vegetables. in oregon on the same soils where we are growing apples, we put on a half a pound of borax per tree to control boron deficiency on apples. on walnuts we have to use anywhere from five to ten or twelve pounds for a tree of the same size. we have to have a boron content in walnuts very, very much higher than that of apples. we have got to be careful about that. so if you do find late-sleeping walnut trees, or walnut trees that are late in starting to grow, you will probably find that is a result of boron deficiency. mr. corsan: mr. chairman, i visited the pomeroy nursery in . i had, in my own planting, about a score of trees and they were a most amazing sight. the big trees were all seriously damaged by that - winter, as were all ben davis apple orchards. so what amazed both of us was the fact that pomeroy's young trees weren't dead.[ ] of the pomeroy, all the big trees were dead. i ordered some more from him, and i planted them, but the trees froze down to the ground. just as a very few varieties of the crath carpathians did. they froze twigs and they froze buds and sometimes they froze the trunk. only a couple of carpathian varieties froze down to the ground, but every one of the pomeroy did. i was quite sorry, because i had a chinese english walnut from north china that was extremely hardy and lived through that winter almost undamaged. the nut, though, had a bitter tang, and pomeroy's nuts were quite sweet and delicious, but i haven't a pomeroy on the place. they are all stone dead. [ ] see mr. gellatly's paper in this volume.--ed dr. macdaniels: thank you, mr. corsan. mr. harry weber will give us a paper by gilbert becker on persian and black walnuts in michigan. grafted black and persian walnuts in michigan gilbert becker, climax, michigan the performance of grafted persian walnuts in southwestern michigan has been so satisfactory that i would not hesitate to recommend them, in preference to grafted black walnuts. one of the nicest things about grafted persian walnuts is that when they start to produce nuts, they bear _every_ year--there is not an off-season, as with the black walnut. our locality may be especially suitable to them. our skies are cloudy, and it is cool through much of the spring, thus preventing early growth before conditions are right for the buds to develop unhampered by late spring frosts. we have had an occasional late freeze that caused the lower nuts to drop, while the higher ones remained on the tree, unharmed. in this article i would like to answer briefly our most often asked question, as to which varieties do we think best from our experience with them? our climate must be quite different from that found around ithaca, new york, because we have never had winter injury in certain persian varieties, as occurs in that area. (and we had below zero in february, .) an instance of this difference is in regard to the mcdermid variety, which happens to be our choice. we honestly believe the crath no. variety to have great commercial possibilities, because of its heavy production of large, thin-shelled nuts, of average quality. the broadview is another. the carpathian "d", apparently, pollinates the crath no. well. this one, however, is small, with a very white kernel that is sweet. we have many other varieties producing, some with their first crop this year; but we are not able to recommend any of them yet. the black walnut varieties must be rather limited, because of the brooming disease trouble; so we select from those that are quite able to resist it, or that seem immune to the trouble. the thomas and grundy varieties lead with us, and two other local nuts, the adams and the climax, rate high in our estimation. we have some nice grafts of the homeland bearing their third crop, which we like very much, and they appear disease free. the elmer myers, michigan, and other varieties are now badly affected with brooming disease. several years ago i reported on my observations on the brooming disease. now, i wish to report a little more upon the subject, especially in regard to how certain varieties have withstood its ravages. i hesitate to make any estimation as to how prevalent the disease is in the wild black walnut today, for it could be quite a controversial subject, with some claiming i was very wrong. anyway, many of our native walnuts are now affected. outward appearances are often very deceiving; but, when one cuts the top off a seedling and attempts to graft it, he may be amazed at the broomy growth that soon appears from the stock, should his graft fail to take. trees that appear healthy, but have made slow or poor growth are often affected. short, twiggy, upright growth that soon becomes dead or partly so, and arises from the main framework of an apparently healthy tree, is one of the signs that disease is there. i have claimed there are two, or possibly, three forms of brooming disease, and i am still as convinced as ever. the so-called "witches-broom," as commonly seen in the japanese walnut, is the form most people seem to think of. the second form is the rapid-growing type, that lops, or arches downward, is gray or green in color of wood, is very brittle and easily broken in the wind, ripping off good sized limbs, and winter-injures badly. an investigation, will, however, show much dead wood comes before severe weather. this form has some broomy, upright growth, like the first, but it is never bunched. the other, or possibly, the third form, is the latent type that doesn't seem to do much harm, merely causing poorly filled nuts. the latent form is difficult to note, and can be detected only by the many short, dead, or partly dead, upright twigs scattered along the main framework of older trees. cutting off part of the top will cause the typical growth to arise, thus identifying itself. early observation showed that certain walnut varieties were almost unaffected, or could even be immune, to the brooming disease. different limbs of a large tree were topworked to the thomas and the allen varieties of black walnut. the allen "took" the disease at once, while the thomas grew thriftily and has always produced good crops of nuts. later, the calhoun variety was grafted on some lower limbs, and has remained healthy. the diseased allen grafts are still in the tree, are now years old, and are more or less alive, but in very poor condition, with the signs as found in what i call the latent form. in , the mcdermid persian walnut was grafted into this same tree, and its grafts produced good crops of nuts. i wish to cite another instance of how little the persian walnut is affected, regardless of variety. in a large black walnut near the house was grafted with persian grafts, on stubs that had failed the previous year. the tree had the second, or rapid growing form, of brooming disease. i have pictures showing how badly the grafts took the rapid growing form of growth; while two persian grafts showed no signs of trouble. the tree started to bear in , and has made remarkable growth. it is now one of the nicest persian walnut trees i have, bearing heavily every year. it is about feet tall and feet broad, with no apparent signs that it was ever affected. i feel we should recognize the fact that eradication of brooming disease is impossible; but one should plant, or graft, those varieties known to bear good crops in spite of this trouble. the thomas and grundy black walnuts do very well here, as well as the two local nuts mentioned. i do not know of any persian varieties affected. i do not have any persian trees with the typical broomy bunch, as is so often seen in the japanese walnut, and its hybrids. the native black walnuts, when affected, seem to fail to fill properly, are immature, and watery, black veined, and worthless at harvest time, shriveling to a dark, hard, kernel when cured. i think this answers the oft-asked question, "why do not my black walnuts fill as they used to?" there is a strange relation to the filling of the native black walnut and the days of and , when we had the great walnut caterpillar scourge!--when the trees were stripped of all their leaves. ever since, we have had the brooming disease to contend with. one could jump to the conclusion that improper filling and this trouble were caused by a lack of certain nutrients; but seedlings in nursery rows are often affected, even where they are given every care. at one time this spring i thought i had found a new way of "bench-grafting" walnuts. seven grafts, on black root, were made in december, and were planted directly in a frost-proof coldframe, as lilacs can be grafted. all seven grafts made good growth, that is, over three inches, by early may, but failed later. there is only one alive today, i do not think this an impossible method, but there must be a better way of handling to give success, such as attention to shading and careful watering. one may find more on this subject in "propagation of trees, shrubs, and conifers," by wilfrid g. sheat. in our greenhouse work we have used several nutrient preparations, with poor to good results. there is one that has proved quite remarkable, and may be of use to the nut grower. our concern has been to promote greener, healthier leaves, and the product "ra-pid-gro" is most outstanding. our tests in regards to nut growing are very limited. a pan of chinese chestnut seed mixed in pure sand was set under the greenhouse bench last winter. the seed sprouted too early to be planted out, and trees have been left inside. since the sand had no food value, ra-pid-gro was applied to the leaves, allowing the drippings to go into the sand throughout the summer. today, the little seedlings are indeed nice. outside, a persian walnut had yellow-toned leaves, and ra-pid-gro was applied--now the leaves are green! it is amazing how quickly yellow leaves will become green. this appears to be a very useful product. _i believe we can have scions too dormant to graft!_ last winter i had to make a new scion-box for storage, so copied it after the harrington method, sinking it in the ground north of some evergreens. scions have kept perfectly--maybe too perfectly--because they were absolutely dormant at grafting time, and have given poor success. it was rather late to save scionwood when i received an order to cut some of mr. hostetter's "special thomas" wood, so i cut a little extra for myself, and some wood from a little seedling persian walnut that i wished to hasten by topworking. the buds were very much swollen that day, and the terminal buds were partly expanded. at grafting time i was quite surprised to find the wood i had cut late to be in exactly the same condition as it was the day i cut it. when grafted, every scion grew--all nine grafts made of the little persian walnut were smaller than a lead pencil--and were _pithy_ as well! this experience is so encouraging, i hope to have most of my wood in this advanced condition another year. absolutely dormant wood might well be brought out of storage several days before grafting, in order to get it adjusted from winter to summer conditions. dr. macdaniels: i think dr. crane is going to talk about the bunch disease tomorrow morning and will give us some indication about the work that has been done with that. this matter of dormancy of scions we could probably get into an argument about, but that isn't the subject right now. mr. corsan: i find that you mustn't go cutting back much. they don't like to be pruned. they are an open tree that grows a branch here, a branch there. they don't get anything like the dense branches of, say, the turkish tree hazel. they are the very opposite, and they don't want to be pruned, and if you go pruning them, they are likely to have the witches'-broom. mr. mcdaniel: there is another paper by mr. ward of lafayette, indiana, "the carpathian walnut in indiana." the first part of it, the introduction, covers pretty much the same thing we have heard before from some of the other speakers about the carpathian strains in this country. the carpathian walnut in indiana w. b. ward extension horticulturist, purdue university west lafayette, indiana the carpathian or hardy persian walnuts (_juglans regia_), as grown in indiana, are nearly all seedling trees resulting from the desire of some hobbyists to try something new. other than a few exceptions, most of the seedling trees were planted during the period of to . credit is due to the wisconsin horticultural society in offering the seedling nuts for sale and from these plantings numerous trees grew and fruited. a few test winters, with the temperature as low as minus degrees f., left only those trees hardy in wood and bud. the seedling trees under observation have been fruiting for the past six to eight years, with some trees producing as much as five to six bushels of nuts per year. the tree grows best in well drained, fertile soil and a bluegrass sod. small amounts of nitrate fertilizer, about the same quantity used on fruit trees, have stimulated growth and no doubt have helped in the sizing up of the nuts. the tree does not do well under cultivation or mulching, as winter injury to the tree has been recorded when compared to bluegrass sod. there is also a possibility that the tree will respond to applications of liquid or soluble nitrates when mixed in spray materials. six walnut trees were sprayed with "nu green" on may th and may th, , using the same mixture as is recommended for apples--five pounds per gallons of spray mix. these trees were observed weekly, and by late august had made more growth and gave better response than trees in comparable unsprayed rows. as the walnut trees are of different varieties, no definite comparisons may be drawn, but the trees so sprayed outgrew the unsprayed plot, although both plots had received a spring application of fertilizer of equal amount. set of fruit depends on pollination the best yields of fruit are found on trees that have a good pollinator close by. oftentimes the catkins of the persians dry up, fail to shed pollen when the pistillate flowers are receptive or fail to produce staminate flowers. it was noted early this spring that the catkins on the persians were very few. pollen was gathered from the butternut (_juglans cinerea_) for pollinating the pistillate flowers that opened early. the mid-season flowers were pollenized with black walnut (_juglans nigra_), and the later blooms were fertilized with pollen from the heartnut (_juglans sieboldiana cordiformis_). many of the pistillate flowers were bagged and remained receptive for a long period. the best set of fruit on trees this year is on trees that have either the black walnut or the heartnut near by as pollinizers. the pollen from the butternut seemed to dwarf the fruit size on those trees where the pistillate flowers were bagged in the purdue planting. we have little doubt that the persian walnut develops a preponderance of pistillate flowers and relies on pollen from kindred species for a good set of fruit. nut displays have educational value the interest in the persian walnut in indiana has developed to the extent that several commercial fruit growers have set out small acreages. most of the trees are seedlings from trees previously fruited, although several growers have budded or grafted the better seedlings on the native black walnut. the public has become enthused through the various displays at local and state fairs and through the state nut show now being held annually. the exhibits have brought out some very desirable seedlings, each listed under the owner's name. some of the seedling nuts have averaged about two inches in diameter, and year old trees have produced as much as pounds of cured nuts. the largest persian walnut tree found in indiana is at lafayette, it being inches in diameter and possibly feet high. this tree has been fruiting for the past years. there are probably five or six bushels of nuts on this large tree at the present time. this tree was placed as a yard tree for its ornamental value and for the fruit. numerous persons have inquired about the persian walnut as a specimen tree in their landscaping program and the demand far exceeds the supply. as many of the elms, oaks, and some chestnuts are going out from disease troubles, the persians may be used as a replacement. the food value of the walnut compares very favorably with that of other native nuts, according to dr. a. s. colby, of the university of illinois. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- % water % protein % fat % carbo- % ash no. calories hydrate per pound persian walnut . . . . . black walnut . . . . . hickory nut . . . . . pecan . . . . . ----------------------------------------------------------------------- nut data important in classification three students enrolled in horticulture have classified several of the seedlings. paul bauer, - , and edward burns and gilbert whitsel, - , have been using such information for their special project work as graduate and undergraduate students. these workers found a difference in the habits and performance of the seedling trees and two such examples follow. nut data sheet . common name: _fateley no. _ . scientific name: _juglans regia_ . source or owner: _nolan fateley_ city: _franklin_ state: _indiana_ . average size: inches . x . . average number per lb.: . average wt. each nut: . _gm._ . shell texture: _wrinkled and furrowed_ crackability: _very good, thin shell_ separation: _very good_ average wt. per nut: . _gm._ . kernel color: _light tan_ quality: _very good, bland_ average wt. per nut: . _gm._ . percent kernel: . % . remarks: _exceptionally large, well formed kernel, appealing taste. bore lb._ _ . tree set as year seedling ._ (_carpathian strain._) nut data sheet . common name: _fateley no. _ . scientific name: _juglans regia_ . source or owner: _nolan fateley_ city: _franklin_ state: _indiana_ . average size: inches . x . _long_ . average number per lb.: . average wt. each nut: . _gm._ . shell texture: _smoothly wrinkled_ crackability: _very good, paper thin shell_ separation: _very good to best_ average wt. per nut: . _gm._ . kernel color: _light tan_ quality: _good, desirable taste_ average wt. per nut: . _gm._ . percent kernel: . % . remarks: _fairly large, well filled, attractive shape and size with a thin shell. this seedling placed first at the indiana state fair and the state nut show, . tree medium in size, planted as one year seedling in . this tree bore pounds of cured nuts in and has been in good production for years. (carpathian strain.)_ the descriptions given of the two fateley trees are typical of some of the forty seedlings coming from various parts of indiana, as shown in the following list. the distribution of the persian walnut to the public depends on the ability of the nurserymen to propagate and list the available varieties or unnamed seedlings. there is a great demand and a wonderful opportunity for the hardy persian walnuts all over the middle west or where apples will produce, not only for the nutritious fruits but for the ornamental value and for something different. indiana counties with carpathian walnuts under observation and test (north to south and west to east on map) northern porter (on lake michigan) elkhart (adjoins michigan) la grange (adjoins michigan) kosciusko whitley allen (adjoins ohio) miami (peru here) wells central tippecanoe (lafayette here) carroll howard grant delaware henry wayne (adjoins ohio) marion (indianapolis here) rush johnson (franklin here) _southern_ greene (linton here) monroe (bloomington here) brown gibson (adjoins illinois) pike posey (adjoins illinois and kentucky) vanderburg (evansville here) warrick spencer (rockport here) harrison (last counties are on ohio river, opposite kentucky.) dr. macdaniels: is mr. i. w. short of taunton, massachusetts here, or does he have his paper here? mr. mcdaniel: i haven't received it. there is a paper here, however, "notes on nut growing in new hampshire," by matthew lahti of boston, massachusetts. mr. wellman. mr. wellman: this is very short. it is just a report of bad winters in new hampshire. mr. lahti i knew in boston. his farm is in wolfeboro, new hampshire, about or a hundred miles north of boston. notes on nut growing in new hampshire matthew lahti, wolfeboro, new hampshire i will bring up to date my experience on nut growing in wolfeboro, n. h., and supplement my reports for the years and . we had late frosts this spring, so that there is not a peach on any of my peach trees this year. this may also account for the fact that there are no black walnuts either on the tasterite, the wood of which has withstood the winters very well, or on the thomas. the thomas black walnut which i reported in as having suffered no winter injury the previous winter, apparently did suffer considerable damage, which became evident later. it has borne no nuts since, and there is a lot of dead wood this year and the leaves are sickly looking. i am afraid that the tree is going to die. the filberts, medium long, red lambert, and no. rush x barcelona, which started to bear in , have since then borne a few nuts each year, but the crop is not heavy enough to recommend them for planting in our climate. while the wood suffers no winter injury, the catkins for the most part get winter killed and, consequently, there is a very sparse crop. what is needed for northern latitudes is a filbert that will ripen in our fairly short growing season, and whose catkins are immune to winter kill. the winkler seems to be more hardy than the others, but the nuts do not ripen. this year even the winkler catkins were killed, although the catkins of a wild hazel growing nearby were not. i have two crath persian walnuts planted in which are the survivors of perhaps a dozen seedlings. these two trees have shown no injury. one is bearing seven nuts this year for the first time, and the other one, bearing for the second year, has nuts on it at the present time. last year the squirrels got all the nuts so that i could not evaluate them, but i will take precautions to save some this year. the broadview persian walnut has thirty nuts on it this year, but the wood of the broadview definitely is not hardy in our climate. summing up my experience with the various nut trees as previously reported, i would say that our climate is not suited for commercial nut growing, but for home use named varieties of butternuts and hickories that crack out easily and possibly one or two of the crath walnuts should give satisfactory results. my chief difficulty with hickories has been the poor union at the graft, resulting in slow starvation and death in a few years. i have only three left out of approximately trees that i have planted. mr. corsan: a professor from the university of new hampshire wrote to me that they were very much interested in planting a nut arboretum. does anybody know what result came of it? i sent them some hybrids of the japanese heartnut (female blossom) crossed with our native butternut (male blossom). dr. macdaniels: i guess they are somewhat interested. they have very little possibility of growing very much except the butternuts, and sometimes hybrid filberts. mr. wellman: i have a friend who is up a little farther north than that, in woodsville, and they have been urging him to set out filberts for wildlife food there, and he has shown me some of those that he has started. it's been quite a movement up there. i don't know how wide. he has about a hundred seedlings that are used for propagation by the state. is the farmer missing something? john davidson, xenia, ohio (read by title) the farmer is a specialist; a producer of edible crops. like any other specialist, his thinking tends to be channeled along the lines of his specialty, to the exclusion of other lines. for example, the average farmer probably knows little and cares less about teleology, metaphysics, or, let us say, forestry. he is a farmer. he makes his living by raising crops. and yet, a better knowledge and practice of forestry will not only make him a better farmer wherever he is located but, in certain locations, this knowledge and practice is absolutely essential to his continued existence. in a recent decision of the u. s. supreme court upholding a decision made by the supreme court of the state of washington, a principle has been approved which may have a profound influence upon our future well-being. it affirmed the constitutionality of a washington state law which requires the owners of land used for commercial logging to provide for its reforestation. such a law is novel indeed. what? may private owners of the earth's resources not use or destroy them as they see fit? the court, in effect, says they have no such right. in the court's own words, the "inviolate compact between the dead, the living, and the unborn requires that we leave to the unborn something more than debts and depleted natural resources. surely, where natural resources can be utilized, _and at the same time perpetuated_ for future generations, what has been called 'constitutional morality' requires that we do so." the new york times, in commenting upon this revolutionary but perfectly sane decision, says: "time is truly running short; the annual cut of saw-timber, with natural losses, is % greater than annual growth.... if the individual forestland owner is too lazy, short-sighted, or indifferent to act, the federal government will have to enter the picture." it is a complex picture. the american farm owner is, by every implication, also involved along with the forestland owner. he, too, has a duty to the unborn, but it is an opportunity as well as a duty. it is only because of what j. russell smith calls his insane obstinacy, that the average farmer is now operating a one-story agriculture in place of a two-story agriculture. if he were thinking and doing more about his debt to the unborn, he would also be serving himself better. i am convinced that the farmer is the key man in forest husbandry. and the best way to interest him in tree planting is through his specialty--through _crop_ production. a _two-story_ agriculture! tree crops along with other crops! the farmers' education along this line has been very inadequate. we have been very stupid. can we never learn to begin, as hitler began--as the russians are even now beginning--with the nation's children? perhaps we are learning a little. it is heartening to know that school and community forests are fast increasing in number, notably in new england. when fully used and well managed, they can work a revolution in the thinking of the young people who are so fortunate as to have some of their schooling out in the open. these future american leaders are learning at first hand through the ways of the woods how to make the work of their hands live far beyond the span of their lives. perhaps, as the result of this training early in life, a new interest among the farmers will emerge and some of our sins of omission will be remedied. as a planter of trees for the future, the american farmer, both of yesterday and today, has notoriously, thoughtlessly, and disastrously failed both his children and himself. by all standards, he should be the first-ranking tree planter of the land. as a matter of fact, it is practically impossible to interest the average farmer at all. state experiment stations and forestry departments make some effort to stimulate interest in the planting of trees by furnishing seedling stocks of forest trees at nominal prices and by issuing occasional bulletins. however well intentioned and, within their limits, well done these bulletins may be, the fact remains that in proportion to their numbers, farmers are still not notable planters of trees. perhaps one reason for this failure is that most of the literature upon the subject seems aimed at lumbermen, and not at farmers. as to the bulletins which are aimed primarily at the farmer, examples of advice on forestry which is given in these rather too specialized and somewhat near-sighted publications are typically of the following kind: "fence off the woodlot and never pasture it," "use your best land for field crops; your waste land for trees." "you are interested in nuts? you can not have nuts and timber, too." it is evident that these rules are prepared by foresters--not farmers. is it any wonder that the inquiring farmer finds them rather frustrating? it should be remembered that practices which are valid and helpful in the care of an already existing forest or woodlot where mature growth is periodically harvested and where young sprouts are encouraged for replenishment may be of little use in the management of an entirely new planting of certain kinds of trees where cultivation, at least for a time, is necessary. deep-rooted trees, for example. such rules have been of little use to me in my own planting of american black walnuts upon an ohio farm. indeed, to have followed them would have been disastrous. my planting is not large. it is modest enough to be within the power of nearly any farmer. it has been treated as a farmer would treat it, without too much pampering. we now have a few more than three thousand trees planted upon forty acres. most of them are now fifteen years old. here are some of the things we have learned in fifteen years from our trees: . trees spaced feet apart in good deep soil have not made as much growth as seedling black walnut trees spaced feet apart in rows feet apart, also in good soil. however, these wider spaced trees are grafted pecans and persian walnuts. . the seedling trees which stand in good soil have made surprisingly good growth. some better than inches diameter, breast height. one measured tree has grown feet / inch this year to date--aug. . (no fertilizer used, but cultivated.) those which stand in shallow, thin soil are dwarfs, worthless. walnuts have deep taproots. they need deep, rich earth. . trees grown from planted seed make the best timber trees. upon the other hand, if production of known quality is the primary objective, grafted trees of known varieties must be planted. the seedling _of good parentage_ is an exciting gamble. it may be, and usually is a commonplace producer of nuts. upon the other hand, it is more likely than the tree of poor parentage to win a place among the named varieties, set aside for propagation by budding or grafting upon other stocks. . walnut seedlings like human beings tend to show marked inherited trends, erratic and undependable though they may be. thus, seedlings grown from vigorous and upright trees _tend_ to be vigorous and upright. conversely, trees of poor parentage, either as timber or nut producers, will tend to reproduce the poor characteristics of their parent. this is more markedly true where the parent tree stands isolated from the pollen of other walnut trees of the same species. . i have found no real evidence that walnuts of our planting are toxic to other trees standing immediately beside them. to test this, we planted a few apple, peach, and plum trees in the walnut rows. they still stand literally arm in arm. this is, of course, all wrong. no tree should be so crowded. the apple trees monopolize space by excessive lateral growth. the plums send up unwanted shoots from their roots. the peach trees are passing out. two or three of the apple trees are half dead. others still live, but i am not very hopeful that, after the walnut trees are more mature, any of the apples will survive. the usual diseases and insects, plus shading by the walnuts seems to account for most if not all of the dead trees to date. . grass growth is excellent right up to the trunks of all of the trees. it has never been necessary for us to lose the use of the land upon which the trees are planted. while the trees were young, of course, no pasturing was permitted. the land between the rows was cultivated. in these strips we raised berries and other crops. now that the trees are tall enough to be beyond the danger of damage from livestock, we graze the pasture under and between the trees. no damage is evident from trampled earth (the walnuts are deep-rooted) and the hazard of fire is eliminated because there is now no need to mow excessive grass, weeds, or brush. . the most precocious seedling walnuts began to bear nuts at about years of age. new bearers are coming in each year. all are still counted as adolescent trees, yet, last fall, picking up the nuts from none but trees marked for their better quality of nuts, we gathered some bushels of nuts in the shell. . today, we can count about , walnut trees which promise to be of good timber quality years hence. at a reasonable estimate, , trees will then survive, be years old, be worth $ . each, at present prices. total, $ , . . this represents an annual increment in value of $ , . per year for the acres which are closely planted to black walnuts. can the average farmer _save_ that much in his lifetime? can even the exceptional farmer do it on acres? with as little investment of money and work? if so, how? any farmer can do as well, or better, without losing a single immediately productive acre. why doesn't he? the answer is in the very nature of the farmer's business. as has already been said, he is primarily a producer of food. if trees stand in the way, he chops them down. he has always chopped them down. it has become a habit. if the farmer is to be persuaded to change his ways and turn to planting trees, instead of destroying them, i repeat, the entering wedge into his interest will be, i believe, through dual-purpose trees--trees for food crops, as well as for timber crops. of these species, the black walnut of eastern america is probably the most outstanding one of all, at least in the mid-section of america. the butternut--"white walnut"--flourishes better in the north. the chestnut is another--a tree almost literally raised from the dead by the efforts of a few miracle workers like dr. arthur h. graves of the connecticut experiment station, who, with others of his kind, has been in the throes of producing a blight-resistant, tall-growing hybrid timber tree out of the bushy chinese chestnut, a producer of the sweetest of nuts. the pecan, too, is being pushed northward. great groves of wild pecans have firmly established themselves along the ohio river. their timber is fair; not wonderful. the mulberry tree is still another. the american species produces a timber which is remarkably durable under ground. its fruit is not sufficiently appreciated. it makes an unsurpassed jam or jelly or pie when combined with a tart fruit like the cherry, grape, or currant. and who does not know the precious wood of the wild cherry? its rosy warmth of color is the pride of the "antique" connoisseur; its fruit beloved by birds and squirrels; its juice, the secret of the cherry cordial. even that foreigner, the persian "english" walnut, of carpathian strains, is pushing north into canada and the east coast region. its wood, too, under the name of "circassian," is famous for its figured beauty[ ]. [ ] some of the "circassian walnut" is another genus, the wingnut (pterocarya).--ed. one might go on and on with a list of trees and tree crops easily available, mostly native, all of which should be both figuratively and actually right down the farmer's alley. perhaps the education which can come through the agency of many school forests will in good time turn the attention of young and impressionable minds to the potential wealth to be found in the trees. normally, the young, who, of all people, should be forward-looking, are least concerned with the long-term future. they are not given to making plans or building estates for their grandchildren. as a consequence, the planting of trees is traditionally taken over by the aged, or at least by the mature. this is all wrong. the young farmer who plants interesting trees is preparing for some of the most exciting and prideful moments in the years which follow. and he is also building, at low cost, and with little labor, a priceless estate. how to lose money in manufacturing filbert nut butter carl weschcke, st. paul, minnesota inasmuch as there are so many words of wisdom and advice showing the reader how to make money in different ways, i have started a new line of caption with the hope that it might serve as a warning for those who would stick their necks out, as the term applies to those people who venture beyond safe margins of restraint. since this is a recital of facts, and since professor george l. slate has requested me to report on my experiences, i submit the following for what interest it may hold for the readers. most ventures are backed by optimism of some sort or other, coupled with some experience, capital, hopes, and ambition. the project which sparked the entrance into the manufacture of filbert butter was the success that i was having with hybridizing our best native hazels with the best known filberts, such as crossing of the wild american hazel with barcelona, duchilly, italian red, purple aveline, red aveline, white aveline, also filbert strains from j. u. gellatly of westbank, b. c., canada, and strains from j. f. jones, hybrids, european strains of filberts from the carpathian mountains, and any right pollen which could be obtained from known filbert parents. today we have over , seedling hybrids of which between and have come into bearing. some of these are really surprising varieties of the combination hazels and filberts, but a complete history of the hybridization work and the results really deserve a separate account to be published some time in the future. i merely mention this because the success of these plants in producing nuts leads me to contemplate the future production of these hybrid nuts, called hazilberts,[ ] on a large scale. [ ] another coined name, by mr. gellatly, is "filazel." my problem was to engineer a scheme whereby i could interest farmers in setting out small acreages of these plants and guarantee that there would be a market when the plants produced nuts, which would be in about three years from the time they were planted. seeing that the filbert producers in the west were struggling for a better market, since conditions were not too favorable for the filbert in its competition with the foreign nuts and the california produced persian walnut, i decided that nuts in the shell were a little bit old-fashioned. many of our prominent members of the nnga have from time to time advised the marketing of nut kernels rather than nuts in their natural containers, and i thought a step in the right direction would be to manufacture a ready-to-eat product from the kernels. and what could be nicer than a butter similar to peanut butter? so i began scouring the market for a grinding machine that would grind filberts to the consistency of a smooth peanut butter. my first machine was a hobart peanut grinder. when buying this machine the mistake i made was to let the agent of the manufacturer demonstrate how good it was to grind spanish peanuts; i should have had it tested on filberts as they are much tougher, even though they do carry more oil. this machine was installed, but it was a complete failure and i decided to buy more expensive machinery, and also put in a cracking plant and buy the nuts by the ton or carload, if necessary, directly from the growers on the pacific coast or through their organization, the northwest nut growers. i located a satisfactory machine for the purpose, which required about horse power to run. since this was during the war and no motors of the right speed and power were available at the time, i set up my own generating plant, using a kilowatt generator driven by a diesel engine which generated direct current so that i could use direct current motors which i already had among my machinery supplies. then a separating machine, which required a horse power motor just to operate the fan, which is part of that equipment, was purchased. also, a nut cracking machine was secured from a west coast manufacturer. along with tanks and containers and other necessary equipment, all set up in a little factory building i had available for that purpose, i commenced the manufacture of filbert butter on a commercial scale. the product was declared by every one to be excellent. we were quite sure of this since we had taken pains to buy up any product that purported to be a nut butter, and had tested those products in many ways to assure ourselves that we had a product superior to anything that we could find on the market at that time. the owens illinois glass company designed our label and gave us the benefit of their experience with containers. then we placed our initial order for glass containers and re-shipping cases. every detail in handling this material was properly taken care of, to insure that if the orders came rolling in we would be able to supply the demand and have our shipments reach the consumer in first class shape. then we initiated an advertising campaign, coupled with sampling, and received many fine letters which encouraged us to hire a salesman who sold the product to the stores in the twin city area so as to have proper distribution. advertising was done also in two national magazines, so we sat back, hopefully anticipating the big orders that we were soon to receive. the reorders from the local stores came in slowly, too slowly for our set-up. we received suggestions from the store keepers and from other persons that perhaps the product was too high priced, so we made experiments in other towns where we set the price so low that there was no profit. in fact, there would be a loss of money were we to do business on that basis. yet there was no stimulation of sales due to this reduction in price. many good suggestions came in; among these was the suggestion that the product lent itself nicely to an ice cream topping; by mixing it with honey or with syrup we interested our largest manufacturer of ice cream in this locality and he did a lot of experimental selling. he was very cooperative. he also sold it in his branch stores as milk shakes; everybody liked it. no complaints whatsoever except that the manager said it was too expensive to compete with a chocolate flavor on which he made much more money. finally this whole thing fizzled out and was discontinued. the next experiment was with candy; as a candy center it was one of the finest tasting confections that had ever been made, but the oil which would ooze through the chocolate coatings prevented the practical use of it. you see, the filbert has about % oil, and when it is ground into a fine, creamy butter, this oil will come out and sometimes be an inch or more in depth over the top of the butter in the glass container in which it was marketed. so we investigated several methods by which we could eliminate the oil. we could pour it off and sell the oil separately; we could emulsify the product with the addition of certain emulsifiers, so as to keep the oil mixed with the starch and protein of the filbert nut. we tried many ways; there is only one method that we haven't used and that is to combine solidified or hydrogenized peanut oil with the filbert butter in order to prevent this liquid oil from rising to to the top of the product. the reason we did not do this is quite apparent--we did not want to mix peanuts and filberts, as we considered peanut butter a cheaper and inferior product. we could not hope to compete with peanut butter with the prices already set for peanut butter recognized by the trade. among the products that came to our attention, however, was one which had both filbert butter and solidified peanut oil in it. when we tested this product among many of our friends, they declared it tasted too much like peanut butter. it spoiled the delicate, fine flavor of the natural filbert butter (which we were marketing without adding any sort of seasoning, and without roasting the product the way peanuts are roasted before they are ground into butter.) now, if any of you readers think that we have left out something important which would have insured the success had we done it that way, we would certainly like to hear from you, or we have some nice machinery that we will sell cheap in case you want to experiment with it yourself. i would be the last one to condemn the future possibility of producing a commercial nut butter, and yet it is strange that the only successful nut butter is not a nut butter at all. peanut butter is not a nut butter because peanuts are a legume like a pea or bean. to my knowledge, we do not have any nut butters on the market today with the exception of the cashew nut butter, which recently had a distribution in our locality, but which seems now to have run its course much as our products did. we bought the cashew butter and tried to interest everybody to use it, just to see whether it was any different than our product in its popularity. in our meager tests we found that the filbert butter was slightly more popular than the cashew, since the cashew reminded people too much of peanuts again. it was also very expensive. however, there must be a way to make a satisfactory butter out of filberts or hybrid nuts, as they carry the hope of the cheapest nut product, which is fundamentally necessary to manufacture a popular food item. the method of propagation of the hazilbert is by layers instead of grafting--layering is a cheaper and more satisfactory method. also, the nuts are the most satisfactory to crack as they have no inner partitions which would require intricate machinery to extract the kernel. their keeping quality is excellent; we have tested this out over a number of years, and filbert butter properly processed will easily keep a year without turning rancid or having an unfavorable flavor. the tonnage of nuts that can be produced on an acre of land is unbelievably high. i have measured individual plants and their production, and the area that they covered, and it is safe to say that we can expect to produce a ton of nuts in the shell per acre in favorable locations on good deep soil. even at c per pound for the nuts this is a good return. new methods of gathering the nuts after they fall from the involucre or husk are being discovered and improved by the western growers from time to time, so that the old expensive method of hand-picking is being eliminated. this should make the filbert even cheaper to harvest. it is not my intention here to discourage the manufacture of filbert butter, but to point out the difficulty that i have had personally to promote the idea in a commercial way. neither is it my intention to stimulate too much interest in the planting of the new filbert varieties which are still under test. i feel that it is necessary to test a plant for at least a five-year period before it can be singled out as a plant to propagate. we have not yet reached the point where we care to sell these plants, as much better ones might crop up among the untested plants, which number over , and which have never yet had a chance to bear so as to show what they can do. at some future time i expect to write an article on filbert hybrid culture (hazilberts) for the whole central, north, and northeastern part of the united states, and at that time i believe that tests will have progressed to such a point that recommendations can be made. dr. macdaniels: there was one more paper that the secretary has that was not scheduled, from mr. elton e. papple, of ontario. title, "filberts, walnuts, and chestnuts on the niagara peninsula." filberts, walnuts and chestnuts on the niagara peninsula elton e. papple, cainsville, ontario my brother and i have been interested in growing nut trees for some time, and have had some interesting experiences and some success. a few years ago, mr. slate sent us from geneva some varieties of filberts which he considered quite hardy. we purchased some from mr. gellatly in westbank, british columbia, some from mr. troup, jordan station, ontario (near vineland); also from j. f. jones nursery, then in lancaster, pa. mr. slate sent us scionwood and we grafted these scions in the spring and layered them shortly afterwards. by the following spring they were rooted well enough to be planted out in the nursery row. this gave us our material to work with, and about the third year we started making crosses between different varieties. the first year we obtained quite a few crosses, and had a good number of these seeds to germinate in the spring after taking from stratified storage and planting them in the nursery row. these trees have now started to come into bearing, and they promise to be better than their parents in some instances. we made a number of crosses since, but we have been very busy and the young trees of these crosses have just about perished through neglect. in this last lot we had a cross of the filbert on the beak or horn hazel[ ], and of a cluster of three, had one to grow, which in turn was promptly eaten off by a rabbit or rodent of some description. the reason for this cross originally, was that, so far as we could see in the last fifteen years the male catkins never winter-kill; whereas filbert trees are subject to this hazard. some of the filbert varieties have the ability to withstand changeable weather and not lose all of their catkins. others will winter-kill in the wood as well. we have removed all our barcelona and du chilly trees because they winter-killed almost one hundred percent. [ ] corylus rostrata.--ed. with the experience we have had with filberts, we believe that before they could be commercialized, it would be necessary to have hardy catkins that will withstand changeable weather: not altogether resistance to extreme cold, but to temperatures that vary from warm to freezing in a few hours. a mulch does help where the warm period is for a short duration; but last winter we had a week or more of warm weather in january, with rain and then a cold snap. even then, some of the catkins on the german varieties and others came through fairly well. selection of varieties for machine cracking or eating from the shell should determine varieties one should grow, but hardiness should be the key factor in selecting varieties. the following table shows some of the crosses we made. most of these seedlings have borne a few nuts to date, but we cannot give anything definite as to whether the catkins are hardier than those of the parents. table of crosses: female male italian red medium long " " red lambert medium long " " cosford " " " vollkugel comet cosford " vollkugel craig red lambert gellatly vollkugel carey red lambert fertile de coutard " " barcelona vollkugel seedling (w) red lambert " (e) vollkugel i would like to make a few remarks on our heartnut and carpathian walnut trees. most of the heartnut varieties came from b. c. and we think that mr. gellatly has some of the best obtainable anywhere in north america. the bates heartnut from j. f. jones nursery seems to be very hardy here, and quality of nut is very good. we have found--comparing a heartnut rootstock which grows two weeks later in the fall than some of our black walnuts--that the same variety of heartnut will live one hundred percent on black walnut stock and winter-kill severely on the heartnut rootstock. we believe that the root system for the north, either heartnut or black, should be carefully selected for its growth habits before considering its use as material for rootstock in grafting or budding. i might add here that we also found that if the variety of heartnut was not hardy, it did not help any in regard to hardiness to use black walnut at the rootstock. there is a good crop of heartnuts on the trees here this year. in grafting carpathian walnuts on black, we found that some varieties graft or take more readily than others. also some would give a better union. the broadview winter-kills with us, but it is not hard to graft it almost one hundred percent. we have quite a number of the carpathians bearing and they seem to be quite hardy, of good size and quality, and bear every year. as the catkins were killed on all but one variety, due to the unseasonable weather experienced last winter, there will be only a light crop. the hardy variety has late blooming male catkins which might account for its catkin hardiness. it is of good size and excellent flavor. possibilities for commercial planting of these carpathian varieties in the north appear promising in favored localities. our chinese chestnut trees seem to be hardy and this year have produced a few burs for the first time. we have planted out about sixty young trees this year and they are all growing nicely. the weather has been wet and just the thing to get them started. our hickory trees, which we grafted, are growing well and we set some more out last year. when we started grafting hickories, we had one hundred percent failure, but kept at it until we got almost a perfect take. the hickory seems very slow in forming a union. a lot can happen to the graft before it gets started. filberts graft as easily as apple. our findings in grafting nut trees are that any amateur can graft apple trees, but nut trees are something different. we have a number of odds and ends besides what has been mentioned. being a member of the n.n.g.a. has helped us in growing nut trees, and the information in the annual reports should help anyone who has just become interested in growing nut trees. the information is up-to-date and fairly accurate. all one has to do is apply his findings to his own planting. mr. corsan: doctor, in that same neighborhood is a man who called on me who has a nut aboretum of acres on grand island in the niagara river. that's above niagara falls, of course. i thought he'd call again, but i didn't get his name, or at least i have lost it, and what do you think he is growing in the way of nuts? can anybody guess: a member: coconuts! a member: peanuts! mr. corsan: i am growing coconuts in florida--but on that one -acre tract on grand island, new york--he lives in buffalo--he is growing evergreen nuts from swiss stone pine (_pinus cembra_), korean pine, philippine pine, _pinus lambertiana_, _pinus monophylla_, _pinus edulis_ and digger pine (_jeffreyi_). he is growing these evergreen pine nuts, and he says he is making very good success of it. mr. sterling smith: chas. f. flanigen is his name. he's a member. mr. weber: i'd like to ask the members, or those present, whether they have failed to sign the registry of attendance. dr. macdaniels: that ends the formal program this afternoon. it's always been a criticism that things are too crowded. we have an opportunity now for about half an hour to visit, look over exhibits and then later on we will meet at six o'clock at the stone chimney. (whereupon, at : p.m., the monday afternoon session was closed.) monday evening session dr. macdaniels: without any question at all, i think, the most important single consideration in determining the planting of nuts is the matter of varieties, and i know that dr. crane has some ideas along that line which he wishes to develop, and without any further talk on my part, i will introduce dr. harley crane, united states department of agriculture. (applause.) nut varieties: a round table discussion h. l. crane, chairman dr. crane: mr. president, members of the northern nut growers' association: i think it is, without a question of doubt, of the greatest importance that we consider this question of varieties. after all, a variety of any plant, in my opinion--which i think can be well supported--is the most important thing that anyone can consider when it comes to planting or developing a nut tree or a fruit tree or anything in the fruit line. we can cultivate and fertilize and spray and do everything that is needed to be done today in a modern fruit or nut orchard farm, but if the variety is not suited to the climate, if it is not a good variety, all our efforts that we make towards developing a good tree and bringing it into fruiting are wasted. i know that every one of you appreciates old varieties of corn and just what has been done in our new varieties of hybrid corn, how hybrid corn has changed the variety situation. now it's hybrid this and hybrid that, because hybrid varieties are generally superb. now, at this time in our nut work we are a long way yet from growing good hybrid varieties, and i feel that there has been an effort on the part of a lot of people to capitalize on the word "hybrid," because hybrid corn has been such a success; and we figured that by carrying it over into other plants, particularly the nut trees, we would get the same remarkable performance from hybrid nuts that we do from hybrid corn. but that is not the case. we will come to that some day in the future, maybe--not in our lifetime, but we will have hybrid varieties, because, after all, our great improvements that have come in most of our plants, in corn and in wheat, and in other plants, have come through the mixing of the genes, or the characters that we have differing between species. in our nuts, now, with the exception of hicans, we are still dealing with pure species, and most, if not quite all, of our hicans are worthless at the present time, largely because of sterility. a good variety is the most outstanding thing that a horticulturist can get or can have, because of the fact that it does have the character in it which will make good growth. it will set a lot of nuts, it will carry them through to maturity and it fills them, and if a variety doesn't do that, it's not a good variety. then after we get the nuts filled, cracking quality, eating quality or oil content, and all these things come next. now, this brings us next to the very important consideration of how are we going to get a new good variety? well, we can do that by selecting from seedling nuts, or we can make controlled pollinations, crossing different varieties, or varieties of different species, planting the nuts or growing new trees and then selecting out of them those that have the desirable characters. but the first thing that we have got to do after we have either selected the nut or made the hybrid and selected the nut is to evaluate the nut as to whether it does have the first character, or proper characters, that we ought to have in the nut. does the crop ripen evenly? whether it hulls readily or comes free of the husk is a minor consideration, provided that the nut itself has the desired characteristics. by that i mean, does it have a good, large kernel which is well filled and bright in color, or good flavor free from any objectionable characters? how about its shell, percentage of shell in relation to kernel? those are some of the things that we have first got to consider. that's what we can do in holding our contests to find good varieties. those are the ones submitted by growers and others. they are in competition with nuts from other sources, and then the committee, or someone, goes over and rates them, and places them, just as has been done by mr. chase and others in their carpathian walnut contest for members of the northern nut growers' association. now, at the present time we have no standard method for evaluating the nut. it's the opinion of the judges that do the scoring or rating which determines the placing that the nuts get. well, now, that's one of the things that we members of the northern nut growers' association have been working on for a long while, but we still haven't arrived at any definite place. well, then, what's the next step that we take up? the next thing we do, some growers find out that a persian walnut from mr. shessler, for example, placed second in the contest this year. they will get some scions from mr. shessler, or somebody else, and they will make a few grafts and grow some trees, and then they will make a study of these nuts and find out how well they do and what they are like under their conditions, and that's about as far as it goes. well, now, we cannot continue to do that kind of a job, as i see it. if we go back over the reports of the northern nut growers' association we will find that this matter of varieties is discussed in a very large majority of the papers that have been presented. but those that have taken part in investigations and in advising the public, like those in the extension services of the colleges, those teaching in the universities, those doing research, like myself, anybody who has to answer correspondence from would-be nut growers, almost always get the question, "what variety should i plant?" then they put it up to me or dr. mckay, or dr. colby, and think that you could just name right and left, and they ask, "what varieties shall we plant?" they put you right down on the spot. here you are, you are supposed to be a real expert, know all things, and they are asking you for advice, and they will take that advice and carry it out. now, today it puts a fellow in an awfully hot spot, because as you read the reports of the northern nut growers' association you find that there is absolutely no unanimity of opinion. every grower is absolutely certain in his ideas, and they are different from every other grower's. well, you can't recommend them all. it's really impossible. now, this is one of the things that the northern nut growers have been dealing with all of these years. this is the forty-first annual meeting. you'd have thought in years we'd have come up with something, but we haven't yet. now, i feel that it's about time that we stop and take stock of our situation. i am not going to do the talking tonight, i am just making a few suggestions and trying to direct the thought a little bit. but one of the nuts that we have done so much with and have said so much about in our reports is the black walnut. it's very interesting to read the reports on varieties of black walnuts and how those who have grown black walnuts differ in their opinion, regardless. well, i don't know. when i get a letter coming in from most anywhere in the country wanting to know what variety of black walnut to plant, do you know what i tell them? mr. caldwell: let them find out for themselves. dr. crane: no, sir, they will never find out, not in their lifetime. i tell them to plant thomas. thomas, thomas thomas! why? mr. kintzel: because we know more about that than any other. dr. crane: that is right. i expect there are four or five times as many thomas walnuts propagated and sold by nurserymen in the united states as all other varieties. mr. corsan: it always has a bigger crop, too. dr. crane: it bears, that's one thing. it may not always fill, but thomas is a good variety. but we in the nut growers' association haven't the nerve to come out and say the thomas is a good variety. it has its faults. i know i am going to be wrong in a lot of cases by planting thomas. mr. corsan: but don't plant it outside the peach belt. dr. crane: well, the peach belt is an awful lot of territory. i know i am going to be wrong, but i know i am going to be safer with thomas variety than i would be with some of the others. now, i think that it's time, and i think that the biggest thing that the northern nut growers' association can do is to give very serious thought and take action at this meeting some way looking towards the association's giving consideration to methods and means whereby we can properly evaluate varieties that we have that are growing so that we can recommend and tell others the varieties that they should grow. you know, here is the situation exactly. in the territory of the northern nut growers we don't have a commercial industry at the present time. i doubt if there is a single family of the northern nut growers who are here that depend on the sale of nuts for their living. well, when your living depends on something, you take an awful lot of interest in it. and that has been true in the case of apples, for example. i don't know how many there are, but twenty years ago or more there have been fifteen or sixteen thousand apple varieties that have been described and have been planted and propagated, and you can name all of the commercial apple varieties grown in the united states almost on the fingers of your hands. that is, the important ones. oh, the list has grown, would probably take in , but that hardly make a drop in the bucket as compared to the ten big ones. well, the same thing is true with peaches. the elberta peach just is completely outstanding. it's a big commercial peach. now, in all of the association here, almost every paper that is presented always has some commercial aspect mentioned in the paper, but we could never have any commercial industry as long as we are fooling with a lot of these varieties with nobody giving them the serious consideration that they deserve, in an effort to properly evaluate them. this evaluation of a variety is our problem. i have given an awful lot of thought to it over the years and how to get around it, how to come up with the proper answers within the near future so that we can be of help to others and stop a lot of our amateurs, those who are attracted to the industry, from making mistakes and getting discouraged. that is the problem. and that is the thing that i want all of you to be thinking about tonight and help us with the suggestions. now, we could just start almost, i expect, in dogfights, if we were to conduct this round table to get to discussing the different qualities or desirability or other aspects among varieties, and each fellow would be right, because i know there wouldn't be agreement. it would make an interesting round table, but i don't know how constructive it would be. so i have tried in these preliminary remarks to get you to thinking about this problem, of evaluation. now, there is one other way that we could go about it. for years we have had in the northern nut growers association a group of officers that are known under the title of state vice-presidents, and i think if you judge by their performance in the past, the main reason that we have had these state vice-presidents is that we were attempting to confer some honor on somebody, the honor being in having them so designated and their names published as state vice-presidents in the proceedings. in many cases their performance hasn't warranted that honor, because, after all, a vice-president is supposed to be a working vice-president, not an ornament. the ornament is supposed to be the president, if we have any such thing. at least, that's what i have heard. i have never been president. and i have thought that if in the consideration of our state vice-presidents we select the ones who are particularly active and very much interested in this variety problem and in the northern nut growers' association, that we might take up this variety problem and get us information by two ways. one would be through surveys made in their states by contact with the growers, either personal contacts or by letters. then those reports could be assembled, and we could have our variety committee over all, so the association could attempt to evaluate. that would be one start. another thing would be that our state vice-president in collaboration with the president, would appoint a state committee. now, we have a lot of growers in some states that are vitally interested. in pennsylvania, for example, and in ohio and new york we have a lot of growers who are members of this or state associations that are vitally interested in this thing. you have a state vice-president appointing a committee in collaboration with the president of the national to evaluate the variety situation as it exists in their state. now, we would expect them to do some honest work on this thing and come up with a report in which the different members could agree. then we would be nearer getting unanimity of opinions. we have got to get this some way so that we can agree upon what we do with the answers to individuals better than we have been doing in the past. there may be some error to this. well, you see, i know that some of you must be familiar with the new jersey peach testing association. i am not sure just what the name of it is, but it's something like that. a member: new jersey peach council. dr. crane: it has been a great power and a great help in regard to the selection and evaluation of peach varieties in the state of new jersey. in new jersey the experiment station has had a peach breeding program going for a number of years. they have done outstanding work, and they have brought out some very good varieties. well, the station has selected the good ones and discarded the poor ones, or what they thought were the poor ones. they call in members of this peach growers' council, and they have the peaches evaluated. they are passing them on to the fruit growers. "do you think, in your opinion, that this would be a good peach for us to grow? is it better? does it have better flavor than other peach varieties?" they will, out of that group, select some of these new ones, maybe. then the new jersey experiment station will see to it that the trees of these varieties are propagated, and they are given to the members of that association in order that they can plant them under their conditions and grow them to fruiting and see how they do. well, then, this committee still continues to evaluate them, and if the members of the association say, "well, that's a variety we should grow," then they will grow it. if they feel it isn't as good as some they already have, they throw it away and that's the end of it. but they don't clutter up the variety situation with a lot of poor stuff. and they make profits, because always two heads are better than one, even though one is a sheep's head, as the old saying goes. well, when you get four or five or more in a group and they agree, you can be sure that their opinion is far better than five individual opinions or judgments. i am very anxious to see that tonight we agree in open discussion of this whole variety evaluation problem and that we start work some way, somehow, towards working out some means whereby we can properly and more effectively and more quickly evaluate our varieties than we have up to this time. now, that's the end of my story. the talk and the rest of it is up to you folks. mr. anthony and mr. sherman have been working over here in pennsylvania. they have found a lot of new material known only to a few people. they are just wringing their hands over there to know how in this wide world this stuff can be evaluated, the good saved, and that which is not worthy of doing anything with, well, "just pass it up" and let it go. that's the way we make profits. their experience is no different from all the rest. we have nut growers with whom i have had correspondence in years past who want to propagate material that this association should have flatly condemned years ago, because the majority of the group here knows it is worthless, but they just haven't done it. now, it's time that we change this thing, or i will tell you frankly in a lot of ways the nut growers' association has become a social institution, rather than one which we learn from and recommend practices to the new groups that are coming on to keep them from making mistakes. now, i have talked from the bottom of my heart tonight, and i want some of the rest of you here to express your opinions and give suggestions as to how we might do that. mr. weber: dr. crane, i think i will start the ball rolling, and i think ohio has taken the lead in the very thing you have been talking about. it's the northern ohio group. they have been very active in finding out the better nut varieties that were suitable to ohio conditions, both the black walnuts and the hickories. they have conducted contests, both for black walnut and hickories. they practice what they preach. they have traded their information. they are up in the northern part, and i am down in the southern part, too far to be included with them, so i am not blowing my own horn; i am blowing it for the other fellows. and i think they are a worthwhile group, and if you look to the membership in this association in ohio, i think it has the largest membership. and you get that northern ohio group, they test out varieties, and a man will fight for a particular one in his group against the variety from another. and so they are not afraid to stand up and say what they think. but having done that, we need the aid of our different state agriculture groups. you must have a place where they can go and put those trees on a testing ground so the people can go there and see them. you can go there to this ohio experiment station and you will see this variety growing, or you go over to the other branch and see this variety growing, and then when they find the state has taken it up, it gives them confidence more than a fellow blowing his horn for one variety against another variety. you have to get the members in their own states to form their own local organizations and carry out what you have been talking about here and find out in their particular states which are the best varieties. and then you get a starting point, and each individual state's agricultural experiment station should take it up, follow it up, if they have the funds. where if one individual gives his mite and then his health fails or life fails, why, he has contributed his mite, and it will be perpetuated. but if it's on my place or someone else's place, the next fellow doesn't appreciate it, and if they need the wood handy, down comes that tree. it has no memories from then on, and it's not perpetuated. so i think some of the northern ohio members--i think mr. smith is here, are there any other members? silvis--deserve a lot of credit. mr. mcdaniel: i would like particularly to hear if the northern ohio group has got together on a discard list. have they agreed on any one variety they don't want to plant? mr. sterling smith: i am glad you brought out the black walnut. i am more familiar with it than with other species, and i have been personally thinking along your line for several years. we have in black walnuts probably over . i started to count them up one time. i got , and i know there were more than that, i don't know how many. and among those nearly varieties of black walnuts i am confident there must be at least that aren't worth being grown--that is, in northern ohio. they may be good in some other places, or they may be worthwhile for experimental purposes. but to grow them for commercial means or for home use, they are not good varieties. and i have suggested to different ones eliminating them, or trying to work out, say, maybe or and then from those try to pick out ten. there has not much been done on it. there is a lot of difficulty in a situation like that. dr. crane: that's right. mr. sterling smith: here is one thing: what one person has varieties which correspond with what his neighbor or somebody ten miles down the road will have? we will take grundy, for example, or rohwer, some of those. two or three of them might have that, but the ten or fifteen other members in the near vicinity won't have that variety. that's one of the difficulties. and i have thought personally that there should be some sort of committee set up along the line you suggested, not necessarily on state lines, but more on zone or regional lines. dr. crane: yes, sir, that's what i mean. mr. sterling smith: because those suitable in northern ohio wouldn't necessarily be suitable in southern ohio, and so with any of the states along that tier of states. and i think there should be some type of committee set up to judge these different varieties as far as we can, and also to enlarge their testing plan. mr. shessler, i believe, has somewhere in the neighborhood of under test, maybe three or four of the same tree. for myself, i don't know exactly what i do have, somewhere between and varieties, but there are only about or of them bearing. and i have of late years started working on that line, having sort of a test orchard, having one or two trees of the several varieties so i can find out what to plant. not too many years ago i was in the position of the amateur who wanted to know what to plant. should i plant stabler, ohio, thomas? it was just like you spoke about concerning the inquiries that you have. i have earnestly read all the reports and have earnestly looked where i could get them in time for the current year. i read so i would know what the new varieties are and what different people's opinions on them were. and i think there should be a central committee, probably like you suggested. and another suggestion i would like to make would be that before we permit, as far as possible, any further new varieties of black walnut to be mentioned or published, that they be passed upon by several of the members, oh, maybe ten of the members, at least, to learn what their opinion is before they are mentioned. lots of times one or two persons have a good opinion of the nut, and immediately something is published about it, and as you say, immediately a half dozen fellows write for it, as in your persian walnut contest. and it would be better if that nut weren't allowed to be named until it has been passed upon by a qualified group of, we will say, experts. and that same condition should be carried out with the persian walnut and the hickories and northern pecans and other groups of nuts we are interested in. mr. corsan: i'd like to suggest that we get started on this matter of varieties, because we can say an awful lot and then say nothing. i have tested a great many varieties of black walnuts, and as soon as i hear people talk about the stabler walnut, i know they know nothing about nuts at all, because the stabler has a crop on it only about once in twenty years, and then it's a small crop. it's a very good nut to eat and crack, but it's not for crops. as this gentleman says, the thomas. we all know the thomas. there is one point about the thomas, you have got to keep it within just the northern limits of the peach belt where the peach will grow. there are years that come around when the thomas will not mature. the frost will come on. it has a very thick outer shell, the hull, and the hull comes off the nut itself quite clean. and then we hear people talking about the ohio. now, what about it? well, it's a monster nut when you look at it on the tree, but knock the thick hull off of it, the strong, sturdy hull, and there's only a little nut in it. yet you have something that cracks well enough. the nuts i would condemn right away are the ohio and stabler. no doubt about it. now the cresco, very, very rich! that tree will actually kill itself, just overbearing. you know a tree can kill itself. some people kill themselves having or children, but that's about what that tree will do. then we have the nut that years ago i saw, the snyder, and i said to mr. snyder, "look, it's a sure nut." he said, "never saw it." he looked at it, examined it, and it's a marvelous nut. i think i have the backing of our friend, mr. gilbert smith. i think he'd back me in saying that that is one of the best nuts in the world, even with the thomas. but we don't quite want to reduce--comb down the list of varieties like the apple grower has. when you go to boston and ask a peddler or hawker about "apples," he won't know what you are talking about. apples?--they wonder what the word is. it is "mcintosh." they will go around the street shouting, "mcintosh, mcintosh." you won't hear the word "apple" in boston, it's "mcintosh." now, let's get down to nuts, and let us know our nuts. mr. caldwell: (new york state college of forestry.) i suppose this is my first time at a meeting of this sort, and probably i should observe with a critical mind. but when you speak about a committee to pass upon varieties, immediately i start wondering exactly what you mean by a variety, and then i start wondering what your approach is in picking that so-called variety. first of all, a "variety" that you use is not really a variety. it is just a vegetation of one particular tree that you happened upon. you decided by chance it was a tree you wanted to use and then passed it around to your friends and decided you want it. dr. crane: i want to correct you, for one reason: it is truly a horticultural variety or clone that has just as much standing or identity as the botanist's or forester's "variety." mr. caldwell: it is a clone, and i agree with you, but a variety seems-- dr. crane: you are speaking from the forester's point of view. * * * * * mr. caldwell: that's why i make this other statement. dr. crane: when you have got something by controlled breeding, you don't know when you have got it. that's the whole story in a nutshell. now, i am going to tell you about using controlled breeding. we started almond breeding in california, where we have one of the biggest commercial nut industries in the country. we started almond breeding in with the best known almonds. in the years of almond breeding we have introduced two varieties. we had a panel of commercial almond growers who decided on those two varieties out of more than , known controlled crosses that were made of trees that were grown to fruiting. but it took a panel of commercial growers to determine whether or not these two varieties, the jordanolo and the harpareil, were commercial varieties. those two varieties were planted. the nurserymen planted them, the grower took them over, and they couldn't grow enough trees to supply the demand. these two varieties have been introduced for commercial planting now for years. of the two, one has stood the test of time, and it stands now as probably the second most important almond variety in all the united states, has been taken to foreign countries and is being extensively propagated. one of them made the grade, the jordanolo. the harpareil is still in the running, but it is down with the or varieties that are of lesser importance. mr. caldwell: can you reproduce that result? dr. crane: no. mr. caldwell: then you don't know what that is or the happenstance that got it. dr. crane: certainly, because you don't know about breeding nut trees. mr. caldwell: that's what i say should be learned. dr. crane: in the first place, the chromosomes are so small and there are so many, that you can't identify them, and you can't tell which genes, and they have got a heterozygous population, and the variety is self-sterile and has to be cross-pollinated, so there is only one way from a horticultural standpoint by which we can do anything, and that is through clones. dr. macdaniels: i think we are getting a little bit off. dr. crane: we are off, way off. dr. macdaniels: how to get a new variety i don't think is what we are trying to decide this evening. as i have looked at this whole field of what we are trying to do, i think we have analogies that we can point to. i think any project of this kind in nut varieties goes through various stages. the first is finding what material there is that is available that you can use. the next is the evaluation of that material to see what's worth keeping, and setting up your standards of what you are trying to get, and then from then on out perhaps breeding that sort of thing. now, as far as we are concerned, it seems to me the northern nut growers' association made a pretty good stab at surveying the materials available. in other words, i think an additional nut contest is not going to turn up the perfect nut. that is, we have one contest after another, and the ones that win the first prizes as the best nuts we can find are not markedly better. there is no great difference away from the average that we have had in the others. i think that's a valuable thing to keep going along so we don't miss a trick and let anything be lost. but the next thing is to take these things that we have selected and evaluate them, and it seems tome that's exactly where we stand at the present time. i also think that we should not in this situation get ideas that are too big. that is, if you get something that's impossible, you are licked before you start. if you have got to wait before you do anything and make a complete study of chromosomes of any one of these nut trees, . percent of the northern nut growers association might as well quit doing it. i am not capable of doing it, and dr. mckay is probably the only one that is capable of looking at these things from that standpoint. but we have, it seems to me, to use the machinery we have and take some definite action which will be of some value within a year or perhaps two. i agree that this idea of putting the state vice-presidents to work is a very good thing. i think each one could if we could find the right man--take his state and divide it into two parts, and also take in groups of growers of nut trees that are members, and all the others that we can find, and get their pooled opinions on what varieties are available, together with the record of these varieties in that particular locality. then i think on the basis of one of the committees we have, that is, our standards and judging subcommittee, we could set that up in such a way that they could evaluate things about which there is some doubt. but before we do that, we have got to clear the decks and adopt judging standards, standards by which we wish to work or to evaluate different varieties. i don't know whether anyone else has done more judging than i have or not, but i know i have given this a lot of attention through the years. we had one system of judging which was worked out some years ago and was based on previous judging systems, and they went to a point where it seemed to me and to the others who were working along with me that they just didn't have any real basis in the factual situation that warranted its continuance; that is, a system which was based on percentages of kernel and penalties for empty nuts or flavor, and other things which could not be effectively measured. and they quit with that system and started out on a new tack. and to do that we got dr. atwood, who is head of the department of plant breeding genetics at cornell, to go through some extensive tests which he applied as a biometrical statistical method, to find out what is the sample which will give you specific results and then to measure the qualities that give you what you want. and i think we are nearer that than before. but i think the schedules are relatively simple and haven't been used to any great extent. they need further testing. but it seems to me that the association as such must decide whether we want that schedule, making it an official schedule and going ahead on that basis. now, a judging schedule for nuts will not tell you anything about the tree; it will just tell you the characteristics of the sample. that's the first thing you want to find out: is the nut itself intrinsically the type of thing you want to deal with? then whether the tree bears annually or whether it alternates, or what diseases it is subject to. those are other matters. so i think this is a way out, or at least i suggested the plan we could go along with of putting the vice-presidents to work and setting up a committee under the title of judging and standards and try to bring out a report at the next session. it seems to me that would be right practical. where we go from there in production of new varieties i think should be a subject for a round table discussion sometime. i think the gentleman in forestry has a good idea. i think we will get a long way if you have proper control of the first elements of the first varieties, and from them we can build up. but it seems to me we have to be practical about things that we can do, then go ahead and do them. dr. crane: thank you, thank you. dr. colby: i would like to add one point, that we must "zone" all these varieties. in a state as long as illinois, over miles long, growing conditions are different in the south than in the north. in the north we don't find that thomas fills out very well and that's true also at urbana in the central section of the state. beck and booth and some of the smaller nuts do fill out. the zones i mentioned may well run across several states where environmental conditions are similar. i recall a little survey i made when i was honored by being president of your association several years ago, in which i tried to list all of the work that was in progress at the different national and state experiment stations, and most of those stations were carrying on some work in nut growing. i am sure that if you check that matter now, several years later, you would find that many more are carrying on investigations of that nature. they have expanded as much as their facilities will permit. for example, just the other day i visited the station at the university of new hampshire, and there they were growing chestnut trees from seed that had been brought in from korea. little trees just two years from the seed were full of burs this year. whether they are going to fill a place in new hampshire remains to be seen. they were not as yet attacked by blight, but, of course, the trees were small, and there were no cracks in the bark as yet. i am sure that most of the station workers know that you at beltsville are extremely interested in testing new nuts as they become available. in cooperation with other workers it may be found that this variety is good in ~this~ zone and that variety is good in ~that~ zone. nurserymen might well include maps of such zones in their catalogs. dr. anthony: now that the experiences of the northern ohio growers has been brought up and you have mentioned many times your own experience as the northern nut growers, i think the northern ohio group, a closely knit group, rather closely geographically related, has worked for almost twenty years, and hasn't gotten too far, and this organization has worked for years and hasn't gotten too far. so that if we want to get anywhere, we must have a more closely knit organization with a better financial backing back of it and a better sense of responsibility back of it. dr. crane: that's right. dr. anthony: you have mentioned the new jersey peach council. we have been talking to our own pennsylvania nut growers just as we have been talking to you today, telling them that they had a marvelous opportunity in all of these seedlings that we have been finding around the state. i think we have got them quite stirred up. but now they are considering the possibilities of organizing along the line of new jersey peach council, a nut tester's council, which will be an off-shoot and part of the pennsylvania nut growers association. now, why have such a thing? why have it in pennsylvania? why not have it as an organization of the northern nut growers. the problem of varieties actually in its final analysis is a local problem. we have one area in pennsylvania where on one side of the river it's mcintosh and the other side of the river it's stayman. there are meteorological differences on each side of the susquehanna river at scranton-wilkes barre where the varieties shift. in the northern area we go from the northern hardwood with the beech-birch-sugar maple, into the oaks right in the state, with a third of the state in the northern hardwoods and the rest of the state in the oaks. we have no idea that any one variety of black walnuts or english walnuts or chestnuts will fill our needs any more than we know that any one apple will fill our needs, that one grape or one cherry will fill our needs, even one peach, not even the elberta. so it comes down to a regional problem, and for that reason i think that the state should be the logical center for your close knit organization to test your varieties. there is another reason. i don't believe that any group of growers facing a problem of this magnitude can get very far unless you secure continuity by tying your organizations in some way to your state experiment station. i think you have got to have your continuity by making your tie-up there. dr. crane: that's right. dr. anthony: i have said a number of times in our own group that one of the great disadvantages of our amateur nut growers in pennsylvania is that most of them are years old or older. that's fine for them, but it's hard on the industry, because just the time that they should be giving us the most valuable returns, they aren't there. so to secure the continuity you want, you are going to have to tie in your experiments with the experiment station. you are going to have to make a group, you are going to have to incorporate, because you are going to face the problem of propagation. you might have one good tree, and it's of no value for you, and you have got to plant it in more than one spot to know how good it is. if the delicious apple or grimes golden had appeared in our seedling blocks, we'd have thrown them away. i know we have thrown many things out at geneva which in other places might have survived. we took a number of those and planted them in pennsylvania and found them worthy of naming. that means you have got to propagate in more than one place and you have got to propagate in conditions where you know you have got the demand. and all of that means that you have got to have a tight legal organization. valuable as the northern nut growers association is, i don't think you are going to get it out of your present organization. i think you have got to find some way to condense your stuff into some tighter organization. in pennsylvania i think it's going to be a nut tester's council, legally organized, financially responsible, tied up to the experiment station, if we can make it just as the new jersey council is. the new jersey council was a success because they had the best possible tie-up between morris plains, or miles on the other side, and a good nursery in between. that's why they made a success. the new york state fruit testing association is a success because they have had continuity. mr. king has been manager of that association for years, i think, and you have a legal organization doing its own propagation where they know the material is true to name. use your vice-presidents all you can, use every committee that you have but you have to have something that's tighter. dr. crane: thank you. just one comment that i want to make. you have suggested an awful big camel to get over. now, we are trying to start. if we could just get a little start towards the end we could grow into it. dr. anthony: we have got to start. mr. o'rourke: i am one of those unfortunate ones who is supposed to know everything when an inquiry comes in to the college. i happen to have the privilege of answering the nut inquiries at michigan state college. the first thing people want to know is, "what varieties do i plant?" the second is, "where do i buy them?" i am very sorry to say i can answer neither one of those questions at the present time satisfactorily to myself, nor to the people of the state of michigan, and i feel that we do need action, and we need it quick in order that we can select a certain number of varieties that we can conscientiously recommend to the grower, and also a very few varieties to recommend to the nurserymen of the state so that they will propagate them and make them available to prospective customers. mr. slate: i want to support mr. anthony's remarks that there are too many old men testing nut tree varieties. dr. anthony: not too many, no. mr. slate: and there are too many squirrels involved. if a man gets the idea that he is going to take up the nuts, by the time he accumulates a collection of nuts, when these come into bearing the squirrels get most of the nuts, and they don't seem to be very much concerned about evaluation. then the man dies and the collection goes to pot. there must be some continuity, and as far as i can see, that will have to come through state experiment stations. now, just how you are going to get the experiment stations started in testing nut tree varieties, i don't really know. many of the projects at the experiment stations are there because they are catering to the larger industries in the state, and sometimes the projects are there because somebody in an administrative position has an idea which he wishes to see developed. now, i would like to comment on the remark of our forester friend here, and i think he won't take offense at what i am going to say. it seems to me that the foresters are not in a good position to criticize the horticulturists. the forester's knowledge of variety improvement for a long, long time has been based upon the problem of lots of seed from certain geographical areas, and i feel sure that foresters as a class have only very, very recently become aware of the importance of the clone as we use it in horticulture. now, horticulturists, that is, pomologists, nut culturists, people who deal with ornamentals, have been keenly aware of the horticultural clone for a long, long time. there have been brought improvements into our cultivated plants through the hybridization of clones that all of the horticulturists are familiar with. the blueberry work done by the department of agriculture is probably the most striking example of this work, because it was all carried out during the lifetime of one man. i feel that we will not get much further in searching for wild nuts. we have had contests for hickories and black walnuts, and i doubt whether we have made any very substantial increases. i feel certain, and i know there are a number here who will back me up, that future improvements, if they are to be really substantial--that is, if they are to be substantial advances over what we already have--such improvements will have to come through breeding work. dr. mckay: mr. chairman, i have been listening to these remarks, and i have been trying to think of some comment that could be made in connection with some practical suggestions that we could arrive at tonight, a starting point, perhaps, in connection with the chairman's remarks about doing something tonight at this meeting. i'd like to say that it seems to me that the thing we could probably do right now to start things off would be to have this regional committee or this group that represents a wide area, decide on, say, five varieties based on all the evidence that can be obtained as to which five would be most likely to succeed over a wide area. now, the chairman has commented at length on our lack of unanimity when it comes to varieties. i think most of that problem has come out of the fact that our information is all based on little, piecemeal bits of work done here and there, and it does not refer to variety testing over a wide area. now with all due respect to dr. anthony's remarks about varieties being a local situation, we still have, as mentioned by the chairman, the apple situation. the varieties in the final analysis are going to be adopted over a wide area, and if our nurserymen and all our growers could know or understand that these five varieties have been selected by opinion of people that ought to know that those five varieties stand the best chance to succeed over a wide area, then we would have something definite to tie to. the way it is now, we in our office feel that thomas is probably the most widely adapted variety of black walnut we have, and probably the best performing variety. we are not sure, but that's our opinion. i might mention another variety, the stabler. i think most people would agree that that is a variety that used to be thought well of, yet is no more, and so it is out of the picture. those two varieties we have information about, based on a wide area of territory. now, it seems to me, coming down to something specific, what we could do here, or as soon as we can get to it, would be to have a large committee, a committee representing opinion over a wide area, come to some conclusion about the five varieties that will be the ones to test and to grow over a wide area and give our nurserymen or our growers something to tie to in the matter of selecting varieties to grow. dr. crane: thank you, dr. mckay. there is one other comment that i want to make. i think that if we were to take a vote tonight in here, get an expression on the variety stabler, we'd say, "yes, it's a curious nut, it's a curiosity. some trees sometimes bear single-lobe nuts in varying proportions. it is a fine nut when you get it, but they don't bear enough and they don't bear regularly enough. that is the criticism of the stabler." yet we have nurserymen, lots of them, that are propagating stabler and still selling them to people. mr. mcdaniel: i know one nursery which has recently discontinued it. that's armstrong, way out in california. mr. caldwell: why doesn't it produce a good nut? can you answer that question? dr. crane: it does produce a good nut ~when~ it produces. mr. caldwell: if it doesn't produce all the while, why doesn't it? if you can solve that-- dr. crane: why didn't you grow up to a six-foot-six guy weighing pounds? mr. caldwell: it would be physically impossible for me to do so with my constitution, which is what i am trying to apply to the nut trees. mr. wilkinson: don't condemn it over all territories[ ]. at my place, the stabler produces nuts as regular as the thomas, and in the nursery it outsells the thomas two to one, if not more. i have handled nut sales for mr. weber's orchard, one of the largest black walnut orchards in the united states. when the people come there we will crack a stabler walnut to make a customer out of them, and we have to get on to something else to keep them from buying all the stablers first. and if i were planting a hundred walnut trees today, the majority of them would be stabler. they have been bearing since when i started producing stabler walnuts. [ ] the territory giving best reports on stabler lies along the mississippi and ohio rivers from about cincinnati to no farther south than memphis.--j.c.mcd. dr. crane: that's what we are talking about tonight. mr. caldwell: yet your committee throws the thing out. mr. chase: i'd like to say a few words. first off, i am in agreement with the idea of some sort of a regional testing set-up. now here we are getting into discussion about individual varieties, and that is not the purpose of this, as i understand, but all of you gentlemen have been propagating the various varieties simply because one has become available to you at a certain time, and you have grafted it. our committee on varieties, of which i am a member, probably should be criticized, because we have not gathered that information from the folks who have grafted trees, and they are scattered over the region. we don't need the regional set-up, it's already set up. in other words, if we have varieties to be tested, we could have selected members in our group to graft it, if they do not already have it grafted. in a few years we can get some pretty definite information on a few varieties. now, in , in our work we recognized the advisability of quickly doing something about the -and-some varieties existing in the proceedings, and finally we have culled that down to, i think, , which, on the basis of nut characteristics only, are very close together. now, we started out in and established four or five test plantings containing the first ten varieties. ten trees of ten varieties, a hundred trees in the planting. it took quite an area. since that time we have set out variety test plantings of varieties scattered over seven states at various geographical locations within the seven states. mr. kintzel: how many trees do you have in a planting now? mr. chase: twenty-five now. twenty-five of five varieties. this work is being carried on at the state experiment stations in the tennessee valley. in fact, they have become more and more interested in the testing program which we have been trying to get them interested in, and we hope to have some information for our region on some of these varieties, the better varieties as we consider them. but back to this problem. i think it is very simple to set out. i think the varieties committee--i believe dr. crane is chairman-- dr. macdaniels: you are chairman. mr. chase: no. it has a job on its hands: first to find out what our members have. certainly they are spread over the region we are interested in, aren't they? well, it simply becomes a secretary's job to canvass our membership to find out which varieties we have, so that the varieties committee can go to work. let's be realistic. we are not going to influence all the experiment stations to do this work. it is not going to be practicable for them. they probably would very much like to do it, but it's not in the picture, as i see it now. therefore, we are not going to wait, as our forester would have us wait, until we breed one. let's get these good ones that we have got and cull them out so dr. crane can answer a letter without having a guilty conscience. dr. crane: that's right. folks, i want to make one comment on mr. chase's remarks--also mr. slate's remarks, about tying this work up to the experiment stations. there is one thing that, in my experience, we can't place too much dependence on. of course, in the department of agriculture our main interests that we are likely to contend with are our four major nut industries in the country. that is pecans, persian walnuts, filberts and almonds. in the case of those, we can get very little help from the experiment stations, with the possible exception of california. mr. corsan: there is lots of truth in that. dr. crane: they haven't got the interest in it. they haven't got the money, they haven't got the support. they depend more on the u. s. department of agriculture. well, the department of agriculture can't carry it. hence, it comes back to growers. the grower organizations, even in the great state of california, with all their great wealth and abundance, go to the california experiment stations more than to any other experiment stations in the united states. but the commercial growers out there have already set up organizations for the testing of these varieties and for trial plantings. you can't come back to the experiment stations and just as has been pointed out, many of the experiment stations have only one or two or, at most, three different kinds of nuts of their own. they have got to go out just the same as we do ~with the growers~; we co-operate with them. and we have already got a lot of these experimental plantings. there is sterling smith with--i have forgotten how many he said-- walnut varieties, and mr. shessler with a hundred, there in ohio. i'd like to know from sterling smith and mr. shessler which are the best five walnut varieties. mr. kintzel: in that section? dr. crane: in that section, that's what i want to know. mr. corsan: that's what we are here for tonight. let us talk it over. mr. weber: put the question to him, dr. crane, and let him tell you what he thinks to be his best five. put him on the spot right now. dr. crane: that would be just a waste of time, because that would be his opinion. it's just like what mr. wilkinson says, that if he were planting a hundred walnut trees they would be stablers. mr. weber: in his particular locality. mr. corsan: and he may be quite right in that locality. i am not going to dispute it. dr. crane: but we want to know how some other folks agree with him and study this situation over and find out why stabler was doing its stuff right there. mr. caldwell: that's what i asked you. dr. crane: and how much evidence did he base his conclusion on? that's what we have got to discover. mr. corsan: i base my conclusion on the experiment station that put out the redhaven peaches. dr. george slate here has made a very big point, and it went to pot. those words there are what we have got to be careful about, that our institution doesn't go to pot. i have started affairs that went with a fury, and when i let go of them, they just went to pot. take michigan state college's bird sanctuary, the w. k. kellogg bird sanctuary. what is it now? a colorless affair. it's gone to pot, and we want to see that the nut growers don't allow ~their~ institutions to go to pot. dr. crane: that's right: you hit the nail on the head, there, but it's up to the nut growers to see that they don't. and how many experiment stations or their actions have been influenced by the northern nut growers association? mr. corsan: i have built upon the experience of j. f. jones and neilson and professor slate and all of them. now, here is what i did. i picked out a section of land that floods every spring, about four times the width of this room and has sometimes eight feet of water. now, nobody is going to build houses on that and tear my nut trees down. they are there forever, and it will always be a nut haven, and nobody will be able to destroy it. now i have got to be careful to see that it doesn't go to pot, as professor slate said, by selecting some brains to succeed me, to carry on. is that right, professor slate? professor slate: (nods.) mr. silvis: we can't spend too much time thinking about the atomic bomb. we can't think too much about getting an organization to start this, it just takes somebody to go ahead and do it. we don't need experiment stations to develop the nut, either. the nut was here a long time before the experiment station was ever developed. i wrote in a letter here two or three or maybe four years ago--i think it was after the norris meeting, to every vice-president in nnga that commercial possibilities of a nut must first be apparent before any experiment station is interested, because then money is involved, capital has been invested. before capital can be invested must come coordination. coordination is labor. that's grafting or flowering, or whatever you want to call it--back-breaking exercise. i still think we have the organization here. we don't need to argue about any more organization. we have organization right here in our own state vice-presidents. i tried to bring that out, the suggestion as to the fact that i thought maybe the state vice-president would serve on a perpetual committee, if he lived into perpetuity, to get these zones within his state. if illinois is miles long and he has zones of climate, let him get plantings of the same kind of a nut in those zones. the same way with texas, the same way with montana or ohio. mr. sherman: i think both mr. stoke and mr. davidson thought that it might be a good idea to give somebody a job instead of an honorary position by naming a state vice-president for that sort of a job. now, we have got to start somewhere, and that would be a good place to start: give somebody something to do, like some of these other dead people that will feed these nuts that corsan was telling us about this afternoon. but the commercial possibilities are always apparent. you can subsidize them, you know. if you can get enough money behind it, you can subsidize it. i think our problem still is the same as it was before: we are still trying to find out what the other guy has that's better than our own. and if we have got five nuts that are any good, i'd like to know about them myself. dr. crank: that's right. mr. silvis: i will make this statement in favor of the homeland black walnut--if we are on black walnuts. i came in a little late on account of the mud here. the homeland is growing in massillon, and mr. stoke sent me the scions. all it did was produce staminate bloom. i gave some of the wood to john gerstenmaier in massillon. it is doing very well. i also favor the thomas black walnut, and i think the hickories and everything else have commercial possibilities. just let somebody go ahead and correlate these factors. life is very short. i have copies of these letters, four letters out of or that i prepared. dr. crane: mr. jay smith. we are going to have to limit this to not over three minutes' time. mr. jay smith: my experience is somewhat limited. i have a few seedling trees that are good, and i have a few named varieties that seem to be good. i just want to point out one reason why we should have a number of varieties. one of my choice varieties in my back yard has five nuts on it this year, and it has produced a good crop other years. and the answer seems to be that the pollen came out during a period of very rainy weather and the tree did not fertilize. now, other trees apparently blossomed before or after, mostly after, but this one was a rather early blooming tree, and i have more nuts on other types of trees. one of my good seedling trees has very few nuts on this year. possibly that might be for a similar reason. so regardless of how good these varieties may be, we must have several varieties. don't put all your eggs in one basket. i have some good filberts that came from geneva, and they have had trouble with wood damage due to the beetles laying eggs in the wood, and the beetles may possibly have come from nearby willows. and i have had some of the willow growing, too, because i thought it looked nice. now i have cut down all of the willow, and there is some birch in the neighborhood, and i understand the birch harbors this same thing, some variety of agrilus beetle,[ ] and we have a lot of angles to work on in order to get rid of our drawbacks. and we have the matters of season and soil and elevation. it's quite a big problem. [ ] agrilus anxius gory, the bronze birch borer. dr. crane: it ~is~ a big problem, but we will never settle it the way we are going. we have got to do better. mr. stoke: i don't know whether i have anything that is really pertinent to say. the thought i had in mind should have come sooner. that is: why are we growing nuts? there are two angles from which we can approach that, two natural angles. here is the angle of the amateur that wants to grow nuts to eat. after all, that's what i suppose they are for. there is the commercial grower who wants to grow them to make a profit, and i think we should approach our subject, evaluation of nuts, from either one of those two angles, or work along two different channels. i think that's very necessary. you take the elberta peach. if you want a peach in your back yard, you are not going to plant elberta peaches to eat. if you want to make a commercial success, you are going to plant the elberta, if you know anything about it. are we commercial nut growers, or do we grow them for home consumption? go downstairs and look at the nuts we judged last year and the eye appeal of some that didn't rate at all would sell those nuts ahead of the prize winner. but if you want to grow them to eat, those three prize winners are the best nuts down there. and if we thrash over this field, i think we have got a definite idea of what we are after, and i think we should have had that to start with. dr. crane: that's right, and there is one other point of view, too. there is a third reason for growing nut trees. that is simply for the ornamental value. that hasn't been dealt with. mr. wellman: i'd just like to ask a question. there has been some reference to apples here. i don't know very much about it, but i understand that the american pomological society got out a list of apples nearly a century ago, which they have kept changing and adding to and subtracting from over all of that time. is there any analogy there that would help us in anything we can do? they made mistakes and put apples on there that they are sorry they put on and they have had to take off. people don't use those varieties in one part or another part of the country for some reason. is there any reason why we shouldn't follow some suggestion such as that, stick our necks out and go ahead? dr. crane: that is right, no reason in the world why you can't. mr. sherman: i'd like to do some commenting. you are doing here tonight what you have done at the last meeting. you have talked varieties. i thought the purpose of that was to get a committee appointed some way, some organization that will say, "here are certain varieties that should be tested. make arrangements to propagate those varieties and have them tested." i made a demonstration right downstairs here; some of you witnessed it. you have got some black walnuts that you are cracking. i went out to the car and got some that would crack in four nice quarters that laid out. i tried it again. sure, they cracked and cracked good. where can i get some trees? there are a lot of you right here who would take them just that quick (snapping fingers), take them home and test them. this meeting was to get an organization or discuss a means of getting an organization that will get those trees propagated and spread out for testing. now, i think it's just as simple as a, b, c. it's a prolonged job. you have got to have an organization that's going to perpetuate itself for the next century, because if you start that organization right it will be here a hundred years from now, and you will be just as busy a hundred years from now as you are right now. what that committee has got to be, whether it is a statewide or a nationwide, northern nut growers or pennsylvania nut growers or ohio nut growers, is a committee of five--i will say five, you can make it or --that will say, "now, for ohio here are ten varieties that we think should be tested. get trees of each of those ten propagated and spread out over ohio and find out where they will grow." that will apply for some of western pennsylvania, too. it isn't just state lines, understand, but the main thing is to get that variety tested before your nurseryman is spreading it all over everywhere. and how can you get it tested? you have got to have some trees propagated, and you have got to have some nurseryman who knows about the propagation. and i will say a lot of you nurserymen, and there are a lot of you here, take it or leave it, don't know how to propagate a decent black walnut tree. i have had them sent to me with a -inch sprout growing in the top of a club. i have had others two years old with a nice whip five feet high, one-year-old growth. you have got to have good trees. you have got to have a nurseryman who knows how to propagate those ten and send them out. now, the next meeting was to find out what sort of an organization you have got to have to get that done, not talk about a stabler, whether this is good or that is good. that's what you have been doing for years. mr. slate: it takes more than a committee, it takes land, labor, tools, supervisory people. mr. sherman: i can point to members that will take ten varieties that they will test--and pay for them. mr. o'rourke: i would like to say, are we going to wait until we test all of those varieties? we have no information to answer all those letters that are coming in. we want something, not tomorrow, we want something today, that we can give them, information which, at least to the best of our knowledge of today is accurate. and the only way we can get that accurate information is to get a committee together in each region. mr. sherman: that won't take care of the future. that will answer our present questions to the best of our knowledge, but we want an organization that will take care of the future. dr. crane: there is one other thing that i should mention. we in the department of agriculture have released a number of new varieties. we have got others coming on, not only your chestnuts, but filberts and others, pecans, and so on. but we haven't got any organization in any way, shape or form. we can put these out with the growers who test them, but gee whiz, we have put them out and put them out; and look what kind of information we get. we haven't got facilities or the money or anything else to follow up. we have got to have some organization some way, somehow, that could take this material and test it, at least give some idea as to how it performed. now, then, the question is what kind of an organization? if the northern nut growers is not the one that should do it, what kind of an organization can be effective to do it? mr. corsan: now i'd just like to say one more thing tonight. that chestnut blight, i honestly believe, was a godsend to this country. i can remember way back when i'd go into a store and buy a lot of these paragon chestnuts in new york city in the finest grocery store, and they were crammed full of weevils. now, the chestnut blight came, and it has about annihilated the weevil, because there was no chestnut to weevil in. and i would like to have some report about the weevil. mr. wilson: they are in georgia. mr. mcdaniel: they are in virginia and indiana. dr. macdaniels: mr. chairman, i suppose i should have the chair. this is a committee of the whole. dr. crane: that's right. dr. macdaniels: i have a right to speak, dr. crane: that's right. dr. macdaniels: i say we have always come down to the point, here we are, where do we go from here and what do we do next? there, in a word, "here we are." lots of discussion, much of it irrelevant. i will just propose, along the lines i spoke before, that what comes out of this is that we recommend to the incoming president to organize a survey and testing campaign along the lines that seem to meet with some agreement; namely, getting the state vice-presidents busy in finding out the regional evaluation of different varieties. supposing we try black walnuts; just one species for this year, and that he organize his state according to zones and come up with that information with regard to that state. and the other thing would be that these findings be sent to the committee. we have a committee on surveys and one on judging and standards, and let that be compiled by them jointly or set up in some way that would seem to be effective and come up next year with this overall evaluation along those lines. i'd make that motion. dr. colby: second the motion. dr. macdaniels: any discussions? dr. anthony: in pennsylvania two of us have worked full time for a year, and i am not sure we'd be able to evaluate the black walnut yet. dr. crane: we are not evaluating the black walnut, though. dr. anthony: you are asking one man to do that, your vice-president. dr. crane: he is to appoint a committee. dr. macdaniels: any way he chooses to mark them out. dr. anthony: he is organizing a nut tester association. dr. macdaniels: no, an evaluation association. as i would say, you have the ohio association already formed; that would be their problem to come up with an answer for their state. we have the pennsylvania organization already organized. they will come up with some sort of evaluation: no. , thomas, no. , whatever it is, no. , whatever it is. now, in your other states we don't have an organization; do it some other way. i don't care how they do it. dr. crane: there are some others in these other states, too, that are already formed. any other discussion? (whereupon, a vote on the motion was called for, and it was carried unanimously.) mr. silvis: just one thing. it was made with the express purpose that we start maybe just the black walnut. at the same time in certain areas you may as well raise a hickory or a persian right along with the black walnut, or the filbert. mr. mcdaniel: no objection, but this year we are surveying the black walnut named varieties only. mr. salzer: i am just a buck private in the rear rank, but we have been having little local meetings in new york, and they appointed me vice-president for the state of new york, the empire state, and here ohio has their organization, pennsylvania has their organization. what am i going to do? i can work western new york, but i have got to have someone to help me in eastern new york. dr. macdaniels: take the membership list and take the men who can do it. dr. crane: there are a lot of good men in eastern new york. now, if there isn't anything else, i will turn the meeting back to dr. macdaniels. dr. macdaniels: thank you, dr. crane. i think these talks are good for the soul. we can let our hair down and know what we all think. and i do think it's important that we do make some progress on this particular problem. i think this is one way to do it. there may be a half dozen ways and other ways better, but at least you have to agree on something and go on from there. now, the meeting in the morning begins at nine o'clock, the full program. if there is no further business, then, this session is adjourned. (whereupon, at o'clock, p.m., the meeting was adjourned, to reconvene at o'clock, a. m. the following day, august , .) tuesday morning session august , dr. macdaniels: i want to make the remark that this isn't church, you can sit up front if you want to. the first paper this morning has to do with a nut tree disease that is bothering a good many of us, i think, particularly in michigan, as you recall from mr. becker's paper, the bunch disease of walnuts, by dr. h. l. crane and dr. j. w. mckay. i don't know which one is going to give it. dr. mckay? the bunch disease of walnuts discussion (manuscript too late for publication.) (drs. crane and mckay reported that there had been little further development in knowledge regarding the walnut bunch disease since , when g. f. gravatt and donald c. stout of the u.s.d.a. division of forest pathology reported on it with illustrations at the n.n.g.a. meeting (see our report for pp. - .) since then the state of california has prohibited the entry of all walnut nursery trees and scions from the rocky mountain states or farther east.--ed.) dr. crane: i'd like to make one additional remark. you see, we call this trouble "bunch disease" rather than "brooming," to distinguish it from other diseases that are caused by known parasites. we have a disease very similar to this one affecting walnuts and pecan and hickory, and that one has been studied more carefully than has the bunch disease. it is unquestionably caused by virus, and in our pecan orchards we have a situation that exists that is a parallel to what it is in the black walnut. the variety stuart practically never has shown any symptom of the bunch disease. yet it performs very much like a lot of our black walnuts do. they just don't bear; they don't have the proper foliage; they don't make the proper kind of growth. so we are not sure whether they are symptomless carriers, that is, in terms of the lack of expression of virus growth and this bunchy condition on them. really, we feel that all people that are interested in the walnuts and that are trying to grow them should make careful observations on these trees to study just what the situation is, how it develops, and note the performance of these trees that become diseased; because we feel that it's a much more serious thing than people appreciate at the present time. in much of eastern shore maryland and of the area around washington and beltsville and over in virginia, a great majority of the trees are affected by it, particularly japanese walnuts of all types and the butternuts. i feel it is so bad on japanese walnuts and butternuts that they shouldn't be propagated in the area. mr. mcdaniel: i had the bunch growth developed on a new species this year in my planting in north alabama, a -year-old tree of ~juglans rupestris~. it is a growth that looks practically the same as the bunch disease on the japanese walnut. i believe that's the first time it's been observed on that species. there are no butternuts or japanese walnuts on the farm. there are dozens of black walnuts (seedlings and several varieties) none of which show the bunch symptoms. however, it is typically developed on some japanese trees a few miles away. at whiteville, tenn., dr. aubrey richards has a suspicious looking tree among some two year old seedlings of ~juglans major~ from arizona seeds. mr. chase: i'd like to add to that, too, mac. in our walnut arboretum we had some ~rupestris~, and i had been suspicious of its being diseased for a number of years. i finally have decided that it had the bunch disease, and those trees down at norris have all passed out. mr. mcdaniel: my tree came from norris, years ago. dr. macdaniels: ~juglans rupestris~ killed by the disease. mr. stoke: just because this is a little contradictory to what you have heard, i want to say that my experience has been this: i have an old nursery--well, there is a butternut in the row and also heartnut--japs. one of those japs has had the bunch disease for six or eight years. none of the others has been affected. it was a variety i wanted to perpetuate. i took an apparently healthy scion from that and put it on another tree, and that grafted tree also had the disease. but there has been no evidence of contagion from this jap to the other japanese, butternuts and black walnut in the same planting in the immediate neighborhood--in fact, they crowd each other. that's a statement of fact. i spoke a little while ago of an old black walnut tree that had that disease for a number of years and none other in that planting had it. mr. o'rourke: is there any correlation between the age of the tree and the expression of the disease? dr. mckay: it's been our observation that we haven't had it in our nursery to any extent. we have seen it in the nursery of j. russell smith on persian walnut. it, to my knowledge, is the only place where we have seen it on nursery trees. it may be that our nursery happened to be free of the inoculum, because it's been about a mile from the orchards. mr. o'rourke: would you by any chance think it might be seed borne? dr. mckay: we have no information on that virus. mr. gilbert smith: i have one statement to put in at this time. dr. crane questioned whether the japanese walnut should be grown. i wonder if the japanese walnut might not be a safeguard in the area where they don't have the disease, in that you will detect the disease the quickest on the japanese walnut, and in that way anyone would become wise to it, rather than if it was in the black walnut. it might be so insidious that it could be well spread before persons knew they had it at all. i wonder if the japanese walnut, through its quickness in showing the disease, might not be a safeguard to the other walnuts? dr. macdaniels: that's a technique that's used with some other plants. mr. corsan: i go on the principle that a tree that's well fed might not resist every disease, but it will resist a great many diseases and most of the diseases, if it's well fed. now, the feeding of trees is very important. i noticed that in going back and forth between florida and toronto. i examine the pecan situation every fall and spring, and just to think of stuarts--you know the size of stuart pecan--coming in good, big crop of nuts that size (indicating with fingers). can you see that? and you know that is less than half the size the stuart should be. it's a great nut for cracking by machinery. in fact, a lot of people grow nothing but stuart. and last year they had such a crop. last year i pointed to a farm right near the highway. "do you see that? for years i have been trying to get you to put that sawdust, which is nearly feet high in a pile, around your pecans and see the vast difference in your pecans." you know there was no rain down there all last summer, and the pecans were half the proper size. now, that sawdust would keep the moisture in. i am a great believer in the use of sawdust. it's a tree product itself and it has some of the constituents of what the pecan should feed on. as dr. waite told us one time in washington--you will probably remember the remark he made about the pecan trees in an orchard which were absolutely fruitless year after year. he went through that orchard, and he saw a pecan here and a pecan there that had a good, big crop right among the empty trees. he examined them and found signs driven into the trees, and some of the signs were put up with zinc covered nails. those signs that had the steel covered nails had no nuts on, but those that had zinc in had a huge crop. it excited the growth of the female blossom. now, we have got an awful lot to discover, as you gentlemen say in this nut culture, way beyond the imagination of the human mind. dr. macdaniels: we had better limit discussion to this particular problem. is there more comment? mr. mcdaniel: on that problem, i have observed the brooming in the heartnut seedlings about three years old, which were seedlings of the fodermaier variety growing at norris in the late 's. brooming developed in some of them in either the second or third year from seed. dr. macdaniels: that answers their remark about the young trees. mr. slate: a plant that is well fed and making very vigorous growth may be more attractive to the insect vector. therefore, a healthy tree might take it. mr. mcdaniel: these trees were very vigorous. dr. macdaniels: how many growers of nut trees have this bunch disease on their property? mr. kintzel: black walnuts? dr. macdaniels: on anything at all. (showing of hands.) there are at least a dozen. when mr. burgart up in michigan finds out that the limiting factor practically cleans him out, there is this question of bunch disease with witches'-broom resulting from ground deficiency. i know in the wright plantings in the vicinity of westfield they had brooming trees of the japanese walnut which apparently recovered after treatment with zinc. and, of course, we know on the west coast you get witches'-broom in the persian walnut which cannot be cured by zinc. is there any other discussion on this point? (no response.) we will go on to the next paper. mr. corsan: anybody passing through toronto can drop in and see my japanese walnuts with to the cluster and not a sign of bunch disease. dr. macdaniels: yes, you may not have the bunch disease near you. we hope you haven't. the next paper is by j. a. adams, who is from the experiment station here at poughkeepsie. this experiment station is a branch of the geneva agricultural experiment station. i believe that's right, isn't it, mr. adams? mr. adams: that's right, and it is concerned primarily with the fruits down here in this region. dr. macdaniels: his subject is "some observations on the japanese beetle on nut trees." let me say mr. adams would like to show some slides, but it didn't seem feasible to close this window down. the japanese beetle and nut growing j. a. adams associate professor of entomology, new york state agricultural experiment station, geneva and poughkeepsie, new york it is a pleasure to attend this meeting of the northern nut growers. association and to take part in your program. i shall discuss the japanese beetle as it seems to affect nut culture, and outline our methods of control. the japanese beetle evidently came into this country in the soil about some roots of plants imported to a nursery near philadelphia nearly years ago. since , its distribution, habits, and control have been closely studied by the federal japanese beetle laboratory at moorestown, new jersey. the insect has become generally distributed in the coastal area, as far north as massachusetts, as far south as virginia, and as far west as west virginia. beyond these limits, it has established local colonies in new hampshire, vermont, western new york, ohio, michigan, and north carolina. in most of the states affected there is an investigator who, like myself, carries on local studies, more or less in cooperation with the federal laboratory. in new york we now have, in addition to the generally infested areas on long island and in the hudson valley, about isolated infestations in the central and western parts of the state. might i have a showing of hands by those who have japanese beetle already? (showing of hands.) there is quite a sprinkling of you who have them. many of you do not have them yet, but, since the insect is spreading every year, you can expect them some day, especially if you live in the northeast. it is expected that this pest will not thrive in the drier central states, but it might become established in the pacific states some day, unless prevented. you can see these beetles anywhere in and around poughkeepsie. from poughkeepsie i have watched them spread in the past few years to pleasant valley and eastward. this morning as i parked my vehicle by this building i picked these specimens from the smartweed, ~polygonum persicaria~. (passing of specimens.) these insects also feed on the flowers and foliage of purple loosestrife, ~lythrum salicifolia~, so plentiful and showy in our swampy fields. the most conspicuous damage is done to the foliage of wild grape vines. you will observe this when you visit mr. stephen bernath's nut plantation. you will note the conspicuous defoliation of the vines on the fence rows. willow is another host heavily attacked. i believe you have the beetles at your plantation at wassaic, mr. smith? mr. gilbert smith: plenty of them. dr. adams: you will also observe the damage at mr. smith's place. you will see that it is strictly a matter of skeletonization of the leaves. a member: they eat the fruit, too. dr. macdaniels: you have damage on fruit. a member: they eat berries. dr. adams: yes, but on nut plants the damage above ground is confined to leaf skeletonization. it varies widely, depending on the kind of nut plant. before visiting mr. bernath's planting, i sought out the botanical names of the commoner nut plants in dr. macdaniels' cornell extension bulletin no. , on "nut growing." of the ~juglans~ species, the black walnut, ~j. nigra~, is sometimes heavily attacked. there are large black walnut trees near one of our peach orchards. i have seen hordes of beetles gather in these trees in july and august, skeletonizing the leaves until the defoliation reached % or more. late in august the beetles seemed to leave the walnut foliage and descend upon the ripening peaches. the heart nut, ~j. sieboldiana~ var. ~cordiformis~, was moderately fed upon at mr. bernath's nursery. the butternut, ~j. cinerea~, is only lightly attacked, as a rule. the hickories and pecans are not attacked to any appreciable extent, but at least some of the chestnuts are very attractive to this pest. i have seen shoots of ~castanea dentata~ with their foliage reduced to lace. some of the small chinese chestnuts, ~c. mollissima~, at mr. bernath's place, were about one-fourth defoliated in mid-august. the hazels seem to be attractive to these beetles. when the japanese beetle spreads to prof. slate's plantings of ~corylus~ at geneva, we may get more information on varietal preferences. i find that exposed foliage of ~c. americana~, the common wild hazel here, is sometimes fairly heavily fed upon. i am holding up to the window a portion of a hazel bush; you can see that the leaves along one side are skeletonized. it is probable that the species, hybrids, and varieties of ~corylus~ will show the same marked variation in susceptibility that is shown in so many other genera of plants. among the oaks, the pin oak, ~quercus palustris~, and the english oak, ~q. robur~, are commonly one-third defoliated while the common white and red oaks are almost immune. among the maples--to go farther afield from nuts--the norway, ~acer platanoides~, and the japanese, ~a. palmatum~, are often severely injured, where the sugar maple, ~a. saccharum~, is only lightly injured and the delicate-leaved red maple and silver maple, ~a. rubrum~ and ~a. saccharinum~, remain untouched. since the japanese beetle is here to stay, and to spread, these differences are worth considering where plant materials are being selected for new ornamental plantings. in our bulletin on japanese beetle (cornell extension bulletin ) we have to warn the reader that planting chestnuts may bring him trouble with the japanese beetle, trouble which he would not have with flowering dogwood, ~cornus florida~, or the common lilacs, ~syringa vulgaris~, which are immune to this pest. it may be, however, that some of the chestnuts carry immunity factors. in the u. s. department of agriculture circular no. , published in , "feeding habits of the japanese beetle," by i. m. hawley and f. w. metzger, ~castanea crenata~, the japanese chestnut, is listed with beech and chestnut oak as "generally lightly injured." i understand you consider the nut of this species poor, but if resistance factors are in the genus, there can be hope of finding or developing a chestnut resistant to japanese beetle. we might be able to do with chestnuts what has been done with poplars. the common poplars range from the lombardy, ~populus nigra italica~, which is heavily damaged by the beetle, to the white, ~p. alba~, which is immune. the forest geneticist, e. j. schreiner, has written an article, "poplars can be bred to order," which appears on pages to in "trees," the yearbook of agriculture for , published by the u. s. department of agriculture. schreiner provides an interesting diagram of random planting of poplar hybrids, in plots of trees each, representing parentages. he writes, "japanese beetle infestation was heavy in ~ ~; as late as september beetles were as numerous as to per leaf on the most susceptible plants. although the insects were feeding everywhere on the sparsely scattered weeds growing under the hybrids, beetle feeding was found on only nine hybrids, representing four parentages. three of these parentages include hybrids that were entirely free of beetle feeding during the entire infestation." among five hybrids of ~p. charkowiensis~ and ~p. caudina~, three were highly susceptible, one moderately susceptible and one was non-susceptible. japanese beetles, when infesting rows of plants of the same variety, usually occur unevenly on the individual plants. some of the factors have to do with the vigor or color of the tree. in my observation on peach, i have repeatedly seen a sickly, yellow and half-wilted tree with thousands of beetles in it, while other similar but healthy trees in the same row averaged only a few hundred beetles. you can make one branch of a tree more attractive to the insects than the rest of the branches by partly girdling it or permitting borers or cankers to damage the base of the branch. this observation suggests that the increased sugar content raises the attractiveness of the leaf. it coincides with what is already known that extracts of plants preferred by the japanese beetle have, in general, a higher sugar content, or more of a fruit-like odor than those not attacked. (metzger et al, jour. agric. research, ~ ~ ( ): - . . washington, d. c.) there are other observations you can easily make yourselves. the japanese beetle avoids shade, except on the hottest days, and its feeding in dense trees shows up most in the tops; its feeding on uniform plantings tends to show up most in the edge rows. nursery-size trees are more extensively defoliated than larger ones. at this point we must consider that the insect usually has to fly into a planting from the outside, for it breeds chiefly in lawns and meadows. if the foliage mass of the nut planting is small and the grass areas nearby are large, the beetles are likely to do heavier damage than where the planting is very large and grass areas negligible. a small planting in a suburban area, beside a large golf course, cemetery or dairy farm, is going to be more heavily attacked than a large one set in a clearing in the woods. ~control of the adult:~ the safest, most direct measure is to pick or knock the beetles off the plants, preferably in the early morning, when they are cool. they may be dropped in a pail with a little kerosene in it. some plants can be shielded with thin nets which can be placed on them by day. we do not recommend japanese beetle traps. these yellow traps, which are baited with geranoil and other essential oils, can draw beetles in from a considerable distance but we have found that, possibly because many beetles miss the trap, the population of beetles remains high near the trap, in spite of heavy daily catches. although the use of one trap to the acre on a block miles square would probably get results, the use of a few traps on a small nut planting is likely to be disappointing. a member: will birds or any kind of poultry eat them? dr. adams: yes, poultry will eat them, as far as they can reach. certain birds, of course, will feed on them to some extent, but birds, in summer, seem to have plenty of other things to eat, and they certainly leave plenty of beetles in plain sight uneaten. we can see that the birds are a fairly constant helpful factor, but are not to be relied upon to prevent injury occurring in a beetle outbreak. rotenone, which, i believe, is one of your main insecticides in nut culture, is fairly effective on japanese beetles. it kills the beetles hit with the spray and gives protection for several days thereafter. if you apply it often enough, rotenone can take care of the plants so that they don't become disfigured by the beetles. using cube powder, you may apply five ounces of % rotenone in gallons of water. of course, in many cases there is no objection to using ddt wetable powder or dusts, unless you are afraid of a mite problem arising after ddt is used. if ddt can be sprayed on the plants, it needs to be applied only about three times during a summer, or sometimes only twice. for plants that are growing very fast, the new growth, of course, has to be kept treated. you may prefer to spray once heavily over all the plants in july and then, after that, keep the beetles off by spraying or dusting the new growth, during august. for more directions see u.s.d.a. farmers bulletin no. . now, there are new chemicals that will kill japanese beetles very quickly. parathion will kill them, but its toxicity necessitates great care in handling and, on peaches, we find it protects the plants for only a few days. chlordane, which has a very important use in connection with these insects in the grub stage, is not recommended above ground; it is too brief in its action. methoxychlor may be used instead of ddt. it is less effective, but much less poisonous, and should be applied more frequently. now, the other aspect of control is to try to reduce beetle production over the whole area so that you don't have so many beetles flying in to the plants during the summer and you don't have to spray so frequently, if at all. this is the phase to which i wish to give particular attention, after we consider the life history. ~life history:~ the japanese beetles in the adult stage are in evidence here from late june to late september, or, roughly, for the summer season. the adults lay their eggs in the soil, mostly in lawns, mowed grassy fields and pastures. the adults die but the eggs give rise to tiny, bluish-gray larvae which feed chiefly on grass roots. the larvae grow through the fall and spring, and, if more numerous than about to the square foot in september, or about in april and may, can cause severe lawn damage. mr. corsan: that's the stage when the pheasants and starlings eat them. dr. adams: yes, in the grub stage. mr. corsan: i see thousands of starlings gorging themselves. dr. adams: yes, scratching birds, crows and skunks can take them out; the starlings make a hole the size of a pencil point to do so. in our survey areas grub populations sometimes seem to drop rapidly in may, when the birds are feeding their nestlings. in june, the surviving larvae mostly change into pupae, and by july they are appearing as beetles. from the lawns and grassy fields they readily fly to weeds, shrubs, grapevines and trees. they fly at least a few hundred yards, if need be, to find their host plants. well kept, sunny, lawns with good, moist soil, which carry grubs to the square foot in the fall may still have plenty at transformation time in early summer. a lawn of , square feet could thus produce , beetles. yards, roadways and pastures commonly produce as many as six beetles to the square foot, which means a quarter million to the acre. ~chemical control in the grub stage:~ in new york we suggest that on a home property the more valuable sections of permanent lawn be grub-proofed with chemicals as soon as there are to grubs to the square foot. this grub-proofing has two effects: (a) it stops beetle production from that lawn, and (b) it prevents the lawn grass being damaged by the grubs of this and other annual grub species and by the birds and animals, including moles, which damage grubby turf. for grub-proofing i prefer to use chlordane. it may be applied in a spray, at ounces of % wettable powder to , square feet, or it may be purchased in the more bulky % form and applied dry with a two-wheeled lawn fertilizer spreader. for each , square feet i take pounds of % chlordane and, since it tends to clog the spreader, i mix it in a cardboard drum with pounds of a dry, granular material such as the activated-sludge fertilizer known as "milorganite." the ten pounds of mixture is then spread on the , square feet, half east and west, half north and south. if applied in the fall or early spring there will be no beetles coming out in july and no grubs for several years. ddt at pounds of % ddt to , square feet will give an even longer grub-proofing effect. our plots so treated in are still grub-free. the possible trouble with ddt is that it is too nearly permanent, and if you should plow up a piece of lawn treated with it and try to raise tomatoes or strawberries, you might find the soil too toxic. ~biological control in the grub stage:~ the chemical grub-proofing of the sunny parts of the front or main lawn on a property is desirable for the reasons stated, but it does not usually stop more than a fifth of the beetle production around the property, because there are usually plenty of neighbors' lawns, pastures, public grounds, and other beetle-producing turf areas nearby. how are you to reduce the beetle crop on these places, mostly on ground you don't control? here is where biological control comes in, something which i feel will appeal to you in this group. the parasitic insects known as spring tiphia, imported from the orient and well established on hundreds of estates, golf courses, and cemeteries around philadelphia and new york, may be introduced in your vicinity when grubs reach about to the square foot. the parasites, which are like flying ants, appear above ground in spring and feed on honey-dew. the female burrows in the soil and attaches her eggs singly to japanese beetle grubs. a maggot hatches and consumes the grub. i have charge of the distribution of these parasites in new york. i like to liberate at least one colony in each village or town division. some of you may help me plan the liberation for your vicinity, possibly on a cemetery near your place. the colonies enlarge to about a square mile in years, and may cut beetle production by %. another biological agent which can be added to grub-carrying turf is the bacterium causing japanese beetle grubs to turn milky white and die. a powder is made from diseased grubs and talc and this milky disease spore inoculum is applied with a teaspoon in dots or spots over the turf. the important point is that the spore powder must be used on a plot where there are grubs to get the disease, and not on chemically grub-proofed soil. milky disease spore powder is sold under three brand names, "japidemic," "japonex" and "sawco-japy." one-half pound, suitably applied, will cost you about $ . and be an act of good citizenship, for the disease slowly spreads to any grubby soil in surrounding properties. i can supply addresses of the producers and detailed reprints of my studies. discussion mr. mcdaniel: does this disease affect any other beetles we have in america, besides the japanese? mr. adams: yes, one other species; it causes some sickness in the grubs of the turf pest known as the oriental beetle. mr. mcdaniel: how about the green june beetle? dr. adams: no, unfortunately, it doesn't work on that beetle, which is a pest on long island and in the south. a member: how much area would a ( / -pound) can like that treat? dr. adams: it depends. you can apply a half-pound to a quarter acre, or any smaller space you want to put it on. if you want to put spots down closer together, say every three feet, it will treat about , square feet. it suggests on the label that you do. but if you treat a plot on a large field, i'd recommend you put it out at about a teaspoonful every ten feet. in other words, i wouldn't put less than a half-pound on the plot set aside for it on my place. the application is just a starter to introduce the disease in the area, and it doesn't matter too much whether you spot it at -foot intervals on a pasture or put it at fairly close intervals on an area about the size of this room. the point is that it mustn't be broadcast, because that spreads the spores too thin. grubs don't get the disease if they eat only a few spores. we assume that where you put the spots down on the ground the grubs under those spots will get the disease and wander off and die. when a grub dies, it multiplies the number of spores up to many millions. that portion of soil becomes infective, and more grubs going through the infective portions carry the disease to intervening areas until the whole piece of turf is unhealthful to these grubs. droppings of birds feeding on sick grubs spread the disease. mr. frye: one application is all that's needed? dr. adams: one application is all that's needed. control is slight at first, but increases with the passage of the years. mr. corsan: quail feed on them. why can't we have quail around the farms instead of shooting them? dr. adams: i would be for that, but we have to find other methods for a lot of people. besides, we need something that will intercept some of the grubs in the fall, before they get big. after all, by the time the quail are interested in them, they have already done some damage in the ground. in the ground the grubs can do two kinds of damage. they can make turf loose so it can be rolled back like a rug. second, if you should plow up a piece of sod that has many grubs in it and try to plant row crops or nursery stock, they may eat the roots off the planting in the spring. dr. mckay: i'd like to ask what effect low temperature has on them and how far north you think will be their limit? dr. adams: the soil temperature at which the grubs begin to die in hibernation is degrees, and i have never seen the soil temperature that low here under turf. (i operate a soil thermograph on my lawn.) a member: how far down do they go? dr. adams: they hibernate at to inches in the ground. it's rare to have it drop below degrees at these depths. mr. sterling smith: what do you mean, fahrenheit? dr. adams: that is fahrenheit. a member: that's frozen solid. that's at degrees. dr. adams: the deeper soil will drop only a few degrees below freezing. the soil here usually remains no lower than degrees, except within an inch or two of the top. a member: do you think soil temperature is going to be a limiting factor? dr. adams: i think the limiting factor northward is the coolness of the summers. in northern japan their life history gets altered because of the shortness of the summer, and i think in the adirondack area they won't be serious for that reason. mr. weber: will this spore powder kill other kinds of grubs that are in the sod? dr. adams: not to any practical extent. it does not control the grubs of the "june bugs," or brown june beetles, or what are called "white grubs." mr. lowerre: would the ddt kill the parasitic wasps? dr. adams: turf treated with chlordane or ddt is grub-proofed and is not of any use to the flying parasites as a place to lay eggs, or for bacteria to multiply. so we don't want to put chemicals on top of biological control plots. for instance, on an average home property i would treat the front lawn, the more valuable piece, with chemicals so that it would be % grub-proofed to protect the turf and to take that much turf out of beetle production. then on the back lawns or grassy fields adjoining, i would apply at least a half-pound of this milky disease material, and in that way provide a complete treatment; the parasites can be added on some large public turf area nearby. and don't think you are going to stamp the japanese beetle out just by spraying all the adult beetles you see each summer on the cultivated plants, because there are lots more on the shade trees, weeds and vines. a new book, "the insect enemies of eastern forests," contains a great deal of information on the insects feeding on nut trees. unfortunately, it isn't indexed to crops, so you can't look up "walnut" and find what insects bother you. you have to know what the insect is, and you will find it with its insect family. that is u. s. department of agriculture miscellaneous publication , by george e. craighead. price $ . , from the superintendent of documents, washington, d. c. mr. corsan: what in the world has become of the black walnut caterpillar, that big, black fellow with the grey hairs? dr. adams: maybe they are at a low point in a cycle. mr. bernath will show you a few of them. mr. corsan: he might show me a few of them, but i have been pestered with them for years, and this year i haven't got any. dr. adams: i suppose natural conditions have taken care of them for a while, but they will come back again. (applause.) dr. macdaniels: thank you, very much, sir. we will take a few minutes recess now. (whereupon, a short recess was taken.) editor's note: the following paper which was delayed, was originally scheduled for our report. insecticides for nut insects e. h. siegler united states department of agriculture agricultural research administration bureau of entomology and plant quarantine fortunately, the growers of nuts do not have to combat a large number of injurious insect species. however, some species do at times cause a heavy loss of nuts and may also damage the vegetation growth of the trees. injury by insects will vary from year to year, due to various causes, and insects frequently show varietal host preferences. timely use of insecticides is the most effective means of combating many harmful species. until the beginning of world war ii a rather limited number of insecticides was available, such as lead arsenate, cryolite, nicotine, mineral oil emulsions, and rotenone. some injurious insects were satisfactorily controlled through the timely application of one or the other of these materials, or combinations of them; others survived in damaging numbers in spite of all attempts to suppress them. during and since world war ii, both in the united states and abroad, work on insecticides has been stepped up markedly. as a result, many new insecticides have been developed and are available for general use. the first of the new insecticides about which we heard was ddt. actually, the compound itself was not a new one, since it was prepared by a german student chemist in . however, no use was found for it until , when a swiss chemist found it promising as an insecticide against the colorado potato beetle. it was first tested in the united states a few years later. since the successful introduction of ddt, promising new insecticides have become available more frequently and in greater numbers than ever before. among these materials are certain chlorinated hydrocarbons related to ddt. these include methoxychlor and tde, neither of which is, on the whole, as useful as ddt but both of which are of value and have an important advantage over ddt in that they are reported to be less toxic to warm-blooded animals. other new chlorinated hydrocarbons include benzene hexachloride, synthesized in and first tested against insects in france in and discovered about the same time in england; chlordane, developed in the united states a few years ago; and toxaphene. several organic phosphorus compounds, including hexaethyl tetraphosphate, tetraethyl pyrophosphate, and parathion, have also been developed. technical benzene hexachloride is a mixture of several isomers, the gamma isomer being the most toxic to insects. the practically pure isomer is known as lindane. a handicap to the general use of benzene hexachloride on fruit is its tendency to cause off-flavor condition when applied too close to harvest. lindane is less likely to cause off-flavor in fruit than technical benzene hexachloride but may not overcome this fault altogether. the organic phosphate insecticides, like ddt, were first found of value in europe and were introduced into the united states after the close of world war ii. parathion in particular shows great promise for the control of many insect pests. although these compounds are very poisonous and must be handled strictly in accordance with the manufacturers' recommendations, a recent announcement by arnold j. lehman, of the food and drug administration, indicates that their residues are not likely to be harmful. he has stated that "parathion is not stored in the tissues to an appreciable extent--it is rapidly destroyed by the tissues of the body which in turn is an added mechanism for the prevention of tissue accumulation." residues of hexaethyl tetraphosphate and tetraethyl pyrophosphate persist for only a short time and residues of parathion drop to a low level within to days after application. this information, however, does not make it unnecessary for the user to observe strictly all warnings and precautions issued by the manufacturers of parathion and of other organic phosphates. serious effects and deaths have occurred though excessive exposures to parathion. general information regarding the use of the new organic insecticides ~handling the insecticides.~ all the new organic insecticides, the organic phosphates in particular, are to some degree toxic not only to many insects but to man and animals as well. even the most toxic ones can be used, however, without harmful effects on the operator, provided all the cautions issued by the manufacturer are properly followed. special care must be taken in handling concentrated insecticides preparatory to making diluted spray or dust applications. ~spray concentrations.~ ddt has been used more extensively than any of the other newer insecticides and for this reason there is considerable information relative to the spray concentrations known to be effective against insects susceptible to it. for spray purposes ddt is generally employed at the rate of - / to pounds of percent wettable powder per gallons of water. parathion is being used at / to - / pounds of percent wettable powder per gallons of water for mites and up to pounds to gallons of water for insects more resistant to it. the occurrence of injury to the foliage and fruit of some varieties of apples when this insecticide is used is under investigation. benzene hexachloride ( percent gamma isomer, wettable) is being used at to pounds, and sometimes less depending upon the insect, per gallons of water. wettable mixtures containing percent of lindane (approximately pure gamma isomer) are used at dosages which would give an equivalent quantity of the gamma isomer in the diluted spray. chlordane is usually employed at the rate of to pounds of percent wettable powder and toxaphene at to pounds of percent wettable powder per gallons. these insecticides are also being sold for use as dusts, either ready to use or in a more concentrated form which can be reduced to dusting strength through the addition of inert material. ~spray residues.~ spray residues are not important on nut crops, but on fruits it is important to time the insecticide applications so that harmful residues are avoided. animals should not be allowed to graze vegetation beneath trees recently treated. instructions on the packaged insecticide should be followed. ~effect on beneficial insects.~ since the more potent of the newer organic insecticides are toxic to many parasitic and predatory insects, all of which help to reduce the populations of injurious species, these insecticides, if used, must be largely relied upon to effect control by themselves. often no immediate assistance is forthcoming from beneficial insects after these materials have been used. nut insect investigations except for studies on the chestnut weevils, nut insect investigations by the bureau of entomology and plant quarantine are being conducted primarily on the pecan at southern laboratories. many of the remarks in this paper are therefore based on information obtained from these laboratories. in view of the short time the new organic insecticides have been available, work to determine their place in nut insect control programs is largely in the experimental stage. much further work will be necessary before detailed instructions can be given for their general use. insects attacking the nuts ~the pecan weevil.~ the adult of the pecan weevil[ ] is a snout beetle that attacks not only pecan throughout the south but also hickory in the eastern half of the united states. during mid-season, previous to the formation of the kernel, nuts are frequently punctured for feeding purposes. this results in failure of the nuts to complete their development. the principal injury, however, is caused by grubs that develop from eggs laid in the nuts after the kernels have formed. this is usually during september on pecans in the south. the grubs feed on the kernels and may consume them completely (fig. ). [ ] ~curculio caryae~ (horn). applications of sprays containing pounds of percent ddt wettable powder per gallons of water just previous to and during the oviposition period have proved effective against this pest. [illustration: fig .--nut infested with larvae of the pecan weevil.] [illustration: fig. .--larva of the butternut curculio in japanese walnut shoot.] [illustration: fig. --adults of the walnut husk maggot on black walnut. enlarged.] [illustration: fig. .--adult of a leaf-footed bug. enlarged.] [illustration: fig. .--defoliation caused by the black pecan aphid.] nut curculios. several species of curculios, such as the butternut curculio[ ] (fig. ) and the hickorynut curculio,[ ] infest the fruit of these and other nut trees. their life histories and methods of attack are somewhat alike and for the purpose of this report the butternut curiculio is given as an example. this insect lays its eggs in both the young shoots and nuts, which usually drop as a result of the injury. the larvae then develop to maturity within the dying tissues after which they enter the soil and transform to adults. subsequently they leave the soil to pass the winter above ground protected from low temperatures by weeds or other vegetation. [ ] ~conotrachelus juglandis~ lee. [ ] ~conotrachelus affinis~ boh. lead arsenate, pounds per gallons of water, has been relied upon in the past for control of various nut curculios. among the newer insecticides, benzene hexachloride ( percent gamma), to pounds per gallons, has shown promise against a shoot curculio on pecans when applied soon after the trees start growth in the spring. ~hickory shuckworm.~ the hickory shuckworm[ ] is another serious pest of pecan and hickory nuts. early in the year, previous to the hardening of the shells, the kernels are eaten. this injury causes many of the nuts to drop. in the fall, the later generations tunnel within and feed upon the shucks only. the affected nuts are usually smaller than normal; in addition the shells are often stained and are more difficult to separate from the husks. [ ] ~laspeyresia caryana~ (fitch). extensive experimentation in the control of this insect has been carried out without much success. no effective insecticide treatment can be recommended for its control. ~walnut husk maggot.~ the adult of the walnut husk maggot[ ] is a fly (fig. ); it is related to other injurious fruit flies such as the apple maggot, mediterranean fruit fly, and the oriental fruit fly, which has recently been found in hawaii. adults emerge from the soil and fly to the trees in midsummer. egg laying follows in to weeks, the eggs being deposited on the husks of several kinds of nuts. the maggots feed within the husks. not only is the quality of infested nuts lowered, but, in addition, the husks are more difficult to remove. a closely related species is particularly damaging to the persian or english walnut in california. [ ] ~rhagoletis suavis~ loew. lead arsenate, to pounds per gallons of water, in combination with an equal quantity of hydrated lime is quite effective in destroying the adults of the walnut husk maggot when applied at the time they are present. ~stinkbugs and leaf-footed bugs.~ there are a number of stinkbugs and leaf-footed bugs (fig. ), in addition to the species mentioned,[ ][ ] which are responsible for important injuries to pecans, filberts, and other nuts. these insects puncture the immature nuts with their beaks. the punctured areas become spongy, somewhat dark in color, and are bitter to the taste; on pecan the typical injury is referred to as black pit and kernel spot. [ ] ~nezara vizidula~ (l.). [ ] ~leptoglossus phyllopus~ (l.). crops of favorable host plants such as cowpeas and soybeans should not be planted in or adjacent to nut orchards subject to attack by these sucking bugs. in general, orchard sanitation should be practiced. [illustration: fig. .--galls produced by the pecan phylloxera.] [illustration: fig. .--injury to young pecan tree by the fall webworm.] [illustration: fig. .--larvae of the walnut caterpillar.] [illustration: fig. .--caterpillar of the hickory tussock moth.] [illustration: fig. .--rose chafer beetles on chestnut blossoms.] insects attacking the foliage ~black pecan aphid.~ pecan trees at times suffer sufficient damage from the black pecan aphid[ ] to cause considerable defoliation (fig. ) during the latter part of the season. the injury to foliage in its earlier stages consists of irregularly shaped yellowish areas which turn brown when the tissues die. [ ] ~melanocallis caryaefoliae~ (davis). this aphid is usually controlled with nicotine sulfate ( percent nicotine), / pint plus summer oil emulsion, quarts per gallons of spray. parathion and benzene hexachloride have given good results in experimental work but are not yet generally recommended. ~pecan phylloxera.~ the pecan phylloxera[ ] is related to aphids. it attacks principally the vegetative parts of the tree such as the leaves, petioles, and shoots on which galls (fig. ) are produced. pecans, hickories, and other species of nuts are subject to infestation. [ ] ~phylloxera devastatrix~ perg. in the past a spray of nicotine sulfate ( percent nicotine) ounces combined with either lime-sulfur solution, - / gallons per gallons of water, or lubricating-oil emulsion, quarts per gallons, applied in the late dormant period has been the standard recommendation. in recent experiments in the south with some of the new organic sprays, benzene hexachloride and some of the dinitro compounds have indicated good promise. ~fall webworm,~[ ] ~walnut caterpillar,~[ ] ~and hickory tussock moth.~[ ] the caterpillars of these species (figs. , , ) are frequent pests on the foliage of nut trees. they often defoliate entire branches. [ ] ~hyphantria cunea~ (drury). [ ] ~datana integerrima~ (g. and r.) [ ] ~halisidota caryae~ (harr.) the best time to apply control measures is as soon as possible after the caterpillars hatch. the insects can be readily destroyed with lead arsenate, pounds, or ddt ( pounds) of percent wettable powder, per gallons, applied when they appear. other new organic insecticides may also be effective but have not been widely tested. ~the rose chafer and japanese beetle.~ adults of the rose chafer[ ] (fig. ) and the japanese beetle[ ] are voracious feeders on the foliage of nut trees and must be destroyed if severe injury is to be avoided. [ ] ~marcordactylus subspinosus~ (f.). [ ] ~popillia japonica~ newm. fortunately these insects may now be controlled by spraying with ddt, pounds of -percent wettable powder per gallons of water, when the beetles appear. in the case of the japanese beetle a second application may be necessary if the infestation is heavy. ~spider mites.~ nut trees, especially those which have been sprayed with ddt, may become seriously injured by various species of mites.[ ] ddt is very toxic to the natural insect enemies of plant-feeding mites and therefore the mites build up to injurious numbers. [ ] ~tetranychus~ sp. and others. of the various miticides recently tested on pecan, a spray of parathion was the most promising. in some recent tests for the control of spider mites on chestnut trees, - / pounds of percent parathion wettable powder per gallons of water was effective. do not use parathion unless you observe all the precautions contained on the package label of the material. [illustration: fig. .--larva of the twig girdler. enlarged.] [illustration: fig. .--adult of the flatheaded apple tree borer. enlarged.] [illustration: fig. .--larvae of the flatheaded apple tree borer.] [illustration: fig. .--scars on trunk of pecan tree caused by cutting out flatheaded apple tree borers from their tunnels.] [illustration: fig. .--adult of the buffalo treehopper. enlarged.] [illustration: fig. .--twig scarred as a result of egg laying by the buffalo treehopper.] insects attacking the trunk and branches a number of insects cause important damage to the trunk and branches of nut trees. ~obscure scale and others.~ the obscure scale[ ] infests a variety of nut trees. on pecan the chief injury results from attacks on branches under three inches in diameter. [ ] ~chrysomphalus obscurus~ (comst.). the obscure scale and other scale insects can be controlled with lubricating-oil emulsion during the dormant period. however, nut trees are often susceptible to oil damage, especially at percent concentration. since healthy trees are more resistant to oil injury, it is therefore advisable to watch for scale infestations so as to spray them before the trees are weakened. ~twig girdler.~ nut trees are sometimes attacked by the twig girdler[ ] (fig. ). this beetle lays eggs in the twigs, which are girdled so as to stop the flow of sap that would normally prevent hatching. the girdled twigs usually become detached from the trees and as a result the nut-bearing wood is reduced. [ ] ~oncideres cingulata~ (say). the standard recommendation for control of this insect has been to gather and destroy the infested twigs in the orchard and from any infested trees nearby. recent tests on pecan in northern florida indicate that ddt and parathion may be effective against this insect. three applications (the first on august when the first girdled twigs were observed and the others on september and ) of ddt, pounds of percent wettable powder per gallons of water, or parathion, pounds of percent wettable powder per gallons, gave complete control. further experiments will be required to determine the minimum effective concentration of spray and the number of applications needed for control. it is suggested that ddt be used for the control of this insect until more information is available on how to handle and to use parathion. ~flatheaded apple tree borer.~ the adult beetle of the flathead apple tree borer[ ] (fig. ) deposits its eggs throughout the summer season, preferably in the small grooves of bark on the unshaded portions of the trunk of pecan and other trees. the borers (fig. ) hatch and tunnel through the bark to the cambium layer. young trees may readily be girdled (fig. ). [ ] ~chrysobothris femorata~ (oliv.). to avoid this insect as far as possible, orchard sanitation should be practiced and the trees should be kept in a healthy condition. in some plantings wrapping the trunks with paper or burlap to protect against egg laying and maintaining low branches to shade the trunk have been helpful. cutting out the borers with a knife has also been resorted to; trunk washes have likewise been used but have not been very effective. ~buffalo treehopper and periodical cicada.~ buffalo treehoppers[ ] (fig. ) and the periodical cicada[ ] weaken twigs by inserting their eggs in them. the injured bark becomes roughened as it heals (fig. ), and the growth of the limb is retarded. [ ] ~ceresa bubalus~ (l.). [ ] ~magicicada septendecim~ (l.). pruning of weakened twigs is recommended for wood injured by the cicada. if treehoppers are a pest, clean cultivation will help. cover crops of cowpeas or clovers should not be planted. in preliminary tests two or three applications of tetraethyl pyrophosphate ( percent), / pint per gallons of water, have given promising results in controlling the periodical cicada. the first application should be made after the cicadas appear and the others as needed to prevent damage. observations on effects of low temperatures in winter - on walnuts and filberts in oregon and washington john h. painter horticulturist, united states department of agriculture, agricultural research administration, bureau of plant industry, soils, and agricultural engineering, oregon state college, corvallis, oregon in western oregon and washington, where the japan current is supposed to keep the winter temperatures moderate, something happens every now and then and we get really severe winters. we can't blame it on the "a" bomb because we had severe winter injury in and long before the "a" bomb. the last two winters have been exceptionally cold, but this past winter of - was much more severe than the previous one. in - , the cold came rather suddenly in the latter part of december. in the past winter, - , the real cold came on january , with temperatures ranging from to degrees below zero f. most official temperatures were higher; but at corvallis the official temperatures were taken at least feet above the ground level, on the roof of the agricultural building, which is over a steam-heated building and is old enough to be not very well insulated. this cold continued in somewhat modified form for a week. during the previous winter the lowest temperature recorded in the nut growing areas was about to degrees above zero f., and the severe cold lasted for only a couple of days. in both winters the ground was fairly well covered with snow, but with considerably more snow this past winter than the previous winter. no apparent damage to persian walnuts was observed as a result of the cold in the - winter, but in certain low-lying areas catkins of barcelona and daviana filberts were killed, especially those of the latter. considerable dieback of filberts occurred; but during the following growing season recovery was effected and at the end of the summer very little evidence of winter injury was visible. the injury resulting from the cold weather of the past winter was much more severe than that of the previous winter. whereas filberts were the only nut trees injured in - , they escaped with relatively little damage in - in comparison with persian walnuts. on february , , ten days after the really severe week, several walnut growers of long experience held grave fears for the entire industry. peach and apple trees, which seem to exhibit winter injury more quickly than walnuts, showed so much damage then that walnut growers thought the injury to the persian walnut would be even worse. from february , , to the present date (july ) i have been making observations from time to time in different locations with special attention to walnuts and with some to filberts. it is thought that certain of these observations might be of interest to nut growers in other areas, even though there is nothing particularly new or startling about them. they do, however, tend to show how surprisingly well the persian walnut trees can withstand severe cold if it occurs after they have once gone into dormancy. generally speaking, the winter injury to walnuts has been spotty. no areas of great size have been either free of injury or severely injured. usually, where a difference in severity of damage is found between areas close together, some reason for the difference can be found, but it is not always evident on the surface. injury to walnuts with the possible exception of southern oregon, it is safe to say that percent of the walnut trees in oregon and washington suffered some twig injury as a result of last winter's cold. in many cases the subsequent dieback of the twigs may extend only a few inches, but sometimes the injury involves not only the past season's growth but that of three or even four years back. as might well be expected, this twig injury of necessity has meant the loss of many terminal and lateral buds which bear the female flowers; so for that reason, if for no other, this twig injury has assumed serious aspects. in many cases the catkins were severely injured even where there was little or no twig injury. the catkins of the persian walnut seem to be extremely sensitive to cold. many persian walnut trees in oregon this year failed to produce any catkins at all. some produced very few normal catkins, but some half-developed and deformed catkins. an examination of these partially injured catkins, however, revealed the fact that they did produce some pollen. it will always remain a mystery to me how as many walnuts were pollinated and set as there were, with the scant crop of catkins. in practically every orchard examined, where the temperature got as low as minus degrees f., the pith cells were blackened. this is not uncommon in other tree crops following severe winter injury. fairly good peach crops have been borne in georgia on trees that had the pith cells completely blackened. in the case of walnuts this year, many growers were considerably worried by the fact that even the wood tissue outside the pith region was black and watersoaked. however, to date (july , ) this condition has not proven serious; as long as the cambium cells were not injured no real trouble has developed. in some cases under observation, even where some injury to the cambium cells was known to have existed, enough live ones have been left to effect recovery. compared to peach, holly, and even apple trees the persian walnut has put up a marvelous fight to recover from the injury sustained. factors accentuating winter injury in walnuts after the several months of observation, certain factors appear invariably to account for excessive damage to walnut orchards. elevation seems to be a principal factor. the hillside orchards or those on upland sites (soils) were far less injured than the river-bottom or valley-floor orchards, even though the latter may be on a better soil as far as fertility is concerned. my early prediction of percent of a crop in the hillside orchards seems now to have been about percent short, unless other factors become involved. on the other hand, my early prediction of percent of a crop in the valley-floor orchards has been close to correct. of course, certain valley-floor orchards with a combination of adverse factors won't have even a percent crop. older orchards were more severely hurt than younger orchards with otherwise similar conditions. this is possibly due to the lack of vigor and of reserve material, resulting from crowding and competition for elements of nutrition. the size of the crop the preceeding year seems invariably to have had an effect upon amount of damage done. the matter of reserves is again involved. two orchards that bore a reduced crop last year because of spring frost injury have come through much better than some other similar orchards, at practically the same elevation and age, that bore a crop last year. two adjacent hillside orchards show considerable difference in degree of winter injury and crop prospects for this year. it is believed that this difference was due to the fact that in one orchard percent of the crop was destroyed by blight last year, in comparison with a percent loss in the other. the owners and i estimate that there is at least percent larger crop this year in the orchard which had the heavy loss from blight last year. in several orchards where different levels of fertilization have been used by the grower, it appears that the more liberal the application of fertilizer, particularly nitrogen, the less severe was the winter damage sustained. at the college orchard in corvallis, the one tree that got no additional nitrogen last year and that bore the heaviest crop of nuts is outstandingly the most severely winter injured of the trees involved. only two varieties of walnuts have been studied, franquette and mayette, and some carpathian seedlings in one orchard. here in oregon the mayette seems to have generally withstood the winter injury better than the franquette. it is my belief that they are just naturally a little more vigorous than the franquette. yet they never seem to overproduce as the franquette sometime does. last year was the "on" year for franquettes and that might easily account for the generally apparent better condition of the mayettes this year. carpathians resist winter best near ontario, oregon, i saw seedling carpathian walnut trees early this spring. they were leafed out and the catkins were elongated before any franquettes, even in the willamette valley, had started breaking buds. no sign of winter injury was apparent on the carpathian trees at that time, yet franquettes at the malheur experiment station, a mile away, were obviously killed to the groundline. the owner, mr. peter countryman, says these trees are often damaged by spring frosts but they always produce some nuts. a letter dated august , from mr. countryman, indicates that a hard frost on the morning of april when the temperature dropped to degrees, did considerable damage to the new growth and catkins on the lower half of the carpathian walnut trees. he estimates not to exceed one-third of a crop on these carpathian trees this year; but he says that since the freeze the trees have made good growth, the new terminals being about inches in length and the nuts on them are very large. to sum up the walnut situation, then, the encouraging thing is that no walnut orchards have been called to my attention that were completely killed. several badly neglected orchards and two orchards where it is said that the temperature dropped lower than minus degrees f. are so severely damaged that it is impractical to try to save them, but even these are not completely killed. injury to filberts from the less comprehensive observations made on filberts following the severe winter just past, it appears in general that when the filbert tree has gone into dormancy it is more tolerant of cold than the walnut. the difference of one month in time of occurrence of the cold in the two winters seems to have had more bearing on the damage to filberts than the difference in temperature. in the forest grove, oregon, area, and in clark county, washington, filbert trees, however did suffer severely from the cold last winter, but these two areas were the "cold spots" of the northwest. it seems as if the same factors that accentuate winter damage in walnuts work in a similar way on filberts, except that the elevation factor does not seem to be of so great importance. age of tree, level of nutrition, and size of preceeding year's crop seem to be more important than elevation. young filbert orchards, on either hillside or valley-floor sites, seem to be much less severely hurt than older orchards on the same sites. it is the acreage of _young_ filbert trees that will make good the agricultural statistician's estimate of to percent of a filbert crop this year. i have seen one -acre orchard of -year-old filbert trees that was injured beyond repair, but they were crowded and unfertilized. at the very same location a -acre orchard of -year-old filberts with adequate spacing was not seriously injured, even though the trees were not fertilized. one other orchard in a poor location and on waterlogged soil, which has had little or no care, has likewise been lost. filberts definitely were hurt in the two "cold spots" previously mentioned, but official reports of minus degrees f. were common in that area. there was a noticeable difference in damage to catkins between daviana and duchilly. very few daviana catkins produced pollen; but duchilly seemed to be fairly normal. injury in filberts was confined mostly to the catkins and twigs. excessive sucker growth up and down the main trunk and branches has taken place in the filberts, as is the case in walnuts. in neither walnuts nor filberts was there much splitting of the bark on the trunk. this was probably because there was no sudden fluctuation in temperatures and sunshine was not excessive during the critically cold days. it has been previously stated that the filbert is possibly more tolerant of cold than the walnut. in spite of this there probably has been more extensive damage to filberts than to walnuts; but it must be remembered that filberts are the principal nut crop in those two "cold spots." not many walnuts are grown there, but the ones that are were likewise injured. editor's note: mr. gellatly's following papers were read by title. effects of the winter of - on nut trees in british columbia j. u. gellatly box , westbank, b. c. (orchard at gellatly, b. c.) our district is just recovering (in august) from the effects of the toughest winter we have experienced here in the past years. this gave the weather test to the tune of - ° f., official. the unofficials were of to below--depending on distances and location from okanagan lake, a deep body of water three to four miles wide and eighty miles long. this lake rarely freezes over completely, especially near our section; so the open water acts as a thermostat during most winters. but the past one pulled a new stunt and it froze over completely giving zero winds a vast open sweep, so that to be near the lake was a disadvantage, for it was colder there than it was farther back, in more sheltered locations. heartnuts and hybrids the bright spot in the nut tree picture is our heartnut trees. they all came through in good shape, making rampant growths and carrying a heavy crop. these include: walters, o.k. heart, canoka, slioka, rover, calendar, westoka, nursoka, aloka, symoka, select unnamed bearing seedlings, yet on trial. all are promising. also we have three of the elfin paper shell heartnut hybrids. i have failed to find a good pollinator for these elfins, so they are shy croppers, although producing plenty of the female blooms. all of the above trees are inches in diameter and up to inches. then come the buart nuts. i coined this name to designate the hybrids i had made having the butternut (~j. cineria~) as the pollen parent and calendar heartnut (~j. sieboldiana cordiformis~) as the mother tree. possibly the seven best of these are: leslie, dunoka, fioka, okanda, kingsbury, penoka, flavo. these trees are all carrying crops and most of them are making good growth. filberts ackerman, brag, comet, craig, holder, petoka, carey, baroka, barcelona, bawdin, firstoka (gellatly no. ). these have made a good showing, as the majority of the trees or bushes under to inch crown diameter of these varieties, are doing well and carrying good crops, while many above these diameters suffered in varying degrees from slightly to severely, apparently regardless of variety, location, or soil on which they grew. it may be noted that all these varieties have been hardy in the past, but age was adding up and age evidently had somewhat to do with their inability to take the punishment they got this past winter. for all my large bing and lambert cherry trees were severely injured or entirely winter killed, as were nearby peaches, apricots, pear, and some apple trees, particularly in the larger sizes, while many of these younger trees were uninjured, except that they are fruitless this season. soft shell walnuts (juglans regia) broadview variety on gellatly farm, of bearing trees, all suffered winter injury for first time in years. this injury varied all the way from freezing back two to three feet of all higher branches and twigs, to an actual loss of one-third to two-thirds of entire tree and trunk. at date of writing all are staging a good comeback with no care but a "wait-and-see" policy as to final treatment. there was so much loss as to involve too much work if pruning and after care of sprouts were undertaken. it was decided to leave the dead limbs and branches as a protection to the fast growing new sprouts, which, without this protection, would probably have been badly damaged by wind and rain storms. even large birds lighting on these new sprouts might break them down. the dead limbs will be gradually removed later, as the new limbs harden up and take over. many of these will be left as supports for at least two years, when i expect most of these trees will be back in production, if we get a return to normal (minus ° f.) winters, many will produce in , as the new wood is showing a good growth of catkins. although all bearing trees on my place were injured, the younger trees in my nursery were not hurt to any noticeable extent. at summerland experimental station, miles south of gellatly, grow two large broadview walnut trees supplied by myself. i had grafted on these black walnut roots (~j. nigra~) at the ground line, in every respect like my own. these trees are carrying a good crop. one shows slight winter injury, the other none at all. the official low for their location was ° below f. with nearby unofficials to ° below. their present location is at least feet above lake level, and on very well drained sandy loam. mine are about feet above the lake and on somewhat heavier loam. i note that trees on my more gravelly soil came through in the best shape at official- ° f., unofficial to below. my broadview that made best survival had grown the previous year in a chicken yard. ground was well scratched over and droppings incorporated in top inches of soil. tree was flood irrigated three or four times in dry season. on this tree only outer new branches were killed and tree gives every indication of being back in crop in season. the crop record on this tree is from and reads ' -- pounds; ' -- pounds; ' -- pounds; ' -- pounds; ' -- pounds. weight is for clean, undried, and partly dried nuts at time of picking up. some of the other broadview trees have higher crop records, although of same age and size, with possibly a bit better soil, in same grove. one tree in six years, ' to ' inclusive, had an average of pounds per year; another had an average for the same years of pounds per year. just recently i made a special trip to see how the parent broadview tree had wintered. i found it had sustained severe damage to two-thirds of the upper part of the trunk and main branches. the lower third was staging a good comeback, despite unofficials of to below zero f. as reported by neighboring farmers. the following varieties of soft shell bearing walnut trees were also winter injured: munsoka, badly, top two-thirds of trunk; linoka, badly, top two-thirds of trunk; myoka (jumbo type) one-third of top branches; geloka (jumbo type) frozen to ground line but sprouts two feet high now growing. on sirdar (a jumbo type long nut), only outer tips of branches were killed. this was a surprise to me, as it is a second generation seedling of italian source. the parent tree grew and cropped well for many years on bench land at sirdar, in southern interior of b. c. until the winter of - , when it was so badly damaged that the owner had it removed. i rather looked for a similar fate in this one. there is this difference: mine was not as old nor had it been cropping heavily as yet. the season here is barely long enough to develop fully the kernels of sirdar. crath carpathian walnut no. this walnut was grafted on black walnut (~j. nigra~) root in and planted here on low loam soil in . it never has been hardy under our conditions, winter killing some every winter since it was planted. this past winter it was killed to below snow line inches above union, whereas broadview trees alongside, which are the same in every respect, never were injured until this past winter. then only minor damage to soft new growth was done. so it looks as though broadview is still the best bet for our conditions. i am of the opinion that extreme temperature is not the sole determining factor in causing winter injury to nut or other trees. this opinion is based on the behavior of trees that have winter killed continuously while in certain soil, but on being moved to another spot having enriched soil of similar make-up and drainage located only yards away, have never winter killed since removal, and have taken much worse winters, including the one just past. the fact that many of our introductions grow and thrive to miles north of here, where temperatures drop to minus ° to °, with occasional drops to ° below zero. check this on your map of interior of b. c. on ° latitude at quesnel, b. c. i see a geology map lists that district as sedimentary and volcanic rocks. my informant grows butternuts, chestnuts, and filberts. another grower at clinton, located on ° latitude, central b. c. with temperatures to minus ° f., grows japanese and black walnuts, also pioneer almond. we are sure that the same temperatures with our conditions would kill most of our trees. recipes j. u. gellatly walnut honey sandwich teaspoon crystallized honey (the coarser the crystal the better) broadview walnut half kernels or quarters. place honey on one-half kernel, then stick the other half on the honey, making a small sandwich, or kernel covered ball of honey. this is a delightful confection. potato nut soup . grate tablespoon onion. . grate good-sized potato. place in double boiler, stir while adding boiling water, to a thin paste. stir until cooked clear like corn starch pudding. add hot whole milk to bring to creamy soup. at this stage add one-fourth cup filbert kernels. first put nuts through one of the new nut planing gadgets. these are better than the old grinder shredders or choppers, as shavings are so thin and soft they just melt in hot liquid. (also delightful on ice cream or fresh fruit.) have potatoes well cooked before adding milk or nut flakes. cooking nuts too long sets up some chemical change that thins the creamy texture of the soup. description of filazel varieties[ ] [ ] since the peace river hazel is apparently ~corylus rostrata~ these filbert hybrids of mr. gellatly belong to a different category from the "hazilberts" of mr. weschcke and the "mildred filberts" which had ~c. americana~ parentage.--j. c. mcd. j. u. gellatly the name (filazel) i coined to designate those crosses i had made, having the peace river hazel as the mother tree and craig and others of our large filberts as the pollen parent. peoka has thin shell. clean, well-filled kernel. is heavy cropper and free husker. nuts mature early. are well filled by august fifth with shells starting to brown. fully ripe by august tenth to fifteenth. manoka one of the best of my first selections. very attractive, heavy cropper, well-filled kernels by august first, shells coloring by august fifth. ripe and falling august fifteenth. fernoka good cropper of roundish nuts, having short open husks and good clean kernels. myoka in clusters to . has short open husks. leaves color well in the fall. has ornamental value. fairoka one to nuts in cluster in fancy frilled and rolled back husk. nuts roundish, of fair size and color. flavor, good. leaves color well in fall. has ornamental value. maroka medium-sized nut exposed in clusters to . open husk, folded back. ureoka medium size for filazel. thin-shelled roundish nut, to in clusters. very short, partially closed husk. orvoka two to nuts in cluster. clean kernels. husk half-inch longer than nut. has open side. good cropper. brenoka long husk like parent hazel, but lacking prickles of the wild. medium sized nut in clusters, to . eloka two to in cluster. medium sized nut with clean kernels in open husks. no. four to nuts in cluster. has short open husk. good-sized nut of barcelona type. is a good cropper of clean kernels. shell heavy. no. largest barcelona type filazel that has fruited to date. clusters contain to nuts enclosed in heavy medium-length closed husks. no. one to nuts in cluster, having clean, full kernels in thick shells enclosed in short open husks. no. one to nuts in cluster, having closed, medium length husks. a good cropper. no. two to roundish nuts in long closed husks free of prickles so common on wild hazels. a good cropper. the parent hazels used for these crosses mature the nuts by the first of august and were winter hardy at- ° f. in peace river, alberta. other hazels manchurian short bush hazel, distinctive clipped off top on leaf with some colored (of reddish hue). this bush retains leaves all winter, and would make a good protective covering for wild life. has well-flavored, clean kernels fully developed by august seventh, . kernel is enclosed in heavy, squat shells encircled with distinctive short closed husk, as if folded together just covering nut. the leaf shape and markings carry through and appear in the young seedlings. experiments with tree hazels and chestnuts j. u. gellatly corylus jacquemontii (smooth bark) india tree hazel tree no. . location--n.w. corner lot , subdivision lot , scions from kew botanical garden, england. top grafted on craig filbert feet from ground line. this made good annual growth and compatibly well adjusted unions, which after many years are still in line and not readily detected except by difference in color and character of bark--the grafted top being smooth and lighter of color than craig stock. although stocks were bearing when cut for grafting, and scions were from bearing trees and had catkins on when received, grafts were trained to take over and become the main growth and leading tree from the craig crown. this grafted tree did not produce catkins or nuts for four or five years, but branches on the stock went right on bearing, as did also other craig sections on same root crown or filbert clump used for grafting above tree hazel. at date of writing, and following the severest winter of the past years, when temperatures dropped to - ° f., followed by brief, bright sunshine and rapid rise of temperature, all ungrafted filberts of over three to four inches in diameter are dead or nearly so, while suckers - / inches in diameter and smaller are quite sound and making good growth. so, also, are the stocks or sections top grafted to the tree hazel--even the larger to - / inches in diameter trunks. i ask why, as by all ordinary results the grafted trees should have been the easiest damaged. this tree, and the other sections of filberts on same crown, had cropped for three years past, so that from that angle they should have been on an equal footing. only a few clusters of nuts grew on this ~corylus jacquemontii~ this season. data on tree size: height feet--was grafted about feet above ground line. circumference of tree-- inches above ground is inches. at inches below the graft, it is inches, and the same four inches above graft union, which is very uniform, and if this combination could be reversed we would have an ideal non-suckering stock for commercial filbert orchards. ~jacquemontii~ also buds well on cork bark ~c. colurna~ tree hazel. corylus jacquemontii smooth bark india tree hazel on cork bark turkish tree hazel corylus colurna stock tree no. location--s.w. corner of lot , subdivision lot . budded august , , at six feet from ground line, to one inch two year growth. two years later top was removed and bud made to take over leadership. from then on it made good growth. removal of top was not done at one operation, but first year leader was cut one-third way through, on long slope from bud downward on both sides, and allowed to callus over one year. second year leader was cut further and when callused, top was then removed. this treatment gave good coverage of wound on trunk. tree bore first crop , eight years after budding. nuts / inch in diameter, moderate shell of roundish form, well filled, with good flavor, clean kernels. august , --tree has a base circumference at ten inches above ground of - / inches--at six feet above, inches--below union circumference is inches, while four inches above union it is inches. no evidence of any winter injury after taking a- ° f. temperature. no crop this year, but has a good crop of catkins showing for . corylus hetrophyllia japanese tree hazel tree no. . location--n. w. corner of lot , subdivision lot . scions from kew botanical gardens, england, top grafted on craig filbert stocks feet from ground line. made very good union. present circumference four inches below union is - / inches, and four inches above union is inches. the bark on this graft is similar to the craig on which it is growing but lighter in color. there is no winter injury in evidence at this date except a very much lighter crop than usual. has small, oval, light-colored nut of good flavor and color--clean kernels. corylus colurna (thin bark) turkish tree hazel, also cork bark tree no. . source of scions--oregon, u.s.a. top graft on craig stock six feet above ground. this craig filbert clump has several divisions. main one now six inches above ground. has a circumference of inches, and just above this branches into four main limbs of similar size, which at a height of six feet were grafted--two to the thin bark above, and two to the cork bark type. the thin bark type have made very compatible unions--well healed over. the circumference four inches below the graft is now - / inches and at similar distance above is now inches. july, :--these are bearing a few nuts, following a winter temperature of- ° f. although the two branches worked to the cork bark type have no crop this season, they have over-grown graft unions, and the tops are oversize for stocks. circumference four inches below union is now inches, and at same distance above is inches. both these types have thick shelled roundish nuts which are hard to get out of the husks, and so far have many blank nuts. india tree hazels also contain many blanks and are very difficult to separate from the husks. trees are all hardy and vigorous. best of seedling ~c. colurna~ (cork bark tree hazels). circumference twelve inches above ground line is inches, and at six feet above ground is inches. height about forty feet. on august , , i climbed thirty feet into upper branches to see if there was any crop, but none was to be seen, but heavy crop of catkins was developing for . i have many hybrids from all of these tree hazels and filberts, nearing the bearing age, and they give interesting promise of new strains, as all sorts of crossing are evident. tibet hazel (c. tibicia) vigorous grower, upright, good cropper, fair size round nuts. clean kernels, nut clusters, to nuts in open medium husks. nuts fall free. these clusters differ from usual run of filberts or hazels in that each husk is separate on short neck from center of cluster. timber type tree chinese chestnut (castanea mollissima) seed secured direct from china. all select large nuts. so far, only a very few produce trees that yield nuts of as large size as those planted. all that have are timber type trees. all the bush or dwarf spreading type trees yield small to medium-sized nuts, all of good quality and flavor. (selection to date referred to.) one chinese chestnut selection named skioka. most promising timber type to date of this group of seedlings. has one straight trunk feet tall, base circumference foot above ground, is inches; and feet above ground line circumference is inches. to date, tree is sparse cropper. started bearing in , with three very large sized nuts in large fleshy burs. it has borne every year since, with gradual increase in number. in it matured large nuts of - / inch diameter. a good peeler and solid kernel. i have four other trees of similar size and all winter hardy this past winter, at ° below. skioka is the most promising to date of the four as to size of nut. bush or peach tree type of c. mollissima of this type i have about trees. many seem % hardy and came through in good shape. however, for some years they, with the tree type, seemed to be having trouble with some soil deficiency or else some excess of soil salts which caused a lot of leaf fading, followed by browning and drying up. some trees almost defoliate themselves, while others nearby and alongside are o.k., possibly due to individual tolerance of conditions. * * * * * dr. macdaniels: the first paper after recess has to do with the varieties of hickory nuts. i know of no one who is in a better position to talk on this subject on their performance here in this part of new york state than gilbert l. smith of millerton. he began a number of years ago topworking trees on a hillside and propagating trees as a nurseryman and probably is, as far as i know, one of the best men in nut shade trees and hickory varieties that there is anywhere in the country. mr. gilbert smith. mr. smith: i am no good at making a speech, so i am just going to read this. this is our experience with hickory varieties so far. that's just up to date, but not any further. our experience with hickory nut varieties gilbert l. smith, route , millerton, n. y. because we are located so far north, ° ' north latitude, we have paid particular attention to the earliness of ripening of the various varieties of hickory. while we have living grafts of more than a hundred named varieties of hickory, only a comparative few have started to bear nuts. of these, i will give a brief discussion, starting with the earliest and going through the list in order of their ripening. anthony, shagbark--we believe that this is anthony no. but as there are four or five varieties named anthony with a number following the name, we are not absolutely sure. this variety has ripened very early with us. it is rather small but cracks very well and has borne well with us. we consider it to be an excellent variety. weschcke, shagbark--is our second earliest variety so far. it is also rather small, with a distinctive shape, tapering from a rather broad blossom end to a sharp point at the stem end. our graft has had one very good crop, but it is younger than many of our other grafts. we consider it a very good variety. crown point, shagbark--is our third variety in order of ripening. this is a rather small nut with some of them being very small; that is, there is quite a variation in the size of the nuts. it cracks quite well and is of very good quality. it has also borne as well or better than any other variety we have under test. we have never propagated it for sale as we have hardly thought it quite good enough. in fourth place of ripening order, we have four ties, namely; bauer, cedar rapids, hines, and independence. bauer, shagbark--has borne well, is of good size, good quality and cracks well. it is also a very good shaped nut. we consider it to be one of the very good hickories. cedar rapids, shagbark--while our graft of this variety has borne but moderately, we consider it to be a very good variety. it is of good size, cracks well, is of good quality and attractive shape. hines, shagbark--while our graft of this variety has borne well, cracks well and is of good quality, it is so small that we have never propagated it for sale. independence, shagbark--the nuts of this variety are so small that we have paid little attention to it. fox, shagbark--this variety is in fifth place in order of ripening. fox won first prize in the n.n.g.a. contest. but there is a deep mystery connected with this variety as subsequent crops, grown on grafts, have not produced nuts of such top qualities. there have been many theories advanced but no one has solved the mystery yet. one theory is that there is bud variation in the parent tree and that mr. fox, quite naturally, cut scion wood from the lower parts of the tree, which were most readily accessible. during the war, i secured a special allotment of gasoline and made the trip to fonda, n. y., to cut scions from all parts of the tree. the scions from the various parts of the tree were labeled separately and were grafted on stocks in our test orchard. while not all of these grafts lived, we have living grafts from nearly all parts of the tree. i note that at least one of these grafts has nuts on it this year. if there is bud variation we hope that we will have at least some grafts of the superior fox nuts. in spite of all this, fox is an excellent variety, being of good size, cracks well, and is of very good quality. while it is fifth in order of ripening, it is still an early hickory and will succeed considerably farther north than our location. in sixth place we have two varieties, namely; clark and stocking. clark, shagbark--our graft of this variety has borne well, the nuts being of good size, crack well and are of good quality. we consider it to be a very good variety. stocking, shagbark x bitternut--while our graft has grown very well, it has produced but very few nuts. we were not very greatly impressed with these. in seventh place in order of ripening, we have two varieties, camp no. and stratford. camp no. , shagbark--we did not find this variety good enough to interest us very much. subsequent crops may show up better. stratford, not sure whether shagbark or hybrid[ ]--our stratford graft has been poorly tended and has had little chance to show its merits. so while it has an excellent reputation, we know very little about it. however we have several good sized grafts of it, growing in nursery row, which have several nuts on this year, so we will find out more about it soon. [ ] it is a bitternut hybrid.--ed. in eighth place we have three varieties; proper, shaul, and wilcox. while being in eighth place, these are still medium early varieties. proper, shagbark--this is a little known variety, our graft is rather young and we have had too few nuts to form any opinion of this variety as yet. shaul, shagbark--while this is a very good nut, being of good size, cracks well and of good quality, our graft on shagbark stock has grown slowly and it is the one variety so far that we have found will not do well on our bitternut stocks. wilcox, shagbark--so far this is our favorite variety. the graft has grown into a fine tree and has borne good crops of nuts which are of good size, crack almost perfectly and are of very good quality. minnie, shagbark--while we have not had a crop of this variety since starting to keep a ripening record, it ripens about the same time as wilcox and is a very good variety. ninth on our list we have two varieties; davis and peck hybrid. it so happens that i discovered both of these varieties. davis, shagbark--first prize winner in the new york and new england contest of . incidentally, a sample of fox nuts was awarded tenth place in this same contest. you will note that this was the same year in which fox won first place in the n.n.g.a. davis has pretty well lived up to expectations. grafts of this variety are rapid growers. it is the only variety we have ever succeeded in making live on pignut stocks. while the grafts are slower growing on pignut stocks, they have lived for several years and have borne nuts. but as the squirrels have stolen all of the nuts, we do not know how they compare with the nuts grown on other stocks. our grafts of davis have borne well, the nuts are of good size and crack well, although not as well as those of wilcox. it is also of very good quality. we consider it to be a top rate nut. peck hybrid, shagbark x bitternut--the nuts of this variety are large, thin shelled, crack well and are of good quality. it also bears well. the drawback is that only about one third to one half of the nuts are well filled. i can take freshly shucked nuts of this variety and by placing them in water can pick out a sample of nuts that are just about as good hickory nuts as you can find anywhere, but these will be only about one third of the nuts involved. for this reason we have never propagated it for sale. in tenth place we have three varieties; berger, strever, and triplett. berger, shellbark--while this variety is quite small for a shellbark, it is quite large when compared with the shagbarks. our graft of the berger has borne fairly well, cracks well and is of very good quality. incidentally our graft is the true berger. there was some mix-up with the berger wood, and some who thought they had berger found that they had something else when their trees started to bear. strever, shagbark--the original tree of this variety is growing near pine plains here in dutchess county, on the old strever homestead. this property was later sold to people named owre, who tried to have the variety named after them. i believe that strever is the more proper name. while this variety is of good size and quality, it has not cracked quite well enough to rate it as a top flight hickory. triplett, shagbark--this is a large shagbark which cracks well and is of good quality. our graft bears well. i believe that it was discovered by dr. deming and the late mr. beeman. this is a variety which can well bear considerable attention in the future. we are propagating some of the trees for sale. in eleventh place we have nine varieties, namely: bridgewater, griffin, hagen, harman, kirtland, lingenfelter, manahan, oliver, and wampler. bridgewater, shagbark--a large fine variety, cracks well, yields well and is of good quality. this is another discovery of dr. deming's and mr. beeman's. we have started to propagate it for sale. griffin, shagbark--i have mislaid my comments on this variety and cannot remember much about it, except that it is of good size and bears well. hagen, shagbark--we have not had enough nuts of this variety to enable us to form an opinion of it. harman, shagbark--a large nut. we did not think much of our first crop of this variety but the second crop was very good. kirtland, shagbark--this is a fine large nut, but with the one good crop, we have had, only about half of the nuts were well filled. the other half were floaters, only partly filled. lingenfelter, shagbark--here again we have had too few nuts to enable us to form an opinion. mr. reed thought very well of it. manahan, shagbark--this nut is of southern origin and i fear that we are too far north for it. however we have had one crop that was very good. all other crops have not been matured. it is evidentally a very good nut where it can be grown. oliver, shagbark--too few nuts to form an opinion. wampler, shellbark--too few nuts to form an opinion. in twelfth place on our list, in order of ripening, we have bowman and redcay. these are both shellbarks and the nuts have not been well filled, as borne on our grafts. in last place on our list, we have a southern shagbark, booth, and two hicans, bixby and burlington. we have not been able to form an opinion of booth. bixby and burlington have, so far, been very shy bearers and the nuts have not been well filled. they are of very large size and very excellent quality. the time elapsed between the earliest and latest ripening of these different hickory varieties was days. the time between the different steps were about three days. i do not give the dates because they will vary from year to year. in early years, anthony has been ripe very early in september. summarizing this report shows that our tests so far indicate that the following varieties are good and well worthy of propagation: anthony (probably no. ), weschcke, bauer, cedar rapids, fox, clark, wilcox, minnie, davis, berger, triplett, bridgewater, manahan (farther south). instead of listing these varieties alphabetically or in order of their merits, i have listed them in order of their ripening, earliest first, and so on. those varieties in the first half of the list can be grown in locations considerably farther north than our location, which is ° ' north latitude, while those in the last half of the list are not likely to be adapted to locations farther north than ours. you will note that five of these varieties are not well known, but are good varieties. they are, namely; bauer, cedar rapids, clark, triplett, and bridgewater.[ ] [ ] the bridgewater pollenizes the male-sterile weschcke variety in wisconsin. see mr. weschcke's discussion, pp. - in nnga report for .--ed. this is only a preliminary or progress report, and should not be taken as final in any respect. neither does it cover all or near all, of the top-rate hickory varieties. for instance, you will note, the variety named glover has not been mentioned. this is because our grafts of it have not started to bear yet, so we have no comparable basis for including it in this report. yet there can be no question as to the merits of glover, for it is one of the very best. there are, no doubt, many other very excellent varieties not mentioned here. the hickory is the slowest growing, takes the longest to start to bear, is the nurseryman's headache (it taking about five years to grow stocks large enough to graft or bud, during which time they should have been transplanted at least twice to develop a better root system), they are about (the hardest of the nut species to transplant and their nuts are one of the smallest of the nut species only the filbert and the chestnut being as small). yet because of their delicious flavor and other good qualities, hickories are probably the favorite nut of more people than any other of the nut species that can be grown in the northern part of this country. (applause.) dr. macdaniels: i think we need more reports of that kind to get us oriented with our hickory varieties. i think when we get through with the walnut survey that the hickory nut survey would be next. mr. corsan: hickory was dr. charles s. sargent's favorite tree, and he planted poison ivy under all of them, and it's there yet and they can't get rid of it. he wanted to keep the boys from gathering the nuts. dr. macdaniels: i have poison ivy under some of mine, but not for that purpose. mr. mcdaniel: it grows under all good trees. dr. macdaniels: the next paper is one which george slate kind of foisted off on me. he came around and said he thought something more should be said about the butternut and asked if i would get out a report and discuss the standards for evaluation. that is the reason for this paper, which i will read. it will take only about ten minutes. how about the butternut? dr. l. h. macdaniels, ithaca, new york the purpose in presenting this paper is to summarize what is known about the butternut in the light of my own experience, and to find out from you in discussion what additional facts are available and what some of the problems in the culture of butternuts may be. a good summary by s. h. graham is to be found in the th annual report of the northern nut growers association, and short reports appear elsewhere. in general, however, judging from the proceedings of this association, the butternut has not received much attention through the years. the lack of interest in the butternut indicates unsatisfactory experience with this nut on the part of those who have tried to grow and use it. an analysis of its good and bad characteristics is in order. of all the species of nuts with which the association is concerned, the butternut is the most hardy and the most likely to succeed on poor soil. in general, the trees are easy to transplant, are early bearing, sometimes within two years from the graft, and are easy to grow. the flavor of the butternut is very distinctive and palatable, and usually much more flavorful than similar nuts derived from the japanese butternut and the heartnut. some people consider the butternut flavor the best of all nuts. on the other hand, the butternut has a reputation for being short lived because of susceptibility to various diseases. the seedling trees which are usually sold are slow in bearing. the common wild nuts are hard to crack with a hammer, and the better named varieties are not well known or widely grown. the trees also have a reputation for being difficult to propagate. of these faults, probably the difficulty of propagation and cracking are the most important in restricting its use. botanically the butternut (_juglans cinerea_) belongs to a group of species within the genus juglans that bears its fruit in long clusters or racemes, as contrasted with the walnut group which bears nuts singly or in clusters of two or three. the butternuts also have the fruit and leaves covered with sticky hairs instead of being smooth. the group is further characterized by having a cushion of hairs above the leaf scars and pointed terminal buds on the twigs. other species within the group are the japanese butternut _j. sieboldiana_, its variety _cordiformis_, the heartnut, and several less well known species including _j. mandshurica_ and _j. cathayensis_, both native to central asia. these closely related species apparently hybridize with each other, but accurate information as to the nature and extent of such hybridization is not available. the natural geographical range of the butternut covers a broad area of northeastern north america, extending from new brunswick southward to the mountains of georgia and westward to western ontario, dakota, and arkansas. in this range it is most frequent in calcareous soils, reaching its best development in rich woodland, but persisting on poorer upland soils also. it thus has the most northern range of our native nut species, along with the pignut, _carya glabra_, and one species of hazelnut, _corylus rostrata_. the other related species are of variable and uncertain hardiness and are not reliable in this northern range. it is recognized that the butternut has little commercial value except as it is used in the new england states, particularly in vermont, where it is combined with maple sugar in making maple-butternut candy. anyone who has travelled through the new england states is familiar with the roadside advertising of this excellent product. on the general market, butternut kernels are not sold in quantity comparable to those of the black walnut, but are somewhat comparable to the kernels of the hickory which also do not have a commercial outlet except locally. the greatest use of the butternut is, and will continue to be, for the home grounds and local consumption. i think it is highly probable that if the easy cracking varieties already named were better known, they would be much more widely planted. the common wild butternuts are really difficult to handle. they crack only after considerable hammering with a heavy hammer and then, when cracked, the kernels shatter to such an extent that recovery is very unsatisfactory for the labor expended. after butternuts have been gathered from the wild with some enthusiasm during the fall months, they often remain in the cellar or attic without ever being used. even the squirrels and the rats will not go to the bother of extracting the kernels if other nuts are available. for best results the nuts are usually cracked with a heavy hammer, the nut being held vertically against a solid vice or block, so it can be hit on the end. a glove to protect the fingers holding the nut is useful if many are to be cracked. good results can be secured by holding the nut on its side and tapping it on the suture. this, however is difficult, as it necessitates shucking the nut and even then it is difficult to identify the suture. through the years many varieties of butternut have been named. mr. r. l. watts in the th annual report of the association lists names, and i am sure there are others. i personally have had experience with only three or four varieties. one of these, the crax-ezy, has borne good crops and the nuts crack well. another one, which i have named the johnson, coming from tonawanda, new york, cracks well but is a smaller nut. at one time i had thill variety topworked on _juglans sieboldiana_ stock, but the stock was killed by cold winter. samples of kinnyglen and mandeville were furnished by mr. graham for testing. we do not, however, have any comparative rating of many varieties based on comparative tests, nor are there recognized standards of quality. in order to set up standards of quality for butternuts, the following tentative schedule for judging has been worked out along the same lines as the schedule for judging black walnuts. twenty-five nuts are used in a sample and the score is made up of the weight in grams of the kernels recovered on the first crack, plus total weight of kernels divided by , plus / point for each whole half kernel recovered. a nut should not be considered worthy of propagation unless practically all of the kernels come out in whole halves. proposed schedule for testing butternuts nut samples score = wt. kernels first crack + total wt. kernels ÷ + no. whole halves ÷ . weight total kernels weight st crack kernels no. variety grams grams halves score remarks kinnyglen . . . crax-ezy . . . mandeville . . . johnson . . . seedling no. . . . seedling no. . . . seedling no. . . . in this schedule the crackability of the sample is measured by the weight of first crack and the number of halves. the yield of kernels is measured by the total weight of kernels in the sample. the first crack includes only those kernels that either fall out or can be removed easily with the fingers. the remaining kernels are rescued with a pick or by recracking. in my judgment, the score accurately measures the merit of the samples. in the mandeville, the large size is measured by the weight of kernels which in part offsets poor cracking quality. poor cracking is usually caused by the edges of the halves being curved so as to be bound in the shell. much more testing should be done to determine the value of the schedule. opinions regarding the ease of propagation of the butternut differ, but mostly it is considered difficult to propagate, with often complete failure. this merely means that the matter is not well understood. in my own experience i have had just about as many failures as successes, and must confess that i do not have much idea of what has been responsible for either success or failure. best results have been secured by using inlay or bark slot grafts on stubs about inches in diameter. this agrees with the experience of mr. burgart, of michigan, and mr. weshcke, of minnesota, who report that grafts must be made several feet from the ground and not at the crown. shield budding has apparently not been satisfactory. mr. d. c. snyder writes that chip budding is more successful. it is recommended by others and i agree that grafting should be done early, just as growth starts rather than later when trees are in leaf. special care must be used in tying the new shoots of the graft to braces to prevent breakage by wind or birds. the butternut wood is very brittle and the grafts are often lost by breakage. the whole matter of butternut propagation merits further careful study. butternut varieties may be grafted on black walnut, butternut, or _j. sieboldiana_ stocks. mr. burgart, mr. weschcke, and mr. d. c. snyder consider black walnut to be better than the others, giving a more vigorous long lived tree. varieties on butternut stocks are apparently relatively short lived and _j. sieboldiana_ stocks have a different growth rate and are not hardy. mr. burgart uses bark slot grafts on black walnut seedling stocks, - years old. butternut trees on their own roots transplant relatively easily because there is no taproot as with the black walnut and the hickory, and there are many fibrous surface roots that can be lifted when the tree is dug. black walnut stocks are not difficult to manage, particularly if the taproots are cut on the seedlings. culture is no special problem. mulching and supplying nitrogenous fertilizer is good practice. the butternut has the reputation of being susceptible to disease and hence being short lived as a tree. whether or not this is actually the case is perhaps questionable. many butternut trees, particularly those in favorable situations of soil and moisture, live to be of large size and old age. trees on poorer, thinner soils apparently die off earlier than those under better conditions. in any case, it is well recognized that the butternut has a shorter life span on the average than the black walnut, which frequently lives to a large size and old age. there are two common diseases of the butternut. one is leaf spot caused by the fungus _marsonia_, which defoliates the trees fairly early in the season and probably predisposes them to injury from other fungous attack. this is the same leaf spot that attacks the black walnut leaves. the other disease, which may cause trouble, is a fungous walnut blight known more specifically as melanconis blight. it has not been established that this disease is an active parasite. the evidence indicates rather that it attacks trees that are already somewhat weakened by defoliation or other injury. it is a fact that many of the dead limbs on butternut trees are found to be affected with the disease. it is a matter of observation that trees growing under favorable conditions are less damaged by the disease than those growing under poor conditions of soil and water, therefore, keeping trees vigorous is good practice. as with other nut tree species, there are troublesome insects. one of these, the butternut snout beetle or curculio, attacks both the butternut and the japanese walnut. control has apparently been secured by dusting foliage with ddt. sometimes the leaves of butternuts are badly distorted with galls caused by mites. the bunchy top or witches'-broom caused by a virus, that is serious on the japanese walnut, _juglans sieboldiana_, does not appear to be so virulent on butternut. this, however, is a matter of personal observation and is not based on a thorough study. in conclusion, let me say that in my judgment, the butternut is worthy of more attention than it has had so far received, particularly by home owners in the northern states who would like to have trees in their yards that will bear nuts under conditions that are unfavorable for most other kinds. if it were publicized that varieties are available that will crack out in halves with relatively little effort, the chances are that with these facts in mind those interested in nut trees would give the butternut much more attention. the difficulty at the present time seems to be related to a lack of knowledge as to the relative merit of different varieties and a scarcity of trees because of difficulty of propagation. if we have time and the chairman will permit, i would welcome comments on the propagation problem and would also like to obtain any information on the merit of the named varieties. let me also state that if any of you have a sample of nuts of any named variety in this or last fall's crop that you can spare, i would be much pleased to have you send it to me for testing. discussion mr. stoke: it grows in new brunswick, and i have had specimens from north of lake of the woods. mr. corsan: they grow at brooks, alberta. i have the helmick and it grows to the cluster, has a thin shell and heavy meat, and the leaves are persistent. they don't drop off the first of september. that's the helmick. it's grafted on black walnut stock, and the black walnut stock comes up like that (indicating) and the helmick recedes. dr. macdaniels: the black walnut overgrows it. there are about varieties, and i would like very much to get hold of any of the samples i can get. mr. corsan: go up to silver bay, lake george, and on the shore there the indians have bred the butternut, and it's to the cluster among those trees by silver bay, lake george, new york. ernest thompson seaton and i examined that grove years ago. dr. macdaniels: wish we had them where we could get at them. any other comment on the butternut? mr. mcdaniel: the helmick is considered to be a "butter-jap" seedling of heartnut, possibly the other parent was a butternut. dr. macdaniels: that is something we will have to decide in the association, whether or not we are going to throw in these hybrids and the heartnut along with the butternuts in standards or try to keep them separate. mr. corsan: hybrid heartnut cross is very, very superior in every way to the butternut in my estimation, except for hardiness. mr. stoke: that is a hybrid. i have it. the mitchell hybrid. dr. macdaniels: the ordinary run of seedlings are not worth keeping, no question about that, and it's too much work to recover the kernels. there are several announcements i'd like to make. one has to do with this hall. it is the american legion hall, which they do not charge rent for. they do, however, and will expect some sort of a token of appreciation that will be fairly substantial. there is no provision for that in the budget, so any of you who are feeling a little mellow and flush, if you want to approach the treasurer with a contribution towards the use of this hall, that will be appreciated; otherwise, the matter will have to be settled out of the treasury as such. mr. corsan: how about a dance in this hall? dr. macdaniels: if we stay over, we might do something like that. then there is the other matter, and that is the prize for the proposed carpathian walnut contest. there is no prize money available at the present time. if any of you wish to provide a first, second, or third prize, we might even tag it with your name, if that would be possible. i think probably they will be able to get some publicity backing through farm papers and what not, but still if we have a backlog of prize money, why, that's much to your advantage. do you want to say anything further on that, mr. chase? mr. mcdaniel: mr. sherman, i believe, has a word. mr. sherman: not in this connection. mr. pataky: do any of the members here have shelled butternuts or hickory nuts that they would sell? if they do, i'd like to get their names and get in touch with them. i do have a demand for some shelled butternuts which i have trouble getting, and i do have trouble getting shelled hickory nuts. it is for the wideman company out of cleveland. i got shelled butternuts before the war, but since the war they don't have the trade, but if they could get them, i think that would be the company that would take them. the wideman company of cleveland, ohio. they are a big wholesale house. write to christ pataky, mansfield, ohio, r.d. . mr. kintzel: do you sell them in the shell? mr. pataky: i do sell them in the shell, too, but there are a lot of people who won't buy them in the shell. we do have a demand for them, not too much on the butternut, but we do have for hickory nuts. i think we could sell a lot more hickory nut meats than hickory nuts even at the difference of the price. i know the price was quite high before the war. they paid somewhere around a dollar a pound before the war for shelled ones, and we even sold them at a profit for that, and we haven't been able to get any since the war. i don't know what happened, whether the kids are too busy playing basketball or football. dr. macdaniels: they get too much for mowing lawns. mr. weber: there is a nut crackery at mitchell, indiana. the man who cracks them cracks hickory nuts and puts them out in his name, john eversol. mr. wilkinson can tell you exactly what his name is. he was down there last year. he is cracking walnuts, and in addition cracks hickory nuts and puts them in fine shape. mr. corsan: isn't it true that nuts have more vitamin e than any other food in the world, and isn't vitamin e the greatest antidote against anemia? dr. macdaniels: i wouldn't know. you have a medical man here? dr. washick: i don't think you are right. mr. corsan: in the west they say vitamin e is a cure for anemia and they are having wonderful success, and they claim there is more vitamin e in nuts than any other food. i don't know, they are keeping me alive. ~editor's note~: green walnuts are rich in vitamin c. see report, page . dr. macdaniels: you are exhibit . i think mr. salzer has slides he wanted to show this afternoon. mr. salzer: i had a few. perhaps we can use those blankets and just fix up, perhaps, a few of these windows in front, and i think we could probably show the slides. dr. macdaniels: if you can leave the blankets here for a short time, we will get them later. any other questions? i think our lunch is ready for us downstairs. we will come back up here at one o'clock. (whereupon, at : o'clock, a. m., the meeting was recessed, to reconvene at o'clock of the same day.) tuesday afternoon session dr. macdaniels: calling the afternoon session to order. this afternoon i am going to turn the gavel over to our good friend, spencer chase, to carry on. mr. chase: thank you, thank you. all of us are interested in the various experiment stations doing more work with nut trees, and we are very fortunate this afternoon in having two experiment stations represented, and we will first hear from bill clarke from penn state, who will talk on, "progress in nut culture at the pennsylvania state college." mr. clark. progress in nut culture at the pennsylvania state college w. s. clarke, jr., state college, pennsylvania work in nut growing at the pennsylvania state college was formally begun in , when a project on this subject was approved by the college authorities. a few acres of land were set aside for this work, and the following spring about half an acre was planted with a few nut trees of different species. at the present time an area of about twenty acres is set aside for nut plantings, although a few spots on this land are not plantable on account of rock outcrops. we now have out in the field sixty black walnuts, all but three of them named varieties, which were received from tennessee in . seventeen varieties are represented in this collection. in the nursery are more than seedling black walnuts. these were planted from nuts gathered from local trees in the fall of . they were transplanted at the end of their first season and have remained in their present position for three years. they were planted largely for the sake of experience in handling the nuts and the young trees. some of them have been grafted, and this year a few grafts of thomas and stabler were successful. on account of their size, all these trees will have to be taken out at the end of the present growing season. about twenty persian walnuts have been received from the united states department of agriculture. these are all budded trees, the buds having been taken from special selections with the best nuts from trees originally introduced from northern europe and central asia. three out of four seedling persian walnuts and one out of two japanese walnuts planted in have survived and are included in our planting. one named variety of butternut is in our collection, and a number of seedlings in our nursery. it has been our experience that walnut trees can be moved rather easily. the percentage of loss in transplanting has been negligible. on account of an emergency, this spring we had to move several walnuts which were already in full leaf. some of the leaves were trimmed off, and the trees have survived and have even made some additional growth. on our grounds is one chinese chestnut left from a planting of eight in . it was killed back to the ground in after winter temperatures of close to degrees below zero, but it has since grown up to be a tree of moderate size. it suffered considerable injury to buds and twigs in from temperatures down to degrees below zero, but has since recovered. in several years it has borne a crop of burs, but no other tree is available for cross-pollination, and the nuts have seldom filled. twelve seedling chinese chestnut trees from different sources have been planted, and an area of several acres has been set aside to extend the work on chestnuts. a start has been made toward a collection of filberts. five named varieties of european filberts were planted in . all have suffered from winter injury, but only one tree has been killed outright. very few nuts have been produced. about seedlings of european filberts and of the american were received from tennessee two years ago. about % have survived and are growing nicely. several other species of nuts have been tried without success. two trees of the red hickory were set out several years ago, but they failed to leaf out. four young trees of the golden chinkapin of the pacific coast were planted and grew well the first summer, but all four were killed by the first freeze in the fall. about a pound of nuts of the turkish tree hazel were planted several years ago; these failed to come up the first year. the next winter the mice and rabbits discovered them and ate up most of the planting. a few germinated, but most of these were lost in transplanting, and today only two are left of the entire lot. mr. chase: thank you, mr. clarke. (applause.) discussion mr. sherman: i'd like to say, just before you leave this subject, that the speaker barely mentioned the fertilization experiment that was started in pennsylvania on black walnuts. i think the members of the nut survey stuck their necks out and got their heads hit a little bit when we said that the black walnut as an orchard industry in pennsylvania was sick. we hadn't been able to find crops of black walnuts. we found individual trees, but we couldn't find orchards of black walnuts, and as a result of that, this fertilization experiment was started, in a -acre black walnut orchard with ohio, stabler and thomas varieties. the owner, truman jones, said, "i don't care what you do with the stablers, you can't hurt them, anyway; they are no good to begin with." but this orchard, evidently from all outward appearances, has been growing very slowly for quite a number of years. it isn't the size it should be, and we think the main trouble there is lack of fertility, and that's the reason why this fertilization experiment was started. it's quite an ambitious experiment. it takes in about trees in the center of a -acre planting of black walnuts. they haven't had a crop, i think, for five or six or seven years. they don't have a crop this year, but we are hoping that some of them next year will have a crop, but if not then the year following. they are asking about the cultivation. there has been no cultivation there in the orchard for a number of years. it's down in a pretty heavy bluegrass sod. in a portion of that we put the disc in on the tractor and disced and redisced until we got what we thought was a pretty fair seedbed. they found that vertical profile a mixture, and we are hoping to have clover sod instead of bluegrass sod. that's combined with fertility work. i won't take time to go into that, but i think this group is interested in knowing that there is quite an extensive fertility experiment on black walnuts to see why the large plantings are not producing. i might say in this connection, mr. hostetter isn't here this afternoon, hasn't been here, but he has a dandy bang-up nice crop of nuts this year, and ohio and thomas are his main varieties. mr. craig: did he use any fertilizers? mr. sherman: yes, the fertilizer was disced in, and he tried to disc under that bluegrass sod and get that rotting under there. there are quite a few ramifications to that program. mr. corsan: did you mention turkish tree hazel? mr. clarke: yes, we have two trees of it left. mr. corsan: it takes two years to sprout from the time you plant the seed. have you tried the european beechnuts in your locality? mr. clarke: no, we haven't. mr. corsan: it will produce far more than the american beechnut and is more successful in every way. they can be gotten from holland quite cheaply. they sell the european beech, and they are beautiful and loaded with nuts and the europeans think far more of them than the americans do. the cut-leaf beech is an european beech, and i have seen the tree in southern michigan and at the old soldiers' home at dayton, ohio, loaded with nuts. and frequently, not just once in every years, like our beechnut. and they are a bigger nut. nut tree culture in missouri t. j. talbert, university of missouri, columbia, mo. the wide interest now being shown in the planting of nut trees throughout the state emphasizes the need of information on nut culture. although nut trees may be grown with less care and attention than fruit trees, yet to be successful in starting plantings a knowledge of successful practices developed by the missouri agricultural experiment station at columbia should prove of great value. the information which follows applies particularly to the native black walnuts, butternuts, hardy northern pecans, hickories, chinkapins, and hazelnuts. all these nut plants are native to missouri and may do well if given proper attention in the various districts of the state to which they are adapted. nutritive value of nuts nuts are now given in the diet a higher rating than ever before. this is true because recent studies in nutrition show that they supply not only the elements needed for health and growth, proteins, oils, and carbohydrates but also an abundance of vitamins a, b , and g. in fact, the nuts compare very favorable with meats in rankings for the above vitamins. most of the nuts are especially noteworthy in high vitamin a and b content. it is also believed generally that nuts contain nearly all of the mineral essentials demanded for the promotion of healthy nutrition. moreover, nuts are usually palatable in the raw stage and are prized most highly for dessert purposes. the black walnut is particularly outstanding because it retains its flavor after cooking. nuts now have a very extensive use in the preparation of confectioneries, cakes, breads, and salads. they enhance the flavor of many other foods. the value of nuts as food accessories has long been recognized. they also supply so much body fuel in so compact a form that they are particularly well suited for the use of mountain climbers, "hikers," and even soldiers engaged in long marches and maneuvers. uses for nut trees ~as shade trees~--if during the past or years, a large portion of the shade trees planted had been nut trees like the native walnut, pecan, hickory, chestnut, and chinkapin of the better varieties, it is easy for anyone to see that great benefits would have resulted. ~for highway planting~--no other native trees lend themselves so admirably to highway use as the so-called northern or native pecan, the black walnut, and the hickories. these nut trees are all generally well-shaped, reach considerable heights particularly on fertile soils, are stately in appearance, and add beauty and attractiveness to the landscape wherever they are grown. soils and fertilizers ~soils needed for good growth~--the nut trees adapt themselves to a very wide range of soil conditions. in fact, few other trees are capable of such a wide range of adaptability to soil types. the uplands usually planted to corn and wheat and the flood plains of the river basins may both be well suited to nut growing. for good growth and production deep well-drained soils are required. under proper conditions the trees develop rapidly, have an extensive root system, and eventually may reach a great age. furthermore, nut trees cannot grow successfully on wet poorly-drained land where water stands on or just beneath the surface a considerable portion of the year. lowlands which may be found well adapted to the growth of willow and gum trees, may be too wet and sour for the growth of nut trees. it would also be well to avoid dry, very thin, and very sandy soils. in their native range the pecan, hickory, and walnut thrive on the alluvial soils of the missouri and mississippi river valleys. they grow well also on the upland sandy loam soils adapted to the growth of corn, oats, and wheat. all of these nut trees are usually influenced more by the fertility, humus, and moisture content of the soil, than by any particular soil type. ~fertilizers for nut trees~--the deep rich alluvial soils of river and creek valleys do not present the same fertilizer problems as light and heavy upland soils. manure supplemented with superphosphate at the rate of about to pounds to a ton should prove to be a satisfactory fertilizer on depleted soils. it is spread in a circle around the trees extending out about twice the spread of the branches and plowed or harrowed into the soil. a moderate application would range from to tons to the acre. leguminous cover crops are particularly valuable for building up the nitrogen and humus content of the soil when plowed under. their judicious use with non-leguminous cover crops and supplemented with commercial fertilizers to increase the tonnage for plowing under, will usually bring good returns in growth and production. care of the permanent plantings since but few diseases and insects attack nut trees in missouri, very little if any spraying work will be required while the trees are young. as the trees grow older, however, it may be necessary to give pest control more attention. caterpillars that infest the foliage of the trees in late summer and early fall can usually be destroyed by cutting off the comparatively few branches on which the worms have clustered and burning them. the pest may also be destroyed on high branches by means of torches. if the trees can be sprayed thoroughly, arsenicals and other insecticides used in spraying apple orchards will be found very effective while the worms are small. as in the care of a young apple or peach orchard, it is important that the young trees for at least the first two or three years be given cultivation and some fertilization on lands of lower fertility if a good growth is not being made. a heavy mulch of straw or litter around the trees may prove very satisfactory. moreover, livestock should be kept away from the trees until they are established and the branches of sufficient height to be out of danger of injury. it is a serious mistake to plant or grow from seed small nut trees and leave them unprotected from farm animals. if the land is to be grazed, each tree may be guarded with strong posts and barbed or woven wire spaced about to feet from the trees. once the young nut orchard is thoroughly established and growing thriftily, grass may be grown beneath the trees and furnish nearly as much hay or pasture as though the trees were not present. if livestock is allowed to graze in the orchard, which is a questionable practice while the trees are young, the trees should be pruned and trained to fairly high heads. ~spacing for nut trees~--the growing of nut trees for timber alone requires a spacing of about to feet apart with other species of trees common to the area growing up later between the nut trees to facilitate the development of tall clean trunks. under such conditions nut production is inhibited and harvests may be comparatively small. nut trees grown mainly for nut production rather than for timber may be planted to feet apart on the square plan. the thomas black walnut may bear a few nuts the second year following transplanting. different varieties and species of grafted walnuts, pecans, and hickories often begin bearing from two to four years after setting. chestnut seedlings may also bear in the second or third year. black walnuts from seed sometimes bear a few nuts at to years of age. profitable bearing, however, may not be expected in the average nut orchard until the trees are at least to years old. pruning walnut, pecan and hickory nut trees for the most part these nut trees do not require heavy pruning. superfluous branches, dead limbs, and unsymmetrical ones, should be removed from time to time while the trees are young and becoming established. a uniform top is desirable. the pruning is begun when the trees are or three years old by removing the lowest branches. the rule is to cut away only one branch a year. but trees making a very strong growth may stand more pruning and those making a poor growth may need none. cultivation and other orchard practices may be greatly simplified in commercial plantings by pruning and training the tree heads to heights of six or eight feet. even then the lower branches will ultimately be pressed downward by the weight of nuts and foliage when bearing begins. regular annual pruning is required generally to prevent the limbs from interfering with orchard practices. furthermore, branches lower than six or eight feet high, should be subdued by cutting back while the trees are young. these limbs should be removed ~only~ when the trees have become anchored strongly enough in the soil to prevent the directions of the trunk being influenced by the prevailing winds. the black walnut there is something about the distinctive flavor of our native black walnut kernels that appeals to the american people. and there is much about the black walnut tree itself that makes it much admired and respected. it grows rapidly, and yet it is one of our most valuable timber trees. it is an excellent tree for the grounds about the home. not only does it yield an annual crop, but it is a lovely shade tree--beautiful to look at--and has the further advantage that the lawn grasses grow well beneath it. ~has wide distribution~--it is a very cosmopolitan tree in that it will thrive almost anywhere if given half a chance. from lower canada to the gulf of mexico and from the atlantic to the pacific coast, it may be found in various states of production. on the fertile lands, however, of the mississippi and ohio river basins it reaches perhaps its highest development. the high ranking states in walnut lumber production are as follows, in order of their importance: missouri, illinois, kentucky, ohio, west virginia, iowa, tennessee, arkansas, indiana, and texas. ~valuable timber tree~--some of the main or principal uses of the wood may be enumerated as follows: for the making of gun stocks, it stands supreme. since walnut does not warp or swell when wet it does not interfere with the action of the gunlock in gun stocks. the wood also may be made into a sharp edge and fit snugly against the metal parts, while the dark color and beautiful grain produces an attractive implement. it is a standard and a favorite for musical instruments notably pianos and organs; sewing machine tables, cases, small airplane propellers, picture frames, caskets, cabinet work, moldings and many forms of ornaments. the shells of the nuts were, during world war i, manufactured into carbon and used for gas masks. the wood possesses unusual and rare combinations of qualities which make it superior in the manufacturing of the articles mentioned above. its freedom from warping, checking, or splitting when subjected to alternate wetting and drying is an unusual quality. it works easily with all kinds of tools, has remarkable durability in the presence of wood-decaying fungi and insects. moreover, it is hard, durable, heavy, stiff and strong. the dark color of the wood does not allow soiling stains to show and the grain of the wood and its texture make it easy to grip. ~produces a nutritious food~--the kernels of the black walnut are now used not only in candy making but to a large extent in breads, cakes, salads, waffles, and other forms of food. in the cities the kernels are sold yearly in increasing amounts not only from wholesale and retail grocers but by street venders as well. one may often find the kernels for sale at food stands and in other places where fruits and vegetables are sold. ~changing seedling trees to named varieties~--on nearly every farm, walnut trees are growing along ravines, fence rows, and on rough land which is more or less out of the way and inaccessible. most of these may be top-worked by one or more methods to the named and more desirable kinds of black walnuts without imparing the value of the timber. in to years seedling trees ranging in age from to , if topworked, may produce crops equal to untreated trees. still younger and smaller trees from one to or years old, may generally be top-worked with less difficulty than older trees. ~results from top-working experiments~--cleft grafting work performed at the missouri agricultural experiment station has been very successful. in fact, walnut top-working has been but little if any more difficult than apple or pear top-working. with reasonable care and fairly good technique the grafting operation is not difficult to perform. it is believed, however, that the common practice in top-working pecan, hickory, and walnut has been to dehorn too severely. this may induce insect and disease injury which often results in a very poor tree after or years. for good results, six inches in diameter should be the maximum size of the limb for top-working. ~encourages new industry~--a wider interest in black walnut kernels has caused a new industry to spring up. this consists of nut cracking or shelling establishments which have been located in the walnut growing districts. the plants in many instances buy walnuts in large quantities. the nut meats are removed and sold at wholesale, usually in barrel lots containing pounds of nut meats. in most districts the new industry is in operation for most of the year. power driven machines feeding from large hoppers are used for cracking the nuts. nearly all the workers pick the meats from the cracked nuts. women are generally employed and are paid on a piece-work basis or by the pound. moreover, employees are often given a premium for nut meats removed from the shells with the "halves" unbroken. this new black walnut industry has increased and heightened the interest in planting the trees for both nut and timber production. consequently, in the districts where these nut cracking mills have been established, many producers are planting either small or large blocks of black walnut trees. in some cases the plantings are made up of grafted or budded trees of named varieties, while in others the nuts are planted and the seedlings later top-worked to the kinds desired. the named varieties and better seedling sorts bring the highest price in the form of nuts and as kernels. in fact, the nuts of the named varieties usually sell for twice the price paid for the average seedling nuts. some of the chief varieties most highly prized for their thin shells, weight of kernels, cracking quality, and flavor are thomas, stabler, tucker, ohio, and miller. to obtain a marketable and paying product, care in the gathering, husking and extracting of kernels, is necessary. culling the nuts and cracking none but the good ones are also important. through such methods, many producers are able to supply city markets and roadside stands with kernels which sell readily and at good prices. ~returns from trees~--walnut trees will give returns in general in proportion to the care given. they are fairly rapid growers under good culture. at an age of years the trees may reach a height of feet with feet at years and about feet at years. in other words, a growth of about feet a year for years is not unusual. after this age the trees slow down gradually to about a foot of growth a year. it is estimated that walnut trees from to years of age will produce on the average from to board feet of lumber. trees of such an age may also produce an average of all the way from four or five bushels of nuts per tree each year up to as many as ten to fourteen or more bushels per year. the butternut among our native walnuts the butternut is valued highly especially for home use. on the markets, however, the rough shell and comparatively small size of the kernel have in general tended to keep prices low and the demand limited. there are now prospects for the introduction and growing of superior hybrid varieties. grafted varieties which bear particularly good nuts are becoming more available through nut nurseries. the trees may become very large in height, spread and trunk diameter. they are attractive and stately in appearance and it is the hardiest member of the walnut genus as its native range extends well into canada. the bark is gray in color and the wood is soft. heartwood decay is common in old trees, although they may reach great age. the species has a rather restricted range within the eastern states, but it occurs naturally as far west as eastern kansas and nebraska. in missouri, its growth is confined largely to the central and northern areas where black walnuts are plentiful. the nuts are oblong, sharp-pointed at the apex, cylindrical, bluntly rounded at the base, rough and jagged over the surface, and as a rule thick-shelled. in spite of this, some varieties have good shelling quality, and the kernels possess usually a rich, agreeable flavor. in confections the butternut kernel may compete successfully with the popular flavor of the black walnut kernels. the butternut may be propagated and grown successfully by adopting the practices suggested for the culture of the black walnut. as is true with the black walnut it may be inter-grafted upon other walnuts or used as a stock for them, but its propagation, particularly as an understock, is more difficult. the pecan the pecan is a member of the hickory group and its range in this continent extends from iowa to mexico. other hickories extend into canada. the hickories are valuable for both nuts and timber. fifteen different species of the hickory group have been recorded. of these only three or four produce nuts of outstanding value. in nut production, the pecan hickory is the most important of all the hickories. for crop value of nuts it rivals the persian (english) walnut and the tree is one of the largest east of the rocky mountains. the pecan tree is native to the south and south central parts of the united states and it is found in the forests as a native tree throughout missouri. commercial production within the state may reach , pounds or more in good crop years, and according to the state-federal crop reporting service there are now about , pecan trees in the state of bearing age. all of these consist of seedling groves except the comparatively recent orchard plantings of the southeastern area. commercial culture of standard varieties in the united states is confined largely to georgia, texas, oklahoma, louisiana, alabama, mississippi and florida. the natural habitat is along streams and on river bottom lands. at the present time the commercial varieties consist mainly of the large so-called "paper-shell" sorts of southern origin. these require a comparatively long growing season for their development. consequently the southern types may not be productive in the more northern regions. the cultural range of the pecan may be divided into two rather large belts, known as southern and northern. in fact, pecan culture is sometimes designated as "southern" and "northern" due to differences in size of nut, thickness of shell, and time required for maturity of nuts. the approximate northern limit of the southern area is near the extreme southeastern boundary line between missouri and arkansas. the northern belt extends into nebraska and iowa and includes approximately the entire state of missouri. the chief difference between these areas is the length of the growing season. in general, the southern or "paper-shell" varieties require from to days to mature their nuts, while the northern varieties which produce usually nuts of smaller size with somewhat thicker shells need from to days. varieties there is no factor in pecan growing of greater importance than the proper selection of varieties for planting. fertile soils and good culture will not make poor varieties profitable or low yielding kinds fruitful. only in southeast missouri are the southern varieties such as stuart, pabst, moneymaker, success, schley, and others a success. this is true because the fruit buds of these varieties in other sections of missouri are generally killed by winter cold. furthermore even if they escape the winter cold, the growing periods for all sections except southeast missouri may not be long enough for the full maturity of the nuts. since none of the sorts adapted to the southern belt are sufficiently hardy to justify their planting in missouri except in the southeastern section, growers in other parts of the state should confine their interests and selections to the so-called northern varieties. some of the best of these are the major, niblack, giles, indiana, busseron, greenriver, and posey. chance seedlings which have not been named are now and then found that may be equally as worthy or better for planting locally than any of the named varieties listed above. in fact, these suggested sorts were derived from chance seedling trees. producers generally, therefore, should be on the lookout for seedling trees of merit. when so discovered, the missouri agricultural experiment station at columbia will be glad to make tests free of charge and report upon the cracking percent, amount of kernel, appearance, flavor, texture, quality, oil content, etc. the nuts produced by the hardy varieties adapted generally to missouri conditions are usually smaller in size and have somewhat thicker shells but may possess equally as high or even higher oil content and kernel quality than the southern sorts. the better varieties of this group, however, rank high enough to compete favorably on the markets of the country in both shelled and unshelled state with the southern varieties. a full crop of pecans would run from to carloads, the majority of which are produced along the mississippi river in the bottom lands from ste. genevieve southward. heavy shipments are made in a good year especially from ste. genevieve, st. mary's, menfro, caruthersville and hornersville, and in these sections are some of the largest and best nuts. pecans are found along the mississippi river from st. charles north to hannibal, but too generally in that area the trees are scarce and the production smaller, with nuts of thicker shells. pecan trees are also found growing wild along the missouri river bottom as far west as lexington, and up the grand river bottoms to chillicothe, and the nuts in this area are about the size of those in the north mississippi valley section, but are sweet with high oil content. there is a pecan production district along the osage river and the kansas border, with heavy shipping section at rockville and schell city. missouri pecans are classed as westerns in the commercial market. they are favored by the confectionery trade. a great many native trees are found in the south mississippi section, but there is a growing interest in budded pecan trees, especially around caruthersville. the total of the budded varieties of pecan trees in missouri does not constitute more than approximately one per cent of the total of growing trees. many years ago a large acreage of the bottom lands along the mississippi river were thick with immense, heavy-producing pecan trees--but most of this pecan timber was cut down either for fuel wood or saw timber. short-sighted people have been known to chop down trees simply to secure the nuts. the hickories the native hickories of missouri have been held in high esteem since early settlements were established. they are notorious on account of their slow rate of growth yet they offer greater possibilities to nut growers than is usually believed. as shade trees they have a high ranking. promising varieties may now be had by obtaining scions from superior bearing seedling trees and from young named and grafted trees in the nurseries of commercial concerns. grafted trees may come into bearing in three or four years after the operation. perhaps as many as five species are native of missouri. the big shellbark or kingnut is common to the south and southwest regions, but its range is not as wide as others. the shagbark which is the most valuable nut producer of all the hickories, is rather widely distributed particularly in northern and central missouri. numerous varieties have been described and named because of their particular merits. shellbark nuts may be large and attractive, but are often poorly filled. the pignut, mockernut, and bitternut have a rather general distribution especially in the central and northern parts of the state. these nuts are not considered of great value except for their hybrids with other species. perhaps the most natural type of hybrid occurring among the hickories is crosses between the shagbark and shellbark, one of the best varieties of which is weiker. the pecan and shellbark hybrids include mcallister, nussbaumer, and rockville, while the burton is believed to be a pecan-shagbark cross. the natural crosses of the pecan and hickory found in the wild have not been entirely satisfactory. the trees vary greatly in fruitfulness and the nuts in thickness of shells, size, shape, and kernel quality. a strong tendency to produce nuts with imperfect kernels is common among the pecan-shellbark crosses. local varieties selected from the wild may have merit for use in top-working hickories or pecans. the pecan is suggested because it makes a good stock for the hickories and as it grows more rapidly. some of the best of the older named sorts for planting or for use in top-working appear to be the following: barnes, fairbanks, stanley, weiker, kentucky, swain, laney, kirtland, and rieke. the chinkapins the chinkapin is related closely to the chestnut and resembles it strikingly in most of the important characteristics. it occurs in two well known forms. west of the mississippi river, the ozark chinkapin tree may reach a height of sixty feet in good soil, while the other form (allegany chinkapin) in the eastern range grows to a height of about feet. each may be grafted or budded upon the other without difficulty. named varieties of the chinkapin are not available at this time. the japanese, chinese, and european chestnuts are introduced species. the blight disease has almost wiped out the great american chestnut forests of the east. as yet, however, the malady has not been introduced into missouri. (the oak wilt, however, has been found there.--ed.) the chinkapin of this area is highly resistant to the blight and some of the hybrids carry the resistant quality and bear nuts of good size and high quality. the native chinkapin forests especially of southwest missouri are valued highly not only for their nuts but particularly for post timber. the native chinkapin tree in missouri grows to large size in good soil and it may be found as one of the largest forest trees on the stony ridge lands of southwestern sections of the ozark mountains. the nuts are very much like those produced by chestnut trees except they are smaller. in flavor and quality the nuts may be found equal or superior to the chestnuts. both the chinkapin and chestnut may be grafted or budded one upon the other. in fact, the western chinkapin may be used successfully as a stock for the chestnut. the european chestnut is very susceptible to the blight. a very large coarse nut is produced by the japanese chestnut and it does not blight quite as readily as the american sorts. the chinese chestnut is the most resistant to blight and it is admired for its beauty as a lawn tree. promising varieties include abundance, nanking and meiling. some desirable varieties of the american and hybrid chestnuts for growing in missouri are as follows: boone, fuller, paragon, progress, rochester, and champion. filberts and hazelnuts the european filbert which is grown so successfully in oregon and washington has not been generally successful in missouri. this has been due mainly to winter injury, resulting either in the killing of the staminate catkins by cold, or of the developing catkins by late spring freezes and frosts. for good fruiting they need cross pollination. some of the well-known and popular filbert varieties are barcelona, du chilly, medium long and italian red. rush, winkler, and others, are partly or purely american hazelnuts. the native hazelnut which may be found throughout the state is hardy and generally a fairly regular cropper. seedling nuts, while not as large usually as the northwestern filbert, are found now and then that approach them closely in size and cracking quality. furthermore, the native seedling nut kernels may excel occasionally in flavor and quality. interested nut growers are, therefore, urged to perpetuate the most promising hazelnuts of the wild by simple layerage. until hardier varieties of the filbert are found, the chief attention may be well spent on the propagation and culture of the native seedling sorts of merit. as yet none of the missouri native seedlings have been described, named and propagated for sale and distribution. tip or simple layering seems to be the most satisfactory method of propagating the hazelnut and filbert. shoots or suckers, one-year old and arising from the base of the plant are used. they are left attached to the mother plant and are bent over until the ends of tips rest upon the soil. to encourage root growth, the underside of the branch to be covered with soil is frequently notched or ringed. the part of the branch in contact with the moist soil is then covered leaving a small portion of the end protruding. the branches are sometimes pegged down with forked sticks or weighted with stones. after one season's growth, the branch should be established with roots and top. it is then cut from the parent and removed for transplanting to its permanent location. well, now, my good friends, i have talked about five or ten minutes longer than i intended to, but you just listened so attentively you encouraged me, so it's your fault. i am happy to be here. show me an organization like the northern nut growers association, as full of vim and vigor and vinegar and going ahead, and i will show you a successful organization. thank you. mr. chase: thank you, professor talbert, for a very nice message. i am still a little angry at professor talbert because i realize now that if he had accepted my invitation to come to another good southern state two years ago our meeting would have been a much better one at norris. now, we have several papers here which deal with chestnuts, and there seems to be a good deal of interest among the membership concerning chestnuts this year, and perhaps before we get into chestnuts for nut production we might hear a short resume of dr. graves' breeding work for timber type chestnut. this problem of chestnut for timber purposes, of course, accounts for the presence of chinese and japanese chestnuts in the country today, and yet most of our efforts to establish chestnut plantings for timber purposes have been unsuccessful. you heard from dr. diller last year concerning these efforts. this paper will deal with the breeding work which is now under way by dr. graves in connecticut, and i have asked dr. mckay to give us a brief digest of this paper. chestnut breeding work: report for arthur harmount graves connecticut agricultural experiment station, new haven, conn. and division of forest pathology, u.s.d.a. plant industry station, beltsville, maryland in southern connecticut the season for vegetative growth and development was excellent except for the dry period in september. the chief fault lay in much more cloudy weather than usual,[ ] and the deficiency in sunlight coupled with a slightly lower average temperature in the spring, and cool nights, combined to delay the chestnut flowering season for as much as ten days. the main body of our cross pollination experiments did not begin until july , whereas last year it began on june and , and was nearly completed by july . [ ] for example, the report of the u. s. weather bureau at new haven, conn., for may, , says, "the feature of the month was the lack of sunshine which retarded the growth of crops in this area." see also report of the new york city station for april, . this year crosses were made, not all different combinations, but each one with either different or reciprocal parents. the principal combination was a cross of japanese chestnut with chinese-american or american-chinese, a mixture that in recent years has given excellent results. this year also, as in the past, our cja's were crossed with american chestnut. [illustration: fig. . cross pollinating chinese chestnuts. sleeping giant plantation, hamden, conn. trees near left of center and at left, with drooping catkins, are japanese-american hybrids. photo july , , by b. w. mcfarland.] ~cooperation with italy.~ a considerable part of the cross pollination work this year has been undertaken for the benefit of the italian authorities, namely experiment stations at florence and rome. this has been done at the suggestion of the division of forest pathology, beltsville, md., which has been working along the same line. as is now generally known, the chestnut blight was discovered in italy in , and has been making rapid headway in a country percent of whose forests are in chestnut. to the italians the chestnut means much as an article of food. they use the timber also, and the various ages of coppice growth in many ways[ ]. particular effort this year has been directed toward the breeding of promising nut-bearing types for them and especially resistant strains that bear large nuts like the cultivated european chestnut. [ ] graves, arthur harmount. breeding chestnut trees: report for and . th ann. rept. northern nut growers assn. p. . . now, we have found that many of our chinese chestnuts are practically immune to the blight. even if the disease does appear, in most cases it is in the outer bark only, and is soon healed over. moreover, the chinese chestnut has a large nut, comparable in size to the cultivated europeans with pollen from our best chinese trees, and at the same successful crosses of the european and chinese are made. last fall, as a result of an article in the _new haven register_ by mr. a. v. sizer, i learned of two european chestnut trees of bearing age in new haven back yards. so, this summer we have crossed these europeans with pollen from our best chinese trees, and at the same time have taken the pollen from one of them (in the other the pollen was sterile) and applied it to the female flowers of our chinese trees. most of the resulting nuts have been sent to the italian scientists in the hope that some of them will develop into desirable nut-producing, disease-resistant hybrids. some will be retained for testing here. if the resulting trees are not sufficiently blight-resistant, they will be crossed again with the chinese. in the summer we received by air mail from dr. aldo pavari, of the _stazione sperimentale di selvicoltura_ in florence, italy, two tubes of pollen of the european chestnut, _castanea sativa_, of the varieties _pistolese_ and _selvatico_. these pollens were also applied to our best chinese trees. they resulted in good nuts which have been shipped to dr. pavari. further, we have on our sleeping giant plantation, hamden, conn., several hybrids, now years old, of the seguin and the chinese chestnuts, the former species being also a native of china, but dwarf and everblooming and remarkably prolific. these hybrids are excellent as nut producers, since they inherit the large-sized nut of the mollissima parent, combined with the increased productivity of the seguin parent. furthermore they are extremely blight-resistant.[ ] these hybrids have therefore been intercrossed among themselves this year, chiefly for the benefit of the italian people. one hundred and eight nuts from reciprocal crosses of these hybrids were shipped to italy. also, in response to a request, we sent nuts of our best chinese and japanese trees and of the _mollissima-seguini_ hybrids to m. c. schad of the _station d'amelioration du chataignier_, clermont-ferrand, france. [ ] these hybrids will shortly be put on the market, under the sponsorship of the conn. agr. expt. sta. and the division of forest pathology, u.s.d.a. as regards the everblooming habit of the seguin parent, that character seems to be lost or at least partly suppressed. a second flowering of one of the hybrids usually occurs in august. ~other crosses.~ two chinese-american trees in our plantation at the white memorial foundation near litchfield, conn., bore a considerable number of female flowers this year for the first time. they have been crossed with the fine japanese tree of mr. a. n. sheriff at cheshire, conn., figured in my report for - . (p. , fig. , of th rept. of n.n.g.a.) from them, nuts were harvested of the combination caxj. four crosses were made on the trees at redding ridge, conn., in the cooperative plantation of mr. archer m. huntington, resulting in nuts. also, the resistant americans on painter hill, roxbury, conn., were again crossed with cja's and chinese from our sleeping giant plantation and from these were obtained nuts. finally, we have this year succeeded in making a cross between _castanea henryi_, the henry timber chinkapin from southern and central china, which is said to attain a height of feet, and _c. mollissima_, the chinese chestnut. since _henryi_ blooms very early, much before our _mollissima_, the division of forest pathology mailed us pollen of _c. mollissima_, which reached us just in time to be applied to _henryi_. seven good nuts of this cross were gathered. altogether, as the overall result of our cross pollination work, we harvested nuts, more than twice as many as obtained in any other year since we began this work in . ------------------------------------------------------ table heights of some of largest trees, as of oct. , . all at sleeping giant plantation, hamden, conn. species or height hybrid location age in yrs. in ft. remarks ----------------------------------------------------------------------- j � a row tree repeatedly inarched j � a " " grafted on jap. stock, apr. j � a " " repeatedly inarched j " " c " " - / cja " " cja " " cja " " grafted on chinese stock, spring, . fruited this yr. st time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ j=_castanea crenata_ a=_castanea dentata_ c=_castanea mollissima_ ~nuts, scions and pollen received.~ during the fall of we received nuts from new hampshire, mass., conn., n. y., n. j., w. va., n. c., ohio, and ill. scions were received in march and april from mr. r. m. viggars of the bartlett tree expert co. station at wilmington, del. (_c. dentata_); and from messieurs schad and g. a. solignat, _centre de recherches agronomiques_, clermont-ferrand, france, (_c. crenata_ and _sativa_.) during june and july, pollen of _c. dentata_ came from mr. e. j. grassmann, elizabeth, n. j., mr. paul maxey, montcoal, w. va., mr. malcolm g. edwards, asheville, n. c.; _c. mollissima_ and _dentata_ from the division of pathology, u.s.d.a.; _c. sativa_, vars. _pistolese_ and _selvatico_ from dr. aldo pavari, _stazione sperimentale di selvicolture,_ florence, italy; and _c. pumila_ and _dentata_ from mr. alfred szego, flushing, n. y. this list is presented as evidence of the widespread interest in our work. it is a pleasure to acknowledge this cooperation and to thank the many donors. we are especially glad to report that several "catches" have been made with the c. sativa scions from france and those of the tall _mollissimas_ at mt. cuba, del., from mr. viggars. may i again caution those who send us nuts not to allow them to become dried out. the embryos, when dried, are killed. the nuts should be wrapped in moist cotton, peat moss, or something similar, and mailed to me not later than a few days after harvesting, at south main street, wallingford, conn. ~insects, bad and good.~ the cankerworms were rather destructive in may at our sleeping giant plantation (not at the others) but fortunately later than usual. the mite, _paratetranychus bicolor_, attacked the leaves of some of the trees on the sleeping giant plantation rather late in the season, so that on september we sprayed with the station's power sprayer, using aramite effectively. shade and humidity seem to favor the spread of this pest. japanese beetles appeared but have never been very destructive with us. as happened last year, we sprayed twice for the weevils, august and september , with excellent results. this spring in early june, four hives of bees were placed in one of our sleeping giant plantations by bee experts of the staff of the conn. expt. station. improved results in pollination and the resulting nut harvest cannot be affirmed with only one season's trial. a method of controlling the chestnut blight on partially resistant species and hybrids of castanea arthur harmount graves connecticut agricultural experiment station, new haven and division of forest pathology, u.s.d.a. plant industry station, beltsville, maryland this method has been in use since on our chestnut plantations, and has been so remarkably successful that we believe all chestnut growers should be thoroughly acquainted with it. [illustration: fig. .] whenever chestnut trees are attacked by the blight fungus, suckers arise below the lesion, and if the lesion is at or near the base of the tree, as often happens, these suckers grow from the base of the tree, i.e. at the root collar. it is then a simple matter to cut out the diseased bark of the lesion with a sharp knife, paint over the wound, and graft the tip of one or more of these suckers _above_ the lesion, into the healthy bark. of course the sucker must be long enough to reach the healthy part of the bark above the lesion. it is measured roughly by the eye and then cut off at a proper length, usually a little longer than seems necessary. the tip is then sharpened into two beveled surfaces coming up to a thin sharp transverse edge like a long wedge. (fig. a.) the tip edge must be very sharp in order to push up easily between the bark and wood. now, or rather, before trimming the sucker, in the healthy bark above the blight lesion cut an inverted t, making the cut into the bark as far as the wood and then cut a gradual slope from the surface of the bark down to the horizontal part of the inverted t. next, lift the bark gently from the wood above the horizontal cut and insert the end of the sucker. if the sucker, or scion, is slightly longer than the upper end of the cut, it can be bent outward at the same time that the scion is being inserted and thus a spring is secured making it easier to force the scion up between bark and wood. i should add that if the lesion is not at the base of the tree, suckers usually arise just below it in any case, and these can be inarched in the same way as the basal shoots. [illustration: fig. fig. showing inarching method of controlling the chestnut blight a chinese-japanese hybrid chestnut, yrs. old, infected toward base with chinese type of blight, i.e. in outer bark only. right: sucker inarched in spring of ; left, inarched spring of . (the black figure resembling an arrow, about half way up, is accidental, being a cluster of labels.) b. grafted tree (the large tree of japanese-american chestnut on japanese stock); graft made in where finger is pointing; left: inarch of , itself inarched near base in ; right, inarch of . c. japanese-american hybrid chestnut with principal inarch made in ; other later inarchings showing in part. all photos by louis buhle, brooklyn botanic garden, and loaned courtesy of the garden.] the next step is to bind together the parts being grafted, winding strong, cotton string firmly around the cut with its scion enclosed, covering practically all of the vertical cut of the inverted t. finally, melted paraffin--not too hot--is applied to the union, every part being carefully covered in order to exclude air and thus prevent drying out. we use clarke's melter which, with adjustment of the flame, will keep the paraffin at a temperature slightly above the melting point and thus will not get too hot. grafting wax may also be used instead of paraffin. the best time to perform the operation in connecticut is during april or early may. our first scions or inarches, grafted in , are now inches in diameter at ground level and constitute the main tree. if they become blighted, other suckers are inarched into them, and so on. the purpose of the inarching is to restore the communication between leaves and roots, which is so essential to the life and health of the tree, and which the diseased bark of the blight lesion interrupts, eventually causing girdling and death of the trunk or branch attacked. a series of these inarchings of different ages is shown herewith. (fig. .) on our plantations we no longer dread the chestnut blight, since we can usually circumvent it by this method. however, with the american chestnut, because the fungus advances rapidly in this species, the girdling is often completed before the scions can take hold. therefore, with that species or with the least resistant hybrids the method is often though not always ineffectual. this method of grafting is not new. it is similar to bridge grafting and has been known and practiced for centuries. the only credit we can claim is for its application to the chestnut blight as a method of control. mr. chase: we will now hear from mr. george salzer, rochester, new york, "experiences with chestnuts in nursery and orchard in western new york." mr. salzer. experiences with chestnuts in nursery and orchard in western new york george salzer, rochester, new york my work with chinese chestnut trees during the past ten years has been most interesting. the first trees were grown in our back-yard garden; then, when more seed was available locally, a building lot was purchased for use as a nursery. seed is planted in the spring because when fall planting was tried, the rodents took most of the nuts. up until last year, chestnut seed was stratified in perforated cans in the open ground with fairly good results. last fall, we tried the method used and described by dr. crane and dr. mckay in the report of this association. crimp top cans were used with nail holes in the top and bottom. instead of using regular storage facilities, the cans were stored in a concrete block storage pit built below the floor of the garage. this proved very successful. not only were the nuts in excellent condition for eating in the spring, sweet and of good flavor, but a much larger percentage of the seed germinated. this storage pit also serves to hold trees dormant and in good planting condition from digging time in march until early june. last year, many young seedlings were lost during the dry weather and hand weeding between the trees was next to impossible. this spring, we tried the method of planting used and described by mr. sam hemming in the report of this association. we planted the seed in a narrow trench two inches deep; then filled the trench with saw dust; level with the surface. the saw dust serves as a mulch to hold moisture for the young seedlings and hand weeding between trees is reduced to a minimum. it is also possible to use the wheel cultivator between the saw dust marked rows before the shoots appear. this was a great help in controlling early weed growth. we were troubled with cutworms cutting off the new seedlings close to the ground, the same as they cut off young tomato plants. we controlled them by using a poison-bran bait as described in leaflet number two issued by the department of agriculture. all trees are grown from seed of trees growing in the rochester area. these had their origin from north of pekin, china. most of the trees are three years old when sold and have been transplanted at least once. this gives us a good sized tree that transplants well and should bear some chestnuts in three or four years. sales are to people in our locality, although a few mail orders have been filled. so far, we have had no complaints. these are all seedling trees and until grafting or budding of named varieties becomes stabilized, i believe we should concentrate on growing large numbers of seedlings at a price within the reach of all who want chestnut trees. this spring some large chestnut seed received from a southern grower was planted for experimental purposes. i will bring them into bearing to learn whether they will bear as large a nut in our climate as they do in the southern states, and whether the kernel will be as sweet and have as good flavor as those grown in upstate new york. i have yet to see a tree growing in the rochester area bearing as large a nut as those grown in the southeast, and all the large nuts i have tasted did not seem to be as sweet as ours. probably the old saying "the smaller the nut, the sweeter the nut" is true. of course these are all seedling trees, but by this time we should know whether size of nut and sweetness of kernel are determined by climate or individual trees. our largest trees are eleven-year old seedlings of unknown origin. one is, i believe, outstanding. it started bearing when four years old and has consistently been a good producer. the nut is real chestnut in color and good size, running about seventy to the pound. i have not found a tree in this area bearing a larger nut. the kernel is sweet and the flavor excellent. the tree has good shape and limb structure, always sending up a central leader. this is the tree i would like to propagate. small nuts sell better last fall, i tried a selling experiment with chestnuts for eating, and sold small quantities of small and medium sized nuts at the rate of $ . a pound. however, no one seemed interested in the larger ones. they thought they were european chestnuts that sold here for $. a pound. i did not have many for sale, but i am convinced there is a market for good sweet chestnuts. it seems useless to compete with those imported from italy. ours are far superior, and many who remember the american chestnut, will, i believe pay a luxury price for good quality chestnuts. in , we purchased a - / acre piece of land, miles southwest of rochester for the purpose of planting a chestnut orchard. this land had not been worked for about twelve years. the soil is heavy and fertile, typed as poygan clay loam. bed rock is sixty feet below the surface. the following spring, we planted about trees and each year more are set out. there are now about trees from two to five years old, and most of them are growing well. the rows are twenty feet apart and the trees stand fifteen to twenty feet apart, in the row. i know this will be too close when the trees are full grown, but we have the trees and i want to bring as many into bearing as possible, searching for the ideal tree. we also expect to lose some trees through wild life and other causes. many of the first trees planted were lost the following year due to excessive rainfall, poor surface drainage, rabbit and meadow mouse damage. in two foot drainage ditches were dug across the property. this made it possible to plant trees successfully on most of the land. however, another ditch is needed to eliminate a low spot, then all of the land can be used. the meadow mouse that girded so many trees could not be controlled by the use of poison bait and the rabbit also did considerable damage. through the wild life service of the department of the interior, we obtained a repellant that was effective. it is distributed in the eastern states by the rodent control fund of the university of massachusetts. we have used it now for two years and have no more mouse or rabbit damage. the woodchuck does considerable damage even though we have eliminated all their dens on our land. they come in to feed from the neighboring areas and will have to be controlled by shooting. deer are also present but have as yet caused no damage. probably, they are waiting for the trees to grow larger. last spring, new growth on the trees was killed by a late freeze--a most unusual occurance for this area. this was caused by an excessively warm april, followed by below-freezing temperature in the middle of may. it was the first time in the memory of the oldest residents that black locust and native black walnut trees were damaged by a spring freeze. however, most of the trees recovered, but their growth was retarded. this spring several of the trees blossomed, but set no burs. in a few years, i hope to have more to report on this orchard project. (here was shown a chestnut tree picture.) mr. salzer: if anyone has any comments, if they think it has good limb structure, that's what we are looking for. mr. sherman: we could tell you better if we could see it when it's dormant. mr. weber: what sort of a cultivator do you use? mr. salzer: wheel cultivator. mr. weber: why don't you get a wheelmaster? you may not want to cultivate as often as if you had a power one. mr. chase: we shall now have another chestnut paper by alfred szego of long island. chestnuts in upper dutchess county, new york alfred szego - a th ave., jackson heights, new york city pulvers' corners, a collection of farmhouses, a gas station and ice cream parlor is located about miles from the northern connecticut border not too far from the southwestern tip of massachusetts. the berkshire hills roll through here and at this point we find ourselves at approximately the northern limits of the deciduous hardwood forest belt. here the american chestnut is native formerly growing in great abundance until stricken a mortal blow by the invincible chestnut blight. just a few hundred feet north of here on a hilltop, i started in , a different kind of nut tree plantation. placing main emphasis on the chestnut, a start was made on the cultivation of the thousands of sprouts and seedlings on my acre coppice forest. a cluster of ~castanea dentata~ seedlings that appeared promising was selected. the following practices proved fairly successful in keeping a few trees healthy, and bringing one into bearing in . for the interest of fellow members working along a similar line, i enumerate the following practices. . clean and thorough tree surgery, cutting out blight cankers immediately upon discovery. . removal of all very blight susceptible nearby sprouts and the burning of all infected branches and material. . artificial watering during drought periods. . application of superphosphate, muriate of potash and trace elements. es-min-el was used in our case. our soil tests high in nitrogen. . removal of all overstory trees and other interfering growth. it may be noted that the importance of hygiene and sanitation cannot be stressed too strongly. our own native chinkapin, ~castanea pumila~ when brought up north proves itself a delightful subject. outside of the weevil-infested area, it becomes a hardy producer of superb little chestnuts. this species offers great promise to the plant breeder because of its very early bearing ( - years from seed). perhaps hybridization with ~castanea mollissima~ varieties may bring something very fine and valuable. this species is tender during its first year but perfectly hardy afterwards. northern growers require special techniques to grow chinkapins from seed. the strains of chinese chestnut, ~castanea mollissima~ in most cases do not seem extremely happy here. the trees appear to sustain varying degrees of winter injury. the tips of the branches often freeze. usually the branch comes into leaf on the lower part first and then upwards. however, a few individuals appear perfectly hardy. the outlook is excellent for the discovery of exceptional individuals suitable for the northern zones. the japanese chestnut, ~castanea crenata~ shows very good adaptation to this region. although my trees of this species are young, very vigorous growth indicates some value here. unfortunately, the nuts have a bad after-taste when eaten raw thus limiting its commercial possibilities. i have noticed this undesirable characteristic in tasting hybrid nuts derived from trees possessing ~castanea crenata~ parentage. i was informed at beltsville that the hybrid known as s , a cross between ~castanea pumila~ and ~c. crenata~, was rejected for its poor quality nuts. i have established many other species of chestnuts and their hybrids. some of these are from seed obtained from the bell experimental plot of the u.s.d.a. at glenn dale, maryland. seed from this source has produced a much better grade of seedlings than those from anywhere else. a somewhat different version of the tin can planting method is now being used here. number two size and larger tin cans have a few punctures made with a hammer and nail in the bottom. these have their tops removed, of course, and after being filled with loose soil, are used as pots in which to start chestnuts. in the early spring germinating chestnuts are removed from jars, kept in my refrigerator. one is planted in each can flat side down, barely beneath the soil level. after the season has warmed up these "canned plants" are set out in a trench, buried to the rim. rock wool is placed around the stems of the seedlings covering the soil and the nut. this has acted as a rodent deterrent. the "canned plants" are then, at leisure, set out in their permanent places. just before doing this an ordinary beer can opener is used to enlarge the punctures in the bottom of the can to permit the roots to penetrate better. in a few years the can should disintegrate entirely and at no time will interfere with root growth. by holding the chestnuts under refrigeration and not planting in the fall i have kept my plantings free of the chestnut weevils. i found that by planting the flat side down, the stem seems to go down very easily, and the sprout coming up from it seems to go up more easily, also. discussion mr. rick: are they planted permanently in the can? mr. szego: yes, they are planted in the can. the can will disintegrate in two or three years. mr. rick: don't you have those in rows? mr. szego: no, i sometimes place them on the grass. the morning dew seems to provide enough moisture to carry through the dry spells. but, again, i live in a mountainous area. this may not apply out in oklahoma. mr. chase: next on the program is a demonstration of his method of propagating nut trees in pots in the greenhouse by mr. bernath, who has been very successful with this method. mr. bernath. demonstration of method of propagating nut trees in greenhouse stephen bernath, poughkeepsie, n. y. here is the way i handle the nut trees when we propagate under glass in the greenhouse. these are two-year seedlings potted up. that root is cut away and any large lateral roots that are too large to bend well we cut them off, and we take all the fibrous roots we can and put them in this pot. put your soil around it first, and when you have it nearly full, just the same as if you take your son and lay him on your knee and spank the butt good and put the soil around the roots. then pack it with your thumb and your potting is done. (taking scion) i use only one bud. one bud is good as a dozen. (cutting-with pruning knife.) mr. weber: how do you cut above the bud that you use above the graft? mr. bernath: if the nodes are far enough apart i put it farther, but i like to put it as short as i can but allow not less than half inch or an inch or more on top, and you cut it away after the union has taken and the growth started. sometimes some of them may have a growth of two inches before you take them out of the case. they are not uniform. some of them are way in advance of some of the others. some of them are tardy, slow. this is my budding knife, here, which is about years old. mr. chase: the question is asked, this isn't the time of year that you would do this, is it? mr. bernath: no, sir. i start in january. you can continue into april. you can take a batch out and put another batch in. mr. rick: how many weeks, usually, before you graft, after these are put in the case? mr. bernath: i would say that with most of your varieties it's from four to six weeks, with the exception of ornamentals. that will take six to eight, sometimes longer, but nut trees generally come on quickly. i have known them to have two inches of growth, i think, in three weeks. (sharpening knife.) a member: you are like the violinist. you have to tune up first. mr. bernath: yes, and never forget to wipe your knife. and remember not to put your finger on the fresh cut. (cutting). here is the cut before i insert the scion. in cutting your scion wood, now here is the butt. cut on the inside. when you cut on this side it throws the bud a little bit far out because it's on an angle. you know about the depth of the cut here, and you go like this: (cutting). a member: do you come down to a pretty good point? mr. bernath: (holding up scion.) a member: is that a side graft you are making there? mr. bernath: yes. (inserting scion in cut.) now, on this one i am going to use a rubber strip. dr. macdaniels: hold it up so we can see the whole thing as you have it stuck in there. that is a side graft with the bud next to the stock. mr. bernath: that's right. mr. rick: the scion was cut on both sides, was it, or one side? mr, bernath: yes, on both sides. mr. weber: wedge shape. mr. kintzel: an inch below the bud. mr. bernath: (wrapping graft) here is where your thumb comes into play. as you put this on, start right here (stretching rubber). see how far that can stretch? you cross it and you can take your finger off. now release it. have your finger on it. put this finger right here. all right, you see you get under, pull right up there. there it is, the graft is done. mr. emerson: you don't use any wax? mr. bernath: no wax whatsoever. never use any. mr. corsan: or any latex? mr. bernath: no, nothing at all. mr. rick: how do you slope this? mr. bernath: i have a little, miniature box here, and that would represent a bench in the greenhouse. (demonstrating). here is another one (taking another scion). mr. corsan: that's used by dentists and plastic surgeons. mr. bernath: now watch the difference. if the scion wood happened to be smaller than your stock, you cut accordingly. in other words, you are not going in as far. see (showing). or else you can cross it. now, just a minute, we will get that (making cut in stock; slicing scion off diagonally). you don't go up as high on this side. now, then, you take it, if you are a pretty good hand with a knife. that's all right, even if it's not shaped at all. there it is (inserting in cut). but one thing--i want to warn you, if you want to follow this, be careful not to rub the bud off in handling it. if you do, you might as well throw it away, because you are licked. mr. weber: that is one reason for having the bud face the stock? mr. bernath: no, but makes a better growth. persian walnut, i find, unless it's way far down on the trunk of a tree, will not form adventitious buds. now, you can do it with a chestnut. you can rub the main bud off and you will find two or three of them coming, or more, right around that place. but one of these walnuts will not form an adventitious bud, so you might as well throw it away, or if you knock off even the new growth on it, you might as well dump it, because it will not form a tree. now here is a tape that i use. mr. kintzel: rubber tape? mr. bernath: no, no, cloth. mr. stoke: that's about the same as surgical tape? mr. bernath: made especially for grafting, mr. stoke. now, you have to watch it closely because this is a tricky thing. mr. corsan: this is not called scotch tape? mr. bernath: no, this is made especially for grafting. you can get this from some of the boys. mr. weber: a. m. leonard and son, piqua, ohio. mr. rick: that will require more attention than the rubber. the rubber takes care of itself, where this one you have to take off. mr. weber: no, this decays. mr. bernath: you start right here on the stock. now you make sure that the scion-- mr. weber: you start at the top? mr. bernath: the top, always on the top. mr. weber: and that has a tendency to keep the scion worked down, whereas if you started at the bottom you might push it up. mr. bernath: you have quite a pressure right around there--watch it, because it will tear, and if it tears with you, why, it's so hard to get straightened out--and then press together. mr. weber: and you don't wax either the top, or anything? mr. bernath: no. now, the reason for leaving this under stock that long: if you are not careful, fungus growth will set in. if you cut right here, then the whole thing is affected with it, see. wrap it firmly and that is there on both sides, and when the union forms and the growth begins here, when you take them out of the case, for instance, now, you take a sharp pair of shears and cut as close as you can. (removes top of understock.) never mind if you cut the cloth, it doesn't make any difference. just cut it right there. snip it right off. but that is when you take them out of the grafting case. a member: wouldn't it also be all right to leave that stub on to tie your sprout to so it won't want to break? mr. bernath: no, you might be better off if you had a stake. put a stake on the side of it. when everything is right that surface will callus over right quickly. it may not seem so. it does make a perfect union unlike a graft of some other types. mr. weber: when you make that cut of the excess understock, you don't even wax? mr. bernath: no. you can if you want to, but i don't wax. just leave it like that. now the next operation. here is this miniature greenhouse. it's moist peat. that's just about the right substance. would anybody like to look at this? don't get it too wet. just walk right up here. mr. weber: it feels as if it's ground up. mr. bernath: it is. mr. corsan: mr. bernath, would that be the right stuff to put sweet chestnuts in in the fall? mr. bernath: you mean for sprouting? mr. corsan: yes. mr. bernath: that would be all right. mr. corsan: that's not too damp? mr. bernath: no. mr. corsan: i have put it in that and had the greatest success. mr. chase: now, folks, let's everybody sit down, and please keep quiet and try to absorb what's going on here. we can't have or individual conversations going on. mr. bernath: now here we have two pots grafted. now, of course, the bench in the greenhouse is wider and longer. here is what you do. you start the first row, just move the peat back like that, and you lay them in like that, one after the other, the pots on the side. mr. weber: with the bud side up? mr. bernath: that's right. now, you go right along. when you come to the next row, here is what you do (piling up peat) like that. if you want to cover the scion, all right; if you don't, perfectly all right. you can put electric heating coils under it. mr. rick: is there any advantage in sloping the top? would it matter if it was flat? mr. bernath: no, no, doesn't matter. this just happened to be an old melon box. i had started melons early in the spring. now, while the grafts are in the process of forming the unions, that is, when the cambium begins to form, you do not water until you take these out of the case. add no more water, but make sure your pots are moist enough. for instance, in this one, there is plenty of moisture for the period of incubation. mr. kintzel: how long? couple of weeks? mr. bernath: no. sometimes they start to grow in three weeks, but generally four weeks, maybe a little over. sometimes less; depends on everything. mr. sherman: what temperature in the greenhouse? mr. bernath: well, if you note in the springtime when the trees are beginning to grow, you know the night temperature goes down, while daytime may go up to , in the spring. all right, you follow nature, and you'll never go wrong. now, the temperature, at night, if it does go down around the fifties, or even less, doesn't do any harm. that's the house temperature. but under the benches where you have your heat coils, that's of course, at least , maybe a little better, and, of course, in daytime it may--well, it's all right if it goes up to , . then, of course, you have to ventilate through the house, and as a matter of fact, under the benches. take a lot of bags and nail them along the walk to keep the heat under the benches. that gives you the bottom heat. now, as i understand, some of our members have tried this method, but they applied too much heat. they burned them. if they didn't burn them, fungus growth set in, because there's high humidity in that box. you will see the moisture condensation on the glass. drops of water accumulate, and that's a thing you will have to guard against. so every morning give it at first about a -minute period when you take a dry cloth and wipe the surface moisture off the glass, the under side, to prevent the water from dripping on the unions here, to keep it dry. then as you go along you can increase that period, but not over minutes, until around the fourth week, you can generally put a stick under the glass to give more ventilation. when you see that the union is formed and everything is all right, take the glass off, take your grafts out and stand them up straight, and from there on you can water them, but not before. and then you cut these stocks off right there as close as you can get it, sort of an upward movement, like that (demonstrating with knife). mr. weber: it doesn't make any difference if you cut the rubber band that's on it or not? mr. bernath: no, not too much, if it's callused up good, if the union is hard enough. and then, of course, you put the glass on, and then you keep these grafts in the greenhouse. but don't forget now, something that is important, when you graft these. here we have a greenhouse over us. this little box represents the batch of grafts. don't forget you have to shade them. if you didn't shade these, they would burn to a crisp. i have lost several hundred blue spruce grafts by going away on a day when it was cloudy and i forgot to tell mrs. bernath, "if the sun comes out, raise the sash." when i came home, this part of the greenhouse was shaded; now, in this corner here i think it was around beautiful grafts but the next day i was going to take them out. they were burnt to a crisp. i saved a few trees right where it was shady. mr. caldwell: the blue spruce are grafted by the same method? mr. bernath: yes, i use this method for inside grafting for everything. mr. caldwell: use this method for shagbarks the same way? mr. bernath: yes, same way with hickories and oaks. mr. weber: what sort of shading element do you use? anything real tight, or how? mr. bernath: yes, air tight. the grafting case has got to be air tight. mr. weber: the shade? mr. bernath: oh, any kind of cloth, cheesecloth, muslin. i know that will do it. mr. chase: whitewash? mr. bernath: that's all right, too. if you use whitewash, i would recommend using white lead with gasoline and just spray it on. that will help a lot, but i generally use a cloth for shade. mr. o'rourke: why do you place the scions so that the bud is on the inside? mr. bernath: it makes a straighter tree. the other way it's inclined to grow out this way (indicating). it grows toward the stock, makes a straighter tree. mr. stoke: i think there is one more advantage there. on the edge next to the stock you get a better contact than you do on that lip on the outside, and it leads more directly into the bud. dr. crane: less danger, too, that that bud will rub off. mr. bernath: keep them shaded, but only per cent shade. and then in about two weeks you take the shade off, let the sun shine on it. it doesn't hurt--over the glass. and then you take these pots when danger of frost is over, plant them out, in nursery rows, or, if you want to put them in permanent places, it's perfectly all right. take this, put your finger under like that (demonstrating), give her a tap, and the ball comes out of the pot in your hand. and if it's permanent, plant it down to here; cover the union. mr. weber: and the scion eventually forms its own root? mr. bernath: it will. you will find that pot will be filled up with fibrous root. mr. szego: when do you take the tape off? mr. bernath: don't take it off at all. it will decay. mr. miller: but the same graft can't be used outside without grafting wax, can it? mr. bernath: yes, you have to wax outside. that's right, you have to use wax. otherwise the grafting method is the same for top-working. mr. miller: because in there you have it air tight. outside you have to wax. mr. bernath: you can't do it without wax, not outside. but budding you can do without wax outside. this is a whole plant right here. that's a whole plant root, and this is right in this four-inch pot. that tap root is cut away and all the lateral roots, finer roots, put right in there and put in soil like any transplanted plant. dr. rohbacher: when do you put that stock in the house? mr. bernath: if you want to start work in january, towards the end of december after the understock has had the rest period. you can store them, unless you are in a place where you don't get much frost in your ground. dr. rohbacher: you have to dig those up in the fall? mr. bernath: you have to dig these up about three weeks before you want to graft. there is another point i should have been wide awake enough to tell you in the beginning: when you put these in the bench put them in peat moss like that, because otherwise it would be next to impossible to keep those plants moist enough. mr. weber: that's standing upright. mr. bernath: upright until you graft. that's only the understock. watch them closely, say about two weeks, and you may test it. in other words, knock these out and examine the root system. when you see those little white rootlets beginning to grow like thin macaroni, white, most of them, that's a sign that you had better get busy grafting. mr. weber: but not until you see the edges of those roots poking through. mr. rick: and the stock isn't in the case until you are ready to graft? mr. bernath: they are in the benches, but not in the case. no outside cover except just the glass of the house. that's about all there is to it. it isn't much. mr. rick: it's been a wonderful demonstration. mr. szego: when do you cut your scion wood? mr. bernath: oh, i get scion wood from december on, late december, january and february. mr. rick: it would be all right just to go out to the tree and cut your scions and bring them in and the next day graft? mr. bernath: yes. well, no. i like to store them a little bit, for the reason that the starches will form. it's amazing how wood will act after you cut it, provided it doesn't dry out. all those cells, you know, in that they form what we call a certain type of starch. you can do it all right with apple trees and pear trees. you can put it right on the tree right from the tree, but i wouldn't advise it on the nut trees. mr. rick: do you keep your scions cool until you are ready to use them? a member: my way of keeping it is in fresh sawdust. that's the best means. mr. weber: do you dampen it any? mr. bernath: yes. and i have nothing but an earth cellar where i store my scion wood, and they keep well until june. mr. rick: to prevent fungus would it be a good idea to dip them in a weak solution of bordeaux? mr. bernath: i never tried it. i couldn't say. that's one reason why sometimes some of our members here wonder why i write and say, "please do not wax." i do not want a waxed scion. as far as i am concerned, i would throw them right out. i wouldn't bother to graft them. mr. corsan: you just put them in damp sawdust? mr. bernath: yes, put them in damp peat or even damp newspaper, wrap it and ship it. (newspaper is very good for this purpose.--j. c. mcd.) mr. corsan: and no waxing. mr. bernath: no. mr. stoke: i agree with you. i got some scions that were waxed, and the scion was beautifully green and every bud was dead. mr. bernath: that's it again. the reason for that is that you have to heat the wax to make it thin enough, and the reaction of the heat is bad for the scion wood. mr. stoke: i don't believe it's that alone. i believe a bud can't go without air for a great length of time. it is a living organism and needs the air. those scions had come from europe, and every one was dead. mr. bernath: mr. silvis will tell you how he keeps his scions good. mr. silvis: through goodrich chemical company i was interested in what dr. shelton, another ohio member who is a chemist, had available, an emulsion called "goodrite latex vl- ." that's the agricultural and horticultural designation for its use. otherwise, industrially it's known as geon xx, and some other names. mr. corsan: that is the latex that congeals quickly? mr. silvis: yes. it's water soluble and makes a very stiff; impervious water barrier on everything it becomes attached to. therefore, if you dipped the entire scion--usually i go out and cut scion wood and maybe even as late as the next day dip it in the latex. then after it's dried for five minutes, i can take and throw it in the garage and leave it there until june, july and august, and i can take it to the refrigerator, the same thing. i think the refrigerator is the best place. mr. sherman: you know last march, at the ohio meeting there was some wood dipped there, and the latter part of may i came through and picked up a piece and brought it in to harrisburg in the back of my car in the window where it was cooked in transportation, and it made two inches of growth in the harrisburg office just lying on my desk. mr. silvis: i have seen it happen, and it doesn't restrict the growth. i have had it on filberts, persian walnut, and hickory. then when i cut my stock by using a simple splice graft, in grafting it i use a rubber band, same rubber band they used here, tie it and just forget about it. you don't need the additional shading, and you don't need additional waxing. dr. macdaniels: can you use that material as a wax? do you put on additional wax? mr. silvis: it isn't necessary in a splice graft, because you have got a good union. dr. macdaniels: suppose you haven't got a good union? mr. silvis: i wouldn't use it anyway, because you are covering the cut portion pretty well anyhow. mr. rick: is this outside or inside? mr. silvis: i would say outside. you dip the wax at degrees temperature. any colder than that would allow it to congeal. it's thick. i am not sure about this, but i think you can dilute it with about eight parts water, if you wish, six or eight parts water to one part latex. it still will make a complete coverage. that's for scion storage, and it does eliminate making boxes in some places where they have storage problems. it eliminates the storage problem and eliminates waxing immediately after grafting. mr. weber: your method completely shuts off the air from the bud the same as waxing would do. mr. silvis: and any water going in. mr. stoke: i was wondering how long you kept it. you said it was soluble in water. you mean before it sets up? mr. silvis: before it sets up. mr. lowerre: that's if it's a suspension. it is some time before the water sets up. mr. stoke: retaining moisture and yet being soluble, and that's the thing i wanted to clarify. mr. silvis: if you leave it out, it is a dispersal, let's call it, but it appears like shellac after it is dry. (editor's note: see fuller discussion in report, pp. - .) mr. chase: i think we all owe mr. bernath a vote of thanks for showing us this. (applause.) we will visit his place tomorrow, and if you have additional questions, i am sure he will be glad to answer them for you. he has left the grafting case over here for anyone to see. mr. sherman: in case of heavy rain tomorrow, what are the plans? mr. salzer: wear rubbers. mr. chase: we are not going to have any rain tomorrow. (he was right.--ed.) we have a short paper here that i have asked dr. anthony to summarize for us, "experiences in nut growing near lake erie," by ross p. wright, erie, pennsylvania. dr. anthony: mr. wright is a very interesting man and has a very interesting plantation. he is a manufacturer and fortunately has a son who is mature and married and as interested in the work as he, so there is a continuity that we are pretty sure of. experiences in nut growing near lake erie ross pier wright, erie, pennsylvania this report should be made by my son richard wright. he is in charge of the farm but is on a trip to europe with his family and will not return in time for your meeting. the farm is located in the chautauqua grape belt; due to the proximity of lake erie, which acts as a heat reservoir, it is not as a rule bothered by the late frosts in the spring or early frosts in the fall, this making it a very satisfactory climate for concord grapes. peaches are also grown commercially. the village of westfield is located on the main road between erie and buffalo, and the wright family has lived there for the past years. we have several hundred acres and really started the endeavor more with the idea of seeing if nuts might be profitably grown, without any idea of going into the nut business. in , years ago, we planted a three acre plot with several varieties of nut trees obtained from nurseries. they were black walnuts, hickories, hazel nuts, pecans, english walnuts, and japanese heartnuts. the black walnuts are native of westfield and the trees we planted have done well. the only hickories that survived were two siers hickories. we did not think much of them until recently as they did not fill out any too well, but the last three or four years they have for some reason decided to fill better. due to the extremely thin shell they are very easily cracked and at the moment we think quite highly of these siers hickories. we have a nut cracker made by the dazey corporation of st. louis, missouri, which costs $ . or $ . . it is very effective with the siers but does not crack thick shelled hickories very well. on the other hand it is ideal for pecans and english walnuts. the filberts in this field are not very satisfactory, with the exception of the winkler hazel. these usually bear very well. the trouble with the filberts is that the catkins are quite prone to winter kill but the winkler hazel seems to be more hardy. there again we think more of them since we have used the dazey nut cracker. the winkler nuts are rather small and have quite a hard shell and if a hammer is used it is quite likely to crush the kernel. the english walnuts we planted at that time were not of a hardy type and were prone to winterkill. there are really only two stunted trees left. the pecans do not winterkill but the nuts do not fill. the japanese heartnuts we planted were successful. one of them we consider very satisfactory and is worthy of propagation. we call it the lobular heartnut. in the spring of , years ago, we obtained a half bushel of heartnuts from our representative in japan and planted them. three years later we interplanted some of the trees in a four acre field in which we were planting as permanent trees some snyder and thomas black walnuts. reporting on that field as it is today we will say that these walnuts and heartnuts, up to five years ago, bore very well indeed and the nuts filled properly, but the last few years the nuts have not filled properly although they have received nitrate of soda. we are somewhat in a quandry as to the reason for it. adjoining the field is a black walnut tree, probably years old, which always bore nuts and they have always filled up to the last few years. in this field where the majority of the seedling heartnuts have been planted there was the usual interesting difference in the nuts. some were of the true heartnut variety, some had the rough shaggy shell and shape of a butternut and others were round and looked like english walnuts. some of the heartnut trees have developed a disease called witches'-broom or bunch disease. there does not, to date, seem to be any cure for it. we used some heavy applications of zinc sulphate and thought the trouble had improved but the improvement seems to have been only temporary. in this field also are the trees which clarence reed designated as the wright heartnut and the westfield heartnut. in to , to years ago, we grafted about hickories with various varieties. they were grafted in a grove of hickories which were on our farm and which were perhaps eight inches in diameter. this endeavor did not prove to be much of a success. some of the grafts died after a year or two and the others which have continued to live do not appear to bear to any extent. we would have to mark that particular endeavor down as very close to a failure. perhaps if we had given the grafting endeavor more attention we might have had different results but we are in the manufacturing business in erie, pennsylvania, and really look upon the westfield, new york, farm as a type of relaxation. in those years to industry was experiencing a major distress and i am afraid most of our attention was given to our factory rather than our farm. in fact, that situation applies very largely to all of our nut endeavors. there is an old scotch saying "the eye of the master fattens the kine," and during the last or years when we in industry have experienced a tremendous depression followed by a war it has meant that those interested have had to watch their manufacturing plants to the detriment of their other interests regardless of how much they regretted it. in , years ago, we became interested in chestnuts as a possible commercial crop. we purchased a quantity from j. russell smith, interplanting them in a vineyard we expected to pull out as it was getting too old. two years later, through the cooperation of clarence reed, dr. gravatt, also others at beltsville, maryland, we got some , seedlings of various types, some being hybrids. as some of these bore we planted what we thought were the best nuts in a nursery and at present have about chestnut trees ranging from three years old up to years. there is some blight occasionally showing which appears to be on the hybrids. about acres of the chestnuts were interplanted in vineyards which we were planning to pull out. during the war, however, the price of grapes was quite high and we left the grapes, pulling the last of them out this spring. due to cultivation of the grapes an appreciable number of the nut trees were cut out accidentally, and have later been filled in with seedlings, with the result that the orchard has a rather peculiar appearance. the mature trees, this year, have been doing, we think, very well, and a great majority of them are bearing from a light crop to a rather heavy crop. up to date we have had no trouble with worm in our chestnuts. in fact we have not found a single wormy chestnut. this interests us appreciably, as when the old american chestnuts were common on our farm it would seem as if hardly a chestnut escaped a worm hole if you kept them long enough. if you ate the chestnuts immediately it wasn't so bad--the worms were probably too small to be observed. we understand that in some sections chinese chestnuts are attacked by worms but i repeat we haven't had one to date. our chestnuts are planted largely in volusia clay loam on fields where chestnuts formerly flourished. this soil is not fertile, as soils go, and the trees will probably not grow as large nor will they grow as fast as if planted in a more fertile soil. at first we used a spacing of feet but we now use feet, which we think will be satisfactory for our farm. since the chestnuts have come into bearing and the project has become to some extent a commercial one, we are more interested in doing what we can for the trees. we are convinced that the mulching process is to be recommended. there is some sawdust to be obtained in this section and as far as it goes we have covered the ground under the branches of the trees with a mulch of sawdust about five or six inches deep. we will not know how successful that is for a few years. we have planted the fields with a cover crop of rye grass and orchard grass, and this month are cutting it and throwing it under the trees. we have some adjoining fields which were in hay but which had rather run out. we are cutting these likewise and throwing the hay under the trees. we believe if we keep this practice up for a few years we will have a reasonable mulch under the trees. we have become interested in reed canary grass. we have had a few sample patches of it and are going to plant a couple of outside fields with it to be used for mulch. it grows stronger than any other northern grass with which we are conversant, and therefore would produce more mulch. we are also giving the land two rather heavy applications of mixed fertilizer each year. we think the chief thing we have learned about chestnuts is that the first few years the trees should be cultivated, fertilized, watered, and mulched. you cannot handle them the way you could, for instance, christmas trees by simply sticking them in a field of grass. the first year they should be watered every ten days if they require it, and watered the second year if there is a real drought. in closing we would say that as far as our immediate section is concerned, it is our guess that chestnuts are the only nuts which might appear to have commercial possibilities. of course, at present, the nuts sell at quite a high price and i fear beyond their value. what will happen when the numerous orchards which have been planted in the last few years come into bearing is any man's guess. we do not believe that the black walnuts would ever prove a commercial success here, although they normally do well. of course the trouble is the competition of the wild nuts from other sections. on the other hand, if some one had the time to give to working up a market for the improved black walnuts, he might get some profit out of it. if i were younger, i might want to try growing a number of winkler hazel nuts. i think hazel nuts covered with chocolate make a very attractive candy, and here, in this section, the winkler seems to be immune to blight and other troubles. this year, for the first time in our recollection, the frost got them and the crop is very light. i do not know just what to say about the heartnuts. they might not have enough flavor to suit some people, but when eaten with salt i think they are delicious. they are very free cracking. we have one, the lobular, which as soon as they are cracked can be shaken out of the shell. i am disturbed however over the bunch disease to which some of them are subject. please note that our remarks in regard to the commercial possibilities of these various nuts has reference to our farm at westfield and to no other place. i regret i am not going to be at your meeting to endeavor to answer any question which might be asked. discussion of mulches dr. anthony: mr. sherman and i were there a few years ago, and he has very definitely given up the heartnut and black walnut. many trees in this area are affected with this bunch disease, which caused failure to set, and he has very definitely decided that he is out of those two nuts. mr. frye: that sawdust, how old must it be, and how green have you used? dr. anthony: we have used sawdust in our fruit tree work. there is a period when i don't like it. when it's raw and going down, it uses a good deal of nitrogen. also, if it gets dry, it will blow. also when it gets dry it will run off with the water, and i would like to use it pretty well rotted down when i get it, and usually you can find old rotted piles. if you do use it on trees where nitrogen is a factor, you probably will have to use additional nitrogen. now, with the chestnut where you want to mature them fairly early in the fall, it might work all right, because it will withhold the nitrogen in the breakdown of your sawdust. but apparently, it works pretty well. i think it was mr. sam hemming who suggested using it in the rows. most of our state forests and waters nurseries in their seedling beds, plant their seedlings, including chestnuts, make a mixture of sawdust and sand, about one of sawdust and two of sand, and then broadcast that right over their seeds. the seeds are broadcast on the firm soil, then this mixture of sawdust and sand is broadcast over the seeds. that gives a uniform planting of your seeds and gives a very nice protection. there is one place that i think sawdust works very nicely. straw mulch, any material of that kind, in breaking down takes nitrogen from the soil. they are all good if you balance that loss of nitrogen that is lost during the period of breakdown. now, there comes a time, if you put a mulch on the soil and let it stay there for six or eight years and keep building it up, when you pass imperceptibly from straw into soil, and when you reach that time, your breakdown of your straw is usually done without taking nitrogen from your soil itself, and from that time on you may release nitrogen. but until you get that imperceptible transformation from straw to soil, there is a time when the breakdown of the straw uses your nitrogen, which is all right, if it's late in the season, but not early. i'd want to watch my trees and get my nitrogen on early, then let the straw use it later on. a member: the migration of nitrogen--is there some such migration, and is it just in the case of the sawdust? dr. anthony: you put it right on top, it's much worse. you can put it right on top and it will take a year or two to pass through that period where the utilization in the breaking down of the straw is greater than the release of nitrogen. if it's mixed in the soil, the tree gets more of it. mr. stoke: how deep is that effect on the soil? dr. anthony: we have used straw, hay, weeds, sawdust, chips, anything of the kind, putting on a to -inch layer. as i say, it takes from one to three years to get through that period. now, massachusetts has the longest continuous use--all of new england has--of mulch, and they are reaching a point now where some of the mulches are ten years old where the release of nitrogen is too much and they get poor color on mcintosh. i think with the chinese chestnut this is one thing we have got to watch to get good maturity. going farther and farther south, you have more trouble. as you go to the north, our trees color more easily, and there you wouldn't want to force them, as our new england people find. they are releasing too much nitrogen late in the season. so i would not want to use long, continued mulch in the chestnut, i'd watch my maturity, and the minute they get a little slow in maturing, i'd quit. mr. berst: how about corn cobs? mr. jay smith: how about anything in the street, leaves? dr. anthony: anything like that, whether it's oak or maple. one goes down as quickly as the other. mr. corsan: on the way down here i called in to see rodale, and we found him in a mass of brewer's hops and ground up corn cobs. he had them in the chicken house, and you know how a chicken house smells. he had no smell in the chicken house. we looked all through his place, and we saw another big pile of furs, mink, and such trimming off of them, a big pile about that high (indicating), and that will go down. he had everything under the sun in the way of mulch, but corn cobs ground up fine was the chief one in sight. personally, i like to grow the mulch on the land right there. we can grow it--up to ton of green mulch to the acre. i have done it many, many times. you have something there that goes down quickly. the very growing of that through the latter part of the summer also uses the nitrogen and hardens up your trees. then we turn it down and within two to three weeks we have it reseeded, and so we are growing a constant supply in the soil-itself. you get the same effect as hauling in your mulch. it's cheaper, usually, and you get, i think, a little bit better control. your mulches are not dry, they are turned under when--well, it's crimson clover in the red, right in the blossom. they go down very quickly. we leave as much as possible on the surface. i think it's a little cheaper and a little more satisfactory control. i put them on quite green. i find they rot much quicker. mr. chase: i will now turn the gavel back to dr. macdaniels, who will take over. dr. macdaniels: thank you, very much, mr. chase. perhaps we had better take a -minute recess. (whereupon, a short recess was taken.) nominating committee elected dr. macdaniels: we will proceed with the election of a nominating committee. that committee is elected. it is a committee of three, and the nominations come from the floor. the present nominating committee is mr. stoke, mr. sylvester shessler, and mr. sterling smith. now, i guess it is a good plan to change the nominating committee, and i think we ought to have regional representation. i think that is important. does anybody have a nomination? say we start in the middle west. a member: mr. silvis. dr. macdaniels: he will take it. that's middle. another nomination from the farther west. mr. chase: mr. chairman, i nominate dr. crane. dr. macdaniels: that would be south atlantic. mr. weber: i nominate mr. chase. dr. macdaniels: do you wish to nominate more than three and have a ballot? mr. frye: i move nominations be closed. dr. macdaniels: nominations closed. do you move to have the secretary cast a unanimous ballot? dr. mckay: so move, mr. chairman. mr. weber: proceed with the election. dr. macdaniels: the motion is that nominations be closed and the secretary be instructed to cast a ballot for the slate as nominated. any further discussion? if not, all in favor say "aye." (a vote was taken on the motion, and it was carried unanimously.) dr. macdaniels: carried. resolutions dr. macdaniels: is the resolutions committee here? mr. allaman, i believe you are president of the pennsylvania group, are you not? mr. allaman: yes. "in the passing of clarence a. reed, who was a nut culturist of the united states department of agriculture, we not only lost a friend in the experimental field, but also a dear personal friend. mr. reed was keenly interested in all phases of nut culture, devoting practically his entire life to this work. we are more deeply indebted to him than can be expressed. paraphrasing what lincoln said of the dead soldiers at gettysburg, it remains for us to continue the effort and build upon the foundation to which he so largely contributed. "therefore, be it resolved that the secretary of this association spread upon the record this resolution and send a copy to mrs. reed." dr. macdaniels: you have heard this resolution. i think it would be appropriate we move to accept and adopt this by a rising vote. (whereupon, a rising vote was taken.) dr. macdaniels: there are two other resolutions mr. allaman will read. mr. allaman: "the northern nut growers association in its forty-first meeting expresses its appreciation for the fine accomodations for its meeting place supplied by post no. of the american legion. the association also desires to compliment the post on its foresight in providing this community with such a satisfactory meeting place. "may it therefore be resolved that the secretary spread this upon the minutes and send a copy to the legion." another resolution: "we, the members of the northern nut growers association, express our keen appreciation of the very efficient services of mrs. stephen bernath and gilbert l. smith and others for their splendid accommodations at this convention." dr. macdaniels: these two resolutions, do you wish to accept them or adopt them together? dr. crane: move that they be adopted as a whole. dr. macdaniels: moved that they be adopted together. any discussion? if not, all in favor say "aye." (whereupon, a vote was taken on the motion, and it was carried unanimously.) dr. macdaniels: passed without dissent. are there other resolutions anyone has from the floor? (no response.) report of auditing committee dr. macdaniels: the auditing committee's report. mr. weber: i have it. "we have found from our examination of the treasurer's records that his accounts are in proper balance and that the statement of his bank account, issued by his bank as of august , , shows he had on deposit in the erie county united bank of vermilion, ohio, the sum of $ . . we feel our treasurer, mr. sterling a. smith, has faithfully discharged his duties during the current year and recommend his continuance in that office, nomination for which has already, of course, taken place. royal oakes, chairman, auditing committee." (applause.) dr. macdaniels: it all sounds very legal. i think it's all right. i take it that applause indicates the acceptance of the report. unless i hear dissent, we will take that to be so. dr. crane: move the report of the auditing committee be accepted. dr. macdaniels: o.k., we will make it legal. who will second the motion? mr. stoke: second. dr. macdaniels: moved and seconded that the auditing committee report be accepted. (a vote was taken on the motion, and it was carried unanimously.) election of - officers dr. macdaniels: next will be the election of officers, and we will ask the chairman of the nominating committee to give his report. inasmuch as i am apparently concerned, i will hand the gavel to mr. chase for the election. mr. chase: we'd like to hear the report from the chairman of the nominating committee, mr. stoke. mr. stoke: most of you no doubt heard the report of the nominating committee at our first session, but we nominated dr. william rohrbacher of iowa city, iowa, for president, and for vice-president our perennial candidate here, who has disappeared from the scene, renominating dr. l. h. macdaniels. we hope to make him president next time. if he doesn't make it next time, i think we will have to throw him out. and for the secretary, our friend, joe mcdaniel. they are not relatives. and the treasurer, repeating officer, sterling smith. the secretaryship and treasurership shouldn't change any more often than necessary. mr. sterling smith: i object. before you move on that, i'd like to say that it isn't really legal, i think, that i should have been on the nominating committee, and being one of the officers, it would be very well taken on my part if there were any nominations from the floor. mr. chase: we are coming to that. any objections that we have nominations from the floor? are there any nominations for president? mr. wellman: move nominations be closed. mr. chase: are there any other nominations for vice-president? (no response.) i am sure we must have one for the treasurer. (no response.) do we have any for secretary? mr. corsan: why not have the former miss jones president again? mr. stoke: she becomes a member of the board of directors, and i think it would be out of order to elect her to another office. mr. corsan: i withdraw it. mr. chase: now i will entertain your motion, mr. wellman. mr. wellman: i move it. mr. chase: it has been moved that the slate by the nominating committee be accepted. dr. crane: second. (whereupon, a vote was taken on the motion, and it was carried unanimously.) mr. chase: dr. macdaniels, you may come in now. dr. crane: we moved that nominations be closed. we haven't accepted them. mr. stoke: when you are through, i have a resolution to offer. dr. crane: move that the report of the nominating committee be accepted and we proceed with the election by voice vote. all in favor of having the secretary cast a ballot for the slate nominated by our nominating committee please signify by saying "aye." (a vote was taken on the motion, and it was carried unanimously.) mr. stoke: i would like to make a motion that we elect a parliamentarian, and i wish to nominate dr. crane. mr. sterling smith: second the motion. (a vote was taken on the motion, and it was carried unanimously.) mr. frye: we elected a parliamentarian last year. i wonder how it's coming on. dr. crane: i have a report on it. mr. weber: mr. john davidson, xenia, ohio. mr. mcdaniel: he was parliamentarian before we made him our president. mr. weber: that's passed on to dr. crane. mr. chase: now, dr. macdaniels, you may come in. dr. macdaniels: hope it's legal. is there any further business? do you think of any, mr. weber? mr. weber: hold it open until after the banquet. then if we think of something that we have left out, we haven't adjourned. dr. macdaniels: i will adjourn this particular session and give the gavel to our new president. mr. weber: we adjourn until this evening at the banquet. dr. anthony: before you bang it down, may i make one announcement? i thought you would be interested in an action that the pennsylvania nut growers have taken. mr. allaman, it is o.k. to report that committee appointment? dr. macdaniels: the question is raised as to the time of the next meeting. the place has been decided. the time, i think, has to be left to be worked out with the authorities at illinois, is that right? do you want to say a word, dr. colby? dr. colby: it is difficult, if not impossible, to give an exact date right now, because we don't know at this time what our facilities for meeting rooms and lodging will be on any particular date in the latter part of the month of august. we will have to check and find out the best days, if that is agreeable to the group. dr. macdaniels: does this group wish to express a preference as to the last week in august or the first week in september? in other words, it would be the week before labor day, or the week after. that wouldn't necessarily fix it, but it would give the committee, if there were no other restrictions as to available facilities, would be a guide for a choice. mr. wellman: call for a show of hands. dr. macdaniels: i will do that. those who would prefer a meeting date comparable to this year? (showing of hands.)[ ] those who prefer the week after labor day? (no hands raised.) [ ] the meeting will be at the university of illinois in urbana, august and , to be followed with a tour in western illinois for those who can stay through the morning of august . mr. sterling smith: maybe those who prefer the after labor day date aren't here now. dr. rohrbacher: i just want to say i appreciate very much the honor that has been bestowed upon me. i appreciate the fact that the president is purely an emblem, a figurehead, but with the staff that's under him, it's the same as in the post office department of the united states, the head receives all the salary and his understudies do all the work. so it's a very appropriate setting, and we should go forward under a very good staff of men that have been elected to the positions under that of the president. one thing i want to say in regard to the problem that came up last night that was discussed: that as the president, i can assure you that the vice-presidents are certainly not going to be emblems if they expect to continue on in their positions in the various states that are in the group, because the working out of this problem, the success of it, is going to depend on how well these vice-presidents carry out their work. i thank you. dr. macdaniels: we will close this session until tonight. i will give dr. rohrbacher the gavel. (whereupon, at : o'clock, p.m., the tuesday afternoon session of the northern nut growers association was closed.) note on the annual tour, august , the third day of the annual meeting, as is customary with the association, was spent touring interesting nut plantings in the vicinity. the first stop was bernath's nursery, southwest of pleasant valley, where he has his greenhouse, young nut plants, and a number of fruiting trees. the second stop was on the grounds of the state school at wassaic, where many grafted nut trees, particularly walnuts, are thriving, due to the interest and activity of gilbert l. smith, when he was on the staff there. a picnic lunch was served in the recreational area of the school grounds. here dr. w. c. deming of hartford, conn., dean of the association, was on hand to greet many of his old friends. after lunch we visited mr. stephen bernath's farm nut planting, then the topworked hickory woods on mr. wm. a. benton's farm out of millerton. at the benton and smith nut nursery, also on the farm, the tour was concluded. obituaries harry r. weber members were saddened to hear of the death, on his way home, of harry r. weber, who had taken an active part in the meeting at pleasant valley, as he did in most of the meetings since the very earliest years of the association. we shall have a more complete obituary in the next volume. george b. rhodes covington, tenn., dec. , --services for george b. rhodes of mt. carmel who died saturday at : p.m. at his home will be held sunday afternoon at at the clopton methodist church. the rev. david olhansen, pastor of the church, assisted by the rev. e. d. farris of henning will officiate. burial will be in the clopton cemetery. mr. rhodes, who was , was born at clopton, tenn., and spent his entire lifetime in tipton county. he was the first county agent of tipton county. he was interested in the budding of pecans and had operated a nursery for the past years. he was a member of the clopton methodist church. he leaves his wife, mrs. ivie drake rhodes of covington; two sons, sol rhodes of tampa, fla., and marion rhodes of beverly hills, calif.; two daughters, mrs. r. b. davie of covington and mrs. lillian bringley of memphis; two sisters, mrs. pauline meacham of senatobia, miss., and mrs. mattie nelson of forrest city, ark., and two brothers, sam rhodes of bolivar, and duke rhodes of san francisco, calif.; seven grandchildren and five great grandchildren.--reprinted from a memphis paper. mr. rhodes' greatest contribution to nut growing was the discovery and first propagation of a heartnut variety mow called rhodes. it is the most successful heartnut yet tried in western tennessee, a reliable and heavy cropper, and one of the best cracking varieties of all known heartnuts. it deserves testing in other areas. note: the following members of the n. n. g. a. have died recently, and we hope to have fuller obituaries on them in the next volume: charles c. dean, of anniston, ala. (died september , .) henry gressel, of mohawk, n. y. (died in june, .) w. n. achenbach, of petoskey, mich. l. b. hoyer, of omaha, nebr. life member wang is in hong kong in our report there was a note that our only chinese member, p. w. wang, had probably died, since he had not been heard from since . mr. wang, we are happy to report, has recently written to us from hong kong. many of the nut trees he planted while secretary of the kinsan arboretum at chuking (not chungking) in kiangsu province had survived the japanese invasions and were fruiting in , but are now in communist hands. mr. wang hopes some day to be able to send to america scions of a fine pecan (seedling of teche variety) which he fruited at chuking. meanwhile, he wishes to have nut literature and catalogues sent to him at his present address: p. w. wang, c/o china products trading corporation, des voeux road, central, hong kong. letters nuts in quebec july , dr. george l. slate, associate professor, new york state agricultural experiment station, geneva, new york dear dr. slate: i am very much flattered by your invitation to prepare a paper on nut culture in quebec. my only regret is that for two reasons i am unable to comply with your request. the first is that i am quite ignorant on the subject. it is only lately that i have developed an interest in this matter when i suddenly found myself responsible for a so-called "arboretum" which is now mainly empty space that i am endeavoring to fill. the fact that shagbark hickory and butternut were common in our woods and that some of our neighbors have apparently flourishing individual trees of black walnut served to arouse my interest in the question. one neighbour has a tree of what he calls "french walnut" because they came from near lyons, france, which are evidently the ordinary english or persian walnut. furthermore, i have been advised that there is quite a grove of black walnut near lotbiniere, quebec, which is on the south shore of the st. lawrence not far from the city of quebec. i understand that it was planted some seventy-five years ago and trees are now timber size. indeed, i was told that the owner was offered a considerable sum during the war--the wood was wanted for gun stocks. i have not been there to verify this. however it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to get several specimens of various nut species that might grow here to place in the arboretum--this might incidentally give some information on what species would survive our winters. the second reason that i am unable to write any article on nut culture in quebec is because as far as i know there is no nut culture here. most of the trees i refer to were simply planted as ornamentals. i have never been able to locate anyone who has taken any particular interest in growing them for the nuts. i would like very much to extend my knowledge on the subject by attending your meeting at poughkeepsie, new york, on august th to th, but unfortunately i will be absent in nova scotia on those dates. following your information i secured some literature on northern nut culture and will look forward to receiving any further information along this line that may be forthcoming. again thanking you for your courtesy and assuring you of my continued interest, i am, yours very truly, w. h. brittain vice-principal, macdonald college of mcgill university macdonald college, quebec, canada note: i believe that perhaps the things mentioned in his second paragraph should be followed up.--h.l.s. pecans produce poorly in middle atlantic states november , dr. lewis e. theiss lewisburg, pennsylvania dear dr. theiss: speaking of pecans, we have harvested the first crop this year here on the station, from trees planted in , of the varieties indiana, greenriver, busseron and major. even though these nuts were not harvested until november they are poorly filled. it seems that we just cannot mature them here in an average season. our trees have not grown satisfactorily and although they may bloom, the nuts normally fail to mature. our summers are not long enough and the day and night temperatures are not high enough uniformly to satisfactorily produce pecans even in this area. very truly yours, h. l. crane principal horticulturist, division of fruit and vegetable crops and diseases u. s. plant industry station. beltsville, maryland ~editor's note:~ dr crane's experience is exactly similar to my own. the pecans in the grounds at my country home were well loaded with nuts this year, . i doubt if a single nut was half filled.--l. e. t. nut tree diseases in europe and turkey november , dr. lewis e. theiss lewisburg, pennsylvania dear dr. theiss: i have only recently returned from three and one-half months spent in europe, primarily on chestnut problems, as a consultant for the economic cooperation administration. the trip was made at the request and expense of european interests, except while i was up in the scandinavian countries and at the th international botanical congress. i gave a paper at the congress, entitled "the world-wide spread of forest diseases," in which chestnut blight received limited attention. in italy, chestnut blight, ~endothia parasitica~, was first reported at genoa in , although it started there much earlier. it is now widely distributed here and there as far south as the naples area. no confirmed infections have been reported from sicily, sardinia, or french corsica, though inspection work has been very, very limited. in all the places where i saw it, the disease was increasing rapidly, with numerous recently-blighted trees. it is expected that the disease will ultimately kill the , acres of coppice growth, which produces few nuts, and the , , acres of grafted orchards. the time of death of isolated stands like the two islands and many other areas can be materially decreased by careful inspection and removal of the earliest infections, just as we have held the disease under control in the european chestnut orchards in california. it is doubtful if this will be done however, in spite of their large unemployment problem. as the blight continues its rapid spread over italy, the production of nuts will steadily decrease. the italian exports to this country will decrease, and the market for the rapidly expanding production of chinese chestnuts in the eastern united states will improve. the italian foresters are growing large quantities of chinese chestnuts which they purchased in this country, but the difficulties of quickly reestablishing a large nut industry are very great. this bureau, including dr. graves, has been sending pollen, scions, and plants of our selections to help with this work. it is of vital importance to have a sound economy in italy to help prevent the communists from taking over, and loss of their forest and nut orchards and part of their oaks from the blight will be a sad blow to their economy. the chestnut blight fungus in italy is attacking three important european oaks, ~quercus ilex~, ~q. pubescens~, and ~q. sessiliflora~. these are more important in some countries than chestnuts. for instance, spain has , , acres of ~q. ilex~ orchards, grown largely for acorn hog feed. this will interest dr. smith. possibly the disease may be less destructive to oaks in other countries than i fear, my opinion being based on the examination of only a limited number of diseased oaks in italy. i assume you have heard that mr. bretz of our division has found that the oak wilt fungus has attacked some of our chinese chestnuts in missouri. what it will amount to, no one knows. the oak wilt continues to spread southward and eastward, and this year one infection was reported by the state authorities on oaks in your own pennsylvania. in switzerland, in tessin province, which is along the italian border, the blight is spreading rapidly. the disease undoubtedly is in yugoslavia, as there is so much infection in nearby italy, but i was not in yugoslavia. in spain, there are several infections of blight that came in on the original importations of chestnuts directly from japan. i made two trips into spain and the authorities there have promised to do everything possible to eradicate these small spot infections. in denmark, england, france, germany, portugal, and turkey no blight had been reported by the authorities with whom i conferred, but in most of these countries very little inspection work has been conducted. any inspection for blight in southern europe is complicated by the presence of the ink root rot disease, which from a distance looks like the blight. i remember one grafted orchard planting, in the asia minor part of turkey, where a large proportion of the trees were dead or dying, with yellow leaves hanging, resembling the blight. incidentally, here, as at a number of other places in different countries, orchards, forest, and nearby agricultural land was owned by the village itself. in southern france i was impressed by a most serious and widely distributed disease of persian walnuts. vigorously growing trees start to decline and within a year or two they are dead. the french authorities had no satisfactory explanation of the trouble. i informed them that it looked a lot like trees killed by ~phytophthora cinnamomi~, the cause of the chestnut root and ink disease in america and europe. this fungus also attacks both persian and black walnuts and other trees (including apples) under certain conditions. sincerely, g. f. gravatt senior pathologist, division of forest pathology u. s. plant industry station, beltsville, md. nut work of the minnesota experiment station march , mr. gilbert becker, climax, michigan dear mr becker: i have heard that not long ago you sent out a questionnaire relative to nut growing and grafting. perhaps you would like to include the work which has been going on at the minnesota agricultural experiment station since . when this study was started, we had no information to give to many who came to us with questions on nut growing possibilities in this state. at no time have we attempted to promote commercial development as the interest here seems to be almost wholly amateur. our first efforts, begun in , were designed to test kinds and varieties which could be grown in minnesota. black walnut varieties such as thomas, ohio, ten eyck, stabler and miller were planted at university farm. also sweet chestnuts boone, rochester, cooper, paragon, fuller and progress were set out. hickory varieties and hybrids planted in and were kirtland, weiker, stanley, siers, hales and mccallister. we planted a few trees of the franquette persian walnut, the indiana, niblack and posey pecans and a few filberts such as minnas zellernuss, daviana, and large globe. some seedling trees of the shagbark hickory also were set out in and . to supplement this test somewhat similar collections were sent to cooperators in what seemed to be favorable locations. we had the usual difficulty in establishing these trees and winter temperature eliminated all the pecans, sweet chestnuts, persian, walnuts and filberts. some of the seedling hickories survived and have grown vigorously but after thirty-two years have borne no nuts. since cooperative work has been under way with professor r. e. hodgson at the southeast experiment station, waseca. efforts there mainly have been to establish varieties of black walnut and hickory by grafting. black walnut and hickory varieties have been grafted also at the fruit breeding farm, excelsior. the accompanying record is taken from a report for the experiment station in . it should tell you in brief the status of our investigations at present. very truly yours, w. g. brierley university of minnesota department of agriculture division of horticulture nature and extent of work done this year all black walnut and hickory trees made fairly satisfactory growth in in spite of deficient rainfall. the "gideon seedling hickories" (~carya laciniosa~) planted in have become established at waseca, rochester, lakeville, mound and at the fruit breeding farm. attempts to establish nut varieties by top-working on seedling trees again met with poor success. at waseca of hickory grafts and of black walnut grafts grew. at the fruit breeding farm only of hickory grafts grew. in this case, the poor results were due in large part to use of an asphalt grafting compound which injured the callus tissue at the union. better than usual success was obtained with black walnuts as of grafts grew. as in previous seasons, the best temperature for storage of scion wood was to degrees f. major results the best black walnut varieties for minnesota are thomas, ohio, stambaugh, smith and schwartz. of these thomas produces the best nuts, but the tree is somewhat straggly in growth. the ohio produces large nuts of good quality and is by far the best tree in ornamental value. it also is the hardiest of all varieties tested as it has shown no injury during winters. of lesser value are ten eyck which apparently is not fully hardy, and mintle in which quality is poor here. varieties which have not shown sufficient merit to warrant recommendation here are stabler, monterey, and clark. varieties which have not fruited are allen, cochrane, huber, kraus and myers. practical application of results or public benefits results obtained have been used frequently as basis for recommendations relative to kinds and varieties for planting, and for grafting methods. scionwood of the better varieties has been distributed to interested growers. progress of work success with walnut grafts under all conditions during years at the fruit breeding farm has averaged only per cent. in individual seasons success has varied from zero to per cent. hickories not only are grafted with difficulty but also are very slow to reach bearing age. no nuts have been produced as yet from the following varieties grafted on the dates shown: anthony ( ) lingenfelter ( ) burlington ( ) gerardi hican ( ) miller ( ) barnes ( ) last ( ) marquette ( ) and schinnerling ( ). some seedling trees planted in - have produced no nuts in years. hickory varieties established at waseca by grafting are beaver ( ), fairbanks ( ), burlington ( ), anthony ( ), billeau ( ), hagen ( ), wilcox ( ), last ( ). marquette ( ) and stratford ( ). a tree of hales planted in , which grew very slowly for several years has borne no nuts in years. one tree of fairbanks grafted in bore a few nuts in but has not borne since then. there has been a long-standing belief among horticulturists that grafts of ~carya ovata~, the shagbark hickory are incompatible on bitter hickory ~c. cordiformis~. at waseca, grafts of beaver, burlington and fairbanks make in have healed completely and made excellent unions with the bitter hickory stock. that the varieties named are of hybrid origin may account for the compatibility apparent in this case. vegetarian, , and bride, , honeymoon among bananas, nuts miami, fla., jan. --(up)--a -year-old vegetarian and his -year old bride settled down today for a honeymoon among the nuts and bananas they say keep them young. george hebden corsan and lillian armstrong, whose pert looks belie her years, were married here tuesday. wedding guests were served orange juice and coconut cream milk. the bridegroom has been wintering here for the past years. his home is echo valley, islington, toronto. his wife retired last month after years of teaching in toronto public schools. "i'm sure we'll be happy," mrs. corsan said. "we have mutual interests" both credit their youthfulness and agility to vegetarianism, drinking gallons of fruit juices and staying outdoors as much as possible. corsan, whose sturdy pounds are stretched on a six-foot frame, can husk a coconut with his bare hands in less than two minutes, no mean feat. he operates a large experimental nut farm in toronto, and has a -acre tract just south of here where he grows seven varieties of bananas and experiments with macadamia nuts, furnished him by the university of hawaii. he works the farm singlehanded. corsan says he taught another physical culturist, bernarr macfadden, to swim in when he was an instructor at a brooklyn ymca. he says swimming helps keep him in shape and takes a daily dip in the ocean. the corsans will spend their honeymoon right on the nut farm. "we might have a few fights," he said. "but they won't last long. she's too young to fight. and besides, she can outrun an english hare." broken neck fails to halt plans of "youngster", toronto, june --physical culturist george hebden corsan--just turned --says he is going to throw a birthday party saturday, right now he's in the hospital recovering from a broken neck suffered when he fell feet from a tree may . mr. corsan--a vegetarian who once labeled medicine "a jumbled heap of ignorance"--didn't want to go to the hospital at all. but doctors thought he'd better, since the fracture was about like that suffered by a man hanged on the gallows. he agreed to go after being assured the visit would only be for x-rays. since he's been in the hospital mr. corsan has fared--over the protest of dietitians--on nothing but orange juice. yesterday he observed his birthday by eating a banana and a little black bread. doctors said mr. corsan missed severing his spinal cord by a quarter inch and had two skull fractures. to almost any other person, they said, the injury would be fatal. mr. corsan was married for the third time last january in florida.--washington evening star, june , . membership list as of july , *life member **honorary member §contributing member +sustaining member alabama deagon, arthur, broadway, birmingham. ~farm in penna.~ hiles, edward l., ~hiles auto repair shop~, loxley belgium r. vanderwaeren, bierbeekstraat, , ~korbeek-lo.~ california armstrong nurseries, n. euclid avenue, ontario ~general nurserymen, plant breeders~ brand, george, u.s.n.g.b.c, mob. , port hueneme buck, ernest homer, three arch bay, n. portola, south laguna deckard, l. a., la verne avenue, los angeles flagg, dr. don p., fairgrove ave., tujunga haig, dr. thomas r., highland avenue, carlsbad, california linwood nursery, route no. , box , turlock parsons, charles e., felix gillet nursery, p. o. box , nevada city. ~nurseryman~ pentler, dr. c. f., arguello blvd., san francisco . ~american friends service committee~ pozzi, p. h., s. dutton ave., santa rosa. ~brewery worker~, ~farmer~ serr, e. f., agr. experiment station, davis. ~associate pomologist~ welby, harry s., buchanan street, taft. ~private and corp. hort.~ canada brown, alger, route , harley, ontario. ~farmer~ collins, adam h., seaton st., toronto , ont. cornell, r. s., r.r. no. , byron, ontario corsan, george h., echo valley, toronto , ontario. ~nonagenarian.~ **crath, rev. paul c., rosewell ave., toronto , ontario crisp, dr. allan g., suite , bloor st. w., toronto, ontario english, h. a., box , duncan, b. c. ~farmer~, ~fruit and nut grower~ filman, o., aldershot, ontario. ~fruit and veg. grower~ gellatly, j. u., box , westbank, b. c. ~plant breeder~, ~fruit grower~, ~nurseryman~ goodwin, geoffrey, route no. , st. catherines, ontario. ~fruit grower~ harrhy, ivor h., route , burgessville, ont. ~fruitgrower and poultry~ housser, levi, route , beamsville, ontario. ~fruit farmer~ *neilson, mrs. ellen, macdonald avenue, guelph, ont. papple, elton e., route , cainsville, ont. porter, gordon, mckay, windsor, ont. ~chemist~ smith, e. a., sparta, ont. farmer snazelle, robert, forest nursery, route no. , charlottetown, p. e. i. ~nursery supt.~ short, j. r., wickstead ave., leaside, ont. trayling, e. j., richards st., vancouver, b. c. ~jeweller~ wagner, a. s., delhi, ont. walker, j. w., c/o mccarthy & mccarthy, university ave., toronto, ont. wharton, h. w., route no. , guelph, ont. ~farmer~ white, peter, pear ave., toronto , ont. willis, a. r., route no. , royal oak, vancouver island, b. c. ~accountant~ woods, david m., south front st., west, toronto, ont. ~vice president, gordon mckay, ltd.~ young, a. l., brooks, alta. connecticut daniel, paul c., lakeville **deming, dr. w. c., fern st., hartford. (summer address: litchfield) ~dean of the association~ frueh, alfred j., route , west cornwall graves, dr. arthur h., s. main st., wallingford. ~consulting pathologist, conn. agr. expt. station, new haven, conn.~ henry, david, blue hills farm, route , wallingford. *huntington, a. m., stanerigg farms, bethel. ~patron~ lehr, frederick l., elihu st., hamden *newmaker, adolph, route no. . rockville pratt, george d., jr., bridgewater risko, charles, city tobacco & candy co., crescent ave., bridgeport white, george e., route no. , andover. ~farmer~ delaware brugmann, elmer w., washington st., wilmington. ~chemical engineer~ logue, r. f., gen. mgr., andelot, inc., du pont bldg., wilmington wilkins, lewis, route , newark. ~fruit grower~ denmark granjean, julio, hillerod. (see new york.) knuth, count f. m., knuthenborg. bandholm district of columbia american potash inst., inc., - th st., n.w., washington ford, edwin l., austin st., s.e., washington kaan, dr. helen w., national research council, constitution avenue, washington. ~research associate~ reed, mrs. clarence a., piney branch rd., n.w., washington ecuador, south america acosta solis, prof. m., director del departmento forestal, ministerio de economia, quito. (~exchange.~) england baker, richard st. barbe, the gate, abbotsbury, weymouth, dorset. (~founder, men of the trees.~) the gardeners chronicle, london. (~exchange.~) florida avant, c. a., n.w. th ave., miami ~real estate, loans.~ (~pecan orchard in ga.~) estill, gertrude, navarre dr., miami springs. (summer address under mich.) georgia edison, g. clyde, westwood ave., s.w., atlanta. hardy, max, p. o. box , leeland farms, leesburg. ~nurseryman~, ~farmer~ hunter, dr. h. reid, lake shore dr. n.e., atlanta. ~teacher~, ~nut farmer~ noland, s. c., box , atlanta . ~owner, skyland farms~ wilson, william j., north anderson ave., fort valley. ~peach and pecan grower~ holland institute for horticultural plant breeding. herenstraat . wageningen. (~exchange~) hong kong *wang, p. w., c/o china products trading corp., des voeux rd., central idaho baisch, fred, e. main st., emmett dryden, lynn, peck. ~farmer~ hazelbaker, calvin, route no. , box , lewiston illinois albrecht, h. w., delavan allen, theodore r., delavan. ~farmer~ andrew, col. james w. (see under washington) anthony, a. b., route no. , sterling. ~apiarist~ baber, adin, kansas best, r. b., eldred. ~farmer~ blodgett, thomas, pine grove ave., chicago blough, r. o., route no. , polo blyth, colin r., math. dept., u. of i., urbana. (farm in northern ontario) *boll, herschel l., hort. field lab., univ. of ill., urbana. ~asst. in pomology~ brock, a. s., north mcvicker ave., chicago churchill, woodford m., oakenwald ave., chicago colby, dr. arthur s., u. of illinois, urbana daum, philip a., north sixth st., carrollton dietrich, ernest, route no. , dundas. ~farmer~ dintelman, l. f., state street road, belleville douglass, t. j., - / north st., normal fordtran, e. h., route no. , box -a, palatine frey, frank h., w. th place, chicago . ~asst. to v. p., cri & p rr.~ frey, mrs. frank h., w. th place, chicago . ~housewife~ gerardi, louis, route no. ., caseyville. ~nut and fruit nurseryman~ grefe, ben, route no. , box , nashville. ~farmer~ heberlein, edward w., route no. , box a, roscoe helmle, herman c., s. grand ave., w., springfield. ~div. eng., asphalt inst.~ hockenyos, g. l., e. jefferson st., springfield. ~business man~ jungk, adolph e., route no. , jerseyville, illinois kammarmeyer, glenn, e. th st., chicago kreider, ralph, jr., route no. , hammond. ~farmer~ langdoc, mildred jones (mrs. wesley w.) p. o. box , erie. ~nursery~, ~farm~, ~housewife~ mcdaniel, j. c., c/o hort. field lab., u. of i., urbana. ~horticulturist. (sec'y of ass'n.)~ mcdaniel, j. c., jr., urbana oakes, royal, bluffs (scott county) pray, a. lee, n. main st., leroy robbins, w. j., n. lasalle st., chicago . ~insurance~ sonnemann, w. f., experimental gardens, vandalia. ~lawyer~, ~farm operator~ spencer, h. dwight, w. decatur st., decatur. ~attorney~ warnecke, martin h., first avenue, maywood whitford, a. m., farina. ~nurseryman~ zethmayr, gordon, route no. , box , west chicago indiana aster nut products, inc., george oberman, mgr., main st., evansville bauer, paul j., s. th st., lafayette bolten, ferd, route , linton. ~farmer, fruit grower. (carpathian walnut seeds.)~ boyer, clyde c., nabb buckner, dr. doster, w. wayne st., ft. wayne . ~physician and surgeon~ clark, c. m., c. m. clark & sons nurseries, route , middletown ~nurseryman~, ~fruit farmer~ dooley, kenneth r., route no. , marion. ~gardener~ eagles, a. e., eagles' orchards, wolcottville. ~walnut grower~, ~apple orchardist~ eisterhold, dr. john. a., southwest riverside drive, evansville . ~medical doctor~ fateley, nolan w., central avenue. franklin. ~auditor and cashier. (carpathian walnut seeds.)~ glaser, peter, route no. , box , koening road, evansville grater, a. e., route , shipshewana. §johnson, hjalmar w., rt. , valparaiso. ~v. p. inland steel co.~ pape, edw. w., route , marion prell, carl f., e. colfax avenue, south bend richards, e. e., south twyckenham drive, south bend. ~studebaker corp.~ russell, a. m., jr., marine st., south bend skinner, dr. chas. h., rt. , thorntown sly, miss barbara, route no. , rockport sly, donald r., route , rockport. ~nurseryman,~, ~nut tree propagator~ wallick, ford, rt. , peru ward, w. b., horticulture bldg., purdue university, lafayette. ~ext. horticulturist~, ~vegetables~ whitsel, gilbert l., jr., s. th street, lafayette wichman, robert p., route no. , washington. ~general farming~ wilkinson, j. f., indiana nut nursery, rockport. ~nurseryman~ iowa berhow, seward, berhow nurseries, huxley boice, r. h., route no. , nashua. ~farmer~ cole, edward p., chestnut street, atlantic ferguson, albert b., center point. ~nurseryman~ ferris, wayne, hampton. ~president of earl ferris nursery~ huen, e. f., eldora. ~farmer~ inter-state nurseries, hamburg. ~general nurserymen~ iowa fruit growers assn., w. h. collins, sec'y, state house, des moines . ~cooperative buying organization~ kaser, j. d., winterset. ~farmer~ knowles, w. b., box , manly kyhl, ira m., box , sabula. ~nut nurseryman~, ~farmer~, ~salesman~ martazahn, frank a., route no. , davenport. ~farmer~ mcleran, harold f., mt. pleasant. ~lawyer~ orr, j. allen, frances bldg., sioux city rohrbacher, dr. william, east college street, iowa city. ~practice of medicine~ (~president of the nnga.~) schlagenbusch brothers, route no. , fort madison. ~farmers~ snyder, d. c., center point. ~nurseryman, nuts and general.~ tolstead, w. l., central college, pella wade, miss ida may, route no. , laporte city. ~bookkeeper~ watson, vinton c., e. salem st., indianola welch, h. s., mt. arbor nurseries, shenandoah white, herbert, box , woodbine. ~rural mail carrier~ williams, wendell v., route no. , danville. ~farmer~ kansas baker, fred c., troy. ~entomologist~ borst, frank e., shawnee street, leavenworth breidenthal, willard j., riverview state bank, th and central, kansas city. ~bank president~ funk, m. d., w. paramore street, topeka. ~pharmacist~ gray, dr. clyde, central avenue, horton. ~osteopathic physician~ harris, ernest, box , wellsville. ~farmer~ leavenworth nurseries, carl holman, proprietor, route no. , leavenworth. ~nut nurseryman~ mondero, john, lansing thielenhaus, w. f., route no. , buffalo. ~retired postal worker~ underwood, jay, riverside nursery, uniontown kentucky alves, robert h., nehi bottling company, henderson armstrong, w. d., west ky., exp. sta., princeton. ~horticulturist~ magill, w. w., horticulture dept., u. of ky., lexington miller, julian c., sycamore drive, paducah moss, dr. c. a., willlamsburg. ~bank president~ rouse, sterling, route no. , box , florence. ~fruit grower~, ~nurseryman~ tatum, w. g., route , lebanon. ~commercial orchardist~ tallaferro, philip, box , erlanger usrey, robert, star route, mayfield walker, william w., route no. , dixie highway, florence louisiana hammar, dr. harald e., usda chemical lab., court house, shreveport ~chemist~ perrault, mrs. henry d., route no. , box , natchitoches. ~pecan grower~ maryland case, lynn b., route , box , federalsburg crane, dr. h. l., bureau of plant industry station, beltsville. ~principal horticulturist, usda.~ eastern shore nurseries, inc., p. o. box , easton. ~chestnut growers~ graff, george u., harding lane, rt. . rockville gravatt, dr. g. f., plant industry station, beltsville. ~research forest pathologist~ hodgson, william c., route no. , white hall. ~farmer~ kemp, homer s., (proprietor) bountiful ridge nurseries, princess anne mccollum, blaine, white hall. ~retired from federal government~ mckay, dr. j. w., plant industry station, beltsville. ~government scientist~ +negus, mrs. herbert, nd street, mt. rainier porter, john j., the terrace, hagerstown. ~farm owner~ shamer, dr. maurice e., w. north avenue, baltimore . ~physician~ massachusetts babbit, howard s., dawes avenue, pittsfield. ~service station owner and part time farmer~ bradbury, h. g., hospital point, beverly brown, daniel l., esq., state street, boston bump, albert h., p. o. box , brewster davenport, s. lathrop, creeper hill road, north grafton. ~farmer~, ~fruit grower~ fitts, walter h., baker st., foxboro. ~general foreman, instrument company~ kendall, henry p., moose hill farm, sharon kerr, andrew, lock box , barnstable la beau, henry a., north hoosic road, williamstown. ~stat. engineer~ o'brien, howard c., irvington street, boston rice, horace j., main street, wilbraham. ~attorney~ *russell, mrs. newton h., burnett avenue, south hadley wellman, sargent h., esq., windridge, topsfield. ~lawyer~ weston nurseries, inc., weston wood, miss louise b., pocassett, cape cod michigan ainsworth, donald w., mt. elliott, detroit andersen, charles, route no. , box , scottsville, ~nurseryman~ barlow, alfred l., flanders avenue, detroit becker, gilbert, climax boylan, p. b., route no. , cloverdale. ~homesteader~ bumler, malcolm r., dickerson, detroit . ~insurance trustee~ burgart, harry, michigan nut nursery, box , union city. ~nurseryman~ burgess, e. h., burgess seed & plant company, galesburg burr, redmond m., s. th avenue, ann arbor. ~general chairman, the order of railroad telegraphers, pere marquette district, c&o ry. co.~ cook, ernest a., m.d., c/o county health dept., centerville corsan, h. h., route no. , hillsdale. ~nurseryman~ dennison, clare, avery, detroit emerson, ralph, cortland avenue, detroit estill, miss gertrude. (see under florida, summer address: route , box , battle creek) hackett, john c., butterworth rd., s.w., r. r. , grand rapids haseler, l. m., route no. , box south haven hagelshaw, w. j., route no. , box , galesburg. ~grain farmer~, ~contractor~ hay, francis h., ivanhoe place, lawrence. ~farmer~ **kellogg, w. k., battle creek korn, g. j., n. church street, kalamazoo . ~shop worker~ lee, michael, p. o. box , milford lemke, edwin w., townsend ave., detroit . ~engineer~, ~nut orchardist~ mccarthy, francis w., box , algonac miller, o. louis, n. broadway, cassopolis. ~forester~ o'rourke, prof. f. l., hidden lake gardens, tipton. ~professor of ornamental horticulture, mich. state college~ pickles, arthur w., elmwood avenue, jackson prushek, e., route no. , niles. ~plant breeding~ sherman, l. walter, mackinaw st., saginaw simons, rev. r. e., flat rock somers, lee, route no. , perrinton tate, d. l., westchester st., birmingham ullrey, l. e., cambridge drive, kalamazoo minnesota hodgson, r. e., dept. of agriculture, s.e. experiment station, waseca tulare, willis e., rd avenue, s.e., rochester weschcke, carl, s. wabasha st., st. paul. ~proprietor hazel hills nursery co.~ mississippi gossard, a. c., u. s. hort. field station, route no. , meridian. ~associate horticulturist, usda~ meyer, james r., delta branch experiment station, stoneville. ~cytogeneticist (cotton)~ missouri bauch, g. d., box , farmington. ~farm forester~ hay, leander, gilliam howe, john, route no. , box , pacific huber, frank j., weingarten. ~farmer~ james, george, james pecan farms, brunswick logan, george f., oregon the m-f-d co., moreland ave., jefferson city nicholson, john w., ash grove. ~farmer~ ochs, c. thurston, box , salem. ~foreman in garment factory~ richterkessing, ralph, route no. . st. charles. ~farmer~ rose, dr. d. k., linden, clayton stark bros. nursery & orchard co., attn. mr. h. w. guengerich, louisiana wuertz, h. j., route no. , pevely nebraska brand, george. (see under california.) caha, william, w. th, wahoo hess, harvey w., the arrowhead gardens, box , hebron sherwood, jack, nebraska city new hampshire demarest, charles s., lyme center lahti, matthew, locust lane farm, wolfeboro. ~investment banker~ new jersey anderegg, f. o., pierce foundation, raritan blake, harold, box , saddle river bottoni, r. j., robertson road, west orange. ~president of harbot die casting corp.~ brewer. j. l., allen place, fair lawn buckwalter, mrs. alan r., route. no. , flemington cox, philip h., jr., hyde rd., bloomfield cumberland nursery, william wells, proprietor, route no. , millville. ~nurserymen~ donnelly, john, mountain ice company, newark st., hoboken dougherty, william m., broadacres-on-bedens, box , princeton ~secretary, u. s. rubber co.~ ellis, mrs. edward p., strawberry hill, route no. , box , keyport kass, leonard p., e. cliff st., somerville lamatonk nurseries, a. h. yorks, proprietor, neshanic station lippencott, j. c., mundy ave., spotswood mcdowell, fred, ocean avenue, belmar parkinson, philip p., broadway, newark . ~engineer and appraiser~ ritchie, walter m., route no. , box -r, rahway rocker, louis p., the rocker farm, box ; andover. ~farmer~ sheffield, o. a., hamilton place, hackensack. ~dunn & bradstreet~ sorg, henry, chicago avenue, egg harbor city. ~manufacturer~ van doren, durand h., redmond road., south orange. ~lawyer~ williams, herbert h., plymouth ave., maplewood new mexico gehring, rev. titus, box , lumberton new york barton, irving titus, montour falls. ~engineer~ bassett, charles k., main st., buffalo. ~manufacturer~ beck, paul e., beck's guernsey dairy, transit road, east amherst. ~dairy executive~ benton, william a., wassaic. ~farmer, and sec'y, mutual insurance co.~ bernath, stephen, bernath's nursery, route no. , poughkeepsie. ~nurseryman~ bernath, mrs. stephen, route , poughkeepsie bixby, henry d., east drive, halesite, l. i. ~executive v.p., american kennel club, n. y. city~ brook, victor, rockingham street, rochester . ~sales engineer~ brooks, william g., monroe. ~nut tree nurseryman~ bundick, clarkson u., anderson ave., scarsdale. ~mechanical engineer~ caldwell, david h., n. y. state college of forestry, syracuse. ~instr. in wood technology~ carter, george, avenue a, rochester cassina, augustus, valatie, columbia county feil, harry, hilton-spencerport road, hilton. ~building contractor~ ferguson, donald v., l. i. agr. tech. institute, farmingdale flanigen, charles f., greenfield st., buffalo . ~executive manager~ freer, h. j., midvale rd., fairport. ~typewriter sales and service~ fribance, a. e., elmsdorf ave., rochester glazier, henry s., jr., south william st., new york graham, s. h., bostwick road, route no. , ithaca. ~nurseryman~ granjean, julio, c/o k. e. granjean, th ave., forest hills gressel, henry, route , mohawk. ~retired chief lock operator, n. y. s. barge canal~ hasbrouck, walter, jr., grove st., new paltz. ~post office clerk~ hill, francis s., sterling. ~letter carrier on rural route~ iddings, william a., park place. brooklyn irish, g. whitney, fruitlands, route no. , valatie. ~farmer~ kettaneh, f. a., fifth ave., new york knipper, george m., chestnut ridge rd., churchville knorr, mrs. arthur, central park, west, apt. , new york kraai, dr. john, fairport. ~physician~ larkin, harry h., van rennsselaer street, buffalo *lewis, clarence (retired.) lowerre, james, route , middletown *macdaniels, dr. l. h. cornell university. ithaca. ~head, dept. of floriculture and ornamental hort.~ miller, j. e., canandaigua. ~nurseryman.~ mitchell, rudolph, riverside drive, new york . ~mechanical engineer~ *montgomery, robert h., e., th street, new york mossman, dr. james k., black oaks, ramapo newell, palmer f., lake road, route no. . westfield owen, charles h., sennett. ~superintendent of schools~ pura, john j., green haven, stormville salzer, george, garford road, rochester . ~milkman~, ~chestnut tree grower~ schlegel, charles p., south ave., rochester schlick, frank, munnsville schmidt, carl w., linwood avenue, buffalo shannon, j. w., box , ithaca sheffield, lewis j., c/o mrs. edna c. jones, townline road, orangeburg slate, prof. george l., experiment station, geneva. ~fruit breeder~ smith, gilbert l., benton & smith nut tree nursery, route , millerton. ~nurseryman~, ~retired teacher~ smith, jay l., chester. ~nut tree nurseryman~ spahr, dr. mary b., n. geneva st., ithaca steiger, harwood, red hook. ~artist-designer~ +szego, alfred, - a th avenue, jackson heights, new york timmerman, karl g., chapel st., fayetteville wadsworth, willard e., route no. , oswego wheeler, robert c., state street, albany windisch, richard p., c/o w. e. burnet company, wall st., new york *wissman, mrs. f. de r. ~(retired.)~ north carolina brooks, j. r., box , enka dunstan, dr. r. t., greensboro college, greensboro finch, jack r., bailey. ~farmer~ parks, c. h., route no. , asheville. ~mechanic~ north dakota bradley, homer l., long lake refuge, moffit. ~refuge manager~ ohio ackerman, lester, route no. , ada glen helen department, antioch college, yellow springs barden, c. a., morgan street, oberlin. ~real estate~ beede, d. v., route no. , lisbon bitler, w. a., r. f. d. i, shawnee road, lima. ~general contractor~ borchers, perry e., w. hillcrest ave., dayton brewster, lewis, route no. , swanton. ~vegetable grower~ bridgewater, boyd e., cherry st., akron. ~v. p. bridgewater machine co.~ bungart, a. a., avon cinadr, mrs. katherine, coath ave., cleveland . ~housewife~ clark, richard l., westdale rd., south euclid . ~sales manager~ cook, h. c., route no. , box , leetonia cornett, charles. l., r. r. perishable inspection agency, w. front st., cincinnati. ~inspector~ craig, george e., dundas (vinton county). ~fruit and nut grower~ cranz, eugene f., mount tom farm, ira cunningham, harvey e., front street, marietta daley, jame r., route no. , foster park road, amherst. ~electrician~ davidson, john, east second street, xenia. ~writer~ davidson, mrs. john, east second street, xenia diller, dr. oliver d., dept. of forestry, ohio exp. sta., wooster distelhorst, p. e., douglas road, toledo dowell, dr. lloyd l., north ave., n. e., massillon. ~physician~ farr, mrs. walter, route no. , kingsville garden center of greater cleveland, east blvd., cleveland gerber, e. p., kidron gerstenmaier, john a., pond s. w., massillon. ~letter carrier~ goss, c. e., dover avenue, akron grad, dr, edward a., chase street, cincinnati hansley, c. f., box , sugar grove. ~contractor~ hawk & son nursery, route no. , beach city. ~chestnut trees~ hill, dr. albert a., pearl road, cleveland hornyak, louis, route no. , wakeman howard, james r., fleming road, middletown irish, charles f., e. th st., cleveland . ~arborist~ jacobs, homer l., davey tree expert company, kent kappel, owen, bolivar kerr, s. e., m. d., route no. , north lawrence kintzel, frank w., briarcliff ave., cincinnati ~principal~, ~cincinnati public schools~ laditka, nicholas g., stickney ave., cleveland . ~electrician~ leaman, paul y., route no. , creston lorenz, r. c., north arch street, fremont machovina, paul e., northwest blvd., columbus . ~college professor~ mckinster, ray, south th street, columbus meister, richard t., ~editor, american fruit grower~, willoughby metzger, a. j., euclid avenue, toledo oches, norman m., r. d. , brunswick. ~mechanical engineer~ osborn, frank c., w. th st., cleveland . ~tool and die maker~ page, john h., box , dundas (vinton county) pataky, christ, jr., hickory lane, route no. , mansfield. ~produce market~, ~grocer~ pattison, aletheia, dexter place, e. w. n., cincinnati pomerene, walter h., route no. , coshocton. ~agricultural engineer, hydrological research station~ purdy, clyde w., public square, mt. vernon ranke, william, route no. , amelia roberts, j. pearl, rt. , freeport rummel, e. t., laverne avenue, cleveland . ~sales manager~ schoenberger, l. roy, green pines farm, route no. , nevada seas, d. edward, south main street, orrville sebring, r. g., lincoln road, columbus shelton, dr. elbert m., w. clifton blvd., lakewood shessler, sylvester m., genoa. ~farmer~ silvis, raymond e., lindbergh avenue, n. e., massillon. ~realty~ smith, sterling a., w. south street, vermilion. ~telegrapher, nyc rr (treasurer of the assn.)~ spears, ernest g., forest ave., norwood spring hill nurseries company, tipp city. ~general nurserymen~ steinbeck, a. p., east nimisilla rd., north canton. ~rubber worker, firestone tire & rubber co.~ stocker, c. p., lorain products corp., f. street, lorain stolz, thomas o., claranna ave., dayton thiesing, j. r., s. washington, new bremen thomas, fred, route no. , bedford road, masury toops, herbert a., cambridge blvd., columbus . ~college professor~ underwood, john, route no. , urbana urban, george, ardendale road, south euclid . ~mayor~ van voorhis, j. f., hudson avenue, apt. b- , newark von gundy, clifford r., r. f. d. no. , cincinnati walker, carl f., e. overlook rd., cleveland . ~consulting engineer~ weaver, arthur w., r.f.d., box b, cass rd., maumee *weber, harry r., esq. (deceased.) weber, mrs. martha r., route no. , mahawe farm, cleves willett, dr. g. p., elmore williams, harry m., grandon road, dayton . ~engineer~ wischhusen, j. f., shore acres drive, n. e., cleveland yates, edward w., parkview avenue, cincinnati . ~mechanical engineer~ yoder, emmet, smithville oklahoma butler, roy, route no. , hydro. ~farmer~, ~cattleman~ cross, prof. frank b., dept. of horticulture, oklahoma a&m college, stillwater. ~teaching and experiment station work~ gray, geoffrey a., elm ave., bartlesville hartman, peter e., s. boston pl., tulsa . ~nurseryman~ hirschi's nursery (a. g. hirschi), north robinson, oklahoma city ~dry cleaning business, nurseryman~ hughes, c. v., route no. , box , n. w. th street, oklahoma city keathly, jack, marland. ~farmer~ kissick, e. a., state board of agr., state capitol bldg., oklahoma city. ~marketing specialist~ meek, e. b., route , wynnewood pulliam, gordon, osage ave., bartlesville scales, charles d., n. w. th st., oklahoma city oregon miller, john e., treasuredale, route no. , box -a, oswego pearcy, harry l., route . box , salem. ~h. l. pearcy nursery co. (nut trees.)~ pennsylvania allaman, r. p., route , harrisburg. ~farm superintendent~ amsler, e. w., main st., clarion anthony, roy d., hillcrest ave., state college. ~tree crops advisor, pa. dept. of agr.~ arensberg, charles f. c., first nat'l bank bldg., pittsburgh ~(chinese chestnut seed grower.)~ banks, h. c., route no. , hellertown beard, h. k., route no. , sheridan. ~insurance agent~ beck, dr. william m., race st., sunbury berst, charles b., w. th street, erie. ~inspector, lord mfg. co., erie, pa.~ bowen, john c., route no. , macungie brown, morrison, ickesburg buckwalter, geoffrey r., c/o f. h. levey co., inc., washington ave., philadelphia clarke, william s., jr., p. o. box , state college colwell, dr. frederick a., r.f.d. no. , collegeville damask, henry, doyle street, wilkinsburg . ~telephone man~ ebling, aaron l., route no. , reading etter, fayette, p. o. box , lemasters. ~general foreman for an electric company~ gage, charles k., newman road, havertown gardner, ralph d., plymouth st., harrisburg. ~assistant state fire marshal~ good, orren s., n. fairview street, lock haven. ~retired~ gorton, f. b., route no. , east lake road, harborcreek. ~electrical contractor~ hammond, harold, south poplar street, allentown hershey, john w., route no. , downingtown. ~nurseryman~ hostetter, l. k., route no. , lancaster. ~farmer~, ~black walnut grower~ hughes, douglas, east st street, erie johnson, robert f., greentree road, pittsburgh jones, mildred m. (see mrs. langdoc--under illinois) jones, dr. truman w., walnut grove farm, parksburg kaufman, mrs. m. m., box , clarion knouse, charles w., colonial park, harrisburg. ~coal dealer~ laboski, george t., route no. , harborcreek. ~fruit grower and nurseryman~ leach, will, - scranton life bldg., scranton . ~lawyer~ mattoon, h. gleason, box , narberth. ~consultant in arborculture~ mckenna, philip m., p. o. box , latrobe mecartney, j. lupton, w. beaver ave., state college. ~pomologist~ miller, elwood b., mill and chapel sts., hazleton miller, robert o., rd and ridge streets, emmaus moyer, philip s., - u. s. f. & g. bldg., harrisburg. ~attorney~ niederriter, leonard, state street, erie. ~merchant~ nonnemacher, h. m., box , alburtis. ~line foreman, bell tel. co. of pa.~ ranson, flavel, monroe avenue, scranton. ~farmer~ reidler, paul g., ashland. ~manufacturer of textiles~ rick, john, penna. sq., reading. ~fruit grower and merchant~ schaible, percy, upper black eddy. ~laborer~ scott, j. lewis. -a camberwell drive, r.f.d. no. , pittsburgh shade, earl l., e. th st., erie sherman, l. walter. (see under michigan.) smith, dr. j. russell, elm ave., swarthmore. ~retired teacher, writer and nurseryman~ stewart, e. l., pine hill farms nursery, route no. , homer city theiss, dr. lewis e., university ave., lewisburg. ~retired professor~ thompson, howard a., west swissvale ave., pittsburgh twist, frank s., box , northumberland. ~salesman~ waite, knighton v., m. d., renton washick, dr. frank a., s. w., welsh & veree roads, philadelphia . ~surgeon~ weaver, william s., weaver orchards, macungie weinrich, whitney, p. o. box , wallingford. ~chemical engineer~ wister, john c., scott foundation, swarthmore college, swarthmore. ~horticulturist~ wright, ross pier, w. th street, erie. manufacturer zimmerman, mrs. g. a., r. d., linglestown rhode island allen, philip, dorance street, providence south carolina bregger, john t., clemson. ~research supervisor (soil conservation), orchard erosion investigations~ gordon, g. henry, - / main st., union. ~returned mariner~ south dakota richter, herman, madison. ~farmer~ tennessee alpine forest reserve, c/o j. edwin carothers, alpine boyd, harold b., m. d., waynoka st., memphis . ~physician~ chase, spencer, t. v. a., norris. ~horticulturist~ garrett, dr. sam young, hayes st., nashville. ~surgeon~ holdeman, j. e., n. mcneil st., memphis howell nurseries, sweetwater. ~ornamental and chestnut nurserymen~ mcdaniel, j. c. (see under illinois) meeks, hamp, c/o jackson elec. dept., jackson. ~electrical engineer~ murphy, h. o., sweetbriar avenue, chattanooga. ~fruit grower~ richards, dr. aubrey, whiteville. ~physician~ roark, w. f., malesus. ~farmer~, ~chestnut grower~ robinson, w. jobe, route no. , jackson. ~farmer~ sammons, julius, jr., pecan row farm, whiteville. ~farmer~, ~orchardist~ saville, chris, church st., greeneville shipley, mrs. e. d., century court, knoxville . ~housewife~ smathers, rev. eugene, calvary church, big lick. minister, farmer southern nursery & landscape co., attn. hubert nicholson, winchester. ~general nurserymen~ texas arford, charles a., box , dalhart. ~r. r. engineer~, ~amateur horticulturist~ brison, prof. f. r., dept, of horticulture, a. & m. college, college station florida, kaufman, box , rotan kidd, clark, arp nursery co., p. o. box , tyler. ~nut nurseryman~ winkler, andrew, route , moody. ~farmer and pecan grower~ utah petterson, harlan d., jefferson avenue, ogden. ~highway engineer~ vermont aldrich, a. w., r.f.d. no. , springfield collins, joseph n., route no. , putney. ~civil engineer~, ~farmer~ ~ellis, zenas h., fair haven. perpetual member, "in memoriam."~ holbrook, f. c., scott farm, brattleboro virginia acker black walnut corp., box , broadway. ~walnut processors~ burton, george l., college street, bedford curthoys, george a., p. o. box , bristol dickerson, t. c., - th street, newport news. ~statistician~, ~farmer~ dudley, charles l., glen wilton gibbs, h. r. linden. ~carpenter~, ~wood worker~ gunther, eric f., route no. , box , onancock. ~retired business man~ lee, dr. henry, medical arts building, roanoke narten, perry f., n. washington blvd., arlington pinner, henry, p. o. box , suffolk stoke, h. f., watts avenue n. w., roanoke stoke, mrs. h. f., watts avenue, n. w., roanoke stoke, dr. john h., highland avenue, s. e., roanoke . ~chiropractor~ thompson, b. h., harrisonburg. ~manufacturer of nut crackers~ washington andrew, col. james w., hqts. wing, a.p.o. c/o p. m., seattle. (farm in illinois.) bartleson, c. j., box , chattaroy. ~office worker~ brown, h. b., greenacres bush, carroll d., grapeview. ~chestnut grower and shipper~, ~nurseryman~ denman, george l., east nina avenue, spokane . ~dairyman~ eliot, craig p., p. o. box , shelton. ~electrical engineer~, ~part time farmer~ erkman, john o., apt. , washington way, richland. ~physicist~ kling, william l., route no. , box , clarkson latterell, miss ethel, n. flora rd., greenacres. ~greenhouse worker~ linkletter, frank d., th ave. north, seattle . ~retired~ naderman, g. w., route , box , olympia. ~caretaker of summer resort~ ross, vevel c., rucker ave., everett shane brothers, vashon shepard, will, chelan falls tuttle, lynn, nursery, the heights, clarkston. ~nut nurseryman~ west virginia cannaday, dr. john e., charleston general hospital, charleston . ~physician~ engle, blaine w., mutual fire ins. co. of w. va., goff bldg., clarksburg frye, wilbert m., pleasant dale. ~retired~ gold chestnut nursery, c/o mr. arthur a. gold, cowen. chestnut nurseryman haines, earl c., shanks long, j. l., box , princeton. ~civil engineer~ mish, arnold f., inwood. ~associational farmer~ reed, arthur m., moundsville. ~proprietor, glenmount nurseries~ wisconsin ladwig, c. f., st. laurence, beloit. ~grocer and (hobby) farmer~ mortensen, m. c., slauson avenue, racine raether, robert, route no. , augusta (eau claire county) subscribers and standing library orders brooklyn botanic garden library, washington avenue, brooklyn , n. y. clemson college library, clemson, south carolina. cleveland public library, leta e. adams, order librarian, superior avenue, cleveland , ohio. connecticut agr. exp. sta., genetics dept., huntington st., new haven , conn. cornell university, college of agriculture library, ithaca, new york. detroit public library, woodward avenue, detroit , michigan. university of maine (library), orono, maine. library, university of miami, coral gables , florida. library, university of new hampshire, durham, n. h. oregon state college library, corvallis, oregon. peachey, enos d., p. o. box , belleville, pennsylvania. rhode island state college, library dept., green hall, kingston, rhode island. rutgers university, agricultural library, nichol avenue, new brunswick, n. j. st. louis public library, olive, th and th streets, st. louis, missouri. advance orders for the st annual report alabama polytechnic institute (main library), auburn, alabama. massachusetts horticultural society library, horticultural hall, massachusetts ave., boston , massachusetts. north carolina state college (d. h. hill library), raleigh, north carolina. pennsylvania state college agricultural library, room , patterson hall, state college, pennsylvania. purdue university agr. library, lafayette, indiana. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |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. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ northern nut growers association incorporated affiliated with the american horticultural society _ nd annual report_ _annual meeting at_ urbana, illinois august , and , * * * * * [illustration: jacobs persian walnut genoa, ohio (see pages - )] the above picture shows a view made last winter of the original jacobs persian walnut in elmore, ohio. member malcolm r. bumler of detroit stands under the tree. the picture was made by mr. w. g. schmidt and the engraving is by courtesy of gilbert becker, our michigan vice president and president of the michigan nut growers association. the jacobs variety, a second generation seedling of a german walnut, was brought to the attention of the nnga by sylvester shessler, genoa, ohio, who has been regularly taking prizes with it and another seedling he found growing at clay center. the jacobs was fourth in the - nnga contest, having a good nut with . % kernel. the tree, now over seventy years old, bears regularly, having pounds of nuts in one recent year. several members in ohio, michigan, and other states are propagating the jacobs, and it appears to be one of the most promising non-carpathian persian varieties for the midwest.--j. c. mcdaniel * * * * * table of contents foreword officers and committees, - state and foreign vice-presidents attendance at the meeting constitution by-laws proceedings of the forty-second annual meeting. starting on talk by george hebden corsan address of welcome--c. j. birkeland response--h. l. crane president's address--william m. rohrbacher control of spittle bugs on nut trees--s. c. chandler preliminary results from training chinese chestnut trees to different heights of head--j. w. mckay and h. l. crane the filbert and persian walnut in indiana--w. b. ward nut growing in eastern iowa--ira m. kyhl secretary's report--j. c. mcdaniel discussion and resolution on securing new members treasurer's report--sterling a. smith reports of committees announcement of tour--r. b. best status of the northern pecan--w. w. magill, leading discussion pecans in northern virginia--j. russell smith pecans in the vicinity of st. paul, minnesota--carl weschcke preliminary report on growth, flowering, and magnesium deficiency of reed and potomac filbert varieties--h. l. crane and j. w. mckay bunch disease of black walnut--j. w. mckay and h. l. crane (above paper given at the st annual meeting. see discussion on page of report.) a forester looks at the timber value of nut trees--c. s. walters symposium on nut tree propagation--f. l. o'rourke, leader factors affecting nut tree propagation--f. l. o'rourke nut rootstock material in western michigan--h. p. burgart hudson valley experience with nut tree understocks--gilbert l. smith results of carpathian walnut contest--spencer b. chase colby, a hardy persian walnut for the central states--j. c. mcdaniel resolutions list of members of northern nut growers association * * * * * foreword this volume is going to press somewhat later than was anticipated, and in order to expedite its publication, a few papers which were contributed in are being held over for the report. two of these will incorporate new data to be presented at the meeting, mr. e. a. curl's discussion on the status of the oak wilt disease and mr. w. w. magill's talk on top working of native pecans in southwestern kentucky. also deferred are mr. l. walter sherman's "final selections in the five-year ohio black walnut contest", the vice-presidents' round table discussion led by mr. h. f. stoke, on "what black walnut varieties shall we recommend for planting?" and two short papers from the ohio section. "bunch disease of black walnut" by drs. mckay and crane in this volume was read at the pleasant valley meeting, and the discussion on it will be found in last year's report. other "extras" are the propagation papers by mr h. p. burgart and mr. gilbert l. smith, dr. j. russell smith's and mr carl weschcke's papers on pecans, and the reprinted article on colby persian walnut by the secretary. (the original tree has a big crop of nuts now maturing.) officers of the association - =president:= dr. l. h. macdaniels, floriculture department, cornell university, ithaca, new york =vice-president=: richard b. best, columbiana seed co., eldred, illinois =secretary:= j. c. mcdaniel, university of illinois, dept. of horticulture, urbana, ill. =treasurer:= carl f. prell, j. m. s. bldg., south bend , indiana =directors=: the officers and the following past presidents: mildred jones langdoc, p. o. box , erie, illinois dr. william rohrbacher, e. college st., iowa city, iowa committees - =program committee:= royal oakes, chairman (ill.); j. ford wilkinson (ind.); spencer chase (tennessee); ira m. kyhl (iowa); a. s. colby (ill.); w. d. armstrong (kentucky); and j. c. mcdaniel (ill.) ex-officio. =publications--editorial section:= lewis e. theiss, chairman (penn.); w. c. deming (conn.); john davidson (ohio), arthur h. graves (conn.); and mrs. herbert negus (md.). =publications--printing section=: g. l. slate, chairman (n.y.); carl f. prell (ind.); and j. c. mcdaniel (ill.) ex-officio. =place of meeting:= r. p. allaman, chairman (penn.); george salzer (n.y.); john rick (penn.); arthur h. graves (conn.); and elton e. papple (ontario, canada). =varieties and contest--survey=: h. f. stoke, chairman (va.); a. g. hirschi (okla.); l. w. sherman (mich.); sylvester shessler (ohio); f. l. o'rourke (mich.). =standards and judging:= spencer chase, chairman (tenn.); gilbert l. smith (n.y.); raymond e. silvis (ohio). =research:= h. l. crane, chairman (md.); g. f. gravatt (md.); paul e. machovina (ohio); george l. slate (n.y.). =membership:= r. b. best, chairman (ill.); gilbert l. smith (n.y.); sterling smith (ohio); dr. clyde gray (kans.); louis gerardi (ill.); carl f. prell (ind.) ex-officio. =exhibits:= sylvester shessler (ohio), chairman; a. g. hirschi (okla.); fayette etter (penn.); j. u. gellatly (b. c., canada); carl weschcke (minn.). =auditing:= sterling a. smith (ohio); carl weschcke (minn.). =legal adviser:= sargent wellman (mass). =official journal:= american fruit grower, willoughby, ohio state and foreign vice-presidents alabama, edward l. hiles, loxley alberta, canada a. l. young, brooks belgium r. vanderwaeren, bierbeekstraat, , korbeek-lo british columbia, canada j. u. gellatly, box , westbank california thos. r. haig, m.d., highland ave., carlsbad connecticut a. m. huntington, stanerigg farms, bethel delaware lewis wilkins, route newark denmark count f. m. knuth, knuthenborg, bandholm district of columbia edwin l. ford, austin st., s.e., washington florida c. a. avant, n.w., th avenue, miami georgia william j. wilson, north anderson ave., fort valley hong kong p. w. wang, des voeux rd., central idaho lynn dryden, peck illinois royal oakes, bluffs (scott county) indiana ford wallick, route , peru iowa ira m. kyhl, box , sabula kansas dr. clyde gray, central avenue, horton louisiana dr. harald e. hammar, court house, shreveport maryland blaine mccollum, white hall massachusetts s. lathrop davenport, creeper hill rd., north grafton michigan gilbert becker, climax minnesota r. e. hodgson, southeastern exp. station, waseca mississippi james r. meyer, delta branch exper station, stoneville missouri ralph richterkessing, route , saint charles nebraska harvey w. hess, box , hebron new hampshire matthew lahti, locust lane farm, wolfeboro new jersey mrs. alan r. buckwalter, route , flemington new mexico rev. titus gehring, p. o. box , lumberton new york george salzer, garford road, rochester north carolina dr. r. t. dunstan, greensboro college, greensboro north dakota homer l. bradley, long lake refuge, moffit ohio a. a. bungart, avon oklahoma a. g. hirschi, n. robinson, oklahoma city ontario, canada elton e. papple, cainsville oregon harry l. pearcy, route , box , salem pennsylvania r. p. allaman, route , harrisburg prince edward island, canada robert snazelle, forest nursery, rt. , charlottetown rhode island philip allen, dorance st., providence south carolina john t. bregger, p. o. box , clemson south dakota herman richter, madison tennessee w. jobe robinson, route , jackson texas kaufman florida, box , rotan utah harlan d. petterson, jefferson avenue, ogden vermont joseph n. collins, route , putney virginia h. r. gibbs, linden washington carroll d. bush, grapeview west virginia wilbert m. frye, pleasant dale wisconsin c. f. ladwig, st. laurence, beloit attendance register urbana meeting, august - , mr. and mrs. r. p. allaman, n. th st., harrisburg, pennsylvania dr. h. w. anderson, university of illinois, urbana, illinois professor w. d. armstrong, western kentucky exp. substation, princeton, kentucky mr. adin baber, kansas, illinois mr. and mrs. f. c. baker, troy, kansas mr. richard barcus, massillon, ohio mr. paul j. bauer, s. th, lafayette, indiana mr. gilbert becker, climax, michigan mr. w. m. beckert, jackson, michigan mr. and mrs. stephen bernath, rt. , poughkeepsie, new york mr. charles b. berst, erie, pennsylvania mr. and mrs. r. b. best, eldred, illinois dr. c. j. birkeland, university of illinois, urbana, illinois mr. a. s. brock, n. mcvicker avenue, chicago , illinois mr. morrison brown, ickesburg, pennsylvania mr. s. c. chandler, carbondale, illinois mr. spencer b. chase, norris, tennessee mr. william s. clarke, jr., box , state college, pennsylvania dr. and mrs. a. s. colby, university of illinois, urbana, illinois mr. george hebden corsan, echo valley, toronto , canada mrs. lilian v. corsan, echo valley, toronto , canada mr. george e. craig, dundas, ohio dr h. l. crane, plant industry station, beltsville, maryland mrs. harley l. crane, washington, d. c. mr. and mrs. john davidson, xenia, ohio mr. roy h. degler, jefferson city, missouri dr. oliver d. diller, ohio agricultural experiment station, wooster, ohio mr. kenneth a. dooley, rt. , marion, indiana dr. l. l. dowell, north avenue, n.e., massillon, ohio mr. ralph emerson, detroit, michigan mr. a. b. ferguson, center point, iowa mr. and mrs. frank h. frey, w. th place, chicago, illinois mr. wilbur s. frey, w nd st., kansas city, missouri mr. o. h. fuller, joliet, illinois mr. louis gerardi, caseyville, illinois mr. charles gerstenmaier, pond st., s.w., massillon, ohio mr. john a. gerstenmaier, pond st., s.w., massillon, ohio dr. edward a. grad and family, chase st., cincinnati , ohio mr. g. a. gray, bartlesville, oklahoma mr. h. w. guengerich, stark bros. nursery, louisiana, missouri mr. h. c. helmle, south grand avenue, w., springfield, illinois dr. v. w. kelley, university of illinois, urbana, illinois mr. and mrs. frank m. kintzel, briarcliffe, cincinnati , ohio ralph kreider, jr., rt. , hammond, illinois mr. and mrs. ira m. kyhl, sabula, iowa mr. clarence f. ladwig, rt. , beloit, wisconsin jeanne ellen langdoc, erie, illinois mr. and mrs. wesley w. langdoc, erie, illinois mr. michael lee, milford, michigan dr. l. h. macdaniels, chestnut st., ithaca, new york mr. p. e. machovina, northwest blvd., columbus , ohio professor w. w. magill, university of kentucky, lexington , kentucky mr. j. c. mcdaniel, university of illinois, urbana, illinois j. c. mcdaniel, jr., urbana, illinois mr. j. w. mckay, u.s.d.a. beltsville, maryland mr. j. warren mckay, osage st., college park, maryland mr. a. j. metzger, toledo , ohio mr. elwood miller, e. chapel st., hazleton, pennsylvania mrs. elwood miller, e. chapel st., hazleton, pennsylvania mr. and mrs. herbert negus, - th ave., roger heights, hyattsville, maryland mr. and mrs. royal oakes, bluffs, illinois mrs. e. n. o'rourke, tipton, michigan mr. and mrs. f. l. o'rourke, hidden lake gardens, tipton, michigan mr. john h. page, dundas, ohio mr. edward w. pape, rt. , marion, indiana mr. christ pataky, jr., mansfield, ohio mr. carl f. prell, j.m.s. bldg., south bend , indiana mrs. c. a. reed, piney branch road, washington , d.c. mr. john renken, st. charles, missouri mr. ralph richterkessing, rt. , st. charles, missouri mr. john rick, reading, pennsylvania dr. and mrs. w. m. rohrbacher, e. college st., iowa city, iowa mr. e. t. rummel, laverne avenue, cleveland , ohio mr. and mrs. george salzer, garford road, rochester , n. y. mr. rodman salzer, garford road, rochester , n.y. mr. l. walter sherman, fairview avenue, canfield, ohio (new address for sherman) mr. sylvester shessler, genoa, ohio mr. raymond e. silvis, first st., s.e., massillon, ohio mr. douglas a. smith, w. south st., vermilion, ohio mr. and mrs. sterling a. smith, w. south st., vermilion, ohio mr. d. c. snyder, center point, iowa mr. and mrs. w. f. sonnemann, vandalia, illinois miss elizabeth ann sonnemann, vandalia, illinois mr. alfred szego, - a th ave., jackson hgts., new york, n. y. mr. ford wallick, peru, indiana prof. w. b. ward, purdue university, west lafayette, indiana mrs. harry r. weber, box , miamitown, ohio (now mrs. herbert krone of rt. , lancaster, pa.) mr. a. m. whitford, farina, illinois mr. gordon zethmayr, rt. , west chicago, illinois mrs. g. a. zimmerman, rt. , linglestown, pennsylvania constitution of the northern nut growers association, incorporated (as adopted september , ) 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 , ) 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 ($ . ). article ii. contributing members. persons who are interested in the purposes of the association who pay annual dues of ten dollars ($ . ) or more. article iii. life members. persons who are interested in the purposes of the association who contribute seventy five dollars ($ . ) 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 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 ( ) 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 st through the following september th. all annual memberships shall begin october st. article ii. the names of all members whose dues have not been paid by january st 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 st. 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 st 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: . membership . auditing . publications . survey . program . research . exhibit . 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 $ . 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-second annual meeting northern nut growers association, inc. august , and , urbana, illinois at the evening session on august , dr. william rohrbacher presented dr. arthur s. colby, of the university of illinois, who informally welcomed the gathering and set forth in detail the plans for the convention, with directions for finding different buildings, and suggestions concerning the several scheduled events. dr. colby concluded his talk by calling for a few remarks from one of our canadian members, george h. corsan, of toronto, who is probably (with dr. deming) one of two nonagenarians in the association. mr. corsan spoke as follows: mr. corsan: my neck is still stiff. on the th of may i was up looking at a budding and i was coming down a -foot ladder, and when i was feet from the ground the ladder had a bad rung and i took a head-first dive for the earth. i believe my tissues were made out of nuts, fruit, honey, and grain and i was able to survive. i looked exactly like a man in the gallows. they said, "you will be in the hospital for eight weeks or more." in two weeks and two days i was hoeing corn. on the way here i dropped into various places that were of interest. jack miners. the place is really better than when their father was alive. i came over across the river and dropped into battle creek. i spent a good time hunting for kellogg and i couldn't find him. one person told me he was dead. he was quite peppy over the telephone and i was amazed because he had been ill and well, then ill and then well. he says, "come on over. i am ready and looking for you." he wrote me a letter scolding me. he asked where i was going and i told him. i asked him, "do you know you are a life member of that association?" he has a monster dog descended from rin-tin-tin and that dog is clean, intelligent and looks like a human being. he is on the shore of gull lake, a seven-mile-long, one-mile-wide lake. marvelous looking. he had abandoned his big house and he gave that to soldiers and sailors and sick men. i had asked for him and they have never heard of him. that's how he hides himself. he is back on the lake again. so i hunted and found a house so unique that no one but he could have a house like that built. there he was and he was peppy as ever. he has a new man on the bird sanctuary. he was fully alive. i don't want to take up any more of your time. i have had call on me an enormous number of people who are more interested in nut growing than ever. i can't blame them, with the price of meat so high, and so many doctors advising the displacement of animal foodstuff by the eating of nuts. it was on my th birthday that i got a plaster cast and was in it two weeks and two days. i will tell you a little secret. i was supposed to have a diet. they had a dietician and i said i didn't need to eat anything. i drank orange juice and pineapple juice and apple juice and grapefruit juice. i ate some european black bread with carroway seeds; it tasted bitter. i don't eat so much as i did before the accident. i am trying to be careful of myself. i want to have a talk with wilkinson on the black walnut. i have four big trees of stabler, and hardly a nut grows on them. down there they behave themselves and have big crops. how do they have such big crops? i like them. i don't believe there is a tastier nut in the world. even my hybrid asiatic butternut cross. i have got quite a lot of them here to show you and the biggest filberts in the world and they are all seedlings. not a hickory nut, butternut or black walnut. i had a ton of black walnuts. there is a good crop of hybrids, filberts, english walnuts, and there are some other nuts. i am north of lake ontario. when any of you are going across, drop in and see me. tuesday morning session dr. rohrbacher: will you please come to order. my gavel is in iowa city, so i will use my pocket knife. we have to make a little change in our program. our leader, mr. magill, is not yet here. first on our program this morning will be dr. c. j. birkeland, head of the department of horticulture at the university of illinois. it's wonderful to have such a splendid response so early in the morning. dr. birkeland: it is certainly nice to see such a big turnout and we certainly welcome you to illinois. we have been interested in nuts for a long time and probably will be more interested in the future. we have one man on our staff who has for years been interested. now that we have two, we will be twice as interested. in the past, years ago, the endicotts probably pioneered in a new variety of nuts. later on, the caspers and gerardis and whitfords and now the oakes and best families are doing a lot of work in the propagation of new and better varieties. we have a lot of areas in illinois suitable for nut propagation, with the wabash, illinois, and mississippi rivers, and we have been working with farm advisers and other groups to increase nut production and now we have a new horticultural experimental station in the southern part of the state. there is a lot of land suitable for that type of production. out on the horticultural farm we have, i guess, several hundred seedlings and varieties of nuts which you will probably see. i hope your stay here will be a lot of fun as well as profitable. dr. crane: it is a great pleasure for me, and i know from the expression that i have had from those with whom i have talked, also for the members of the northern nut growers association who are here to be able to meet in urbana as guests of the university of illinois. as a matter of fact, we have tried and wanted to come out here for quite a long while, but we didn't have a good invitation and we are glad to accept--here we are! the members of the northern nut growers association are all good people and they are very much interested in nut growing, not so much from the standpoint of making a fabulous income and being able to retire on an unlimited bank account on ten acres of land in nut trees, but they get a lot of pleasure out of fooling with them as a hobby, and in order that they might more or less through their trees respond under god's loving care. this is the nd annual meeting of the northern nut growers association, so it is no longer a baby. it is growing up. i don't know what the membership is at the present time. the secretary is going to tell us what the membership is this afternoon. it has gotten to be quite a sizable organization. we welcome the opportunity of coming out here to illinois to see some of the nut orchards and nut trees in this great state, particularly pecans, although we do see quite a lot of hickories and also walnuts. we certainly thank you, dr. birkeland, for your welcome and i know that our pleasure here is going to be unlimited. we thank you. dr. rohrbacher: thank you, dr. crane. we had them bring up some water to take care of our whistles. at this time i'd like to present our address. president's address i want to say it is a real privilege and pleasure for me to visit with you today and to have the honor of serving as your president for the past year. i have always been impressed with the enthusiasm and optimism of this group. you know enthusiasm and optimism are highly contagious, and i look forward each year with great anticipation to my regular inoculation. it is particularly fitting that we assemble here with a common goal and purpose and also with the common knowledge that there is much work to be done. this society, which was formed years ago, has enjoyed great progress and i wish to commend the men who had the vision to conceive this association and nurture it to manhood. their accomplishments were indeed fruitful. however, there is still room and need for a program of expansion. it is our responsibility and obligation to see that this growth continues. the rings of growth on a tree trunk push outward and continually expand and grow--so must our association. sometimes we become so deeply engrossed in what we are doing or trying to do that it is advisable to back up and take a broadside view of our objectives and purpose. in other words, we sometimes cannot see the forest for the trees. i should like at this time to review the real intent and purpose of the northern nutgrowers association. the defined purpose of this association, as stated in the constitution, is to promote: ( ) interest in 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. we are very happy that the convention has come to illinois, which represents the western rim of this group. only one meeting was held farther west, and that was held in iowa in , when my good friend and fellow iowan, d. c. snyder's brother, was active and contributed so much to nut culture in this country. the late sam snyder's, as well as d. c.'s untiring efforts, did much to originate and develop some of the finest named walnut and hickory nuts in iowa. through the years many other good nuts of the black walnut, hickory, pecan, persian walnut and chestnut have been added to the ever-growing list. it is my considered opinion that one of the real questions that must be answered and answered intelligently, based on actual experience, is what nut trees shall i plant now? it is only natural that the list of different varieties has grown so long in nearly every variety that we should concern ourselves particularly with point three of our objectives, which i have reviewed with you--that being the standardization and selection of varietal names. in order that nut culture be extended and expanded for profit, as well as satisfaction, i feel this is a real problem. it is my considered judgment that a definite culling must be done. those of us who find our favorite nut tree meeting the axe may propagate it on a personal basis. the fact remains however that a definite list of approved varieties, based on actual experience and performance, is needed. we will save many a heartache, much time, work, and money by knowing more definitely what to plant. this would enable the nurseryman or the propagator of nut trees to reduce the number of varieties it has been necessary to carry in the past. it is imperative that any growing business have a broad commercial base. the nurseryman is seeking information on the most desirable varieties because it is unprofitable for him to carry a huge inventory of varieties he feels are most desirable, yet are called for the least. it has been my experience that the nurserymen in iowa are limiting the number of species for propagating purposes. they are making a selection of varieties based on their own judgment, which may be good or perhaps could be better. if more standardization and selection could be obtained, the nurseryman could and would propagate more of the varieties that are recommended for their particular localities. in my opinion, it is our responsibility to help furnish this information. with this in mind, we have named a committee to work on this important problem during the past year. the very capable and efficient mr. h. f. stoke has been working with the vice-presidents of our organization to survey the black walnut through the black walnut belt. i am sure we all are anxious to learn about their findings and accomplishments later in this conference. it is my sincere hope that this report and the forum round table discussion will give all of us a better understanding of which black walnut to plant in each respective locality. if we can accomplish this one problem at this meeting, i feel this conference would be most worthwhile and be a contributing factor to an ever-expanding production of good black walnuts in this country. if we can make real progress on the black walnut, and i am confident we can, the other varieties such as the hickory, persian walnut, chestnut, and the lesser grown nuts, can be dealt with in the future. this matter of selecting the best variety of black walnuts for a particular locality has been of interest to me ever since i became interested in the fascinating subject and practice of growing nut trees. furthermore, i have become increasingly interested in this during each succeeding year. if you will pardon a personal reference, we started out by planting some of each variety that appealed to me that was being propagated or sold by nurserymen. in the beginning years we experienced difficulty with two factors: namely, cattle and flood waters. we still have a number of varieties but have discarded many for a number of reasons. however, in the next few years the trees will be ready to bear and will furnish many of the answers concerning production in our own locality. this single project may save future planters of nut trees many heartaches and, more important, loss of time--because they will know what to plant. that sentence in essence is my main thought for the day--and year. and as a final example we could read the parable from the book of matthew of the man who sowed seed but an enemy sowed tares and the servants asked if they should pull the tares. but jesus said, "no, because in so doing they might uproot the wheat. rather," said he, "wait until the harvest, then separate the tares from the wheat." earlier it was mentioned that we all like to be identified with a growing or expanding business or project. it is my firm conviction that we all should do more to promote more and better nut trees. we need more planters of a few nut trees as well as a few planters with many trees. we have recently seen a tremendous rebirth of interest in grassland farming in this country. this is constructive and sound for the long pull. livestock and proper land use are natural companions. another ally and companion in this whole movement should be good walnut trees in every pasture, a few nut trees in every farm lot, in the fence row and corner of the farm. i am sure that our educational agencies would be very receptive to putting more emphasis on this sound and fundamental practice. good pasture lands, clear streams, plenty of trees for shade are all important and real assets to any farm. shade produced by a tree is incomparable to any man-made structure. instead of compromising with any shade tree let us all accept it as our mission to educate the people to know that nut trees are the most economical and useful. then, after a summer of furnishing the finest shade from the summer heat, fall would bring an abundant harvest of highly desirable edible nuts for the household and perhaps a few more for a city neighbor who may not have been so fortunate. thus, in closing, may i again emphasize that it is my sincere hope that the survey, which has been completed by mr. stoke through the good cooperation of the vice presidents, will result in a more intelligent selection of the best black walnuts for the respective communities and localities. this will enable the beginner, as well as others, to purchase black walnut trees with a reasonable assurance that the returns will be a source of satisfaction rather than a disappointment. it is a real pleasure to come to urbana and partake of the gracious hospitality of people like dr. colby, j. c. mcdaniel, and others who have contributed so much to the success of this association. this is a great fraternity and it is my sincere hope that we continue from here to a most successful meeting. this common bond and mutual objective of better nut culture gives us pleasure, profit, pleasant association, healthful enjoyment, and at the same time renders a genuine service to our community and country. at this time, we have to make a change in our program, due to the fact that our leader w. w. magill, of the university of kentucky, is not here with us. we have asked that s. c. chandler, of carbondale, illinois, speak on the control of spittle bugs on nut trees. control of spittle bugs on nut trees s. c. chandler, _illinois natural history survey, carbondale, ill._ when dr. crane spoke about the fact that so many of you grow nuts for pleasure rather than for profit, i thought that probably explained why i just knew about this pecan spittle bug june of this year. i never even heard of it before, although it has been quite serious in and around union county, miles south of here. the firm which owns the orchard where these tests were conducted, conrad casper and son, has magnificent pecan trees besides an apple and a peach orchard. mr. casper didn't say anything about the trouble until then. he lays much of the loss of his crop to the pecan spittle bug. i want you to know what it is like. it is a little out of season. the meadow spittle bug works on grasses and weeds. this is, we have found, a different species. this one i brought up doesn't show as much as it would if i had collected it three weeks ago. there is a little nymph of a sucking insect which spits as it feeds. it doesn't chew tobacco fortunately. i got it from down here in the bottoms of the little wabash river. i first want to tell you a little of what the grower, mr. conrad casper, considers the importance of it. now, as i say, i don't pretend to be a specialist on nut insects. my work has been mostly with fruit insects. whatever i know about this insect i have learned this year, and i am just passing on that information to you. mr. casper says that in the year represented by this growth here the spittle bug worked right into the base, and that is the one that would have produced buds. so, instead of bearing nuts, it acts as if you have pruned it. it didn't stop the growth, but it stopped the bearing of nuts. that was attacked by spittle bugs, but at any rate it didn't produce nuts. that has gone on four or five years and his neighbors all say the same thing. here is one year, two, three, in the twig growth. this year it did make some nuts, in that particular branch. i am not prepared to back everything he says. here is a growth here, then another, and finally had a few nuts all over the tree. so much then for the importance of it. my problem was three-fold. i wanted to find out what species was involved. i found out it was not the same species that works on the grasses, and i sent in some adults for identification. they told me the right genus, but couldn't tell me the species. they are either in the process of determining it or on vacation. it is a different thing from the meadow spittle bug and has two broods instead of one. i wanted to learn something about the life history. all of you know that it is very important to get the life history of the insect, because then you know the stages in which they are most likely to be most easily killed. we know something of the stages and when it would be of use to spray or do something for them. in order to learn the species, i had to rear it out and to attempt some control measures when it was first called to my attention by the farm advisers. this first brood was about over, and i thought our work was about over. the spittle was drying up. it is interesting to note that unless it is actually feeding, you can carry it around in a car for only a short time. the insect seems to stop working and you can't get a very good sample. mr. mcdaniel: we have some out there on our pecan trees and on the walnuts also. mr. chandler: down there we found where walnut was interplanted with pecan, it would be very light on a walnut then. so i thought that maybe our observations and tests were over before they ever started, but by july or , a new brood had started. dr. g. c. decker could hardly believe it. there is only one brood of the meadow spittle bug with which he was familiar, but this was a different species. it was very much more numerous than the first brood. ninety-five per cent of the terminals were infested. if that does anything to nut production it is bound to reduce the bearing. now that brood lasted until late august. the adults continued to emerge for about a month, starting august third, and as far as i know they were still emerging on sunday afternoon, august . now, just before telling about that and showing some of the pictures and spraying test, i might wind up this part of it by saying something about the distribution. i wondered if it is in gallatin county. i found it abundant there. mac already says we have some in urbana. i was wondering if it was down in the so-called pecan orchards. these orchards are really just seedling groves. immense things. i went down there on my way and they do have it. the first man i met said i think we haven't been getting pecans because of that spittle bug. it did seem funny to stumble on the thing. mr. casper was really an apple grower. it took him four years to suffer enough to complain about his pecan insects. i want to show you some slides. dr. kelly will start showing the pictures. i tried to take a picture of one of the worst infested branches. really, later i found i had taken it a little too soon. this thing actually hangs down in bags. this was my attempt to show some of these previous year's growth that was killed, and there it was. you can see some of this whitish material here. this was taken after we had sprayed. the new growth is coming through here. i must have gotten my finger in the way here. this is the dead part and the new growth and something working on it. another thing that mr. casper says is that sometimes it gets bad enough so that some of these nuts are caused to drop off. they seem to be pretty well established. now there are small things i am attempting to show here. i think our official photographer is on vacation. he has some that are larger than i was able to take. i tried to take a picture when the spittle was dried up, but i don't know whether you can see them. i wanted to show you some of the cages. they were emergence cages that cover a branch. the nymphs would develop into the adults inside that. here again i wished for my official photographer. these are the adults, darkish up here and light in the other end. they are about three-eighths of an inch long and they are a hopper. they have wings with which they can fly, but mostly you see them jumping about. they look like your tree hoppers. i just wanted you to take a look down this magnificent orchard of mr. casper's. he has of those trees. they are years old, planted feet apart. they are feet high. i am going to have to use some of my boy scout ability and measure by proportion. he claims to have sprayed at least the lower three-fourths of the tree. member: he uses a speed sprayer, doesn't he? mr. chandler: no, it's another kind. with all the pressure on one gun, he can get a long way up. one of the materials we used was too strong and we got a crinkling on the leaves. after that he cut it down to what i told him. my data slide. i want to tell you about this. he sprayed first on july in the orchard which i showed you. he sprayed the whole thing with parathion. he had been using it with his apples and he thought of that as being such a deadly poison that that must be the thing to do. we thought so the first day afterward. he sprayed in the evening. at nine the next morning we could find practically none of those terminals that seemed to have live spittle bugs, but in about two days we could see some were surviving that treatment so we came in again. that spray was applied july . at any rate, we sprayed one row with lindane, - / lb. per gallons. when i went through the original parathion sprayed plot there was well over half that had some live nymphs. we started our tests over again. on july we sprayed with lindane ( % wettable powder) with one pound to one hundred gallons of water. only three terminals with any live nymphs out of a hundred were left in the lindane. the parathion has per cent alive. tepp which is teta ethyl pyrophosphate is a very quick acting material but doesn't last. whatever it does, it has to do in an hour or two's time. it has lost its efficiency after that. but we know it might kill everything in a big hurry. there was still ten per cent. we could rule out parathion. we went back to this one row and sprayed on july and on august and . that would be nine days. there still were only four infested terminals. that lindane is a refined bhc, which is that material that stinks. it has been known to produce an off flavor in peaches, and it could very easily make an off flavor in pecans. in tests before this on meadow spittle bugs on crops which might be used for food they did not use bhc, which would be cheaper. there are four or five different forms of the molecule that are important in making that and this gamma is the most important. we used a pound of this % gamma lindane and that apparently was the most successful. i didn't get this idea out of a clear sky. i talked to dr. g. c. decker and read one or two articles showing where they had been using dieldrin and lindane with the most success. i guess that is all the slides now. member: do you get away from the bad effects of bhc by using lindane? mr. chandler: yes. now we feel that at any rate in the very short time in which we have known anything about the thing we have at least learned something about the pest and the distribution and the species and apparently we have got a lead on control. mr. casper thinks there is no reason why he shouldn't start in the first brood, although he has had about four years build up of the thing and no wonder it is bad. if we should try that another year, i would say we should start about the middle of june, because when he looked on the th of june the show was about over. member: your lattitude is about the same as evansville? mr. chandler: yes, carbondale is almost on the due west line with henderson, kentucky, and anna is miles south of carbondale. member: one hundred miles north would be about two weeks later. mr. chandler: yes, i wouldn't be surprised if it wouldn't be later. we thought maybe you might have to spray when the adults were out. we didn't know whether any material would go through that spittle. we thought you might have to spray and envelop the tree when the adults were around. member: i saw some spittle bugs in northern michigan on wild hazel, and i am wondering if they are a pest on filberts. member: we have no damage on filberts and i think we have spittle bugs in st. louis. our first brood comes between the first of june and the tenth, and in the last eight years they have been very serious. member: did you say northern peninsula of michigan? member: we have reports from illinois and missouri and mr. armstrong found it over at princeton, kentucky, and i know it is in indiana. mr. mcdaniel: i have seen some on pecans in tennessee, but not as abundant as in union county. member: english walnuts in ohio. h. f. stoke: i am in southwestern virginia. i can say that we have spittle bug in the south. i am not sure it is the same species. when i get it determined, i will let you know. dr. chase: that occurs in all the southern states. it is quite bad in georgia and florida and alabama and in fact all the southern states. mr. mckay: it is very bad on weeds and grass in our orchards. mr. chandler: that's another species. mr. mckay: i have never seen any on our nut trees. member: just before this attack on the nut trees it was real bad on clover and grasses in our area. member: that comes a little earlier. we ought to be sure that we get that determined. dr. milton w. sanderson has had to send some specimens to a specialist in this group in lawrence, kansas.[ ] member: are there just two broods? mr. chandler: there might possibly be three. i have another cage in my check block in which i collected the live ones, and i am going to find out whether they produce or don't. member: there are two broods in iowa. member: do i understand the common spittle bug is an enemy to nut trees? member: that is for young nursery seedlings. mr. chandler: did you see these big trees where i told you about having the crop? i explained for several minutes that there must be two varieties. mr. ferguson: there is a spittle bug that bothers the june berries. dr. rohrbacher: we have a spittle bug we had a year or two in iowa on the elm trees. at this time dr. colby would like to make a few announcements. dr. colby: i just had a call from tubby magill. he is over in danville and he has burned out a bearing and he is going to get over here for this afternoon. we will have to pinch-hit the rest of the morning. dr. rohrbacher: we will now have a presentation by dr mckay on the preliminary results of the training of chinese chestnut trees. footnotes: [footnote : dr. kathleen g. doering, at the university of kansas identified the spittle bug from the illinois pecans as _clastoptera achatina_, a species not hitherto recognized as an important pecan pest. spittle bugs from southeastern pecans have been referred to a different species.--ed.] preliminary results from training chinese chestnut trees to different heights of head j. w. mckay and h. l. crane[ ] introduction many growers of chinese chestnut (_castanea mollissima_) want to know how soon their young trees may be expected to bear their first crops of nuts. this is determined by several factors, but perhaps one of the most important is the amount and kind of pruning the trees receive during the first four or five years they are in the orchard. one reason for the importance of type of pruning is the characteristic habit of the species to form branches low on the trunk, so that low-headed and spreading tops result if trees are left unpruned. it has long been accepted by most horticulturists that any kind of pruning of fruit trees tends to be a dwarfing process. hence, pruned trees would be smaller than similar unpruned trees. pruning of young fruit trees, though reducing the size of the top and the number of growing points, tends to stimulate the growth of the remaining shoots. this has a marked tendency to delay the formation of fruit buds. hence, unpruned trees come into bearing earlier than even lightly pruned trees. tufts ( )[ ] reported that lightly pruned deciduous fruit trees, such as apple, pear, apricot, and peach, came into bearing one to three years earlier than similar trees that had been heavily pruned. crane ( ) found that height of head in apple trees had little effect on yield for the first nine years in the orchard, but at the time the experiment was terminated the trees were still too young for him to expect much fruit production. he found, however, that the low-headed trees made more shoot growth and a larger gain in trunk diameter than the high-headed ones, and thus the bearing area was larger. because the tree form of the horticultural varieties of chinese chestnut is somewhat comparable to that of apple varieties, it would be expected that the two might give similar growth and yield responses to pruning or training procedures. the experiment described in this paper was initiated for the purpose of determining the response made by trees of chinese chestnut varieties pruned and trained to three heights of head. experimental procedure the three varieties used in the experiment are meiling, nanking, and an unnamed variety carried under the accession number . the last variety is characterized by dwarf, heavy-bearing trees that mature their crops very early in the fall, whereas meiling and nanking are vigorous, fast-growing varieties that mature their nuts in midseason. in the early spring of thirty-six two-year-old grafted trees were planted feet apart in the orchard in four short rows of nine trees each. the three treatments consisted of ( ) no pruning; ( ) pruning to a -foot head; and ( ) pruning to a -foot head. three trees, one of each variety, were included in a plot or treatment. thus, the experiment was arranged in a randomized block design with the three treatments randomized in each row and the four rows serving as replications. each spring the trees received a liberal application of a - - fertilizer. strips six to eight feet wide on each side of the contoured rows received frequent cultivation each growing season, while strips of orchard grass sod were left between the rows to prevent erosion. the soil is riverdale (tentative series) sandy loam that had been in orchard grass sod for ten years before the experiment was begun. it has been necessary to spray the trees each year with ddt, parathion, or both to control japanese beetles and mites. pruning of the trees was begun during the first winter following the planting in the orchard, but only a few of the lower limbs were removed in order not to dwarf the pruned trees severely. the second winter a few more lower limbs were removed and at this time the two-foot-head treatments were complete. a third pruning was necessary before the heads of the trees in treatment three could be raised to four feet. detailed records and measurements were made of the diameter of each tree trunk one foot above the ground, and of the weight and number of nuts produced (yield). experimental results =table . effects of training to different heights of head on the average diameter of tree trunk and yield of nuts of three varieties of chinese chestnuts at the end of the third season ( ) after transplanting= ===========+=============================+==============================+ | | | | average diameter of tree | | | trunk (millimeters) | yield of nuts (pounds) | treatment +-----------------------------+------------------------------+ | | | | meiling no. nanking tree | meiling no. nanking tree | | average| average | ------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+ | | | no pruning | [ ] | . . [ ] . . | -foot heads| | . . | -foot heads| | . . | ------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+ =============+==============================+ | | | | | number of nuts | treatment +------------------------------+ | | | meiling no. nanking tree | | average | -------------+------------------------------+ | | no pruning | [ ] | -foot heads | | -foot heads | | -------------+------------------------------+ [ ] trees missing. data on the diameters of the tree trunks and yields of nuts at the end of the third year in the orchard are given in table . it should be pointed out first that these grafted trees produced some nuts the third growing season they were in the orchard. this is very much earlier than seedling trees ordinarily could be expected to bear nuts. it will be noted that trees of number developed a somewhat smaller trunk on the average than the other varieties did, but number outyielded them about two to one, both in weight and in number of nuts produced. the tendency of number to bear nuts earlier and on smaller trees than other varieties may prove to be a valuable characteristic that will justify naming and releasing this clone as a new variety. the fact that it matures its nuts early may also make it suitable for growing in more northerly areas than other varieties, because the length of season required for maturing the crop presumably is shorter than for other varieties. however, this cannot be determined without extensive tests in the north, which are now being made by a number of growers. it will be noted also in table that the trunk diameters of the unpruned trees were about twice as great as were those of trees trained to two-and four-foot heads; and furthermore, the yield of nuts was more than four times as great. this means that cutting off the limbs that formed below the -foot level checked growth so that the bearing surface of the tops was greatly reduced as compared with that of unpruned trees. also, growth of the tops of these trees was etiolated and spindly, and the shoots produced few or no catkins as compared with the abundant catkins produced by the unpruned trees. several of the trees with four-foot heads became so top-heavy that staking was necessary, and nearly all the pruned trees leaned to some extent. at the end of the third year in the orchard, the unpruned trees were much taller than trees headed at two and four feet, and the spread of branches was also much greater. preliminary results from this experiment indicate that early pruning of young chinese chestnut trees causes severe dwarfing and consequent delay in the formation of catkins and the bearing of nuts. all pruning operations should, therefore, be delayed until the trees reach bearing age, and from that time on low limbs may be removed gradually from year to year until the trees are trained to the proper height. literature cited ( ) crane, h. l. the effect of height of head on young apple tree growth and yield west virginia agr. exp. sta. bul. . ( ) tufts, warren p. pruning young deciduous fruit trees california agr. exp. sta. bull. : - . discussion mr. mcdaniel: what age and height were these trees when planted? dr. mckay: these trees were grafted on two year old stock and allowed to grow a year. they were three years old. they have grown in the orchard three years, so they are now six years old and about five feet high. they were grafted about a foot from the ground and they grew three feet or so. they were a good size grafted tree. member: may i ask the time of the year when you pruned? dr. mckay: in the dormant season. mr. sherman: i have been pruning some persian walnuts. just as the side branch starts i rub that bud off and i can't see that i am dwarfing it any. member: maybe you aren't pruning enough to do any dwarfing. we have removed whole limbs. member: i have taken it off and allowed the center to go up. dr. mckay: it may have different effects. we actually removed wood from the tree. member: is that a pretty good sized nut? dr. mckay: it is a smaller nut. the is a potentially high bearer. it bears quickly after it is planted and that is one of the things a lot of us are interested in. member: how about eating quality? dr. mckay: it is just as good. our preliminary conclusion is that early pruning in this species causes severe dwarfing and delay in the fruiting of chinese chestnuts. just let them alone. plant them and forget about pruning them until they come into bearing. let them alone and you will get nuts two or three years sooner than if you start taking those lower limbs off. once you get it into bearing then start in and take off a few limbs on the bottom. you could still over-do the thing. the point is to wait at least three or four years. we will have some recommendations in another year when we shall know more ourselves. member: what do you disinfect those cuts with? dr. mckay: we don't figure it is necessary to be too particular about painting the wounds. those wounds heal over very quickly. use an asphalt tree wound compound. mr. silvis: personally it appears to me that walter sherman's method of rubbing off the buds or very young shoots just as they start growth is to be preferred. your method of cutting off limbs is destructive pruning. though you say pruning dwarfs the tree, actually the root is still there and given enough time will not the tree recover? dr. crane: i carried on pruning experiments for many, many years, with apples, peaches, pears and cherries. since then i have been working on nut trees. as for this debudding, the reason he doesn't know he was injuring, was that he didn't have checks and experiments. when you have, you will see that debudding or even pinching the terminals will actually dwarf the tree, although not as badly if it is not done in the summer time. if you do it in the springtime, and if you keep on debudding along in june and july, you are dwarfing your trees. mr. mcdaniel: in the university orchard you will see some chinese chestnuts which have been pruned heavily, and the results aren't good. mr. corsan: i visited a sweet chestnut orchard in michigan, and the grower told me that there were two types of chinese chestnut trees, one that grew tall and the other squatty. the one that grew shorter was much later than the tall one. then i would like to tell you about an experience i had years ago. i imported from this state of illinois from miss amelia riehl, and i also planted about a bushel of seed of chinese chestnut trees grown in the niagara district. these niagara seedlings are quite large and the amazing thing is they didn't grow any nuts. so i came across another orchard in the niagara district where they were growing that large pointed type of nut and i got some grafts from that and i put them on these non-bearing trees and they all took at once. a bunch of them would all grow up without any failure. that was easy and now they are growing fine. i just thought i would tell you that peculiar experience, and that knocked me cold. the trees from illinois and the trees from the seeds of the large good sized nuts were equally good. member: did they bear after you grafted them? mr. corsan: they sent out sprouts that far. [indicating.] the trees were all right. mr. stoke: i think you are both wrong. i think you will take the tree and plant it without pruning and then it starts and then in the summer after it is in full leaf pinch off the leader in the lower branches. that will retain the value of those lower leaves. by doing that and suppressing the lower you will get better results than either of the other ways. nature will remove and make unfruitful the lower ones. you can help nature in forcing the upper growth and removing the lower. dr. mckay: that is one way of doing it. a lot of people want to get ahead of nature. if you wait for those lower limbs to die, the tree will have to be pretty large. lots of people want to get under their trees before that. you sometimes want to get there after three or four years. i think it would take ten years for the shade to do it. mr. stoke: i didn't mean to let the shade do it. we after three or four years can remove the limbs ourselves with less shock and much better results. that will work on any tree. dr. mckay: i don't see how you can remove. member: you force stronger leaders at the top and hasten the growth of the top. member. you will get a delay of fruiting. member: i think you make up for it. dr. crane: that may be true. we have seen very conclusively that when you prune even a little you are going to destroy fruiting. mr. stoke: you will have a larger tree in five years by my method than by yours. mr. a. m. whitford: i have trees of that very spreading type of chinese chestnut, that are lying on the ground and i should have removed those limbs five or eight years ago. you should remove them in not more than five years after planting. dr. mckay: i want to make a comment. some grafted trees are not bearing. this to us shows the importance of varieties. this difference between and the two others is so striking it means in the future we have to pay more attention to the varieties. there is no question that some varieties will bear sooner than others. we have to talk about grafted trees because that is the only thing that can be developed. every grafted tree is potentially like every other of the same variety. member: what factors suppress them? in pinching back, do you mean that the actual growth rate is changed, or that debudding will suppress the entire tree? dr. mckay: we mean the amount of the top itself. usually it is the spread and the height together. when you prune, you tend to hold back the total amount of the fruiting area of the tree. if you allow it to develop untouched you have a greater fruiting area. member: the chestnut tree often will sprout from the trunk. what are the processes to check that? dr. crane: it is very largely root pressure. when you have a tree that is uninjured, all of your water and soluble minerals are going up to the top. when you have the tree trunk killed or cut off you still have water in your root system. in some trees you have a lot of adventitious buds that are still there and never forced out. nitrogen will force those dormant buds into growth. at each walnut node or leaf we have as many as seven buds, all of which are capable of producing growth. normally it is only the major bud that grows, but propagators sometimes get a patch bud back to life even though the primary bud dries up. keep on forcing it and you are bound to get a sprout out of that bud. that is just the way it is with a lot of dormant buds. there are so many that when we cut off the top these dormant buds are forced into growth. some trees don't have them. tung does not form dormant buds, but will form those adventitious buds. they will form numerous buds even in a very small area of callus. it is just a safeguard that some plants have developed to keep the individuals alive. mr. mcdaniel: i think what mr. craig had in mind was the tendency there is in chinese chestnut to form multiple trunks. dr. crane: that is due to these dormant buds and the ability to produce callus. chestnut is one of the species that produces abundant callus very readily. that is one of the reasons this chinese chestnut is so blight resistant. when it has an injury it will form callus at the point of the injury. member: would you tell me how you would start a blind bud growing. it will not break. it doesn't form. when i come to a wood which is blind i cut it off. mr. chase: we have had such buds and find if that bud is blind you can force all you want to but you won't get any new buds to grow from that bud patch. dr. mckay: it does on two-year wood. perhaps on one-year wood you have no adventitious buds. when the bud dies, that patch is through. on two-year wood frequently small adventitious buds will grow. member: if you rub the main bud off, it will start on the side. member: do you recommend two year wood for budding? dr. mckay: we recommend one year if it is large and vigorous. if you have to use chestnut wood smaller than a pencil the results will be indifferent. member: what time do you recommend budding? dr. mckay: we graft in spring, the first week in may, using dormant wood the size of your little finger. we wait until the first leaves are open, usually in may. member: do i understand that most any place along that tree trunk there are adventitious buds? dr. mckay: particularly next to the root. member: have you had any success in bench grafting of the chestnuts? dr. mckay: we have had some success and other times failures. we can't recommend bench grafting. perhaps you can do it, but we haven't yet worked out a satisfactory method. member: wouldn't it do better if you dipped the top in paraffin or something? dr. mckay: ask mr. bernath. he is the authority. mr. bernath: no, none whatever. no, it wouldn't help. mr. corsan: in new york they had weevils. that is the most terrible thing i ever saw. has the weevil disappeared entirely? member: no, indeed, we have weevils over a large area. it is a very important pest in the east and in the ozark chinkapin range around chestnut plantings. there is a very satisfactory and easy way of control. ddt, two pounds per gallons of spray solution or a dust of one per cent. the trees are sprayed once or twice or three times from about the last of august on until shortly before harvest. mr. mcdaniel: that is discussed in last year's annual report. mr. corsan: i fumigated my seed nuts for the weevils and killed them all effectively, and we have no weevils of hickory or chestnuts now. that is, as far as southern canada is concerned. it would matter terribly if we had any weevils of any kind. anyone hear about the hickory and chestnut weevil? member: standard directions are available for the control of weevils both in chestnut and hickories. member: there are practically no weevils in new york. the boundary line would be about southern new jersey. it doesn't make much progress farther north. it's also absent toward the southeastern and gulf coasts. member: that is an interesting discussion, but it is off the current subject. dr. rohrbacher: i am sure your project is interesting, manifested by the questions you have been asked. footnotes: [footnote : horticulturist and principal horticulturist, respectively. u. s. department of agriculture, bureau plant industry, soils and agricultural engineering, beltsville, md.] [footnote : number in parenthesis refer to literature cited, p. .] the filbert and persian walnut in indiana w. b. ward, _department of horticulture, purdue university_ the soils and climatic conditions in indiana are, for the most part, favorable to the growing of nut trees. there are various types of soils, ranging from light sand to heavy clay, soils high and low in organic material and natural fertility. the annual rainfall, to inches, is fairly well distributed throughout the year. the length of the growing season is about frost-free days and, oftentimes, another to days of non-killing temperature. the summer and winter temperatures are average, thus providing good conditions for the development of fruit and growth to the trees. there are always exceptions to the normal conditions, and a good test season broadens the experience of those who want to go to the extreme in planting nut trees. this past year, - season, was a good test year. the temperature early in november was as high as °, tomatoes, peppers, beans, and sweet corn were growing in the gardens. during mid-november the temperature quickly dropped to near zero. the cold later went down to - ° and even - °, as recorded at greensburg. this cold weather, not only killed much of the tender short growth and pistillate flower possibilities, but destroyed many of the catkins. the filbert and persian (including carpathian) walnuts, suffered and in some instances the plants were killed to ground level. all of the damaged plants have survived, and where the top of the tree was killed, new growth came up from the root. as only seedling persian walnut trees were under observation and included in the purdue plantation, their sucker growth will be used to form new tops. the native walnut, hazelnut, hickory, and butternut had little or no winter injury and many trees are very fruitful all over indiana. the improved strains of filberts and the persian walnuts have only a few fruits this year. seedling persians grafted or budded on native black walnut survived, but there was some damage to the top growth due to immaturity of the wood and bud last fall. before general planting recommendations can be made, other than for the hobbyist or home-owner with a few trees, further testing will be required. filbert and hazelnut the native hazelnut thickets are not as common now as in years past. most of the nuts were small and of little commercial value. when hybridizers and other nut enthusiasts started improving the size and quality of the native hazelnut and bringing in filberts from other countries, some impetus was added to the filbert planting program. only a few took advantage of these new and promising seedlings, and aside from a few small plantings throughout the state the filbert is placed in the ornamental grouping of plants. several areas in indiana are suitable for more extensive plantings. the jones hybrids have proven satisfactory and are found growing from the northern part to the ohio river. several crosses were made four years ago using pollen from the rush and large fruited seedlings on the native hazel. there are or such plants, two years old, now growing in the purdue plot. they came through the winter in excellent condition. many of the catkins on the older plants were killed during the early cold spell, and the nut crop this year is very spotty. the filbert does have a place around the home as an ornamental, as a fruit tree, or when used as a hedge for screening. the carpathian persian walnut the carpathian persian walnuts in indiana are practically all seedlings. many of these seedling trees show great promise, while others under observation for the past few years are being discarded because of lack of hardiness and production. some few seedlings made vigorous growth and produced fair to good yields for the past years, but some weakness was evident after the - winter. it appears now that those trees that have survived and are in production this year are worthy of further study and propagation. the oldest known persian walnut in our state is the haderle seedling. a few nuts, from a friend in california, were planted in and years later fruited. this tree has produced as many as pounds of nuts in a single year and has survived all test winters since planting. the nut from the haderle tree averages nuts per pound, medium shell, good quality and . per cent of the total weight is edible. the nut cracks well. several other such persian seedlings have been classified as existing prior to the general distribution of carpathian nuts from the wisconsin horticultural society in to and later. several individuals in indiana took advantage of the nut sale and importation from poland during the years mentioned and about per cent of the original seedlings are now alive. many of the trees planted to years ago are fruiting and classified. outstanding groups of seedlings, which are referred to by name, such as bolten, fateley, eagles, barnhart, kraning, behr, zollman, and others are found from the extreme northern area to the ohio river, and are distributed over nearly one-half of the counties in indiana. the use of eastern black walnut as understock has been practised by several orchardists and nurserymen, and a few will have trees for sale in the near future. the fruits from these trees compare with the best. the largest nut is in the fateley # ., with some fruits two inches in diameter, and averaging nuts per pound. the nut is high in quality, has an appealing taste, and a well formed kernel. it cracks easily and has a very thin shell for such a large nut. this tree has borne pounds of nuts or more annually for the past few years and has a nice crop this year after the severe test winter. the fateley # seedling as well as the # , # and # seedlings, are grown on a city lot, under crowded conditions and provided with only moderate care. several crosses have been made at purdue with the persian walnut, and approximately seedlings have been distributed to various persons throughout a large area of the state. the trees do not seem as susceptible to insect and disease damage as the native black walnut, and growing well in sod should make good lawn trees. some of the nut trees were sprayed with "nu green"--five pounds per gallons of spray material was used on the orchard crops, and great growth response was noted for the sprayed over unsprayed trees. as the home owner is forever looking for new trees to plant, and trees with clean habits, the persian and particularly the carpathian selections may be the answer. * * * * * the speaker exhibited photographs to illustrate his talk. they pictured several of the different trees he had mentioned. the photographs showed the conditions under which the trees grew, the effects of fertilizing, and the injuries resulting from the winter cold. the reading of the paper was followed by a short discussion, after which dr. rohrbacher called upon mr. ira kyhl, of sabula, iowa, who talked on the subject "nut growing in eastern iowa." nut growing in eastern iowa ira kyhl, _sabula, iowa_ about five years ago, i became very much interested in nut trees and having hundreds of wild black walnuts and hickories i attempted to graft, or rather top work, the black walnuts to persian walnuts and heartnuts, and the hickories to pecans and hicans. my favorite, of course, is the persian walnut, and in addition to top working them on blacks i planted several grafted trees and several hundred seed nuts. to my surprise and pleasure, nearly every seed grew and the seedlings are still doing very well. i now have to varieties. i have had very little winter injury, except with the broadview variety. the tops froze back a little and i had a little trouble with the bark splitting on the larger trees. i covered the splits with tree wound dressing and they are all doing well now. i consider the schafer about the best and most promising variety i have and the grafts take very well. most of the carpathian varieties are also growing nicely and especially the illinois number ,[ ] which is a very rapid grower. in top working, i use the bark slot method, usually setting two to three grafts on a three inch stock, as at least one scion is almost sure to start. these scions are fitted and nailed in place with a seven-eighth or one inch nail and then well wrapped with one-inch industrial adhesive tape. this seems to break or deteriorate with the growth of the graft. i then thoroughly wax the taped part as well as all of the scion, covering the buds rather lightly. after the scion has started to grow well, a one by one strip is nailed to the stock. this extends from two to three feet above the top of the stock. the growth is then tied to the stick with soft cord. if growths are not tied this way, most of them are broken off by the wind. after the grafts are set, i cover with a paper milk bottle, or rather, container, and cut four small holes in it for ventilation. it sheds the rain well. i use a small tack on two sides. the containers usually stay there until removed when the graft starts. this method works much better than paper bags, as they are easily water-soaked and the wind blows them against the scion, which is easily loosened and therefore fails to start. i am also well pleased with the results i have had with heartnuts on black walnuts. i consider them the most rapid-growing of any of the nut trees. i have had grafts bear a few nuts the next year after being set. i now have seven or eight varieties, of which i consider fodermaier, aloka, rival, mitchell, and wright as the most promising, along with goettler. squirrels seem to prefer heartnuts to all other sorts. i have eliminated this trouble by tacking a length or two of stove pipe around the trees. last summer my attention was called to a tree about miles from my home, which bore a very large crop of heartnuts. the man that owned the tree called them filberts. the tree is about feet tall with a spread of or feet and is inches in diameter. it is perhaps to years old and bears from three to four bushels a year, i am told. i have heard that the tree grew from a seed brought over from germany. i have named the tree goettler, in honor of the man bringing it to my attention. the nut seems to resemble the wright and is one of the best cracking nuts i have found. i received permission to get scion wood from the tree and have a few grafts growing well. hickories are, of course, a native of this section as is pecan, which grows wild on the mississippi river bottoms about as far north as the mouth of the maquoketa river. the pecan grafts take off nicely on hickory stocks but the graft seems to outgrow the stock. i have found, however, that hican, being half hickory and half pecan, works much better on a hickory stock. my pecan grafts which seem the most promising are major, indiana and greenriver, and of the hican grafts the burlington and wapello. chestnuts seem to do very well here, as well as filberts and native hazels. of the chestnut varieties i have growing i prefer the nanking, kuling and meiling. most of my persian walnut plantings i have interplanted with dwarf fruit trees and have clover and alfalfa growing between the rows. this is cut twice a year and used for mulch. the following spring it is spaded in and a small amount of high test nitrogen applied at the same time and the trees all seem to respond to this treatment very well. dr. rohrbacher: any questions or remarks? member: mr. kyhl mentioned the schafer. that is the one for the boys and girls in a hurry to get nuts. in three years you get nuts. i have experimented with it and that is the only tree that will do it. mr. corsan: i would like to ask the convention if they have had the experience with the black walnut and the persian. down the valley would come a good strong wind and break off the tops. i had one that grew feet from a little graft. when i put this on, it had three buds. one bud threw six feet and feet of wood from that one seeding. i barricaded it so the ice wouldn't break it. the ice broke through my barricade and i have one that is growing as high as i can reach. black walnut broke off with the wind. sometime, the whole tree broke down. not a twig was broken off the english walnut. the black walnuts worry me to pieces. mr. davidson: in connection with this rapid growth, is there any difference in the quality of the wood? we have some that grow so much more rapidly. when the wood matures, will it have the same value for furniture and so on as the slower growing ones? would they be more like the softwood? mr. crane: our highest grade native woods are those which grow more slowly. we haven't made any studies on the wood in black walnut, in relation to the growth rate. dr. macdaniels: the strength and value of the wood depends on the proportion of large and small cells. in a very slow-growing tree you have a large proportion of the big cells. in rapid-growing wood you also have an undesirable result. it is between the very slow and very rapid that you get the best. if you get a rapid growth the cells are thin, even though they may be small. it is the in-between condition that makes for good timber. that is based on actual strength tests and evaluation. member: mr. corsan wrote me about the wind damage. i never had that experience. i saw the cyclone in southeastern iowa. elms were up-rooted and torn to pieces and i didn't see any black walnut damage. even the hickories were damaged and some snapped off. i have never seen any walnut give away. mr. mcdaniel: we have wind damage in urbana, and we can show you some places where black walnut trees were removed. mr. corsan: many years ago i was in a train going from toronto to montreal, and this is a section that is full of hickory trees. the indians must have planted them. that is the only nut except butternut. i looked out the window and we had a six-inch ice storm and the oaks were stripped. most of the other soft trees were down to the ground. there wasn't even a twig killed on the hickories. the shagbark hickory. they were just as sound. dr. rohrbacher: the ladies who want to take a little walk and end up at mrs. colby's home where she is going to serve hot coffee meet at . in the main lobby. this is the regular time on which you are eating and sleeping now. the remainder of the group will meet here at one o'clock. if we go down to the cafeteria and get in before : we have a better chance. footnotes: [footnote : now named colby, this variety is a seedling of crath no. .--ed.] tuesday afternoon session (meeting called to order at : ) dr. rohrbacher: we will have the secretary's report. mr. mcdaniel: by count last saturday, we had paid members plus subscribers--a total of , compared with members and a total list of a year ago and in . maybe you need a new secretary who is a more successful salesman, to push the membership higher. actually we still have more members than at any time before the late 's, but we need more salesmanship to double or triple the present number. the planting of hardy named nut trees is going up by leaps and bounds (ask any nut nurseryman) but membership in the leading organization to promote their culture is lagging. we need more members among the new nut planters, and i think we have plenty to offer them for their $ . , but we are not getting the point over to enough of them. there are thousands that we helped to get started. if anyone has some new ideas on the subject, let him speak up in the discussion period, and we will try to put the ideas into operation if they don't cost too much--in money or time of the organization's officers. ohio still has the most members, and i think we can say the ohio group is the most closely knit and active one in any state at present. there are members in ohio now. several of them are new ones. ohio is keeping up its membership percentage and it is always well represented at the meeting. how many here from ohio today? not _quite_ half the group. it is nip and tuck between new york and pennsylvania for membership down through the years. this year pennsylvania is one man ahead of new york, unless george salzer has brought another new member's name with him. pennsylvania is , new york . two years ago it was new york , pennsylvania . then we had the meeting in new york state last year. maybe some of the new yorkers took a good look at us and decided it wasn't the crowd they wanted to be associated with! we haven't met in pennsylvania recently, so the membership there is very steady. dr. colwell moved back home from ecuador, so pennsylvania moves from to members. will the members from these two states rise briefly? pennsylvania first--at least three from pennsylvania; then new york--three from new york state. i might say the decline in new york members is _not_ in the rochester area. mr. salzer is seeing to it that they don't drop out in western new york. a lady in his county won our $ . first prize for her persian walnut, and george relieved her of $ . of it for dues. we need more members like mr. salzer, and mrs. metcalfe, too. illinois is fourth now with members. i don't know what it'll drop to after this meeting. one member changed his address from chicago to indiana, but we are still seven up from the of two years ago. maybe illinois is going to become a nut growing state after all, in spite of oak wilt, walnut bunch, spittle bugs, and the thanksgiving freeze. will the illinois people rise, both members and visitors? not quite a fourth of the group is from illinois. michigan is still fifth-- members now, in . take a bow, all you michiganders--five or six from michigan. we could afford to take a chance on a meeting there again before long. indiana is going up slowly in membership. it is now sixth with , supplanting tennessee. it had members in and in . how many hoosiers here? six or seven from indiana. canada has members listed now, putting it seventh. (there were in also). who's here from canada--at least two. iowa is one of only two other states with more than members, having in the book now, compared with two years ago and in . how many iowans here?--three besides our president. new jersey has , massachusetts has , tennessee has , virginia and washington each, missouri, , california and maryland each, connecticut and oklahoma, each, kentucky and kansas each, west virginia and georgia . there are fewer than five each in all the other states, except seven states with no members. arkansas is a good nut producing state, but membership dropped from four to none. there are no members and seldom have been in arizona, colorado,[ ] maine, montana, nevada, and wyoming. i believe we never had one in either arizona or nevada, but the others have occasionally had one. hong kong is a new territory on our list of foreign members, though mr. wang, who now lives there, joined the nnga from china around years ago. we are a _little_ better off on the annual report now than we were a year ago. it is printed and members who are here can take their copies. the story is the same as usual with the printers, although they are new ones this time. our job got behind some others which moved slowly and then was put aside for work on school annuals in which this company does a lot of business. with some more volunteer editorial assistants and proof readers maybe we can get the copy to the printers earlier, so as really to get the book printed in the winter i agree with all the members who said that a year between the meeting and the publication is too long. looking toward this the november cut-off for accepting papers should still apply, with the suggested addition that no long ones will be accepted which were not read at the meeting. composition is too expensive to permit publication of a book with unnecessary wordage, so i hope we can avoid as much as possible the duplication of material which appeared in recent reports. boil it down, and please, for the sake of the editor's eyesight, don't try to put too much on a page. the editors appreciate some space between the lines. but if you have something new to report, don't hesitate to send it in. the report is here. i think it's a good one. in the hope of having a still better one for this meeting, i'll stop now. dr. rohrbacher: thank you for your report. any discussion and criticism both destructive and constructive? member: i thought this circular of information was a handy thing to have. i was wondering if more are available. mr. mcdaniel: yes, we run off a surplus each year and any member may have more upon request. member: if you were to mail two instead of one to each member, that member could give the extra copy to a prospective member. member: i would like to make a suggestion on that card business. why not follow the system of the _national geographic's_ recommendation card--you can't become a geographic society member any other way. mr. mcdaniel: we will put a card or blank for nominations of members in the next issue of the _nutshell_. dr. rohrbacher: this is the time the secretary would like to have comments on this to give him help if he gets his job back. member: it seems to me it would be a help in not only attracting new members but a help in stimulating attendance in our meetings if the annual report of the preceeding meeting could be gotten out something like two months ahead of the following meeting. mr. mcdaniel: i believe we can do better than that this year. mr. davidson: i do think it has quite an influence in stimulating interest not only on the part of our members but stimulating attendance at our meeting. i do think also that the suggestion of following the example of the _national geographic_ should be put in the form of a motion and the secretary instructed to remind each member to please nominate his or her friends for membership in the association. i would be glad to make that motion. dr. rohrbacher: do i hear it seconded? (motion seconded). it has been moved by mr. davidson and seconded by mr. wallick from indiana that we carry through this new project of securing membership. any further discussion? member: please repeat the motion. mr. davidson: i would move then that the secretary be instructed to send to each member a reminder of his duty to nominate friends for membership in this association. member: what do you mean by membership--members or officers? mr. mcdaniel: members first, officers later. if you stay a member long enough you probably get to be an officer. member: i'd like to amend that resolution that the secretary send a card to each member in which he can nominate a new member. with the secretary just reminding the members nothing ever happens. i think the card has to go with the reminder. mr. davidson: i accept that amendment. member: i think this whole thing clarifies itself if you bear in mind that the application form and the nomination are one and the same thing. a card which says in effect "i apply for membership in the nnga" and the blank for his name, occupation and address. the card says that remittance of the annual dues is made herewith and this applicant has been nominated by the current member of the association. it is one card. i receive a couple of these from the secretary and write my name for a nominee. his name and address and that is sent in to the treasurer together with his dues and an application of someone who has been nominated. it is a good screening because you have people interested definitely in the work of this organization. member: i would fear that too many barriers put in the way of it might tend to decrease the number of new members. it is hard enough to get people interested. member: mr. president, i don't see how that can be a barrier since one doesn't know unless a member tells him. one doesn't become a member until a member said "look, you should belong, let me nominate you for membership." dr. rohrbacher: if i want to become a member, this is just another source. member: the _national geographic_ psychology is good. they have a circulation of one million, seven hundred thousand. if you want the _national geographic_, some member has to sign a card. the psychology of that is that it makes it a little hard to get in and it works. mr. rummel: if there is a motion on the floor, i will second the amendment. dr. rohrbacher: all in favor say "aye"--opposed "no". motion carried. is there anything further to take up under the heading of helping our secretary? if not, we will go on and have a report from our treasurer. footnotes: [footnote : a colorado walnut grower joined later.--ed.] treasurer's report mr. smith: ladies and gentlemen of the nnga, our good secretary awhile ago made the remark that perhaps he wasn't a very good salesman. perhaps it is more the treasurer's fault for not being a good collector. the treasurer's report for august , to august , . annual membership dues--$ . . among these there are two contributing members, arp nursery and mr. howard thompson. i have two sustaining members, mrs. herbert negus and mr. alfred szego. sale of reports--$ . ; interest on u. s. bonds--$ . ; contributions toward the rental of the hall--$ . ; contributions for the persian walnut contest $ . i had hoped that some other states would come forward, but they didn't. total receipts--$ , . . disbursements: rich printing company for the annual report, $ , . , including the mailing and envelope charges and also the cost of printing. _american fruit grower_ subscriptions--$ . ; supplies--$ . ; secretary's cent per member--$ . ; secretary's expenses--$ . ; treasurer's expense--$ . . my expenses rose due to the fact i sent out two notices that dues were due. the two years previously i had depended upon the nutshell to let the members know and a lot of the members don't read the notice. the editor had it up there in the front lines, but it didn't bring them in too well. that made the postage bill $ more than it was the year before. prizes for the persian walnut contest--$ . ; rent of hall, $ . . you will notice above the rent was more of a donation. they gave us strong hints that is what they wanted. g. r. grubb and company $ . for cuts for the annual report you just got. we owe $ . on the cut that appears on the front cover. copies of ford times--$ . . this is their march, issue with dr. j. russell smith's color-illustrated article. mr. mcdaniel: i told you about it in _the nutshell_ and i have ten or more requests. i still have a large stack and will try to bring some over. [still available for ¢ stamp at the secretary's office.] mr. smith: membership affiliation with american horticultural society--$ . ; bank service charges--$ . ; miscellaneous--$ . ; total--$ , . . cash on deposit as of the present time--$ , . . there are still a couple of checks outstanding. one was for a walnut prize winner. he probably just framed his check. he has had it over a month. we have $ . in petty cash on hand. disbursements of $ , . . total on hand--$ , . . on hand august , --$ , . ; the receipts this year to august , --$ , . which makes the total of $ , . . u. s. bonds--$ , . dr. rohrbacher: thank you, mr. treasurer. member: i'd like to speak about the pamphlet from the ford people, an article by smith, very interesting. i believe the secretary said he has a number of copies in his possession. it is well worth having. dr. rohrbacher: i think the treasurer will welcome a vote of thanks for his report and work. i move his report be accepted with thanks for his work. it has been moved and seconded that we offer a vote of acceptance and thanks for this report. so passed. member: mr. o'rourke has a report and he has a pamphlet. he would like each of you to have a copy to read and study, so when he comes on the program it will save a lot of time if you read this pamphlet which he has provided. mr. silvis: as chairman of the auditing committee, i find two discrepancies in the report issued by sterling smith. the checks that are uncashed of course i don't believe are found, and while the cash seems to be going down, in the face of mounting printing costs and mailing costs, this committee in auditing the books believe they are in good shape. dr. rohrbacher: thank you. shall we have a motion? (motion made, seconded and passed) i have appointed dr. crane on the resolutions committee. at this time we will go along with our program. member: mr. chairman, i believe that a report on our constitution and by-laws provide that the nominating committee must make a report on the first day of the meetings. now, i am not sure about that. mr. mcdaniel: the nominating committee doesn't have the legal number of members. we overlooked a careful reading of the constitution and it should have five instead of three. i think the constitution says it has to report on the first day. dr. rohrbacher: is the committee ready to report? mr. crane: i think the nominating committee makes its report as to the slate of officers that they suggest for the next year. however, the election of the officers takes place at the closing sessions. that is in order to give the membership the opportunity to study the recommendations. nominations for any office may be presented from the floor now or immediately preceding the election, if you disagree with the choice, so you have an opportunity to present additional nominations just before the election takes place. mr. president, the nominating committee desires to nominate our dr. l. h. macdaniels to be our president for the coming year. and for vice president, mr. richard best of eldred, illinois. our very loyal, faithful, hardworking secretary has agreed to fill the post for another year again, so we will nominate j. c. mcdaniel to that position. i am sorry to say our present treasurer has asked and insisted upon being relieved from his duties, so the nominating committee has reluctantly agreed to that, feeling that we should not work an officer too long and too hard. we ought to pass these things around, and we now take carl f. prell of south bend, who has kindly agreed to serve. this, mr. president, is the report of the nominating committee. dr. rohrbacher: thank you, mr. crane. this board looks very good. understand that it is open for any further nominations from the floor at any time, either now or preceding the election. if you wish to present any other names to this list, you may do so at our meeting tomorrow evening. mr. best, we haven't heard about your problem, about your project. before we make this trip i think we should have a little response. mr. best: you want me to tell you what the trip consists of at eldred. after getting through with the persian walnuts at royal's, we will proceed down the illinois river about miles to our place at eldred. we are along the illinois river. we have a large planting of all the nuts we can think of, but what we are particularly interested in showing you folks is our pecan trees, , pecan trees. those are grafted varieties. we have varieties. we are doing some work with seedlings. we have taken mr. wilkinson's major and greenriver and then a few of the hickory-pecan hybrids and we have planted nuts with the idea we will grow those nuts and let them bear. we will exhaust all the possibilities. this year we have treated a number of seedlings with colchicine. we don't plan to show you very much of anything but pecans. we do have some persian walnuts. we should have some notice for reservations. everyone who has written to us we have taken care of in the best possible way. if any more of you want to come, be sure and let us know so we can handle that. status of the northern pecan w. w. magill, _university of kentucky, leader of discussion_ mr. magill: i offer no apologies for being late. my car broke down. mr. armstrong is with the car and will be up here most any time. since three o'clock this morning i have been trying to get here by bus. i was stranded over in danville. this is the first round table discussion i ever tried to lead without previously talking to some members of the panel. mr. best, mr. crane, mr. gerardi, mr. weschcke, mr. snyder, mr. wilkinson. in leading a discussion on northern pecans, i don't know how well this group of nut enthusiasts agree. i think we should have an understanding of what a northern variety is. about all i picked up i got from ford wilkinson, introducer of many of our leading varieties. he knows where every one of them is standing. i don't know how many times he has been up there. we owned two of the most valuable. during the floods of ' when water was over louisville, paducah and the original major and greenriver trees the farm hands were sent out to clean up the debris so they worked it out and ended those two trees. now this niblack, that is from up here around vincennes, the posey originated in gibson county, indiana, the busseron is from southern indiana. the goforth is from new haven, near shawneetown, illinois. the tissue (tissue paper), the giles and johnson are from kansas. gerardi has a few from southwest illinois. we can't say north of the mason-dixon line; we say "close to the mason dixon."--is that north or south out there in kansas? member: it's republican. mr. magill: i'm not counting that. west of the mason-dixon line. i assume that this group would be interested in certain factors and maybe we can get it out to the crowd in a more interesting way by asking questions. what factors would you take into consideration in trying to make a decision? we recognize the southern varieties would be more easily killed by certain temperatures. you're from illinois. read off your contribution. what is your observation on these northern pecans? mr. gerardi: the varieties that we introduced around our particular area i could give as much for as any. these others have all been tried and with close observation there is not so much difference in the varieties i can see. i will name three or four of those varieties. the gildig pecan is a little longer than the indiana, but the same shape. this variety i tasted. i think the flavor is better in the gildig. soil variations will make a difference and it is a little longer. that is the one variety i like very well. a little slow in bearing, the trees in the nursery have no nuts before five years. after that time, it began to build up, until we had spittle bug infestation and that has been a battle. it suddenly appeared. the first i noticed was the native seedlings with spittle bug and then it moved into these plantings of these better varieties and it is very bad. in the last four years it is noticeable on the amount of nuts taken off. because of killing that latter twig growth, it destroyed the crop of the future years. we have had the trees bear at four years old. they have a wonderful set until the spittle bug gets hold of them. from the first to the tenth of june, it's around until the th of july. and the second brood was active and of course it doesn't take the nut off. most of the damage is on the twig. the first brood insect gets right around where the cluster of nuts set and it drops off. it seems to girdle the tree. the insect bores into it. i had a little difficulty telling just what quantity was on this gildig pecan. the next variety is the fisher pecan, very much like the major. the fact is i think it is a little more elongated. the youngness of bearing is the same. the major started at three years old. the three-year tree had several sets of nuts. it keeps building on and the bearing isn't getting less. mr. magill: do you find your bearing earlier? in top working a seedling tree? mr. gerardi: top working will gain at least two years. then again depending on the size of your root stock. you will gain at least two years. under adverse soil conditions at least five years. mr. magill: do you plant seedlings where you want them to grow and then later top work? mr. gerardi: i haven't because i have been producing them in a nursery. i don't think we have time for pre-planting these pecan seeds where you want the tree to grow. i think it is advisable in many areas. if you can plant a nut tree you can go right ahead and there is no further care to be given it. after the fisher and the gildig is one called the queens lake. (this was called gildig number .) it is a little more round. it is stubby and heavy in diameter something like the money-maker among the southern varieties only not as large. it is a little smaller. another variety is the duis. he had named two or three, including the swagler and duis variety. i noticed two years ago after he had died, the ground had changed hands. i saw the tree but it had very few nuts. the tree was apparently ten years old. i don't believe there are more than a dozen nuts. it was in a creek bottom, growing very rapidly. the duis pecan is a nice size. it is a little larger than any of the commercial northern varieties. as for the bearing, i am a little skeptical. the swagler variety i have practically abandoned. it is very much like the norton. clarksville i like very well. the norton (parent of clarksville) does not bear at all for me. i have ruled that one out. the swagler gives a little trouble with late growth and winter trouble, winter damage, from the late growth in the fall. consequently i haven't had any fruit until the present time. mr. magill: we'll come back to you later. i want to present some points in a letter from dr. frank b. cross, of oklahoma a.&m. college. they spent a lot of time on pecans in oklahoma. they don't all have oil wells. he makes two or three statements i hadn't thought of. i will just throw these in to carry this discussion along. "in comparing the two groups of nuts, namely, northern and southern, we find that practically all northern nuts require a longer rest period, than do the southern nuts. this means that the northern nuts for the most part begin growth later in the spring and begin to mature leaves and shed leaves and drop nuts before the southern varieties. the major and the greenriver are perhaps somewhat different from others of the northern varieties in that their maturity date usually falls with the earlier southern varieties. "in order of production, i would rate the northern varieties as follows from highest to lowest: major, greenriver, busseron, indiana, niblack, kentucky, warwick, posey, coy, tissue, johnson. perhaps a little broader classification and grouping should be made. in my judgment, the major, greenriver, busseron, indiana, and niblack compose one group which may be depended upon for fairly satisfactory production. the kentucky, warwick, posey, coy, tissue, and johnson have consistently been much lighter producers than those named in the first group. "in order of desirability for planting i would make a list about as follows: niblack, major, greenriver, busseron, indiana. i list the niblack as first choice because it seems to be about as productive as any of the other varieties, and because of its excellence as a cracking nut and the quality of the kernel. the niblack is really a very desirable nut for cracking, when it is cracked by such devices as the squirrel cracker which applies pressure to both ends. the kernel comes free from the shell. in a good many varieties, such as the indiana and busseron the kernel and shell do not drop free, but the kernel frequently is wedged in furrows in the shell so that the two must be pulled apart. this is not true of the niblack. when they are cracked by end to end crackers, the shell and kernel drop free. i list major as second choice because of its good production. it is a little bit late in maturing for a variety of the northern group, and will sometimes get caught by frosts in many northern localities. the nut is not a desirable one for cracking because of its shape. a good cracking nut must be oval. the major is comparatively round and many of the kernels will be crushed when they are cracked. the greenriver is a good producer but it is a little bit late. the indiana and busseron are both proved to be good producers. "comparing the general production of the northern varieties and the southern varieties, as groups, the northern varieties seem never to be so productive in oklahoma as are the southern varieties. much more dependable production may be obtained from the southern varieties. "some data on cracking percentage of nuts and size of nuts might be desirable. this list is not complete, but contains several different varieties. variety no. nuts per pound kernel percentage busseron greenriver major posey warrick "of the nuts mentioned, the posey is definitely larger than any of the others. it is a very fine type of nut, having a high kernel percentage. it is rather flat in shape, but is attractive in appearance. were it not for the fact that the trees are consistently light producers, it would be a very desirable nut." mr. best: they bear all right up here. member: where would it rank in the ability to bear? mr. gerardi: i would say third or fourth. gildig, major, greenriver and posey. mr. best: i'd want to put indiana and busseron pretty close to the top. major as one, probably busseron and indiana as second. then i'd come along with probably posey as third or fourth because, while posey may not be the best bearer in our section, it does make a wonderful quality of nut which always matures. this matter of maturity in pecans is important. member: how about niblack? mr. best: we haven't had too many trees that produce too many nuts. it is a high quality nut. it would be somewhere near the top. you wouldn't call it a relatively heavy producer. it hasn't fruited as early as the rest. we have had trees as old as years. there is another good pecan. that is the stevens. mr. magill: you and i will have to have ford wilkinson do our climbing. you find that to be a good producer. it's early. getting back to our first consideration, we are pretty close to the north line. we have these cass county pecans. we are just getting our first nuts. close to cass county--champaign-urbana still is the united states--not all republicans. member: how does that compare in missouri? mr. guengerich: what little observation i have had about west central missouri, it has been satisfactory. i would pick out major from my observations. then probably the indiana, greenriver. beyond that there is some question. mr. magill: i have an idea about that major i have been a crank of pollination on apples. we had many orchards planted in kentucky. the major for pollination is what jonathans are to apples. a week ago we had a couple hundred people at a field day down in kentucky. we were going around over the ground and we got five pecan trees and a lot of the records were lost. i don't know how old these pecans are. i think they were planted in ' i don't know what variety they are. we think there is one greenriver. we really don't know what they are. there is many a pecan planting in kentucky that was a failure because there wasn't anything to pollinate. if you were to judge the value of the tree, two and a half feet in diameter, big enough to make a world of pecans, you would have to remember that just because we didn't have something to pollinate we didn't have any pecans. i got a few to graft in greenriver and they do fine bearing. so things like that lead me to believe there is something in pollination. we plant them out there on the bank of the west fork of the kentucky river. we got the major, greenriver, the busseron, and one other, and the major had more crop every year. the greenriver is about two years later. i don't know which are the best pollinaters. mr. snyder: i better tell you where the iowa trees are. they are approximately miles from here. we are miles north. we are also miles west. we have temperatures up there too that we have to figure on. the temperature in most years gets to minus and the coldest we ever had was minus , but that was only for an hour, but temperature is only one factor. an old professor of the university of iowa, regarded wind as more important than temperature. the more i see of wind killing, the more i believe he is right. wind is more important than temperature. if you have your trees surrounded, you don't get wind injury. the trees i am reporting on were planted from to . some of them now are to inches in diameter and feet high and the varieties are such as we got from mr. wilkinson. indiana, busseron, and one other which mr. white--he is a wholesale druggist interested in horticulture--selected and he knows the nut trees probably better than any other one man. he kept in contact with these river rats and they would always bring anything to him they thought was of interest. we have a bunch of seedling trees about the same age and size which never bloom at all and of course they are ready for cutting out. i don't know why there would be a number of seedling trees that would never bloom. dr. crane: in extensive breeding work, mr. clarence a. reed started in at albany, georgia, with , seedlings and out of , about half that many came into production and bore fruit enough so we could tell what the fruit was like in about years. the other half just never did bear. those trees had grown and made large trees and in a lot of cases they carried large leaves but there was no way we could predict anything about fruiting. it was discouraging for that reason. we quit, in our breeding work, growing the seedlings beyond one year. we make our crosses now and grow them one year in the nursery. we plant nuts at harvest and grow them until they form leaf buds and graft from the seedlings on old trees cut back. we can save anywhere from one to three, four, or five years. there are a great per cent that will not bear. mr. magill: in iowa, out there, what varieties are making good? mr. snyder: there aren't any. as nut producers they aren't worth anything. why not plant the hicans? they ripen better but don't bear. the hicans make one of the prettiest trees but they don't bear. we make no plans for pecans unless we have a season with no freezing until the middle of november. so that is where the pecans are that far north, except as shade trees. mr. h. w. guengerich: i feel that i am out of my territory in talking about nut growing to this association, but i have had a few things forced on my attention that may be of interest. when i first joined stark brothers nursery, paul stark asked me to look into the possibilities of locating a pecan variety that would be satisfactory north of the southern pecan belt. i talked to our missouri extension horticulturist, bill martin, and he informed me that a lot of pecans are being grown around brunswick, missouri, on the missouri river. the missouri flows northeast from kansas city for about miles and then swings toward the south again. brunswick is located at the northernmost point on the river, between kansas city and st. louis. it is about miles west of louisiana, and in general the weather becomes more severe as you travel west. so pecans that thrive and mature at brunswick are pretty rugged. i went over to brunswick to see a friend who introduced me to some pecan growers. one of these men has an interesting story and i wish he were here. i tried to bring him along but he could not get away from his farming operations. he operates several hundred acres of farm land in the missouri river bottoms and his house stands in a grove of native pecans. when he went into his house he pointed to a hook on the door post where he tied his boat the previous spring when he moved his family out because of high water. that year, , all his grain crops were destroyed by the flood but that fall he harvested , lbs. of pecans. they sold for ¢ a pound and the total expense was for picking them, off the ground. in a year like that, $ , . would come in handy. it rained again in kansas this year and i called him and asked about the flood. he said he had a couple of inches of land that wasn't covered with water, but he expects to gather , lbs. of pecans this fall. that is interesting because there are thousands of acres in the middle west where crops have been destroyed by floods. yet here is a crop that grows on native trees with very little care, that will pay off despite high water. i asked my friend what effect the high water would have on the pecan foliage and he replied that the leaves would fall, but that the trees will produce new leaves and the nuts will mature. he has been through this before and knows what he is talking about. reference was made a short while ago to the pecan as a shade tree. i think this is one of the big opportunities in pecan growing. recently i drove from louisiana, missouri, to central ohio and saw a string of dead elms along the entire route. now the oaks are threatened in the same way. we don't know what to do about shade trees. some scientists from holland visited us several weeks ago and they weren't very enthusiastic about their disease resistant elm selections. we had hoped that these selections might provide the answer to the elm tree problem. now pecans make very attractive shade trees. i used to live near kansas city on a place where someone had planted or pecans right along the side of a golf course. when the trees were about years old a fairway was laid out through this pecan grove and now blue grass grows right up to the tree trunks. a lot of other shade trees are shallow rooted and lawns do not grow well under them. i think there is a tremendous opportunity to plant pecans as shade trees. there is just one other point i want to make. undoubtedly we need better varieties. the nurseryman realizes this better than anyone else. but when my friend from brunswick sold his native pecans he got just about as much for them per pound as the southern growers got for their much larger southern seedlings. several commercial pecan crackers that i asked about this stated that the northern nuts have a better flavor and they produce more kernels per pound. so the size of the kernel doesn't make too much difference, although we all prefer the larger nuts. pecans in northern virginia j. russell smith, _swarthmore, pennsylvania_ (extracts from a letter to the nnga secretary, november , ) having sold my virginia cabin and the nursery business [sunny ridge] i have been down to the nursery for the last month getting rid of trees. a job of digging is one thing and that of packing and shipping is another. the man i had could do one but not both, and competent persons to pick up for either job are not available, so i have been standing in the gap, getting calluses on my hands and getting rid of $ , worth of trees. now as to facts on northern pecans: i find the busseron bears with regularity at round hill, virginia, in a tight bluegrass sod. this pasture is not of high fertility and has had a small amount of commercial fertilizer. it is on a hillside that has probably lost all of its topsoil once or twice in the last hundred years, though not for the last twenty because it has been in grass. my neighbor, henry b. taylor, hamilton, virginia, has busseron, butterick, greenriver, indiana, and major, all bearing well to heavily. unfortunately this year the greenriver hulls did not open, although the nuts were well filled. ordinarily i believe they have been dropping their nuts, but not all at once. twenty-five years ago i planted some butterick and busseron along a stream on a dairy farm on which i was born. there was no regular record of their performance, but i have observed that the buttericks have had a good crop in and also in .[ ] i had previously concluded that the butterick was almost a non-fruiter, and quit propagating it years ago. these especially productive buttericks are on alluvium near the barn in a permanent pasture where the cattle congregate while waiting for the gate to open to let them into the barn. it is therefore fertilized over and over again with cow drippings. mr. taylor's excellent yields are also produced on trees that are on unusually fertile soil. my conclusion is that the pecan is a very active feeder, and what it needs is about three times as much fertilizer as is required for any ordinary crop. it is time somebody better placed than i am made a systematic experiment as follows: . feed pecan trees at least five times as much plant food as the nuts and leaves use. . injure the trees by hacking the bark to make them bear, and see how much they can be made to produce by this means. a busseron tree in the town of round hill stands in a backyard of a friend of mine and they use it, i think, to tie clotheslines to and maybe the boys have had a little fun driving nails into it and it bears every year.[ ] the real find of my observations is a pecan known as all state, which has been wonderfully advertised by one of your fellows.[ ] on a catalog it produces a nut two inches long--wonderful. on mr. henry taylor's tree in hamilton, virginia, it produces a tiny, symmetrical, pointed nut too small to be contemptible, except for squirrel feed. they might have time to handle the crop. footnotes: [footnote : in the nnga report for , mr. c. a. reed told of studies of blossoming habits of pecan varieties at rockport, indiana, conducted for four seasons in co-operation with mr. j. f. wilkinson. there the busseron was found to be a protandrous variety, shedding most of its pollen, and in some years all of it, before the period of receptivity of its pistillate flowers. "with butterick ... the order was reversed, as the period of receptivity began first," and it was classified, therefore, as regularly protogynous. "... furthermore, upon close observation it has been found," he said, that trees of the butterick variety "develop very few pistillate flowers, and that many of these wither up and drop off, apparently because of inherent weakness. from this, it would appear that light bearing is not necessarily due to lack of suitable or adequate pollen." the butterick had a record of practically non-bearing performances during the four years ( , , and ) at rockport, which is duplicated by its performance records at other locations and other years, so it is generally on the discard list. but when it does bear and mature its nuts it is a good pecan. mr. p. w. wang rated it his first choice of northern pecans fruited in china. mr. reed listed as protandrous busseron, kentucky, major, and niblack varieties, whereas butterick, indiana, and posey were protogynous. he did not specify in which class the greenriver fell. major during each of the four years, had an interval of to days between the last shedding of pollen and the first pistil receptivity; warrick, an obsolete variety, had some overlap each year as did indiana and posey. the kentucky, a discarded variety, had overlaps the three years it was observed. in two years it was observed, niblack had staminate and pistillate flowering together one season, and staminate overlapping four days into the period of pistillate receptivity the next. busseron, butterick, and greenriver sometimes had overlaps and sometimes intervals. reed's conclusion, that "northern varieties of pecan ... appear to be partly or completely dependent upon other varieties for pollen," still holds good, as does his second observation, that "all varieties tend to vary, from year to year with respect to periods of pollen shedding and pistil receptivity." but more records are needed, and any members who have two or more varieties flowering in can make valuable contributions by taking accurate notes on their habits. there are now newer varieties for which such data are completely lacking, and until more is known, no reliable basis can be had for matching them with the best combinations for adequate cross-pollination.--j. c. mcd.] [footnote : i think the first phase of the suggested experiment has more to recommend it than the second. perhaps the round hill tree gets needed zinc from clotheslines and roofing nails. a more scientific way to apply zinc is to use zinc sulfate in sprays or ground applications, and these are to be used on some trees at urbana which dr. crane diagnosed as zinc-deficient.--j. c. mcd.] [footnote : the bradley brothers, who do not court anonymity, are no fellows of the association or of the university of illinois. they have been known to sell some kind of grafted pecan trees in recent years, possibly the stuart or some other variety available from southern wholesale propagators. mr. taylor was lucky enough to have his order filled with a southern illinois seedling which at least is good for the squirrels. we haven't yet seen any all state nuts from maine or montana. the bradley variety is an obsolete southern pecan.--j. c. mcd.] pecans in the vicinity of st. paul, minnesota carl weschcke about years ago pecan seeds from the most northern natural habitat in iowa were planted in garden soil here in st. paul. most of them were later transplanted in nursery rows at my farm seven miles east of river falls, wisconsin. out of approximately trees, about are still living, of which have grown well. the remainder probably have not found soil conditions to accommodate their natural vigorous growth. where the trees are in deep soil with sufficient plant food, they have done well, the largest tree being about inches in diameter, and several of these have been bearing nuts for five years. the nuts were immature, however, but in the fall of about of the best ones were planted in a seed bed and today about living trees of pure pecan parentage represent the second generation. this evidence is very important, for although the pecan has been almost as hardy as any native tree (such as the bitternut hickory, the butternut and the black walnut), yet the length of season required for the maturing of nuts is a primary factor which would have to be considered in recommending pecans for planting this far north. however, it has been my observation that these pecans have slowly cycled their way into our season, and it is gratifying to notice that this spring many leafed out at nearly the same time that the black walnut vegetated, which of course is much slower than the local butternut. this shows the tremendous adaptability of the pecan, and it is hoped that this ability to adapt itself to soil and climatic conditions will eventually cause it to produce small but edible pecans here in the north. it is my hope, also, that i can use our locally raised pecan seedlings on which to graft our many successful varieties of hickories, which heretofore have been limited to some extent in their usefulness because we had only the local bitternut stocks on which to graft. whereas the bitternut is an excellent stock for some varieties of shagbark hickory and even for shellbark, as well as pecans and hicans, there would no doubt be an increase in the scope of hickory planting if we had hardy pecan seedlings as understocks. at first, when comparing the growth of the native bitternut seedlings with that of pecans, locally raised in the same soil, it appeared that the pecan was a much more vigorous grower; but experiments with different types of soil and fertilizers indicate that we can get seedlings of certain bitternut hickories to produce from two to three feet of growth in the first year. i have even found several of these same hickory seedlings of two seasons' growth which, when transplanted last fall, are large enough to graft this spring. however, experiments have not proceeded far enough to verify the practical side of this new idea of hickory propagation. only one variety of pecan which was among the original seedlings, and which existed as a lawn tree for more than twenty years in st. paul, was compatible with the bitternut hickory root systems; but enough of this variety of pecan has been grafted on local hickories to demonstrate that this is perfectly feasible as far as the union is concerned. in fact, several of these larger grafted trees have been bearing staminate bloom for two or more years. no nuts have been produced of this hope variety as yet, and although it has been distributed on the market, it has always been classed as an ornamental rather than a fruiting variety. of course, the pecan part over-grows the stock. in other words, there is a larger diameter above the union than in the stock below the union. so far, this has not interfered with good growth and hardiness, whereas the black walnut grafted on butternut (which is a similar combination as far as results go) more than thirty years ago in experimental work, indicates that this is a wrong procedure. very few nuts were ever gathered from grafts of black walnut on butternut, although in most instances they continue to live and thrive. the pecan here is subject to much the same insect pests as the black walnut, but suffers less from hickory borers and types of insects which seem to be like oak pruners. this might be useful later on in maintaining healthy pecan trunks with hickory tops. probably the early formation of rough bark, for which the pecan is noted, may be responsible for this. the nuts that have been produced so far have been extremely small, but here again the writer has observed an increase in size over the original nuts that were produced. in some seasons, at least one tree has produced nuts of sufficient size to be good enough for home purposes. they are nothing, however, to compare with any named northern pecans, such as the major and the indiana varieties. practically all of these northern pecans have been tried in our environment, and some have lived for several years. most of them have died because there was no congenial union of the pecan grafted on our local bitternut stocks. we do, however, have congenial grafts and good living specimens of the norton and the burton, which are no doubt some form of hybrid.[ ] hicans that graft well on local bitternut stocks are the rockville, first in hardiness and for bearing nuts of the usual size for rockville. they do not mature yet, but it is expected that favorable years will mature these nuts. next in hardiness is the green bay, and next are burlington, des moines, bixby, and mccallister. although making good growth, these have seemed to be too tender for our climate, although we have good living specimens of them and believe that some have begun to bear, particularly the bixby, unless names of grafts have been mixed up. these latter trees are mostly in the deep woods, and it is hard to get close data on their behavior and bearing. a marquardt (which is supposed to be a lost variety of hican) i believe exists on my place, and i have taken it out of the deep woods, where it was grafted nearly thirty years ago from scions direct from j. f. jones, and have placed scions on stocks in the vicinity of the nursery, where they can be watched. the differences between the scions freshly grafted last spring and the known varieties of rockville, green bay, and burlington are distinctive. also the marquardt (if it is a true marquardt) last winter indicated much greater hardiness than did grafts made at the same time with rockville and burlington varieties. however, it is too early to say for sure whether the marquardt is represented among my varieties of hicans. the marquardt grafted on local stocks used by jones and purchased as individual trees, did not survive. it is assumed in this paper that this discussion would naturally lead to pecan hybrids, rather than staying with the pure blooded pecan this far north, for some of the varieties come very close to being pure pecans, but still, like norton and burton, probably are distinct hybrids. when some of the original seedlings from iowa were transplanted from the nursery row they were already quite large trees and we did not get all the roots. the portions that were cut off were left in the soil. one of these roots sprouted three trees; one was subsequently moved into the orchard and marked because of its vegetative nature, and a variety of hickory known as the weschcke was grafted on it. it makes a very good growth, but in most instances our native bitternut stock produces an equally good growth in unions with this particular variety. this particular performance is indicative of things to be expected for this combination in the future. in conclusion i would say that the pecan is far from being a practical nut tree for our vicinity, and is only a very hopeful dream. but so, also, were the best hickory varieties years ago when i first began my experiments. footnotes: [footnote : the norton name seems to be shared by a pecan and a hican. the burton hican from owensboro, ky., is presumably a pecan-shagbark cross with an excellent nut, fruitful farther south.--ed.] preliminary report on growth, flowering, and magnesium deficiency of reed and potomac filbert varieties h. l. crane and j. w. mckay[ ] during the course of filbert breeding investigations at the plant industry station, beltsville, md., covering a period of approximately years, the leaves of certain seedlings scorched badly in mid or late summer. certain other trees showed little or no evidence of this disorder. it was thought that, because filberts thrive best under maritime climatic conditions of cool summers and mild winters, this scorch was probably due to high temperatures accompanied by deficient soil moisture. this breeding work resulted in the introduction in of the reed and potomac varieties, which were produced as a result of crosses between the american filbert, _corylus americana_, and the european filbert, _c. avellana_. the original trees of these varieties had been under observation for more than years, and their performance had been such as to indicate their suitability for home plantings under eastern conditions. furthermore, these varieties had shown little or no evidence of scorch and had held their leaves well. in early spring of , an experimental orchard, consisting of layered trees each of reed and potomac, was planted at beltsville, for the purpose of testing them more fully than had been possible before as to their suitability for eastern conditions. the orchard was designed also for study of their response in tree growth and fruiting to differential fertilizer treatments. although this experiment has been underway now for only three years, certain of the findings are thought to be of such importance that a preliminary report should be made at this time. experimental plan the site selected for the orchard is a gentle slope varying from five to percent and providing good air drainage. the soil is a riverdale (tentative series) sandy loam that had been in orchard grass sod for years before the experiment was begun. much of the land on the plant industry station farm is now known to be low in available magnesium and potassium. tree crops, including peaches, pears, and apples, have shown deficiencies of one or both of these elements. the trees were planted feet apart on the contour in pairs, one of each variety in a plot, with six plots in a row. the two-tree plots were in six rows. thus, the experiment was arranged in a by latin square and six fertilizer treatments were used. after planting, the trees received frequent cultivation and a uniform application of one pound of - - fertilizer. the following spring differential fertilizer treatments were applied: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, complete, nitrogen and potassium, and check. the amounts applied per tree in fractions of a pound were elemental nitrogen . , phosphoric acid, . , and potash . . in the spring of , the amounts applied per tree were doubled; and these same amounts were applied in the spring of . nitrogen was applied in the form of nitrate of soda, phosphorus as percent superphosphate, and potassium as percent muriate of potash. strips about six to eight feet wide on each side of the tree rows have been cultivated frequently, but strips of orchard grass sod have been left in the tree row middles to prevent soil erosion. the trees have been sprayed with ddt or parathion or both to control japanese beetles and mites. growth responses to determine the growth responses made by the two varieties to the differential fertilizer treatments, diameters of the tree trunks one foot above the soil were measured each spring before growth started. these data are not given here because in and there were no significant differences in the growth of the trees as a result of the differential fertilizer treatments. however, trees of the potomac variety made more growth than those of the reed variety. at the end of the and growing seasons, the average diameters of the tree trunks of the potomac variety were . and . millimeters, respectively; those of the reed variety were . and . millimeters, respectively. the differences . and . millimeters, are highly significant. under the conditions of this experiment, the trees of the potomac variety are much more vigorous than those of the reed. the greater vigor of the potomac trees may account for the fact that they produce suckers much more freely than do trees of the reed variety. the habit of producing abundant suckers is an advantage in propagating by layering, but it is a disadvantage in orchard trees because the suckers must be removed for optimum nut production. whether the differences in vigor and suckering habit of the two varieties shown thus far will affect their performance as orchard trees will have to be determined by future observations. flowering response each year at the height of the flowering period, each tree in the experiment was rated on the catkins it carried. so far, there has been no effect of the differential fertilizer treatments on the production of catkins. however, there have been very highly significant differences between the potomac and the reed. in , only four of the reed trees produced catkins, whereas of the potomac trees flowered, and approximately half of them were heavily loaded. in , the number of reed trees producing catkins was of the , whereas potomac trees flowered. the amount of pistillate flowering during the two years was small on both varieties and not greatly different; this indicates that their nut-bearing potentialities may be about the same. the amount of pollen produced by the reed variety has always been considered ample for cross-pollinating the potomac, even though the former has been a light producer of catkins. records of dates of flowering of the two original trees over a -year period, and of these young orchard trees over a -year period, show that there is great variability in time of flowering, depending upon the sequence of weather events each season. fertilizer treatments have had no measureable effect. the trees have shed pollen as early as january and as late as april, and stigma receptivity sometimes has continued intermittently for two months. the average period of flowering at beltsville is the last week of february to the first week in march. both varieties have flowered at the same time under all seasonal conditions observed. this means that additional pollinators will not be necessary when the varieties are planted together in an orchard. symptoms of scorch the visible symptoms of scorch do not begin to appear under conditions at beltsville until about the middle of july or later. the first symptom is fading of the green color, especially around the margins of the leaf blade. sometimes this chlorosis results in blotches, which may extend for a considerable distance from the margin towards the mid-rib. this stage is of short duration, as the tissues of marginal chlorotic areas or those of the blotches soon die, roll up, and turn brown. some leaves show yellow blotchiness over most, if not all, of the surface and this may develop into brown patches of dead tissue or the yellow leaves may fall before the tissues die. the older leaves, those at the base of a shoot, are generally the first to show chlorosis and scorch, and the terminal leaves are the last to show such symptoms. on severely affected trees all the leaves on a shoot may be scorched at the time scorching is observed. severely affected trees drop part or all of their leaves prematurely. the leaves dropped are those that are scorched or that show yellow blotches. such trees do not make satisfactory growth, they set few nuts, and the nuts are usually poorly filled at harvest. the symptoms of scorch on filbert leaves are similar in many respects to magnesium-deficiency symptoms on apple ( , , )[ ] and tung leaves ( ). leaf analyses[ ] no differences in appearance of the trees as regards leaf scorch were noticed the first year after the differential fertilizer treatments were applied. however, in late july and early august of the second season, severe leaf scorch developed on the trees that had received potassium alone or nitrogen plus potassium, and scorch developed to some extent on the check trees. on august , , leaf samples for chemical analyses were taken from each tree in all replications and composited by treatments into six samples. the data on the chemical composition of the leaves as affected by the differential fertilizer treatments are given in table . these data show that the fertilizers applied to the trees were taken up by them and that the composition of the leaves was significantly affected. the trees in treatments , , and , which did not receive nitrogen in the fertilizer, had lower percentages of nitrogen in the leaves than those from the other plots. their light green color indicated that in the middle of august they were deficient in nitrogen when its concentration was . percent or less. =table . chemical composition (oven-dry basis) of filbert leaves collected august , , from fertilizer experiment, beltsville, md.= _____________________________________________________________________ | | treatment | composition of leaves | mg (percent) ________________|__________________________________| ratio ____________ | | k (percent) | ash n p k ca mg | ________________|__________________________________| | % % % % % % | . nitrogen | . . . . . . | . . phosphorus | . . . . . . | . . potassium | . . . . . . | . . complete | . . . . . . | . . nitrogen and | | potassium | . . . . . . | . . check | . . . . . . | . potassium applications produced the greatest effect on leaf composition, as they increased the concentration of that element in the leaves by . to . percentage unit over that in the leaves from the check trees. in addition, it seems likely that this great increase in the potassium content of the leaves was accompanied by a decrease in their magnesium content, since this usually has been found to result. when the ratios of the percentage of magnesium to the percentage of potassium in the leaves were calculated, it was found that they were rather low for the trees that had been fertilized with potassium. the magnesium-potassium ratio was highest in the leaves from the trees fertilized with phosphorus only, followed in order by the check and nitrogen treatments. relation of magnesium deficiency to leaf scorch, winter injury, and fungus infection on august , , at the time the leaf samples were taken, each tree in the experiment was scored as to the degree of leaf scorch present. in the winter of - soil samples were taken from each plot receiving potassium alone and the lime requirement was determined by the division of soil and management and irrigation, of this bureau. the lime requirement was found to vary greatly, ranging from to pounds per acre. in early spring of , high-magnesium dolomitic lime was applied uniformly at the rate of pounds per acre and in addition each tree received pounds of epsom salt. each tree in the experiment was scored for degree of winter injury on may , . by august , leaf scorch was evident on trees in certain treatments and the trees were scored for leaf scorch. at this time it was found in certain treatments that the trees that had not shown any appreciable amount of scorch heretofore had some severely necrotic leaves on them. careful examination revealed many fruiting bodies of one or more fungi in these necrotic areas. each tree was, therefore, scored for the presence of this disease, which has been tentatively identified by paul l. lentz, of this bureau, as being caused by _labrella coryli_. the data on leaf scorch, winter injury, and the fungus disease are given in table . table . relation of magnesium deficiency in filbert leaves to leaf scorch, winter injury, and disease caused by _labrella coryli_ ______________________________________________________________________ ratio scorch[ ] winter[ ] scorch[ ] disease[ ] treatment mg (percent) score injury score score score k (percent) ( ) (spring, ) ( ) ( ) ______________________________________________________________________ . nitrogen . . phosphorus . . potassium . . complete . . nitrogen and potassium . . check . note : total plot score for trees; highest possible score . the scale for scoring was , none; , light; , severe. note : total plot score for trees; highest possible score . the scale for scoring winter injury was , full leaf, no injury; , few dead twigs; , half of buds not growing; , very large amount of dead twigs; , only a few buds growing. trees that had received potassium alone had the most severely scorched leaves and more of them on august , , followed by those that had received nitrogen plus potassium. the trees that had received nitrogen or phosphorus alone showed practically no scorch, each having a total score of ; and the complete fertilizer trees a total score of only , while those in the check had a total score of . these scores indicate that scorch is related to magnesium deficiency or unbalance. there was a close relation between the amount of leaf scorch in august, , and the amount of winter injury, the coefficient of correlation being . , which is very highly significant. this coefficient means that percent of the winter injury sustained could be accounted for by the leaf scorch present the preceding summer and early fall. the scorch scores of august, , show that there had been no consistent improvement from the magnesium-deficiency condition as a result of the dolomite and epsom salt applications. the scores for the disease caused by _labrella_ show that applications of phosphorus alone increased the incidence of the disease and those of potassium alone or potassium plus nitrogen decreased it. in all cases, the incidence of leaf scorch, winter injury, and disease were strikingly different on the reed and potomac varieties. in the summer of , the total scorch score of the reed variety was and that of the potomac , and in august, , the scores were and , respectively. the total winter injury scores were for the reed variety and for the potomac. thus, it is clearly evident that under the conditions of this experiment the reed variety was much more susceptible to leaf scorch and to the winter injury resulting from magnesium deficiency or unbalance between magnesium and calcium plus potassium than was the variety potomac. furthermore, the total score for the incidence of the disease caused by _labrella coryli_ on the variety reed was as compared with for the potomac variety. it would, therefore, seem that the reed is about four times as susceptible to infection by this fungus as is the potomac. its less vigorous tree growth, susceptibility to leaf scorch, winter injury, and infection by _l. coryli_ may be due to the differences between its nutritional requirements and those of the potomac variety. conclusions and summary the preliminary results of the experiment described show that there is a great difference in vigor, growth, flowering habit, susceptibility to leaf scorch, winter injury, and infection with a fungus disease tentatively believed to be caused by _l. coryli_ between trees of the reed and potomac filbert varieties. in all cases the potomac variety has been the superior. it would appear that much of the leaf scorch on filberts experienced in the past has been due to a magnesium deficiency or to an unbalanced condition between magnesium and calcium plus potassium in their nutrition. the symptoms of magnesium deficiency (scorch), which in general are similar to those on apple and tung, are described. the data presented show that liberal applications of potassium alone, or in combination with nitrogen, resulted in a highly significant increase in the incidence of leaf scorch due to magnesium deficiency. this in turn resulted in susceptibility to winter injury, the coefficient of correlation being . , which means that the severity of the leaf scorch in august, , would account for percent of the winter injury sustained. applications of pounds per acre of high-magnesium dolomite, together with five pounds of epsom salt per tree in early spring of , did not produce consistent improvement in leaf scorch. it seems that recovery from magnesium deficiency in filberts is slow after treatment, just as has been found to be the case in fruit trees ( , ). literature cited . boynton, damon, cain, carlton j., and van geluwe, john incipient magnesium deficiency in some new york apple orchards. proc. amer. soc. hort. sci. : - . . .---- magnesium nutrition of apple trees. soil sci. : - . . . drosdoff, matthew, and kenworthy, alvin l. magnesium deficiency of tung trees. proc. amer. soc. hort. sci. : - . .----, and lagasse, felix s. the effect of some magnesium and calcium fertilizers in a magnesium deficiency bearing tung orchard. proc. amer. soc. hort. sci. : - . . . southwick, lawrence magnesium deficiency in massachusetts apple orchards. proc. amer. soc. hort. sci. : - . . . wallace, t. magnesium deficiency of fruit trees. jour. pom. and hort. sci. : - . . footnotes: [footnote : principal horticulturist and horticulturist, respectively, u. s. department of agriculture, bureau plant industry, soils, and agricultural engineering, beltsville, md.] [footnote : numbers in parenthesis refer to literature cited, p. .] [footnote : the authors take this opportunity to thank dr. harald e. hammar for making the chemical analyses of the leaf samples.] bunch disease of black walnut [paper expanded from a talk given at the st annual meeting of nnga in .] john w. mckay, _horticulturist_, and harley l. crane, _principal horticulturist, united states department of agriculture, agricultural research administration, bureau of plant industry, soils, and agricultural engineering, division of fruit & vegetable crops and diseases, plant industry station, beltsville, maryland_ introduction for the past several years observations have been made on the development and spread of the bunch (brooming)[ ] disease on _juglans nigra_ and on other species of walnut growing in the orchards at plant industry station at beltsville, maryland. because of the widespread interest in growing walnuts a brief survey of these observations will be given in this paper together with a summary of the history of the disease and a discussion of its possible effect on walnut production. history of the disease the bunch disease of walnut has been known for years. waite[ ] in said, "it turned up in delaware several years ago, where quite a variety of walnuts, including the persian, the japanese group, and the american black walnut, were found to be affected. at arlington farm, virginia, during the past years it has boldly riddled the collection of nut trees assembled in the grounds for study and ornamental purposes." photographs made in of japanese walnut trees growing in georgia and thought to be affected by rosette (now known to be caused by zinc deficiency) have been found in the files of the u. s. department of agriculture. now that the symptoms of the two different disorders are known, it seems clear that the bunch disease was present in those two states at that early date. becker,[ ] of climax, michigan in reported on his observation of this disease in that area. he reports that he observed several cases of it on persian walnut, japanese walnut, and butternut, in addition to many diseased eastern black walnuts. he says, "my conclusions are that in witches'-broom (bunch disease) we have a very bad disease that threatens the black walnut trees everywhere". in , the late howard e. parsons, pathologist of the u. s. department of agriculture, made an inspection trip to climax and other areas in michigan where he studied and photographed diseased trees. parsons at that time was working on a similar disease of pecan and water hickory and was of the opinion that the disease found on the various species of walnuts in michigan was similar to the one he was studying. for the past years the bunch disease of walnuts has been under observation by the writers and it seems clear that its incidence has increased greatly during that time. in scions and buds were taken from diseased eastern black walnut and butternut trees growing at arlington farm and grafted or budded on eastern black walnut stock growing in the original nut tree nursery at the plant industry station at beltsville, maryland. this was done in an attempt to determine whether the disease was caused by a mineral deficiency or by a virus. all buds and scions died, but the following year two of the seedling rootstocks showed characteristic symptoms of the bunch disease. since this disease was already present on the station farm it was not definitely known that it was transmitted to the stocks by budding or grafting the diseased material on them. in december of hutchins and wester[ ] presented a paper before the american phytopathology society giving the results of their studies on the bunch disease. in this paper they reported that the disease was transmitted by patch bark grafts performed in and and that the incubation period varied from several months to two years. it was concluded that since the disease was transmitted by grafting, and in the absence of a visible pathogen, a virus causal agent was indicated. symptoms the characteristic symptoms of the bunch disease are mainly the production of brooms or sucker shoot growth on the tree trunk and main branches and the tufting of terminals, profusion of small branches from axillary buds, the dwarfing and narrowing of the leaflets, and the dying back of the trees resulting sometimes in the death of the trees. the principal symptom is the production during summer of bushy, wiry growth caused by the breaking into growth of lateral buds that normally would remain dormant over the winter. these buds produce shoots that again branch from lateral buds and the process may be repeated for three or four times, resulting in a tightly packed mass or bunch of small, wiry twigs and undersized leaves. another characteristic symptom is that this growth proliferation continues unabated until the first frost, and, since the wood of these shoots is thus not properly matured, killing back of the diseased portions of the tree usually occurs with the first hard freezes of winter. as the disease progresses, the wood in the main branches becomes very brittle and is easily broken by wind or ice. this condition is followed by the dying back of branches and finally the death of the tree. trees even moderately affected soon become worthless for nut production, as few nuts are set and those that mature are usually poorly filled. susceptibility of species extended observations show that of the walnut species now grown in eastern united states, the japanese walnuts, i.e., the siebold and the heartnut, are by far the most subject to attack by this disease. these walnuts are so susceptible that in localities where this disease is present the planting of young trees is inadvisable, as they are almost certain to be short lived. once infected, will endanger other walnut trees in the area. observations at beltsville show that the butternut is almost as susceptible to attack as is the japanese walnut. some workers are inclined to believe that the rather serious decrease in numbers of butternut trees in some areas is due to the bunch disease. the persian (english) walnut is also quite susceptible, although probably not so much so as the butternut or the japanese walnut. the eastern black walnut seems to be the most resistant of all, although some evidence indicates that at least certain trees of this species may have the disease but not show symptoms of it. gravatt and stout[ ] report that walnut trees may be affected for a considerable length of time without showing recognizable symptoms. out of a lot of healthy-appearing trees, per cent showed bunch disease symptoms following pruning. only four percent of the unpruned check trees developed similar symptoms during the same period of time. distribution at the present time bunch disease is quite widespread in eastern united states, occurring in maryland, district of columbia, delaware, new jersey, new york, michigan, ohio, indiana, illinois, pennsylvania, west virginia, virginia, north and south carolina, georgia, tennessee, alabama, and probably other states. no special surveys have been made for bunch disease, and all distribution information has been obtained from observations of u. s. department of agriculture or state workers or from specimens submitted. damage caused trees with bunch disease may live for several years in a stag-horned or tufted condition. affected trees generally set few nuts and the nuts that mature are usually poorly filled and hence low in oil content. it is likely that a part of the unsatisfactory growth and fruiting performance of certain eastern black walnut trees may be due to the disease, even though they do not show the symptoms as they are now known. severely affected trees are subject to cold injury, and in addition the wood becomes very brittle and is easily broken by storms. although this disease has been known for several years, it is believed that its seriousness has not been fully appreciated, as it does not cause death as soon as symptoms appear. several years must elapse before the tree succumbs. in the nut tree plantings made at the plant industry station at beltsville, maryland, large numbers of butternut, japanese walnut, and persian walnut trees were planted. during the following years, although no records have been kept, several hundred of these trees have become affected and have been removed. consequently at the present time we do not have any butternut or japanese walnut trees, and only a few persian (english) walnut trees left in the plantings. so far, not a single eastern black walnut tree has been removed from the orchards because of the bunch disease. some trees have shown characteristic symptoms of the disease, but following the removal of the entire diseased limbs the symptoms have not reappeared. possible effects of bunch disease on the walnut industry this disease is known to spread to nearby healthy walnut trees, but the means by which it is spread or how infection occurs is not known. no survey has been made to determine whether the disease is present in the various regions in which walnut trees are grown, and hence it is not known how widely it is distributed at present. its spread is probably associated with an insect vector, and the presence of the vector would determine whether or not local spread would occur. much more must be learned about this disease before its importance and destructive nature can be fully determined. it seems certain that in localities where the disease is already present there is little use in planting young trees of the most susceptible species unless trees in the vicinity that are already diseased are destroyed. nurserymen growing trees of the japanese walnut, butternut, and persian walnut should be sure that no diseased trees which might infect the nursery trees are close to their nurseries. it is not known how far the inoculum may be carried, but at this time it would seem that in order to be reasonably safe no diseased tree should be allowed to grow within a mile radius of a nursery. infected nursery trees (or scions) probably constitute the most important means of long-distance spread for a disease of this type. control the only known method of control of the bunch disease is to prevent healthy trees from becoming infected. this can be done only by destroying completely all diseased trees. in the early stage of the disease, sometimes only one branch on a tree may show symptoms; and complete removal of this branch may result in the tree's not showing additional symptoms for a year or more. except in the case of black walnut, the disease breaks out again; hence cutting out diseased limbs cannot be considered a satisfactory control measure, except possibly on the eastern black walnut. case histories at beltsville as a part of walnut breeding work carried on during the past years, approximately large _nigra_ trees of named horticultural varieties have been topworked to seedlings of natural first-generation hybrids between _j. regia_ and _j. nigra_ for the purpose of forcing the seedling scions into early fruiting. of these trees, have shown such unusual behavior as to merit a description of each in the form of a case history. _tree number ._ this tree was cut back severely in the spring of , and on august , vigorous new shoots were budded to . -p , a second-generation seedling of the o'conner natural hybrid. the buds grew vigorously in and early in the season developed symptoms of the bunch disease. by the end of the growing season of the scion limbs were heavy with the typical proliferated shoots characteristic of the disease. also, a few vigorous sucker limbs of the stock tree that grew out from below the point of union of the scions showed typical symptoms of the disease, although these limbs were later outgrown by normal shoots and are not now to be seen. in the early spring of the diseased limbs were all removed from the tree to prevent the further spread of the disease in the area. at the same time that the above seedling was budded in the top of this tree, a large lateral limb of the stock tree was budded to seedling number . -p . this seedling originated from a nut of the ohio variety of black walnut that was only about / the size of nuts typical of the variety. at the time it was thought that this nut resulted from a cross of ohio with pollen of the persian walnut, as it was produced under bag and following hand-pollination. later growth of the seedling indicated, however, that the pistillate flower was probably pollinated by _j. nigra_ before the bagging occurred, since only _j. nigra_ characteristics have shown up in the seedling. in , one bud of the _nigra_ seedling . -p has almost completely regenerated the top of the tree and no symptom of the disease is evident. by contrast in , almost all of the top of the tree was occupied by diseased limbs, five in number, of the o'conner seedling. _tree number ._ this tree has shown behavior almost identical with that of number , but three seedlings were topworked instead of one. all three originated from the coye hybrid and all were budded on july , . less than one month later all buds had produced a foot or more of growth, and one to two scions of each seedling reached sufficient size and vigor to survive the following winter without damage. none of the scions branched in , and all failed to show symptoms of the disease. early in profuse branching occurred on the one surviving scion of seedling number . -p , and by midsummer excessive proliferation of the buds of primary shoots had resulted in the formation of a mistletoe-like growth characteristic of the disease. scions of the two other seedlings, . -p and . -p , were lost by wind damage in midsummer, but at the time they showed no signs of the disease. most of the shoots of . -p were killed during the following winter, and in april, , the remaining live portions were removed by the division of forest pathology for use in transmission studies. on august , , four patch buds of the o'conner natural hybrid were placed on one of the main limbs of this tree. one of these buds grew, and in has come to occupy more than half the top of the tree. the remainder of the top is made up of the original stock tree. there is no evidence of bunching in the tree at present. _tree number ._ this tree was budded to six seedlings of the fox natural hybrid on april , . only one of these lived, . -p , and one scion of this seedling in comprises the entire crown. no symptom of the disease has appeared in this scion, and the tree is healthy at present. on april , , small lateral limbs of the tree were splice-grafted to two coye seedlings, . -p and . -p . one scions of each grew vigorously during the summer, and . -p first became chlorotic, then diseased. seedling . -p became chlorotic but at the end of the season had not shown symptoms of the disease. both were removed from the tree early in and the living shoots used for scionwood in transmission studies by the division of forest pathology. an additional case is _tree number _. this is a grafted tree of the graham variety of black walnut that was planted in within feet of trees of the bates and faust varieties of heartnuts. by the latter trees were heavily infected with bunch disease, but it was not until or that symptoms were discovered in the graham tree. at this time the heartnuts were removed from the orchard. the graham tree has shown only a few small diseased limbs during the past six or seven years, and in a fair crop of nuts is in prospect. discussion the following observations should be mentioned briefly before discussing the questions raised by the case histories: . out of more than one hundred seedling scions from hybrids topworked on large _nigra_ trees, three have become diseased the first or second year after the scions began to grow on black walnut stock. . the three susceptible seedlings have all been grafted on different _nigra_ stock trees, and the three stock trees have since regenerated only healthy limbs, after removal of the diseased shoots. . seedlings from a total of natural hybrids between _j. nigra_ and _j. regia_ have been used, and only two of these hybrids have yielded susceptible seedlings. however, only a few seedlings were available from certain hybrids. . a total of trees of approximately horticultural varieties has been grown at beltsville, and only one tree of the variety graham has shown well developed symptoms of the bunch disease. two other graham trees have shown slight or questionable symptoms of the disease. it should be pointed out that a considerable number of heartnut and butternut trees were planted at random in the same orchards with the black walnut trees used in these experiments and at the same time ( ). in many cases black walnut trees grew within or feet of the heartnut trees. the bunch disease first appeared on heartnut trees, the most susceptible walnut species, and spread quickly to butternut, which is also very susceptible. by most of the diseased heartnuts had been removed from the orchards, but it was not until after the top-working experiments described above were completed that the orchards were cleared of all diseased trees. it is therefore possible that insect vectors or other agencies may have spread the disease to the scions of the topworked seedlings from the infected heartnut and butternut trees. number is the only _j. nigra_ tree on the station farm that has consistently shown symptoms of the disease during the past eight years, and in only a few limbs are affected. on the basis of the admittedly meager information reported here, it can be stated that the black walnut varieties used in these experiments are more resistant to the bunch disease than are varieties and seedlings of heartnut and butternut. that this is generally true is also borne out by the fact that in the vicinity of beltsville, maryland, and the district of columbia, practically all dooryard trees of the japanese walnut are infected with bunch disease, many of them having already been killed, whereas relatively few black walnut trees in the area show symptoms of the disease. the suggestion has been made that most varieties and seedlings of black walnut are symptomless carriers of the disease, and only under certain adverse conditions of environment would symptoms appear. this would explain why trees that are cut back severely, as was the case with tree number described above, show symptoms on the excessively vigorous shoots of the next year's growth. little can be said at the present time about the relative resistance of black walnut varieties to the bunch disease because nothing is known about how it is spread from one individual tree to another. the case histories of trees described in the present paper are considered to be worth recording because they show that black walnut trees may support diseased scions and later regenerate apparently healthy tops. in these cases the trees showed a type of resistance to the disease. however, there are many cases known, the majority of which are seedlings, in which black walnut trees became so badly infected with the disease that nut production ceased and the trees later died. whether the type of resistance described in this paper is widely prevalent in the black walnut as a species will be impossible to determine until more is known about how the disease is spread. footnotes: [footnote : several common names have been applied to this disease, among which "bunch" and "brooming" have most frequently been used. the authors strongly feel that the accepted common name should be "bunch" for the following reasons: ( ). the term is very descriptive of the symptoms of the disorder. ( ). it is the accepted name of a disease of pecan and hickory species that is very similar if not identical to the one occurring on walnut species. ( ). the names "brooming" and "witches'-broom" have already been applied to diseases caused by fungi.] [footnote : waite, m. b. notes on some nut diseases with special reference to the black walnut. ann. rept. northern nut growers assoc. : - , .] [footnote : becker, gilbert, my observations on witches broom disease of black walnut trees. annual report northern nut growers assoc. : - , .] [footnote : hutchins, lee m., and wester, horace v. graft--transmissible brooming disease of walnut (abstract.) phytopathology : , jan. .] [footnote : gravatt, g. f., and stout, donald c. diseases affecting the success of tree crop plantings. ann. rept. northern nut growers assoc. : - . ] wednesday morning session a forester looks at the timber value of nut trees charles s. walters, _forestry department, university of illinois_ what i am going to say will apply mostly to black walnut since it is one of our most valuable timber trees, but it also will apply to other species like hickory, pecan, persimmon. i've never seen papaw or hazel nut large enough for timber, but the persian walnut has some value and the chinese chestnut is a fair timber tree. all of these species should be commercially useful if there is sufficient quality and volume involved to warrant a sale. what i have to say may not apply five years from now. persimmon used to be the main source of material for golf club heads and shuttles for the textile industry. it no longer is. today golf club heads are being made of "compreg," a wood which has been impregnated with phenolic resins and cured with heat. the resin is similar to bakelite. thin sheets of wood are glued together to build up the head, rather than using a single solid piece, and it makes a considerably better golf club head. the developments in wood use are progressing just as in many other fields. what the wood specialists are trying to do is to take low quality material and change it over to a form which is suitable for many uses for which high-quality expensive material is now used. the timber buyer now wants a tree of long, clean, bole with few knots, of large size,--at least inches in diameter at breast height. in short, he wants high quality material. what i am saying may not apply to nut growing. foresters grow trees for the wood crop, with nuts as a by-product. the first feet of trunk or the butt log is his main interest. it should be completely free of limbs, knots, and other defects for at least feet. you can use the logs above the butt-cut but they usually produce lower grade material. you have two courses to follow. you can grow wood either in natural stands or in plantations, and the end product is very little different. it is probably easier to grow a high quality tree in a plantation than in the wild. what can be easier than growing a timber tree in the woodlands? it eventually reaches merchantable size and is harvested. well, nature can do better if you give her help. your chances of growing a high quality tree to merchantable size are better in the plantation. about ten years ago dr. r. w. lorenz of our department made a study of plantations growing on prairie soil in illinois. thirty-six were walnut which ranged in age from to years. the one thing we had the most trouble with was determining their ages. one day we stopped at a farm and talked to a farmer, and we asked him when the trees were planted. this man said he could tell us the exact day. "i was a young lad and a neighbor drove by and said, 'yesterday abe lincoln was shot.'" so we had the historical records to determine the age of that particular plantation. these plantations ranged in number of trees per acre from to . the number of trees per acre has a direct influence on the size or diameter growth of the timber tree. an eight by eight spacing, or trees per acre, eventually will be thinned to trees per acre. that gives each tree proper spacing for best height and diameter growth. the trees ranged in height from about feet to , averaging about a foot and a quarter in height each year. the average diameters ranged from about inches to inches. individual trees, however, ranged up to inches at breast height ( - / ' above ground level). each plantation had had very little or no care. if some of them had been cared for, or "managed", their owners would have had a better wood crop--higher quality and higher quantity too. now, as to the growth in the managed plantations. we believe it is possible to grow board feet per acre per year. compared with upland oak, walnut exceeded it in almost all growth factors up to years of age and then they were about the same. of the cultural practices, the most important is probably pruning. sawing off the limbs growing on the trunk makes all wood produced thereafter free of knots. when the trees reach about six inches in diameter, one should select those he is going to call "crop trees"--about of these per acre--and spend his time getting them to timber size and quality. the other trees are removed over a period of several years, so that you finally have only the high quality crop trees left. the reason i suggest starting the pruning when the trees are six inches in diameter, is that that is the size of the veneer core left after the veneer manufacturer has turned the log for the thin sheet of furniture veneer. remove the limbs and improve the quality so you get a -foot log free of limbs and knots. that is what the buyer is looking for. i know practically nothing about growing trees for a nut crop, but we seem to have something in common in growing trees both for nuts and timber. just a lot of it is "horse sense", with a few rules of thumb based upon scientific principles. you must give the crop trees space, give them plenty of room to grow. in the woods they start to grow in a dense undergrowth. the young trees soon reach a height where they begin to dominate their neighbors. there you pick the straight, thrifty-growing trees for crop trees and favor them in your thinning and pruning operations. tree density influences diameter growth of the trees. in thick stands, trees are usually small and spindly. so plant a large number to give the crop trees good form, then thin the plantation carefully to make it grow. grazing and fire are very harmful to tree plantations. most of the plantations we studied were grazed. a good many were burned. i don't think nut growers would periodically burn their stands to improve the nut production. it is the same with growing a crop of wood. once the livestock begin to trample or compact the soil, tree growth slows down and when that happens it makes the tree more susceptible to attack by insects and fungi. as to marketing trees, let's assume you have some material you want to sell. the one thing you want to know is, "how much is it worth?" that is like me asking you what my house is worth. i understand there are persons here not only from illinois and iowa, but from new york, west virginia, ohio, and kentucky. prices on wood products vary not only from state to state but also within a state as well. the things you ought to know are the sizes and the grades of the timber that you want to sell, since they determine price. now, there are publically employed foresters available to help you. they know your local conditions. the manufacturer's markets determine what he can afford to pay you. for example, we organized some walnut marketing pools in illinois during the war. i suppose a half million board feet of illinois walnut was sold for gun stock material. one company was buying most of the product of the pools. later we found that this company had a market for low grade stump veneer. most of the other companies would mark a half dozen trees for their stumps. this company would buy to stumps. every buyer looked at the same quality and quantity of material, since the trees were all marked. in this case, however, the difference in markets determined the price the manufacturer could pay. another thing that concerns price is what we call "logging chance" or how easy is it for the buyer to harvest those trees. i imagine anyone buying trees in pennsylvania would have considerably more difficulty in getting them out than he would in illinois. the differences in equipment and methods used to harvest the trees all have a bearing on the price paid the timber owner. hickory is commonly sold for handle stock. wood for striking-tool handles has a definite restriction in the specifications on the number of rings allowed per inch of growth. the federal government grades handles on the basis of growth rate. from to growth rings per inch is specified. timber buyers don't want logs grown any slower than rings per inch and those grown a little faster than ten rings per inch may be acceptable. now, as to determining the trees to sell. i mentioned a -inch diameter limit. a few trees smaller than this with logs shorter than feet in length may be accepted if a large quantity of wood is to be sold. it has to be economically worth while for the buyer to harvest and transport the wood, or he can't afford to buy it. each buyer of course has a different set of specifications. you ought to measure and _mark_ those trees you want to sell and ask the buyers to bid only on those marked trees. buyers like to approach the timber owner with, "you have some timber i can use. i'll give you $ for what i can use." that is the same approach as if i were to offer $ for your entire nut crop. you would probably say, "let's weigh those nuts so we will have a basis for coming to an agreement." it's the same way with timber. there are two ways you can sell your timber. you can either measure your trees and sell on a volume basis, or you can mark certain trees and state to several buyers, "i have marked trees for sale. what is your best offer for them?" each buyer looks at the same trees, and you have a common denominator for comparing the fairness of each bid. for example, we had a farmer in woodford county, illinois who had walnut trees, wild trees, but growing in a pasture grove. i jotted down the bids that were made. one buyer offered $ for trees, another bid $ for , a third bid $ for or $ for , and the last buyer offered $ for trees. the point i am trying to illustrate is that the farmer, without that extremely high bid, would have been unable to compare the bids because someone bid on trees and someone else on trees. if all buyers had bid on marked trees, he would have had a basis for comparing the bids. sell on contract. farm foresters have simple contract forms which they will give you. the forms can be filled out so that they tell what you agree to do and what the buyer agrees to do. both parties sign the agreement, so there is less chance for disagreement later. may i have those slides? (picture showing large tall tree in dense forest.) this isn't a walnut tree, but i want to show you the kind of condition foresters like to see trees growing under. nice tall stem, free of any limbs, good diameter. these trees show a rather wide range of age classes. when i talk to my folks about growing timber, they say " years is a long time to wait for your money." here is a tree that started years ago and is ready to be harvested. the crop is sustained yield. i put this in to show you what we don't like to see. (picture showing park-like stand of timber.) when these or so trees are gone, there will be no others to replace them. cattle have grazed this stand to the extent that it will be a long time before any other age classes develop to replace those you see in the picture. that is a white oak. i told you there weren't many. good diameter all the way up clear of limbs. when the logger cuts that tree he will have high quality material. the same applies for walnut, hickory, or any other species. this walnut tree shows you how to mark trees for sale. one mark up here so the buyer knows which tree is designated for cutting, and one down at the bottom so you can assure yourself that that tree was to be sold. it identifies one of the trees you intended to sell; a penalty is involved for cutting any others. i wanted to show you what a good walnut stump-cut looks like. these trees should be inches or larger in diameter at about two feet above the ground to be worthwhile. the stump will be cut off when it gets to the mill, and peeled for veneer. this is one of the walnut plantations cut for gun stock material. i put this in to show you how the buyers cut the trees down, and measure off the logs to get the best grade of material. they aren't interested so much in volume as in lumber. they want the best grade of wood, and they want it in that butt log. i put these in to show poor quality logs that weren't worth taking. this is an open pasture grown tree. no care or attention given it, so the limbs stayed on and grew quite large. this shows how they load logs with a tractor and chain. this "cross haul" is a trick of the logger's trade. this is the improper way. the tractor was broken down so it took five or six men to load it because they didn't have the tractor. there are some good logs and here are some poor logs. this is a group of logs, at a railroad siding. some look small, but at that time--with the market as it was--they could use the smaller logs. you see some of nice length, good form and free of defects. i mentioned metal. here's a man with an army mine detector. they tried them out to locate metal. this company uses this mine detector to test all logs for metal content. here's what happens. the metal discolors or stains the wood. this tree probably grew in a fence line. the buyers are just a little reluctant to buy them. if they do they cut them off this high so they are pretty sure all fence wire is left in the stump portion. in this grove of walnut a wire is nailed on every tree. such a practice ruins the tree. this shows wasteful practice. this small mill in southern illinois was buying these short bolts cut from small trees. be careful that you don't sell trees that are too small and too young. it is like, i suppose, harvesting your walnuts before the kernel develops. this is the result of fire. that log, from outside appearance, didn't have a blemish. loggers left this part because it was hollow. the infection developed from a fire scar and rotted out the inside. this shows the same thing. fire scarred. bumping machines used to harvest the nut crop or any defect or injury may result in something like this and decrease the tree's value for timber. i mentioned hickory. here are some single-trees that are made out of pecan. hickory is also used. hickory grows to a commercial size in southern illinois but in most states it is too small and knotty. one time the peoria office of the wpb got a release from washington indicating that hickory was needed for axe handles. they released it to the newspapers. we answered letters for a month after that. farmers who had hickory they wanted to sell had to be told that there wasn't enough hickory involved to make it commercially possible to market. in addition, there wasn't a single handle mill in the state at that time. this is a couple of loads of good walnut logs. they were cut in illinois and trucked to indiana to be manufactured into veneer and lumber. dr. colby has asked me if i had any methods of getting rid of stumps. we have worked for five years and we still haven't a method that is economical or easy. we recommend grubbing or burning them out with a small stove, or you can cut them close to the ground and let them rot out. what about the chemicals?--we have worked for a good many years and we have bored stumps until our arms ached, but we haven't found any of them that work. discussion member: board feet per acre per year? mr. walters: i said we felt that on good soil and by encouraging nature we can grow that volume. member: what are the stumpage prices? mr. walters: ranging from about $ . per thousand board feet to $ . there is quite a span and each grade is different. there is a prime grade, which is the best grade, which must be inches in diameter at the small end at least. each company has a little different set of grades. even with the same grade the prices will range according to the size of the log. maybe a inch prime log may be worth $ per thousand board feet and inch will be $ . mr. craig: curly walnut would be worth more? mr. walters: yes. it is somewhat of a guess as to whether a tree will have a curly figure. if you let them take the bark off a tree, the buyers can tell. i know of one beautiful stump on which the buyer wanted permission to remove part of its bark to see if it had nubby growth. if it had had the figure, it would have been very valuable. the farmer said, "i don't want you cutting on that tree because if it doesn't have the figure and you don't buy it, the tree will be spoiled." don't let the buyers chop into the tree to see whether it has figure. mr. craig: i bought two to get grafting wood. [editor's note: mr. craig refers to the lamb curly black walnut, article on which appeared in nnga th annual report.] mr. walters: there has been some work done on grafting or stimulating growth for figure. one method was to beat the trees with a rubber hose and try to stimulate figured or curly grain. not too much has been published on this work as yet. member: do you think the figure could be propagated by asexual propagation? mr. walters: i don't know. i will say this; in forest trees, the inherited characteristics are the things we depend upon. if a tree has curly figure and the seed carries that characteristic, you may see it in the progeny. an acquired characteristic i don't think you can depend on so much. member: is it thought to be acquired or hereditary? mr. walters: i just don't know whether it is acquired or hereditary. dr. rohrbacher: one thought came to me on this black walnut timber. it's a long pull, and it is one for our posterity. the thought came to be that it is for those of us who are interested in setting up something for our offspring. the plan has been brought out before of using a grafted known name variety of nuts. plant those, and perhaps those trees as they grow would first give us that wonderful nut which we were looking for. symposium on nut tree propagation f. l. o'rourke, _leader_ mr. o'rourke: i believe if you get nut people together, you are going to have eight or nine propagators. it is the one thing that people like to dream and talk about. i went through the list a little bit, and in order to save some time i wrote a resumé of what had been done. in order to accumulate that material i had to dig into some of the more or less unused volume. there is a wealth of information in some of those earlier reports of the northern nut growers association. member: you can get them for $ a set. mr. o'rourke: it's a good investment anyway. at any rate, i think i am going to try to make a bit of an analogy. suppose this was a church group who had been working on paying off their mortgage. every once in a while they passed a hat, but instead of dumping that hat on the table they let those contributions accumulate, so that after a while they had the accumulation of years in the hat. someone has to dump the hat sometime and i tried to do that this summer, and i found all sorts of contributions in that hat. we might say this happened to be the hat. you would find some brand new fresh ten dollar bills, nice new currency, and then you would find some gold pieces (before roosevelt). they too can be used because they can also be converted. then you could dig back and come across some stuff, and you didn't quite know what it was. it might be a spanish doubloon or an old brass button. right there is where you need a little knowledge. you should be able to tell the difference. i don't know whether i was able to tell that difference. we will, of course, find a lot of slugs and buttons and this and that among the valuable pieces, so possibly we should sift those out and put them in the discard. you never can be sure what to discard. just as i said, every nut grower is a propagator at heart. a little wee paragraph may be a lead to something which would be of quite a lot of value. this little brief resumé i passed around yesterday, and now this morning i am using my school teacherish techniques in passing around a sheet of paper. there is merely an outline. pardon me if i insult your intelligence in getting out that outline. as you notice, we start out with the seedling and end with nursery practice. this outline should fit almost any nut species. it should fit chestnut, hickory, walnut or any. i thought it might be best to have a vote as to which one we talk about first, and then we will run down each particular species. i think we should have our panel come up front. as i said a while ago, we know that practically every person in this room is a propagator. in order that we have this panel conducted in an orderly way, please raise your hand when you speak. i will get the question and pass it to one of the panel members. which one shall we take up first? mr. mcdaniel: let's take the hard one first, the chinese chestnut. all right, chestnut. to be systematic, let's talk about seed. anyone having any difficulty? no trouble at all. who grows most of the chinese chestnuts, germinates most of the seed? member: i have trouble with rabbits, squirrels, ground hogs. mr. o'rourke: he wishes to know of something to protect his chestnuts. dr. mckay: we don't plant in the fall. i know of one person who uses red lead. we have never used it. i know that has been done. we store our chestnuts in cold storage over the winter and plant in the spring. c. s. walters: may i interrupt? we tried chemicals, treating walnut seed with them or putting them on the seed spot after the nut was planted. the squirrels lifted every nut except those that wouldn't have germinated anyway. the rascals knew the difference. we tried allylisothiocyanate--"tear gas." the squirrels would dig those nuts up and when the vapor got too strong they would go away and allow it to evaporate. within two weeks they would come back--maybe two or three times--before they finally took the nut. we tried cayenne pepper and n-butyl mercaptan--the main ingredient in "polecat essence." we had squirrels all over our test plots, and the only nuts they didn't take were the bad ones. member: i have had every other kind of rodent. i found i have to plant in the spring and always in a tin can, with rock wool over the nut. member: we have used rock wool; planted in the spring. they will get them any time. member: i did the same thing with chicken wire and no squirrels got them. member: i would like to ask mr. chase if he has planted chestnuts on a quantity basis. mr. chase: we planted them on a quantity basis and as some of you know our nursery is adjacent to a wooded area where you would assume there would be a lot of rodents and polecats, both kinds--four and two legged. i made that statement once before about never having had any squirrel damage. we don't have any trouble. we do not lose chestnuts. we mulch with composted mixtures. member. they claim sawdust will help keep them away. mr. chase: on the other hand, a gentleman wanted to get started with chestnut in the smokies. we helped him get lined up and he planted in beds and these are perhaps a hundred feet long. we mulched heavily with sawdust. the area had been cut over six to eight years ago and had immense piles of sawdust. we mulched with about four inches and some animal got every chestnut out. we never knew what animal it was. there wasn't any evidence on the top. they got every chestnut which was quite a shock to him. i brought this point out that there _was_ danger and he was going to build the bed up high and cover with wire or he was going to get some of this old camouflage netting type and cover that bed for protection both against rodents and early spring frost. he didn't follow through on that so i don't plead guilty. member: does the chinese chestnut seed have a rest period? dr. mckay: for some years we have had a friendly discussion with the division of forest pathology in regard to whether a chestnut seed has a rest period in the same way black walnut, hickory, or some of the others do, and we are not absolutely set in our opinion on the matter. we have the opinion that the chinese chestnut does not require a rest period. i will tell you that one species, the allegany chinkapin _(c. pumila_) will germinate very readily as soon as it is matured. it will start growing immediately. when you go into the oak species, you have a number like that. they fall to the ground, and put a root into the soil, become anchored, and grow slowly all winter long. we feel that the chinese chestnuts are of that type. perhaps the old american chestnut was that way. it fell to the ground in the fall and it sprouted rather promptly within a month or so and grew slowly. perhaps the chinese chestnut is not so much inclined that way. we have done this: we have taken them from storage at various times during the winter and planted them, and have never failed to get reasonably good germination. others have. the results there vary considerably. perhaps we can't be too sure about the matter. we simply feel that on the basis of what we have seen and observed, they do not have a definite rest period. many of the failures that have been obtained have been due to poor storage conditions, where the nut started to spoil and perhaps the workers didn't realize it and planted that nut and the nut spoiled immediately. so you fail, not because of the inability of the seed to sprout, but because it was improperly handled and could not grow. mr. o'rourke: is it not a fact that ... seed has no true rest period as we know it with trees? on the other hand, about days' exposure to low temperature and moist conditions will cause all those seeds to germinate immediately. it may be somewhat the same with chestnut seed. mr. stoke: in confirmation, i furnished a man some seed some years ago and we put them in flower pots and they were a foot high by christmas. mr. mcdaniel: the growth is normal from the immediate planting, too. you don't get the suppressed growth later, as in prematurely germinated peach. member: the chinkapins will often sprout even before they come out of the bur. mr. craig: i might say this concerning the california persian walnuts. take one at harvest and plant it, and that seed will germinate immediately. you hold it in dry storage and plant in the spring and it will come up in a couple of weeks. i speak from experience. dr. crane: the same thing is true with pecan, in west texas and arkansas and california. we have lots of trouble with pecans germinating. it is not uncommon to find a pecan germinated with a root as much as ten inches long grown in the hull. if that nut goes through to maturity and becomes dry, then there is an appreciable delay in germination. they won't germinate as quickly. there has got to be a lot of changes in the kernel after they have once dried out and been harvested before germination will be initiated again. dr. mckay: in connection with this question of germinating nut seeds of all kinds, we think it is very important to plant the seed in a well aerated medium. i think that is a mistake many people make. if the soil happens to be of a clay nature, it keeps out oxygen and air and the sprout will rot. that is the reason why, when we plant chestnut seed, we like to plant in sand or the same with any nut seed. coarse sand has a lot of air in it. that nut has a high demand for oxygen. member: in the matter of chestnut seed, don't put too many layers of seeds. one is better than two. even in rather porous soil, they seem to develop gas. anyway, i found the bottom ones didn't get enough air and they rotted, whereas on top they didn't. it is better to plant a single layer than more. mr. sherman: what is the best method of treating the chestnut seeds in the fall to prevent the development of weevils? dr. mckay: of course, there are several ways of treating the nuts for weevils. one is the old hot water method. all of us can heat water. we have to heat it to about degrees. so hot, you can't hold your hand in it. immerse thirty minutes for an average size nut. now in connection with the spoilage and rotting that is another matter. we believe in harvesting chestnuts promptly, storing them before they dry out. we of course store our chestnuts in cans. cans with lids and holes punched at either end. mr. o'rourke: are there any other questions pertaining to seeds? member: i would like to caution persons outside the weevil belt about being very careful if you get nuts that may be infested. leave your nuts in a small jar and you have the advantage of watching the weevils actually emerging. you can pick the nuts out about february, and you can select all the nuts that are sound. once in awhile a weevil will live through the winter. one thing we should all be thinking about is that the nurseryman has to produce grafted trees in order to fill a demand, and those nut trees must be produced cheaply and he must use methods which are highly efficient. member: has anyone tried to deep freeze? dr. crane: we tried that just this past winter. for a couple of years back one individual had asked us why we didn't freeze them. last winter we did. we stored three gallon buckets at two temperatures. one at zero and the other at ten degrees below--hard freezing temperatures. those nuts stayed frozen from early october until the next april. we brought them out and examined them one morning. the first thing we did was taste them. those nuts we ate when first opened and you could tell them from no other chestnuts. they were nice eating, sweet. we let those chestnuts thaw evenly at room temperature. that evening we examined them and it's hard to describe what the transformation was in those nuts. in the first place was the deterioration that had gone on as soon as the tissue thawed ... they were dripping water. the tissue had burst and the water just flowed. on the other hand, about an hour after they thawed out, when we first examined them just as they thawed out, you would be amazed at how tender they were. they would melt in your mouth. freezing apparently breaks down the tissue. the tissue is as soft as it can be. apparently this freezing transformed some of the starch to sugar. the rub is that it won't keep for even two or three hours. member: they might keep if you put them in the soil first. dr. crane: the tissue is ruined. mr. o'rourke: we have now decided certain things pertaining to seed germination. then we are confronted with the problems of seedling versus clonal rootstocks. i do not know whether or not there have been clonal rootstocks selected for chinese chestnut. i am sorry to have to ask dr mckay to talk again but he knows more about it. dr. mckay: i can only tell you about the experiment we started this spring on clonal stocks of chestnuts. we have just this year's results. unfortunately we didn't get good results. we took ten seedling trees. we used nursery trees, large five-year old trees, with vigorous root system, ten seedlings, and got from them roots. we took roots the size of your finger with a lot of feeding roots, and we grafted onto those five times four. we took four per variety. we used five varieties of chestnuts, and all five of those each had four pieces and we had ten of those seedlings. we wanted to find out whether any of those ten seedlings would give us a better set of these five varieties than any other trees. in other words, we are trying to get a start on a clonal rootstock. we used a splice graft. we simply took a piece of scion and spliced it right on the end of the root. we had four of those in the bundle, and we had five per seedling and we had ten of them. that made in all. we planted in a cold frame, with cheesecloth covering to keep the temperature from getting too high. eventually, if this thing works, we will establish a clonal line. we planted those ten original trees but you will be surprised. we can go back to the original tree if we succeed with clonal lines, so a chestnut variety we hope will be grafted on a line of stock that came from that one original tree. bear in mind this is the method and it remains to be seen whether it is going to work for chestnuts. the results are discouraging. only one or two seedlings gave us six or successful grafts on all the five varieties but by that method of trying all five of these varieties on all ten of the seedings we hope to get a start. we will try them again, and we hope to get at least a start that will work. it may be that we will have to start over again. we may want to take ten other seedlings. that is, in brief, our work so far in that direction. we took it off the ground. we didn't have long enough side roots. member: how about mound layering? dr. mckay: we tried cutting off at the ground level and mounding up those sprouts and tried to root them, with no satisfactory results. there was just a small amount of rooting. member: did you try layering? dr. mckay: one year we did, but with no success. mr. mcdaniel: i have seen a few layered successfully but it's a little slow. mr. o'rourke: shall we move to vegetative propagation and consider cuttings first? dr. mckay: just one thing i think ought to be mentioned at this time. we know that even the use of clonal rootstocks does not entirely eliminate variability. all the work that has been done with these malling apple stocks shows that, as far as apples are concerned. now we have an idea which, in a crop like chestnuts, may have very far reaching influence and we feel quite hopeful for it. that is growing seedling progenies of certain parent trees. i want to tell you our experience with it. we started our work on breeding and selection of tung nuts in , and we have tested now over parent trees that were especially selected. out of those six hundred we have released a total of six horticultural varieties, for asexual propagation. but out of those six we have three trees, the seed of which will produce seedling progenies that come very true to the type of the parent tree. one of those released we know as the lampton variety. it will produce from to per cent of its seedlings, that are so true to type that you can identify them in the nursery. at the end of the first season you plant to per cent of the remaining trees in the orchard and anybody can identify the trees. in the case of budded trees we have the variability of the rootstocks, which affects the growth. since that particular variety has been released there has not been one single nut of that variety crushed. every single seed is grown to tree size, to plant in a new orchard. it has taken us years to reach that stage, but that one variety is probably the most outstanding thing we have. there is a slight variation in the trees but not as much as you have in other trees. now, with chinese chestnuts, we planted seedlings that were grown from the seed of a parent tree at beltsville. we planted a thousand trees. there were seedlings grown from seed produced by different parent trees. out of those thousand there wasn't a single one outstanding. yet in one lot of seedlings which was planted in georgia, every one of the seedlings grown from the seeds of that selected tree produced such high quality nuts that we haven't cut out a single tree. there just hasn't been any off types. now we have gone a step further. we had one called selection which came into bearing very early. we have had those trees grown from seed. the seedling at three years of age produced a pound of nuts, the seedling having the characteristic of its mother. we have hopes that before many years we shall be able to produce parent trees or clonal lines in which the seed taken from those line and planted will give us uniform seedlings. i don't want you folks to get the idea we have these parent trees or seed from them that are available. i mention it because a lot of you are growing chestnut trees and planting them from seed. you could make a great contribution if you would take the nuts from each individual tree and plant separately, so that you will know in the future the origin of every one of those seedling trees you have. some of these days someone is going to find one that is going to give us seedling trees that are good and free from variation. elberta peach seed will come practically true to variety from seed, except minor variations of size, shape, color and season. in a peach you are facing a very highly specialized market. but with the chinese chestnut, color is not so important. what we are interested in is trees that bear and have enough uniformity so that we don't have pee-wees by one and jumbos by another. we need very badly this sort of thing. we need chestnut varieties planted in pairs in isolated places. any of you folks could do a great service if you will let us know wherever trees occur in pairs, or just two varieties and no others, and then we know that one variety pollinates the other. when you have a mixed planting of a half dozen varieties the male is promiscuous. therefore you have a much greater mixing of genetic factors. if we have a pair of trees, we get a much more uniform breeding group of seedlings. member: how far removed from other varieties do they have to be? dr. mckay: half a mile or a mile. mr. o'rourke: i think we can go to vegetative propagation of cuttings. i think that we have any amount of evidence that chinese chestnuts can be rooted from cuttings, but can trees grow on from rooting cuttings? dr. crane: you have summed up the situation perfectly. member: just by accident, in our storage house a couple of chestnuts fell over into a pile of peat moss and they did make roots. mr. corsan: would you call the chinese chestnut a second? mr. o'rourke: we should confine this only to propagation. while there are any number of interesting phases of it, we have to stick to propagation or we will never get through. we have had remarks on layers. any comments on layers? let's move on to graftage. we want to have our chestnut produced on a quantity basis so i am going to ask mr. bernath to tell us a good method. mr. bernath: i don't graft too many outside, but i do my propagating in the greenhouse. i had more than a thousand graftings growing, some of them this high [indicating] which greatly depends upon the root system and the condition of the soil. i think that is the fastest and easiest way of grafting chestnuts. i do my grafting sitting down. member: that's on the potted stock. mr. bernath: that's right. member: after you have produced all these grafts, what are you going to do with them? mr. bernath: sell them. mr. stoke: i tried to contact some nurseries. they are selling your seedlings, little chestnut trees for $ . and they want to give you ¢ or a dollar for grafted ones. mr. o'rourke: mr. mcdaniel has received a letter from mr. hirschi from oklahoma city and there is one paragraph that i think the membership will be interested in. [letter from mr. hirschi is partly reproduced here.] oklahoma city, okla. aug. , mr. j. c. mcdaniel, urbana, ill. my dear mac; ... in my work with chestnuts i believe i have had an experience that will be interesting to the membership. as you well know i am a strong believer in selected named varieties. i do not regard seedling chestnuts any more valuable than seedling peaches or apples. the--nursery, a member of our association, have been customers of mine for a long time. last year i persuaded them to catalog seedling chestnuts at about half the price of nanking, meiling, kuling, and abundance. i was anxious to learn the attitude of the public, where they had an opportunity to buy and plant selected grafted varieties, when heretofore only seedlings were available. to my utter amazement the seedlings did not sell at all, but the thousand trees of selected varieties were sold out long before the season was over. i could not supply more, neither could i get them elsewhere. so far as i know max hardy and i are the only ones grafting chestnuts in quantities. it is amazing the volume of business that catalog nurseries do. for instance the above firm does a million dollars gross business annually, and many others do a big business. all would be glad to catalog grafted chestnuts, and the chestnut movement would grow by leaps and bounds. true, they would have to be sold to them at wholesale prices, but they want small sizes, parcel post sizes preferred, which can be produced the second year from seed. plant the seed in march, the next march graft them, and by fall the grafts will range from three to seven feet as shown by the enclosed photos. i had the same experience with the above firm with carpathians, sold them , which were sold out long before the season ended and i could not get them any more. they have ordered for this coming season. unfortunately we had a poor take on grafts this spring due to cutting scion wood after a november freeze, which killed all other english walnuts. carpathian wood was not hurt except where used for scions. where left on the trees they forced out as usual and are producing a good crop of nuts. i must close. i know you will have a wonderful meeting and i wish i could be with you. i will be with you in spirit, and in the meantime will be doing all i can to promote interest in nut growing.--very truly yours, a. g. hirschi. mr. gerardi: i don't yet have the greenhouse. i depend on field grafting. i produce my own seedlings. i just use seed from those three best trees. they run pretty uniform as far as growth is concerned. i bark graft in the field, when the buds begin to swell nicely and from there on. you can get a growth like that. [indicating four to feet.] member: he has the same thing. just as soon as the buds swelled. sometimes i do go to the trouble if i am covering more ground, to cut them off as soon as they start to swell. a chestnut will peel again in four days. i start in after about four days and set these grafts and i use this bark graft. i have a sample of the method here. this is the plain bark graft which is efficient and fast for the production of chestnuts in quantity. i have to get into bigger production. i am trying to make speed and i am using this method. to start, the first week of april, when the buds start. if i get it done, it's the first week or the second of april. mr. gerardi: four days on chestnuts. in my personal opinion after a few years observation i don't believe it is absolutely essential to cut back. sometimes weather conditions will be a big factor. sometimes the temperature is around forty and remains that way four or five days. the weather has taken the place of your cut back. that doesn't always happen, but weather conditions sometimes favor this. member: what percent of failures do you expect on a hundred? mr. gerardi: well, it is better to take a thousand trees. out of a thousand you miss or . the percent that takes is high. this is an important factor; you must have good wood. you are running just a little on the small size. from a quarter of an inch up to--. i never set a scion over about / . that is just getting into the rough ... it's hard on the tool and rootstocks. member: do you wax the graft? member: by all means you use the proper wax. member: did you ever try not to? mr. gerardi: yes, if favorable weather permits. i use this acme compound. last season, it was a little stiff and i mixed a little oil and it cut my rubber bands too quick. that brush wax is about as good as you can get, but customers come in and i am called away and someone is always interfering with the work. i was trying to get a wax that i could just drop and it would be ready when i picked it up again. it is beginning to be an assembly line production. you can go faster if you have a helper or two to do the tying and waxing. member: i have a rather crude scion storage method. i have dug out in a hill a reservoir that i keep ice in. if you could keep it at to degrees from the time it is cut in february, or the first part of march and then store it in this until the grafting time, it will keep readily. member: in california i built a little house and there was room enough to put in at least bushel boxes, pounds of ice and i packed grafting wood in boxes and kept it until july. member: the ice keeps up the humidity. member: there are a lot of successful methods. it is what is available for you. mr. wilkinson: i have had very little experience in propagation of chestnuts. mine has been limited. i shoulder my scions. i like to shoulder. my percentage of take varies with the conditions, sometimes it's fairly good and sometimes not so good. i have a specimen union of two inches in diameter and you can see what a nice union it makes. ordinarily i have had very good success with chestnut grafting. dr. mckay: we have done some work on budding chestnuts but it hasn't been successful. we have had indefinite results. as mr. stoke says, grafting is so much more simple. we realize more work should be done on budding. we simply do our propagating the way it is easiest. until the time comes that we have got more information on budding we will go along as we do now. one of the difficulties is that the wood is fluted and it is hard to get a good bud fit. it doesn't make for a good fit. we carried out a little experiment on one year old seedling at the crown. there is a smooth area on the stem as it enters into the root condition. it is a perfectly smooth area and we tried putting sealed buds at that point. we have had good success in putting those kinds of buds in at the time when you would ordinarily bud fruits, in the fall, where growth conditions are still good. another year we did that same work and we didn't succeed so well. so we don't know exactly what we did wrong. in order to keep a set from those buds we don't know just what the conditions should be. mr. o'rourke: to summarize then, the two successful methods are the greenhouse method and the field method used by mr. gerardi. mr. stoke: i mostly use a plain splice. the cut is about four times as long as scion diameter, if it is on a stock of the same size. it is the best method. i use also a modified cleft graft with a little trimming. mr. jones brought out that modified cleft graft and i have made a little change. here is the stock, and a modified cleft graft is a side graft with the stock top cut off. you cut in at an angle far enough and you put your scion in here and there is your modified cleft graft. you get contact on all four lines. it takes experience and judgment. you cut your scion wedge and then make your understock cut and you will seldom make a mistake after you get experience. that is a side graft and a modified cleft graft. that makes a flexible portion here and you get a fit on both sides. but with the ordinary cleft graft, if you go to the end of your stock you still have a split and not a perfect fit. member: would you explain that? if your scion is not the same size it might over lap or ... how do you handle that? mr. stoke: if the scion is undersized, you don't cut so deep. sometimes the stock is a little oversize. you simply cut less deep in your stock. if you have a large stock and small scion i'd make a bark graft. member: i should like to bring up one point. that is produce more nut trees and do it cheaper. it seems to lie between mr. gerardi and mr. bernath. mr. gerardi can set between six and seven hundred per day, and tie them himself, and mr. bernath will graft between seven hundred and a thousand a day with someone else doing the tying. mr. chase: we have tried all these grafting methods with varying degrees of success. our propagation experiments at norris have been directed at the development of more economic methods. conifer grafts are often placed in a grafting case for rapid callusing. this year we tried some black walnut grafts and found that they callused in to days when placed in a grafting case. these were bench grafted on piece roots, using modified cleft and side grafts. later we tried chestnut with excellent results. then we made more chestnut grafts, wrapped them in damp moss and placed them in a lab oven with a temperature of approximately degrees. these callused rapidly and were planted immediately in the nursery. they made good growth. we think that some adaptation of this method has possibilities in our region. often our chestnut grafts are damaged by late spring frosts. if we can bench graft, callus, and then hold the grafts until favorable weather, frost damage will be eliminated. it may be possible to handle black walnut in some similar fashion. then we would be dealing only with successful grafts. a cold frame provided with heating cable should be adequate. factors affecting nut tree propagation f. l. o'rourke, _department of horticulture, michigan state college_ propagation of nut trees is primarily involved with the problems affecting the perpetuation of selected clones by vegetative means. it has been indicated by morris ( ), reed ( ), and others that trees produced from seed are of inferior value for nut production. seed propagation, however, must be practiced to produce the necessary rootstocks upon which the selected varieties are budded or grafted. seed propagation barton ( ) indicated that while some few seedlings may be produced without prior seed stratification, after-ripening of the seed for to months at ° to ° f. markedly increased seedling production with hickory and walnut. chase ( ) found that black walnut seed sown in november yielded more and larger seedlings than when planted at a later date. chase ( ) also reported that nuts containing larger kernels produced larger seedlings, and that planting to inches beneath the surface yielded larger seedlings than deeper placement. there have apparently been little or no observations made on the performance of seedlings for rootstock purposes between different parental strains except for chinese chestnut as reported by mckay ( ). clonal rootstock propagation the difficulty of propagating any selection of nut trees by vegetative means has discouraged selections for rootstock purposes. only filberts offer such an opportunity for selection on somewhat the same basis as the east malling clones of apple rootstocks which produce different sized scion varieties after grafting. unfortunately, no non-suckering desirable clones of filberts have yet been reported and even the non-suckering turkish tree hazel is grown from seed when such rootstocks are used ( ). propagation by cuttings gellatly ( ) quoted the success of the east malling research station in england in rooting cuttings of walnuts grown in the greenhouse and reported on his own experience in producing short roots on dormant cuttings of heartnut and persian walnut. the writer ( ) has occasionally produced roots on softwood cuttings of pecan and hickory set in a mist humidified greenhouse but the cuttings did not survive. mist humidification has been a distinct aid in retaining foliage on softwood cuttings of filbert and chinese chestnut until roots were formed but unless the axillary buds were developed sufficiently to make new growth immediately thereafter, little or no survival was secured. apparently when the cuttings were succulent enough to form roots the buds were too immature to put out new shoots. if one waited until the buds were developed the tissue at the base of the cutting was too highly lignified for root formation. the use of synthetic plant hormones on cuttings of nut-tree species has been of questionable value. propagation by layers mound layers are used quite successfully for the propagation of filbert varieties but have not proven of value with other nut-tree species. chinese chestnut has been reported to layer easily but experiments with both mound and trench layers of selected varieties of this species at the glenn dale, maryland station of the u.s. department of agriculture gave negative results. the writer ( ) has occasionally rooted pecan, hickory, and chinese chestnut by aerial layering. a marcot box containing sphagnum moss kept moist by a glass wick immersed in water from a bottle at the lower end was employed. the time and labor involved were so great that the experiments were discontinued. propagation by grafting bench grafting of walnuts and hickories has been adequately described by bernath ( ), hardy ( ), lounsberry ( ), slate ( ), and others. this method has been tested on a commercial basis and apparently should be considered as one of the most efficient ways to produce nut trees quickly and cheaply in large quantities. greenhouse and storage facilities are required and keen expert attention must be given the newly-made grafts to assure success. reports on top-working and field grafting are both numerous and voluminous. morris ( ), macdaniels ( ), wilkinson ( ), and others have demonstrated the value of cutting back the stock a week or more before setting the scion in order to avoid injury from excess flow of sap. reed ( ), stoke ( ), morris ( ), shessler ( ), sitton ( ), and others have described methods of preparing and setting scions in the stock. all writers agree that greater success is secured when dormant scions are set relatively late in the season. becker ( ) stated that greater success was secured when scions were set from time leaves were full-grown until catkins fell. protection of the scion by waxes, paper bags, and shading has been advocated by morris ( ), macdaniels ( ), shelton ( ), shessler ( ), and others. propagation by budding the shield or t bud has not been considered suitable for thick-barked trees such as hickory and walnut due to the difficulty of preventing "air-pockets" beneath the bark. shaving the edges of the bark at the side of the shield may eliminate this difficulty. joley ( ), reported variable success in shield budding of walnut in california. patch budding, either by the annular method or with the jones patch-budding tool was described by reed ( ), and is reported by chase ( ), zarger ( ), and others to be the most practical method of propagation with walnuts. pecans and hickories are commonly patch-budded in summer in commercial nurseries. the thin-barked chinese chestnut is usually budded by the shield-or t-bud method as reported by hardy ( ) and mckay ( ). scion and budstick handling sitton ( ) reported that two-year wood of black walnut was superior to either older or younger wood. macdaniels ( ) advocated the base of the scion to be in the two-year wood and the tip in the one-year wood. shelton ( ) reported that scions could be kept moist until used by storing in a closed container with a small amount of sodium sulphate, commonly known as "glauber's salt". the usual method of scion storage is to pack in moist but not wet peat or sphagnum moss and place in a refrigerator at about ° f. waxes and resins have been used successfully to prevent undue loss from the plant tissues while in storage. waxes and dressings propagators seldom agree in their choice of a wax and wound dressing. in a series of carefully controlled tests, sitton ( ), found that a rosin and beeswax mixture with a filler gave results with pecans superior to the so-called "cold waxes" or asphalt emulsions. paraffin and polyvinyl resin are often used for scion covering and to protect newly set buds. shelton ( ) has indicated certain qualities of a satisfactory wax. the rootstock problem in the pacific northwest painter ( ) stated that some persian walnut varieties on _juglans hindsi_ (the northern california black walnut) develop a fatal graft blight due to delayed incompatibility at about years of age. this is the so-called black-line disease. mckay ( ) found great differences in survival of buds of chinese chestnut placed on five seedling strains and hardy ( ) suggested that more attention should be paid to the parental relationship of stock and scion in the chestnut. weschcke ( ) reported that black walnuts grafted on butternuts yielded poor crops and that bitternut was a satisfactory stock for shagbark varieties and shagbark hybrids. smith ( ) advocated shagbark stocks for shagbark varieties but found bitternut to be practically as good. stoke ( ), and smith ( ) found eastern black walnut to be the best stock for all walnut species, including heartnuts and butternuts. nursery practices commercial nurseries have adopted various methods to discourage the normal tap-rooting habit of nut trees and stimulate lateral and fibrous root production. planting seed over screen wire, undercutting the seedling each year in the nursery row, frequent transplanting, and root pruning are methods commonly used. attention must be given to the production of an adequate root system to help the grafted tree withstand the shock of transplanting to its permanent location. summary the chief obstacle to the large scale growing of selected nut varieties is the difficulty in propagation. careful workers with a background of knowledge and experience and skilled in craftmanship are successful in a limited way. quantity production is apparently dependent upon specialized facilities and efficient labor programs. the need for extensive rootstock research is keenly felt by growers of walnut, hickory and chestnut. literature cited . barton, lela v.--seedling production in _carya ovata_, _juglans cinerea_, and _juglans nigra_. cont. boyce thompson inst. _ _: - . . becker, gilbert--notes from southwestern michigan. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: . . bernath, stephen--propagating nut trees under glass. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: . . chase, spencer b.--black walnut nursery studies. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: - . . chase, spencer b.--eastern black walnut germination and seedbed studies. jour. for. = =: - . . chase, spencer b.--budding and grafting eastern black walnut. proc. amer. soc. hort. sci. _ _: - . . gellatly, j. u.--notes on nuts and new combinations of old principles. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: - . . hardy, max b.--the propagation of chinese chestnuts. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: - . . joley, lloyd e.--personal correspondence. july, . lounsberry, c. c.--bench grafting of black walnuts. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: . macdaniels, l. h.--some experiences in nut tree grafting at ithaca, new york. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: . . mckay, j. w.--results of a chinese chestnut rootstock experiment. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: - . . morris, r. t.--top working hickories--rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: . . morris, r. t.--nut growing. . macmillan, new york . o'rourke, f. l.--unpublished data. - . painter, john h.--personal correspondence. july-august, . reed, c. a.--nut-tree propagation. u.s. dept. of agr. farmers' bul. . . reed, c. a.--seedling chestnut trees versus grafted varieties. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: . . shelton, e. m.--glauber's salt for humidity control in scion storage. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: - . shelton, e. j.--a laboratory experience in testing wax mixtures for use in plant propagation. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: - . . shessler, sylvester--grafting walnuts in ohio. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: . . sitton, b. g.--vegetative propagation of the black walnut. mich. agr. expt. sta. tech. bul. . . sitton, b. g.--pecan grafting methods and waxes. u. s. dept. agr. circ. . . slate, george l.--grafting walnuts in the greenhouse. rept. north nut grow. assoc. _ _: - . . smith, gilbert l.--our experience with rootstocks. rept. north nut grow. assoc. _ _: - . . stoke, h. f.--nut nursery notes--rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: . . stoke, h. g.--grafting methods adapted to nut trees. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: - . . weschcke, carl--the importance of stock and scion relationship in hickory and walnut. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: - . . wilkinson, j. f--preparation of stocks for propagation. rept. north. nut grow. assoc. _ _: - . . zarger, thomas g.--nut-testing, propagation, and planting experience of black walnut selections. rept. nut grow. assoc. _ _: - . nut rootstock material in western michigan harry p. burgart, _union city, michigan_ it is only natural that those who propagate by budding and grafting are always hoping to find a rootstock that will accept their scions with the highest percentage of takes and impart vigorous growth to the scion variety. sometimes in our eagerness to adopt a new rootstock we are likely to neglect a vital point, namely--future performance of the root-top combination we are about to use. it would take years of observation in a test planting to prove whether or not a new rootstock material is safe to use. a rootstock can affect the tree it supports in various ways. sometimes the rootstock will force to the top too much growth, which is likely to bring about unfruitfulness. in other cases, the rootstock may cause a dwarfing habit in the future tree, with the resulting top being a scant producer of nuts. then there is the combination where rootstock and top vary too much in their growth rate, thus making an unsightly tree. the ideal rootstock is one that attains a diameter nearly equal to the diameter of its partner, and is capable of producing a moderate amount of top growth, together with the production of heavy crops of nuts. such a rootstock should also accept buds or grafts readily, and be compatible with the scion throughout the life of the tree. my first experience with rootstocks for grafting came about in when i was working at the j. f. jones nursery then at lancaster, pennsylvania. mr. jones used both bitternut and pecan seedling stocks for grafting shagbark hickories. pecans and hicans were also grafted on hardy northern pecan seedlings, and japanese walnut stocks were used for butternuts and heartnuts. black and persian walnut scions were set on eastern black walnut seedlings. when i returned to michigan i brought back enough of mr. jones' trees for a small test planting here at union city. these trees were planted in a heavy quack grass sod and some were lost, but those surviving show good compatibility between the top and root. in the intervening years i have made but slight changes in the rootstock material used in my own nursery. i do not approve of the performance of our butternut varieties on the japanese walnut _root_, as it results in a weak and dwarfed tree. the use of butternut rootstocks is also unsatisfactory, for they tend to produce trees of low vitality that in a few years fall victim to blight and then perish. i tried our michigan black walnut seedlings as a rootstock and found that they are very much better rootstock material. the growth at the union is about equal. top growth is good, and the butternut tops bear early and heavily, with no signs of blight during the ten years i have had them under test. after years of test i have decided to use the northern pecan seedlings as rootstocks for my shagbarks, pecans, and hicans because they are a fast growing stock tree. they accept the grafts readily, and make good unions more quickly than the bitternut stocks i have tried. mr. wilkinson, from whom i obtain my seed, has never failed to send me seed with good viability, just about every seed germinating. the northern pecan seedlings have shown no winter injury here in southern michigan during the years i have watched them growing. an example of the superiority of the black walnut over the persian walnut as a rootstock is a seedling of the variety wiltz mayette growing near a broadview grafted on black walnut. both trees are the same age, but the broadview on black walnut is just about twice the size of its own-rooted neighbor. hudson valley experience with nut tree understocks gilbert l. smith, _millerton, n. y._ this report is not based on any planned or well conducted experiments, but is based simply on our observations of results of our grafting work over the years since . our first work was with hickories, so i will start with them. our first year's grafting was done in a plot of practically pure pignut stocks. this was the seven leaflet pignut, which i believe to be _carya glabra_. i have never been sure of the identification of the two species of pignuts. we secured a fairly good percentage of living grafts, which grew well the first summer. the next spring all of the grafts failed to leaf out and later were found to be dead. a few grafts which were put on bitternut stocks (_carya cordiformis_) grew well, and are still growing well after more than fifteen years. several different varieties of shagbark hickory scions were used in this grafting. the second year, we again grafted as many or more stocks in this same area. the results were exactly the same, except that we used some scions of davis and fox. (these varieties were brought to light through the contests of the previous winter). the grafts of davis grew on pignut stocks, are still alive and doing fairly well. they have been bearing for several years, although the squirrels have stolen all of the nuts. grafts of all other varieties which were on the pignut stocks died the next spring. one graft of fox on mockernut lived and has continued to grow fairly well. that same year we started our test orchard of shagbark stocks (_carya ovata_) in a different area. grafts on these stocks have grown very well. i believe that for some reason grafts of shagbark on pignut stocks cannot stand cold weather. certainly, incompatibility is very marked. our experience with hickory stocks to date is as follows: pignut (_carya glabra_ or possibly _carya ovalis_). this species is worthless as a stock for shagbark, shellbark, and hybrids of these species. if nut growers have some pignut stocks growing where they especially wish to have some good hickory trees, they can graft them to davis. we have also heard that brooks will grow on pignut stocks. mockernut (_carya alba_). this species is also nearly worthless as a stock for shagbark, shell bark, and hybrids, although many more varieties will live on it than will on pignut stocks. shagbark (_carya ovata_). this species makes the most dependable stock of any we have tried so far, for shagbark, shell bark, and the hybrids. its greatest drawback is the long time it takes to grow seedlings to a size large enough to graft. shellbark (_carya laciniosa_). we have never had an opportunity to use this species as a stock. i think that it would make a good one and possibly be faster growing than shagbark. bitternut (_carya cordiformis_). we have found that this species makes a very satisfactory stock for shagbark and hybrid grafts. we have not tried shellbark on it, except berger which grows well on it. seedlings of this species are much faster growing than are shagbark seedlings, and thus are large enough to graft sooner. we have grafts growing on bitternut stocks since , they are growing and producing well. we consider this species as good or nearly as good as shagbark as a stock. we have received contrary reports from farther south. these may be due to stock being blamed for something they did not cause or it may be that bitternut stocks grown from seed of more southern origin may not be as good as our northern stock.[ ] pecan (_carya pecan_). our experience with this species as a stock is very limited and has been confined to grafts of only one variety of shagbark (wilcox). results were very disappointing, but we have been told by others that it makes a good stock. it is much faster growing than is shagbark. walnut in walnut grafting, we have found that the eastern black walnut stocks are so much superior to any others we have been able to find, that we have discarded all others. butternut (_juglans cinerea_). we have found that it is much harder to secure living grafts on this stock than on black walnut. it also attracts butternut curculio to the nursery. japanese walnut (_juglans sieboldiana_ and variety _cordiformis_). we have found that seedlings grown from either of these species are a great attraction to the butternut curculio. they are more difficult to secure living grafts on, and grafts on these stocks are very definitely less hardy than similar grafts on black walnut growing side by side. we have proved this repeatedly. persian walnut (_juglans regia_). we have never used this species as a stock, and in view of the fact that grafts of it grow so well on black walnut stocks, i can see no use in even trying it. eastern black walnut (_juglans nigra_). as stated above, we have found this to be the ideal stock for all walnut grafting. it is more free from insects than any of the other walnuts. grafts grow well on it and are more hardy than grafts on some of the others. we have not had enough experience in grafting chestnuts and filberts even to offer any comment as to stocks for them. footnotes: [footnote : the planting location perhaps has more influence than the seed source. at any rate, the poorest growing pecan in the university of illinois orchard is on a wisconsin bitternut understock.--j. c. mcd.] the persian walnut contest spencer b. chase, _contest chairman, tennessee valley authority, norris, tennessee_ the nationwide persian walnut contest conducted by nnga in attracted entries from states. the contest was judged by h. l. crane, l. h. macdaniels, and h. f. stoke, assisted by s. b. chase. the entries were first evaluated independently by the judges. then each judge made a second evaluation with the knowledge of the findings of the other two judges. the chairman then arbitrated the differences of opinion among the three judges. this action amounted only to the placing of four entries after the first prize had been unanimously agreed upon. the following table shows the results of the contest: results of persian walnut contest ___________________________________________________________________________ prize entry submitted by nut kernel kernel weight weight percentage =========================================================================== mrs. w. h. metcalfe, . . . webster, new york (hansen) s. shessler, genoa, ohio . . . (mckinster) roy mckinster, columbus, ohio . . . (jacobs) s. shessler, genoa, ohio . . . lewis weng, dayton, ohio . . . _honorable mention_ mrs. gale harrison, . . . pemberton, new jersey a. c. orth, dayton, ohio . . . (burtner) fayette etter, lemasters, . . . pennsylvania (s- ) g. l. smith, millerton, . . . new york p. f. countryman, ontario, . . . (colby[ ]) a. s. colby, urbana, illinois . . . (s-m- ) royal oakes, bluffs, illinois . . . s. elwell, homer, michigan . . . a brief history of the prize-winning trees follows: _entry :_ a carpathian originally obtained through the wisconsin horticultural society in (rev. crath's selections). in this tree was years old, feet high, with a trunk circumference of inches. it has withstood degrees below zero without damage. the tree began bearing a few nuts in , quarts in ; peck in ; and / bushel in . _entry :_ this is the hansen variety which was given second place in the contest. the origin of this tree is uncertain. it is estimated to be years old and feet high. it has withstood degrees below zero without damage. just when this tree began bearing is unknown, but it produced bushels in ; pecks in ; bushel in ; and bushels in . _entry :_ this is the mckinster variety which was judged the best entry in the contest. it is a carpathian originally obtained through the wisconsin horticultural society in (rev. crath's selections), and was years old in . it is feet high with a circumference of inches. it has withstood degrees below zero without injury. this tree began bearing in . in it produced / bushel; bushel in ; pecks in ; and pecks in . _entry :_ this is the jacobs variety which placed third in the contest. the nut which produced this tree originally came from germany some years ago. it has withstood degrees below zero without injury. this is a large tree which has been bearing since . it produced pounds in ; pounds in ; pounds in ; and pounds in . _entry :_ a carpathian originally obtained through the wisconsin horticultural society in (rev. crath's selections). in it was years old, feet high, with a circumference of inches. it has withstood degrees below zero without injury. this tree began bearing in ; in it produced pounds of nuts. it should be emphasized that this contest was based entirely on nut characteristics. in another year the placing of the same entries might be considerably different, because of seasonal variation. however, it is significant that the mckinster, hansen, and jacob varieties which were among the prize-winners in the contest were also among the prize-winners in . contests such as this are valuable as a first step in the selection and development of improved varieties. the prize-winners and those given honorable mention are all very promising hardy persian walnuts. the next step will be to test these selections to determine their adaptability to our varying conditions. footnotes: [footnote : named since the close of the contest.--ed.] colby, a hardy persian walnut for the central states j. c. mcdaniel, _extension horticulturist, university of illinois_ when the reverend paul c. crath of toronto imported walnut seeds and scions from his native ukraine region and adjacent areas of poland in the s, he started a chain of propagation and selection which promises to establish the persian walnut (_juglans regia_) as a commonly grown nut in southern ontario and the north central states. the best of his importations, and seedlings from them, are fruiting in such states as wisconsin, iowa, illinois and missouri, showing in many cases a degree of hardiness which must reverse the conclusion of an older generation of pomologists that persian or "english" walnuts were too tender for successful cultivation in most of the middle west. the time has now arrived when there are enough fruiting trees of the "crath carpathian" walnut seedlings in many states that comparisons can be made and the more promising ones named and disseminated for propagation. the nuts which the reverend mr. crath imported in greatest quantity during the middle s came from more than different seedling trees selected in poland. their seedlings exhibit much variability in characters of trees and nuts. some are much less hardy than others under our conditions. not all are as large fruited as their seed parents (and some of the parent trees bore small nuts). though many have smoother shells than mayette or franquette, there is also much variation in shape, thickness, and color of shells. color and flavor of kernel vary from tree to tree. the season of nut maturity, though variable, is generally early enough in locations where the trees are winter hardy. the parents were selected for good filling of kernels, and this character generally has carried over to the seedlings fruited in america. as with other walnuts, some of the carpathian seedlings are apparently more susceptible than others to fruit damage by the husk maggot. walnut blight has infected them in some localities. the colby persian walnut, named in august , and released to nut nurserymen for propagation early in , is the best to date of thirteen carpathian seedlings (each from a different parent tree) planted at the university of illinois agricultural experiment station from to . it is the first persian walnut variety to be named at this station. the name, colby, honors dr. arthur s. colby of the department of horticulture at the university of illinois, who has been in charge of nut investigations here since . it was given to this variety, with his permission, by members of the northern nut growers association during their nd annual meeting, held at urbana in august, . dr. colby is a former president of the northern nut growers association. colby is a seedling of the tree designated as crath no. . the seed was collected in from the parent tree near cosseev, in the carpathian mountain region of southern poland as then constituted, planted in the nursery of s. h. graham, ithaca, new york, and the seedling transplanted to urbana, illinois at the age of two years. it has been fruiting annually here since , with crops of up to - / bushels in recent years. the accompanying cut shows nuts of the crop, a little less than / natural size. they are thin shelled, like the parent crath no. , well filled with kernels of rich flavor, and are medium in size for varieties of this species. [illustration: colby walnuts of crop, showing thin shells and plump, bright kernels.] the colby tree is rather upright in growth, with strong branches, being the most vigorous among the four hardiest carpathian seedlings at urbana. it was one of two trees on which most catkins survived the winter of - , when temperatures at urbana fell to - ° f. it is among the earliest persian walnuts to start growth in spring, blossoming at urbana normally in the first half of may. flowering is protandrous (male flowers first) but with enough overlap of staminate and pistillate blossoms to secure a large degree of self-pollination from the abundant large catkins. fruit set might be improved, however, by planting nearby another variety with later staminate catkins.[ ] the nuts mature from the middle to the last of september and have not been seriously affected by walnut husk maggot or walnut blight at urbana. the tree is relatively early in wood maturity, shedding its foliage usually before november, a characteristic shared by the other hardiest carpathian seedlings in illinois. prior to , scions of the colby walnut (previously designated illinois no. ) were propagated for test by top working on native eastern walnut (_juglans nigra_) at two widely separated locations. it fruited in at greensboro, north carolina, where the early growth sometimes is injured by spring freezes. (this is common with carpathian walnuts in the southeast.) it has survived three winters at sabula, iowa with no cold injury and made unusually vigorous growth there. at both urbana and sabula, it has been compared with broadview persian walnut, a british columbia origination considered a hardy variety. broadview has often suffered winter injury at both locations, and in - was killed to the understock at urbana. the suggested test regions for the colby persian walnut include those with a climate similar to central illinois, and where spring freezes are not generally a problem. the suggested understock is black walnut (_j. nigra_) though established hardy carpathian and other persian walnuts may be satisfactory for top working. additional wood for propagation of the colby will be available in small quantities next august to nut nurserymen and other experiment stations. (walnut scions cannot be sent from illinois to california.) trees of colby should be available from several cooperating nurseries in the fall of .--reprinted from _fruit varieties and horticultural digest_, ( ): - . . footnotes: [footnote : according to u.s.d.a. workers in walnut breeding, pollen of other _juglans_ species is not to be depended upon for securing a set of fruit on this species. several hardy persian varieties of good quality which have won awards in recent contests are being propagated but have not been grown at urbana. these include the lake, mckinster, and metcalfe among others of carpathian parentage, and two non-carpathian varieties, hansen and jacobs, which have been fruitful in northwestern ohio. before one or more of these can be recommended as a pollinator for the colby walnut, however it will be necessary to have them flowering in the same orchard for a period of several years. among the other carpathian walnuts which have flowered in the orchard containing the original colby tree, there is one very hardy seedling, r t , which in and produced abundant pollen at the proper time to pollinate the colby. tree r t an open pollinated seedling of crath no. , is protandrous, but later flowering than the colby with respect to pistils as well as catkins, and consequently most of its pistillate flowers fail to set fruit in years like when there was no later persian walnut pollen available. the r t tree produces an attractive, smooth shelled nut slightly smaller than that of colby, not quite as sweet in flavor, and slightly earlier in maturity. because of its hardiness and apparent value as a pollinator for colby, propagating wood from this r t walnut tree will be available to experimenters, but we do not plan to name it at present.] resolutions mr. president and members of the northern nut growers association. the northern nut growers' association, assembled in its forty-second annual meeting here at urbana, illinois, on this the th day of august, , desires to express its appreciation and thanks to dr. george d. stoddard, president of the university of illinois, and to dr. h. p. rusk, dean of the agricultural college, to dr. c. j. birkeland, dr. a. s. colby, professor j. c. mcdaniel, and other members of the department of horticulture, as well as to other members of the staff of the university for the excellent accommodations provided for the entertainment of the members attending and for the meeting place provided, and to mrs. a. s. colby and other for their entertainment of the ladies and for the refreshments furnished. therefore, be it resolved that the secretary spread this resolution upon the minutes of the association and send copies to president stoddard, dr. birkeland, and dr. and mrs. a. s. colby. in the passing of harry r. weber, who was a nut culturist, one of the oldest members of the association, and a past president, we have lost not only a real leader and worker in this association, but also a very dear friend. this association is greatly indebted to him and he has been deeply missed at this meeting. therefore, be it resolved that the secretary of this association spread upon the record of this meeting this resolution and send a copy to mrs. weber signed, members of resolutions committee (s) h. l. crane, _chairman_ (s) f. l. o'rourke (s) spencer chase footnotes: [footnote : named since the close of the contest.--ed.] [footnote : according to u.s.d.a. workers in walnut breeding, pollen of other _juglans_ species is not to be depended upon for securing a set of fruit on this species. several hardy persian varieties of good quality which have won awards in recent contests are being propagated but have not been grown at urbana. these include the lake, mckinster, and metcalfe among others of carpathian parentage, and two non-carpathian varieties, hansen and jacobs, which have been fruitful in northwestern ohio. before one or more of these can be recommended as a pollinator for the colby walnut, however it will be necessary to have them flowering in the same orchard for a period of several years. among the other carpathian walnuts which have flowered in the orchard containing the original colby tree, there is one very hardy seedling, r t , which in and produced abundant pollen at the proper time to pollinate the colby. tree r t an open pollinated seedling of crath no. , is protandrous, but later flowering than the colby with respect to pistils as well as catkins, and consequently most of its pistillate flowers fail to set fruit in years like when there was no later persian walnut pollen available. the r t tree produces an attractive, smooth shelled nut slightly smaller than that of colby, not quite as sweet in flavor, and slightly earlier in maturity. because of its hardiness and apparent value as a pollinator for colby, propagating wood from this r t walnut tree will be available to experimenters, but we do not plan to name it at present.] northern nut growers association membership list as of july , * life member ** honorary member § contributing member *** sustaining member alabama east alabama nursery, auburn, =chestnut, pecan and persimmon nurserymen= hiles, edward l., =hiles auto repair shop=, loxley arkansas hale, a. c., fairview school, camden wade, clifton, forest avenue, fayetteville. =attorney= wylie, w. d., dept. of entomology, univ. of arkansas, fayetteville. =entomologist= belgium centrale kas voor landbouwkre, diet van den belgischen boerenbond n. v., minderbroedersstraat, leuven r. vanderwaeren, bierbeekstraat, , korbeek-lo. california andrew, col. james w., box , hamilton a.f.b. armstrong nurseries, n. euclid avenue, ontario =general nurserymen, plant breeders= brand, george (see nebraska) buck, ernest homer, three arch bay, n. portola, south laguna haig, dr. thomas r., highland avenue, carlsbad, california fulcher, e. c., fulcher ave., north hollywood jeffers, harold n., lt. chc, usn, uss dixie (ad ) c/o f.p.o., san francisco kemple, w. h., w. ralston street, ontario linwood nursery, route no. , box , turlock pentler, dr. c. f., arguello blvd., san francisco . =american friends service committee= pozzi, p. h., s. dutton ave., santa rosa. =brewery worker, farmer= serr, e. f., agr. experiment station, davis. =associate pomologist= stewart, douglas n., f street, davis sullivan, c. edward, garden highway, box , yuba city welby, harry s., buchanan street, taft. =private and corp. hort.= canada brown, alger, route , harley, ontario. =farmer= collens, adam h., seaton st., toronto , out. * crath, rev. paul c., toronto, ontario english, h. a., box , duncan, b. c. =farmer, fruit and nut grower= filman, o., aldershot, ontario. =fruit and veg. grower= gage, james m., water st. e., burlington, ontario gellatly, j. u., box , westbank, b. c. =plant breeder, fruit grower, nurseryman= harrhy, ivor h., route , st. thomas, ont. =fruitgrower and poultry= housser, levi, route , beamsville, ontario. =fruit farmer= lefevre, h. e., st. catherine street e., montreal , quebec lossing, elgin, norwich, ontario * neilson, mrs. ellen, macdonald avenue, guelph, ont. papple, elton e., route , cainsville, ont. porter, gordon, mckay ave., windsor, ont. =chemist= smith, e. a., box , sparta, ont. =farmer= snazelle, robert, forest nursery, route no. , charlottetown, p. e. i. =nursery supt.= trayling, e. j., richards st., vancouver, b. c. =jeweller= wagner, a. s., delhi, ont. walker, j. w., c/o mccarthy & mccarthy, university ave., toronto , ont. wharton, h. w., route no. , guelph, ont. =farmer= white, peter, pear ave., toronto , ont. willis, a. r., route no. , royal oak, vancouver island, b. c. =accountant= woods, david m., south front st., west, toronto, ont. =vice president, gordon mckay, ltd.= young, a. l., brooks, alberta. =dairy farmer= colorado forbes, j. e., julesburg. =banker= connecticut daniels, the honorable paul c. see ecuador david, alexander m., so. main street, west hartford deming, benton h., radio wtht, hartford ** deming, dr. w. c., litchfield. =dean of the association= fruch, alfred j., route , west cornwall graves, dr. arthur h., s. main st., wallingford. =consulting pathologist, conn. agr. expt. station, new haven, conn.= hapgood, miss dorothy a., farmington avenue, hartford henry, david, blue hills farm, route , wallingford * huntington, a. m., stanerigg farms, bethel. =patron= * newmaker, adolph, route no. , rockville pratt, george d., jr., bridgewater risko, charles, city tobacco & candy co., crescent ave., bridgeport white, george e., route no. , andover. =farmer= delaware brugmann, elmer w., thomas drive, monroe park, wilmington. =chemical engineer= logue, r. f., gen. mgr., andelot, inc., du pont bldg., wilmington wilkins, lewis, route , newark. =fruit grower= denmark carøe, mr. j. f., "meulenborg" helsingør granjean, mr. julio, hillerød knuth, count f. m., knuthenborg, bandholm pers, mr. plantageejer e., edelgaard, vejstrup district of columbia american potash inst., inc., - th st., n.w., washington ford, edwin l., austin st., s.e., washington kaan, dr. helen w. see maryland reed, mrs. clarence a., piney branch rd., n.w., washington ecuador, south america acosta solis, prof. m., director del departamento forestal, ministerio de economia, quito. (exchange.) daniels, the honorable paul c., american ambassador, american embassy, quito england baker, richard st. barbe, the gate, abbotsbury, weymouth, dorset. (founder, men of the trees.) commonwealth bureau of plant genetics, school of agriculture, cambridge. (exchange.) the gardeners chronicle, london. (exchange.) florida avant, c. a., n.w. th ave., miami. =real estate, loans.= =(pecan orchard in ga.)= estill, gertrude, navarre dr., miami springs. (summer address under mich.) georgia hardy, max, leeland farms, p. o. box , leesburg. =nurseryman, farmer= hunter, dr. h. reid, lake shore dr. n.e., atlanta. =teacher, nut farmer= noland, s. c., box , atlanta . =owner, skyland farms= wilson, william j., north anderson ave., fort valley. peach and pecan grower hawaii keaau orchard, john f. cross, manager, p.o. box , hilo. =macadamia growers= holland institute for horticultural plant breeding. herenstraat . wageningen. (exchange) hong kong * wang, p. w., c/o china products trading corp., des voeux rd., central idaho dryden, lynn, peck. =farmer= horn, anton s., n. th st., boise. =ext. horticulturist= illinois allbright, r. d., allbright nurseries, western avenue, western springs allen, theodore r., delavan. =farmer= anderson, ralph w., r.f.d. , morris andrew, col. james w. (see california) anthony, a. b., route no. , sterling. =apiarist= baber, adin, kansas barrow, j. m., p.o. box , urbana. =architect, university teacher= best, r. b., eldred. =farmer= booth, earl, r.f.d. , carrollton blough, r. o., route no. , polo blyth, colin r., math. dept., u. of i., urbana. (farm in northern ontario) * boll, herschel l., hort. field lab., univ. of ill., urbana. =asst. in pomology= borchsenius, wayne l., r.f.d. , sheridan brock, arthur s., north mcvicker ave., chicago canterbury, c. e., cantrall. =seed grower= churchill, woodford m., oakenwald ave., chicago colby, dr. arthur s., u. of illinois, urbana dahlberg, albert a., d.d.s., harper ave., chicago daum, philip a., north sixth st., carrollton dietrich, ernest, route no. , dundas. =farmer= dintelman, l. f., state street road, belleville douglass, t. j., - / north st., normal eigsti, dr. o. j., funk bros. seed co., bloomington. =research botanist= estill, mrs. harry, power farms, cantrall fordtran, e. h. route no. , box -a, palatine frey, frank h., w. th place, chicago . =asst. to v. p., cri & p rr.= frey, mrs. frank h., w. th place, chicago . =housewife= fuller, owen h., oneida street, joliet gerardi, louis, route no. , caseyville. =nut and fruit nurseryman= glidden, nansen, west lincoln highway, dekalb grefe, ben, route no. , box , nashville. =farmer= heberlein, edwin w., route no. , box a, roscoe hermerding, ted, c/o russell miller milling company, jerseyville hockenyos, g. l., e. jefferson st., springfield. =business man= jennings, charles l., box , grayville jungk, adolph e., route no. , jerseyville, illinois kammarmeyer, glenn, e. th st., chicago knoeppel, j. a., bluffs kreider, ralph, jr., route no. , hammond. =farmer= langdoc, mildred jones (mrs. wesley w.) p. o. box , erie. =nursery, farm, housewife= mcdaniel, j. c., c/o hort. field lab., u. of i., urbana. =horticulturist. (sec'y of ass'n.)= mcdaniel, j. c., jr., urbana marsh, mrs. w. v., route , aledo moeser, william w., route , belleville musgrave, carl, w. st street, chicago . =machinist= newman, roy, p. o. box , martinsville. =orchardist= oakes, royal, bluffs (scott county) pierson, stuart e., carrollton. =bank president= pray, a. lee, n. main st., leroy price, harold g., sr. (see utah) reisch, louis c., route , carrollton. =farmer= robbins, w. j., n. lasalle st., chicago . =insurance= robertson, virgil e., virginia. =retired farmer= schubert, kenneth, rt. , millstadt sokolowski, f. w., m.d., donald ave., alton sonnemann, w. f., experimental gardens, vandalia. =lawyer, farm operator= sparks, maurice e., ash, lawrenceville spencer, h. dwight, w. decatur st., decatur. =attorney= vortman, elmer, route , bluffs wahle, fred, route , fieldon warnecke, martin h., south first avenue, maywood whitford, a. m., farina. =nurseryman= zethmayr, gordon, route no. , box , west chicago indiana aster nut products, inc., george oberman, mgr., main st., evansville bauer, paul j., s. th st., lafayette bolten, ferd, route , linton. =farmer, fruit grower. (carpathian walnut seeds.)= boyer, clyde c., nabb buckner, dr. doster, w. wayne st., ft. wayne . =physician and surgeon= clark, c. m., c. m. clark & sons nurseries, route , middletown =nurseryman, fruit farmer= cole, charles w., jr., madison rd., rt. , box a, south bend coleman, robert g., =field editor, the indiana farmer's guide=, huntington cunningham, earl e., e. th street, anderson dooley, kenneth r., route no. , marion. =gardener= eagles, a. e., eagles' orchards, wolcottville. =walnut grower, apple orchardist= eisterhold, dr. john a., southwest riverside drive, evansville . =medical doctor= fateley, nolan w., central avenue, franklin. =auditor and cashier. (carpathian walnut seeds.)= glaser, peter, route no. , box , koering road, evansville grater, a. e., route , shipshewana harrell, franklin m., route , griffith § johnson, hjalmar w., rt. , valparaiso. =v. p. inland steel co.= kaufman, ray, route , peru kodera, shunzo, goshen college, goshen kyburz, benjamin e., route , idaville neimeyer, harry d., west lebanon. =high school principal and farmer= newman, jesse d., jr., r. r. , culver pape, edw. w., route , marion prell, carl f., e. colfax avenue, south bend office: j.m.s. bldg., south bend . =treasurer of ass'n.= reed, frank, daleville. =toolmaker= richards, e. e., south twyckenham drive, south bend. =studebaker corp.= risko, a., tioga orchards, monticello russell, a. m., jr. marine st., south bend skinner dr. chas. h., rt. , thorntown sly, miss barbara, route no. , rockport sly, donald r., route , rockport. =nurseryman, nut tree propagator= wallick, ford, rt. , peru ward, w. b., horticulture bldg., purdue university, lafayette. =ext. horticulturist, vegetables= westerhouse, george f., east ohio street, monticello whitsel, gilbert l., jr., s. th street, lafayette wichman, robert p., route no. , washington. =general farming= wilkinson, j. f., indiana nut nursery, rockport. =nurseryman= iowa berhow, seward, =berhow nurseries=, huxley boice, r. h., route no. , nashua. =farmer= carlson, r. j., m.d., college street, cedar falls cole, edward p., chestnut street, atlantic eads, carroll, r.f.d., miles. =farmer= ferguson, albert b., center point. =nurseryman= ferris, wayne, hampton. =president of earl ferris nursery= greig, john e., box , estherville huen, e. f., eldora. =farmer= inter-state nurseries, hamburg. =general nurserymen= iowa fruit growers assn., c/o sec'y, state house, des moines . =cooperative buying organization= kaser, mrs. j. d., winterset knowles, w. b., box , manly kyhl, ira m., box , sabula. =nut nurseryman, farmer, salesman= lysinger, addison, lamoni martzahn, frank a., route no. , davenport. =farmer= mcleran, harold f., mt. pleasant. =lawyer= orr, j. allen, frances bldg., sioux city rohrbacher, dr. william, east college street, iowa city. =practice of medicine= schlagenbusch brothers, route no. , fort madison. =farmers= snyder, d. c., center point. =nurseryman, nuts and general.= snyder, paul v., kalona tolstead, w. l. see nebraska wade, miss ida may, route no. , laporte city. =bookkeeper= welch, g. l., mt. arbor nurseries, shenandoah white, herbert, box , woodbine. =rural mail carrier= williams, wendell v., route no. , danville. =farmer= kansas baker, fred c., troy. =entomologist= borst, frank e., shawnee street, leavenworth breidenthal, willard j., riverview state bank, th and central, kansas city . =bank president= funk, m. d., w paramore street, topeka. =pharmacist= gray, dr. clyde, central avenue, horton. =osteopathic physician= harris, ernest, box , wellsville. =farmer= leavenworth nurseries, carl holman, proprietor, route no. , leavenworth. =nut nurseryman= mondero, john, lansing stark, m. f., hawthorne place, hiawatha. =supt. city schools= thielenhaus, w. f., route no. , buffalo. =retired postal worker= underwood, jay, riverside nursery, uniontown wales, max, macvicar street, topeka kentucky alves, robert h., clay st., henderson armstrong, w. d., west ky., exp. sta., princeton. =horticulturist= bray, terrell, bray orchards, bedford hopson, j. r., route , cadiz magill, w. w., horticulture dept., u. of ky., lexington miller, julien c., sycamore drive, paducah moss, dr. c. a., williamsburg. =bank president= rouse, sterling, route no. , box , florence. =fruit grower, nurseryman= shakelford, thomas b., p. o. box , compton taliaferro, philip, box , erlanger tatum, w. g., route , lebanon. =commercial orchardist= usrey, robert, star route, mayfield walker, william w., route no. , dixie highway, florence widmer, dr. nelson d., lebanon louisiana hammar, dr. harald e., usda chemical lab., court house, shreveport . =chemist= perrault, mrs. henry d., route no. , box , natchitoches. =pecan grower= maryland case, lynn b., route , box , federalsburg crane, dr. h. l., bureau of plant industry station, beltsville. =principal horticulturist, usda.= eastern shore nurseries, inc., p. o. box , easton. =chestnut growers= graff, george u., harding lane, rt. , rockville gravatt, dr. g. f., plant industry station, beltsville. =research forest pathologist= hodgson, william c, route no. , white hall. =farmer= kaan, dr. helen w., grubb road, silver spring. =research associate= kemp, homer s., (proprietor) bountiful ridge nurseries, princess anne mccollum, blaine, white hall. =retired from federal government= mckay, dr. j. w., plant industry station, beltsville. =government scientist= * negus, mrs. herbert, - th ave., roger heights, hyattsville porter, john j., the terrace, hagerstown. _farm owner_ quill farm, barclay shamer, dr. maurice e., w. north avenue, baltimore . physician massachusetts babbitt, howard s., dawes avenue, pittsfield. =service station owner and part time farmer= bradbury, h. g., hospital point, beverly brown, daniel l., esq., state street, boston bump, albert h., p. o. box , brewster davenport, s. lothrop, creeper hill road, north grafton. =farmer, fruit grower= faulkner, luther w., r.f.d., westford fitts, walter h., baker st., foxboro. =general foreman, instrument company= ganz, dr. robert norton, beacon st., boston kendall, henry p., moose hill farm, sharon kerr, andrew, lock box , barnstable la beau, henry a., north hoosic road, williamstown. =stat. engineer= murphy, john d., boulevard rd., wellesley rice, horace j., elm street, springfield. =attorney= * russell, mrs. newton h., burnett avenue, south hadley stewart, o. w., milton avenue, hyde park wellman, sargent h., esq., windridge, topsfield. =lawyer= weston nurseries, inc., weston wood, miss louise b., pocassett, cape cod viera, manuel, main street, vineyard haven michigan andersen, charles, route no. , box , scottsville. =nurseryman= barlow, alfred l., flanders avenue, detroit =sec'y of mich. nut growers assn.= becker, gilbert, climax boylan, p. b., route no. , cloverdale. =homesteader= bumler, malcolm r., dickerson, detroit . =insurance trustee= burgart, harry, michigan nut nursery, box , union city. =nurseryman= burgress, e. h., burgess seed & plant company, galesburg burr, redmond m., s. th avenue, ann arbor. =general chairman, the order of railroad telegraphers, pere marquette district, c&o ry. co.= cook, ernest a., m.d., c/o county health dept., centerville corsan, h. h., route no. , hillsdale. =nurseryman= dennison, clare, avery, detroit drake, virgil, route no. , bangor emerson, ralph, cortland avenue, detroit estill, miss gertrude. (see under florida, summer address: route , box , battle creek) hackett, john c., butterworth rd., s.w., r. r. , grand rapids haesler, l. m., route no. , box , south haven hagelshaw, w. j., route no. , box , galesburg. =grain farmer, contractor= hay, francis h., ivanhoe place, lawrence. =farmer= kennedy, robert m., deneweth rd., mt. clemens korn, g. j., c/o mrs. arthur howell, onaway lee, michael, p. o. box , milford lemke, edwin w., townsend ave., detroit . =engineer, nut orchardist= mccarthy, francis w., box , algonac miller, o. louis, n. broadway, cassopolis. =forester= o'rourke, prof. f. l., hidden lake gardens, tipton. =professor of ornamental horticulture, mich. state college= pickles, arthur w., elmwood avenue, jackson prushek, e., route no. , niles. =plant breeding= ricky, lowell l., a birch, east lansing schmidt, wilhelm g., poinciana, detroit . =printer= sherman, l. walter. see ohio simons, rev. r. e., flat rock somers, lee, route no. , perrinton. =farmer-nurseryman= sweet, dale v., south capitol, lansing tate, d. l., westchester st., birmingham ullrey, l. e., cambridge drive, kalamazoo wyman, miles l., north street, highland park . =certified public accountant= minnesota dubbels, charley, elgin hodgson, r. e., dept. of agriculture, s. e. experiment station, waseca hormel, jay c., austin wedge, don, r.f.d. , albert lea. =wedge nursery= weschcke, carl, s. wabasha st., st. paul. =proprietor hazel hills nursery co.= mississippi gossard, a. c., u. s. hort. field station, route no. , meridan. =associate horticulturist, usda= meyer, james r., delta branch experiment station, stoneville. =cytogeneticist (cotton)= missouri bauman, ivan t., bauman brokerage co., taft avenue, st. louis biggs, dutton, elm avenue, glendale degler, roy h., moreland avenue, jefferson city hay, leander, gilliam howe, john, route no. , box , pacific huber, frank j., weingarten. =farmer= james, george, james pecan farms, brunswick logan, george f., oregon nicholson, john w., ash grove. =farmer= ochs, c. thurston, box , salem. =foreman in garment factory= owens, leroy j., willow springs richterkessing, ralph, route no. , st. charles. =farmer= rose, dr. d. k., linden, clayton sims fruit and nursery farms, hannibal stark bros. nursery & orchard co., attn. mr. h. w. guengerich, louisiana stephens, a. f., g.m. & o.r.r., olive street, st. louis. =gen. agr. agt.= wuertz, h. j., route no. , pevely nebraska brand, george, rt. , lincoln caha, william, w. th, wahoo hess, harvey w., the arrowhead gardens, box , hebron sherwood jack, nebraska city tolstead, w. l., department of botany, university of nebraska, lincoln new hampshire demarest, charles s., lyme center lahti, matthew, locust lane farm, wolfeboro. =investment banker= new jersey anderegg, f. o., pierce foundation, raritan blake, harold, box , saddle river bottoni, r. j., robertson road, west orange. =president of harbot die casting corp.= brewer, j. l., allen place, fair lawn buckwalter, mrs. alan r., route no. , flemington cox, philip h., jr., hyde rd., bloomfield cumberland nursery, william wells, proprietor, route no. , millville. =nurserymen= donnelly, john, mountain ice company, newark st., hoboken dougherty, william m., broadacres-on-bedens, box , princeton. =secretary, u. s. rubber co.= ellis, mrs. edward p., strawberry hill, route no. , box keyport kass, leonard p., e. cliff st., somerville lamatonk nurseries, a. s. yorks, proprietor, neshanic station. =nut nursery= lippencott, j. c., mundy ave., spotswood mcdowell, fred, ocean avenue, belmar parkinson, philip p. (see quill farm, under maryland) ritchie, walter m., route no. , box -r, rahway rocker, louis p., the rocker farm, box , andover. =farmer= sheffield, o. a., hamilton place, hackensack. =dun & bradstreet= sorg, henry, chicago avenue, egg harbor city. =manufacturer= van doren, durand h., redmond road, south orange. =lawyer= williams, herbert h., plymouth ave., maplewood new mexico gehring, rev. titus, box , lumberton new york barton, irving, montour falls. =engineer= bassett, charles k., main st., buffalo. =manufacturer= beck, paul e., beck's guernsey dairy, transit road, east amherst. =dairy executive= benton, william a., wassaic. =farmer, and sec'y, mutual insurance co. partner in benton & smith nut nursery= bernath, stephen, bernath's nursery, route no. , poughkeepsie. =nurseryman= bernath, mrs. stephen, route , poughkeepsie bixby, henry d., east drive, halesite, l. i. =executive v.p., american kennel club, n. y. city= brook, victor, rockingham street, rochester . =sales engineer= brooks, william g., monroe. =nut tree nurseryman= bundick, clarkson u., anderson ave., scarsdale. =mechanical engineer= caldwell, david h., n. y. state college of forestry, syracuse. =instructor in wood technology= carter, george, avenue a, rochester cassina, augustus, valatie, columbia county feil, harry, hilton-spencerport road, hilton. =building contractor= ferguson, donald v., l. i. agr. and tech. institute, farmingdale flanigen, charles f., greenfield st., buffalo . =executive manager= freer h. j., midvale rd., fairport. =typewriter sales and service= gibson, stanfard j., fair street, norwich glazier, henry s., jr., south william st., new york gould, mrs. gordon, east street, new york graham, s. h. bostwick road, route no. , ithaca. =nurseryman= granjean, julio. (see denmark) hasbrouck, walter, jr., grove st., new paltz. =post office clerk= hill, francis s., sterling. =letter carrier on rural route= iddings, william a., park place, brooklyn irish, g. whitney, fruitlands, route no. , valatie. =farmer= kettaneh, f. a., fifth ave., new york knipper, george m., chestnut ridge rd., churchville knorr, mrs. arthur, central park, west, apt. , new york kraai, dr. john, fairport. =physician= larkin, harry h., van rennsselaer street, buffalo * lewis, clarence. (retired) lowerre, james, route , middletown * macdaniels, dr. l. h., cornell university, ithaca. =head, dept. of floriculture and ornamental hort. (president of the nnga.)= metcalfe, mrs. ward h., five mile line rd., webster miller, j. e., canandaigua. =nurseryman= mitchell, rudolph, riverside drive, new york . =mechanical engineer= * montgomery, robert h., e. th street, new york mossman, dr. james k., black oaks, ramapo newell, palmer f., lake road, route no. , westfield o'brien, esmonde m., south street, p. o. box , new york owen, charles h., sennett. =superintendent of schools= pura, john j., green haven, stormville salzer, george, garford road, rochester . =milkman, chestnut tree grower= schlegel, charles p. south ave., rochester schlick, frank, munnsville schmidt, carl w., linwood avenue, buffalo shannon, j. w., box , ithaca sheffield, lewis j., c/o mrs. edna c. jones, townline road, orangeburg slate, prof. george l., experiment station, geneva. =fruit breeder= smith, jay l., chester. =nut tree nurseryman= spahr, dr. mary b., n. geneva st., ithaca steiger, harwood, red hook. =artist-designer= *** szego, alfred, - a th avenue, jackson heights, new york wadsworth, millard e., oswego wheeler, robert c., state street, albany windisch, richard p., c/o w. e. burnet company, wall st., new york * wissman, mrs. f. de r. (retired) north carolina brooks, j. r., box , enka dunstan, dr. r. t., greensboro college, greensboro finch, jack r., route , bailey. =farmer= parks, c. h., route no. , asheville. =mechanic= north dakota bradley, homer l., long lake refuge, moffit. =refuge manager= ohio ackerman, lester route no. , ada glen helen department, antioch college, yellow springs barden, c. a., morgan street, oberlin. =real estate= beede, d. v., route no. , lisbon bitler, w. a., r. f. d. , shawnee road, lima. =general contractor= borchers, perry e., w. hillcrest ave., dayton brewster, lewis, route no. , swanton. =vegetable grower= bridgwater, boyd e., cherry st., akron . =v. p. bridgewater machine co.= bungart, a. a., avon button, fred, route , mcarthur cinadr, mrs. katherine, coath ave., cleveland . =housewife= clark, richard l., westdale rd., south euclid . =sales manager= cook, h. c., route no. , box , leetonia cornett, charles l., r. r. perishable inspection agency, w. front st., cincinnati. =inspector= craig, george e., dundas (vinton county). =fruit and nut grower= cranz, eugene f., mount tom farm, ira cunningham, harvey e., front street, marietta daley, jame r., route no. , foster park road, amherst. =electrician= davidson, john, east second street, xenia. =writer= davidson, mrs. john, east second street, xenia diller, dr. oliver d., dept. of forestry, ohio exp. sta., wooster distelhorst, p. e., douglas road, toledo dowell, glenn c., jr., m.d., th street, n.e., canton dowell, dr. lloyd l., north ave., n. e., massillon. =physician= farr, mrs. walter, route no. , kingsville fickes, mrs. w. r., route , wooster garden center of greater cleveland, east blvd. at euclid ave., cleveland gerber, e. p., kidron gerstenmaier, john a., pond s. w., massillon. =letter carrier= goss, c. e., dover avenue, akron grad, dr. edward a., chase street, cincinnati hake, hanrey, edon hansley, c. f., box , sugar grove. =contractor= hawk & son nursery, route no. , beach city. =chestnut trees= hill, dr. albert a., pearl road, cleveland hinde, john g., route , sandusky hornyak, louis, route no. , wakeman howard, james r., fleming road, middletown irish, charles f., e. th st., cleveland . =arborist= jacobs, homer l., davey tree expert company, kent kappel, owen, bolivar kerr, s. e., m. d., route no. , north lawrence kintzel, frank w., briarcliff ave., cincinnati . =principal, cincinnati public schools= laditka, nicholas g., stickney ave., cleveland . =electrician= leaman, paul y., route no. , creston lorenz, r. c., north arch street, fremont machovina, paul e., northwest blvd., columbus . =college professor= mckinster, ray, south th street, columbus meister, richard t., =editor, american fruit grower=, willoughby metzger, a. j., euclid avenue, toledo oches, norman m., r. d. , brunswick. =mechanical engineer= osborn, frank c, w. th st., cleveland . =tool and die maker= page, john h., box , dundas (vinton county) pataky, christ, jr., hickory lane, route no. , mansfield. =produce market, grocer= pattison, aletheia, dexter place, e. w. h., cincinnati pomerene, walter h., route no. , coshocton. =agricultural engineer, hydrological research station= purdy, clyde w., public square, mt. vernon ranke, william, route no. , amelia roberts, j. pearl, rt. , freeport rogers, t. b., p. o. box , lakemore rummel, e. t., laverne avenue, cleveland . =sales manager= schoenberger, l. roy, green pines farm, route no. , nevada seas, d. edward, south main street, orrville sebring, r. g., lincoln road, columbus shelton, dr. elbert m., w. clifton blvd., lakewood sherman, l. walter, fairview avenue, canfield shessler, sylvester m., geneo. =farmer= silvis, raymond e., lindbergh avenue, n. e. massillon. =realty= smith, sterling a., w. south street, vermillion. =telegrapher, nyc rr= spears, ernest g., forest ave., norwood spring hill nurseries company, tipp city. =general nurserymen= steinbeck, a. p., east nimisilla rd., route , north canton. =rubber worker, firestone tire & rubber co.= stevens, robert t., jr., route , lucas stocker, c. p., lorain products corp., f. street, lorain stolz, thomas o., claranna ave., dayton thomas, fred, bedford road, masury toops, herbert a., cambridge blvd., columbus . =college professor= underwood, john, route no. , urbana urban, george, ardendale road, south euclid . =mayor= van voorhis, j. f., hudson avenue, apt. b- , newark von gundy, clifford r., r. f. d. no. , cincinnati walker, carl f., e. overlook rd., cleveland . =consulting engineer= weaver, arthur w., r.f.d., box b, cass rd., maumee willett, dr. g. p., elmore williams, harry m., grandon road, dayton . =engineer= williams, l. f., box , mt. vernon wischhusen, j. f., shore acres drive, n. e., cleveland yates, edward w., parkview avenue, cincinnati . =mechanical engineer= yoder, emmet, smithville oklahoma butler, roy, route no. , hydro. =farmer, cattleman= cross, prof. frank b., dept. of horticulture, oklahoma a&m college, stillwater. =teaching and experiment station work= gray, geoffrey a., elm ave., bartlesville hartman, peter e., s. boston pl., tulsa . =nurseryman= hirschi's nursery (a. g. hirschi), north hudson, oklahoma city. =dry cleaning business, nurseryman= hughes, c. v., route no. , box , oklahoma city keathly, jack, marland. =farmer= kissick e. a., state board of agr., state capitol bldg., oklahoma city. =marketing specialist= mayfield, w. w., general delivery, sallisaw meek, e. b., route , box , wynnewood pulliam, gordon, osage ave., bartlesville scales, charles d., n. w. th st., oklahoma city oregon countryman, peter f., rt. , box , ontario graville, ed., route , box , junction city miller, john e., treasuredale, route no. , box -a, oswego pearcy, harry l., route , box , salem. =h. l. pearcy nursery co. (nut trees.)= trunk, john e., general manager, northwest nut growers, dundee pennsylvania allaman, h. c., south pine st., harrisburg allaman, r. p., route , harrisburg. =farm superintendent= amsler, e. w., main st., clarion anthony, roy d., hillcrest ave., state college. =retired professor of horticulture= arensberg, charles f. c., first nat'l bank bldg., pittsburgh =(chinese chestnut seed grower.)= banks, h. c., route no. , hellertown beard, h. k., route no. , sheridan. =insurance agent= beck, dr. william m., race st., sunbury berst, charles b., w. th street, erie. =inspector, lord mfg. co., erie, pa.= blittle, george, lincoln highway, penndel bowen, john c., route no. , macungie brown, morrison, ickesburg buckwalter, geoffrey r., c/o f. h. levey co., inc., washington ave., philadelphia clarke, william s., jr., p. o. box , state college colwell, dr. frederick a., r.f.d. no. , collegeville comp, alton, north nd st., newport damask, henry, doyle street, wilkinsburg =telephone man= deagon, arthur, e. main st., mechanicsburg ebling, aaron l., route no. , reading etter, fayette, p. o. box , lemasters. =general foreman for an electric company= gage, charles k., newman road, havertown gardner, ralph d., plymouth st., colonial park, harrisburg. =assistant state fire marshal= good, orren s., n fairview street, lock haven. =retired= gorton, f. b., route no. , east lake road, harborcreek. =electrical contractor.= chestnut and evergreen nurseryman= hales, alfred r., jr., apt. -c, cloverleaf village apts., pittsburgh hammond, harold, south poplar street, allentown hershey, john w., route no. , downingtown. =nurseryman= hostetter, l. k., route no. , lancaster. =farmer, black walnut grower= hughes, douglas, east st street, erie johnson, robert f., greentree road, pittsburgh jones, mildred m. (see mrs. langdoc--under illinois) jones, dr. truman w., walnut grove farm, parksburg kaufman, mrs. m. m., box , clarion kirk, h. b., north st., harrisburg knouse, charles w., colonial park, harrisburg. =coal dealer= leach, will, - scranton life bldg., scranton . =lawyer= mattoon, h. gleason, box , narberth. =consultant in arboriculture= mckenna, philip m., p. o. box , latrobe mecartney, j. lupton, w. beaver ave., state college. =pomologist= miller, elwood b., mill and chapel sts., hazleton miller, robert o., rd and ridge streets, emmaus moyer, philip s., - u. s. f. & g. bldg., harrisburg. =attorney= neiderriter, leonard, state st., erie nonnemacher, h. m., box , alburtis. =line foreman, bell tel. co. of pa.= reidler, paul g., front and chestnut streets, ashland. =manufacturer of textiles= * rick, john, penna. sq., reading. =fruit grower and merchant= schaible, percy, upper black eddy. =laborer= schieferstein, william b., box , temple shade, earl l., e. th st., erie sherman, l. walter. (see under ohio) smith, dr. j. russell, elm ave., swarthmore. =retired teacher, writer= smyth, c. wayne, prospect st., troy. =attorney= stewart, e. l., pine hill farms nursery, route no. , homer city theiss, dr. lewis e., university ave., lewisburg. =retired professor= thompson, howard a., west swissvale ave., pittsburgh twist, frank s., box , northunberland. =salesman= washick, dr. frank a., s. w., welsh & veree roads, philadelphia il. =surgeon= weaver, william s., weaver orchards, macungie weinrich, whitney, p. o. box , wallingford. =chemical engineer= * wister, john c., scott foundation, swarthmore college, swarthmore =horticulturist= wright, ross pier, w. th street, erie. =manufacturer= zimmerman, mrs. g. a., r. d., linglestown rhode island * allen, philip, dorance street, providence south carolina bregger, john t., clemson. =research supervisor (soil conservation), orchard erosion investigations= gordon, g. henry, c/o union dry cleaning co., main st., union. =returned mariner= south dakota hanson, oliver g., route , box , yankton richter, herman, madison. =farmer= tennessee alpine forest reserve, alpine. (c/o dr. h. s. randolph, th ave., new york city) boyd, harold b., m.d., waynoka st. memphis . =physician= chase, spencer b., t. v. a., norris. =horticulturist= collier, robert h., lutie rd., route , knoxville dulin, charles r., brownsville. =fruit grower= dye, mrs. sherman, howell nurseries, sweetwater. =chestnut and ornamental nursery= garrett, dr. sam young, hayes st., nashville. =surgeon= holdeman, j. e., n. mcneil st., memphis jones, d. t., route , midway mcdaniel, j. c. (see under illinois) meeks, hamp, c/o jackson elec. dept., jackson. =electrical engineer= murphy, h. o., sweetbriar avenue, chattanooga. =fruit grower= richards, dr. aubrey, whiteville. =physician= roark, w. f., malesus. =farmer, chestnut grower= robinson, w. jobe, route no. , jackson. =farmer= saville, chris, church st., greeneville waterhouse, carmack, p. o. box , oak ridge texas arford, charles a., box , dalhart. =r. r. engineer, amateur horticulturist= brison, prof. f. r., dept. of horticulture, a. & m. college, college station florida, kaufman, box , rotan § kidd, clark, arp nursery co., p. o. box , tyler. =nut nurseryman= lancaster, carroll t., r.f.d. , box , palestine. =electrolux dealer= praytor, t. j., box , seymour reasonover, j. ray, route , kemp winkler, andrew, route , moody. =farmer and pecan grower= utah dabb, clifford h., route , box , ogden ericksen, keith, n. state street, orem petterson, harlan d., raymond avenue. south ogden. =highway engineer= price, harold g., sr., e. crystal ave., salt lake city . =(farm in putnam county, illinois)= vermont aldrich, a. w., r.f.d. no. , box , springfield =ellis, zenas h., fair haven. perpetual member, "in memoriam."= virginia acker black walnut corp., box , broadway. =walnut processors= cooper, lawrence e., belle meade. =nurseryman-landscaper= curthoys, george a., p. o. box , bristol dickerson, t. c., jr., - th street, newport news. =statistician, farmer= gibbs, h. r. linden. =carpenter, wood worker= jenkins, marvin, brightwood. =farmer= lee, dr. henry, medical arts building, roanoke moore, r. c., virginia agricultural experiment station, blacksburg narten, perry f., n. washington blvd., arlington pinner, henry, p. o. box , suffolk stoke, h. f., watts avenue n.w., roanoke stoke, mrs. h. f., watts avenue, n.w., roanoke thompson, b. h., harrisonburg. =manufacturer of nut crackers= washington eliot, craig p., p. o. box , shelton. =electrical engineer, part time farmer= erkman, john o., apt. , washington way, richland. =physicist= fulmer, w. l., boylston, no., seattle . =lily grower= latterell, miss ethel, n. flora rd., greenacres. =greenhouse worker= linkletter, frank d., th ave. north, seattle . =retired= naderman, g. w., route , box , olympia. =caretaker of summer resort= ross, verel c., rucker ave., everett shane brothers, vashon tuttle, h. lynn, lynn tuttle nursery, the heights, clarkston. =nut nurseryman= west virginia eckerd, john k., william street, martinsburg. =engineer, steam= engle, blaine w., mutual fire ins. co. of w. va., goft bldg., clarksburg * frye, wilbert m., pleasant dale. =retired= gold chestnut nursery, c/o mr. arthur a. gold, cowen. =chestnut nurseryman= hale, daniel, m.d., princeton hartzell, benjamin, shepherdstown long, j. c., box , princeton. =civil engineer= mcneill, john hanson, box , romney. =chem. engineer= mish, arnold f., inwood. =associational farmer= reed, arthur m., moundsville. =proprietor, glenmount nurseries= williams, mrs. dan, romney wisconsin eiler, william, benton ladwig, c. f., st. laurence, route , beloit. =grocer and (hobby) farmer= mortensen, m. c., slauson ave., racine snowden, dr. p. w., the monroe clinic, monroe standing library orders and advance subscriptions for the nd annual report alabama polytechnic institute (main library), auburn, alabama brooklyn botanic garden library, washington avenue, brooklyn , n. y. library, college of agriculture, university of california, davis, calif. clemson college library, clemson, south carolina cleveland public library, leta e. adams, order librarian, superior avenue, cleveland , ohio connecticut agr. exp. sta., genetics dept. huntington st., new haven, , connecticut cornell university, college of agriculture library, ithaca, new york detroit public library, woodward avenue, detroit , michigan university of maine (library), orono, maine massachusetts horticultural society library, horticultural hall, massachusetts avenue, boston , massachusetts library, university of miami, coral gables , florida library, missouri conservation commission, monroe bldg., jefferson city, mo. library, university of new hampshire, durham, new hampshire north carolina state college (d. h. hill library), raleigh, north carolina oregon state college library, corvallis, oregon peachey, enos d., p. o. box , belleville, pennsylvania pennsylvania state college agricultural library, room , patterson hall, state college, pennsylvania purdue university, agr. library, lafayette, indiana rhode island state college, library dept., green hall, kingston, rhode island rutgers university, agricultural library, nichol avenue, new brunswick, n. j. seattle public library, seattle , washington st. louis public library, olive, th and th streets, st. louis, missouri university of wisconsin agricultural library, madison , wisconsin u. s. dept. of agriculture library, washington , d. c. main library, department of agriculture, ottawa, ontario, canada superintendent, dominion experimental station, harrow, ontario, canada w. f. humphrey press inc. geneva, n. y. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |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. | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ northern nut growers association report of the proceedings at the sixth annual meeting rochester, new york september and northern nut growers association report of the proceedings at the sixth annual meeting rochester, new york september and , concord, n.h. the rumford press contents page officers and committees of the association members of the association constitution of the association by-laws of the association proceedings of the meeting held at rochester, new york, september and , report of the secretary-treasurer the relation of forest conditions in new york to possibilities of nut growing, dr. hugh p. baker, new york new tree crops and a new agriculture, dr. j. russell smith, pennsylvania notes on the hazels, dr. robert t. morris, new york an appeal to owners of hardy nut trees, c. a. reed, washington, d. c. northern pecan trees, and notes on the observation of propagated trees, w. c. reed, indiana walnut observations in california, l. d. batchelor, california pruning the persian walnut, j. g. rush, pennsylvania report on nut growing in canada, g. h. corsan, toronto appendix: present at the sixth annual meeting program for automobile trips september and , exhibits resolutions bibliography of the year officers of the association _president_ j. russell smith university of pennsylvania _vice-president_ w. c. reed indiana _secretary and treasurer_ w. c. deming georgetown, connecticut committees _auditing_ c. p. close, c. a. reed _executive_ t. p. littlepage, r. t. morris, and the officers _finance_ c. p. close, t. p. littlepage, w. c. deming _hybrids_ r. t. morris, j. r. smith, c. p. close _membership_ harry r. weber, g. h. corsan, c. h. plump, leon d. batchelor, w. c. reed, r. t. olcott, f. n. fagan, thomas l. engleby, w. o. potter, w. o. ridgway, w. c. deming _nomenclature_ w. c. reed, r. t. morris, e. r. lake, c. a. reed, r. l. mccoy _press and publication_ ralph t. olcott, t. p. littlepage, w. c. deming _programme_ the president, the secretary, the editor of the _american nut journal, ex-officio_; c. a. reed, w. n. hutt _promising seedlings_ t. p. littlepage, c. a. reed, j. russell smith state vice-presidents arizona c. r. biederman garces california prof. leon d. batchelor riverside canada g. h. corsan university of toronto connecticut charles h. plump west redding delaware e. r. angst wilmington dupont bldg. florida h. harold hume glen saint mary georgia j. b. wight cairo illinois e. a. riehl alton indiana j. f. wilkinson rockport iowa wendell p. williams danville kansas durrett winsborough argentine r. box kentucky a. l. moseley calhoun maryland prof. c. p. close college park massachusetts james h. bowditch boston tremont building michigan miss maude m. jessup grand rapids thomas st. minnesota col. c. a. van duzee st. paul missouri p. c. stark louisiana new jersey c. s. ridgway lumberton new mexico e. a. clemens magdalena new york th. e. wile rochester calumet st. north carolina prof. w. n. hutt raleigh ohio harry r. weber cincinnati gerke bldg. pennsylvania j. g. rush west willow texas r. s. trumbull el paso m.s.r.r. co. utah m. a. pendleton lehi virginia john s. parish eastham washington dr. a. e. baldwin kettle falls west virginia b. f. hartzell shepherdstown members of the northern nut growers association arizona c. r. biederman, garces california batchelor, leon d., riverside dawson, l. h., llano tucker, t. c., manager california almond growers' exchange, california st., san francisco canada corsan, g. h., university of toronto dufresne, dr. a. a., cartier st., montreal connecticut barnes, john r., yalesville deming, dr. w. c., georgetown deming, mrs. w. c., georgetown hungerford, newman, torrington, r. , box , for circulars, box , hartford, for letters ives, ernest m., sterling orchards, meriden lay, charles downing, wellesmere, stratford miller, mrs. charles, hillside ave., waterbury * morris, dr. robert t., cos cob, r. , box plump, charles h., west redding white, gerrard, north granby williams, w. w., milldale delaware angst, e. r., dupont building, wilmington, del. lord, george frank, care of dupont powder company, wilmington district of columbia close, prof. c. p., pomologist, department of agriculture, washington goddard, r. h., farm management, department of agriculture, washington lake, prof. e. r., pomologist, department of agriculture, washington * littlepage, t. p., union trust building, washington orr, herbert r., evans building, washington reed, c. a., nut culturist, department of agriculture, washington florida hume, h. harold, glen saint mary simpson, ray c., monticello georgia wight, j. b., cairo illinois dickey, samuel, chalmers place, chicago fletcher, joe, zion city keely, royal r. clarendon ave., chicago poll, carl j., maple st., danville potter, hon. w. o., marion riehl, e. a., alton webster, h. g., belmont ave., chicago indiana burton, joe a., mitchel hutchings, miss lida g., third st., madison mccoy, r. l., lake reed, m. p., vincennes reed, w. c., vincennes schmidt, hugh c., evansville simpson, h. d., vincennes white, paul, boonville wilkinson, j. f., rockport iowa williams, wendall p., danville kansas winsborough, durrett, argentine, r. , box kentucky matthews, prof. c. w., horticulturist, state agricultural station, lexington moseley, a. l., bank of calhoun, calhoun maryland darby, r. u., suite , continental building, baltimore hayden, chas. s., e. lexington st., baltimore heapes, j., granville, street henshaw, mrs. h. c., adamstown keenan, john n., brentwood king, w. j., prince george st., annapolis murray, miss annie c., cumberstone newcomer, aaron, smithburg, r. . massachusetts * bowditch, james h., tremont building, boston gilbert, ralph d., ridgefield road, winchester hoffman, bernhard, overbrook orchard, stockbridge rich, william p., secretary state horticultural society, massachusetts ave., boston smith, fred a., pine st., danvers vaughan, horace a., peacehaven, assonet white, warren, holliston michigan copland, alexander w., strawberry hill farm, birmingham jessup, miss maud m., thomas st., grand rapids kellogg, j. h., battle creek linton, wm. s., pres. board of trade, saginaw staunton, gray, muskegon, box minnesota powers, l. l., hudson ave., st. paul van duzee, col. c. a., st. paul missouri bauman, x. c., ste. genevieve buffam, frank w., commissioner of highways, jefferson city johnson, alfred e., mcbaine, r. koontz, e. j., richards stark, p. c., louisiana (mo.) new jersey black, walter c., of jos. h. black, son & co., hightstown de cou, howard f., truesdale farm, merchantville dietrick, dr. thomas s., west washington ave., washington henderson, howard w., spooner ave., plainfield. lovett, j. t., little silver marston, edwin s., florham park, box mechling, edward a., wonderland farm, moorestown putnam, j. h., vineland ridgeway, c. s., floralia, lumberton, n.j. roberts, horace, moorestown young, frederick c., palmyra, box new mexico clemens, e. a., magdalena new york abbott, frederick b., ninth st., brooklyn ackerly, orville b., w. th st., new york city atwater, c. g., manager agricultural department, american coal products company, battery place, new york city baker, dr. hugh p., dean of state college of forestry, syracuse baker, prof. j. fred, director of forest investigations, state college of forestry, syracuse baker, wm. a., north rose bixby, willard g., th st. and nd ave., brooklyn brown, ronald j., broadway, new york city ellwanger, mrs. w. d., east ave., rochester felt, henry w., william st., new york city foote, avery l., newark, wayne co. fullerton, h. b., director long island railroad experiment station, medford, l.i. haywood, albert, flushing hickox, ralph, white plains ave., new york city hicks, henry, westbury, l.i. holden, e. b., hilton * huntington, a. m., w. st st., new york city jackson, dr. james h., dansville keeler, charles e., chichester and briggs aves., richmond hill morse, geo. a., fruit acres, williamson, n.y. nelson, dr. james robert, main st., kingston-on-hudson olcott, ralph t., ellwanger & barry building, rochester palmer, a. c., new york military academy, cornwall-on-hudson pomeroy, a. c., lockport rice, mrs. lillian mckee, adelano, pawling stephen, prof. john w., assistant professor of agriculture, state college of forestry, syracuse teele, a. w., broad st., new york city teter, walter c, wall st., new york city thomson, adelbert, east avon tuckerman, bayard, e. th st., new york city turner, k. m., w. nd st., new york city ulman, dr. ira, w. th st., new york city wile, m. e., calumet st., rochester williams, dr. charles mallory, e. th st., new york city * wissmann, mrs. f. de r., westchester, new york city north carolina glover, j. wheeler, morehead city heely, dr. o. j., andrews, r.f.d. hutt, prof. w. h., state horticulturist, raleigh van lindley, j., j. van lindley nursery company, pomona ohio dayton, j. h., storrs & harrison company, painesville denny, mark e., middletown evans, miss myrta l., briallen farm, oak hill, jackson county miller, h. a., gypsum weber, harry r., gerke building, cincinnati witte, o. f., amherst, r. yunck, e. g., central ave., sandusky pennsylvania ballou, c. f., halifax corcoran, chas. a., wind-rush fruit farm, new albany creasy, wm. t., catawissa doan, j. l., school of horticulture, ambler druckemiller, w. c., sunbury fagan, prof. f. n., department of horticulture, state college grubbs, h. l., fairview, r. hall, robt. w., church st., bethlehem heffner, h., highland chestnut grove, leeper hile, anthony, curwensville national bank, curwensville hoopes, wilmer w., hoopes brothers and thomas company, westchester howell, lardner, girard trust company, philadelphia hutchinson, mahlon, ashwood farm, devon, chester county jenkins, charles francis, farm journal, philadelphia * jones, j. f., lancaster, box leas, f. c., drexel building, philadelphia, mountain brook orchard company, salem, va. leeds, sarah b., westchester, r. middleton, fenton h., chestnut st., philadelphia moss, james, johnsville, bucks county murphy, p. j., vice-president l. & w.r.r.r. company, scranton myers, c. n., hanover o'neill, wm. c., walnut st., philadelphia pelton, joseph l., north girard, r. rick, john, pennsylvania sq., reading rush, j. g., west willow ryan, charles d., spring mount, montgomery county smedley, sam'l l., stephen girard building, philadelphia smitten, h. w., rochester mills, r. * sober, col. c. k., lewisburg spackman, h. b., lukens iron company, coatesville thomas, joseph w., jos. w. thomas & sons, king of prussia p.o. walter, dr. harry, spring mount weaver, wm. s., mccungie webster, mrs. edmund, s. broad st., philadelphia wister, john c., wister st. and clarkson ave., germantown wright, r. p., w. th st., erie texas trumbull, r. s., agricultural agent, el paso & s.w. system, morenci southern railroad company, el paso utah pendleton, m. a., lehi smith, joseph a., providence (edgewood hall) stayner, horace, s. state st., salt lake city virginia carver, w. n., cismont, albemarle county crockett, e. b., monroe dodge, geo. p., lovingston, r. engleby, thos. l., patterson ave., roanoke lee, lawrence r., leesburg miller, l. o., miller & rhodes, richmond parish, john s., eastham, albemarle county shackford, theodore b., care of adams brothers-paynes company, lynchburg smith, dr. j. russell, roundhill washington baldwin, dr. a. e., kettle falls west virginia hartzell, b. f., shepherdstown ~* life members.~ constitution article i _name._ this society shall be known as the northern nut growers association. article ii _object._ its object shall be the promotion of interest in nut-bearing plants, their products and their culture. article iii _membership._ membership in the society shall be open to all persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to place of residence or nationality, subject to the rules and regulations of the committee on membership. article iv _officers._ there shall be a president, a vice-president and a secretary-treasurer, who shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting; and an executive committee of five persons, of which the president, two last retiring presidents, vice-president and secretary-treasurer shall be members. there shall be a state vice-president from each state, dependency or country represented in the membership of the association, who shall be appointed by the president. article v _election of officers._ a committee of five members shall be elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating officers for the following year. article vi _meetings._ 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 executive committee 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 executive committee. article vii _quorum._ ten members of the association shall constitute a quorum, but must include a majority of the executive committee or two of the three elected officers. article viii _amendments._ 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 a copy of the proposed amendment having been mailed by any member to each member thirty days before the date of the annual meeting. by-laws article i _committees._ the association shall appoint standing committees as follows: on membership, on finance, on programme, on press and publication, on nomenclature, on promising seedlings, on hybrids, and an auditing committee. the committee on membership may make recommendations to the association as to the discipline or expulsion of any member. article ii _fees._ the fees shall be of two kinds, annual and life. the former shall be two dollars, the latter twenty dollars. article iii _membership._ all annual memberships shall begin with the first day of the calendar quarter following the date of joining the association. article iv _amendments._ by-laws may be amended by a two-thirds vote of members present at any annual meeting. northern nut growers association sixth annual meeting september and , rochester, new york the sixth annual convention of the northern nut growers association was called to order in the convention hall of powers hotel, rochester, new york, on wednesday, september , at : a.m., the president, dr. j. russell smith, presiding, and thirty-two people being assembled. the president: ladies and gentlemen, members of the northern nut growers association, the meeting will please come to order. with an organization of this sort, the main purpose of the meeting is the dissemination of information, but it is necessary that certain business shall be conducted to keep the organization going. some business is dry; usually the reports of our secretary-treasurer are not, and the first order of business, i think, should be to hear from our secretary-treasurer. mr. littlepage: i should be glad to have the floor for a moment, mr. president. in the congressional library at washington city are many very beautiful and attractive inscriptions and quotations, one of which has always appealed to me as a lawyer, and i have repeated it many times: "of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her voice is the harmony of the world." mr. president, i have noted very many times that the voice of the law is sometimes silent. it speaks only through those in authority and there should always be some emblem of authority. i therefore took the liberty, mr. president, of having made for you a gavel from the wood of an indiana pecan tree, where as a youth i lived and learned of this most delicious of all the nuts, and i take pleasure in presenting it to you, and if anyone doubts the hardiness or hardness of the indiana pecan, i authorize you to demonstrate both. i am presenting you duplicate gavels, mr. president, one of which i desire to have you turn over to your successor in office as an official emblem of his authority, to be used at future meetings; the other i am presenting to you as a personal tribute for your most excellent work in behalf of northern nut culture. this gavel i shall ask you to place among the trophies in your beautiful mountain home, where the birds sing sweetly, the sun shines brightly, and the breezes murmur softly; and where the days are made to rest and the nights are made to sleep. the president: mr. littlepage, not being prepared for this, and not being naturally eloquent, i am unable to make a speech. however, as a part of the way out of the difficulty, i accept this one officially with great pleasure, and personally accept the other with deep gratitude, and desire to express the appreciation of the meeting. the pecan is calling the walnut meeting to order. last year we went to see the pecan; this year we come to see the walnut, which, has done more than any other nut in the east. we will now listen to the report of our secretary-treasurer. report of the secretary-treasurer balance on hand, date of last report $ . receipts: dues $ . advertisements . contributions . sale of report . contributions for prizes . miscellaneous . ------- $ . expenses: printing report $ . miscellaneous printing . postage and stationery . stenographer . express, freight, carting . prizes . check j.r.s. expenses, circulars . bills receivable . miscellaneous . ------- $ . ------- balance on hand $ . this is the best financial report that the treasurer has ever been able to transmit, and this is chiefly due to the efforts of our president who, during the year, has sent out numerous notices of, and articles about, our association, its purposes, and the desirability of finding and propagating our best nut trees. he also offered three prizes of $ each for a nut contest and did the work necessary to get publicity for this contest. he sent letters to the members of the horticultural societies of pennsylvania, new jersey, virginia, maryland, and ohio which resulted in our getting new members, mostly from the state of pennsylvania. twenty-five dollars of the cost of this circularizing the president paid out of his own pocket. the rest was more than made up by the fees of new members. the president also had printed an educational leaflet on nut growing for distribution by mr. cobb with the nut trees which he sends to the schools and farmers of michigan. with professor close he was on the finance committee which sent a circular letter to the members of the association for funds to help pay for the printing of the annual report, and obtained advertisements for the report. as stated in the treasurer's report contributions for this purpose amounted to $ . and advertisements brought in $ . . _prizes_ the association offered last year prizes of $ each for the best shagbark hickory nut, black walnut and hazel nut sent in. something over a hundred specimens were received and the prize for hickory nut was awarded to j. k. triplett of elkins, w. va. the prize for black walnut was awarded to j. g. rush of west willow, pa. mr. rush returned his prize to be used for the purposes of the association. no prize for hazels was awarded as only one or two insignificant specimens were sent in. perhaps the stimulation of this contest accounts for our being able to offer such substantial prizes for this year. in addition to the $ worth of prizes already announced the secretary has received from a life member, james h. bowditch of boston, a check for $ as a prize to be offered by the association for a hickory nut under such conditions as the association may decide. a circular announcing these prizes has been sent out to agricultural and other papers to the number of , the expenses of which have been borne by another member, mr. chas. h. plump of connecticut. a committee on competitions should be appointed or the direction of them delegated to some already existent committee. _membership_ seventy-four members were added during the interval between this meeting and the last, one less than in the previous year. since its organization persons have joined the association. we have at present paid up members, more than last year. there are a few members whose dues are unpaid who are active workers and will eventually pay, probably. four members have resigned, though none in anger, and we have lost one by death, the late prof. h. e. van deman. _annual dues_ some way should be found out of the difficulties arising from the dissatisfaction of members who join late in the year when they receive a notice for dues soon after having once paid. it is desirable to take in members at all times during the year. at the same time some method should be found to give the late comer something for his money. shall membership continue to date from the calendar year? or shall we make some change? some societies date memberships from the opening of the annual meeting. it would not be impossible to make memberships date from the beginning of the quarter year immediately following date of joining. this would give every member a full year at least before he would again receive a notice for dues. it would be quite inconvenient to date each membership from the day of joining. it would not be so bad if members paid promptly on receipt of notice. or a rebate might be made for each month of the year elapsed before new members' dues were paid. _meetings_ no field meeting was held this year. it has been suggested, and would seem to be a favorable subject for discussion, that it might be well to hold our annual meeting late in the year in some central location, such as new york city, philadelphia or washington, for our business and formal program of papers and discussions, and the study of the nuts sent in, perhaps for judging any competition that might be held, if the meeting were late enough for that; and a summer meeting of informal nature at some place where nut trees with their crops growing could be studied. _nut journal_ our official organ, the _american nut journal_, has done its part well through the past year and is becoming, as it should, a very important element in the success of the purposes of this association. most new and old members of the association have availed themselves during the year of the offer of membership and the _journal_ for $ . . in spite of the reduction of cents on each membership, the receipts for dues have increased from $ to $ . i would suggest that the membership fee be still further reduced by cents, when combined with subscription to the _journal_, if the editor is willing to continue the present arrangement whereby the price of the _journal_ is reduced to cents when subscribed to with membership, so that the two together will cost $ . . another year it may be possible to make a similar reduction. the object toward which we ought to work is membership for $ , and membership with the _journal_$ . i should like to hear the opinions of the members as to the advisability of working to reduce our dues to $ annually. _how members may help_ at the risk of monotony i will repeat my concluding remarks of last year and ask that each member help increase the prosperity and usefulness of the association by enlisting new members, by advertising his business in the annual report, and by paying his dues promptly. the secretary would much rather spend his time answering questions and imparting such information as lies in his power, than to have to send repeated notices to members in arrears for dues. the secretary will be happy at all times to learn of the plans and progress of the members. * * * * * the president: you have heard the report of the secretary. there are two things to be done with it. it is, as you will notice, first a report of the year's business and, second, it has certain suggestions for your consideration. i think that as a business report we can discuss and move its adoption, amendment or rejection. after that we may take up the suggestions. [adoption moved, seconded and carried.] he has brought before our consideration the amount of dues, and the question of their payment. i doubt the advisability of a lengthy discussion in this business meeting. i think it better to refer it to the executive committee. unless i hear further suggestions, i will take that action. the next piece of business is the matter of the report on the amendments to the constitution. professor close and the secretary were appointed a committee for this matter, and as professor close cannot be here, we will hear from the secretary on the matter. (see amended constitution.) dr. smith: i am now glad to announce that we have covered the necessary business ground, and now come to the real meat of the meeting. we have with us this morning dr. baker, dean of the state college of forestry, at syracuse, who is going to address us on the subject of "the relation of forestry conditions in new york to possibilities of nut growing." the relation of forest conditions in new york to possibilities of nut growing dr. hugh p. baker, dean of the new york state college of forestry at syracuse university the forester presumes to come before your organization because he is concerned with one of the greatest of the natural resources of this and other states of the union and not with the idea of bringing information as to details in nut culture. possibly nut culture as a business is more closely related to agriculture than forestry. forestry is not subordinate to agriculture in this country but co-ordinate with it. together they will come as near solving the soil problems of the country as is possible for man to solve them. the forester is interested and concerned with the wild nut trees wherever he has to do with the forests or forest lands of the country. throughout the great hardwood sections of the east there are many native nut-bearing trees, and in the proper utilization of the trees which make up the forests the forester is concerned not alone with the lumber which may come from these trees, but he is concerned as well with the value of the by-products of the forest and the influence of the utilization of these by-products upon the forest. in view of the forester's interest in all of the trees which make up our forests, my purpose of addressing you today is to bring before you the question of the most effective use of the forest soils of this state. i shall also attempt to make some suggestions to your organization in the matter of interesting the man on the street in nut growing. this profession and the business of forestry have been passing through a period of general educational work in this country. some of the lessons which we have learned through our efforts to interest the people in their forests may be of help to you in interesting the people both in the consumption and the production of nuts. _new york as a great forest state_ twenty-five years ago new york was one of the leading lumber-producing states of the union. today some twenty other states produce more lumber than comes from the forests and woodlots of new york. statistics given out recently by the united states census bureau and the conservation commission of new york show that, out of the land acreage of over thirty-two millions in new york, but twenty-two millions are included within farms. this leaves something over eight millions of acres outside of farms and presumably non-agricultural. the forests of the adirondacks and catskills and the woodlots of the rougher hill counties in the southern and southwestern part of the state come within this vast area of eight millions of acres. without doubt with increasing population there will come some increase in the use of what are now non-agricultural lands for the practice of agriculture, but with three hundred years of agricultural history back of us in this state it does not seem likely that there will be much change in the relation of non-agricultural to agricultural land during the next half-century. out of the twenty-two millions of acres of farm lands in the state but fifteen millions are actually under cultivation, leaving, therefore, from six to eight millions of acres within the farms of the state but lying idle. that is, we have a massachusetts enclosed within our farms which is non-productive as far as direct returns are concerned. yet there is really no waste land in new york, as every square foot of the state which is covered with any soil at all is capable of producing good forest trees. it is this great area of idle land enclosed within our farms which seems to have unusual promise in the development of nut culture in the state. there is a great deal of land now idle in the form of steep hillsides or ridges or rocky slopes upon which we may grow with comparative ease our walnuts, butter-nuts, hickories, hazelnuts, in the wild form at least. the fact that the state is in really rather serious condition financially should be a strong reason for our association to urge upon the farmers of the state the planting of nut-bearing trees that the returns from the farms may be increased by annual sales of nuts which should in the aggregate in the next fifty years be a large sum of money. it has been estimated that the total debt of the state of new york, that is, the state, county and municipal debts, are equal to $ for every acre of land, good and bad. on top of this condition the legislature last year laid a direct tax of eighteen millions of dollars upon our people, and there is every indication that it will be several years before it becomes unnecessary to lay a direct tax either larger or smaller than that put upon us last year. there is ever-increasing competition among the farmers of the state as the standards in animal, milk and fruit production are ever increasing. in view of the amount of idle land and of our financial condition it seems to be an unusually opportune time for those interested in nut culture to bring before the farmers and other landowners of the state the idea of planting nut trees, the products of which will add to the annual income from the land. _the state of new york is somewhat ignorant of the value of its forest lands_ when the new york state college of forestry at syracuse began its studies of forest conditions in new york in it turned its attention immediately to the very large areas of farm woodlots and woodlands within farms. there has been a good deal of general information current among our people regarding the forest conditions of the state, but there is really very little accurate information except such little as the college has secured since . as a first step in the taking of stock of our forest resources and especially the amount of timber in our farm woodlots and what is coming from these woodlots in the way of annual return to their owners, the state college of forestry in began, in co-operation with the united states forest service, a study of the wood-using industries of the state. this study has resulted in a very comprehensive bulletin issued by the college of forestry upon the wood-using industries of the state of new york. from these studies it was determined for the first time that new york was spending annually over ninety-five millions of dollars for products of the forest. unfortunately for the state, we are sending over fifty millions of dollars of this vast amount out into other states to the south and to the west for timber which new york is capable of producing in amount, at least, in its forests and on its idle lands. the report shows further that new york is producing very large quantities of pine and hemlock and the hardwoods, and, much to the surprise of those interested in forest conditions in the state, it was shown that a large proportion of the hardwoods come from the woodlots in the farms of the state. this would seem to indicate that there is a real opportunity for the growing of such hardwood timber as black walnut, butternut, and hickory, not only on the idle lands of the state which are not covered with forest now, but also in the woodlots of the farms. that is, it would not be a difficult matter to show the farmers through publications and possibly through public lectures that it would be very advantageous to them to favor nut-growing trees and to plant them where they are not now growing, both because of the value of the nuts which they produce and of the value of their wood. if the people of a great state like new york are more or less ignorant of the extent and value of their forest holdings, how much more ignorant are they of the character and the value of a particular species which make up their forest lands. how few people are able to go into the forest and say that this tree is a shagbark hickory or that that is a butternut or that that is a red pine, and if this is the case, as you will agree with me that it is, is it not time that propagandist or general educational work be done that will bring forcibly to the attention of the wage-earners of the state that it is a financial necessity for the state to consider better use of its forest lands, so that all of the soils of new york may share in the burden of the support of the commonwealth rather than a few of the soils which are now being given up to agricultural use? the wage-earner should know also that nuts used as food are conducive to health and that possibly a more extensive use of nuts with less of meat will mean a considerable difference over a period of a year in the amount that is saved in the living expenses of an individual or a family. it is often difficult for the forester to interest the average farmer in the planting of trees, even though those trees may add to the beauty and value of the farm or the comfort of the home buildings, but your organization will make a place for itself most decidedly if it will go to the farmer or to a group of farmers and show them that they can actually save money in the purchase of their needed lumber and wood of other kinds if they will cut their woodlots co-operatively and produce in the woodlots trees of greatest possible value and trees which will give such by-products as nuts as well as direct returns from the lumber. just as soon as you can reach the pocket-book of the average wage-earner, it makes little difference whether it is nuts or books or clothing, they are going to be interested in a thing that will allow them to get more for the amount which they make from their day's labor. _the association may accomplish much by demonstrating the value of nut trees as trees and the value of their products as food_ many organizations in our eastern states are becoming interested in the beautification of communities and the tremendous development in the use of the automobile is interesting even more organizations in the beautification of rural highways. it would not be a difficult thing for the nut growers association to interest civic associations or women's clubs in the planting not only of forest trees alone along rural highways but a certain number of nut trees. we are literally in the age of the "movie" and if a man who walks or drives along our highways can see as he passes the growing nut trees and the bountiful harvest which they may be made to yield, he is being convinced that not only elm and maple are of value along our highways, but that the nut-producing trees may give equal satisfaction in beauty of form and comfort of shade and at the same time yield fruit of very definite value. even though the fruit of the nut-bearing trees of our woodlands and highways may not give an annual return to the town or village or county it will bring immeasurable joy and possibly better health to the boys and girls of the future. in many ways the children of this country are educating their parents and it is not an impossible idea to think of the parents of the future being converted by the influence of their children to the desirability if not the necessity of growing trees and nut trees, the fruit of which will give pleasant healthfulness and at the same time aid in the saving of the daily wage and in the support of the commonwealth. i wish to emphasize this idea of considering not alone the financial return from the trees and the forests of this state. as the son of a lumberman and as a forester i am, of course, most vitally interested in the growing of trees as a business proposition, but i feel that such an organization as yours, especially, should look at this matter not alone from actual financial returns, but because of indirect benefits such as the making of outdoor people of us americans. this can be done, i believe, to a very considerable extent by giving our people, especially the boys and girls, a purpose for getting out into the woodlot and the forests wherever they occur in the state. the women of this state are interested vitally these days not only in their own welfare as possible citizens, but in the improving of living conditions and opportunities of our people. we should have more women interested in the work of this association and interested in seeing that the future value of nuts is appreciated by the wage-earners of the state, both because of their healthfulness and because of the possibility of cheapening somewhat the cost of living. i urge upon the organization a campaign of education, a campaign which will reach through the women's clubs, civic organizations, schools and state associations in a way that will cause the people to demand more nuts for food and more nut trees as an absolutely indispensable part of the complete utilization of both the agricultural and forest soils of the state. the agencies working for agriculture and forestry in a state like new york understand these problems, but often it remains for an organization like yours to bring these forces into active play and to produce the results for which you are working. before you can achieve lasting results and results commensurate with the time and effort which you are putting into the organization, you must get hold of the man and the woman who spend the dollars for the living of our people. _the state college of forestry at syracuse experimenting with nut culture_ soon after the organization of the new york state forest experiment station south of syracuse the college took up the matter of growing nut trees and of improving the quality of nuts of native species. on the new york state forest experiment station just south of syracuse, where the college is growing a million forest trees a year, there is a woodlot of thirty acres. in this woodlot were a number of native nut trees and these have been set aside for the purpose of grafting and improving to see what can be done in helping out native nut trees of different ages and sizes. in the college purchased a thousand acres of cut-over land two hours south of buffalo in cattaraugus county. at the same time it purchased one hundred and thirteen acres lying along the main line of the new york central railroad at chittenango in madison county. this past spring nut trees were ordered from nurseries in pennsylvania and planted in the heavy soils on the chittenango forest station and also on the state forest experiment station at syracuse. at the salamanca station young nut trees are being staked so that they may be protected and cared for with a hope of developing them as nut-producing trees. the college plans, as a part of its work in the division of forest investigations, to see what can be done in the way of grafting chestnut sprouts and in introducing nut-growing trees for the purpose of demonstrating that idle lands within farms may be used profitably for nut culture. the college will be very glad, indeed, to learn of any native nut trees of unusual value anywhere in new york as it is anxious to get material for grafting to native stock already growing on its various forest stations. dr. smith: it was an exceedingly great pleasure to me to listen to that address by the dean of the new york state college of forestry. i want to assure you that his address marks an epoch. he tells us that the state of new york is going to experiment in nut growing, give place, time and money; and this is what i have been long waiting for. i shall defer my discussion until this evening, when i use the screen and lantern. i rejoice exceedingly that the state of new york is not alone in the march of progress; the state of pennsylvania is also in line and comes next on the program. professor fagan has been making a survey of pennsylvania with particular reference to ascertaining what it has in nut trees. he will now give us a report. * * * * * professor fagan: the president has caught me rather unprepared. i did not expect to talk at this time. i had our walnut survey tabulated in regard to county locations, so that you could see the results of our work in the state this past summer. this report is in my grip so i will talk only from memory. the necessity for this work in pennsylvania has been increasing right along. the state experiment station has been receiving letters nearly every week from parties wanting information in regard to the persian walnut. the calls for information have been increasing more and more each year for the past three years. our people ask questions about the right kind of soils for the nuts--what varieties are best suited for pennsylvania--how to topwork their standing black walnut--and, in fact, almost any question. the experiment station does not have a nut plantation and it was thought best to study the growing persian walnut trees throughout the state. a publicity campaign was started through the agricultural press and our daily and weekly newspapers. in this way we have been able to learn the location of some , to , bearing trees in pennsylvania. i tried to visit the trees this summer but time would not permit. trees are reported in twenty-five different counties. erie county reported, likely, the two largest plantings. here we have two seedling groves, at least one is a seedling grove. the seedling grove is fourteen years old and contains trees. they are seedling pomeroy trees and this year show their first real crop of nuts. since they are seedlings we naturally find all types and variations among the trees. we see a difference in their foliage, habit of growth, shape and size of nuts. the trees show no effects of ever having been winter-killed. the trees have always been farmed so the owner, mr. e. a. silkirk of north east, pa., has been able to receive returns from his land. grapes and berries have been grown between the trees as intercrops. the trees are planted on the corners of a -foot square and cover about fourteen acres. in four different counties of the mountain section of the state, bearing trees are to be found. from these trees we hope to find something at least fairly good but above that something hardy. some of these trees have been winter-killed to a more or less degree, but so have the common peach trees in the same sections. the southeastern part of the state reports the largest number of trees. from harrisburg east and south the trees become more common. in this section we find dauphin, adams, york, lancaster, chester, philadelphia, bucks, lebanon, lehigh and berks counties. in these counties the persian walnut is not at all uncommon. they are often called dutch nuts as well as english walnuts. just north of the above section we find northampton county reporting a large number of trees, and even in the wilkes-barre and scranton section with a higher elevation the nut is growing and yielding good crops. i asked nearly all walnut tree owners whether or not they thought the business could be developed, and in most cases they believed it possible. i have come to more or less of the conclusion from what i have been able to see, that the business will not be developed in our so-called mountain land or upon the waste lands. the better soil should be used for the walnut groves. as time goes on we are going to find more and more groves of the nuts being planted in our state. i came here to learn rather than to lecture. if i can answer any question i will be glad to do so. tonight i will gladly show you a few pictures with the lantern. i might say that the experiment station plans to have a small grove in a few years; with this and co-operative work we hope to be able to give to our growers and interested people some idea of the culture and care of the persian walnut in pennsylvania. dr. morris: i don't like to speak so often here, but it is in the spirit of setting a pace rather than of giving expression to my own views. in the first place, i would like to ask professor fagan if he has looked up the matter of the introduction of any of the oriental walnuts into pennsylvania. according to the knowledge of the botanists, all species of plants from the northeastern orient are better adapted to the eastern states of america than are any trees from the central or western portions of the old world. pacific coast plants do well in england, but not in new england as a rule. next i would suggest, _apropos_ of the nature of the seedling orchard reported by the last speaker, that no nut tree of any sort be sold under a varietal name for propagation, excepting that it be accompanied by the statement that it is a seedling. this is perfectly proper and fair to all parties. going back to the remarks of professor baker, a number of very interesting points arose. one reason why the great waste lands of the state have not been covered with forests of nut trees is because we must leave something for the people who are to come , years after us. we must not accomplish everything in civilization this year. be generous; leave something for others to accomplish later. nut trees grown in forest form say to themselves: "here are trees enough. we shall store up cellulose." therefore the trees store up cellulose, make great trunks and timber, and little fruit. a nut tree on the other hand which is growing alone in a field says, "here are not trees enough. i shall be fruitful," and therefore it bears much fruit. consequently, nut trees to be grown as forest are out of the question as nut producers, but may be very valuable for timber. in regard to setting out trees along the highways, that is a beautiful idea theoretically. i happen to see one of my neighbors in connecticut here in the audience. he remembers when i tried to be public-spirited and set out a number of fruit trees around the borders of my place, in order that the passerby might have some fruit. what happened was that not only the passerby wanted fruit, but he wanted it early, and he brought others from a distance who wanted fruit. they broke down the trees, and also entered my premises and carried off my private supply having been attracted by my roadside bait. i wanted to beautify the highway for a mile and set out , pine trees. after they had grown to look pretty, people came in automobiles and carried them off. these people could not think of helping to set out roadside trees but when someone else had done it they came and lugged off the trees. so long as we are in a semi-civilized state, we cannot talk about beautifying our roads, as does germany. germany has set an example of efficiency for the entire world, no matter what your opinion may be as to the present conflict. at the present time she is perhaps believing that she is carrying on a utility crusade. one of the german methods is to line the roadways with fruit-bearing trees, including nut trees, in such a way that the income pays the taxes for some villages. but they are under government control. mr. pomeroy: dr. morris's suggestion is very good in regard to marking seedlings. of course his office is in new york city, though his farm is in connecticut and new york has a law which fills the bill. a customer can get a complete history of the tree from his nurseryman. if from a barren tree, he must so state. i think this state is about the only state that has such a law. one other thing. the first big battle fought between the germans and the belgians was on a highway along ten miles of which stood persian walnut trees, and i have often wondered how much damage was done to the trees. the president: i will ask the secretary to read the motion dr. morris incorporated in his talk. the secretary: "no ungrafted nut tree of any sort shall be sent out under a name for propagation purposes except with the statement that it is a seedling." mr. littlepage: that is a matter which i imagine will come before the executive committee, and i would suggest that it be left in their hands and worked out by them. with dr. morris's consent i would refer this to that committee. mr. pomeroy: just because a tree has been grafted, why is all this necessary? the nurseryman is bound to tell from what it is taken. that is covered by the law. he need not be even a buyer, merely a prospective buyer. what i want to bring out is this. suppose a nurseryman here in this state sells a tree,--he must have a permit before he can do it; he cannot send even a twig through the post office otherwise. i don't see if a bud is taken from a tree and put on a black walnut tree that it necessarily makes the bud that grows on the black walnut tree any better than the parent. dean baker: i told you i wanted to raise a discussion on this subject. i really am a dyed-in-the-wool optimist. i am willing to sacrifice some nut trees to laboratory purposes for the benefit of our young men. we want the individuals to profit by the education. this should be an educational society. the president: i will ask the vice-president to take the chair. mr. reed: at the last meeting a committee was appointed to report on the persian walnut, of which committee the president was the chairman, and will make his report at this time. * * * * * the president: mr. chairman, ladies and gentlemen: i think you appreciate the chaos at the present moment in the status of investigation of the persian walnut. when professor fagan reports that the number of trees in pennsylvania exceeds , , most of which he has not seen, this chaos is evident. the varieties propagated in the eastern united states are experiments. i have done nothing that will compare with mr. fagan's work, but have found certain interesting facts. first: i found in maryland a persian walnut which does not come into leaf until june. when the cherries are ripe, it is just coming into leaf; and it has borne regularly for fifteen years. while going through the orchards at grenoble in france, i asked a man "what is the matter with that tree?" this was on june th. "there is nothing the matter," he told me, "it is only coming into leaf." i want to call your attention to possibilities of a hybrid of that tree and the maryland tree. the persian walnuts of the grenoble tree were of good quality, but low yield. the maryland tree is a heavy yielder but of third quality. in this matter of variety, i want to emphasize dr. morris's point of the great possibilities of the oriental walnut. great results are likely to be attained from the introduction of these species into pennsylvania, new york and elsewhere in this country. second: what is a good walnut? they may be divided into three qualities: . positively sweet. . neutral. . those with a little bitterness in the skin of the kernel, which develops as you masticate the kernel. most of those which distinguish themselves for good yield here in the east are unfortunately of the third class. i have taken samples of these to commercial dealers. one of the largest walnut buyers in philadelphia classifies the grenobles as first class. the california crop he classes second quality but pays more for it. most of the california quality is second class. eastern nuts are mostly third class. i found one in new jersey which was almost first class. first quality apples are not grown for the market. they are consumed by the growers. they know the market would not pay for them. they sell mostly the second and third class apples. the present market for nuts is like the apple market. the nut dealer told me to send along nuts, like several eastern samples, and he would sell them, even though they were third quality. he has assured me that if he had the nuts he could sell them. investigate every good nut tree you hear about. very good results may come from this. you don't know what you may learn by doing so. if you will ask about it every time you hear of a good nut tree, good will be accomplished. we are going to keep on finding these trees for the next twenty-five years. will you help the process along? * * * * * mr. pomeroy: in the smaller towns, where the grocery men buy of the boys, if they will ask them about the trees from which they get good nuts you will locate many good trees. mr. littlepage: i understand in california they have been planting walnut trees for thirty to forty years but have never yet agreed on the matter of varieties. one of the very practical questions before this association is the determination of the best varieties to set. i would like to hear from some of the members on this question of varieties. mr. rush: i would like to say a word about this matter. we cannot be too severe on quality. we might ask ourselves today what is the matter with the peach crop. the physical changes and conditions are responsible not only for the peach crop, but the nut crop as well. the weather has unfortunate effects on certain varieties of the walnut. so we must make allowance for weather conditions. mr. littlepage: excuse me for butting in so often. i should like to ask mr. rush a question. i highly respect his judgment. if he were planting a walnut orchard of trees in the latitude between philadelphia and washington, i should like to know what varieties he would plant and in what proportion? mr. rush: well, that is a question that would require a little consideration. now we have some very good varieties. you have a very good variety known as the holden. i would like to know more of it. one i would choose would be the nebo, and another originating on my place, and called the rush, is productive and good quality and a most excellent pollenizer. we have another fine walnut in adams county, introduced by john garretson, from california. then we have other types, the lancaster, and the alpine. hall, in erie county is noted for its good size, not strictly a commercial nut. something like the holden, garretson and rush parisienne are my favorite varieties. mr. littlepage: i think we are getting some really valuable information now. we must plant the best varieties we have. i think we might start with mr. rush's list and have the varieties analyzed. i think this will be of use when we are called upon to advise people. the secretary: if i were going to make a choice of the varieties of walnuts, i should name the franquette, mayette and parisienne. mr. rush says that his rush variety is practically a parisienne. the garretson walnuts seem to be of these varieties. these have been producing good crops of nuts. it is my opinion that at this time these are the most promising varieties for use in the east. the president: i wish to say that a tree of the mayette variety or one greatly resembling it has been living in pennsylvania for fifteen years and bearing crops. there is little doubt that the mayette is the best walnut on the market. mr. littlepage: well, is there anything really surprising, when you consider the origin of these trees? these varieties originally came from the grenoble district in france. france lies north of the d parallel. this is the northern boundary of pennsylvania and runs through michigan. but france has a maritime climate. the president: if i may act as geographer for a moment, there are two things in connection with the foreign climate. the maritime climate is cooler in summer and milder in winter. over here fungus invasion does great harm but the climate there is detrimental to the fungi and keeps them in subjection. i call attention again to that mayette in pennsylvania for sixteen years, as a matter of fact, not theory, an achievement on which we can act with some certainty. the hour for adjournment has come. this afternoon at : we have been invited to visit nut trees in the neighborhood in automobiles kindly loaned for the occasion. tonight at we meet here again. the secretary: i want to say a word in regard to mr. baker's remarks. the purpose of this association is chiefly educational, but in order that we may be educational, and in order that we may give the man in the street some definite information, in response to his inquiries, we ourselves must first investigate these matters, such as the question of varieties. this is a point that appeals to me particularly. people ask me what nuts to plant, and how to plant them. we must advise them. one thing that we may tell them is that it is advisable to plant about the grounds high priced, grafted nut trees. it is not advisable to plant high class, grafted trees along fences or roads. they will usually do badly or fail. grafted trees require careful attention and proper treatment. the proper thing to do along fences and roadsides is to graft the native nut trees already established there, or to plant native nuts abundantly in order that later we may have established nut trees to graft. adjournment at : p.m. wednesday evening session the evening session was called to order at : p.m. by president smith. the total attendance of the evening was approximately one hundred. the evening was devoted to two stereopticon lectures, the first being slides by professor fagan, illustrating the lecture of the afternoon on the "nut survey of pennsylvania." this was followed by an illustrated lecture by dr. j. russell smith, president of the association. new tree crops and a new agriculture presidential address dr. j. russell smith, university of pennsylvania we have all heard of the scientist who made a discovery and exclaimed, "thank god! this can't be of any possible use to anybody!" this useless aspect of science in a world with so many possibilities of service does not appeal to me. i hope that science and service and utility may go hand in hand. the conservation of natural resources, the creation of new ones is a topic which combines the qualities of science, service and utility. of all our resources the soil is the most vital. most of the others have some possibility of substitution, but for the soil there is no substitute. the forest burned to destruction can rise again if the soil remains. some examination will show that the most vital part of the whole conservation matter is the preservation of the soil, and that soil conservation is per cent the prevention of erosion. soil robbery by unscientific agriculture can go to its most extreme lengths and reduce the soil to the depths of non-productivity; but scientific agriculture can, by the addition of humus and some fertilizer, soon restore such soil to high fertility. in these conditions of exhaustion the loss to fertility by soil leaching is small, because of the non-soluble character of the earth particles. thus experiments at cornell have shown that in the average foot of top soil from rather unproductive farms in a low state of production, there was plant food sufficient for , crops of corn. we have all seen a single thunder shower remove from a hillside corn field the fertility adequate for the making of a hundred crops of corn. american agriculture is peculiarly soil destructive. three of our greatest money crops--corn, cotton and tobacco--require that the earth shall, throughout the summer, be loose and even furrowed with the cultivator, which prepares the ground for washing away, and by its furrow starts the gully. the second factor in this peculiarly destructive agriculture is the fact of our emphasis of rainfall in summer. third in the list of factors of destruction is the rainfall unit, the thunder shower, which dumps water, hundreds of tons per hour on every hillside acre. a little examination of the facts and careful inclusion of the time element will show that the old-world saying, "after man the desert" is quite as true in the united states as in europe and asia, where it has been so fearfully proven in the seats of ancient empire. this soil resource destruction from erosion leads to the destruction of other valuable resources. we appear to be upon the eve of an epoch of waterway construction and experiment. the greatest injury to waterways is channel filling by down-washed mud. pittsburgh has been praised highly for the energetic action of her chamber of commerce and citizens in appropriating money for the careful survey of drainage basins above the river, with the idea of obtaining knowledge preparatory to the building of reservoirs to check floods. they have forty-three reservoir sites, and the early construction of nineteen of these reservoirs is recommended. a part of the reservoir plan, however, is that the land above it shall not be cultivated; otherwise the erosion from the tilled fields will promptly fill up the reservoirs, as the present condition of many eastern mill dams so emphatically attests. the carrying out, therefore, of the pittsburgh reservoir plan necessitates the exodus of hundreds of thousands of farmers and the restriction of many farming communities to forest or a new type of agriculture. we cannot spare all this land from tillage. but fortunately, there are other ways of using it. land east of the th meridian may be divided into three classes: first, which in the absence of better estimate covers one third of the area, is hopeless for agriculture because of hills and rocks. this is mostly now in rather poor forests. the second class, also covering one third--by the same estimate--has been cleared for agriculture, but is so hilly and eroded as to be in a low state of fertility and production. the third class, the remaining third of the land, is suited to the plow and should be plowed and cultivated much more intensively than it now is. for the first and second classes of land we need a new type of agriculture, the crop-yielding trees. our agriculture, which depends so largely now upon those members of the grass family which we call grains, is the result of accident, not the result of science. at the dawn of history man had practically all of these small grains, which have probably resulted from the selection and seed saving of the primitive woman, as the race came up from savagery into agriculture. this primitive woman in selecting plants for her garden and little field, did not pick out the best of nature, or the most productive, or the ultimately most promising; she picked annuals because they gave the quickest return. and man has left alone and practically unimproved for all these thousands of years nearly all the great engines of nature, the crop-yielding trees, such as the walnut, hickory, pecan, acorn yielding oak, chestnut, beech, pinenut, hazel, honey locust, mesquite, screw bean, carob, mulberry, persimmon, paw-paw, etc., because their slow growth has deterred us from any attempts at improving them. we have depended upon and greatly improved the quick growing grains, which spend most of their short life in putting up a frame work which promptly perishes; whereas the tree endures like a manufacturing plant. further than this, most of the grains have a period of crisis, during which they must receive water or the harvest is almost a failure. thus corn must within a short period receive moisture, or it is too late to produce even husks. yet trees are the great engines of nature. the mazzard cherry tree, growing wild throughout the southeastern united states, often yields twenty bushels of fruit. fifty bushels and upwards are often obtained from the mature apple trees. the walnut yields its bushels, the persimmon breaks with fruit. europe shows us an agriculture making considerable use of crop-yielding trees other than the ordinary fruits. mr. c. f. cook, of the department of agriculture, is the authority for the statement that mediterranean agriculture began on the basis of tree crops, and there are now about twenty-five such crops in the mediterranean basin. the oak tree furnishes five, cork bark, an ink producing gall which enters into the manufacture of all our ink, the valonia, or tannin-yielding acorn, which is an important export from the balkan states; the truffle worth several million dollars to france; and lastly the acorn. in the balaeric isles, i am informed, certain acorns are more prized than chestnuts and the trees yielding them are grafted like apples, and the porker is turned out to make his living picking up acorns where they fall, and enriching his diet with a special kind of fig grown in the same way for his use. we americans are too industrious; we insist upon putting a pig in a pen and then waiting upon him. the pistachio, the walnut, the filbert and the chestnut are all important tree crops in parts of the mediterranean countries and many american travelers have probably seen the chestnut orchards of france and italy, which i have found by examination are able to make the rough and unplowable mountain-side, bristling with rocks, as valuable as the level black prairies of illinois. the natural objection may be raised that the utilization of so much hilly land in fruit and nut-yielding trees will give such supplies of new food that people will refuse to use them. the above objection is well founded; but swine, sheep and poultry eat what is given them. i have an example of a farmer of louisiana, who planted a hillside to mulberry trees. the mulberries held the ground in place by their roots and dropped their black harvest to the ground through three months of summer, and the hogs gathered them up and converted them into pork worth $ an acre, without any effort on the part of the owner. the mulberry area in the united states is probably close to a million square miles. over most of the region south of mason and dixon's line the persimmon is a hated tree weed; yet it stands by the millions in fields and fence rows, fairly bending down with a full crop of fruit every other year, which is much sought after by the opossum and other wild animals, and eaten when possible by the american porker from september, the end of the mulberry season, until march, for the persimmon has a habit of dropping its fruit through the long winter period. the oak whose acorns probably made the pig what he is, is almost neglected in america; yet for ages the indians of the pacific coast have made their bread from acorns of two species of oak, one of which is now gathered by the farmers of california, put into their barns and bought and sold as stock food. the beechnut and the hickory nut are rich and much prized swine food. legumes, of which there are many species, can be grown between nut-yielding trees to maintain the fertility of the soil through the nitrogen gathering nodules upon their roots. as it often seems desirable to cultivate trees of this character where possible, the tree crops agriculturist is above all others able to adjust his crop and the one device that permits the tillage of hilly land--terracing. terraces interfere with machinery which is so increasingly essential in the cultivation and harvesting of the present crops. but terracing interferes least of all with the tree crop agriculture, because the trees can stand in the terrace rows and make a fortunate combination of the heavy yielding tree crops and the soil preservation through terracing. we have an interesting example of tree crop productivity in hawaii, where the agaroba was introduced from peru in the last century. it has now spread until it covers considerable area with forests, and information from the hawaiian experiment station is to the effect that it is now the mainstay of the dairy industry of the island. the annual crop of four tons of big beans to the acre can be and is ground into a highly nutritious meal food selling at $ a ton, an agriculture which, for ease of operation and richness of return, puts illinois to shame, for, in addition to the $ worth of animal food, there is a ton of wood per acre every year. the tree crop agriculture seems to hold the possibility of letting the worst third of our soil (class as mentioned above) become as productive as the best land (class ), while (class ) the hill land can probably be doubled in productivity. this is a goal well worthy of much endeavor on the part of the plant breeder. tree crops offer equal possibilities for the arid land. the grains with their period of crisis are an uncertain dependence on land of such uncertain rainfall as exists in the united states west of the th meridian. this is attested by the fact that some of this land has been settled three times and abandoned twice to the wreckage of hundreds of thousands of private fortunes. yet the tree with its far-reaching roots and ability to store energy can survive in much of this area where grains are so very uncertain. the mesquite, yet a tree weed over much of this area, has one species which produces a nutritious seed that has been used for bread stuff by unknown generations of indians. the screw bean, a legume, with a nutritious seed, grows from el paso to the imperial valley; while the broad leafed honey locust, with a seed closely akin to that of the carob, or st. john's bread, will also grow over wide areas in the arid southwest. five varieties of the small but productive wild almond have been found by a government botanist growing upon the shores of pyramid lake; while frank myer, plant explorer of the department, brings back from turkestan accounts of wild almonds producing good fruit on mountain slopes with a rainfall of inches a year. these productive plants, several of them legumes, adjusted by nature to this region, with allied species in other continents, seem to hold before the plant breeder the possibilities of hundreds of thousands of square miles of western orchard ranges of high productivity, rather than the present would-be grass-ranges of low and declining productivity. i believe that the development of a tree crop agriculture offers one of the greatest possibilities in constructive conservation of natural resources. individuals cannot be depended upon to do it. the work is too slow. a man might by decades of work create species that would be, if fully utilized, worth a hundred million dollars a year to a state like pennsylvania; yet he would be unable to realize personal gain from the results, provided he had secured them. institutions must do it. it is like the geological survey and the census bureau and agricultural experiment stations, which depend upon appropriations. the appropriations depend upon the realization of the importance of the work. there are interesting examples of similar work already in operation, of which the following might be mentioned: the agricultural experiment station of arizona has started a twenty-four-year series of experiments in breeding the date palm. in north dakota, where the blizzards kill nearly all the ordinary fruits, an experimenter has done much work in the breeding of hardy strains of apple, cherry and other trees. * * * * * then followed a display of lantern slides showing scenes from spain, portugal, balaeric islands, sicily, corsica, italy, algeria, tunis, france and southern and central united states. this collection of pictures revealed a surprising amount of tree crop agriculture already worked out but needing wider application. * * * * * the meeting adjourned without discussion of either lecture at p.m. thursday morning session the third session of the convention was called to order at : a.m. with the president, dr. j. russell smith, in the chair. the opening attendance was twenty-eight persons. the president: owing to the fact that business needs to be predigested, we have decided to postpone the amendments to the constitution until this evening's session. we think it will take but a short time to discuss them. resolutions, informal discussion on seedlings, the chestnut, and similar topics will also be brought up at that time. this morning's session, therefore, will be devoted to the intellectual, rather than the business end. i know of no subject in which there is greater possibility of securing knowledge than the question of nuts for the north. a few years ago a friend of mine wrote me he had bought some land, and was planting native walnuts in the fence corners to be topworked with english walnuts. i wrote him, recommending oranges instead, telling him he would lose less money. i was basing this advice upon my own bitter experience. the accumulations of nut knowledge in the last few years and the trees now growing on my own place show how ridiculous was my position of a short time ago. this morning i think we are likely to have somewhat similar surprises in a paper by dr. morris. he will give us information on the hazel nut, giving his experience with the european varieties. notes on the hazels dr. robert t. morris, new york city the hazels are descended from an ancient and honorable family. impressions of leaves found in the upper cretaceous rocks of the yellowstone valley cannot be distinguished from those of the leaves of our two american hazel species of today. the hazels belong to the _cupuliferae_ or oak family. our american species are only two in number, although there are many varieties of the species. the one which is most prized, _corylus americana_, is found over a wide range of territory and abundantly in many places between canada and the southern extremity of the appalachians, and from the central mississippi valley to the atlantic coast. this species bears nuts of excellent quality for the most part, but of rather small size and thick shell, excepting in individual plants. the common american hazel, while valuable for hybridizing purposes, will probably never be cultivated to any great extent, because of its habit of growth. the characteristic life history in the eastern states is as follows: a hazel plant bears a few nuts in its third year, a fairly large crop in its fourth year, a heavy crop in its fifth year, a very few nuts in its sixth year and it dies at the seventh or eighth year of age. meanwhile, the plant has been sending out long stoloniferous roots which have surrounded the original plant with a chaplet of progeny, each one of which follows the life course of the parent. one hazel plant when left free to its own devices may increase in this way rapidly enough to drive cows out of a pasture lot. i have trimmed off stoloniferous roots experimentally from a number of hazel plants, for the purpose of throwing all of the strength into the original stocks, hoping, thereby, to prolong their lives. this, however, appears not to be effective, as the stocks died at their appointed time. like many other wild plants, not yet subjected to processes of cultivation, the common american hazel does not respond very readily to cultivation, and too much attention on the part of the horticulturist leads it into confusion. some years ago i expended about six weeks in making a study of fruiting hazels and examined many thousands of bushes in rhode island, connecticut and eastern new york state, including long island. in the regions visited, the native hazels are so abundant as to be considered a pest. out of all the bushes examined, i saved but three for purposes of propagation. the best one of these for size, quality and thinness of shell, i have named the merribrooke, and young plants of this variety will be sent to any member of the association who wishes to cultivate them. bushes of this particular wild variety have had a reputation among the boys of the locality for more than a hundred years, according to legends of the neighborhood. i have recently budded specimens of this variety upon stocks of the byzantine hazel, in the hope of prolonging the life of an individual plant beyond its normal seven or eight years. the other american hazel, variously known as the beaked hazel, tailed hazel or horned hazel, was named _corylus cornuta_ by marshall (arbustrum americanum , ). consequently, that is the name by which it should be known instead of the name _corylus rostrata_ which was bestowed subsequently. this hazel has a much more northern range than the common american hazel and i have seen it in labrador and in ontario nearly to hudson's bay. on the pacific coast it is said to reach a height of thirty feet. although spreading by stoloniferous roots like the common american hazel, these roots are shorter, and it does not extend rapidly enough to dominate the situation when growing in competition with the common hazel. the nuts, while very good, and sometimes of large size with comparatively thin shell, lack quality, a very important element in any nut. it is probable that this tailed hazel will be valuable for adding hardiness to hybrids with the european and asiatic hazels, when the time comes for horticulturists of canada to make fortunes from their hazel orchards. in europe and asia and in the northern parts of africa several species of hazels are extremely important commercially, sometimes furnishing the chief source of income for large districts, very much as wheat or corn make special crops over large areas in this country. these foreign hazels have not been raised successfully in our country, excepting very recently on the northwest coast. the reason for failure depends almost wholly upon the presence of a blight, _cryptosporella anomala_, which belongs to our native hazels. in the course of evolution, host and parasite have come to be peers of each other, and consequently this blight does not menace our native hazels very seriously. introduced species, with the exception, perhaps, of the byzantine hazel, appear to carry a protoplasm which has not learned to resist the attacks of the blight. all organic warfare is fundamentally enzymic in its nature, and it is possible that through process of natural selection some of the foreign hazels would eventually become securely established in this country, without aid from the nurseryman. as a matter of fact, the hazel blight is very easily managed. not knowing this at first, i allowed almost all of my exotic hazels to become destroyed, and a number of nurserymen told me of having given up the problem as hopeless. recently i have learned of the ease with which the disease may be controlled, and now feel very comfortable in its presence. the blight is of slow development and chooses the larger hazel stems for its battleground. all that one notices at first is a depression of the bark extending in the long axis of a large branch. if one observes more closely, he will find spore-bearing pustules occurring as little round elevations upon the depressed part of the bark. the blight proceeds slowly, and i pass about for examination specimens from two hazel limbs. in the smaller one the blight has been two years under way, and in the larger one three years. these patches of blight were allowed to grow experimentally. meanwhile, i trimmed out all other blight areas of the bark with my jack-knife. this is very readily done. if one will look over his hazel bushes once a year and simply whip out the few slices of bark carrying the blight, it is done so easily and quickly that we now need to have no fear whatsoever for the future of hazel culture in this country. if the members of the association will examine these cryptosporella specimens which are passed about, and if they will dispose of the blight according to directions, i feel that the hazel question involving a matter perhaps of millions of dollars worth of investment has been settled. among the foreign hazels which will thrive in this country the byzantine hazel, _corylus colurna_ is by all means the most beautiful. it makes a tree as large as the ordinary oaks, and in hungary i have seen a trunk three feet in diameter at a short distance above the ground. i have been told that a single tree of this species will sometimes bear about twenty bushels of nuts at a single crop. this presumably refers to the nuts in their large involucral mass,--say four or five bushels of husked nuts. the wood of these species is hard, takes a high polish and is valuable. the tree itself is strikingly beautiful as the members will observe this afternoon when examining the byzantine hazels which superintendent laney will show us in one of the rochester parks. this species of hazel in some of the localities about the black sea is said to form almost the entire source of income over large districts. the nuts are not large, as a rule averaging about like those of our common american hazel in size, quality and thinness of shell. grafted or budded stocks may be made to bear large thin-shelled nuts. i am using this hazel at present for grafting stock for choice foreign species and varieties of other kinds, and for the american hazel, although it may be that the american hazel will not respond well to so large and vigorous a stock in the long run. nuts and nursery stock may be obtained through french nursery firms. the reason why the byzantine hazel has not been planted widely in america as yet, is because we have not advanced that far in civilization,--people have not happened to think about it. we must leave something for the people who are to come five thousand years after us, and not think of all good things at once. the byzantine hazel appears to be quite free from the blight and this, perhaps, is due to its thick corky bark, which is in itself an attractive feature. in some individuals the corky bark stands out in ridges almost like that of the corky elm. the beauty of the european and asiatic hazels, in general, makes them extremely desirable for ornamental purposes in parks and in dooryards. one of the most attractive is the purple variety of _corylus avellana_. in many parts of europe this is held to be desirable for its nuts, but in connecticut it is prone to flower so early in the season that the elongated male catkins are caught by frost. i have seen elongated catkins in a warm week at the end of february. a very desirable variety of _corylus avellana_ is one of which i now show specimens. the section of the branch which i pass about carried four large nuts yesterday but i find that one of them has disappeared, and it is probable that last night in the sleeping car a squirrel got in when the porter was looking the other way. the specimen represents a seedling individual among a lot presented to me by prince colloredo mannsfeld of bohemia nine years ago. this particular shrub is rather homely, with small unattractive leaves and big bony branches, but it bears heavily of large thin shelled hazels of the highest quality, and the sort which are now bringing fifty cents per pound in the new york market as green hazels. it blossoms very late in the spring. i have not as yet given a name to this individual bush, but as professor j. russell smith caught my description of it and speaks of it as "the bony-bush" we will allow his nomenclature to stand if members of the association wish to call for any of the wood for grafting or budding purposes. _corylus avellana_ in its many varieties is the chief european hazel which gives us the cobnuts and filberts of the market, and it is the one which will probably be most widely introduced into this country. the name "filbert" is a corruption of "full beard" and is properly applied only to those nuts in which the husk extends beyond the nut. the shrubs of this species commonly reach a height of about fifteen to eighteen feet, with a spread of the same dimensions. trimming by the horticulturist allows of the development of a larger bearing surface, very much as it does with peach or apple trees. in some parts of europe this species serves for hedge fences, indicating the practical ideas belonging to an older civilization. in this country we make hedge fences of worthless osage orange, privet, or honey locust which steal nourishment from the soil, add little to the beauty of the landscape, and give us no return whatsoever. such a typical american way of doing things will be changed when we stop to think. stopping to think is rather a painful process and gives us many jolts, but it has its rewards. when we replace our worthless hedge plants with hazels which yield heavy annual crops of valuable nuts we shall have made one step forward. a fine hazel is the _corylus pontica_. the shrub in itself has beauty, and it bears nuts sometimes as large as those of the average shagbark hickory. the kernel is of good quality, but the shell is so thick that these nuts are chiefly attractive to squirrels and to men who are out of work. i do not know the origin of the nut which is known in the market as the barcelona hazel, but i imagine the plants bearing this nut are derived from the _corylus pontica_. (specimens of branches and nuts of various species and varieties of hazels are now passed about in the audience.) the nuts are beginning to ripen in this first week in september. hazels do not come true to parent variety from seed, and consequently valuable stock is propagated by budding, by grafting or by layering. personally, i find that the hazel is rather easily budded, although layering is the method for propagation of choice varieties most often employed in europe. the hazels have comparatively few insect enemies, but mine are sometimes attacked destructively by the elm beetle and by the larvae of two species of saw flies which are also found upon the elms. it is a rather curious fact that the insects should recognize a similarity between the leaves of the hazels and of the elms, which are somewhat alike in general appearance, although the trees are of widely different descent. it brings up an interesting question, if the flying parents of the parasites from the elm are attracted by the appearance of the hazel leaves, or if they are attracted by the odor or other characteristics. occasionally the exotic hazels are attacked by various leaf blights but not to any troublesome extent so far as my experience goes, up to the present time. the chief predatory elements which we shall have to meet when raising hazels are squirrels, white-footed mice and the neighbors' children. w. c. reed: may i ask, doctor, what you bud the byzantine on? dr. morris: i am budding other things on those for stocks. i bud our american hazels and european hazels on the european and asiatic trees. mr. rush: do you know anything of the quality of that nut? dr. morris: it is the chief hazel in parts of northern turkey, and of excellent quality. hazels form a source of income for some localities like the wheat or corn in other parts of the world, or the olive, as dr. smith told us last night. mr. holden: do they get these trees from seedlings? dr. morris: yes, so far as i know. the nuts are called constantinople nuts. a member: what kind is it that blooms in the fall? dr. morris: i don't know any but the witch hazel which blooms in the fall; has a small yellow flower, but is not a true hazel. catkins form upon all hazels in the fall, but these do not really blossom until springtime. a member: i would like to ask if the byzantine hazel is attacked by blight as are the others? dr. morris: no; none of my trees have been attacked by blight at all as yet. w. c. reed: what method of budding do you find most successful? dr. morris: i have usually used the ring budding. it is not very difficult. professor hedrick: are there any east asia hazels that thrive in this country? dr. morris: there are specimens in the park here at rochester that you will see this afternoon. professor hedrick: our experience with asiatic hazels is very satisfactory. mr. mcglennon: a friend of mine here has some specimens that he would like to present. dr. smith: we will ask mr. vollertsen to describe the specimens himself. mr. vollertsen: they are from a private place of g. h. perkins on east avenue. they have never failed a year since . unfortunately we have no name for them, except that this one was always called john jones. it has certainly proved a good strong hardy variety. then we have another one, a long one, which has never been named, and i am not able to say exactly what it is. last year they were exceptionally well filled. this year there are not quite so many on them, although a goodly number. they have never failed a single year. i have one little variety which was given me by dr. mann, on alexander street. the limbs are practically hanging down with the nuts. they are ready for market now, falling out. i have here some purple hazels which have always borne fruit and no other hazel in the vicinity is as good. it has sometimes two crops in a year. these are really beautiful specimens. this little early variety should be passed round and have special attention. i have given this variety no name, but for over thirty-five years it has borne good fruit every year. dr. morris: if you are in doubt as to the name of a variety, i think mr. laney will find a way for getting you the name for almost every variety that is found in the markets. the president: mr. mcglennon asks that the gentleman advise us how he has propagated them. we went through mr. mcglennon's beautiful orchard yesterday. mr. vollertsen: we have been using an ordinary way of budding. an ordinary seedling can be used to good advantage for grafting. i have found in grafting in winter they do not seem to grow as well. in our fall layering we naturally get a larger plant. the president: do we understand that these hazels that have borne for twenty-five years are european hazels? mr. vollertsen: yes; european hazels. i have had them under my care since , and never noticed any blight. a member: can't you explain to us, with one of your specimens, your method of spring layering? mr. vollertsen: in layering them, we practically don't cover them at all for the time being. they are merely pinned down. dr. morris: do you cut the bark? mr. vollertsen: not on them. after they have grown some we cover them up. we find this a very successful way. we get younger and smaller plants in the fall lay. the president: i should like to ask dr. morris a question. in this native hazel, does it keep on spreading under ground? dr. morris: one single plant, planted in a pasture lot and not interfered with will in a few years occupy practically that whole pasture lot. in my part of the country this is true; how is it with you, dr. deming? a member: going back to the blight, will this tackle any size limb? dr. morris: it usually does not come until your hopes are at top notch, and then it drops in on you. it does not attack the smaller twigs at first, but may finally extend to them. a member: are any of your hybrids a success? dr. morris: there are none in bearing as yet. byzantines are little, if any, larger than american hazel nuts, excepting from selected trees. pontines are much larger. both plants make a remarkably vigorous growth. the president: do i understand that this merribrooke hazel, put in the middle of an acre will fill the acre? dr. morris: i believe this is true. i don't think it is an exaggeration. the wild hazel is a nuisance in connecticut. the secretary: i know they will cover a very large space, but i cannot tell how they get there. the president: the point i am trying to get after is this, not the exact extent of spread but the method of propagation. can we get a sprout from a good tree, and then have it go on sprouting indefinitely? dr. morris: yes, that is true. a member: in your experience are fungicides useful in handling the blight? dr. morris: i have not used them. i have talked with nurserymen who did, and they say the blight got the best of them just the same. they left the matter with employees, who did not give proper attention. this was perhaps because they did not know that a small jack-knife was better than a spraying outfit for the purpose. a member: once on, will it stay? dr. morris: yes, until the blight area has circled the limb. a member: what is the difference between the cobs and the filberts? dr. morris: the cob nut is generally a round nut. the filberts are longer nuts. "filbert" is a corruption of "full beard," and refers to the involucre extending beyond the nut. dr. smith: we may now proceed to the next number on the program, if the hunger for hazel knowledge abates. members of this association have topworked pecans, hickories, etc. i followed the instructions of members of this association in my work and have had some success. some workers report splendid success mixed with very great failures, so we may be encouraged to the very top notch, and the next spring we come back feeling very different. last fall i was as large almost as a beer barrel with the gratification that followed the setting of english walnut buds. i have adopted the motto "blessed is he that rejoices early, or he may not rejoice at all." in march there were about ten or twelve alive. in june about nine were alive, and now these also have failed to grow. last year i knew just how to bud walnuts. this last fourth of july i was very humble. for some reason or other we have not all the facts. we can propagate splendidly one year, and the next year we have a fall-down. mr. roper, of one of the pioneer nurseries, said he had , fine live walnut buds last fall, and had but this spring, and not one of them grew. while the technique seems to be simple, there seems to be something lacking in our experience. i will ask mr. littlepage to give us his confessions first. mr. littlepage: the proposition of topworking is one of the schemes where art beats nature. in the fight in congress over the oleomargarine bill some years ago, one member who favored it, said in support of his contention, that nature always beat art; and one of his opponents immediately referred him to a picture gallery near, where pictures of the statesmen were exhibited, as a proof that art sometimes beats nature. in top working, art improves upon nature. the first thing to be considered is what is topworking, and then the logical question, why topworking. possibly this should come first. if an individual is dissatisfied with his friends and neighbors, he must put up with them; he cannot change them. but if he is dissatisfied with a nut tree, it is his own fault if he does not change it. it can be top worked. he does not care to top work maples or oaks. we only top work to get something better than we have. the trees, of course, that interest us specially in top working are the nut trees. we have seedling pecans, seedling walnuts, seedling hickories, and seedling chestnuts. down at the mouth of green river in kentucky are nearly two hundred acres of wild pecan trees. so far as we know there are only two trees in that orchard worthy of propagation. of thousands of trees there we have propagated only two varieties. these trees are now too large to top work, but had it been possible years ago to go in there and select the desirable nuts, and topwork all the other trees with these, there could have been a great orchard there now of the highest quality nuts. topworking consists in cutting off the top of some undesirable seedling and replacing it with scions or buds from some desirable variety. it is just the same as any other grafting or budding process. almost any size tree can be topworked but, of course, the larger the tree the more difficult the operation. a young tree, from two to five inches in diameter, can be sawed off four or five feet above the ground and topworked by grafting from two to four scions on it, by the slip bark process. if the tree is larger than five inches in diameter, it is better to go up to the first branches, saw off part of them and proceed just as if each branch were itself a small tree. if the tree is a large tree, with a number of branches or prongs, it is best to work part of them one year and leave the remaining branches to maintain the root system. it would probably kill a large tree to cut the whole top off at one time. i have seen trees, two feet in diameter, successfully topworked. it sometimes happens that the scions placed in the tree, in the spring, for some reason or other, do not grow. the tree then sends up nice green shoots that later in the season can be budded into just as if they were small seedlings. the wild black walnut trees, growing around the fields and hills, can all be very easily topworked to the english walnut by the slip bark method. the scions must be dormant and the tree starting into active growth. the wild hickory, wild pecan and wild black walnut trees, offer the best field for profitable work along this line. we have topworked a great many hickories to pecan, but we do not expect permanent satisfactory results. the experience of the pecan on the hickory is not very satisfactory. the hickory is a dense, hard wood, that has a short growing season, and matures its nuts early; the pecan is of the coarser, faster growing wood, whose nuts grow until late in the fall. this inconsistency of the growing habits of the two trees prevents the pecan top on the hickory from producing normal crops of nuts. the pecan topworked to the pecan, however, is a perfect success and there is no reason why the wild hickories of all descriptions cannot be successfully and profitably topworked to the better varieties of the good shagbark hickories. i believe that there are great opportunities in the state of new york for successful nut culture by utilizing the wild black walnut trees and the hickories. i have seen hundreds of english walnut trees growing around rochester, some of them bearing perfectly wonderful crops of walnuts. i am surprised that the people in this section have not availed themselves more of the opportunities along this line. if the farmers in this section would take up nut growing as a side proposition and set five or ten acres of nut trees on each farm, they would soon find that these nut trees would be producing them more than all the balance of their farms. we hear a great deal today about the back to the farm movement, but my opinion is that for everyone who is going to the farm, ten are leaving it, and the reason for this is that the heavy operating expense of the annual crops, such as corn, wheat and potatoes, etc., lay such a heavy toll on the farmer that farming is not profitable. the requirements of time, labor and money in producing these crops are so great that it discourages many farmers. i have made the statement to some of the farmers in my part of the country that they must produce alfalfa or go broke. i believe that alfalfa and tree crops will be two of the greatest factors in the rehabilitation of the farm, especially the nut trees, for the reason that nut trees do not require the same high degree of care, spraying, pruning, as do apple and peach trees, nor are the products as perishable. a crop of nuts can be harvested and stacked up in barrels, and boxes, in the smoke house, the barn or in a flat car and go to the market tomorrow, next week or next month. recurring to the advantage of topworking, however, it meets the objection that is often raised by those who say they have not time to wait for the nut trees to grow. of course, this is a perfectly foolish statement; they are going to wait anyhow; it is simply a question as to whether they wait for something or nothing, and trees grow into maturity in a surprisingly short time. a few years ago, when i was setting out an orchard of nut trees, a neighbor of mine came over and looked very doubtfully with a trace of pity in his expression and said, "when do you expect all those trees that you are setting to bear?" i replied, "i am not sure, but i do know that they will bear a long time before those trees that you are not setting." topworking, however, gives quick results and enables one to take advantage of the long-established thrifty root systems of the wild black walnuts, hickories and pecans growing in economic spots, around the fences, corners, creeks and hillsides. * * * * * mr. jones: in all our grafting we cut the cleft; we don't split it. the slip bark method is better in some cases. mr. president: what is the size limit for the slip bark method? mr. jones: anything less than two inches we would cut. the president: will mr. jones tell us about budding with cold storage wood? mr. jones: the cold storage buds would take better, but you would have more loss in their failing to grow. in other words, a much larger percentage of buds set with the current season's growth, will grow in the following spring. i would not recommend either method alone. by grafting in the spring and then budding, first with cold storage and later with the season buds, you would have three chances. the president: have you budded any cold storage wood before this year? mr. jones: we have done more or less of it for six or eight years, and it has been successful. anyone with very little experience can use cold storage buds. the president: mr. w. c. reed, have you any additions that we ought to know? mr. w. c. reed: mr. jones' method and views in regard to cold storage buds agree with mine exactly. last year i put in on july th quite a number of english walnut buds that were held in cold storage. in the fall we seemed to have almost perfect stands from these buds, but they are still lying dormant. buds of the season's growth put in about three or four weeks later gave better results, although our success last year was very poor. we seemed to have a fair stand on quite a number of varieties, but this spring they refused to grow. i lay much of this trouble to the extreme cold we had in november. this killed many peach trees that were from six to eight years old, and i think it injured many of the walnut buds. i found the buds that started best were those nearest the ground, where they were protected by a little grass. in regard to the topworking of the english walnut, several of you have seen my trees, the three trees along the highway in a ditch where they catch the wash where they have made / feet growth. i am sorry to report that two of these trees are entirely gone, killed by the cold spell, and the other is about half alive, but i was not in the least discouraged by that loss. in september the rains commenced, following the extreme drouth and started a second growth, and the freeze caught them november d as full of sap then as they were in september, when you were there. other trees that i had topworked had made a moderate growth, and were not injured in the least. they made a good growth this season, and should be quite fruitful next year. the pomeroy trees in the bluegrass pasture had made only a moderate growth, and went through the winter in good shape. i had three trees of the rush, probably twenty-five feet high. they were injured a little, some of the growth killing back a third of the way, and one or two buds were killed entirely. in regard to topworking pecans, i have not done much of this, but our success has been very good with what we have tried. i find them much easier to work, as far as the bud starting in the spring is concerned. some varieties, however, do not start readily. with the major, green river, and one or two other varieties, we can use wood five, six and eight years old, and have it come out all right. i find, however, that the current season's growth, cut from two-year-old trees, well developed, will give you at least double the growth in the nursery the first year that older or dormant wood will. the president: some apple experience of mine is a close match to the killing that mr. reed just reported. the season of was a very dry one. all september it rained frequently and heavily. the trees waked up and grew with such speed that many of them made a sappy growth where they had been manured, and a very cold spell early in the winter killed of them. others across the road were uninjured. mr. w. c. reed: in regard to grafting in the nursery, this spring my experience has been somewhat varied. in grafting we started about april th; the first grafting was almost an utter failure. on may st it improved. on may th we set and have per cent growing today, some higher than my head. set with wood some of which would run three-fourths inches in diameter. lady delegate: my sister has on her place or black walnut seedlings. what would you advise her to do with these? they are in all ages and stages of growth, from one to ten years. mr. littlepage: that is a very broad question to answer. i should topwork them to the persian walnut. i should topwork all of them on the chance that future developments would leave them the proper distance apart. the walnut transplants very easily, except that the larger the tree, the more danger of loss. trees of that size ought to be worked very nicely. assume that this is your tree, and that you have sawed off the top. here is your scion from your desirable tree. it is to be cut on one side only, and there is considerable art in making that cut true. then with the knife split down the bark on the stock a little way and shove the scion down between the wood and bark, the cut side next to the wood of the stock (demonstrating), and cover with waxed cloth. then apply grafting wax to the cut surface, and cover all with a paper bag for two or three weeks. there should not be more than two buds on a scion. don't leave too many. one bud is better than three, but you may leave two buds. this scion must be kept entirely dormant until used. any time after the bark will slip readily is the proper time to graft, and you will then get a high percentage of success. keep your sap circulating to the top by putting two or three scions around the top of the stock. this method of grafting is a very simple operation when you know a few little fundamental facts about it. the kind of wax or cloth is not particularly important. mr. reed and mr. jones and mr. rush have had much experience in this work. mr. parish: in doing this, shall we put in a little air hole? mr. littlepage: no. in from ten days to two weeks tear a little hole in the paper bag. next time be careful, for it may be full of wasps. the purpose of that paper sack is to keep the water off the buds. this is essential. mr. phillips: i had about trees planted in , black walnuts. in i budded them according to the oregon method. i failed to make any of these grow. in i cleft grafted and a great many of these started, but they all failed to live. i wonder wherein i failed. mr. littlepage: no one can tell why a particular scion does not live. i had scions from a very fine hickory and i put them in cold storage. the wood was in perfect condition. i grafted perhaps of these scions as i have described. i have four trees growing out of the grafted. in handling the wood i got fungus on it probably. that may be one reason why it failed. there may be other reasons. if the scions were not dormant that might explain it. mr. w. c. reed: i think it is very important that walnut grafting wood should be cut before severe weather in the winter, though i don't think it ever grows cold enough to hurt pecan wood. you need not worry about pecan wood, but in the case of the walnut it should be cut before extreme cold weather and put in cold storage. i cut some last year after the extreme cold snap in december and we threw it practically all away this spring. it is useless. you are throwing away your time to use it. mr. jones: i don't think we had any wood that was not injured during the cold winter of - . out of about , grafts set we had two grow. question: what do you mean by cold storage? mr. w. c. reed: i have been storing all of our wood in ordinary apple cold storage plants. pack it in damp moss or excelsior. paper line your boxes well, and nail them up, and leave them there until you are ready to use them. i have put wood in in november and taken it out in good shape in august. pecan wood can be held the year round. the president: what can you tell us, mr. white, that has not yet been covered? mr. paul white: about all i would care to say about topworking would be to ask a question. they claim that the pecan topworked on the hickory, only bears for a few years, and then stops. what would be the result in the case of the english and black walnuts? might there not be some danger there? the president: i have made considerable investigation of this. i have found several english walnuts topworked on black walnuts, one done eighty years ago down in maryland. the tree is reported to have borne twenty-five bushels of nuts. i think there is good explanation for the pecan-hickory trouble. a hickory grows for a short time in early summer and does not grow much, but a pecan grows twice as much. therefore the hickory roots cannot feed the pecan top enough to make both vegetation and fruit. we are, in this city, in a very unusual place. not only is it the center of a great wealth of seedling persian walnut trees, but we have in the parks a great tree collection under superintendent laney. this is a very fine and notable collection, including american and foreign trees, some of which we will see this afternoon. adjournment at : p.m. photographs of the convention were then taken on the steps of the city hall. thursday evening session. convened at : p.m., dr. smith presiding. attendance about twenty. a nominating committee was appointed, consisting of messrs. littlepage, c. a. reed, j. f. jones, webber, and teter. at this point was given the address by c. a. reed. an appeal to owners of hardy nut trees c. a. reed, nut culturist, u. s. department of agriculture, washington, d. c. ever since the colonists first established themselves in the western hemisphere, nut trees have been planted up and down the atlantic coast. one of the species oftenest included in such planting was a walnut, a native to persia which, with romanism, had spread across europe and the channel into england. in the old world it had variously been known as jove's nut, under the supposition that it had once been the food of the gods; royal nut, meaning king nut; and by other common names which would be interesting to discuss but which are not pertinent in this connection. in england it had been known merely as the "walnut," but in the new world, in order to distinguish it from the walnut found here, it was called the "english" walnut. in the trade today it is commonly known by the old world name, other walnuts being distinguished from it by prefixing their common names, as eastern, california, mexican or japanese black walnut, etc. however, being a native of persia, it was long ago decided that the correct name of this nut should be "persian" walnut, and not "english" walnut. as such it has now been referred to in scientific publications for well towards a quarter of a century. subsequent to this rather limited and scattered planting on the atlantic coast, by perhaps three hundred years, the persian walnut put in its appearance on the pacific coast. according to bulletin no. by the university of california, it is probable that occasional trees were planted in that state long before the discovery of gold in . following that date, planting became much more general, but usually with hardshell strains and always with seedling trees. from these early trees the crops were never of great importance. in mr. joseph sexton of santa barbara, planted a sack of walnuts bought in the markets of san francisco, which he had reason to believe had been grown in chili. of the resulting trees some were very good, others mediocre, and some worthless. later on, nuts from the best of these trees were planted, and second generation seedlings produced. in this way the famous santa barbara papershell type of walnut was evolved. with it developed an industry which among the tree products of southern california is now second only to that of the orange. in , the census takers found that in the year preceding, the crop of walnuts of southern california, which, by the way, came almost entirely from four counties, was valued at more than that of the total crop of all other nuts grown in the united states put together. four years after mr. sexton of southern california had planted this sack of walnuts from san francisco, mr. felix gillet of nevada city, in northern california, began the introduction of french walnuts both by seed and scions. out of his efforts and those of others who subsequently joined him, developed the walnut industry of northern california, which now bids fair some day to equal that of the lower part of the state. the famous french varieties of franquette and mayette were introduced by mr. gillet, and from seedlings of his growing evolved the concord, the san jose, and no doubt the chase varieties.[ ] a nut which probably has received equally as much, if not more, attention at the hands of experimental planters in this part of the country is the chestnut. just when the introduction of foreign strains began, history seems to have failed to make clear; but according to powell[ ] general dissemination in the delaware section began with introductions by eleuthers irénée du pont de nemours, made at about . it is said that some of the original trees planted at that time near the present site of the du pont powder mills by mr. du pont, still survived when mr. powell recorded their history in . the spread of both european and japanese chestnuts and their general trial throughout the eastern states has been narrated at former meetings of this association. the chestnut blight, discovered on long island in , after it had apparently gained several years' headway, and which now seems fairly certain to have been introduced from japan, has so monopolized the attention of orchardists, foresters, landscape gardeners and others interested in the chestnut that for the time being little is being done with it, other than to study and discuss this disease. what the final outcome will be no one can predict, but it is not improbable that our pathologists will discover some practical means of control, or that a natural enemy to the blight will appear. nor is it unlikely that immune strains of chestnuts, either native or foreign, will replace our present groves and orchards, in case other efforts fail. another nut which has received a large degree of attention at the hands of the planters and upon which hopes have been built from time to time is the hazel, or filbert. here again, history seems to have failed us, for as yet the writer has been able to learn but little regarding the early introductions into this country. in his _nut culturist_, published in , mr. fuller (a. s.) reasoned that at that time plants of the european hazels must have been grown in the gardens of this country for at least a hundred years. writers on pomology make little reference to this nut, but according to mr. fuller, nurserymen's catalogs listed hazel varieties all through the early part of the last century. it was believed that the hazel promised much for the gardener and the general planter who wished for early returns. the species seemed capable of readily adapting itself to cultivation, and being a shrub rather than a tree, it required little space. it could be cultivated along with other garden products at little additional expense for labor. being an early bearer it doubtless appealed strongly to the normal american demand for quick returns. nevertheless, this nut met with its mortal foe in the way of a native fungus which in a great many sections has proved entirely too much for the european species. where once this species was well represented up and down the atlantic coast, few of its representatives are now to be found. some early attention in these eastern states has been paid to the almond, another foreign species. it is supposed that this nut is a native of the mediterranean basin. just when it was first tried on the atlantic coast is not known, but of the nuts thus far mentioned it has proved to be the least promising for the eastern section. sometimes said to be "as hardy as the peach," it has been found to be the most exacting in its requirements of soil and climate of any important nut now grown in this country. except with certain of the hardshell varieties, no almonds are now known to be in any sense successful east of the rocky mountains. according to wickson (e. j.) in his _california fruits_, the almond is known to have been introduced into california previous to . at that time efforts to build up an almond industry on the pacific coast began to assume a somewhat serious air. after a half century of trials and more or less persistent effort by the california planters the culture of this nut has developed into the third most important nut industry in the united states. as for the time being, the growing of persian walnuts centered in southern california, so did the growing of almonds in the sacramento valley of northern california. during the whole of this period of early american nut growing history, little attention in any part of the country was paid to the native nuts. however, in the southeastern part of the united states there existed a large portion of the country to which no choice species of nut trees were either indigenous or had been introduced. necessity, curious interest, and, more probably intelligent purpose, prompted sea captains, plying from west to east gulf coast ports, easterners returning home from visits in the west, westerners visiting in the east, and no doubt nomadic bands of indians, to carry pecans from the mississippi river and beyond, to the coast of mississippi, to alabama and the south atlantic states, where they were planted as seed. for fully a century the species gradually spread over the plains sections of the eastern gulf and south atlantic states. in , according to taylor (william a.) in the yearbook (department of agriculture) of , a louisiana slave succeeded in grafting a number of pecan trees. so far as can now be learned, really intelligent interest in pecan culture began with that date, although history records no further successful propagation of the species until about when william nelson began to propagate this variety in his nursery near new orleans. soon afterwards, c. e. pabst of ocean springs, miss., and e. e. risien of san saba, texas, joined in the pioneer work. the late col. w. r. stuart of ocean springs soon took part by giving publicity to the early varieties. gradually, but steadily, choice varieties developed, were propagated and were disseminated. orchard planting followed, but did not assume great importance until since about . the orchards, therefore, were still too young at the time the last census was taken to have been in bearing to any extent. however, the crop of pecans from the native forests and from single trees left standing in the open space where the forests had been cleared is shown by the census reports to have been the second most valuable of american nut crops in . in quantity, the production of cultivated pecans is still slight in comparison with that of the wild product or with cultivated walnuts and almonds of the pacific coast. just now, however, a great many of the orchards, planted this century, are beginning to bear and not improbably the production of cultivated pecans will soon eclipse that of the forest product, and before long will overhaul the lead now held by the persian walnut. thus, briefly, has been the separate history of the principal nuts of this country. collectively, the history of american nut culture has been as follows: nuts from foreign countries which have been under cultivation for centuries have been more inviting than have the native and undeveloped species, and so have received the major portion of attention in america. then too, human nature has shown itself in the greater interest taken by nut planters in foreign nuts instead of those near at hand. it is in sections remote from their place of origin that many of the leading nuts have attained their greatest degree of perfection. thus, the average pecan of the atlantic coast is distinctly superior to that of the western gulf; the persian walnut scarcely known in persia is best known in france and in southern california. progress has been slow and not concerted. seedling trees have been planted under the firm conviction that they would come true, or because methods of propagation other than by seedage were not understood. the persian walnut orchards of california from which today the bulk of the production is being realized, are of seedling trees. however, the californians have learned their lesson and today are replacing their orchards with budded stock as rapidly as possible. they have found that while the persian walnut, which for centuries has been grown from seed, will reproduce itself fairly true to type, it does not repeat true to variety. every tree, no matter how carefully its parentage may have been guarded, is unlike any other. the seedlings differ in traits of vigor, hardiness, susceptibility to disease, time of beginning to bear, productiveness, and longevity, and the nuts vary in size, form, thickness of shell, ease of cracking, and in kernel characteristics. the people of california have also found that in many ways, persian walnut trees on their own roots are less desirable than are those budded or grafted on the roots of some black walnut. the earliest pecan planters likewise set seedling trees, partly because no others were available, but more largely because of a supposition that such seedlings would come true. later on, planters chose grafted trees of large varieties, irrespective of others' merits or demerits. today, the orchards of both seedling trees and illy-selected varieties are being topworked at great expense of time, labor, and money. in the northern and eastern part of the united states, the situation until very recently has been one of practical standstill. efforts with foreign nuts have resulted in our being but little ahead of the starting point of a couple of centuries ago. the great majority of the persian walnut, chestnut, and hazel trees which have been tried have failed us; some have even brought fatal or near-fatal diseases to us. at first thought, we would feel compelled to abandon all further efforts with the foreign nuts; but not all that have been tried are guilty of offence or failure. here and there, from new england to michigan and from maryland to missouri, we are finding occasional nut trees either in groups or standing singly, which because of their age, vigor, productiveness, and quantity and quality of nuts, appear to be fit foundation stock for the varieties so much needed in this part of the country. a number of such are being propagated by the nurserymen and, as the members here present know, are being disseminated. the present great need is for knowledge regarding the location of other such trees, not only of the foreign species, but of the natives as well. the northern nut growers' association and the federal department of agriculture at washington together are seeking to find persian, japanese, or black walnut, asiatic, european or american chestnut, european or american hazel, and native butternut, hickory, pecan, chinquapin and beech trees of more than ordinary merit. upon the locating of, and the propagation from such trees, as new varieties, apparently depends the future of nut growing east of the mississippi and north of the ohio and potomac rivers. the appeal therefore is made to the owners of hardy nut trees that they drop a postal to the department of agriculture at washington, d. c., stating that they desire a mailing box and frank for sending in a few specimens of the nuts which they believe to be of more than average merit. the only expense necessary to incur will be in the price of the card, and in the trouble of collecting and packing the nuts. before mailing, the package should be plainly marked with the name and address of the sender, and a note should be inclosed giving information regarding the location, ownership, bearing habits, etc., of the tree from which the nuts were obtained. if more convenient, the nuts may be sent to this association, which in any case will be apprised by the department of all new varieties of apparent merit which may be brought to light. however, no one should anticipate a great fortune as the result of any nut tree of which he may find himself the owner. it is not possible for a variety to be of especial value, no matter how promising the parent tree may appear to be, until it has established proof of its adaptability and merit in other sections remote from that of its origin. except in rare cases it has been only after a variety of any kind of fruit has become well known by many who have tested it and spoken for it that it has become popular or in great demand. therefore, all there will be "in it" for you, if you chance to be the owner of a nut tree of merit will be the thanks of this association and posterity and the probability of having the variety named in your honor. * * * * * mr. littlepage: i should like to drop a word about the _american nut journal_ published here at rochester, n. y. i would like to ask all the members of the association to make as much effort as they possibly can to get new subscribers to the _journal_. i don't own any stock in it, but i am talking purely in the interests of nut culture. without a magazine nine tenths of our work would be entirely useless because it would be lost to the public. one of the duties of the members should be the support of the organ which puts forth the information for which this organization stands. the president: methods of propagating pecans, hickories and walnuts have been discovered and used, at times, for a century. i know of a man who grafted them twenty years ago in new jersey, but he left no records of his methods. the _journal_ helps us to keep these records. this association has a great variety of contributors. we have with us men who work on the exceedingly practical end of propagation. w. c. reed is a combination of the student and the propagator. history, dimensions and crop records of parent northern pecan trees, and notes on the observation of propagated trees w. c. reed, vincennes, indiana _varieties_ in considering varieties of the northern pecan, there are many points to be estimated, such as size, thinness of shell, cracking quality, quality of kernel, growth of trees in nursery and bearing records. the latter is perhaps most important. what we want are trees that will give us a fair crop annually; next would be the cracking qualities. if they crack easily and come out of the shell with a large percentage of whole meats the size does not make so much difference, for ultimately the value of a variety will be gauged largely by the number of pounds of whole meats a bushel, or a given number of pounds, will produce. i would therefore place prolific bearing and cracking qualities as the two most important points to be considered in selecting a variety worthy of planting. _crop records_ in considering crop records of the different northern varieties; we have no grafted or budded trees old enough as yet from which to make comparisons, and in considering the crops of the original trees it is well to keep in mind that many of these trees are located in the native forest without cultivation, without proper sunlight and with a poor chance for the full development of the tree; also it is well to remember that scarcely two trees have the same surroundings and conditions, and that it is not often that the owner is able to secure the entire crop from any one tree, being located in the forest where a large part of the crop is carried off by others. with these conditions it is often impossible to tell what a certain tree may yield, except by comparison with former crops. in giving you these yields i am giving my own knowledge so far as i can, and then information and estimates from the most reliable sources at my command. _indiana_ this variety is perhaps the best known (owing largely to its name), and has not failed to produce at least a partial crop annually for the past fifteen years. since it has been under close observation, which has been about seven to eight years, it has usually borne from to pounds. often a large part of the crop has been stolen. crop about pounds; , pounds; , i am confident would have been pounds. the owner secured pounds; balance carried off by others. this year, , is almost a failure; just a light sprinkling of nuts; was full of blooms but owing to heavy cold rain, failed to pollenize. the tree is located in a cultivated field, circumference of tree is feet, height about feet, spread to feet. _busseron_ this is almost identical with indiana, and the owner tells me has borne as many as seven bushels to twelve bushels at a single crop. the tree being very tall, the entire top was cut out of it a few years ago and it is just now commencing to bear again. the lower limbs, however, of older wood that were left, have borne annual crops. in the nursery this variety has shown a tendency to very early bearing; most one year trees, spring , set full of catkins, and one tree produced well-developed nuts. these, however, dropped during the extreme drouth of august. the past spring most busseron trees in the nursery again set full of catkins and at the present time we have one tree, coming two years old from bud, bearing one nut that is full grown and looks as though it would mature during the next thirty days. several other varieties have set full of catkins in the nursery row but have not developed any pistillate blossoms. the busseron has furnished much propagating wood and at the present time there are, perhaps, more trees growing in the nurseries of this than of any other northern variety. crop of promises to be fairly good. _niblack_ crop of , pounds; crop , about pounds; crop , pounds; crop , i would estimate at pounds. this tree is very deceiving; the top is rather open and the nuts are usually scattered all through. the crop of was not considered heavy until after it was gathered. the past spring this tree bloomed very full, but owing to wet, cold weather when in full bloom did not set well. size of tree to inches in diameter; to feet high with feet spread, and is located in a cultivated field. _posey_ crop of was pounds saved; this tree is about the same size as the niblack, located in the edge of a cornfield near heavy timber, being far from any house. a large part of the crop is often stolen; the crops of and were not so heavy, perhaps to pounds. it usually bears a fair crop, however, but i do not consider it a heavy cropper like the indiana or niblack. its large size and splendid cracking qualities, however, will make it a popular variety and it may prove to bear much better on budded trees under cultivation. _butterick_ this giant tree stands out in the open field, measures feet in circumference, feet spread and perhaps feet high, and usually bears from to bushels. the owner tells me he has owned this tree for forty-four years and that it has not missed more than two or three crops during that time and that the former owner told him he owned the tree for fifty years and that it was a good sized tree when he bought the farm and bearing regular crops. _major_ crop , pounds saved, and from what information i can get this tree usually bears pounds or more; tree about feet in diameter, feet high and feet to first limb. owing to its height and size it is very hard to get much of an estimate in regard to the crop it may carry until after it is gathered. being located in the dense forest a large part of the crop is often carried off. _greenriver_ tree is located in the same grove with the major, is about feet in diameter, feet to first limb, crop reported pounds and has not missed a crop in twelve years. have had no report for . _kentucky_ crop , / bushels; since that has borne good crops, but do not know the exact amount, but fair crop this year. the owner says it has only missed two crops in twenty years. _warrick_ this tree bears very regularly, but owing to the fact that it has been cut so severely for propagating wood has not made any heavy yields the past few years. the old wood has heavy crop this season. this practically covers the named list of varieties for the indiana pecan belt. i might say, however, that most of the native trees are bearing a very good crop of pecans this season in our country. _observations on propagated trees_ the busseron has shown a stronger tendency to early bearing than any other variety. the major and greenriver seem to be the best growers in the nursery, with very heavy foliage. the posey makes a very stocky tree but seems to be one of the most difficult to propagate. _southern varieties_ the summer of we had the stuart, delmas and schley. the first killing frost was a severe cold snap; mercury dropped to above zero, november d. foliage on these perfectly green as well as the nuts. the stuart seemed to have about matured fruit although foliage was green. husk on nuts had burst open ready to drop. the fruit which looked to be ripe, however, when cracked, the kernel looked plump, but when cut open was found pithy and more like a piece of cork. stuart tree bearing this season nuts at present, september st, only half grown, while busseron alongside in nursery row is full size. the northern varieties usually mature ready to gather october st; the indianas in the jar on the table were gathered september th last year. _high land versus low land. pecans in high land_ there have been a number of articles written by men well posted claiming that the pecan will not bear or thrive except on the cultivated bottom lands of our valleys and streams. the writer wishes to disprove this erroneous idea. it is not borne out by facts. on the farm of w. j. coan of bruceville, knox county, ind., there are a number of pecans planted from ten to fifteen years ago. part of these trees are on bottom land and part on high land. this high land is heavy clay underlaid with considerable hardpan. the writer visited these trees two weeks ago and has photographs showing four trees in a group that were planted fifteen years ago that have borne for the past six years, each crop getting better. at the present time i would judge they are bearing at least one bushel to the tree. a single tree in the barnyard has not made the growth owing to the compact soil around it. however, it has borne quite heavily, commenced bearing at nine years of age from seed. the trees on the bottom land are not as large and have not borne half as many nuts as the ones planted on high land. this is mr. coan's report and he says that were he planting again he would plant entirely on high ground. the trees shown in these photographs are located on perhaps the highest elevation in knox county, ind. there are a number of other trees near the writer's home planted on high land feet above the river, back from three to six miles, that are large trees, measuring to inches in diameter and bearing regular crops. heavy clay land seems to push a stronger and more vigorous growth than does the more loamy, darker soil. i submit here a number of photographs taken august of pecan trees in the nursery row, budded one year ago, showing a growth of from to feet, many of them to feet and some feet high and still growing rapidly. these were budded on four-year-old pecans. _propagation_ we have tried all known methods of propagating the pecan with varied results; one of the methods you do not want to try is the edwards method. while it may be a success in texas, where it originated, it is a miserable failure in the north. grafting above ground is done after the sap is well up, and gives fair results. however, best results have been obtained by the patch bud method on seedlings three to four years old. good strong seedlings, well-ripened buds cut from the scion orchard or from trees two years old in the nursery have given best results--in some cases, as high as per cent stand the past season. * * * * * mr. jones: mr. rush had a stuart bearing last year in south-eastern pennsylvania. the nuts were not very large but they matured fairly well. i am more encouraged than ever that the indiana variety will be safe for use in pennsylvania. mr. reed: i think that if the stuart bloomed as early as the others it would be all right, but it is about two weeks later. mr. littlepage: i don't believe in the stuart very much: i have better pecans myself, hardy in the north. the president: i wish to corroborate mr. reed's point about the success of the pecan on high land. one man is, i believe, responsible for that widely circulated statement that the pecan will grow only on alluvial land. i have travelled a thousand miles in investigating that fact, and found it a fallacy. some of the biggest pecan trees i have ever seen were growing at feet elevation down in georgia. this was on clay hills. i have seen the same thing in raleigh. that alluvial soil business is a hoax. this ends the intellectual side of our program. business meeting. meeting adjourned _sine die_ at p. m. walnut observations in california[ ] l. d. batchelor, university of california, citrus experiment station, riverside, california. the walnut industry of california is just entering a transition period from the planting of seedling groves to the established plantings of grafted trees. just as other seedling fruit trees, such as the orange, apple, peach, almond, etc., have been eliminated, so too, the seedling walnut groves of california seem doomed to be replaced by clonal varieties. in many ways this industry is as much in its infancy as the apple industry of new york was sixty-five years ago, when varieties first began to be propagated in a commercial way by grafting and budding. this readjustment in the walnut industry is well started, and, although it is likely to be gradual in its evolution, and wisely so, the change seems nevertheless certain. there are but a very few seedling trees for sale at the present time by the progressive nurseries, and, in fact, only a very few such trees have been set out in groves during the past four or five years. the demand for grafted trees has been brought about largely by the wide range of variation in walnut seedlings as regards their productivity, commercial value of the nuts, season of harvest and ability of the trees to resist the walnut blight. in view of the very recent propagation of the walnut by grafting, which has extended over only about ten to twelve years, it is reasonable to expect that the majority of the varieties thus propagated so early in the development of the industry are only partially suited to the needs of the walnut grower. the nuts from many of these grafted varieties fall considerably short of the commercial standard for high-grade walnuts. some of the heaviest-bearing sorts, such as the chase, prolific and el monte, produce nuts that cannot be sold in the very best grade of the commercial product. on the other hand, the placentia, which produces one of the most nearly ideal commercial nuts, is not a heavy-producing variety, especially in the northern walnut sections, and is quite as susceptible to walnut blight as the average seedling tree. again, the eureka variety, which seems to successfully avoid the walnut blight during many seasons by its lateness in coming into bloom, is a very moderately yielding variety in the southern sections. the above examples are only a few of many that might be cited to show the short-comings of most of the varieties of walnuts now being propagated. the wide range of climatic and soil conditions makes the eventual propagation of quite a large number of varieties inevitable. while the coast regions are bathed in fog nearly every morning during the growing season, the inland valleys experience an extremely dry climate with high maximum temperatures. walnuts are being grown at the present time on soil types varying from the extremes of sand to heavy clay loams. many of the future varieties must be especially adapted to some one of these particular environments if they are to stand the test of time. many of the present seedling groves are of uncertain origin and represent greatly varying values. no doubt some of these groves are the progeny of especially selected trees known to have considerable merit. on the other hand, it is very apparent that many of them are the result of a great demand for seedling trees when the industry was in its infancy twenty or thirty years ago. at that time without doubt, great quantities of walnuts were planted without due regard for their parentage. again, there is a wide range of variability among the individual trees of any grove, as variations in type of tree, blooming season, character of foliage, resistance to disease, productivity and character of the nuts. _type of tree_ the tree types vary from the upright, sturdy individual to the more or less spreading, weeping types which droop nearly to the ground under the burden of the crop. the upright, vigorous growing type is well exemplified in the eureka. on the other hand, such varieties as the prolific have a spreading, bushy habit and an almost semi-dwarfness characterizes their growth. _blooming season_ it is not unusual to find the blooming season in an ordinary seedling grove extending over a period of from a month to six weeks. a few individual trees leaf out and blossom with the first signs of spring. then the great majority of the trees in the grove come out in full leaf. but there are frequently trees still leafless after the nuts on the early individuals are of the size of a marble. this variation in the blooming season has considerable economic importance in relation to the harvesting and marketing of the nuts as well as the avoidance of diseases and frost which may be more prevalent during certain periods in the spring. _foliage characteristics_ the character of the foliage varies from the broad-leaved types, whose foliage somewhat resembles that of the horse-chestnut, to the narrow-leaved varieties whose leaves have a tendency to curl up like the foliage of the winesap apple. the broad-leaved types are much more densely foliated and this factor has considerable bearing on the problems of sun-scald on the twigs and trunks of the tree and the exposure of the nuts to this injury. for this reason, the densely foliated varieties may prove best adapted to the inland valleys, where the difficulties of sun-scald are most prevalent. the more sparsely foliated types often appear to have less blight on the nuts and leaves because of their exposure to the sunshine. _disease resistance_ probably one of the most important limiting factors in walnut production in california, and especially in the older walnut sections, is the bacterial disease commonly known as walnut blight. the inroads of this disease have caused a very heavy dropping of the nuts during many seasons of the past, and although a great deal of time and scientific effort has been devoted to the control of the trouble, there is no satisfactory known means for the prevention of walnut blight at the present time. it is a well-known fact that in the vegetable kingdom closely related species suffer in different degrees from the attacks of the same parasite. this difference in resistance is often as marked among different varieties of the same species as between the species themselves. the absence of blight is not necessarily an indication of immunity. there is a great deal of difference in the amount of blight prevalent at the present season in the different walnut growing sections. again, the immunity from blight of a particular tree for one season may be followed by more or less prevalency of blight on the same tree the next season. the degree of resistance must be tested out through a number of years before any variety can be pronounced resistant to this disease. the observations must also be carried out in different localities as certain varieties seem to behave differently on different soils and when growing under different climatic conditions. some varieties seem to avoid the blight the majority of the seasons but really have little or no resistant qualities when the seasonal conditions and the growth of the plant happen to coincide with the most favorable time for the spread of the disease. an example of this is seen in the eureka variety the present season. while this variety has maintained a reputation during a majority of seasons for freedom from blight, during the present year the eureka is badly diseased in certain sections of orange county. this may, perhaps, be explained by the prevalence of damp, cloudy weather for about a week or ten days during the first of may when this variety was in full bloom. in one grove under observation the trees were thought to have lost at least per cent of their blossoms soon after blooming. at the present time on these same trees, per cent of the nuts are afflicted with more or less blight. to be sure, some of these will likely mature, but the appearance of blight on nearly one third of the crop shows that this variety has very little resistant power against walnut blight. its freedom from disease in the past has no doubt been due largely to its dormancy during the most favorable weather conditions for the spread of blight. the field for the selection of blight resistant varieties must necessarily be in the badly blighted sections. a tree with only per cent blighted nuts in an orchard having an average of per cent to per cent may really be more resistant to blight than a variety which appears to be positively free from the disease when growing among trees which are only per cent to per cent blighted. in making observations and selections, therefore, it is quite as important to know the amount of blight on the surrounding trees and the grove, as a whole, as it is to know the prevalence of blight on the selected individual. the extreme variation of different seedling trees in their susceptibility to this disease is well illustrated in some of the following observations which were made the present year. the percentages which follow the varieties named were determined by counting at least nuts on a tree just before the blighted nuts began to drop. in a seedling grove in the whittier district about trees were examined and nuts counted on each tree. the individual trees varied from per cent to per cent blighted nuts, while the grove as a whole averaged per cent. there were at least a dozen or fifteen trees in this grove which were blighted less than per cent, although some of the nearby trees were blighted as high as per cent or per cent. another seedling grove in orange county which was counted in the same way, averaged per cent blighted nuts during the second week in june. in making this determination trees were examined. in this same grove, there were, however, at least three trees which averaged less than per cent blighted nuts. it is interesting to know that the placentia variety, growing within a stone's throw of the aforementioned seedling grove and under identical cultural conditions, was blighted to the extent of . per cent on the same date. observations of the prolific (ware's) in the vicinity of the above mentioned grove, showed less than per cent blighted nuts on the trees and practically none of the nuts have dropped to the ground at the present time, yet in the past this variety has not had a reputation for disease immunity. the original chase tree was observed during this time and showed a percentage of per cent blighted nuts. these examples are given neither in support of any particular variety nor to discredit others, but are noted merely to call attention to the wide variation, and this variation is a great source of encouragement in our endeavors to produce a disease resistant variety. of course blight immunity is not the only factor to be considered in selecting a variety of walnut. a profitable yield of good commercial nuts is the real test of the superiority of any variety. a very heavy yielding tree with a small amount of blight may prove more profitable than a light yielding variety that is totally immune to this disease. the production of a medium grade nut which would grade only as a seedling no , might prove more profitable if the tree is at least partially blight immune than the production of such a high grade nut as the placentia with its susceptibility to blight. these things must be considered and weighed carefully by the growers who are planting walnuts in the blight sections. the various areas where walnut blight is not a factor might profitably sacrifice heavy production to superior quality. from our present knowledge it is very apparent that the disease resistance of individual trees varies considerably from year to year and under different soil and climatic conditions. the thorough testing of resistant varieties will require considerable time. _nut characteristics_ the character of the nuts is as variable as the trees themselves, not only in the exterior appearance, but in the character of the meats as well. the ideal commercial nut should be of medium size, about one and one-eighth to one and one-half inches in diameter, of regular oval form somewhat elongated, with smooth surface, and light brown color, and uniform for these characters. the cracking quality of the nuts is quite as important as their exterior appearance. the nuts should be well sealed so they will not crack open in shipping. the shells should be thin but strong, so the nut may be easily opened and the whole meat taken out intact. the pellicle surrounding the kernel should be light tan colored or silvery brown with a glossy waxed appearance attractive to look upon. the meat should be smooth, and plump, averaging per cent or more of the total weight of the nut, and with a mild, pleasant flavor, free from any astringency. the shells vary all the way from extremely rough and unattractive specimens to the smooth commercial type, as the placentia, while the color of the meats varies from dark brown to nearly white, and so on through the other characteristics mentioned. in the selection of varieties the walnut breeder is exceptionally favored by the occurrence of large areas of seedling trees. according to the census there were in the neighborhood of one and a quarter million seedling trees growing in california. with this almost unlimited material for selective use, it seems indeed reasonable that many varieties will be selected in the future which are better adapted to the demands of the industry than some of those now being propagated. by means of hybridizing methods it is also hoped that some of the desirable unit characters of the varieties now in cultivation may be recombined into more nearly ideal varieties for future generations. the fact that walnut breeding is necessarily a long-termed, expensive problem has made it rather unattractive to the practical breeders. such work will depend largely upon public or specially endowed institutions for its support. pruning the persian walnut j. g. rush, west willow, pa. pruning is as old as horticulture itself, but the persian walnut has escaped this treatment thus far. practical experience, however, in growing these trees for fruiting, shows the great importance of systematic pruning. it is a common occurrence to see a young tree with straggling and irregular growths. very frequently we see that growth takes place on part of the tree only, leaving the other part undeveloped, which would throw the tree very much out of balance in course of time. pruning should begin early in the life of the young tree and as soon as it leaves the nursery the pruning shears should be in evidence. there are two important objects in view in proper and systematic pruning. first is form, with a well balanced head. second, to increase productiveness by having more lateral branches properly distributed all over the tree. as a matter of course productiveness will follow. it is a singular fact that a misfortune can sometimes develop into a blessing. last year, , was an unfortunate one in that an early and late drouth caused poor bud development, and, of course, they were not in a condition to withstand our usual winter weather. in the spring of , as soon as bud development took place, i commenced to prune. i cut off all weak branches to a strong bud and sometimes went over the trees a second time in order to insure that the work should be well done. these trees referred to are mostly three years old and at that age the pruning should be done very systematically. it is a mistake to have a tree three or four years old in bearing. you will have branches from to feet long without any laterals, quite differently from other fruits, as the apple, peach, pear, etc. if these long branches are allowed to remain you will find that the terminal buds will develop nuts and weigh down the branch. but with proper management the life and productiveness of the tree can be improved by pruning. a branch or feet long should be cut back one half. of course great care must be taken where the cut is made, for the future welfare of the tree. i have a very fine five-year-old hall variety on my side lawn that shows the neglect of proper pruning at the right time. the branches are entirely too long and drooping. in order to overcome this defect i will have to cut back to two-year-old wood and force the dormant buds for the future tree. there is another great advantage in the proper method of pruning the young persian, that is, that the finest kind of bud wood becomes available. you will please remember that in pruning the walnut we are not pruning for color as with other fruits. the tree should be as round headed as a norway maple, and if some of the limbs should show indications of weakness by crowding then cut them out for the benefit of others close by. report on nut growing in canada g. h. corsan, toronto not being able to meet with you this september, as i have to go down to the state of mississippi, i send this paper to your president whose paper on the garden of eden we all read in the _country gentlemen_ of july , and so much admired. progress has not been made on my place sufficient to warrant my inviting you to toronto next convention, but i will say that the year after next i will certainly have something worth seeing. but dr. j. h. kellogg of battle creek, mich., extends an invitation to you to hold the next convention at the battle creek sanitarium where nuts and nut preparations are used exclusively in the place of meat and fish and fowl. here at battle creek on dr. kellogg's private grounds and on the sanitarium grounds may be seen colonel sober's paragon chestnuts, mr. pomeroy's english walnuts and mr. reed's grafted pecans, as well as some grafted persimmons of named varieties. in my statement in the _american nut journal_ last may or june i mentioned that all the grafted persimmons sent from washington were winter-killed. i find on returning in august that the early golden is very much alive. twelve other varieties have been planted to see what this winter will do to them. the persimmon is exceedingly interesting to us northern nut growers because where it will succeed the pecan will also, without a doubt. now i also find that my statement in the same paper that the grafted pecans sent by mr. reed were winter-killed was an error, as only certain trees failed to grow above the graft. those that are growing are the major, busseron and indiana, the busseron showing most decidedly better than the indiana, both here and at toronto. all pecans lived, both here and at toronto, if i include those that sprung up below the graft. out of thirteen varieties that i experimented with at toronto, major, posey and niblack were the only ones that lived well above the graft and showed no winter-killing. others were more or less winter-killed. kentucky, mantura, appomattox, luce and greenriver showed no desire to live in the north. mr. pomeroy's english walnuts showed a most distinct dislike for toronto, but all forty-eight are doing well here and are being cared for. colonel sober's paragon chestnuts showed the most determined attempt to not grow the paragon part of the tree, and an equally determined mind to grow good and strong below the paragon part--may this part yield good trees! i have three or four paragons left out of trees. pecans grew as many as four feet both here and at toronto this summer. of the new trees sent from washington two specimens of castanea crenata (from the north island of japan), six specimens of castanea mollissima (almost blight proof, from north china) all are thriving. juglans regia sinensis lived to the tip through the winter and budded out strong from the top, as did j. cordiformis--may it always be so. _re_ dr. deming's question as to the farthermost northern pecans i said charles city, iowa. now these forty trees were planted twenty years ago and are all alive and yield crops, but the nuts are small as they are seedlings. write mr. charles d. patten _re_ how his trees are doing and their history. he has been asking mr. reed for scions of better trees. i have five types of soil to grow my trees in, stiff clay, rich gravel, quicksand and humus, light sand and silt or bottom land, well drained. i have no sour, undrained spot on my fifteen acres. appendix present at the sixth annual meeting of the northern nut growers association henry t. brown, rochester mrs. mclean, rochester rev. a. c. crapsey, rochester prof. fairchild, university rochester chas. e. bunnell, rochester s. w. taylor, stamford, conn. herbert e. ingram, th ave., new york dr. j. w. jackson, dansville, n. y. martha rush, new providence, lancaster co., pa. edna mylin, willow st., pa. paul white, boonville, ind. j. g. rush, west willow, pa. j. f. jones, lancaster, pa. john s. parish, eastham, va. thos. p. littlepage, washington, d. c. dr. and mrs. wm. c. deming, georgetown, conn. ralph t. olcott, rochester dr. robt. t. morris, new york city dean baker, syracuse, n. y. e. r. angst, wilmington, del. h. l. grubbs, fairview, pa. m. e. wile, rochester harry r. weber, cincinnati, ohio frank a. bailey, rochester e. e. streeter, rochester c. k. sober, lewisburg, pa. w. c. reed, vincennes, ind. m. p. reed, vincennes, ind. dr. j. russell smith, swarthmore, pa. mr. and mrs. c. a. reed, washington, d. c. carl j. poll, danville, ill. walter c. teter, new york city jas. s. mcglennon, rochester conrad vollertsen, rochester h. l. reynolds, canandaigua, n. y. prof. and mrs. f. n. fagan, state college, pa. jas. rissew, macedon, n. y. j. c. south, rochester r. l. fitzgerald, rochester h. m. brown, fairport, n. y. nellie doty butts, barnards, n. y. h. goodall, spencerport, n. y. john rick, reading, pa. w. a. h. reider, reading, pa. adelbert thompson, east avon, n.y. mr. and mrs. a. c. pomeroy, lockport, n. y. daniel pomeroy, lockport, n. y. howard pomeroy, lockport, n. y. c. c. laney, rochester, n. y. john dunbar, rochester, n. y. e. b. holden, hilton, n. y. mr. and mrs. b. s. abrams, charlotte, n. y. henry hohener, rochester, n.y. dr. charles forbes, brick church institute, rochester, n. y. program for automobile trips september st and d, the program below is intended as a guide only. it may be necessary on account of conditions to vary this. it is therefore highly important that all automobiles follow one another along the lines later designated in this sheet. on the afternoons of september st and d, we propose to drive in automobiles to the various trees of interest in the immediate neighborhood of rochester. the limit of the trip on september st will be hilton, n. y. the present plan is to visit the trees in the following order: -- saratoga avenue, persian walnut seedling; --kramer, emerson street and lake avenue, persian walnut (this is the parent tree of the thompson grove seedlings at east avon, n. y.); --riverside cemetery, hybrid hickory laneyii (tree named after mr. calvin c. laney, superintendent of parks, rochester, n. y., by dr. sargeant of the arnold arboretum); --westgate farm, stone road, persian walnut seedlings and filberts (nuts for the seedling trees and filbert bushes imported from england); --w. h. anderson and wm. twitchill, ridge road, seedling walnut (of these one tree years old); --hilton, n. y., holden trees, from which the holden walnuts originated; --mcglennon nursery, denise road, filbert plantings, two years old; --clifford avenue, between st. paul street and clinton avenue north, seedling walnuts; --spiegel park, seedling walnuts; --culver road and parsells avenue, hybrid walnut and butternuts. (end of trip september st, ) _september d, _ --gregory street, mcglennon nursery, filberts; --highland park, hazel; --west brighton, mrs. w. j. miller, seedling walnuts; --golah, n. y., king nut hickory; --seedling walnut grove, adelbert thompson, east avon, n. y. all automobiles intended to convey members of the association will have a sign "northern nut growers association." all cars will follow a pilot car, which will be plainly marked. there will be one relief car, which will be plainly marked, and will carry no passengers except in emergency. in the event of any break-down in an automobile, the emergency car will immediately pick up the passengers of the one delayed, and transfer its sign to the delayed car. the delayed car, after repairs, will act as a relief car in its place. the start of both trips will be made from powers hotel at : p. m. all members are requested to be on hand promptly, as the several stops will consume considerable time. unless delay in starting is provided against, the trip may be prolonged beyond a comfortable limit. _local committee_ ralph t. olcott supt. c. c. laney, park dept. asst. supt. john dunbar, park dept. m. e. wile mrs. w. d. ellwanger james s. mcglennon w. robert bruce john hall, secy. w.n.y. hort. soc. exhibits corylus cornuta beaked hazel branch dr. r. t. morris corylus avellana european hazel stem showing blight dr. r. t. morris corylus colurna byzantine hazel branch dr. r. t. morris corylus avellana purple variety branch dr. r. t. morris corylus pontica pontine hazel branch dr. r. t. morris corylus avellana var. barcelona branch j. g. rush corylus americana var. rush branch j. g. rush long hazel joseph risseu walworth, n.y. round hazel joseph risseu, walworth, n.y. hicoria ovata var. taylor nuts dr. r. t. morris hicoria ovata var. lefevre nuts j. g. rush hicoria ovata plate nuts miss ruth n. reeves newark, n.y. juglans regia var. alpine miss ruth n. reeves, newark, n.y. juglans regia var. nebo miss ruth n. reeves, newark, n.y. rush miss ruth n. reeves, newark, n.y. hall miss ruth n. reeves, newark. n.y. juglans hybrid supposed j. regia miss ruth n. reeves, x cinerea newark, n.y. juglans regia var. holden spec. e. b. holden, hilton, n.y. juglans cathayensis foliage park board, rochester juglans rupestris clusters, nuts park board, each and foliage rochester juglans sieboldiana cluster nuts and park board, foliage rochester pteryocarya stenoptera false walnut foliage park board, rochester castanea sativa var. paragon branch with one very j. s. parish, large bur eastham, va. castanea pumila common chinquapin branch with cluster of nuts dr. r. t. morris castanea pumila southwestern branch with nuts chinquapin dr. r. t. morris panel with general collection of pecans, hickory nuts and walnuts, w. c. reed, vincennes, ind. juglans nigra var. rush nuts j. g. rush juglans regia branch mrs. b. s. abrams, latta farm, charlotte, n.y. resolutions passed by the northern nut growers association in session at rochester, n. y., september and , no chestnut stock should go out unless it is thoroughly sterilized by some satisfactory method and tagged by proper authority to show that fact. states that are still clear of the blight are advised that effective quarantine is desirable to delay, for a time at least, the spread of the blight. four infestations of chestnut blight have been found in indiana in july and august, . this fact, and the continued spread of this fatal fungus, are some of the reasons for this recommendation. * * * * * nut trees may and do sometimes come fairly true to type but they do not come true to variety. consequently our association does not approve of the sale of seedling trees under variety names; and this association further recommends to all journals that they take no advertisements for nut trees if such trees are not sold under conditions that clearly comply with the provisions of this resolution. bibliography of the year. the chestnut bark disease on freshly fallen nuts. j. franklin collins. reprinted from _phytopathology_, vol. v, no. , august, . with one figure in the text. melaxuma of the walnut, "juglans regia." (a preliminary report.) howard s. fawcett. bulletin no. , agricultural experiment station, berkeley, california, november, . the pecan business. from planting the nuts to gathering the nuts. catalogue of b. w. stone, nurseryman, thomasville, georgia, containing cuts and information about pecan growing in the south. proceedings of the fourteenth annual convention of the national nut growers association, held at albany, georgia, october - , . report of the proceedings at the sixth annual meeting of the northern nut growers association at rochester, new york, september and , . (in press.) walnut aphides in california. w. m. davidson. (professional paper.) bulletin of the united states department of agriculture no. , august , . the possibilities of nut growing in the east. w. c. deming. _women's national agricultural and horticultural association quarterly_, august, . the _walnut book and horticultural digest_, a monthly publication devoted to the production, distribution and consumption of the walnut. vol. i, no. , november, . the walnut book publishing co., orenco, oregon. one dollar a year. official organ of the western walnut association. nut trees for the country's waste places. gilbert e. bailey, ph.d. university of southern california. _american fruits_, july, , p. . the inside of a graft. f. a. waugh, _the country gentleman_, february , , p. . progress of nut culture in the east. possibilities of a coming industry. w. c. deming. _the rural new-yorker_, march , , p. . illustrations of methods of budding and grafting nut trees. air and wind dissemination of ascospores of the chestnut-blight fungus. f. d. heald, m. w. gardner, and r. a. studhalter. reprint from _journal of agricultural research_, department of agriculture, washington, d. c., march , . vol. iii, no. . grafting and budding the walnut. e. r. lake. weekly news letter to crop correspondents, united states department of agriculture, washington, d. c., april , . vol. ii, no. . numerous cuts. neglected northern pecans. dr. j. russell smith, university of pennsylvania. _country gentleman_, january , . riehl fun for nuts. dr. j. russell smith, university of pennsylvania. _country gentleman_, october , . a georgia tree farmer. dr. j. russell smith, university of pennsylvania. _country gentleman_, december , . shade trees that bear nuts. dr. j. russell smith, university of pennsylvania. _country gentleman_, january , . grafting nut trees. dr. j. russell smith, university of pennsylvania. _country gentleman_, january , . * * * * * footnotes [ ] bulletin no. by prof. ralph e. smith of the university of california, is authority for this history of walnut introduction into that state. [ ] g. harold powell, bull. xlii, delaware agricultural experiment station, . [ ] paper no. , citrus experiment station, college of agriculture, university of california, riverside, california. * * * * * ~"no, we would not think of planting a tree without using dynamite."--~ extract from a letter received from edwards & patterson, milledgeville, ga., who are amongst georgia's best known pecan growers. [illustration: pecan nut] edwards & patterson's pecans, actual size, sent to us as fair average samples of nuts grown on unblasted and blasted trees. the pecan at the top was grown on a tree in unblasted soil,--at the bottom is the pecan grown where the soil was blasted. [illustration: pecan nut] blasting with red cross explosives shatters the compact soil, extends the feeding area of roots and increases the water-holding capacity of the ground. tree-planting in blasted ground is "life insurance" for all kinds of fruit and nut trees. plant your pecans in blasted ground, and stop first-year losses. write for handbook of explosives telling about tree-planting and other ways of using red cross explosives. e. i. du pont de nemours & co. wilmington, del. * * * * * vincennes nurseries propagators of _the pecan_ _the persian walnut_ _the hickory_ _the chestnut_ _the almond_ _the hazelnut_ _and the persimmon_ send for our special nut catalogue we offer also a general line of nursery stock w. c. reed, _proprietor_ vincennes indiana * * * * * plant my hardy pennsylvania grown, budded and grafted english walnut and pecan trees if you want to start right * * * * * you can't afford to experiment with trees of doubtful hardiness, neither do you want seedlings or inferior varieties _my - catalogue is yours for the asking_ * * * * * address j. f. jones, the nut tree specialist lancaster pennsylvania * * * * * chester valley nurseries established choice fruit and ornamental trees, cherry trees on mazzard roots, hardy evergreens, flowering shrubs, hedge plants, etc. originators of the thomas black walnut jos. w. thomas & sons, king of prussia p. o., montgomery co., pa. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |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. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ northern nut growers association report of the proceedings at the second annual meeting ithaca, new york december and , press of the ithaca journal ithaca, new york +--------------------------------------------+ |transcribers' note: | | | |the errors listed below have been corrected.| +--------------------------------------------+ errata page , under "officers" transpose addresses of president and vice-president. page , line , for "pennsylvania" read "louisiana." page , line , for "siebold" read "nebo." [illustration: mr. henry hales of ridgewood, new jersey _and the original hales' paper shell hickory tree_] table of contents page officers and committees of the association members of the association constitution and rules of the association proceedings of the meeting held at ithaca, new york, dec. th and th, address of welcome by professor craig secretary's report of the meeting for organization held in new york nov. th, secretary-treasurers' report for the year discussion on juglans mandshurica president's address. the hickories, robert t. morris, m. d. discussion the chestnut bark disease. j. franklin collins, washington, d. c. discussion nut growing in the northern states. c. a. reed, washington, d. c. discussion the indiana pecan. t. p. littlepage, washington, d. c. discussion executive session the bench root-grafting of persian walnuts and pecans. c. p. close, washington, d. c. discussion the hales' paper shell hickory. henry hales, ridgewood, new jersey discussion nut promotions. w. c. deming, m. d., new york some facts concerning pecan trees for planting in the north. w. n. roper, petersburg, virginia discussion the scolytus beetle. prof. g. w. herrick, ithaca, new york discussion the persian walnut in california. prof. e. r. lake, washington, d. c. discussion is there a future for juglans regia and hicoria pecan in new york and new england? prof. john craig, ithaca, n. y. resolutions and executive session exhibits appendix miscellaneous notes report of committee on exhibits prize nuts report of the committee on the nomenclature of juglans mandshurica and the shellbark hickories the hickory bark borer. circular and correspondence resolutions of the pennsylvania conference on the chestnut-tree bark disease officers president robert t. morris new york vice-president t. p. littlepage indiana secretary and treasurer w. c. deming westchester, new york city committees _executive_ john craig c. a. reed w. n. roper and the officers _on promising seedlings_ t. p. littlepage c. a. reed w. c. deming _on hybrids_ r. t. morris henry hicks c. p. close _on membership_ w. c. deming e. r. lake j. g. rush w. n. roper _on nomenclature_ john craig r. t. morris w. c. deming _on press and publication_ w. n. roper t. p. littlepage w. c. deming state vice-presidents connecticut charles h. plump west redding florida h. harold hume glen st. mary georgia g. c. schempp, jr. albany, route illinois dr. f. s. crocker chicago indiana r. l. mccoy lake, spencer co. louisiana j. f. jones jeanerette maryland c. p. close washington, d. c. massachusetts bernhard hoffman stockbridge minnesota c. a. van duzee st. paul new jersey a. b. malcomson west orange new york a. c. pomeroy lockport ohio j. h. dayton painesville panama b. f. womack canal zone pennsylvania j. g. rush west willow virginia w. n. roper petersburg members of the northern nut growers' association abbott, frederick b., th st., brooklyn, n.y. barron, leonard, editor the garden magazine, garden city, l.i. benner, charles, broadway, new york city. button, herbert, bonnie brook farm, cazenovia, n.y. chute, miss bessie, university ave. s.e., minneapolis, minn. clendenin, rev. dr. f. m., westchester, new york city. close, prof. c. p., expert in fruit identification, u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. coleman, h. h., the northwestern mutual life insurance co., newark, n.j. craig, prof. john, new york state college of agriculture, ithaca, n.y. crocker, dr. f. s., columbus memorial building, chicago, ill. dayton, j. h., painesville, ohio. representing the storrs & harrison company. deming, dr. n. l., litchfield, conn. deming, dr. w. c., westchester, new york city. deming, mrs. w. c., georgetown, conn. dennis, dr. frank l., the colchester, colorado springs, colorado. *hales, henry, ridgewood, n.j. hicks, henry, westbury station, l.i. hoffman, bernhard, stockbridge, mass. holden, e. b., hilton, n.y. holmes, j. a., eddy st., ithaca, n.y. hume, h. harold, glen st. mary, fla. hungerford, newman, prospect st., hartford, conn. +huntington, a. m., w. st st., new york city. james, dr. w. b., w. th st., new york city. jessup, miss maud m., ( ) thomas st., grand rapids, mich. +jones, j. f., jeanerette, la. kiefer, louis w., n. elm st., henderson, ky. lake, prof. e. r., asst. pomologist, dept. of agric., washington, d.c. littlepage, t. p., union trust building, washington, d.c. lovett, mrs. joseph l., emilie, bucks co., pa. mccoy, r. l., ohio valley forest nursery, lake, spencer co., ind. malcomson, a. b., nassau st., new york city. mayo, e. s., rochester, n.y. representing glen brothers. meehan, s. mendelson, germantown, phila., pa. representing thomas meehan and sons. miller, mrs. e. b., enid, oklahoma, r. , box - / . miller, mrs. seaman, c/o mr. seaman miller, rector st., n.y. city. morris, dr. robert t., madison ave., new york city. moses, theodore w., harvard club, w. th st., new york city. pierson, miss a. elizabeth, cromwell, conn. plump, chas. h., west redding, conn. pomeroy, a. c., lockport, n.y. potter, hon. w. o., marion, ill. reed, c. a., div. of pomology, u.s. dept. of agric., washington, d.c. riehl. e. a., alton, ill. roper, wm. n., arrowfield nursery co., petersburg, va. rose, wm. j., market st., harrisburg, pa. rush. j. g., west willow, pa. sensenig, wayne. schempp, g. c., jr., route , albany, ga. shoemaker, seth w., agric. ed. int. corresp. schools, scranton, pa. smith, goldwin, highland creek, ontario, canada. smith, percival p., s. la salle st., chicago, ill. tuckerman, bayard, e. th st., new york city. van duzee, col. c. a., st. paul, minn. walter, dr. harry, the chalfonte, atlantic city, n. j. wentink, frank, grove st., passaic, n. j. williams, dr. charles mallory, e. th st., new york city. williams, harrison, erie r. r. co., church st., new york city. +wissmann, mrs. p. der., fifth ave., new york city. womack, b. f., ancon canal zone, panama. *honorary member. +life member. constitution and rules of the northern nut growers association. _name._ the society shall be known as the northern nut growers association. _object._ the promotion of interest in nut-producing plants, their products and their culture. _membership._ membership in the society shall be open to all persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to place of residence or nationality, subject to the approval of the committee on membership. _officers._ there shall be a president, a vice-president, and a secretary-treasurer; an executive committee of five persons, of which the president, vice-president and secretary shall be members; and a state vice-president from each state represented in the membership of the association. _election of officers._ a committee of five members shall be elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating officers for the subsequent year. _meetings._ 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 executive committee 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 executive committee. _fees._ the fees shall be of two kinds, annual and life. the former shall be two dollars, the latter twenty dollars. _discipline._ the committee on membership may make recommendations to the association as to the discipline or expulsion of any member. _committees._ the association shall appoint standing committees of three members each to consider and report on the following topics at each annual meeting: first, on promising seedlings; second, on nomenclature; third, on hybrids; fourth, on membership; fifth, on press and publication. the northern nut growers association second annual meeting thursday, december , , a. m. room , new york state college of agriculture, ithaca, new york. president morris: the meeting is called to order and i will first ask professor craig to make a few remarks on behalf of the college director and the president of the university. professor craig: it is my privilege and pleasure to welcome the representatives of the northern nut growers' association in this, their second annual meeting, to the new york state college of agriculture. i regret exceedingly that director bailey, who has been avoiding out of state engagements this winter quite generally, made one about two months ago for this day, about a thousand miles away, which makes it absolutely impossible for him to be with us. he regretted this very much, and asked me particularly to impress upon you the idea that he was most anxious that this association should meet here, and that all the facilities of the college of agriculture should be placed at your disposal, for the purpose of making your meeting as profitable and as pleasant as possible. president schurman, whose time at this period of the year is much monopolized and who is by previous engagements occupied very completely this morning, has asked me to say to you that he hoped to be able to come over and join us informally some time during the afternoon. i wish then to impress the thought that, although the official representatives of the university and college are not with us, they have not forgotten this meeting. as a member of the executive committee, in charge of the sessions, i have made up a tentative program for this morning for the purpose of starting the meeting off; and as the president will undoubtedly tell you later on, this program is subject to revision and change according to the convenience of the members. it is proposed to occupy this morning with regular program subjects, and it has been suggested that this afternoon we take a couple of hours' leisure which we may use in examining the exhibits or in viewing the university, if you care to consider that an exhibit worth while. it will be our pleasure to furnish guides for those who desire to make an excursion around and through the university buildings. let me say in conclusion that i hope you will make use of the opportunities and facilities that are at your full disposal. the department of horticulture is located on the second floor. i would like you to make that office your headquarters, and make use of our clerical force, and such facilities as are available, to the fullest measure possible, so that your visit will be pleasant, as i am sure it will be profitable. president morris: the next order of business will be the report from the secretary-treasurer, and the report of the last meeting. * * * * * doctor deming: a meeting for organization of northern nut growers was held, on the invitation of dr. n. l. britton, at the botanical museum in bronx park, new york city, on nov. th, . dr. britton called the meeting to order, stated its purpose and presented specimens. those present were: dr. n. l. britton, director n. y. botanic gardens. dr. robert t. morris, madison ave., new york city. prof. john craig, of cornell university. mr. t. p. littlepage, union trust building, washington, d. c. mr. a. b. malcomson, orange, n. j. mr. henry hales, ridgewood, n. j. mrs. joseph l. lovett, emilie, bucks county, pa. mrs. yardly (with mrs. lovett). dr. geo. knapp, (at the request of simpson bros., vincennes, ind.) claremont ave., new york city. mr. c. a. schwartze, stagg st., brooklyn, n. y. mr. nash, of the botanical museum. dr. w. c. deming, westchester, new york city. on the retirement of dr. britton dr. deming acted as temporary chairman and read a number of letters from persons interested in nut culture encouraging the formation of an association. the chairman appointed prof. craig, dr. morris and mr. littlepage a committee to draw up a tentative constitution or set of working rules until permanent organization could be effected. the committee made the following report which was adopted with the understanding that the executive committee should consider the question of constitution and by-laws and report at the next regular meeting. * * * * * _name._ the society shall be known as the northern nut growers association. _object._ the promotion of interest in nut-producing plants, their products and their culture. _membership._ membership in the society shall be open to all persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to place of residence or nationality. _officers._ there shall be a president, a vice-president, a secretary-treasurer and an executive committee of five persons, of which latter the president and secretary shall be members. _meetings._ the association shall hold an annual meeting on or about nov. and such other special meetings as may seem desirable, these to be called by the president and executive committee. _fees._ the fees shall be of two kinds, annual and life. the former shall be $ . , the latter $ . . in addition to the large number of letters showing a wide spread interest in nut growing, communications of especial interest were received from prof. w. n. hutt, state horticulturist of north carolina, mr. w. n. roper, former editor of the american fruit and nut journal, and from mr. henry hicks of westbury, long island. the election of officers resulted as follows: president--dr. robert t. morris, new york city. vice-president--mr. t. p. littlepage, washington, d. c. secretary-treasurer--dr. w. c. deming, westchester, new york city. executive committee: prof. john craig, cornell university; henry hales, ridgewood, n. j.; prof. c. p. close, college park, md. exhibits of nuts, nut literature, trees, grafting methods, a budding tool, etc., were received and shown from nineteen different contributors. a detailed account of these has been published and is on file. the following resolution, introduced by mr. t. p. littlepage, was unanimously adopted: resolved, that the northern nut growers' association express its appreciation of the attitude of the national nut growers' association in encouraging the organization of associations which have for their purpose the development of the nut industry, and we hereby pledge our support to, and our cooperation with, said national nut growers' association. and be it further resolved, that we hereby acknowledge our great obligation to the many pioneer nut growers of the south who have done so much to put nut culture on a scientific basis, and that we express to them our deep gratitude for the fund of valuable information and data which they have worked out and made available. the meeting then adjourned. the secretary-treasurer has received for membership fees $ . , and expended for postage, printing and stationery, telephone and telegrams, $ . . remaining in treasury, $ . . the following leaflets were issued during the year: a reprint of dr. morris's article "nut culture for physicians." a list of societies, books and other publications devoted to nut culture. a list of some of the chief nurserymen carrying nut trees in stock. the president also published in the garden magazine for may an article on nut culture, in which he referred to our organization, as a result of which some letters of inquiry were received by the secretary, covering the country from canada to texas and from british columbia to panama. the leaflets, and notices of the annual meeting, have been sent to about addresses, including the members, agricultural journals, nurserymen and nut dealers, government and state officials, state horticulturists, correspondents and persons who it was thought might be interested. the following letter was sent to leading nurserymen: "the president of our association, dr. robert t. morris of new york, asks me to suggest to you that it might be well for your firm, or some member of it, to join the association, to be present at the meetings and to take up the matter of raising such nursery stock as is in constant and growing demand by the members. we need to be in touch with those who are growing things commercially and if they are present at the meetings they will know what we want. the national association is largely made up of professional nurserymen." nov. , . two nurserymen have accepted the invitation. evidently the others do not yet think the northern nut grower one whose acquaintance is worth cultivating. we hope to convince them to the contrary. the following letter has been sent to the state horticulturists of the northern states and the provinces of canada. "the northern nut growers' association desires your interest, your aid and advice, your membership and, if possible, your attendance at the meetings. it would also be of help to the association in its work if you would give it information of those persons in your state who are interested in nut culture." nov. , . cordial replies have been received from m. b. cummings, secretary of the vermont horticultural society; from le roy cady, chief of the division of horticulture, minnesota agricultural experiment station; and from j. h. poster, professor of forestry, new hampshire agricultural college. fifty postal card reminders of this meeting were sent to members and others a week ago. the secretary has also made investigation by correspondence on the hickory bark beetle and the identity of _juglans mandshurica_. the response from all communications to the various officials of the department of agriculture at washington has been prompt, cordial, interesting and helpful. this should certainly be very encouraging, if encouragement is needed, coming from men likely to be far-seeing as to the needs for, and the possibilities of, nut culture. prof. frederick v. coville is conducting experiments in rooting hickory cuttings sent by the secretary. prof. walter swingle offers his cooperation in experiments in propagation. the general correspondence received by the secretary shows an interest and an enthusiasm that reveals the growing appreciation of the importance of the purposes for which this association stands. (the following figures are brought up to date of going to press.) eighteen of our members are from new york, from connecticut, from pennsylvania, from new jersey and illinois, from the district of columbia, each from indiana, virginia and minnesota, and one each from massachusetts, ohio, georgia, louisiana, florida, colorado, kentucky, michigan, oklahoma, panama and canada. thus seventeen states, the district of columbia, panama and canada are represented in our membership. eight of our members are women, one of them a life member, nine are professional nurserymen, eight are physicians, six are connected with educational institutions, three are lawyers, five agriculturists, two at least are capitalists, and all expect to be, two are in literature and there are one each of the following: clergyman, painter, insurance, secretary, railroads, senator. the national association has members of whom are from the northern states. we ought to have all of these. the secretary is keeping a record of the scattered articles, communications to agricultural journals and other literature relating to nut growing. he would consider it a favor if the members would send him information of anything of this kind that may come to their knowledge. mr. littlepage: i move that the report of the secretary-treasurer be approved. professor craig: i second that motion. i would like to add just a word, to the effect that it seems to me that the secretary has started out in a very promising manner. he has not merely performed the routine duties of the secretary, but he has studied the case, and has presented in an analytical and striking form a good many facts not apparent on the surface, had he only given us the stereotyped matter in the conventional way; and it seems to me that this augurs well for the future of the secretary's office. i trust he can keep up the gait. (carried.) professor craig: may i say that it seems to me there are one or two matters arising out of the secretary's report which are worthy of special action? one is the question of the invasion of the scolytus beetle; the other is the nomenclature of _juglans mandshurica_. it occurs to me that it might be well to appoint committees on these subjects to report during the sessions of the society. i might say on the scolytus matter, that i have conferred with professor comstock, who has been kind enough to say he would place the matter in the hands of one of his assistants, who will present to the society the latest we have on that subject; and in the event of a committee being appointed, i would suggest that that person, professor herrick, be made the chairman of that committee. president morris: i will appoint professor herrick and professor craig on the scolytus committee, and on the nomenclature committee i will appoint doctor deming and mr. barron. in this connection, i will have to say, however, that i neglected to bring my correspondence relating to the nomenclature of _juglans mandshurica_. i can say a word that the committee may wish to use. for a long while, i have been trying to trace the origin of the name _juglans mandshurica_. it is applied to two different nuts. the one described in the united states government bulletin is the nut originally described by maxim as _juglans mandshurica_ more than thirty years ago. that nomenclature has priority for two reasons: first, because of the date, and in the second place, because of the recognized standing of maxim as a botanist. the yokohama nursery company has been sending out a very different nut which they call _juglans mandshurica_, evidently of the race of _juglans regia_. the _juglans mandshurica_ of the government bulletin is like the butternut, the _juglans mandshurica_ of the nursery companies is evidently a race of _juglans regia_. i have conferred with doctor britton, sargent, and other authorities, and we have never been able to trace the name given to this walnut of the _juglans regia_ type, _juglans mandshurica_, until by accident i happened to get word from the yokohama nursery company to the effect that they had made up that name in the office a few years ago, not knowing that a previous _juglans mandshurica_ existed and had been named by maxim. so that traces the rodent to its hole. the name _juglans mandshurica_ by maxim is the proper name for the worthless butternut-like nut from china. de candolle named the valuable walnut that has been sent out by the yokohama nursery company _juglans regia sinensis_. so both of these nuts have been previously named, and by authority. professor craig: it is a question, then, of priority. president morris: yes, a question of priority; but really the yokohama company had no right to make up that name. it was simply made up in the office as a matter of trade convenience, and they attached to this _juglans regia_ nut a name that had been applied to an entirely different nut, not knowing that this name had been previously applied. so there is a _juglans mandshurica_ and a _juglans regia sinensis_, respectively. mr. littlepage: is the walnut, _juglans mandshurica_, which you have been discussing, similar to the ordinary butternut of the middle west, the indiana white walnut? president morris: you can find nuts much alike on first inspection, but the mandshurica nut has six ridges in addition to the suture ridges. the leaf of _juglans mandshurica_ is sometimes a yard in length, with twenty-seven to thirty-one leaflets, sometimes--an enormous tropical leaf. the nut is usually too small to be valuable. mr. littlepage: i have seen the butternut of the middle west nearly similar, but it grows on the ordinary tree with white bark, and has small leaves. president morris: the general outline of the nut is about the same in both, but the air chambers are very much larger in the _mandshurica_ than they are in the butternut and there is a marked difference in the flavor. you can distinguish them readily enough. mr. littlepage: the butternut grows wild throughout the middle west, usually along small water courses and alluvial lands. there are perhaps one hundred and fifty on a creek corner on one of my farms. president morris: they are very plenty here at ithaca. in fact, you will find them in maine and nova scotia. mr. littlepage: i saw them in michigan. president morris: i will state, that from two until four the members will view the collections, and make the tour of the campus buildings. during that time the report on competition, or at least examination of specimens in competition, should be made, and i would like to appoint professor reed and mr. littlepage on that committee, and i will serve as _ex-officio_ member of the committee. the other committees i can make up a little later. the next order of business will be the president's address. mr. littlepage, will you take the chair? the hickories. robert t. morris, m. d. so far as we know, the hickories, belonging to the juglandaceae, are indigenous to the north american continent only. representatives of the group occur naturally from southern canada to the central latitude of mexico, in a curved band upon the map, which would be bounded upon the east by the atlantic ocean and the gulf of mexico, and on the west roughly by the missouri river, until that river bends east from the eastern boundary of kansas. from the angle of that bend the hickory runs approximately southwest into mexico. the exact number of species has not been determined as yet, because of the open question of specific or varietal differences in some members of the family. sargent's classification at present includes eleven species: hicoria pecan, h. texana, h. minima, h. myristicaeformis, h. aquatica, h. ovata, h. carolinae-septentrionalis, h. laciniosa, h. alba. h. glabra, and h. villosa. to this list may be added h. mexicana (palmer), which so far seems to have been found only in the high mountains of alvarez, near san louis potosi in mexico; and h. buckleyi from texas, which was described once by durand, and since that time overlooked by writers, excepting by mrs. m. j. young in , who included the species in her "lessons in botany." professor sargent tells me that the buckley hickory will be included in the next edition of sargent's "manual of the trees of north america." this brings the number of species up to thirteen. in addition we have well marked varieties: h. glabra odorata, h. glabra pallida, and h. glabra microcarpa, making sixteen well defined hickories that have been described. nuts of all of these hickories are in the collection of "edible nuts of the world" at cornell university, with the exception of nuts of the varieties h. glabra odorata and h. glabra pallida. in addition to the sixteen described varieties and species of hickories in america, we have an endless variety of hybrid forms, because cross-pollenization seems to take place readily between hickories of synchronous flowering time. five of the hickories: h. pecan, h. texana, h. minima, h. myristicaeformis, and h. aquatica belong to the open-bud group, while the rest belong to the scale-bud group. the winter buds of the open-bud group resemble the winter buds of the walnuts in a general way, and in artificial hybridization experiments i seem to note a close relationship between the open-bud hickories and the walnuts. there is no more promising work for the horticulturist than crossing hickories with walnuts, and crossing hickories with each other. five hundred years from now we shall probably find extensive orchards of such hybrids occupying thousands of acres of land which is now practically worthless. the hickories are to furnish a substantial part of the food supply of the world in the years to come. at the present time wild hickories held most highly in esteem are: h. pecan, h. ovata, h. carolinae-septentrionalis, and h. laciniosa. several other kinds have edible kernels, sometimes of excellent character, but not readily obtained except by boys and squirrels, whose time is not valuable. in this group we have h. alba, h. glabra, h. villosa, h. glabra pallida, h. glabra odorata, h. glabra microcarpa, h. mexicana, h. buckleyi, and h. myristicaeformis. in another group of hickories with temptingly thin shells and plump kernels, we have a bitter or astringent pellicle of the kernel. this group contains h. texana, h. minima, and h. aquatica. sometimes in the bitter group we find individual trees with edible nuts, and it is not unlikely that some of them represent hybrids in which the bitter and astringent qualities have been recessive. among the desirable species of wild hickories there is much variation in character, and selection of trees for propagation is in its infancy. one reason for this has been the difficulty of transplanting hickories. another reason is the fact that hickories do not come true to parent type from seed. a third reason is the length of time required for seedling hickories to come into bearing. concerning the first reason, the enormous taproot of young hickories requires so much pabulum for maintenance that when the trees are transplanted, with destruction of root-hairs along with the feeding roots, transplanted stocks may remain a year or two years in the ground before they are ready to send out buds from the top. on this account, the stringfellow method has in my locality proven of value. this consists in extreme cutting back of root and top, leaving little more than a short club for transplantation. the short club does not require much pabulum for maintenance, and new feeding roots with their root-hairs get the club under way quickly, because there is little useless load for them to carry. the stringfellow method further includes the idea that stock should be planted in very hard ground, and seems to be practicable with the hickories. the root-hairs which take up nourishment from the soil find it difficult to carry on osmosis in loose soil. the close contact obtained by forcing a way through compact soil facilitates feeding. on this account, autumn is perhaps a better time for transplantation of hickories, in the northern latitudes, at least. callus forms over the ends of cut roots at all times when the ground is not frozen, and the more complete the callus formation the more readily are feeding roots sent out. one of the main obstacles to propagation of hickories has depended upon the fact that nuts did not come true to parent type from seed. this is overcome by budding or grafting, and we can now multiply the progeny from any one desirable plant indefinitely. in the south grafting is nearly as successful as budding, but in the north budding seems to be the better method for propagation. the chief difficulty in grafting or budding the hickories is due to slow formation of callus and of granulation processes which carry on repair of wounds. the propagation of trees from a desirable individual plant can be accomplished also by transplanting roots. a hickory root dug from the ground, divested of small rootlets, cut into segments a foot or more in length, and set perpendicularly in sand with half an inch protruding, will throw out shoots from adventitious buds. in my experimental work with hickory roots, in covered jars, surrounded by wet moss, but with the entire root reached by light, adventitious buds have started along the entire length of the root, and we may find this an economical way for root propagation, dividing up sprouting roots into small segments. the chief objection to this method of propagation as compared with budding is the length of time required for seedling trees to come into bearing, propagation from roots probably requiring the same length of time as propagation from seed, whereas by budding or grafting the bearing period begins very much earlier. forty-six years ago mr. j. w. kerr of denton, maryland, planted three pecks of large shagbark hickory nuts, but of the progeny only about twenty were satisfactory, most of the trees bearing inferior nuts. these trees required from thirteen to eighteen years to come into bearing, and young trees that mr. kerr purchased from nurseries and planted were twenty-five years old before they began to bear. others who have planted shagbark hickories and pecans state that nearly twenty years are required for the trees to come into bearing on an average. when budded or grafted the pecan sometimes comes into bearing in two years, and frequently in four years. we may anticipate that other hickories will act analogously. the hickories prefer rich, well drained soil for best development of nuts, and an abundance of moisture, provided the land is well drained. many of the hickories, however, are so adaptable to various soils that they often thrive in lands that are sandy, and dry, and almost barren. in the latter case, they have to maintain an enormous root system for feeding purposes, and this is detrimental to good bearing qualities. the mocker-nut, pignut, and hairy hickory, perhaps adapt themselves best to sandy soils. this feature may make them valuable species for planting when one has no other soil, because the stocks can be used for grafting better kinds. while the hickories prefer neutral or alkaline soil, most of them will grow fairly well even in acid glacial tills. their preference, however, for neutral or alkaline soils would suggest the use of a good deal of lime in acid soils, when hickories are to be grown in orchard form. all of the trees in the hickory group are intolerant of shade and of competition with other trees. the more sunlight they can have the better. most of us are familiar with the hickory tree standing alone in the cultivated field, which bears a heavy annual crop, when the neighbors at the edge of the forest bear sparingly. hickories in forest growth put their energies into the formation of wood chiefly, and in the struggle for food and light devote very little energy to fruiting. the best method for cultivation of hickories has been worked out only with the pecan up to the present time. with this species, it has been determined that clean cultivation with plenty of fertilization gives best results, as with apples. it is probable that stringfellow's sod culture method will come next in order, and will perhaps be most generally used by nut orchardists, because it is less expensive and requires less labor. the sod culture method includes the idea of cutting all grass and weeds beneath the trees, in order to take away competition, allowing these vegetable substances to decompose beneath the trees and furnish food. there is no objection to adding artificial fertilizer, or a still greater amount of vegetable matter. the enemies of the hickories are not many in the forest, where the balance of nature is maintained, but when man disturbs the balance of nature by planting hickories in large numbers in orchard form certain enemies increase, and must be met by our resources. fungous and bacterial enemies are beginning to menace some varieties of the pecan in the south, and both in the north and in the south certain insect enemies are becoming important in relation to all valuable hickories. the bark boring beetle (scolytus) has been reported as destructive to hickories in some sections, the trees dying as a result of depredations of the larvae of this beetle. i find a large borer at work on some of my hickories, but have not as yet determined its species. it may be the painted hickory borer (cylene), or the locust borer. it makes a hole as large as a small lead pencil, directly into the trunk or limbs, and excavates long tunnels into the heart wood. the painted hickory borer is supposed to occur chiefly on dead and dying hickories, but the borer of which i speak is found in the vigorous young hickories in the vicinity of my locusts, which are riddled with locust borers. in some localities involucre borers make tunnels between the nut and the involucre, interfering with the development of the kernel. the hickory twig girdler (oncideres) is abundant in some localities, but not as yet very destructive. hickory nut weevils destroy many nuts in some localities, and their colonies increase about individual trees markedly. in such cases, it is important to collect the entire crop each year from a given tree, taking pains to destroy all nuts which contain weevil larvae. these may be selected in a general way by dumping the freshly gathered nuts into a tub of water. nuts containing weevil larvae will float for the most part, and in order to make sure of the destruction of larvae in the remaining nuts they may be placed in a closed receptacle, and carbon bisulphide poured over them. one of the bud worms is sometimes very destructive to individual hickory trees which have developed colonies, the larvae destroying the axillary buds, and burrowing into the base of the petioles of leaves. a new enemy which i found this year for the first time is the _conotrachelus juglandis_. this beetle ordinarily lays its eggs in the involucre of the butternut. with the introduction of exotic walnuts, the beetle has changed its habits, and lays its eggs in the herbaceous shoots of walnuts and hickories. the larvae tunnel into the center of a shoot, and destroy it, or seriously interfere with its nutrition. among the enemies of the hickory we must not forget the common field mouse, and the pine mouse, which burrow beneath the surface of the ground, and in winter feed freely upon the bark of the roots of the hickories. they have destroyed many thousands of young hickories of various kinds in my nursery, and in digging up roots of old hickories for experimental root grafting i find that mice have been living freely for years upon the bark of some roots. random notes aside from the facts which have been grouped together in this paper, certain notes may be of interest, as introducing questions for speculation. are we likely to find more species among the hickories than the ones already described? if so well described a species as the h. buckleyi has almost escaped observation, and if h. mexicana is confined, as it seems to be, to a very limited area, and if most of the hickories grow in regions where few botanists are at work, it seems to me probable that several species remain as yet undiscovered. these are likely to be species which lack means of defence, and which are restricted to certain small areas. if we make a parallel with other observations of recent discoveries, one thinks, for instance, in ichthyology of the marston's trout, the sunapee sabling, ausable greyling, and the kern river trout, confined almost to a certain stream or lake, and remaining undiscovered for years by naturalists, although familiar to thousands of local fishermen. sometimes there is a very apparent reason for the check to distribution of a species. the men whom i employed to go into the mountains of alvarez for the mexican hickory tell me that the trees are so loaded down with mistletoe that they rarely bear a crop, and there are few nuts with well developed kernels to be found. distribution of a powerful species of hickory, like the pecan, seems to be limited in the north by incomplete development of the pistillate flowers. these are borne on the ends of the herbaceous shoots of the year, and the pecan has such a long growing season that in the north the pistillate buds, which are last developed, are exposed to winter killing. southern limitation of hickories which have a very short growing period, like the shagbark, may be due to the fact that after a period of summer rest, new growth begins in the autumn rains, and this new growth may not lignify for winter rest. by artificial selection we can extend the range of all hickories far beyond their indigenous range, which is limited by natural checks. extension of range, adaptation to various soils, and changes in the character of the nut are likely to occur from grafting hickories upon different stocks of the family. thus we can graft a shagbark, which does not thrive in poor sandy soil, upon the mocker-nut, which does grow in such soils. some varieties of the species may grow freely far out of their natural range if they are simply transplanted. for instance, the stuart pecan, which comes from the very shores of the gulf of mexico, is one of the hardiest pecans at the latitude of new york. i don't know about its northern fruiting as yet. if the satsuma orange grafted upon trifoliate orange stock gives a heavy, well flavored fruit, while the same variety grafted upon sweet orange stock gives a spongy fruit of little value, we may assume that similar changes in character of fruit will follow nut grafting. perhaps the astringent feature of the pecan nut will be found to disappear when the pecan has been grafted upon certain other hickories. sometimes undesirable results are obtained from such grafting; for instance, the pecan grafted upon water hickory stock has been found to grow freely for four or five years, and then to die back unaccountably. stocks of rapidly growing hickories, like the pecan and the bitternut, may serve to shorten the bearing time of slowly growing species, like the shagbark, when scions of the latter are grafted upon such stocks. at the present time i have shagbark grafted upon stocks of the pecan, shagbark, bitternut, mocker-nut, and pignut, but these are all young, and i cannot at the present time discern much difference in effect of stock upon scion. in cross pollenization of hickories, i have not as yet discovered the best way to prevent the development of aphides and of other insects under the protection of the paper bags (which cover the pistillate flowers) sometimes to the point of destruction of flowers before nuts are started. it is probable that sprinkling the leaves with persian insect powder, and leaving a little insect powder in the bag, will settle the question. i have not as yet learned how to prevent squirrels from getting at hybridized nuts while they are still upon the tree. squirrels cut through mosquito netting which is tied about nuts to prevent them from falling to the ground, and if wire gauze is used, they cut off the branch, allowing gauze and all to fall to the ground, and then manage to get the nut out of the gauze. the red squirrel particularly is a pest in this regard, and will even cut off the tape which is tied about the branches for marking purposes, for no apparent reason aside from pure mischievousness. nuts which are to be planted must be kept away not only from the squirrels, but from rats and mice. one of my farmhouses got the reputation of being haunted because of mysterious noises made by rats in rattling hybrid nuts worth a dollar apiece about between the partitions. the best way that i have found for keeping nuts for sprouting purposes is to have a number of large wire cages made. these are set in the ground, nuts are stratified in sand within these cages, and allowed to remain exposed to the elements during the winter. it is probable that some of the hickories will be grown in forest form in future because of the increased value of the wood of the species. for growing hickories in forest form, it is probable that they should be set not more than six or eight feet apart at the outset. at ten years of age the first thinning will give a valuable lot of hoop poles. the second thinning will give turning stock. the third thinning will give wood for a large variety of purposes. i know of no tree which promises to return a revenue more quickly when planted in forest form than hickories like the shagbark and the shellbark, mocker-nut and pignut. these trees will not be expected to bear nuts, because in the struggle for food and light their energies will be directed toward making trunks. hickories are undoubtedly to be used for decorative purposes in parks and streets by future generations. the stately pecan, the sturdy shagbark, can be made to replace, south and north, the millions of useless poplars, willows, and other bunches of leaves, which please the eye but render no valuable annual or final returns. the chief reason why this has not been done is because people have not thought about it. * * * * * president morris: this paper is not to be considered with the respect that is ordinarily due to a presidential address, but is open for discussion, and i would like to have any of my theories disproven. professor craig: doctor morris has covered a very extensive field in his presidential address, and has raised so many interesting questions that i imagine the difficulty with you is to know just where to begin. personally, and because i am not as thoroughly aware of the field of doctor morris' hybridization work as i ought to be, i should like to ask him what combinations of the hickories he has effected thus far. the field of hybridizing nuts is an exceedingly interesting one, and doctor morris has been the foremost worker in it. i am sure it would be interesting to you, as it is to myself, to know briefly what ground he has covered in the extensive range of his experiments. president morris: in answering that question, i am speaking from memory and may not speak correctly. i have made crosses back and forth between shagbark, bitternut, mocker-nut, pignut, and pecan. in the crosses i made, using pecans, pollen was received from the south and put upon the others. the number of crosses that are fertile i cannot state as yet, because i have not had experience enough in protecting these nuts, and many of the hybrid nuts were lost. squirrels and mice destroyed the labor of three of my men and myself during one season. i have secured fertile hybrids between the pecan and the bitternut and between the pecan and the shagbark. if i remember correctly, those are the only fertile hybrids i have between hickories at the present time. in regard to crossing hickories and walnuts, i have crossed back and forth several of the walnuts, our black walnut, our butternut, the siebold walnut, with the pecan, and with the bitternut, and have fertile hybrids. these are open bud hickories, and the open bud hickories seem to cross pollenize freely with the walnuts back and forth, while the scale bud hickories do not accept pollen readily from the walnuts. i would rather perhaps not make a report to this effect for publication at the present time, for two reasons. in the first place, i am speaking from memory; in the second place, rats, mice, squirrels, small boys, visitors, and high winds have made such inroads upon my specimens, and upon my work, that it is not quite time to report. i am merely speaking offhand in a general way, stating that the hickories, open bud and scale bud, both seem to cross rather freely back and forth. open bud hickories and the walnuts seem to cross rather freely back and forth, while the walnuts and the scale bud hickories apparently do not cross so readily back and forth. professor craig: in growing your hickories from root cuttings, have you had any trouble from excessive sprouting? president morris: anywhere from one to eight sprouts will start from adventitious buds at the circle near the ground, and then i break all these off but one, letting that one grow. mr. wilcox (pennsylvania): how do you prepare your stocks for budding and grafting, in pots? president morris: i have tried practically every method that has ever been described, and the only successful method that i have now has been topworking vigorous sprouts of one year's growth. that is, i would cut off the tops of the trees now. next spring those tops send out very vigorous sprouts. i bud those early in august or the latter part of july, or else in the following spring, sometimes, we graft them; and in grafting, it is quite important to cut longitudinally at one side of the stock, and go clear to the cambium layer. that gives the flexible slice on one side, and adapts itself to the tying. mr. wilcox: have you prepared any stocks in pots at all? president morris: yes. i personally have to leave these to others. i tell my men to do it, but it is rather new work for them, and i give them so much to do that things are apt to be neglected; and just a moment of neglect at the wrong time will wipe out a whole year's work. i have not cared very much at the present time for root grafting in pots. i have lost a great proportion of the grafts, and it does not at the present time seem desirable; but i believe if that is done in hot houses with the ground warmed from the bottom, it is very apt to succeed. give them plenty of time for granulating. they granulate very, very slowly. mr. wilcox: what kind of pots do you use? president morris: some professor sargent showed me, long, made for the purpose. mr. collins (pennsylvania): you spoke of the hairy hickory. what hickory is that? president morris: _hicoria villosa_, that you find from carolina southward. mr. littlepage: you spoke of the stuart as being the most hardy pecan in the latitude of new york. i presume you meant of the southern pecans? president morris: it seems to be one of the hardiest anyway. even virginia forms don't stand it through the winter as well as the stuart. mine are not fruiting as yet. mr. littlepage: what varieties have you there? president morris: appomattox and mantura are northern ones i have. mr. littlepage: have you none of the indiana varieties? president morris: yes, i have the indiana varieties on northern stocks, but those have only gone through one winter. they went through all right. i would say that the stuart is quite as hardy as those. mr. littlepage: i have observed the stuart in indiana. a friend of mine has a small orchard of several varieties of pecans. i notice some places where the stuart has lived six or seven years, and then some particularly hard freeze has frozen it back. i have a letter from mr. jones in louisiana, in which he says they had a recent freeze, and every variety of pecan he had there had suffered, except the stuart. i don't recall whether he mentioned the moneymaker in a previous letter or not, but he did mention the russell and some other varieties. president morris: we have a number of pecan trees about new york that have been grown on private estates. pecans have been planted in connecticut and massachusetts. you run across seedling trees here and there, and a good many of them are perfectly hardy. they are very apt to be infertile. the staminate flowers are apt to be destroyed because they mature so late, and they may not carry any nuts. pollination is imperfect as a rule, and nuts may not fill. mr. reed (washington, d. c.): but trees of stuart are in bearing? president morris: i don't know about bearing. three years they have stood a temperature of twenty below zero, so that is a pretty good test. mr. reed: you haven't seen any nuts yet? president morris: no, i haven't seen any nuts; but they mature their wood, and if they mature their wood, they are likely to mature staminate and pistillate flowers. mr. littlepage: while it is true they may mature staminate and pistillate blossoms, the question arises whether or not the growing season is going to be long enough at the end to mature the nuts. i notice in going through wild groves in indiana, once in a while you have a tree which never matures any nuts, though it has bountiful crops. the frost gets them. professor craig: there is evidently a lack of summer heat to ripen fruit. before we get quite away from this subject, i would like to ask mr. roper if he has noticed any striking differences in the hardiness of stuart and other northern forms of the pecan in his particular locality. does stuart maintain its reputation for hardiness in his locality? we are interested in that question from the northern standpoint. mr. roper (virginia): i think it does, but that is discussed in a paper which i shall read some time here in the meeting. both the stuart and moneymaker have done better with us than any other of the southern varieties when they are budded on hardy stocks. the grafted trees do not do well with us. president morris: professor lake, will you speak on any of these points? professor lake: i am learning much and prefer to continue a learner. i shouldn't know anything about this crossing, except in the case of the _juglans regia_ and the oaks of california. that is one case that was not mentioned. we have a remarkable hybrid between the native oaks and the persian walnut. it is remarkable in many ways. it has foliage that is perhaps half way between the oak and the walnut, and the nut on the surface looks like a small walnut, and on the inside it is between a walnut and an acorn. i had an opportunity to sample the flesh, but it is not edible yet. they are interested in the work very much, especially at chico and the southern california station. president morris: it is said to be a cross between the live oak and the walnut. it seems absolutely impossible, but i have seen the nuts, and a photograph of the tree. mr. reed: we haven't devoted a great deal of attention to the hybridization of nuts in our department work. there is one thing that occurred to me, as i sat here, merely of passing interest. a gentleman in mississippi sent a specimen of foliage, together with berries, from what he said was a hybrid between the pecan and the china berry; and he had the evidence, because the parent pecan tree stood right there, and the china berry was the other parent tree! he wanted world wide attention called to that. they were taken to the botanist, and he recognized them as one of the ordinary soap berries. there was a similar case this fall. a gentleman in texas exhibited some nuts at the state fair at dallas that he said were a hybrid between the mocker-nut, the common hickory there in texas, and the pecan. he said that the parent trees stood near one another and that the pecan blossomed some years about the same time that the hickory did, and in those years the hickory nut was long, and in other years it was short. somebody sent one of the nuts to mr. taylor, assistant chief of the bureau of plant industry. he sent the nut on to me, and i looked it up. i struck texas on one of those cold wave days, and drove five miles out and back in a texas livery rig, and found an ordinary hickory that bore nuts just a little different from others. that is one way the department is called upon to ferret these things out. mr. littlepage: i would like to ask mr. reed what information he has as to the success of pecans bearing when grafted or budded on other varieties of hickory? i say that because i know from traveling around through the country that there is a widespread impression that it is possible to have very extensive pecan orchards throughout the north by topworking the wild hickory. i have had some little experience along that line, but i don't know what the facts are; and mr. reed has made an extensive trip recently for the department of agriculture, collecting data in reference to the pecan. mr. reed: the present situation, so far as we have been able to gather the information, is just this. the pecan has been grafted on a good many species of hickory, all the way from virginia south to florida, and west to texas; but rarely ever can we find an instance in which they have produced satisfactorily after they have come to a bearing stage. we find that they unite readily ordinarily, and grow rapidly; but the pecan eventually proves to be a more rapid grower than the hickory, and when it catches up and is the same diameter, then the pecan growth is slower, and while they bear a little the first few years, later on they are not productive. i don't wish to say that is final, but it has been the experience so far. you will find most enthusiastic advocates of pecan on hickory where it hasn't been tried for any length of time. the men who try it find it unites readily and makes this quick growth, and think the question is solved. but aside from a few instances in texas, i don't find very encouraging reports. it may be due largely to the fact that the right varieties of pecan haven't been used. we know that in the early history of pecan culture the rome and centennial and some others that are light bearers were used; and then the pecan on hickory has been looked at as so much saved, and they haven't been given much attention. it is still very much a matter of doubt, but is not in a very favorable light at present. professor craig: i would like to ask mr. reed if he has looked over mr. ramsey's work recently at austin, texas. mr. reed: i was at mr. ramsey's last year, and i don't recall that that matter came up at all. professor craig: didn't you see his plantation of top worked hickories? mr. reed: i didn't know he had topworked hickories. he has topworked pecans. professor kyle of the station in texas has recently issued a bulletin on that very thing, and he cites a number of cases in which he concludes that there will be a favorable outcome; but for some reason, in the instances which he cites, the trees haven't borne very much. they attribute it this season in one instance to the fact that they had a storm at pollinating time, and last year some other accident happened that prevented them from maturing after a quantity of nuts had set. mr. littlepage: i mention this at this time because i want to get mr. reed's testimony in the record, because i think that every prospective nut grower must go through this stage. a year ago i undertook on my farm in indiana to bud the pecan into other varieties of hickory--i have a great many wild hickories growing all over my farm,--shagbark, shellbark, and different varieties of those even. so i went to work and budded perhaps one hundred of those trees, and for a while it seemed that there was going to be a great degree of success. i budded them all upon the limbs where the bark was thinner, and tied the bud in with waxed cloth very tightly; and by absorption the majority of the buds lived a week or ten days. after that, there was perhaps a third of them alive. for the next two weeks, we could find an occasional bud that remained green, and then the number became so very small that i gave up the idea that any would live. but this spring i found a few of these had started to grow, but i had tied them so very tightly that in some instances where there had been a growth of an inch or two, the bud part had been cut in two. then i undertook it on a much smaller scale. i cut back eight or ten small hickory trees three to four inches in diameter, let them throw up water sprouts, and budded into these. the bud wood i used stuck very tight, and i examined the buds in november, and there were quite a number alive of the greenriver and huntington varieties of pecan. whether they will grow finally remains to be seen. (a discussion then occurred as to holding the afternoon session and it was decided to continue the business during the afternoon, instead of visiting the campus.) president morris: i would like to comment on one point made by mr. littlepage. he has given us perhaps the reason why pecans die back when grafted upon other stocks. mr. reed, that is an extremely important point. he has shown that the pecan grows so much more rapidly than other hickories that when it has arrived at a proportion to be supported by the root of the other hickory, it then ceases bearing because all the energy is required for maintaining this new pecan top that tries to grow faster than the hickory, if that is my understanding of this point. may we not graft freely back and forth hickories of kinds which have about the same rate of growth, and may we not graft other kinds of hickories upon pecan stock, for we don't care how much nourishment is given to a fine young shagbark? mr. littlepage: that is a fine point. president morris: i am very glad mr. reed brought up that point. it is going to save thousands of dollars if it is a fact recognized in time, because many would go to putting pecans upon other hickories. we may learn that certain kinds of hickories can be grafted to advantage upon other stock, however. mr. reed: there is another point right there i would like to have your views on, and that is, the smaller the hickory is at the time the pecan is grafted on it, the greater will be the influence of the pecan on the hickory. president morris: it can drag the stock along perhaps. it has been proved, i think, that a graft has a certain influence upon the stock, and in some cases can drag it along willy nilly to a certain extent. the root and the top get to balance each other fairly well if the root is very small at the time the graft is put on. most of the trees that have been topworked to pecan have been various kinds of large hickories. perhaps if you were to take a shagbark hickory one to two years of age and graft it, the pecan top would dominate or control that root, no matter whether it wanted to grow or not. mr. reed: the claim is sometimes made that if the pecan is grafted on other hickory young enough, it will transform the hickory completely. it will make a sufficient root system to feed the pecan as well as the pecan root would. but i have never seen that demonstrated. president morris: that is speculative. it is a very valuable point, one of the sort of points that would naturally be brought out at a meeting of this kind. mr. reed: have you seen that with other fruits, professor craig? professor craig: yes. each variety of apple produces its own kind of roots without reference to the seedling stock. that is to say the scion overrules the root in budding or grafting upon one or two year old seedlings. president morris: a parallel that comes to mind now is the grafting of burbank's royal walnut upon ordinary walnut stock. when that was done, his royal walnut was said to drag the other walnut along. professor craig: i think it is a very valuable suggestion. i am not sure i will go as far as the president has gone; but i think it is exceedingly suggestive, and worthy of careful consideration. mr. rush (pennsylvania): i find the same experience in some instances, that the graft outgrows the stocks. that is a peculiar instance of the work of improper unions. eventually the stock pushes up and forms a perfect union in growth, with the persian walnut. this is particularly applicable to pecan and hickory. i suppose mr. reed will bear me out in that, with regard to english walnut and black walnut. mr. reed: oh, yes. president morris: you occasionally see a variety of apple grafted on another in which the graft part gives the tree a sort of slipshod appearance. how about the bearing in that kind of a tree? professor craig: they usually bear heavily where the food supply is restricted. mr. reed: that would make our pecans bear more heavily on hickory stock than on their own. professor craig: as a matter of theory, they ought to. the bearing ought to be increased, because it is a system of girdling, or brings about the same effect,--in other words it restricts the return flow of the elaborated food. the food is checked at the point of union. another parallel is in the case of _prunus domestica_, the european plum, when worked on _prunus americana_, the american plum. in that case, the top always outgrows the stock, and in ten years it presents a very curious appearance. it presents the appearance of a very top-heavy head on a very spindling stem. the bearing is usually encouraged, but the fruit is usually small. the amount of fruit measured by numbers is increased, but the amount of fruit measured by the size of individual specimens is decreased. mr. collins: isn't the size of the fruit increased in the case of apples? professor craig: by topworking, usually, it is, but that doesn't contemplate such an extreme case as that. it means when the union is reasonably uniform, when there is a reasonable affinity between stock and scion. but in extreme cases we get the opposite result. reproduction is encouraged, but size of fruit is checked. president morris: i would like to hear from mr. rush or mr. pomeroy in connection with the hickory. mr. pomeroy: i haven't ever tried any experiments with the hickory. president morris: we will discuss further some of the points that have been suggested in this paper, because it seems to me we are along a good line of cleavage, and this line of cleavage may dispose of some questions that we haven't discussed. one question brought up was if the bitter, astringent qualities are likely to be recessive among hybrids in the trees which have bitter nuts. mr. littlepage: i made a trip through missouri and arkansas a year ago, and while there, took occasion to go into the forests, and investigate to some extent the arkansas and missouri hickory and pecan. among other things, i found two hybrids, one of the pecan and one of the pignut, one of which was bitter and inedible, the other a fairly good nut. i have both of them with me here today. one of them was very astringent and bitter, the other had taken more the quality of the pecan as to meat, and was a fairly good substitute. i don't know what the reason for it is, that one is fit to eat, and the other isn't, when they are both hybrids between the pignut and the pecan. doctor deming: how did you know they were hybrids, by the appearance? mr. littlepage: yes, the appearance is unmistakable. the pignut characteristics are very prominent, also the pecan characteristics. president morris: have the members anything to say about the stringfellow method of transplanting hickories? doctor deming: i have had very little experience in transplanting hickories, but i set out two hales hickories i got from meehan, and they are both living, although they have made little growth in some three years. can you tell us what stocks the hales hickory is grafted upon? mr. brown (pennsylvania): upon the bitternut. all there are have been upon the bitternut from the start. doctor deming: mr. littlepage, what do you think of the future of topworking our seedling hickories in the north with improved varieties of hickory or pecan,--the commercial future? mr. littlepage: it is largely speculative. i suppose it is the province of every nut enthusiast to have an opinion about these things. in fact, i find it is encouraging to talk to the fellow who has an opinion. my notion is that there is a great future for topworking the various varieties of the hickory in the north to the desirable forms of the hickory, that is, of the hickory other than the _hicoria pecan_. on my farm i expect next year to devote some time to topworking the various hickories i have to the desirable varieties of the shagbark. i think that can be done throughout the whole country. the shagbark seems to be indigenous to such extensive latitudes, that it seems to me there are great possibilities along that line. i observe that around here we find many of those trees. i have some very beautiful shagbarks that came from canada. my opinion is that it will be successful. i think the reason the pecan has not proved very satisfactory upon the other species of hickory is that most of those hickories have a close grained wood, and that the distribution of available food depends largely upon the amount of sap. the _hicoria pecan_ is a much coarser grained wood. the flow of the sap upward is facilitated much more than the flow of the sap upward through the hickory stock of other varieties. i believe that is the reason the theoretical rule would probably not work in this case, simply because the distribution of sap cannot take place fast enough through the tight, close grained stock of other varieties of hickory. otherwise, i don't see why the rule would not obtain, as with fruits. the experiences mr. reed gives, i think, are generally recognized by those who have experimented with them to any extent. i noticed in visiting mr. roper's nursery he had one very beautiful specimen of the pecan grafted on a hickory. that was the stuart, was it not? mr. roper: the moneymaker. it had made a growth of four or five feet in two years. mr. littlepage: do you know the variety of hickory that it was topworked to? mr. roper: just our common hickory, i suppose the pignut. mr. littlepage: it made beautiful growth from the wood standpoint. mr. roper: mr. reed's point was that it would do that till it got by the period of good nutrition from the root. professor craig says the elaboration of food from the pecan top more than overcomes the deficiency. professor lake: i would like to question mr. littlepage's physiological ground for the lack of proper fusion of liquids between the pecan and the other hickories. i believe it is not authenticated that the water supplies from the earth would not distil as fast in the close grained hickories as in the more open grained pecan. at least, the very close grained, firm woods of the tropics transmit a tremendous amount of water, much in excess of many of our fine grained woods of the north. and it seems to me i wouldn't like to have this association go on record as vouching for this explanation exactly. it seems to me there are better explanations. lack of fusion is not due to the amount of water that is carried up, but rather to the fact that the root system of the hickory does not develop fast enough to collect water to transmit. mr. littlepage: i am very glad to hear professor lake's statements. my suggestions were given only as a possible theory that occurred to me, and i don't vouch for their accuracy. there must be some explanation to controvert the general rule which professor craig has given us. professor craig: may i add one word? when a stock and scion unite, the union is really a mechanical one. it is a union of cells, and in that respect it is simply mechanical, not a physiological union. the different life types or character of the scion and top do not fuse, but we have a mechanical union of cells, and that mechanical union is as clearly shown forth as possible when we make a section through the point of union. if your type of cell in the stock differs very materially from the type of structure in the scion, the union is unsatisfactory. if the types of tissue are much alike, the union is good and you do not have either overgrowth of stock or undergrowth of scion very much, but you have what is called a good union. it is to some extent a question of mechanics, in my judgment, influenced by the cell structure of stock and scion. if you have a good, smooth union, the two grow equally. where you have overgrowth of scion, you usually have a starved root, because the food which is to be returned elaborated is checked at the point of union, the root is starved, and you have a short lived tree, because your root system, which ought to receive its share of the distributed food, is underfed, finally weakens, and the whole structure fails. professor lake: you may have mechanical union, but you can't have the after fusion in which you are going to have proper function of stock and scion. professor craig: each cell functions after its own kind. it is a question of passage or transmission of food through that carrier, after the union is effected. if the character of the two types differs very much, the transmission of food is checked and is difficult. president morris: there is another mechanical point i'd like to ask about. when the two types of cells differ, will the difference in degree of capillarity regulate the amount of pabulum distributed, or does it depend upon negative and positive pressure? professor craig: that is a very difficult question, because it isn't settled at the present time what credit we should give to capillarity and what to root pressure in sap circulation. mr. reed: there is another question i would like to ask professor craig. supposing you have a mechanical union perfected, what is the difference in the food that different species of the same genus transmit? has that been worked out? professor craig: i don't think so. of course, there is a difference in the food. that is proven, because there is a difference in the quality of the food. the tree machine, the tree factory speaking individually, evidently makes different products, and that is shown by the different quality of nuts. that is all we know about it. professor lake: that part below the scion still continues to be normal hickory, and that part above, pecan, so really it is not a matter of distribution of water supply by gravity or other pressure, but rather a distribution of the proper amount of elaborated food; and that is transmitted through the cell itself, not the cell walls. because this top makes a food that is different from the normal requirements, or because the latent character of those cells below does not respond to the food supply as actively as the part above, is the whole question, it seems to me. if the cells below functioned as the cells above, there would be no question about the stock and scion being the same. mr. littlepage: of course there must be sufficient flow of sap to distribute food. the hickory root might not send the flow of sap as fast as the pecan top would like. mr. reed: is mr. lake's point always true, that the stock below the point of union remains a normal hickory? professor craig: i don't believe there are more than one or two exceptions noted to that, and those exceptions are recorded under graft hybrids. mr. reed: a seedling pecan tree owned by mr. b. m. young of morgan city, louisiana, was top worked with scions from the mcallister hican some seven or eight feet above ground, and later on the bark of the pecan trunk below the point of union became scaly like that of the hican above. professor lake: that would suggest something worth while, if that part below would produce fruit like the part above, but i would want to question a little the modification in bark characteristics being a direct result of cross grafting. mr. reed: of course, it was no check--only one instance. professor craig: there are one or two others that are authentic. i have known a case of plum. here we have the plum stock, we will say it is _prunus americana_, grafted with _prunus triflora_, the japanese, then later on, _prunus domestica_ is put on top. i have seen a sprout from triflora bearing japanese plums, while the top of the tree bore _prunus domestica_, although there was only a small section of stem in there between our two distinct species. they were perfectly normal. president morris: each elaborates its own kind of food in its own kind of cell. i would like to hear from mr. brown and mr. wilcox on this matter of grafting--the influence of stock on scion. mr. wilcox: we had a good show of stocks, but instead of allowing them to become established in the pots, we grafted them as they started into growth after rooting. had they been established, we would have expected better results. professor craig: what method do you employ? mr. wilcox: side grafting. professor craig: do you mean whip grafting? mr. wilcox: side whip grafting. doctor deming: i would like to ask doctor morris what he thinks of the practical future of grafting our hickory seedlings with improved varieties of hickory or pecan, and the method most likely to succeed,--whether grafting or budding, and at what season. it is important to learn whether we can so graft or bud our hickory sprouts that within a few years we can hope to get something from them. president morris: we can only make a parallel with the pecan. if we know that it requires fifteen or twenty years for coming into bearing as a seedling tree, and if we know that it bears frequently in two, three, or four years after being grafted we can anticipate analogous action with other species of hickories. i haven't been able to get testimony from men who have grafted hickories. one man told me he thought shagbark grafted upon other shagbark, topworked, came into bearing in seven or eight years. another man told me that his came into bearing in a much shorter time than it would otherwise, while with one particular variety, the hale, i think that twelve years has been required for the tree to come into bearing. doctor deming: i have a communication from mr. hales in which he speaks of a tree grafted in , but doesn't say when it began to bear. mr. littlepage: he told me it has taken some of them twenty years. doctor deming: but the pecan on hickory has been known to bear the second season, that is, topworked. can we expect such results in topworking our own hickories? mr. littlepage: i think so. doctor deming: are we going to have success in topworking, and by what method? president morris: i believe in the south they can graft, but in the north we have got to do it by budding. my best results have been late july or early august. i believe herbaceous budding promises a good deal. mr. rush: were those buds then of the year previous?. president morris: those were buds from the year of the scion, and herbaceous stock of the year. doctor deming: mr. littlepage has had some success in budding hickory very early, haven't you? mr. littlepage: i was just stating that i started in last year to bud. i think it would be possible to make a pecan orchard bear early by budding into these hickories, ten, fifteen, or twenty years old. this next year i am going to try hickory on hickory. i am going to try three processes. i am going to try bark grafting, and whip grafting in the body of the tree which has been cut off. then, i have quite a number of hickories each four or five inches in diameter that i have sawed off and allowed to put up clusters of water sprouts, and i am going to whip graft some and put paper sacks over them, and see which is the best. president morris: i have found budding the best. mr. reed: doctor morris referred to the analogy of the pecan grafted on pecan as coming into bearing in two years. do you account for that in the fact of its being a graft, or the fact that the wood you selected came from a tree that had the characteristic of early bearing? president morris: no doubt that characteristic was transmitted, and further, no doubt the grafted stock was used from bearing wood. those points are all of interest. mr. reed: does the mere operation of grafting or budding influence earliness of bearing? president morris: yes, if i understand the question rightly. a tree that might not bear for fifteen years as a seedling may bear in three years grafted. mr. rush: i have persian walnuts that bore two fine nuts the second year. i have young trees, one about thirty inches, and i am sure it will be full of nuts next year, unless some providential misfortune should intervene. mr. reed: at what age did the original trees begin to bear? mr. rush: those were buds shipped to me from california. mr. littlepage: i am firmly convinced that there is something in the process of budding or grafting that stimulates the growth. for example, i have scions that were not over four to eight inches long grafted on one year seedling pecans which, at the end of this season's growth, were as much as thirty inches high. all along in the same row where seedling pecans were not grafted, there is none over eighteen inches high. mr. reed: to have made exact comparison, you would have had to take buds from your seedling nursery trees, and graft on other trees. you are comparing these buds from one tree with seedlings of another. professor lake: i would like to ask if you didn't bud or graft the best stocks in the row too? mr. littlepage: we took the whole row, as we came to it, but that particular tree might have been on some particularly favorable stock. it is a matter of a good deal of interest to see why a seedling which wasn't budded at all didn't grow as high as a scion which was budded in summer, stratified all winter, then put into the ground in an unnatural position. professor craig: it is the same principle, i think, which we discover in pruning. if we prune heavily during the dormant season, the effect is increased vegetative growth. if we wish to stimulate the growth of an old tree somewhat debilitated, we go to work and cut off a large portion of the top. we don't disturb the root. the effect is that with the same amount of pushing power from the root, we have a decreased area over which that energy is spread, and it results in apparently increased growth. i am not quite sure if we were to measure it up in a scientific way, we would actually find it was increased growth. there are fewer branches, but they have made greater length. in the case of grafting our pecans, we cut off our tops, set a two-bud scion in the root, and usually but one starts and receives all the vigor from the established root, instead of the vigor being distributed over several buds on the original seedling top. we have as a result of that concentration of vitality increased growth. i think that theoretical explanation will stand fairly well, because it seems to be directly in line with the effect of winter pruning. mr. reed: i would like to ask professor craig to what extent he would select seed for nursery purposes? what influence would the characters of the parent tree from which the seed came have on the grafted tree? professor craig: i don't believe that we can expect the characters of our stock to affect the scion to any extent. i think what the nurserymen should have in mind and keep in mind is a good, vigorous stock, and as many stocks as possible,--as he can get out of a pound of nuts. otherwise, i don't think it cuts much figure. in that connection there is a principle which i have discovered by experience, namely, that if you are growing stocks it is wise to get your nuts as near your own locality as possible. my experience last year in planting five hundred pounds of northern grown nuts in a southern locality, and five hundred pounds of southern grown nuts in the same locality, gathered in that locality, is that i got fifty per cent more trees from my southern grown nuts than northern, and trees that were fully thirty per cent better. mr. littlepage: where were your northern grown nuts stratified? professor craig: they were not stratified. they were planted as soon as they were received, and they were received within two weeks from the time they were taken from the trees. mr. littlepage: i am inclined to believe that if your northern grown nuts had been stratified in the north, and undergone the customary freezing and thawing, then had been taken up in the spring, you wouldn't have seen that difference. professor craig: i think that point is well taken. president morris: there is no doubt about that. in that same connection--i would choose nuts for seed purposes of a mean type, for the reason that nature is all the while establishing a mean. the big pecan is a freak. if you plant big or small nuts, you don't get big or small nuts in return. you get both big and little seeking a mean. mr. roper: the large nut will give a better tree. we have tested that out. president morris: does that work out logically in that way, is it a comparative matter all the time? mr. roper: we haven't worked that out in the bearing, but in the nuts in the row, the small nuts did not produce as large trees as the large nuts. we never tested the mean nuts. we did select some of the very smallest we had, and planted one of the northern and one of the southern type. they came up, but the trees amounted to nothing. president morris: the idea i meant to convey was that both very small and very large nuts are freaks, and neither likely to give as good a tree as mean types. what would you anticipate, professor craig? professor craig: i think that would resolve itself on a practical basis from the practical standpoint. i think the mean or average sized nut would give you the best results. there is no doubt, as mr. roper said, the very small nut would give you weak seedlings. on the other hand, you couldn't afford to use the very largest, so that a mean between large and small would be the natural thing to choose. but we should do nothing to discourage the planting of the finest specimens, with the possibility of getting something unusually good. that is certainly the work for every amateur. professor lake: does that statement, that you think it doesn't make much difference about the parent of the nuts for stock, apply to walnuts? professor craig: i haven't had any experience in walnuts. mr. littlepage: i would like to ask mr. roper if he knows of any examples where selection of fine varieties of seed has not resulted in getting a more productive variety of the plant which he was producing? mr. roper: only one, and that wasn't in a tree. president morris: in regard to coming true to type, i think records have been made of many thousands of pecans, and i don't know of any instance where the progeny resembled the parent closely. mr. pomeroy: maybe someone could explain one of my failures a few years ago in planting some persian walnuts. i went to another tree in western new york, and got a peck or more. they were planted the same day, in the same ground, and all came up. those i got from another tree resembled a hill of beans, and stayed that way for three years. why wouldn't those grow? in soil three feet from those, there were trees growing. those nuts never did make trees. the nuts were of good size. colonel van duzee: as a practical nurseryman, i wouldn't think of planting nuts from a tree that i didn't know individually. we have had very much better success with nursery stock where we have chosen as seed medium sized nuts from vigorous trees with which we were acquainted. in the case of mr. pomeroy, i don't think there is any question but that the history of his tree would account for the failure. in other words, his nursery stock was undoubtedly from the results of years of slow growth on the part of the original tree, or unfavorable conditions of some kind. i don't quite agree with professor craig on the question of the influence of stock, because i believe it is really a very important point. president morris: we are not here to agree upon anything. colonel van duzee: i can't speak from the scientific standpoint, but i am quite sure that in the nursery business i shouldn't care to overlook that influence. president morris: when men agree, it means we are on stale old ground which has been thrashed over. thursday afternoon, december , . president morris: the meeting is called to order. the first paper this afternoon will be that by mr. j. franklin collins of the united states department of agriculture, on the chestnut bark disease. the chestnut bark disease. j. franklin collins, washington, d. c. i presume some of you know as much about certain features of this chestnut disease as i do myself; for i have only worked over certain sides of the whole question. i also presume that you are all acquainted with the fact that this disease, which is known as chestnut blight or the chestnut bark disease, is without doubt the most serious disease of any forest tree which we have had in this country at any time, that is, so far as its inroads at present appear to suggest. i want to call your attention to certain general historical facts in connection with the disease, facts which are familiar to some of you, but unfamiliar possibly to others. the forester of the bronx zoological park, dr. merkel, discovered in the fall of , or had his attention particularly called in to the fact, that a good many chestnut trees were dying in his vicinity, a number sufficient to have attracted especial attention. he looked at the matter carefully, and decided that there was a definite disease on these trees. he handed specimens over to doctor murrill of the new york botanical garden; who worked out the disease, and decided that it was a new fungus which was causing the trouble. he named it _diaporthe parasitica_, the name under which it is generally known today, although there is some question as to whether that is the one which should be applied to it. this, you remember, was in --in the fall. the first publication which appeared on the disease was in , as i recall it. the publication which then appeared was doctor murrill's upon his investigations. the disease has spread very rapidly since then, so that today we know the disease in a general area indicated by the red color on this map. the green area indicates in a general way the natural distribution of the common chestnut. since investigations upon the geographical range of the disease have been carried on so far as to show that the disease is now known over approximately the area indicated in red on that map. the northern limits of the disease are perhaps in new york state. further east, it is known as far north as northern massachusetts, mainly in the western part, and it is also known in boston. there have been two or three cases of the disease found in the arnold arboretum. on the west, we have two cases in west virginia, and the most southern station which i know of is in bedford county, virginia. but those are isolated stations beyond the area which is indicated here. i shall have a little more to say in regard to the distribution. before speaking of that, i want to call your attention to a few points in regard to fungi in general, points of common knowledge to all who have studied fungi or mycology. a fungus is a kind of plant which does not, on account of the absence of the green coloring matter, manufacture its own food. it is a plant which has, in other words, no green foliage, and as it has no green foliage, it must obtain its organic or elaborated food from some other source. the fungi have very aptly been termed the tramps of the vegetable kingdom, that is, they live on food prepared by somebody else. they can take certain organic substances and change them apparently into other organic matter which can be used by the plant. in the case of this chestnut fungus, we have a fairly typical fungus in certain respects. we have a vegetative stage of the fungus which is nothing more or less than a lot of threadlike structures penetrating the bark of the chestnut, the inner bark or the middle bark, and there drawing the organic matter from the bark of the chestnut and appropriating it to its own use. fungi, like practically all other plants, have two stages of existence, one the vegetative or growing stage, the other the reproductive stage. sooner or later the fungus will produce the fruiting bodies, after it has obtained a sufficient amount of food to justify the formation of these more highly organized structures. in the case of the fruiting body of the chestnut fungus, we have very small, pinhead-like structures, which come out to the surface of the bark, the vegetative portion developing through the interior of the bark. on smooth bark we find that these fruiting pustules are apt to appear all over the surface. with bark that is sufficiently old to have ridges and crevices, we find these fruiting bodies only in the crevices. these fruiting pustules which you will see on this bark are the structures which produce the reproductive bodies, these latter being known as the spores. there are two types of spores which are produced by this fungus. one is the type which is commonly spoken of as the summer spore, the other the type which is spoken of as the winter spore. the winter spore is known from the point of view of the mycologist as the perfect stage of the fungus, that is, it is the more characteristic of this particular fungus. if we should make a cross section of the bark, we should find that the vegetative stage is running through the middle bark, and commonly the inner bark, sometimes in one place only, sometimes in the other only, sometimes in both. this vegetative stage later sends up in various ways a mass of tissue which results in the formation of pustules. these appear on the surface, sometimes more or less regularly rounded, sometimes rather irregular. in the case of the summer spore stage, we have inside the pustules a mass of tissue which is formed into spores. the interior of the spore mass, or at least portions of it, is somewhat mucilaginous, so that when moisture is applied a swelling of the interior mass is produced at a certain stage and something has to break. as a result, we have a mucilaginous mass pressed out through the break in the shape of a twisted thread, much the same as if you take a collapsible tube of paste and pinch it. now, one of those summer spore threads may contain anywhere from one to five million spores. i have tried to estimate the number in a thread of this sort which was about an eighth of an inch long, and by taking a certain portion of that thread, mounting it in a drop of water, and then counting over a certain measured area under the microscope, i have estimated, by multiplying, that there were , , spores in that one thread. so you can imagine how many of these spores may be produced by a single diseased area which has produced perhaps four or five hundred of those pustules, each pustule containing anywhere from one to twenty threads. each one of those spores may develop a new diseased area, provided it is transported to a fresh break in the bark of a chestnut tree. fortunately, only a very small fraction of one per cent ever reaches the proper place for growth. this last is what i alluded to as the summer spore stage. there is a winter spore stage, or technically, the ascospore stage, which comes, as a rule, later in the development of the fungus. in this same pustule, later in the season, certain sacs are formed. these have long necks which extend to the top of the pustule. these sacs are sufficiently large to be seen with the naked eye. they are dark colored. inside these, we have a lot of smaller transparent sacs or cases in each of which we get eight spores, sometimes in one row, sometimes in two rows. each spore can propagate the fungus. we have, then, two types of spores, either one of which can reproduce the fungus under suitable conditions. there is still another way by which the disease may be kept going. the vegetative stage can survive the winter and continue growing the following year. i will say right here that i am planning to give you merely an outline of this disease, and have time afterwards for questions which i think in a meeting of this sort are one of the most productive sources of information. in regard to the rapidity of spread of this disease, i will merely call your attention to two cases as illustrations, or to certain facts, rather. one is that the disease, so far as our attention has been directed to it, has developed over the area indicated on the map since the fall of . another case is one which has occurred in rhode island, where i have had a chance to watch its development a little more closely than in other places, that is, more constantly. in the fall of , after i had made over thirty excursions around rhode island, i was unable to find a single trace of this disease, and no one else was able to find a single case of the disease in rhode island. in may, , i happened to be about five miles west of the city of providence, and i found two or three cases, all in one rather restricted spot. later, it was discovered a little farther south, and soon, a little to the north, so that at the end of the season of we knew of about ten cases in rhode island. at the end of , a season in which very few trips were made with the special object of surveying for the disease, we had more than doubled the number of infections found. that led to putting someone into the field in to make a survey of rhode island. a man was also put into the state of massachusetts for the same purpose. mr. rankin, in cooperation with the united states department of agriculture, made a survey of new york state, which has resulted in this map. a man was put into pennsylvania and one into maryland for the same purpose. as a result of the survey in rhode island, where at the end of we knew of less than fifty cases at the outside, we now know of very nearly cases. it has been much the same story in massachusetts. at the beginning of this year, there were four towns in which the disease was known; now there are seventy-one. at present in connecticut, the disease is known in one hundred thirty-two towns of the one hundred sixty-eight in the state, and the southwestern part of connecticut is very badly infected, just as badly as the adjoining portions of new york.[a] [footnote a: since this statement was made the disease has been definitely reported in approximately towns in conn. [j. f. c]] so much for illustrations of the rapidity with which the disease develops. i am not going to say at this time anything special about the origin of the disease, simply because we haven't yet decided what was the probable origin. i will merely say there are some different theories in regard to the origin. one is that it was imported from the orient, another, that it is a saprophyte, a fungus which has lived normally upon dead organic matter, but which has taken on the parasitic form, which develops on living organisms. in connection with any disease of this sort, one naturally inquires, how are we going to recognize this disease? this past summer pennsylvania has put into the field thirty or more men who have been trained to recognize this disease, with the idea of locating the infections in pennsylvania. as perhaps all of you know, the legislature of pennsylvania has passed a law relating to this particular disease, and has appropriated $ , to see if the disease can be controlled. their idea is that they have perhaps fifty million dollars' worth of chestnuts, and if $ , can show whether or not this disease can be controlled, it is economy to try it. so far as pennsylvania is concerned, it means possibly the saving of the chestnuts in the middle and western parts of the state; but it also means that if they can check it there, it is likely to save the great area of chestnut growth along the southern appalachians. i don't want to make any prophecy as to how that experiment is likely to come out, but, however it comes out, it will be a very great object lesson as to what can be done on a large scale with a disease of this sort. one of the first things which had to be considered in pennsylvania was to train a number of men to recognize the disease, so as to go over the country and locate the diseased spots. the method of recognizing the disease i will briefly outline. of course, over a large country, many hundreds of square miles, it is a long, and laborious operation to look over every tree. it is perhaps impossible without a very much larger force than $ , could put into the field. but there are certain clues to the location of the disease which can be seen a long distance, a quarter of a mile, at any rate. the means of recognition is by what i commonly call danger signals. this fungus, when growing through the bark, starts from the common point of infection and grows in all directions, up the stem, down the stem, and around the stem. wherever this vegetative stage, technically known as mycelium, penetrates, the bark is killed; and of course, you all know what that means. when this has succeeded in reaching around a twig, branch, or trunk, everything beyond that girdled area dies, not immediately, perhaps, but sooner or later it dies; and it dies in such a way that the leaves change color during the summer. the first obvious change which can be noted is a slight wilting of the leaf; then the leaf assumes a pale green color, and from the pale green it takes on a yellow stage; from this a reddish yellow stage, and then a brown, till the leaf is the ordinary dark dull brown of the dead leaves. this coloration which takes place is conspicuous. there is your guide, your danger signal. if the disease has worked very long, half a season, in one locality, you are almost sure of getting some of these danger signals. where one is present, you can go and look up the cause of that danger signal. it may be a broken twig, but the point is to find out if it is this disease which has caused the danger signal. we start by looking at the danger signal, then at the base of the dead area. if we find here some of the reddish pustules which have been shown on this bark we are quite sure that the disease is present. then by cutting into the bark a little, instead of the normal buff or yellowish tint of the fresh clean bark, we get, when the disease is present, a rather mottled effect, varying from a brownish to lighter or even darker. there is a peculiar fan-like effect to this mycelium which penetrates the bark, so that by shaving off the surface of the bark, you get this mottled appearance, which gives you another means of identifying the disease. so we look for the danger signals, and then look for the meaning of the danger signals. if we find those two things, the pustules and the mottled mycelium, we can very safely say that this disease is present. there are a few fungi which closely resemble this chestnut disease in general appearance, but they are not very common, and are not confused with the disease, as a rule, when you get the lens on them. in regard to the experiments for the control of the disease. i want to say a few words. as far back as , the united states department of agriculture began experiments on certain experimental plots, particularly in long island near the region where the earliest cases of this disease were known, to see if it could be controlled on individual trees after they had become infected. later, experiments were undertaken along the same line in lancaster county, pennsylvania. spraying was tried, although there was no idea that it would be of any use, because the vegetative stage of this fungus is running through the interior of the bark, where no spray could reach it. thus spraying was found to be of no use whatever. then the operation of cutting out the disease was tried. where the diseased spot appeared, it was cut out with a gouge. then the exposed area was covered in various ways with antiseptics. this gave, for a year or two, very promising results, but about the third year the disease appeared to get over on to the margin, where it had been cut. this led to the later discovery that the disease had been running in the wood, as we had previously suspected. so the cutting out of the bark alone is not sufficient. this year cutting has been done so as to include a portion of the sap wood. there is just one other topic which i want to allude to. that is in regard to the immunity question. it has been found that this disease attacks the common native chestnut, the chinquapin, the various cultivated european chestnuts, but very rarely the japanese. in regard to this point. i hope that doctor morris will tell us something about his experiments on the breeding of chestnuts with the idea of producing a new and immune variety. you will understand that i have just made an outline of this disease, and i hope that, if there are any questions to be asked, you will make them easy, so that i can answer them. president morris: this very interesting paper is now open for discussion, and i hope that we can get some points which will allow us to know how to control the disease. with the wind-borne spores that are carried miles and miles by a single sharp gust of wind, this disease is a difficult matter to control. we must, i believe, find some natural enemies, if we can. i don't know where to look for these. i will have to ask the mycologists what we may anticipate along the line of natural enemies. i would like to ask if it is common for a weak species to become a devastating species. have we many parallels in the field of mycology? the point relating to raising immune kinds is one for discussion. are we to raise immune chestnuts? the history of most plants, i think, has been this, that where they have met their enemies in their natural environment, the fittest survive; and it seems to me that this is a case in which we perhaps have survival of the fittest in north asia; for the north asian chestnuts certainly resist the disease better than any others, but the chestnuts of southern asia are quite vulnerable to it. in my own orchards, i have twenty-six kinds of chestnuts, and have followed them along, for the purpose of determining which ones would resist the blight best. i cut out last year old american chestnut trees on my property. there is not a tree in all that part of connecticut, the vicinity of stamford, that is not blighted, and very few that are not dead. now, in the midst of this disaster, what was the behavior of my experimental chestnuts of various kinds? it was this. i had about one thousand koreans that lived up to five years of age, growing in the midst of blighted chestnuts, and none of these blighted. it occurred to me that it might be well to graft these on the stumps of american chestnut, because these koreans resisted the blight; but when i grafted them on the sprouts of american stumps, at least fifty per cent of the koreans blighted, showing that the pabulum wanted by the _diaporthe_ seemed to be furnished by the american chestnut. i had some chestnuts from north japan that resisted the blight, and yet these grafted on the sprouts from american chestnuts blighted. i had some chinese chestnuts, and none of those have blighted as yet; and in grafting them, two or three have not been blighted. i have perhaps twenty-four chinquapins, both the western form and the eastern, and only one branch of one tree has blighted. of the southern japanese chestnuts, very many are blighted. they are not as resistant as the northern. i have a good many chestnuts of european descent, and among these some resist the blight pretty well; and some of the american progeny, like the hannum and ridgely, seem to resist well enough, so that now i am grafting these upon many different sprouts. this should be worked out, and i wish to know what men have tried experiments along this line. i would like to ask professor reddick to discuss this question. professor reddick: i have very little that i can add at the present time. the points the talk has raised here are of the greatest importance, and there is certainly room for a great many people to work, though here in this state we have only one man who is devoting his attention particularly to this disease. i find in connection with the work that professor collins is doing, and in connection with the pennsylvania work, that there are some people engaged on these very vital and important problems. they are not giving any particular attention to field work, but are working on these special problems. i think you all appreciate that progress of investigations on this kind of subjects is rather slow, and in the meantime the man who has his trees and his nurseries blighting is surely up against it. i have only one thing in mind, a thing which i suggested to mr. rankin when he first started on this work, and it is a thing which doctor peck, our state botanist, suggested at the chestnut bark conference that was held in albany not long since. doctor peck says that he has lived a good while, and he has seen epidemics come and go. certain plants, certain varieties were threatened with extermination, yet at the present time they are still with us. i suggested to mr. rankin that, while it looked as if chestnut blight was going to be with us indefinitely, the chances were it would all be gone before he had a chance to find out all the things he thought he was going to. our friend doctor clinton of connecticut would have us think it is only a matter of a few years to have conditions come around so that the chestnut blight will not be a thing of serious importance. in other words, doctor clinton stoutly maintains that, while this fungus is doing so much now, it is largely due to the condition to which our trees have come, owing to a succession of very unfavorable summers and winters; and as soon as the conditions get around to normal, the disease will be no more. some of us are not inclined to agree with him entirely. professor craig: perhaps you can tell us what mr. rankin has been doing this year. professor reddick: at the beginning of the past summer, from the surveys and observations that had been made almost entirely by the united states department of agriculture authorities, it was known that the chestnut disease had extended up the hudson river perhaps as far as poughkeepsie. it was our idea that he would probably find the border line of healthy and diseased trees somewhere in the vicinity of poughkeepsie, so mr. rankin located it opposite poughkeepsie at highlands. during the course of the summer, the assistance of the state survey commission and the state department of agriculture was enlisted, and there were six or eight men who spent part of july and all of august surveying the portion which now appears on this map in red. the results of this survey show that the entire hudson river valley, with the exception of a small part in the vicinity of albany, is now infected. in fact, it is the general opinion that there is no use whatever to attempt in any way to save the trees in this locality. very fortunately there is a strip of territory which is almost solid spruce forest, and in which there are almost absolutely no chestnut trees. we have already, then, abandoned the hudson river valley, but with this great natural barrier, you see that it is going to be relatively easy, so far as the state of new york is concerned, to put some sort of an artificial barrier across the little neck there. this all depends on what can be done in pennsylvania. this cross-hatching of red along the delaware river represents an area in which the infection is only partial, and the few dots of red shown about binghamton represent localities in which the blight has now been exterminated. the diseased trees have been taken out, stumps killed, and bark burned. we are in hopes the disease will not reappear there. i don't believe things have been definitely settled at albany in the department of agriculture, where the control work naturally lies, but commissioner pearson is very anxious that something be done to try to control or prevent the further spread of the disease in our state. plans are being made so that a large number of men will be located in this territory next summer, making very careful inspection, removing the occasional diseased trees, killing stumps, and burning bark; and a forester will be connected with the work, for the purpose of advising with regard to the use of the diseased timber. i might call attention to the fact that our state agricultural law, as it now reads, empowers our commissioner of agriculture to quarantine against this or any other dangerous fungous disease,--a very broad step from what it was before that time, when the only fungous disease he had any power to act against was the black knot of plums. mr. reed: from the chart, it appears that the disease is more common in the vicinity of streams and bodies of water. professor reddick: that is an observation that has often been recorded. mr. reed: how is it elsewhere than in new york? professor collins? the question has been asked more often than otherwise, why do we find the disease on the tops of hills away from the water? i think there isn't a sufficient amount of evidence or observation on that point to say whether it is more common near or away from bodies of water. i will call your attention to one experiment that can be performed by anybody with the microscope. take a piece of one of those spore horns or threads, put it in a drop of water on a microscope slide. inside of two minutes, it will disappear entirely. it is dissipated in the water, and the spores are so small you cannot see them with the naked eye. if you let the water dry on the slide, then put that slide under the microscope and try to blow those spores off, you can do it just about as easily as you can blow the shellac off a door. you can brush that film under the microscope, and you can't see that a single spore has been disturbed. the explanation, i think, lies in the fact that these spores are of a mucilaginous nature, and when they dry, they stick to whatever they come in contact with. that does not mean that these spores cannot be blown, because they may lie on fragments of leaves and be blown about by the wind. again, some of the spores may be detached in a mechanical way and thus blown by the wind. but i am quite convinced that the spores are not blown broadcast, simply because they are of a sticky nature. now, those spore threads are forced out under certain conditions, moisture conditions, as a rule. it has been shown after repeated observation that these spore threads are pushed out a day or two after a rain. of course, in the springtime, the atmosphere is much more moist than later in the season. consequently, we find more of these spore threads in the spring than at any other time. you will recall that the last week of august this year was a week of almost continuous rain. two days after that ceased, i saw as many of these spore threads as i had seen at any one time all summer. so that, although conditions are best in the spring for greater abundance of these spores, they may occur at any time. if a bird alights on these spore masses, there is no reason that i see why they should not be carried. we know the rain water running down the trunk dissolves these spore masses, and they are carried down, there to reinfect the tree when insects crawl around. president morris: my brother has some japanese chestnuts twenty-five or thirty years of age. by cutting off one branch at a time as fast as they blighted, he has saved those trees. professor collins: you spoke, doctor morris, of grafting japanese on to american stock. i have seen repeated cases where the japanese has been grafted on to american stock. the whole japanese tree has been killed, and we find the disease has killed the tree by girdling the american stock below the graft. president morris: yes, i find this over and over again. in one case where i had a very choice variety of burley's chestnut, the _diaporthe_ attacked the american stock underneath this, and had practically girdled it when i saw it. there remained a fraction of an inch of good bark. i cut off all except that, and put tar over it, and grafting wax over that, and this year the graft has grown a foot or more. so by giving a great deal of attention to some one little injury, we can overcome the effect of it. mr. jensen: in your grafting, what was the relationship of the rapidity of the growth of top after grafting, compared with the old stock? president morris: when these grafts are put on the stock, on rapidly growing shoots from a large root, they grow enormously, and sometimes we have had nearly one hundred feet of growth in one year. that, however, would be a chestnut like the scott or the ridgely. we frequently get thirty, forty, or fifty feet growth in one year. mr. jensen: does the plant grow more rapidly when it is grafted than on its own stock? president morris: i have not grafted japanese on japanese stock, but the japanese and korean grafted on american stock does grow more rapidly than it does on its own roots. professor craig: mr. hall has another interesting instance of chestnut blight. mr. hall: on the ground where the blight appeared, there were four chestnuts set by a nurseryman, two japanese and two european chestnuts. of the european chestnuts, one has succumbed to the blight, and the other has been continually attacked for the past four or five years, twice in a period of four years, and it is still alive and recently appears to be in a more healthy condition than for the past four or five years. during that time it has never borne any chestnuts. the companion tree of the same kind was girdled in two or three years. president morris: there is comparative resistance. some of my trees went down instantly, and went all to pieces, while others stood up for four or five years. chestnuts of the paragon type i hoped were going to be fairly immune, but they are going pretty fast. i have advised people who have asked about paragon chestnuts to buy them, but be prepared to have to cut out blighted branches as they appeared. it is a question whether i can advise even buying them much longer, because i have lost nearly all my paragons, but they have not gone as fast as the americans. doctor deming: ought we not before we leave this subject either to appoint a committee, or to pass resolutions urging action on the part of the state similar to the action taken by pennsylvania in attempts to limit this disease? i would make such a motion, that the northern nut growers' association urge legislative action similar to that already taken by the state of pennsylvania to limit the spread of the chestnut bark disease. mr. littlepage: i second the motion. (carried.) professor craig: should not the secretary be empowered to send a copy of those resolutions to the commissioner of agriculture? i think the motion includes that. mr. reed: it seems to me that this disease is of as much importance to other states as it is to new york and pennsylvania, and that this sentiment, as this action can only be a sentiment of the association, should be sent to the commissioner of agriculture in other states, as well as in new york. this is not the new york nut growers' association. i would make that as a motion, that the sentiment of this association in favor of state action similar to that of pennsylvania be pressed upon the commissioner of agriculture in each state where that disease is prevalent. president morris: shall we make mr. reed's motion take the place of doctor deming's? doctor deming: i would accept that as an amended motion. (carried.) professor craig: inasmuch as we have gone that far, should we not take another step, and that is, fearing lest the united states secretary of agriculture should feel slighted, should we not as the northern nut growers' association draw his attention to the fact that here is a serious disease sweeping over the whole northern part of the country, representing a very considerable portion of his domain, and ask his aid and cooperation with the various states which are attempting to do such good work? president morris: will that have to go as another motion or as an amendment to doctor deming's? professor craig: i move that a resolution of a similar type be passed, and forwarded to the secretary of agriculture of the united states. (carried.) mr. wilcox: may i ask some of the gentlemen who have experience along this line if we may look for any cure or help for it in the future, and if so, along what lines will it be possible, along the lines of isolation, of natural enemies, or some other preventive or cure? president morris: yes, i would like to ask if anyone has a definite proposition beyond the one that has been proposed, restricting it by cutting out the advance agents of the blight. i believe that has been the only proposition so far. we certainly can't kill off the birds that will carry off blight on their feet. we don't know if a fungous enemy is likely to follow it up, or if it is a weak species, brought into activity by certain conditions, which will be brought back to its normal mode of life again. i don't know that anything definite could be stated till we know more about it. professor craig: perhaps mr. collins or professor reddick might offer something in the way of suggestions on that. mr. collins: i don't think that i have anything to propose beyond the points suggested by the president. i think there are a good many points which should be kept watch of, and i don't know any one that looks any more promising than the other, except perhaps this of cutting out the disease. but this is an expensive method. mr. reed: have you ever found any individual trees in infested districts that were immune? mr. collins: only the japanese, but i think doctor morris has found the korean even more immune. i shouldn't use the word "immune," perhaps, but "highly resistant" to the disease. i have watched quite a number of trees, in the midst of disease, which seemed to be resisting the disease. i explained it in some cases by the fact that the bark was very free from injury--maybe that was the reason why they did not take the disease so easily as they might otherwise. president morris: the next paper will be that of mr. c. a. reed of the united states department of agriculture on "the present status of nut growing in the northern states." nut growing in the northern states. c. a. reed, washington. d. c. with the exception of the chestnut, no species of native nut-bearing tree has become of prominent commercial importance as a cultivated product in that portion of the united states lying east of the mississippi and north of the ohio and potomac rivers. the growing of foreign nuts has attracted greater attention than has the development of the native species. almost with the beginning of our national history, the culture of persian walnuts attracted considerable attention throughout the east, especially in the states of the middle and north atlantic coast. the european and japan chestnuts, the european hazels and the japan walnuts have since come into considerable prominence in the same area. within the district so outlined, which comprises practically the entire northeastern quarter of the united states, there are few sections of large extent to which some species of native or foreign origin has not already demonstrated its adaptability to the soil and climatic conditions, or to some other locality of approximately similar conditions. in order of importance, the species of native nut-bearing trees known to be suited to some portion of the area under discussion, the following list is probably not incorrect: the american chestnut (_castanea dentata_); the shagbark (_hicoria ovata_); the american black walnut (_juglans nigra_); the butternut (_juglans cinerea_); the pecan (_hicoria pecan_); the shellbark (_hicoria laciniosa_); and the hazels (_corylus americana_; _corylus rostrata_). the american beechnut (_fagus atropunicea_, sudworth) naturally belongs to this list, but as it is probably not under cultivation as a nut tree at any place in the united states, it will not be discussed at this time. the principal foreign species which have been tried in the northeastern states are: the european and japanese chestnuts (_castanea sativa_ and _c. japonica)_; the persian (english) walnut (_juglans regia_); the japanese walnuts (_j. sieboldiana; j. cordiformis_ and _j. mandshurica_); the european hazels (_corylus avellana_ and _c. tubulosa_). the american chestnut (_castanea dentata_, marsh). representatives of the american species of chestnut are found native to a large area. the species seems to avoid extremes of temperature, cold, alkaline or acid soils, and an excess of moisture. it is apparently at its best in the sandy and coarse gravelly soils of the uplands from lower new england to the southern extremity of the piedmont plateau in the east and from the extreme southern part of eastern michigan to northern mississippi on the west. although the quality of the american chestnut is unapproached by most of the foreign species, comparatively little attention has been paid to its development, while considerable effort has been directed toward the introduction and cultivation of the large european and asiatic species. comparatively few varieties of the american species have been originated, and of these none have been widely disseminated. the one variety, which, because of its size, productiveness, and quality, has been extensively propagated and widely planted, is the paragon. this variety originated at germantown, pa., and was introduced about . it is believed to have originated from a seed grown from a nut obtained from a european seedling, then in one of the gardens of philadelphia. this variety has been propagated very extensively both in the nursery and by grafting on native stumps and sprouts of cleared-over forest lands. in the nursery it is now chiefly grafted to seedlings grown from paragon nuts. this variety is both precocious and prolific. in a acre orchard of young nursery grown trees planted near boonville, indiana, during the spring of , nearly every tree set a number of burs during the same season. from two or three to from fifteen to seventeen burs had to be removed from each tree in order to prevent over-taxation. mr. charles a. green of rochester, new york, mr. e. h. riehl of alton, illinois, and mr. g. w. endicott of villa ridge, illinois, are the introducers of a number of improved varieties of the american sweet chestnut, illustrations and descriptions of which may be had upon application to these gentlemen. the extreme severity of the chestnut blight throughout the section where it has made its appearance, the rapidity with which it has spread since its discovery, and the present practical impossibility of keeping it under control have put the future of the chestnut industry of this country much in doubt. as has already been made clear during the present meeting, this disease has resulted in the entire destruction of thousands of forest and park chestnut trees in the sections where it has appeared, and as evidence of the further apprehension with which the chestnut blight is taken into account by the authorities familiar with it, it may be well to state that at the last meeting of the pennsylvania state legislature, the sum of $ , was appropriated for use in studying and combatting this disease. above every other question bearing upon the subject of chestnut culture, that of this disease is by far of the greatest importance to the prospective planter. the shagbark hickory (_hicoria ovata_). this species is native to the greater portion of the area under discussion. it is not common north of southern maine and is much less abundant than the chestnut in the lower new england and north atlantic states. it is best adapted to regions of deep fertile soils well supplied with moisture, yet without standing water. it is very difficult to propagate by asexual methods and ordinarily requires from twelve to twenty years to bring it into commercial bearing. for these reasons exceedingly few varieties have been called to public attention. the location of several individual trees of superior merit to that of the average are now known and arrangements are being made for their early propagation. the most practical means of obtaining young trees for nut purposes it the present time is to plant nuts from selected trees. this method will, of course, lead to the wide variation common with seedling trees, but until experienced propagators meet with better success in their efforts at grafting or budding this species than in the past, there is little use for the amateur to undertake it. the american black walnut (_juglans nigra_). the american black walnut is common to much the same general area as the shagbark hickory. it is much less exacting in its soil and moisture requirements than that species and is much more frequent within the same area. its representatives, either native or planted, are found in almost every kind of soil and at nearly every degree of elevation from the well drained lowlands to the mountain sides. as with the shagbark, few varieties of the black walnut have been introduced. the same interest is now being shown by leaders in nut culture in their efforts to locate and insure for propagation superior varieties of black walnuts as with the shagbarks. the butternut (_juglans cinerea_). the butternut or white walnut, as it is sometimes called, is one of the most neglected of our native nut bearing trees. in the forest it abounds under much the same conditions as does the black walnut, to which it is closely related. its native range within the entire united states extends further to the east and north and is not found so far to the south or west as is the black walnut. like the shagbark, it is generally less abundant within the area of its native range than is either the chestnut or the black walnut within their respective native areas. so far it is known to the writer, not a single variety of the butternut has been introduced. the pecan (_hicoria pecan_). the pecan is native to a very small portion of the area under discussion. north of the th parallel it is found native along the river bottoms bordering on the mississippi river and its tributaries to davenport, iowa, terre haute, indiana, and nearly to cincinnati. scattered individual trees are by no means rare in illinois, indiana, ohio, pennsylvania, delaware and new jersey, as far north as the st parallel, and they are occasionally found in the lower parts of michigan, new york and connecticut. in rare instances, they have been reported near the atlantic coast in massachusetts. it is doubtful if any of these northern trees which are well outside of the area included by the native range of the pecan have yet borne nuts of good size and quality to an important extent. the efforts to carry the pecan beyond the limits of its accepted range have thus far been mainly by the planting of seedling nuts. during the past or years, intelligent efforts have been made by several persons in the state of indiana to locate wild or seedling trees of sufficient merit to justify their propagation as named varieties for northern planting. already they have called to attention and are propagating as rapidly as possible the indiana, the busseron, the major, the greenriver, the warrick, and the hinton. some of these varieties compare favorably in the matter of size with the average pecans of the south, and while none of those yet discovered are of extremely thin shell, in points of plumpness, richness, bright color of kernel and pleasant flavor one or two of these northern varieties are not excelled by any of the southern sorts. scions and buds from these trees have been used in the propagation of nursery trees, and already a few trees have been disseminated. several nurseries are now propagating these varieties but all combined their output will necessarily be very limited for some years to come. somewhat in advance of the steps taken in indiana two varieties, the mantura and the appomattox, have been introduced from southeastern virginia by mr. w. n. roper of petersburg. the mantura pecan is distinctly of the southern type,--large, thin shelled and a ready cracker. it has been disseminated throughout the north to some extent when grafted upon the stocks of southern seedlings. none of the trees are yet in bearing. it is now being propagated by grafting to stocks of northern seedlings and it is highly probable more hardy trees will be the result. the appomattox pecan has not yet been propagated to great extent. since the variety was called to public attention, a horse stable has been erected immediately under the tree; and consequently, being greatly over-supplied with nitrogen, it has been unable to normally develop its crops. good specimens, therefore, have not been obtainable for description during the past several years. in the mind of the introducer, however, it is a valuable variety, and well worthy of further observation. the shellbark hickory (_hicoria laciniosa_). the shellbark hickory is much less common and far less well known than is the shagbark. in its native range it appears in certain counties of central new york, eastern pennsylvania and in parts of ohio, indiana, illinois, michigan, wisconsin, minnesota, iowa, nebraska and oklahoma. according to nut culture in the united states,[b] this species attains its "greatest development along the streams of southern kansas and missouri, arkansas and oklahoma." [footnote b: published by the u. s. department of agriculture in .] the nuts of this species are considerably larger than those of the shagbark and of much thicker shell, and commonly do not have as plump kernels. exceedingly few have been propagated. the american hazels (_corylus americana; corylus rostrata_). shrubs of these two species are often seen growing together throughout the greater portion of the area under discussion. the former (_c. americana_) is of somewhat the better quality. neither has been propagated asexually or cultivated to any extent, but it is doubtful if any native species of the nut tree offers a more inviting field for improvement than do these two species of hazels. the same methods of searching out the individuals of superior merit to that of the general average for propagation by grafting and budding by which other nut trees are being improved should be followed with the hazels. the chinkapin (_castanea pumila_). except as a wild product, this nut has perhaps the least commercial importance of any species mentioned in this paper. a few cultivated varieties are in existence but the nuts are commonly looked upon by experienced growers as novelties rather than as products worthy of special attention. the species is merely that of a dwarf chestnut growing as a shrub instead of as a tree. it is less hardy than the chestnut, being evidently best adapted to the climatic conditions of the southern portion of the chestnut area and even farther south. foreign nuts. the european and asiatic chestnuts (_castanea sativa_; _castanea japonica_). it is probable that within the area under discussion greater attention has been paid to the introduction of european and asiatic chestnuts than to any other foreign species. the former is a moderately strong grower usually, with a low, rather broad top. the latter makes a small tree chiefly of value for ornamental purposes. both are grown principally from second generation seedlings, which seem better adapted to american conditions than do imported trees. as in the case of the american sweet chestnuts the existence of these species in the united states is threatened by the swiftly spreading chestnut blight. the persian walnut (_juglans regia_). the persian walnut was among the first nut species to be introduced. the area east of the rocky mountains within which it seemed most successful previous to was described in nut culture at that time as being "a limited area along the atlantic slope from new york southward through new jersey, southeastern pennsylvania, central virginia, north carolina and georgia." continuing, the same publication said, "the tree endures the winter in favored localities near the coast as far north as connecticut, rhode island and massachusetts, but has never been planted there except in a small way." what was then said is still very largely correct. however, contrary to the construction which might be implied from the wording, there are few commercial orchards of persian walnuts anywhere east of the rockies; one, that of mrs. j. l. lovett of emilie, bucks county, pa., of from fifty to seventy-five trees, approximately twenty years of age, is bearing fully as well as could be expected under its present environment. the trees appear to be entirely unaffected by the severity of climatic conditions, but being seedlings altogether, and uncultivated, the crop production is irregular. reports from northwestern new york and pennsylvania indicate that this species may be safely grown in those sections when within the zones which are tempered by the influence of the great lakes. ordinarily the trees scattered over the eastern states do not seem able to permanently withstand the severe winters, as in most cases they are not infrequently severely frozen back. in eastern pennsylvania, maryland, delaware, new jersey and new york city, the writer recently inspected numbers of fine trees apparently from to years of age which showed no indications of winter injury. the owners seemed to be entirely ignorant of the reputation of the species with respect to its inability to withstand severe weather. the nuts from many of these trees were of such large size and good quality that a number are to be extensively propagated in the near future. the japan walnuts (_juglans sieboldiana_; _juglans cordiformis_; _juglans mandshurica_). these nuts are of comparatively recent introduction into the united states, having been brought from asia since . all are generally hardy; the first two are rapid growers, very productive and serve to an excellent purpose as ornamentals; the last is well known. the nuts of the former two are smaller than those of our native black walnut, of about equally thick shell, usually of no better quality, and as yet are not in great demand on our markets. a few trees, however, should certainly be given a place about the home grounds. the european hazels (_corylus avellana_; _corylus tubulosa_). numerous efforts have been made to introduce these species into the eastern states, but owing to the severity of a blight everywhere prevalent with the american species in this section, such efforts have usually met with failure. there have been very few instances in which either species has been cultivated in the eastern states for any great period of time without being destroyed by blight. the future of hazel nut production in this section evidently depends upon the development of our native species or by hybridizing with some of the foreign species. in concluding this article, it may not be amiss to throw out the following suggestions as to the steps by which all may help in the development of the nut industry: ( ) ordinarily, stick to the native species. ( ) plant nuts or seedling trees only when budded or grafted varieties cannot be had, but do not fail to plant nut trees of some kind. ( ) whenever a tree or shrub is located which because of the superior quality, size, thinness of shell and quantity of nuts appears to be worthy of propagation, specimens should be sent to the officers of this association; to the state experiment stations or to the u. s. department of agriculture at washington, d. c, for examination. (franks for the mailing of such nuts to the u. s. department of agriculture without postage will be sent upon application.) ( ) nut trees must be accorded the same degree of cultivation and horticultural attention given to other fruit-bearing trees, if commercial production of nuts is to be expected. president morris: this interesting paper is now open for discussion. i will start it by saying that the criticism of the japanese walnut is correct, so far as it goes; but we have there a fine opportunity for good new work, and if the nurseries would take up this question in the right way, they could open up an enormous trade for stock. let us take the _juglans mandshurica_, and the _sieboldiana_, which have been distributed more than any others over this country because of the beauty of the trees. they grow rapidly, and are tremendously hardy, although not so much so as the best of the japanese walnuts, the cordiformis. it was found on the pacific coast that the cordiformis went largely to wood. in the east, it bears well, is perfectly hardy and the nut is delicious. individual trees bear thin shelled nuts, and individual trees bear large nuts. in fact, i have seen the nut quite as large as the nut of the average american butternut, and thin shelled, at that. the thing for the large nurseries is not to sell japanese nuts under that name, but to sell the cordiformis, and sell only that, and only grafted trees. in that way we would get rid of the less desirable varieties, just as with the hickories a thousand and one shagbarks that we find are not remarkable, and yet we will find here and there one that is worth grafting and propagating. it is the same way with the japanese walnuts, but particularly this cordiformis which is hardy and growing native in a climate which corresponds to nova scotia. if the nurseries will put out this nut, grafted, they will have a very valuable nut to give us. i notice that the speaker distinguished a "little shagbark." now, i wonder if that is not a question worthy of discussion right here. the names shagbark, shellbark, and scaly bark, are applied indifferently to _hicoria ovata_, _hicoria cinerea_, and _hicoria septentrionalis_. we can distinguish them much better if we take different names for the little and the big shagbark,--if we call the little one shagbark and the big one shellbark, it makes a distinction; and the reason why that distinction seems legitimate is that the bark comes off like great sheets from the big shellbark, and the little shagbark has the scales of the bark coming off in smaller scales, shelling off. at the same time, it is more scaly than the other. if we call the shaggy one, _hicoria ovata_, shagbark, and call the big western one shellbark, it seems to me a distinction that we may as well make in our discussions, and fix the names in such a way as to afford convenience. mr. reed: my reference was to _hicoria ovata_. president morris: yes, that is for the little one, and if we call the _laciniosa_ shellbark, that will make a distinction. shall we call the little one shagbark, and the big shagbark shellbark, or must we always depend upon the scientific names in classifying? mr. collins: may i call attention to another complication? to botanists who are not particularly nut growers, there is another tree which is known as the little shellbark,--that is the _microcarpa_, with a nut about one-half to three-quarters of an inch long. professor lake: have we a committee on nomenclature? president morris: we haven't appointed that committee yet. professor lake: i was going to move that the matter go to them, with the suggestion that they take official action. president morris: supposing we extend the function of the committee on the nomenclature of _mandshurica_ to include this question of the naming of the shagbarks. doctor deming: then had we not better include the president, _ex-officio_, on that committee? president morris: we may as well begin, because there is no need of having this eternal confusion. doctor deming: i have never been able to understand why more attention hasn't been given to the hazels. here we apparently have a nut which is easy to transplant, which is perfectly hardy, which comes into bearing early, which bears a valuable nut--so valuable that when i went into a confectionery store in new york, i saw trays of nut meats lying side by side, and pecan meats were priced at $ . a pound and filbert meats were $ . . i understand the only obstacle to the growth of the filbert, which might well fill the early waiting years of the nut grower, is the hazel blight. i tried to get information on the hazel blight from doctor waite of the united states department of agriculture, and also from mr. kerr of denton, maryland, who, i know, has grown hazels for a long time, and done it very successfully; but i have not succeeded in getting any accurate information on the blight, and as i understand it, no accurate experiments have been carried out in the treatment of the blight, or in its prevention. it seems as if the blight, being an external fungous disease, ought to be one amenable to treatment by sprays. i am not aware of any experiments which have been made with that object. president morris: henry hicks of westboro has given as much attention as anybody to this matter. he made a great effort to introduce the european hazels for years. they all went down with the blight. specimens of the blight you can get without difficulty. doctor deming: did he practice spraying experiments carefully? president morris: he told me he had tried all. what have the meehans done? mr. wilcox: they have never had any trouble with the blight. president morris: how long do they keep them in the nurseries? mr. wilcox: we keep them to six or eight feet. president morris: do you have the common hazel abundant? mr. wilcox: yes, along the water courses. president morris: this blight is more apt to attack the exotics, and over where mr. kerr lives there are no native hazels. he happens to be on an island. he started europeans where we have no american hazels, so that accounts for his immunity. mr. reed: his trees are practically all dead now. he has given up. president morris: that has been the history everywhere. that is the last instance i have been able to find of successful raising of hazels. one line, it seems to me, offers promise--that is the making of hybrids. i am making hybrids between the american hazel and various european and asiatic. mr. rush: i have had some experience with the hazel. i have exchanged with mr. roody of washington. he has sent the barcelona and du chilly, and they are growing very hardy without the least indication of blight. there are two kinds of american hazels. i have them growing as large in the bush as twenty to twenty-five feet. and then we have a small bush. the small type is worthy of propagation. the barcelona and du chilly are thickly set with catkins this fall, and by all indications there will be a very nice crop next summer. president morris: the rule is they begin to blight about the fifth year. about the eighth they are gone. doctor deming: isn't that a most promising field for experiment, in producing blight-free varieties, and also in spraying? president morris: as i understand it, this fungus lives in the cambium layer of the bark, very much as _diaporthe parasitica_ does, and at such a depth that spraying is not much advantage. the fungus does not attack the native hazel, except when it has been injured. professor craig: we haven't heard from mr. barron. mr. barron: i don't know that i have anything to say. i came here to gather some information. i am chiefly interested in the possibility of the use of nut trees for landscape effect. president morris: this belongs right with this paper, because the uses of nut trees are not limited to the nuts for fruit purposes. their decorative value is one mr. barron brings in very properly, and it seems to me we may replace thousands of practically useless trees in the parks with wonderfully beautiful nut trees. what had you in mind particularly? had you thought it out? mr. pomeroy: the nurserymen must have done something to induce people to set out horse-chestnuts. there can't be anything more unsightly. it is always shedding something in the way of filth. there are two or three varieties of japanese walnuts that are beautiful, at the time of year when they are in blossom, with that long, red blossom. it seems as if the nurserymen might do something to induce people to set out these. president morris: what could be finer than your english walnuts? mr. barron: mr. hicks has given up hazel, but right close by mr. havemeyer is starting right in again. he has had them there for two years. doctor deming: one of my correspondents wrote, asking me what varieties of nut trees were most rapid growing and best for shade or screens. i think that is a very good subject for investigation. president morris: we can discuss it right here. doctor deming: i said the most rapid growing trees were the japanese walnuts, and perhaps the best for screens were the japanese chestnuts. i should hardly know what to say are the best for shade, because all of the nut trees are so good. mr. reed: it would depend very largely on the locality. of course, there are some of us here who are disciples of the pecan, and where you can grow the pecan successfully, it is doubtful if there is a prettier shade tree and one that makes less litter, or that grows faster. some of the hickories--the mocker-nut especially, _hicoria alba_, makes a very beautiful growth, and has a dense foliage of rich, dark green. for other purposes, there is no prettier tree than the chestnut, aside from the blight. it grows to greater size than most of the hickories and more rapidly. the japanese chestnuts i am not familiar with. the butternut is not usually a compact enough grower to be a beautiful tree, but the black walnuts and certain of our hickories, the rapid growing hickories, are very fine, and this rush chinquapin, i expect, would be very fitting for hedge planting. it is a very compact grower, and grows up about fifteen or twenty feet, making a very pretty tree. but every one of these trees we are mentioning has its particular place in the landscape. you can't use any one of them in all places. president morris: the objection to black walnut and butternut is the early loss of leaves in autumn. i have heard others speak about it as an objection. among the rapid growing ones, there is no doubt the japanese walnuts are tremendously rapid growers, during the first few years. for screen purposes, the chestnuts and chinquapin certainly would do remarkably well. we have forgotten the beech altogether, simply because we haven't been classifying it as a nut tree. but the nurserymen can put out beech trees grafted from trees that bear fine, valuable nuts, and give us the beech as a tree of double value. mr. reed: dr. deming raised the question as to why the hazel nut was not given more attention. it occurs to me that we have an analogy in the pecan situation. the pecan is native up and down the mississippi river and out in texas, and in that district you will find that a great deal less attention has been paid to development of varieties of the pecan as an orchard tree than farther east. all through mississippi, alabama, georgia, and florida, we find new varieties by the scores. it seems to be a case of distance lending enchantment. professor lake: going back, i wanted to ask you, doctor morris, if in your work of reproducing the hazel, you had used the pacific coast hazel for stock. president morris: yes, the pacific coast hazel is really the same species as ours, only it grows thirty or forty feet out there, and i have seen it nearly thirty feet high up in the hudson bay country. in some of the rich valleys in the far north, both on the pacific and atlantic coasts, the hazel becomes almost a tree. i have used it for grafting stock, but i haven't used it for crossing as yet. i have a lot of hazels ready for pollenizing next spring. professor lake: it seems to me it would be a most excellent thing if this association could do something in the way of stimulating the improvement of varieties of the native hazel. i can't help thinking that bush is entitled to much more attention than we have given it in the past. president morris: some work has been done along that line. i devoted the entire nut-collecting part of one year to studying the hazel. i went over many thousands of hazels. one day, when i asked a neighbor if i might go over his grounds, he said, "yes, but what better hazel do you want than that one that grows above your north bars?" he said, "we have known of that for one hundred years about here." he couldn't find it. finally it was found, covered by a ton of grape vine. it has wonderful hazels on it. i have transplanted it. it is a large, thin-shelled, fine hazel, but a shy bearer. i have three very fine american hazels i am going to use in crossing. this big, thin-shelled one is a wonderful hazel, except that it is a shy bearer, and it is difficult to transplant. i have transplanted four american hazels, and it took me about two or three years to get them under way. it is a nuisance with us. it grows in our pastures so rapidly the cows have to get out of the way--crowds everything out. i have no doubt a great deal more work will be done with the hazel. now my bushes are all ready for pollenizing. i have crossed a lot of them this year. professor craig: i think mr. barron's point in reference to the ornamental or esthetic value of the nut trees is very well taken, indeed. it is a fact that nurserymen have paid more attention in the past to those forms which are particularly striking in some way, rather than to the forms which are actually and intrinsically beautiful. anything which has variegated leaves or purple leaves is sure to catch the eye. as a matter of fact, i believe there are few trees which are more picturesque than the hickories here in new york. the summer season is not the season in which they carry their most beautiful forms. the winter is the time when we see that picturesque framework standing out against the sky, distinctive in every respect. mr. collins: isn't this subject one in which the association might interest itself? president morris: i have found that nurserymen to whom i have talked for the most part were men of naturally esthetic taste, but dropped their esthetic taste in order to adjust themselves to economic principles. if a customer says, "please give me a thousand carolina poplars," the nurseryman knows these will be beautiful for about fifteen years, then ragged and dead and unsightly; but the customer wants them, and the nurseryman has to furnish carolina poplars. mr. barron: the nurseryman, as a rule, doesn't take much trouble towards educating the people up to the better stuff. president morris: i believe that if the nurserymen make a concerted movement--or not necessarily a concerted movement--if any one firm or two or three firms will make a business of introducing beautiful, useful trees of the nut-bearing group, they will open up a new group. people just haven't thought about it. they give an order for trees in a sort of perfunctory way, because they must have them. if there is no further discussion, we will go on to the indiana pecan, by mr. t. p. littlepage, and this will be the last paper of the afternoon. the indiana pecan. t. p. littlepage, washington, d. c. the subject of the northern pecan is one that i have been interested in for more than thirty years. away down in spencer county, indiana, on the banks of the ohio river, stand many large native pecan trees, and some of my earliest recollections and most pleasant experiences are connected with gathering the nuts from under these large trees; and, without realizing it, i acquired much of the information in those early days that has of late enabled me to carefully discriminate between the desirable and undesirable varieties of pecans, viewed from the standpoint of one who propagates them for orchard purposes. my interest in the various points connected with pecan growing was at that time a very direct interest, and the only motive i had for determining various facts was the fundamental motive which largely dominates the world today, and that is the question of securing the thing we desire for our immediate use. the large, magnificent pecan trees growing on the banks of the beautiful ohio year after year became a matter of the deepest interest to me. i have seen the ohio surging swiftly through their branches in the winter, have seen them withstand the storms and vicissitudes of snow and ice and raging floods; and as the spring came on i have beheld them, with more or less surprise and pleasure, laden with blossoms. as summer advanced, i watched the growing clusters of delicious nuts; and as the nuts began to ripen in the fall, i soon learned to pick out the best bearing trees. it was not a matter of science or unselfish research that enabled me to determine the fact that some trees rarely ever missed a crop, while others were very uncertain; that some nuts were large, thin-shelled, and of fine flavor, while others were small and hard to crack, and otherwise undesirable; that some of the trees ripened their nuts early, long before frost, while others seemed to hang on and resent the coming of autumn with all their might. at the age of nine, i could take many different varieties of indiana seedling pecans, separate them, and locate the trees from whence they came, and give the essential points of their bearing record. i could also tell whether the respective owners watched them very carefully, kept a dog, or lived at a safe distance away, all of which points were just as essential so far as i was concerned as the size of the nut and its quality. the pecan captured me early in life, and i have been a willing victim ever since. my interest in this nut of late years is based on more scientific principles, but i doubt if the facts arrived at are any more reliable than the facts which came from the simple desire to appease a boyish appetite with the best nut that nature has ever produced. when i was about fourteen years old i came into personal possession of twelve acres of land which had descended to me from my father's estate. the land was almost valueless for general cropping purposes, but i had already, at that age, determined something of the value of a pecan orchard, and i proceeded to gather nuts from the best trees in that section, and the following spring planted the whole twelve acres in pecans. i knew, however, that even though the ground was not very productive it would have to be cultivated that summer, so i planted the pecans around stumps where the young trees would be protected. my information as to the value of pecans was accurate and unerring; however, there were several things i had not taken into consideration. first, that a pecan that is kept in the dry all winter is very slow to germinate in the spring, and in fact the percentage of them that does germinate is very small. second, that the field mice have an abiding hunger for pecans. third, that the pecan does not come true to seed, and that an orchard of seedlings is of very questionable value. the first two facts, which i failed to take into consideration--that is, the poor germinating qualities of a dry pecan, and the appetite of the field mice, relieved me from the embarrassment of the third, for it is needless to say that this attempt made twenty-five years ago was a complete failure, and for the time being discouraged my ambitions in this direction. but after many years they revived sufficiently to stimulate me to action again in the line of pecan culture. i mention the above facts merely to show my credibility as a witness on this subject. being a lawyer by profession, i have learned long since that the value of one's opinion, and especially the value of testimony is directly in proportion to one's knowledge of and interest in the subject matter at issue. therefore, trusting that i have sufficiently established my credibility, at least to my own satisfaction, i shall proceed to make some observations relative to nut culture in the north. first, let me say that i most heartily endorse the line of work undertaken by our association--that is, the work of collecting and diffusing information in reference to nut culture that will be valuable to the prospective grower. our southern brethren have very largely passed this stage in nut work in the south. they still have many problems before them, but the fundamental problems of the determination and propagation of the most desirable varieties of pecans have been already worked out and they are producing in their nurseries hundreds of thousands of fine budded and grafted pecan trees. there is such a lack of information on this subject in the north that it is indeed opportune that our association should at the beginning of the interest in nut culture in that section take up these various question and give the public the benefit of our experience and information in reference to them. there are yet many people who think that you cannot transplant a pecan tree, and that if you cut the tap root it will not produce, while the fact is that the pecan tree can be transplanted with almost as much success as can fruit trees. two years ago i transplanted a number of cherry trees. at the same time i transplanted some pecan trees, and i had a higher percentage of loss among the cherries than among the pecans. there are some who believe that it is even a benefit to cut the tap root. i have never belonged to the school which endorses cutting the roots of any tree to accelerate its growth, except, of course, where it is necessary to take up a tree and reset it, in which case it is necessary to cut some of the roots. it is unquestionably true that if the roots are cut too severely the tree receives too great a shock, but the pecan tree seems to recover as quickly as any other variety of tree. however, there are hundreds of farmers today who would not undertake to raise pecans, for the reason that they think they cannot be transplanted. also, in every community where the pecan is native, can be seen many seedling trees ranging anywhere from ten-to twenty-five years old that have never borne a nut. these trees are pointed out by the general public as horrible examples of the uselessness of attempted pecan culture. near my home at boonville, ind., is a row of seedling pecan trees planted in a garden. the trees are now old enough to bear a half bushel of pecans every year, but so far as i know they have never borne a nut. the general public throughout the north and middle west have not yet learned that the average seedling pecan is an uncertain quantity, grows slowly, bears irregularly, if at all, and probably inferior nuts. however, once in a while, nature, through her wonderful workings, has produced a tree that bears large crops of fine nuts regularly, and when the seedling pecan is grafted or budded from this kind of tree the trees so propagated take on the qualities of the parent and begin bearing very early. i have frequently taken pictures of small pecan trees not over three feet high, each bearing a cluster of large, fine nuts. this, of course, is unusual, but shows the tendency of the grafted or budded tree. i mention the above two points not for the purpose at this point of entering into a discussion of the propagation of the pecan, but to show the necessity for general enlightenment on the possibilities, and to dispel some of the bug-a-boos that exist in the minds of many persons. those of you here who have engaged in the various phases of nut culture may think these points primitive and unnecessary, and they are, perhaps, unnecessary to the expert, but it is my pleasure every summer to spend considerable time in the rural sections of the country, and it is surprising how very little is known, even by our most enlightened farmers, on the subject of nut culture. i have made many trips throughout the south, and i find the farmers in that section have read the various proceedings of the national nut growers' association until a knowledge of nut culture throughout the south is becoming very general. it is, therefore, the duty and the province of the northern nut growers' association to diffuse as much information as possible among the farmers of the north and middle west on this subject. this is important for many reasons. at a recent meeting of the national nut growers' association held at mobile, ala., in discussing the subject of the extension of the pecan area, i used the following language: "in my opinion nothing is more important to the permanency of the pecan industry than the development of the pecan area in different parts of the country, and having orchards cultivated under as many different conditions as are consistent with the known probable successful area. this is important, for the reason that this more than anything else will insure a supply of pecans each year, and this will develop a public dependency upon this most valuable nut. nothing can be more detrimental to any industry than a spasmodic and irregular supply of the product upon which that industry depends." i quote this language for the reason that the culture of the pecan in the north is just now in its infancy, and it is peculiarly the function of our organization to get before the public the essential facts upon which its success depends. we are under great obligation for the work that has been done in the south and the information that is made available through the national nut growers' association. much of this is valuable in the north, but there are a great many of the essential points that have yet to be worked out, as the climatic conditions make it impossible to follow exactly in all cases the line of work that has been done in the south. the fake promoter and the crooked nurseryman will no doubt come in for their inning in the north, as they have in the south, and the public will be imposed upon by inferior and "doctored" trees, and all sorts of get-rich-quick orchard schemes will no doubt make their advent throughout the north; but it is very probably that our association, through its proper committee, having in mind the experiences of the south, can keep closely in touch with the general work that is going on and have on hand sufficient information to protect those who will take the trouble to make inquiry. nothing in the horticultural line is more satisfactory, more beautiful or more valuable than a fine young grove of grafted or budded pecan trees of good varieties; but like all other good things, it will attract the counterfeiter. coming now more specifically to the subject which has been assigned to me by the committee--that is, "the indiana pecan and my experience in nut culture," i want to explain what is meant by the "indiana pecan." it is true, of course, that some of the very finest of the northern pecans have originated in indiana, yet i prefer to speak of pecans in that whole section of the country as belonging to the "indiana group." taking evansville, ind., as the center, there grow, within a radius of fifty miles, in indiana, illinois and kentucky, many thousands of wild pecan trees; and after an investigation extending through a number of years, there have been selected from these various wild groves a few trees from which it has been deemed desirable to propagate. in this connection i want to mention the valuable work that has been done along this line by mason j. niblack, of vincennes, ind.; prof. c. g. woodbury, of lafayette, ind.; r. l. mccoy, of lake, ind.; and j. f. wilkinson, of rockport, ind. these men, with the assistance of others throughout the state, have for several years been making investigations of these pecans with a view of determining the most desirable varieties from which to propagate. it has been my privilege to have the benefit of the information gathered by these gentlemen, which, added to my own experience, has given me a fairly comprehensive view of the desirable nuts in that section, and, as the geographical center of the present known desirable varieties seems to be about evansville, ind., i will, for matter of convenience, designate them as belonging to the "indiana group." we have been able to determine with some certainly the desirability of six or seven varieties of pecans for propagating purposes. we have a number of others under observation. in investigating a pecan for propagating purposes, it is necessary to examine it from two standpoints, first, the tree qualities, and second, the qualities of the nut itself. the tree must be of a thrifty nature, a rapid grower, not especially subject to any particular diseases, must bear regularly, and the crops must be of a good average as to quantity. when observing a great number of pecan trees, it soon becomes apparent that some varieties grow much faster than others. this is first noticed in the nursery rows, and it is highly desirable to select not only those varieties which grow fast, but even the best growing trees of any particular variety. most of the trees from which propagating is done are generally full grown, and it is sometimes difficult to tell from observing them in the woods what their growing qualities are, yet it is occasionally apparent from observing a tree that it is thrifty and strong, while another tree may look entirely different. the growing quality, however, does not usually become apparent until after they are propagated and put under proper conditions of cultivation. the bearing record of a tree can be determined only by observing the tree for a number of years and measuring its crops. there are many trees that are almost infallible producers, but some years the crop is lighter than others, although it is not probable that an orchard, even from one of these unusual bearers, can be obtained which will not occasionally miss a crop. the influence of the stock upon the scion is something that has not yet been fully worked out, and for that reason it is impossible to say why the grafted or budded tree does not always take on the bearing qualities of the parent, although it is pretty safe to say that as a rule its qualities are very closely approximated, and by careful selection it is possible to get grafted and budded trees that begin bearing very early and bear with a great degree of regularity. in visiting a tree while the nuts are green, one can get some idea as to its bearing quality by the number and size of the clusters hanging on the limbs. a tree that is a poor bearer, or bears only a fair crop, usually bears its nuts in clusters of one to three, while a good bearer produces clusters of from three to six. i have seen as many as eight nuts in a cluster in the south, and have seen some clusters of seven on some of our indiana trees, but as a rule good bearing trees of the indiana group have clusters of about four to five nuts each. after the tree qualities have been determined, it is then necessary to consider the nut itself. the nut must be of fair size, of good flavor, thin to medium thickness of shell, well filled, and of good cracking quality--that is, the conformation of the shell and kernel must be such that a large percentage of the kernels can be taken out as whole halves, and the convolutions of the kernels must be wide enough that the partitions do not adhere to them. when all of these qualities, both of the tree and nut, can be combined, we then have a desirable tree from which to propagate, and it is very surprising how few come up to the standard. in one wild grove in kentucky, on the banks of the ohio river just across from indiana, near the mouth of the green river, there are nearly acres of wild pecan trees. in this grove are perhaps more than a thousand trees, and so far as i have been able to determine up to date, there are but three trees out of the whole grove that come near my notion of the standard. sometimes, however, a tree or a nut may grade up so high on some one point as to make it a desirable variety from which to propagate, even though it does not grade high on other desirable points. for example, one of the most desirable southern pecans, perhaps, considering only the nut itself, is the "schley," yet the tree is reputed to be of very medium bearing quality. the nut is so very fine, however, that no southern grove of pecans is complete without a fair percentage of "schley" trees. on the other hand, the "stuart," another southern variety, has not ranked nearly so high as the "schley," considering only the nut; and yet there are probably twice as many "stuarts" being put out in the south today as any other variety, for the simple reason that it is a good-sized nut and the tree has a very fine bearing record. all these things have to be taken into consideration by those of us who are undertaking to propagate northern varieties. there is unquestionably a large area of country extending approximately from the latitude of atlanta, ga., to that of terre haute, ind., in which there is a great field for experimenting with the northern varieties of pecans. it is a great mistake to undertake to bring the southern varieties too far north. a majority of the finest of the southern varieties originated on the gulf coast, and it is true that they can be brought a considerable distance north of there, but i have always doubted their successful growth with any degree of certainty of crops north of atlanta, ga.; for i think it is pretty well conceded that if one undertakes to crowd the northern limits with the southern varieties of pecans, they become uncertain in their bearing habits and the pecans are much smaller and not as well filled. on the other hand, it is my opinion that the northern pecan can be taken south of its origin with complete safety. the longer growing season will probably add to the certainty of the crops and the size of the nuts. it is also very important for the grower of these northern varieties of pecans to recognize the fact that they cannot be taken too far north of the location of the parent tree. the limits, however, both of the northern and southern varieties are not arbitrary, as they depend very much upon proximity to the ocean and other moderating influences. for example, it is very probable that pecans can be cultivated much farther north close to either the atlantic or pacific coast than they can in the middle west. all of these things remain yet to be determined, but it is important to distinguish between the setting of orchards for commercial purposes and the setting of trees for purely experimental purposes. there is unquestionably a great section of the country comprising approximately, as i have said, the territory lying between the latitude of atlanta, ga., and terre haute, ind., in which pecans can be commercially produced successfully. in the near future i expect to see pecan orchards of these northern varieties producing fine nuts and bearing as regularly in the northern sections as they do in the south. the prospective orchardist, however, must look well to the varieties which he selects and the latitude of the parent tree from whence they come and the geographical conditions that influence the weather. i have referred to evansville, ind., as being about the center of the indiana group. the average fall frost period at evansville is about the th of october. the average period of the last spring frost is about april the th. this will serve somewhat as a guide to the prospective commercial orchardist. however, most of the trees of the indiana group do not pollenate until about the th of may, and the great majority of them ripen their nuts by the th of october, and several of the good trees ripen their nuts by the st of october, though they usually are not gathered till later. the northernmost tree, so far as i know, that has been deemed worthy of observation is the "hodge," which is native in illinois, about eighty-five miles north of evansville, ind., and a few miles southwest of terre haute, ind. it is one of the largest of the northern varieties, and is a fair nut, but does not grade high in filling qualities, and the bearing record of the parent tree has not yet been determined. the tree is crooked and very unprepossessing looking, and stands in the woods where it has a very poor chance. when i visited it this year, it had a very light crop of nuts, but i did not condemn it, for the reason that any tree growing under the same conditions could not be expected to bear very well. i expect to observe the tree for several years in the future, and determine further as to its bearing record. it is possible that trees propagated from this variety, under favorable conditions, may prove to be good bearers. the next northernmost trees of the desirable varieties are the "indiana" and "busseron," standing about yards apart, west of oaktown, knox county, indiana, about sixty-five miles north of evansville. mr. mason j. niblack, of vincennes, ind., has had these trees under observation for a number of years, and it is due to his interest that they were brought to the attention of the public. the "busseron" is an old tree that is reputed to have a very fine bearing record. a few years ago, the owner of this tree cut all the top out of it, and this crippled the tree very badly and set it back for quite a while. when i visited it last august, it had put up new growth, and the few remaining old limbs that had been left on it were hanging full of clusters containing four and five nuts each. "the indiana," standing a short distance away, is a comparatively young tree, and is thought to be a seedling of the "busseron," as the two nuts resemble one another very much. the "indiana" has been cut very severely for grafting wood the last few years, and it is therefore difficult to give very authentic information as to its bearing record. it appears, however, to be a very promising tree, and when i visited it in august it had a fair crop of nuts. the clusters were not large--mostly two and three each. the tree looked very thrifty, and from the best information that i have been able to gather in reference to it, i consider it a desirable variety from which to propagate. my choice of the two trees is the "busseron," although the "indiana" has made an excellent showing, considering the severe prunings for grafting wood. coming down near the center of the indiana group, we have the "warrick," growing in warrick county, indiana, which took the prize at the pecan show at mt. vernon, ind., in , and is a fair nut of more than average size. it is reputed to have a good bearing record, but i have not yet had opportunity to completely verify this. in posey county, ind., near evansville, are hundreds of wild pecan trees, many of which produce good nuts. one of them, from which i propagated last year under the name of the "hoosier," is a very prolific tree. the nut itself is of medium size, beautiful color and thin shell, but the kernel qualities are not nearly so desirable as many of the other of our indiana pecans, and it does not take a very high rank in the estimation of some of our observers. i visited the tree in august, , and at that time it had one of the most bountiful crops of nuts that i had ever seen growing on a tree. it was hanging full of clusters containing five and six nuts each. i visited it again an october and found that the nuts had ripened very early. this nut took the prize at the mt. vernon pecan show in . crossing the river from indiana, we have in the major woods at the mouth of green river, nine miles from evansville, three desirable pecans--the "greenriver," the "major," and the "hinton." the "major" and the "hinton" have been propagated by mr. william n. roper, at petersburg, va., for some time. they are round, well filled nuts, and are considered by confectioners as the most desirable type of pecan for many of the confectionery purposes. the "major" is the best cracking pecan that i have ever seen, either north or south, and is a regular bearer, but not as high in flavor as some other varieties. the "hinton" is an oval-shaped nut, having a corrugated shell, of fine cracking and kernel qualities, but i have not yet satisfactorily determined its bearing record. the "greenriver" is a little larger than either of the above nuts, and is one of the very finest medium-sized pecans that i have found. the tree is reported not to have missed a crop in eleven years, although the crop this year was very light, probably owing to the fact that it was cut pretty severely last year for grafting wood. all three of these varieties coming from the major woods at the mouth of green river give excellent promise, with perhaps the "greenriver" in the lead for general qualities. down on the banks of the wabash in posey county, indiana, and across on the illinois side, are several very fine, large, beautiful varieties of pecans, which mr. r. l. mccoy, of lake, ind., and myself are observing. several of these pecans are as large as many of the standard southern varieties, and when i visited the trees this year in august, they were bearing good crops of nuts. we have not yet named these varieties, but expect to do so after we have observed them the coming year. there are one or two varieties in this neighborhood that may take rank over all the northern pecans that have been discovered. it is no longer a question of finding nuts in the north of good size, for we have already located some that rank well with many of the standard southern varieties in size, and one of the surprising and favorable points of the northern pecan is their fine filling qualities and high flavor. when placed on the scales their weight is most surprising to those who have not tested them. the problem before the prospective pecan grower in the north is to secure good trees of these most desirable varieties. seedling trees are not worth setting out. until last year the successful propagation of pecans in the north was doubted by many, but the experiments conducted by myself and mr. r. l. mccoy, at lake, ind., who worked in conjunction with me, have demonstrated that they can be successfully propagated. a number of points, however, must be carefully observed in this work. first, in reference to grafting: the grafting should be done on northern two-year-old stocks. one-year-old stocks can be used, but two-year-olds are thought to be better. the stocks must be grown from northern seedlings. there is no place in the north for the southern stock, and right here let me suggest that the individual who buys northern trees grafted on southern stocks or southern trees grafted on northern stocks is throwing his money away. i set fifty trees last fall of the "indiana" grafted on southern stocks, and the first freeze that came promptly killed them all. they put up a few new sprouts last summer, but finally the roots rotted, and this fall i dug them up. i have a neighbor who put out an orchard of southern grown trees. some of them seemed to grow all right for six or seven years, and then froze down to the ground, and so far as i have been able to find out, experiments with southern trees in the north have been practically a waste of time and money. so it is necessary to bear in mind that these northern varieties must be grafted or budded on trees grown from northern seed. the proper time for grafting in the evansville latitude is the last week in march and the first week in april. the scions must be cut from thrifty growing trees and must be used immediately after they are cut. experience has shown that scions kept in cold storage or stratified in sand for any length of time lose a very large part of their vitality, and success with them is very limited in that section. last year i cut most of my scions in november and december, stratified them in sand until spring, and my percentage of success with them was very small, while on the other hand mr. mccoy used scions directly off the tree and had a satisfactory stand. i am of the opinion that it will be proven later that the best method of grafting in the north is to graft above the ground and tie paper bags over the scions for two or three weeks until they start into growth. our experiments so far have been confined to root-grafting, and while it has proven fairly successful under proper conditions, yet i believe that grafting above the ground will prove more successful. we have not done much budding in our section, but what we have done gives fair promise of success, and it may be that this will prove to be the best method of propagating nut trees in the north. in grafting we use both one and two-year-old wood, but one-year-old wood, if it is thrifty, is more desirable, although it is better to use thrifty two-year-old wood than to use weak scions of one year's growth. either one or two-year-old growth can be used successfully. my experiments and adventures in the work of propagating pecan trees were made for the purpose of securing enough of the desirable varieties of these trees to put out an orchard for myself. i found, upon inquiry, that it was impossible to buy hardy northern trees, and furthermore that but few of the desirable varieties had been propagated. in fact, i knew that some of the best ones had never been brought to the attention of the nurserymen, and being more anxious to risk my own judgment on this than that of anyone else, i started in to produce my own trees. up to date i have accumulated a vast amount of experience and have a few trees to show for my work, but i would not take many times the cost and trouble of my work, for the information i have acquired. i have also sent to some of my friends bud-wood from our best trees for the purpose of getting these varieties propagated for the benefit of those who desire to grow them. my suggestion is that unless one is looking for the experience and enjoys a great deal of hard work and some expense, he had better buy his trees from some reliable person who has successfully propagated them. if the farmers in the latitude of the good varieties of pecans were to put out ten to twenty acres on some corner of their farm and cultivate the trees properly, they would soon be surprised to find that this small piece of ground would be worth more money than all the rest of their farm, and they would leave not only a valuable estate to their children, but also a monument by which they would be remembered for more than a hundred years after they had passed from the toils of this earth. ten acres of pecan trees can be cultivated at less expense annually than ten acres of corn, and if the grove consists of the right varieties and has been properly cultivated, it will be worth not less than $ per acre in ten years. in fact, i do not know of a single grove of pecan trees in the united states--and i have seen many--of the right varieties that has been properly cultivated that can be bought for $ per acre at ten years of age, yet the principal reason that this very thing has not been done by the farmers throughout the pecan belt is because they have not had sufficient information on the subject and have had no means of acquiring it. i do not want to close this long paper without saying something about walnuts and hickory nuts in indiana. while it is true that the pecan is unquestionably the most attractive and valuable nut that grows in the world, yet there is much profit and satisfaction in the culture of walnuts and hickories. in southern indiana we have some very fine varieties of the shagbark, and i am making some experiments in propagating it. one of the advantages of this nut is that it will grow far into the north. in fact, i have had some specimens of very beautiful shagbarks sent me by dr. d. s. sager, from ontario, canada. the shagbark is a slower growing tree than the pecan, but when properly cultivated shows a very satisfactory growth. i am also experimenting with the propagation of the persian (english) walnut, and so far have had very satisfactory results. i am trying some of the california varieties--the "franquette" and "parisienne" especially--and last spring i grafted a number of them on the wild seedling black walnut and they grew as much as four feet in height during the summer. there are several very fine varieties of the persian walnut that are hardy throughout our latitude, and when grafted on the native black walnut stocks, make very satisfactory growth. i have had several persian walnut trees under observation in washington, close to where i live, and have found that some of these trees bear good crops of very fine walnuts. i cannot make this paper long enough to go into the details of this subject as it has been discussed here by others who know more about it than i. i merely desire to mention the fact that so far as our experiments have gone in indiana up to date with the persian walnut, everything seems to indicate that it can be very successfully propagated and grown there, provided the right varieties are selected; but with this, as with all other nut trees, the prospective orchardist must make very careful selection of the varieties which he plants. in closing, i want to add just a few words more as to the value and beauty of nut trees. it is very hard to overstate either if the trees are properly cared for. a friend of mine recently asked me how early a pecan tree would bear, and how big it would grow within a certain time. i told him that it depended altogether upon who owned the tree. nothing adds so much to the value of a home or to a farm as beautiful trees, and nothing indicates more the intelligence and taste of the person who owns a home or farm than the character of the trees surrounding it. in taking a trip through the country, it is very painful to notice how little attention has been given to trees, and i take it that this is due to the lack of information on this subject. a house can be built in a very short time. it can be furnished beautifully if one has taste and money. the science of mechanics can do much toward making an attractive place in which to dwell, but after all, the home that is remembered and admired, both by its occupants and by others, is the home surrounded by beautiful trees that bring forth their leaves and blossoms and fruit to please the eye and the taste and temper the heat of summer. these cannot be bought with mere money nor made in a day, but when placed there with care and intelligence come forth with surprising rapidity and beauty and not only add manifold value to the home and farm, but bespeak for some one a standard of intelligence and nobility that is better than great riches; for he who plants and cares for a tree is of the true, the beautiful and the good. * * * * * president morris: the paper is now open for discussion. professor lake: i'd like to ask mr. littlepage a question. what is the condition of the wood of those large growths of walnuts? mr. littlepage: when i observed it in november, it was ripening off very nicely. the average frost period for that latitude is about the twentieth of october, and we had had quite a number of very hard frosts,--in fact, there had been some ice. it had not been injured. professor lake: that is remarkable. mr. littlepage: i have pictures here of those, taken the twentieth of june. there was perhaps three feet of growth at that time. they quit growing about the middle of august down there, and to that i attribute very largely the fact that the wood ripened up. professor craig: what is your minimum temperature? mr. littlepage: i have seen the thermometer ten degrees below zero. i have seen the ohio river frozen over so thick that for a month at rockport the wagons could go across the river on ice. in fact, a threshing machine was hauled over. i don't know how low the thermometer got. i imagine it went lower than ten degrees. president morris: i have seen it lower still on persian walnuts and pecans. it is the early starting of sap in spring that hurts mine most. mr. littlepage: the pecans differ from native hickory. the native hickories in that section opened their buds and began to show strong flow of sap long before the pecans gave any indication whatever. some of the pecans there seem to be very slow about starting sap. very few pollinate before the tenth of may. president morris: my trees had to stand twenty-eight degrees one night only, but they have had to stand twenty sometimes, and frequently several degrees below. mr. pomeroy: i want to ask if he thinks he will have any difficulty in transplanting those black walnuts seven or eight years old? mr. littlepage: that suggests a very painful subject. i have had that very thing in mind. they stand six or seven feet apart. i have got to settle that very question some of these times. mr. pomeroy: i might suggest that you begin the fall before, and take a whole lot of time in digging around the trees, then leave them till nearly spring, then finish the transplanting before the ground has a chance to thaw entirely. president morris: i believe that is a good point, if you will do your cutting early, and let the callus form well during the winter. let us hear more about that particular point. mr. reed: in view of the fact that this association is trying to rectify as many mistakes as it can, and the fact that it is looked upon as an establisher of precedents, i make the motion that all of our references to the nut just under discussion be to it as the persian walnut, and not as the english walnut. mr. pomeroy: i second that motion. (carried.) president morris: let us hear from mr. roper. mr. roper: i don't think i know much about the indiana pecan trees, except what we have been doing in virginia with them. i have discussed some of the results in the paper on pecan trees for planting in the north. * * * * * president morris: committee appointments are as follows: committee on competition, messrs. reed, littlepage, and myself, _ex-officio_. committee on general exhibits, messrs. barron and roper. committee on resolutions, messrs. reed, littlepage, and schempp. committee on membership, messrs. deming, lake, and rush. nominating committee, professor craig and col. van duzee. professor lake: does that complete all the committees? president morris: that is all on the list here. professor lake: i would like to suggest one, because i think it will materially help the matter of bringing the nut subject before the people in an effective manner,--a committee on score card. that is at the basis of competitions, and when the nut grower gets acquainted with the score card, and knows that is going to be the basis of judging the competitions, he knows there is going to be something doing. president morris: that is a rather important point. i would like to have the matter discussed. professor craig: i think the idea is an excellent one. there is no way in which we can analyze the qualities of fruit better than by having a systematic method of discussing its different characters. the score card does that,--separates each one and makes them stand for what they are worth. in order to unify methods of judging used by the different societies, a score card which this society might develop and recommend would be a very valuable thing as a guide for nut growers here in the northeast. the national nut growers' association has a score card for pecans, and a score card has been recommended by the department of agriculture. i am not sure that score cards have been provided for the persian walnut and for the hickories, and our northern types. i think mr. lake's suggestion is entirely in order and well worthy of consideration. president morris: it appeals to me at once. i think we would put mr. lake and professor craig on a score card committee. professor craig: i think a score card can be presented, subject to revision, which will answer the present demand. friday morning, december , . president morris: the meeting is called to order. the secretary will read the proposed amendments to the constitution. i believe there is no provision in the by-laws for making such amendment. i don't know what the customary rule is in the matter. i presume we could submit it to a vote. doctor deming: under the heading "committees," the following is proposed: "the association shall appoint standing committees of three members each to consider and report on the following topics at each annual meeting: first, on promising seedlings; second, on nomenclature; third, on hybrids; fourth, on membership; fifth, on press and publication." professor craig: i move the adoption of this amendment to our constitution. (seconded. carried.) doctor deming: under the head of "meetings," the amendment is as follows: "the association shall hold an annual meeting, to be held at the time and place to be selected by the executive committee." professor lake: some way or another, i feel that i oppose that attitude. i believe a delegate will often go to a convention with the idea of presenting views upon holding it at some specific place. it seems to me we ought to give the annual meeting an opportunity to designate the place of meeting. some people say they will pack a convention. if they are sufficiently enthusiastic to pack a convention they are entitled to have the meeting. i have heard an expression from one or two members that they would like to see it at a certain place. it is true they can present their views to the executive committee, but if the executive committee is not present at this place, it is necessary for them to make another trip, or appeal to them by correspondence. i would like to have that put in such a way that the annual meeting might select the place of meeting. president morris: it is a matter for consideration. is there any further discussion on this point? doctor deming: it seems to me that the question of the selection of the meeting place is a matter for very deliberate consideration, and it isn't always that a question of this kind will get deliberate consideration in a meeting which acts very often without considering all sides of the question. it seems to me that, while it would be advisable to have the place of the next meeting discussed by the association as a whole, the decision as to the place of meeting might very safely be left to the executive committee. mr. littlepage: i think, as a general rule, it is pretty wise to give some latitude in these matters, for the reason that conditions may develop from time to time which make it desirable to have some flexibility as to the place of meeting. i think, especially with the able executive committee we now have, it could safely be left to the executive committee. professor craig: since professor lake has spoken, i have a good deal of sympathy with his attitude, and i am rather inclined to think it would be wise to modify that clause in such a way as to give the meeting the privilege, in case there was an overwhelming element in favor of a certain place, of selecting the next place for the convention; and i would suggest a modification of that clause to this effect, that the place of meeting shall be selected at the annual meeting, or by the executive committee subsequently thereto. that would give the membership an opportunity of having a word in it, and would open the door so that it could be considered at the annual meeting; but in the event of this not taking place then, it would fall to the executive committee to select the meeting place. i move that as an amendment to the proposed clause. professor lake: i support professor craig's motion. professor craig: if my seconder will approve, i will offer that as a substitute instead of an amendment. professor lake: i accept it. (carried.) doctor deming: under the head of "officers," the following amendment is proposed: "there shall be a president, a vice-president, a secretary-treasurer, and an executive committee of five persons, of which latter the president, vice-president, and secretary shall be members, and a vice-president from each state represented in the membership of the association." professor lake: i move that the clause be accepted. mr. rush: i second the motion. (carried.) doctor deming: under the heading of "election of officers," this addition is proposed: "the president shall appoint a nominating committee of three persons at the annual meeting, whose duty it shall be to report to the meeting a list of officers for the ensuing year." professor lake: i don't want to be an objector. i simply want to file a protest against this method of election in an organization, on general principles. i am opposed to anything that looks like continuing an administration. this doesn't give an opportunity for election from the floor. it might be so amended, that an annual meeting may elect from the floor. i am thoroughly in sympathy with popular government. i have seen a good deal of this, and i would like to get away from the sentiment of anything of that kind by allowing nominations from the floor. doctor deming: how would it be if the nominating committee, instead of being appointed by the president, were appointed in some elective way by the meeting as a whole? professor lake: i accept doctor deming's suggestion. that is a most excellent way of eliminating both sides of the controversy. i would like to put that definitely into form, that we have a committee of five,--that is sufficient for the present,--that a committee of five be elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating officers for the subsequent year. i put that as a motion. mr. rush: i second that motion. (carried.) president morris: the committee for the nomination of new officers will consist of professor craig and colonel van duzee. this other committee of five, as i understand it, is not to be appointed now. doctor deming: the only thing that i have now is the proposition that we honor mr. henry hales by electing him an honorary member of the association. i would like to move that mr. henry hales of ridgewood, new jersey, be elected an honorary member of this association. mr. littlepage: i second that motion. (carried.) president morris: on the competition, the committee consisted of mr. reed, mr. littlepage, and myself. mr. littlepage has specimens in for competition, and i will appoint mr. roper in his place. the next order of business will be the paper on experiences in propagation, by professor close. the bench root-grafting of persian walnuts and pecans. by c. p. close, u. s. dept, of agriculture, washington, d. c. the results of my bench root-grafting of persian walnuts and pecans at the maryland agricultural experiment station in were not as satisfactory as might be wished, partly owing, at least, to the unusually long and hot drought which was disastrous in many respects in this section of the country. purpose and method of the experiment. the purpose of this experimental work was to devise some method of procedure in the bench grafting of nut trees which would be reliable and practical, especially if done during january, february, and march. the whip or tongue method with variation in thinness of tongue to make closely fitting unions, was employed. for the persian walnut cions, black walnut, butternut and persian walnut roots were used, and for the pecan cions, hardy indiana and ordinary southern pecan seedlings, whole root and piece root, were used. part of the grafts were planted outdoors in nursery rows as soon as made and part were placed in soil or decayed sawdust in a cool greenhouse. this was for the purpose of determining whether or not it would prove advantageous to go to the extra expense and trouble of placing the grafts under greenhouse conditions until april or may. ground beds were used and thus bottom heat was not applied. persian walnuts. there were grafts of san jose, concord and franquette persian walnuts, made from february to april , which were planted in nursery rows very soon after being made. only of these were alive in october, the best results being obtained with san jose on black walnut stocks. sixty-four walnut grafts were placed in decayed sawdust in the greenhouse in february and march and of these were alive early in may when they were taken out. pecans. the pecan grafts, set in nursery rows as soon as made, numbered and consisted of the following varieties: mantura, appomattox, frotscher, moneymaker, van deman, stuart, and pabst. only one of these, a pabst on a piece root, lived during the season. the grafts which were placed in the greenhouse gave pretty good results as shown by the following data given respectively under the headings "earth bed" and "decayed sawdust." earth bed. jan. . moneymaker on indiana stocks, not waxed. alive in may. moneymaker on indiana stocks, waxed alive in may. feb. . mantura on indiana stocks, not waxed. alive in may. moneymaker on indiana stocks, not waxed. alive in may. mar. . stuart on indiana stocks, not waxed. alive in may. stuart on indiana piece roots, not waxed. alive in may. ___ ___ totals decayed sawdust. feb. . mantura on indiana stocks, not waxed. alive in may. mar. . stuart on indiana stocks, not waxed. alive in may. stuart on indiana stocks, not waxed. alive in may. ___ ___ totals these figures show that per cent of those in the earth bed and per cent of those in the decayed sawdust, were alive when they were taken up early in may. some had made a growth of from two to eight inches and were fine little trees. most of these transplanted grafts were set in nursery rows and nearly all succumbed to the extreme drought of the season. conclusions. the season was so extremely dry that the practice of planting root grafts as soon as made did not prove successful. however, work done in other years indicated that in normal seasons this may be done with considerable success. placing the grafts in a greenhouse either in earth or decayed sawdust gave encouraging results, but when transplanted in the nursery the grafts could not withstand the unusually dry and hot weather. the black walnut proved to be the best stock for the persian walnut and two buds to the cion are required. grafting wax should not be used if the union of cion and stock is to be covered with earth; this point was clearly proven in previous years. [the foregoing paper, read by title, was the subject of a verbal report by prof. lake, who said further:] prof. close performed considerable work in topgrafting and budding on three and four year old stocks. the top grafts were a failure. the buds survived, and were in good, strong condition october fifteenth. that was on persian walnut and pecan, about half and half. mr. pomeroy: did he bud on black walnut stock? professor lake: yes. it was a little higher than a man, and had been cut back to about three feet. the crown grafting was fairly successful, but would have been much more successful, had they used something to cover the grafts. mr. pomeroy: how long should the paper sack be left? professor lake: it would vary with the season and activity of the stock, ten days to two weeks. president morris: i wish you would try further experiments in rooting scions in warm sand in the hot-house. i believe that in some stage you can probably root those cuttings in moist sand in the hot-house, heated beneath; and if you can do that, it is going to settle the question very largely of hickory and walnut propagation. what do you think about that, professor craig? professor craig: i am not very optimistic about the possibility of that. i find it very, very difficult to get roots to develop from _hicoria_. you can get the callus almost every time, but it is very difficult to secure the development of roots afterwards. president morris: how about getting callus by three months, we will say, in storage? professor craig: we would have the same trouble. they would develop adventitious buds very poorly. doctor morris has sent us from time to time some samples, and we have been making experiments. i have used different methods and different propagators. we have one propagator, who has been most successful usually in striking difficult things, and he has absolutely failed in this one. i may say that our facilities for propagation are not ideal at the present time, but we shall have in a short time a good propagating house with properly regulated benches, as to bottom heat and overhead ventilation and all that; and we shall, of course, keep up the experiments. president morris: in my experiments, i grafted hickory scions on hickory roots, and the whole thing, root and scion, lived until the root sent out adventitious buds, yet in that case we did not get union between the top and the stock. how do you explain that, professor craig? professor craig: i don't explain it. president morris: are we likely to have success along that line by some modification of the plan? professor craig: i couldn't say. you can keep the cuttings alive for three or four months. president morris: they were in damp rooms, exposed to light, right in the window. doctor deming: professor coville has made some experiments in rooting hickory cuttings for me. professor coville is the one who has made such a success of blueberry culture. i sent him some cuttings, and he reports as follows: "two experiments were tried with the hickory cuttings received from dr. w. c. deming on january , . in one experiment some of the cuttings were placed in a glass cutting bed in live sphagnum covered with sand, the upper ends of the cuttings projecting from the sand. the atmosphere above the cutting bed was kept in a state of saturation by a covering of glass. the bed was kept shaded and was subjected to an ordinary living room temperature varying from about ° to °, or occasionally a few degrees higher. on january the cambium ring at the lower end of the cuttings had begun to callus. on february the upper bud on one of the cuttings began to push. later some of the other cuttings began to swell preparatory to the development of new growth. all the cuttings, however, finally died. it appeared from their behavior that the temperatures to which they were subjected were too high for their best development. in the other experiment the cuttings were placed in sand without sphagnum in a greenhouse at a temperature ordinarily of ° to °, rising occasionally, however, on still, sunny days to °. after a few weeks, these cuttings were well callused and the buds began to swell slowly, exposing first their green bracts, and later on some of the cuttings the green compound leaves, pushing out from among the bracts. these cuttings also, however, finally turned black and died, but not until after the first of april. the experiments showed that hickory cuttings, when taken at a suitable time of year and exposed to conditions suited to other hard wooded plants known to be difficult to root, retained their vitality and passed satisfactorily through the stages preliminary to rooting. while no actual roots were secured, the experiments suggest that the rooting of hickory cuttings is not beyond the possibility of attainment. as the basis of an experiment this winter, i suggest that you select half a dozen twigs that you are willing to sacrifice on some good variety of hickory, and remove a ring of bark at a distance of to inches from the top. the ring of bark removed should be about half an inch in length and its upper end should come about a quarter of an inch below a bud. at the present season the bark will not peel from the wood. it will, therefore, be necessary to scrape it off, so as to leave nothing but the wood on the girdled area. the bark should be cleanly cut at each end of this area. i hope that we shall still have sufficient warm weather to induce the formation of a callus on the cambium at the upper end of this ring. later in the winter, some time in january, you can cut off these twigs and send them to me, packed as those were last year. the cutting is preferably made just below the ring. i would prefer that all the wood from the ring to the tip of the twig be of the past summer's growth. we can try, however, twigs containing two seasons' growth, if the others are not easily available." president morris: that is a suggestion, you see, of apparent value, because it has succeeded with blueberries,--this method of cutting off a ring of bark before the leaves are shed, allowing a ring to callous, then later cutting off this prepared twig and subjecting it to methods for striking roots. it is an extremely interesting suggestion. just as soon as i heard of this procedure, i went out and prepared about fifty hickory and walnut twigs myself, but that was this autumn, and i haven't cut them yet for the experiments in rooting. has anyone had experience along this line? mr. collins: i saw an experiment in rooting, and i am prompted to ask if anything has been done along this particular line. the method employed was this. the twig was partially cut from the branch, perhaps cut three-quarters of the way through with a slanting cut. it was then bent a little, and a little sphagnum put in the cut, then a ball of sphagnum was wrapped about the whole cut area, and it was tied with twine, and that was kept wet for several months, i think, until, finally, new roots pushed through and appeared on the outside of this ball of sphagnum. president morris: i read of that. it was published in a government report. professor collins: it was on the rubber plant. president morris: i tried it at that time on the hickory. the difficulty was in getting my men sufficiently interested to keep the sphagnum wet all the time. it promised something. the rubber plants, perhaps, would lend themselves more readily to such a procedure than the hickories, because most of the rubber plants are air plants, anyway. all of the _ficus_ family depend so little upon the ground for their nourishment. professor collins: i have seen that worked very successfully. professor lake: you don't know how successful the callousing has been? president morris: they calloused all right. professor lake: how long did it require? president morris: i don't remember. it was a good while, longer than i anticipated. i don't think there was a callus on the hickory in less than thirty days. the butternut and black walnut hardly showed any callus at all after keeping the sphagnum wet as long as my men would do it. professor lake: at what time was the ringing done? president morris: the leaves had fallen this year. professor coville suggested that it be done before the leaves had fallen. but the hickory will callous after the leaves have fallen. it seems to me hickories are at work all winter long. they have a free flow of sap in january, and any warm day in january they will be like a maple tree, almost, if they are cut. i have grafted them at that time. mr. brown: can anyone give me any information on grafting chestnuts? mr. rush: i have been very successful with the grafting of the chestnut. it is just as simple as grafting other fruit, except the persian walnut. tongue grafting and cleft grafting is very successful. there is no particular secret in connection with grafting chestnuts. president morris: personally, i found it difficult for two or three years, but now i can graft the chestnut about as readily as i can graft the apple. there is no difference in methods. it seems to me from my present experience that one may graft or bud chestnut by almost any of the accepted methods pretty freely. what has been your experience, mr. littlepage? mr. littlepage: i haven't been experimenting with the propagation of the chestnut yet. i am getting ready. i have three or four thousand seedlings, a few of which will be ready to graft next year. i have twenty acres of the paragon chestnuts growing. president morris: in chestnut grafting, we will find that one kind does not graft or bud readily upon another kind, perhaps. for instance, there is some antagonism between the american sweet chestnut and asiatic chestnuts. there is some antagonism between asiatic and europeans; there is little between europeans and american sweet. these antagonisms are something that one has to learn from experience at the present time, because i doubt if we have had enough experience to know just where we stand on this question. professor collins: doesn't there seem to be antagonism between eastern asiatic other than japanese and japanese? president morris: yes; the koreans of both kinds, the north japanese of both kinds, and the manchurian chestnut are the five that i have experimented with in grafting, and none of those grow so well on american stock as they should. professor collins: i mean to say between the korean and the japanese. president morris: there is less antagonism. you can graft the korean upon the japanese and the japanese upon the korean very readily. they have very much the same texture of wood, the same character of buds and bark. professor collins: is there any antagonism between eastern asian and japanese? president morris: i don't know that my experience has been extensive enough to say. my men have put on perhaps two or three hundred grafts back and forth between these kinds, the customary accidents have happened, and we have about given up trying to do much grafting of japanese on american, but still plan to graft japanese back and forth upon each other, and we are now planning to graft european and american back and forth upon each other. mr. brown: what about the position of the graft? president morris: i don't know, mr. brown, if there is very much difference. i haven't found very much. i have grafted all the way from the root to the top. mr. rush: it is better on top. sometimes the grafting has an effect upon the stock just at the union. if it is budded low, it blights. the bark gets loose. all those that are grafted high are doing remarkably well. president morris: the next on the list is doctor deming's paper on "nut promotions." doctor deming: i will read first a communication from mr. henry hales of ridgewood, new jersey. hales' paper shell hickory. my shagbark (paper shell) hickory tree was on my farm when i bought it in . it had been noticed by the neighbors as bearing a fine nut and was watched by them for the nuts, but they did not appreciate the value of them. the late andrew s. fuller had not seen them, but asked me to bring him a few. when he saw them he was surprised and at once pronounced them the finest hickories he had ever seen, and named them "hales' paper shell." the hickory is one of the most valuable of north american nuts. it is of a variable nature. i have over twenty old trees on my place, and no two bear nuts of the same shape or size, and although some neighbors planted some nuts from the old tree and produced fruit from them they were only ordinary sized, so that it is necessary to propagate them to retain their value. about parsons & son, of flushing, n. y., grafted some in pots under glass, from which trees these nuts sent are the product. the fruit is fully as fine as the original tree. prof. c. b. sargent of the arnold arboretum has taken great interest in the nut. i have two trees grafted on wild saplings by jackson dawson near bearing size. those are the only trees successfully grafted, out of thousands done in the north outside, from which i am afraid grafting outside in the north is a failure on hickory stocks. there may be a better chance on pecan stock, which i have not thoroughly tested under favorable circumstances. i have been sending northern pecan nuts and had them planted, and sent scions for working on them in the south; had some failures from natural causes. simpson bros. of monticello, florida, have had fair success there. my share of two year old trees are on the way here. of the value of these nuts too much cannot be said. mr. fuller ranked them superior to the madeira nut. it has remarkable keeping qualities. it has taken from eighteen to twenty-five years for my grafted trees to come into bearing. i earnestly hope that with the knowledge gained so far, the means of propagation on a large scale will soon be discovered and successfully carried on. what a gain it would be to the wealth of our food production and luxury. the american hickory would then stand highest on the list of our native nuts. * * * * * president morris: are there any comments upon this paper of mr. hales? so much is being said about the hales hickory, it seems to me that possibly we ought to put on record some thoughts in the matter. mr. hales is entitled to more credit than any other man for bringing forward the development of the shagbark hickory, and his enthusiasm was based upon this remarkable nut on his grounds. it is a very large nut, and, like all large nuts, is much coarser in character than small nuts, and, like all large nuts, lacks delicacy of flavor that we find in small nuts. it is thinner shelled than most of the shagbarks that we would see in many days spent in the woods, but when we have for comparison some smaller nuts, we find shells very much thinner than the shell of the hales. the hales, like many other large hickories, keeps much better than the small hickories of finer texture and more delicate quality, and it may be very good at three years of age, while some of the most delicious of the smaller, more tender and delicate nuts are spoiling at the end of six months. i don't know that mr. hales would take exception to my way of stating this, but it seems to me that he ought to feel that we give him all honor, that we think it a remarkable nut, that it is a nut, because of its size and features, worthy of the enthusiasm he gave it. there is apt to be some misunderstanding as to the exact position this holds in relation to other shagbark hickories. mr. littlepage: what is its bearing record as to quantity? president morris: the tree has been cut so much for scions that it has never had a fair chance. it is a prolific tree. it is well worthy of propagation. mr. littlepage: it is, perhaps,--judging from looking at it--a very fine shagbark for commercial purposes. isn't it true that within the next ten years there will, in all probability, be a complete reversion in the mind of the nut culturist as to the kind and quality of the nut he will propagate. i will supplement that by saying that heretofore, both in the pecan and other nut fields, the whole tendency has been toward something big. now, the wise fellows in the south today are beginning to get away from that. i have made many trips down there, and i find there is a very changing sentiment. i want to say that in my observation the future price of the various nuts of the country is going to be determined by the price of nut meat; that the meats are going to be put on the market, and while there will always be plenty of nuts marketed in the shell, the price of the nut meat will be the dominant factor. i was walking down g street in washington the other day with an ex-united states senator, and ex-member of congress, and an ex-governor, and they passed a nut store, and saw in the window some nuts, also a big box of nut meats. everyone went in, and all passed up the nuts and bought the nut meat. that expresses, to my notion, the tendency that is coming; and that thing is going, then, to determine very largely the question of quality. president morris: i think we certainly are going to have a complete change in ideas about raising nuts. we are going to raise big ones of the kinds where everybody will buy one pound and nobody will buy two pounds. we are going to raise nuts that will appeal to the people who purchase things in the open market, and who never in their lives get hold of anything that is good. we are going also to raise nuts that will appeal to connoisseurs, and that will be bought by people who know one work of art from another. in other words, we are going to make the progress in nut culture that has been made in other fields of horticulture. at the present time, if one could raise a pear as big as a watermelon and tasting like the rind, that would be the pear that would sell in the market. but the connoisseur buys the seckel in place of it. when there is a pear like the kieffer that will fill the top of the tree so there is no room for leaves and branches, the market men are going to raise that pear. but when we go into the market, we go around a block to escape the place where they sell the kieffer pear, and we buy the bartlett. we have precisely the same problems in nut culture. mr. pomeroy: i have been thinking some on this line. i have spent a good many half hours in the last four or five years with an old german in buffalo. he has a stand on one of the big markets. i find that he has a whole lot to say in regard to what the people buy. he has found this out, and he has been there a good many years. he says, "i have been getting black walnuts from the same farmer boy for six or seven years. they are fine; try one." he has learned something about the different trees throughout that section, and about some nuts that are being shipped in, and he can tell the varieties. he has customers that do come back after the second package of nuts. he is trying to keep those customers one year after another. he is creating the demand. when i was a youngster, if i could have received the prices for black walnuts and butternuts that youngsters get now, i would have thought i was a capitalist. butternuts are retailing at two dollars and two dollars and a half, and black walnuts the same. president morris: we have got to get away from the idea that we are going to find the best hickory nut or the best walnut or the best nut of any kind in the largest nut. nature spreads out just so much material in the way of flavor and good quality of a nut, and if it is in a large nut, those good qualities are spread out thin; if it is in a small nut, they are concentrated. professor lake: i wish i were as optimistic as mr. littlepage in this matter. that is because he has been studying all nuts for twenty-five or thirty years, and i have only been dabbling around in persian walnuts for about twenty years. i have been dabbling with apples twenty-five or more years, and the real connoisseurs of the apple have been telling us during that time that the ben davis would be wiped out inside of ten years. i heard that twenty years ago. i believe that there are more ben davis apples being consumed by the public today than any other one apple. notwithstanding that, every man who knows good apples goes out and decries it. it is because that apple can be grown anywhere by anybody at any time, and will be eaten by the people. the kind of nut that is going to make the money the next twenty-five or thirty years is the nut that is prolific, of fair quality, that can be grown by any man, and that has a fairly good appearance. i believe that the process of educating the public on the matter of quality is going to be tremendously slow. it is not always the case, however, that the smaller the size, the better the quality. a medium size would be better. the yellow newtown is quite a large apple, and it is superior in quality to the winesap. president morris: i was stating a general rule. professor lake: i fear we aren't going to be able to educate the people. how many people who eat nuts know anything about their quality? dr. morris has got the ideal of the best nut in walnuts, for instance, the french mayette. that is the connoisseur's choice. i know of many people who will tell you very frankly they prefer the american grown franquette, which is much more starchy in make-up and much less nutty. mr. littlepage: i think there is a great deal in what professor lake says. i am not sure he has got the cause of the facts he states. one reason why the ben davis is being planted is, as he stated, that it will grow almost anywhere; but the reason the public accept the ben davis is because they can't get enough of another at a reasonable price. there isn't any doubt that if there were plenty others at a reasonable price the ben davis wouldn't be used at all. we hear so much today about this high cost of living. of course, there are artificial conditions that have contributed to this to a greater or less extent; but the principal element is that we have come up against the problem of feeding the great american public, that has grown faster than the facilities have grown. the time for low priced food products is gone forever. yet there is a good deal in this commercial phase of it. president morris: the hales hickory is going to be like the ben davis apple, one of the very most popular in the market. doctor deming: i will say regarding the retail price of nuts that in new york city shelled filberts are priced at $ . a pound, shelled almonds $ . , ordinary run of hickories and chestnuts in the shells twenty cents, black walnuts in the shell twelve cents. president morris: hickories will give somewhat over fifty pounds to the bushel; black walnuts about forty. if we make a rough estimate of fifty pounds to the bushel for shagbarks, and forty for persian walnuts, we will probably have a good fair average. nut promotions. by w. c. deming, new york. promoters attack their quarry with a two-edged sword; one edge is what they say, the other what they leave unsaid; and both edges are often keen. what they say generally has a foundation of truth with a superstructure of gilded staff. you must knock over the staff and examine the foundations to see if they are laid up in good cement mortar or only mud. sometimes they are honestly laid but your true promoter can no more help putting on his coney island palace of dreams than a yellow journal reporter can help making a good story of the most everyday assignment. i suppose he takes a professional pride in his decorations, even when the real facts themselves are good enough. or even, in his enthusiasm, half believes, and fully hopes, that what he says is true. so you never can say that because of the evident gilding there is nothing worth while beneath. what the promoter does not say it is absolutely necessary for the safe investor to find out. deductions from experience in general, and from knowledge of the business in particular, will help and, when these favor further investigation, there are two essentials for a wise decision. first, a study of the records of the promoters, and second, a personal examination of the property. if these can be thoroughly made, and the results are satisfactory after a suitable period of mental incubation, if the prospects will stand the candle test for fertility, you may put some money on the chance of a good hatch; remembering, too, that many a good hatch afterward comes to grief with the pip. some promotions are conceived in iniquity, some in drunkenness and folly and some are abortive from incapacity. your legitimate and well-born, well-brought-up promotion, fathered by ability and mothered by honesty, it is your problem to recognize, if that is what you are looking for, and to avoid the low-born trickster or incapable. no one can tell you how to do this any more than he can tell you an easy way to graft hickories. the northern nut grower is not yet bothered with northern nut promotions. at most he is called on to discount the statements of sellers of trees, and that a little, not too expensive, experience will teach him. the west is apparently too busy selling fruit and fruit lands to lay out nuts to trap eastern nibblers. but the allurements of pecan growing in the south are spread before us with our bread and butter and morning coffee. the orange and pomelo properties have been banished from the stage, or made to play second fiddle, and now we see in the limelight the pecan plantation, with a vista of provision for old age and insurance for our children. and there shall be no work nor care nor trouble about it at all. only something down and about ten dollars a month for ninety-six months. and the intercropping is to more than pay for that. it is indeed an enticing presentation. although we have as yet no northern nut promotions we may expect the time when the sandy barrens of the shore and the boulder pastures of the rock ribbed hills will be cut up into five acre plots and promoted as the natural home of the chestnut and the hickory, holding potential fortunes for their developers. i hope it will be so for it will postulate a foundation in fact. but the chestnut blight and the unresponsiveness of the hickory to propagation as yet hold up these future camp followers of the northern nut growing pioneers. so that for the present there is only the sword of the southern pecan promoter to parry. it would be a work of supererogation and effrontery for me to attempt to treat this subject in particular since it has been so clearly and ably done by col. c. a. van duzee of st. paul, minn., and viking, fla., from the standpoint of long experience and full knowledge. his paper should be read by all interested persons. i am permitted to make the following quotations from it: "the pecan as an orchard tree has recently been discovered and its history has not been written. the record at present is largely based on scattered individual trees growing under abnormal conditions which, as a rule, are favorable.... "calculations and deductions based upon these results have been made which are fascinating, but they are utterly unreliable when applied to orchards of other trees in different localities growing under totally different conditions?... "no one knows what a pecan orchard grown under such conditions is going to do." col. van duzee, however, expresses firm belief in the success of pecan growing under proper personal supervision. it all comes down to the question, "can you or i hire our business done for us, never go near it ourselves and expect others to make a success of it for us?" and yet, when all is said, i confess that i have been tempted by my faith in the present and future of pecan growing in the south. i might have invested were it not for my firm belief that, in nut growing, the north is but a few years behind the south, and that i wish to devote my resources and my energies to having a hand in a development which, i share with you the belief, is to be of inestimable benefit to the human race. we can picture the day when our dooryards, our roadsides, our fields and hills shall be shaded by grand nut trees, showering sustenance and wealth on our descendants, and all people, and bearing the names of their originators; when the housewife of the future shall send her wireless call to the grocer for a kilo of hales' papershells, the rush, the jones, the pomeroy persian walnuts, the black ben deming butternut, the craig corean chestnut, the morris hybrid hickory, the close black-walnut or the littlepage pecan. * * * * * president morris: it is a very timely paper. the number of promoters we find in connection with any subject furnishes an index of the fundamental value of the original proposition. the number of dishonest people, the number of fakirs that are now promoting development schemes in connection with the pecan indicates that down at the bottom somewhere, there is a real gold mine. we will go on to mr. roper's paper. some facts concerning pecan trees for planting in the north. w. n. roper, petersburg, va. pecan trees for successful culture in the north must be of hardy, early-maturing varieties, budded on stocks from northern pecans and grown in nursery under suitable climatic conditions. these are requisites indicated by practical, experimental work and observations extending over several years. the successful production of large southern pecans in far northern climates can hardly be looked for except under the most favorable conditions of soil, location and season. there seems no good reason for planting southern pecans in the far north, except in an experimental way; for there are northern varieties now being propagated that are the equal of most of the standard southern sorts in quality and very little below them in size. they will prove to be as large or larger in the north than the southern varieties grown in the same locality, and much more apt to bear regularly. the method used in propagating the hardy types is important. budding and root-grafting each has its advocates among pecan growers in the south, and this would indicate that there is no great difference between the trees propagated by these two methods when they are planted in that section. but based on results with several hundred specimens, root-grafted pecan trees are not desirable for planting in northern climates. during the past six years there have been grown in nursery, in the eastern part of virginia, near petersburg, about , root-grafted trees of eight southern varieties of pecans and one virginia variety, including stuart, van deman, moneymaker, and mantura. all these trees are worthless. none of them, though they have been cared for, has ever been considered by the grower fit to dig and transplant. most of these trees suffer winter injury each year, many of them being killed back to the graft union. those that do not die below the ground grow out the following summer, only to be killed back again the next winter or spring. those damaged only a part of the way down the trunks, even when not badly injured, do not recover promptly. several hundred budded trees grown during the same period in adjoining rows have been entirely free from any winter injury. the grafts and buds were inserted on stocks from northern and southern nuts. a thousand budded and root-grafted trees received from six southern nurserymen were planted in orchards in the same locality. a very large percentage of the root-grafted trees died; only a small percentage of the budded trees died. many of the root-grafted trees that survived are making poor growth; most of the budded trees are strong and vigorous. the only trees of the virginia varieties ever reported winter-killed were root-grafts. no root-grafts of the northern types on northern stocks have been made in virginia, but root-grafts of indiana varieties on southern stocks transplanted there winter-kill badly. several indiana trees root-grafted on southern stocks and in their second year's growth in the nursery winter-killed in florida last season. not a single budded indiana tree in virginia suffered any winter injury whatever, although the buds were grown on southern as well as on northern stocks. all the root-grafted indiana trees transplanted at petersburg during the past two years have died from winter injury. northern types root-grafted on northern stocks not having been tested, no definite information can be given, of course; but with all southern varieties winter-killing in the north, when root-grafted on either northern or southern stocks, and the virginia variety winter-killing when root-grafted on southern or northern stocks, and the indiana varieties winter-killing both in the north and in the south when root-grafted on southern stocks, it seems reasonable to presume that the northern varieties root-grafted on northern stocks will also winter-kill. the stocks of the root-grafted trees are seldom injured. they send up sprouts except in cases where the graft union is so far beneath the surface of the soil that after the grafted part is killed the stock is too deep to grow out. not a single tree out of a total of , seedlings in virginia grown from northern nuts planted during a period of six years has ever been found affected by winter injury; practically all the trees out of , or more grown in the same locality from southern nuts, planted during the same years had their tops affected by winter injury the first, and most of them the second season of their growth; but no injury after the second season has been noted. with the view of making southern varieties better adapted to planting in northern area, experiments have been made in propagating them on stocks from northern nuts. this stock has thus far proved unsatisfactory for southern varieties either budded or root grafted. the trees from northern nuts go dormant earlier in the fall and remain dormant later in the spring than trees from southern nuts. northern trees in the nursery rows in early spring, in a perfectly dormant condition, are in striking contrast with the southern trees and their fresh, green foliage. though the growing period in the north is nearly a fourth shorter for the northern than for the southern varieties, the native trees in the north make equal growth with the southern trees there during the same season. northern varieties budded on northern stocks grown at petersburg the past summer made nearly as much growth during one season as root-grafted trees of the same varieties on southern stocks grown in florida two seasons. the trees at petersburg were from dormant buds set the previous fall. they were just starting into growth in may when the trees in florida had made a growth of six to twelve inches. the northern seedlings in the north make better growth in a season than the northern seedlings in the south, as far as has been observed. when the growing period begins in the northern climate, the native trees respond at once to the quick growing season and outgrow the trees that have been accustomed to a slower growing climate. when their growing period is over, they begin promptly their preparation for the winter. the long, slow growing climate of the south does not seem to give the quick growing tree of the north an opportunity for its greatest growth at the important period. there appears to be too much difference between the growing habits of the southern and the northern pecans for either to be suitable stock upon which to grow the other. two choice trees of moneymaker and one of stuart, all well grown and giving every promise of success, were selected out of a large number of these varieties budded on northern stocks, and were transplanted in orchard two years ago for experiment. the moneymaker trees have made little growth and the stuart tree practically none. all have an unhealthy appearance and are left standing only for further experiments. the section of virginia in which these experiments have been made affords very severe climatic tests. the temperature in winter sometimes goes below zero, the temperature in spring is variable, changing suddenly from warm to freezing. pecan trees seem able to endure almost any degree of cold when they are in a thoroughly dormant condition. the winter-killing from which they often suffer in the south, as well as in the north, is due to the effect of sudden freezing temperatures following warm periods in winter or spring. only well grown, vigorous pecan trees should be planted in the north. it is a waste of time and money to plant indifferent pecan trees in any locality, and especially in a locality where they have to contend with severe climatic conditions. the size of the tree is less important than its root system and vigor. the purchasers of trees grown on thin, sandy soil, with the root systems consisting almost entirely of straight tap roots, destitute of laterals, need not expect success. most of these trees will die early, and many of those that live will linger on for several seasons without making much growth, tiring out the patience of the planter. the work of transplanting should be very carefully done and the trees given proper care and culture. it has been found that it costs more to grow pecan nursery trees in the north than in the south, but it is believed that planters in the north will find that these trees have a value which will far offset their additional cost. some of the methods of propagation and care are slightly different in the north from those that usually obtain in the south. but it is not practicable to go into the details connected with this work. the facts that have been mentioned are those that are believed to be of most importance for consideration by persons planting pecan trees in the north. those who have gone thus far with the work upon which the conclusions are based are continuing as earnestly as they began. the outlook for the success of the pecan industry in northern territory is exceedingly promising where hardy, early-maturing varieties are properly grown in nursery on hardy stocks under climatic conditions that will best fit them for the locality in which they are to be planted. president morris: we can give some time to the discussion of mr. roper's paper. i want to ask if some of the hardy kinds which will stand the winters well may not carry their ripening season so late that they do not properly mature! isn't this a line of observation we have got to follow out in adapting pecans to northern fields? who has had experience? mr. littlepage: that is a very important point, and it is one of the things that everyone is going to discover who is engaged in northern pecan planting on the extreme limits within the next few years. there isn't much danger of the pecan getting frost-bitten in the spring as some imagine, because the pecan tree seems to be a pretty good weather prophet. they don't get ready, as a rule, till most of the danger is past. a great majority of the persian walnuts and pecans don't begin to pollenate till the tenth of may, and it is very rare that a tree doesn't ripen its nuts there. but once in a while we discover a tree that sets a bountiful crop annually and never matures a nut, because it gets frost bitten. it simply doesn't have the length of growing season. mr. rush: i remember a pecan tree i received, and have had growing for the last six years in pennsylvania. it was never affected with the cold, and made luxurious growth. but i haven't been so fortunate as to get it to bear, although it throws out catkins in the spring. president morris: the pecan tree is known to be hardy as far north as boston. there are quite a good many near new york city, some of them fine, trees, but not bearing much, and for the most part small nuts. mr. rush: mr. jones of jeanerette, louisiana, has been at my place, and he says that the growth of the pecan is just as luxuriant there as in louisiana. president morris: the point we want to bring out is this, and i think we ought to emphasize it at this meeting--that pecans suitable for northern planting must include the idea of an early ripening season, earlier than the ripening season of southern pecans. mr. rush: sometimes there is a provision in nature for that. the tree will adapt itself to the climate, and give a smaller nut. president morris: what has been your experience, mr. roper? mr. roper: we have only fruited stuart at petersburg. all the nuts have been well filled, but much smaller than the stuart farther south. mr. pomeroy: mr. littlepage made the remark yesterday that nature will attend to this largely for us. he spoke of the wood beginning to ripen the middle of august. with us in niagara county, we expect that with all trees the wood will begin ripening about the first of august, preparing for the winter. persian walnut doesn't come into blossom till about the last of may or the first of june. president morris: it is not mainly a matter of ripening wood, but of ripening nuts, in pecan growing in the north. a good many nuts will remain green, even though the tree will grow well; and we must have nurserymen draw our attention to this difference, when they are sending trees out to us for northern planting. that is a thing that may not be determined right now, but nurserymen must be able to report upon comparative ripening times of various kinds of pecans to be sent north. we will have the report of the committee on nominations. [the report was accepted and the nominees elected.] president morris: we have with us professor herrick, who will present his paper on the subject of the scolytus beetle. professor herrick has prepared his paper at our request since we came here. the scolytus beetle. prof. a. w. herrick, ithaca, n. y. with a residence of a little over a decade in the south, i became more or less intimately connected with a good many of the nut growers of the section, especially the pecan growers. i found them there an intelligent body of men. the president has asked me to talk just a little on the hickory bark borer. while in mississippi, i first came into contact with the hickory bark borer by its work on the hickories on the lawn in front of my house and on the campus. it began killing the trees. i had ten or a dozen trees on the lawn that were from six to eight inches through, and they had made a fine growth but they began suddenly to die. first, i noticed the leaves falling in the summer time, then later in the winter the branches began to die at the top. on investigation, i found that it was this little hickory bark borer. we carried out, as a result of that investigation, a few experiments, and extended them over the campus, following the recommendations of doctor hopkins of the department of agriculture, washington. the results were pretty gratifying. i was able to save those trees on the lawn, and during three or four years succeeding the time we got these experiments into practice, no more had died, and they had kept on making a good growth; and i believe the ravages of the beetle had been checked. the little beetle belongs to a family called the _scolytidae_--very small beetles that burrow through the bark of trees, and between the bark and the wood, partly in the bark and partly in the wood. these beetles are interesting in their life history. the female bores through the bark, and then she builds a channel partly in the wood and partly in the bark. she goes along and digs out little niches all along, and in each one of these, deposits a tiny white egg. that soon hatches into the small grub, and the grub begins to burrow out to get his food, and you will find these little burrows running out from the main burrow of the mother beetle. when these grubs reach their growth, each one of them comes out and bores a little shot-hole-like round hole through the bark, so that a tree that is pestered with it will finally have the bark full of these little round holes. you have probably seen a similar thing in peach, plum, and cherry trees. the hickory bark borer is found all over the eastern united states, from canada to the gulf, and as far west as nebraska. it attacks hickory trees and walnut trees, and as far as i can find, the authorities say probably the pecan. i never found it on the pecan in the south. if it does ever come to attack it in any numbers, it will be a serious pest from the nut grower's point of view. in this state, it was first noticed by its work on hickory trees in the vicinity of new york city, and it is killing a good many of them. to show its dangerousness--on the estate of mr. wadsworth at geneseo in and over an area of two hundred acres, it destroyed ninety to ninety-five per cent of the hickories. it really becomes a most injurious pest. these little fellows running under the bark cut off the cambium layer and girdle it, and kill the tree as effectually as if we were to take an axe and girdle it. a few can girdle it very quickly. an infested tree in the summer shows some characteristic effects. the leaves begin to dry and wither, and finally drop. the adult beetles, when they come out in june and july, attack the petioles, leaves, and terminal buds for food, then go down to the larger branches and trunks, and burrow to lay their eggs. the younger top branches begin to die. if you look, you will very often find a little white sawdust in cracks in the bark. that is an indication that they are present. if you take off the bark, you will find such an appearance as i have shown you. later, you will find these holes all over, showing the work of the beetle. i will give the life history of the insect very briefly. the insects live over the winter under the bark, as grubs, and in the spring they change to the pupa form, and come out along in june and july. some may be as late as august. those beetles go to the branches and leaves, and soon begin laying their eggs. there is only one brood a season, in this locality at least. in a longer season, farther south, there might be more than one, although my experience in mississippi was that there was only one brood. a word regarding methods of control. you can readily see that there is no way of getting at the beetle with insecticides after they have gotten under the bark. doctor pelt mentions the value of spraying the trees in summer to kill adults when they are feeding on the petioles and probably the terminal buds and younger twigs. it is rather doubtful whether it would pay to spray hickory trees at that time, although the expense of spraying large trees is not so great as you might think. we have had experiences here, because it fell to my lot to spray all the elm trees on the campus last year. i kept very careful account of this. we sprayed between five and six hundred trees. about one hundred are scattered over the hillsides west of the buildings, some a mile from the water supply. we did the work for about eighty-eight cents apiece, each tree having a thorough spray. the largest trees on each side of the street we gave two sprayings for a little less than forty cents apiece. the real method of getting at this hickory bark borer is for everybody to cooperate and cut those trees out, or at least the affected parts of the tree, before the first of may. i know of no other effective method of getting them. cut them out and burn them. some say, peel off the bark and destroy that; but if you do that, you have got to cut off the smallest branches and burn those, and i am afraid you would not get all of the grubs. but it is better, if you can, to actually dispose of the whole tree in some way. there were three trees on the lawn infested and dying. i cut those out in february, and that evidently stopped the ravages of the beetle. that was carried on over the whole campus, and it must have stopped the injuries, because during the three or four years i was there after that, we had no dead hickories from that cause. that is evidently the only method of getting at them. it has been wondered if we might not go to the commissioner of agriculture, and ask him to take this matter in hand and force people to cooperate, because it has become a rather serious problem. it is evident from a perusal of the law that he has power to do that, and perhaps if this nut growers' association wishes to pass resolutions to bring before commissioner pearson, they might induce him to take some steps to control this hickory bark borer. president morris: if we have evidence that the hickory bark borer can destroy ninety per cent of the hickory trees on an estate so well cared for as the wadsworth estate, it indicates a menace to the whole hickory forests of the north. in view of this fact, in view of the possibility of ninety per cent of our hickory trees being destroyed by this beetle, it seems to me that we should ask our commissioner of agriculture to take charge of the matter, as he has taken charge of the chestnut bark disease, requiring the cooperation of the people in disposing of a question which is so vital among the economic problems of our state. is there any discussion on this paper? doctor deming: i would like to read an extract from a letter addressed to me by h. w. merkel, forester of the bronx zoological park: "under chapter of the laws of the state of new york, passed on july th, , the commissioner of agriculture is authorized and charged with preventing the spread of just such pests as the hickory bark-borer, and if this matter be called to his attention promptly and in the right way by such responsible and interested parties as the northern nut growers' association, there is, undoubtedly, still time to check the further spread of the pest. we have from now until june (the time when a new generation of beetles will emerge) to take whatever action is necessary, and i urge upon you to persuade the nut growers' association to take the necessary steps. i would be glad to have a conference with you on this matter, and will be glad to help you in any way you wish." i would suggest the appointment of a committee to draw up a strong set of resolutions to be sent to the commissioner of agriculture of the state of new york and perhaps of other states, and to the department of agriculture. (referred to executive committee for report.) president morris: we will have next in order the paper by professor lake on the persian walnut in california. the persian walnut in california. abstract of a lecture by professor e. r. lake, washington, d. c. the persian walnut industry of the united states is confined, practically, to four counties in southern california, santa barbara, ventura, los angeles and orange. the territory covered is, in a general way, fifty by one hundred and fifty miles in extent, though, of course, only a very small part of this area is planted, and that really the best land in the territory. this industry which yields practically two and one-half millions of dollars annually to the growers is about thirty-five years old, and at present involves the consideration of one variety, the santa barbara softshell. while it is true that there are about seventy-five named varieties now grown in the country, the santa barbara constitutes the commercial crop and will for some time to come, though effort is being made to find a more desirable variety. during the past ten years a troublesome pest in the form of a fungous disease which attacks the young twigs and young nuts has awakened an interest in other varieties and at present much work is being done with a view to finding one or more varieties that shall be fully resistant to this foe. at present the university of california, which is the directive factor in this investigation, is recommending the trial of half a dozen of the more promising varieties or forms that have been developed through selection, or chance, in the local orchards. as a result of the effect of this trouble, the crop output has increased very slightly during the past decade, though the area of planted trees has increased very much, hence it is very apparent that some other varieties must be found; for it has been quite conclusively proven that none of the means so effectively used against the fungous troubles that affect other orchard crops are of any avail in this case. when it is noted that there has been practically no advance in the improvement of varieties since the origin of the franquette and mayette about one hundred and fifty years ago, except the accidental appearance of the santa barbara which was produced presumably from a nut from chili (!) in on the grounds of joseph sexton, goleta, california, it is evident that our nuciculturists have been indifferent, especially as to the possibilities of extending the area of production. speaking more particularly of california walnut growing, it may be said: the best of soils are selected for this crop; the trees are being planted from forty to fifty feet apart; the best and most common advice is to plant budded or grafted trees, and so far as this advice has been followed the placentia, an improved santa barbara, has been used, though in the newer districts where efforts are being made, with apparent success, to develop this industry, several other varieties are being used, such as the wiltz, franquette, mayette, eureka, chase, prolific, meylan, concord, treyve and parisienne. thus far this work is experimental, and only time will determine the success and value of it. the crop, as with all orchard crops on the pacific coast, is cultivated intensively, clean tillage being given, followed by cover crops and in some cases fertilizers accompanied with intercrops. the trees require very little pruning, and though formerly the heads were started high, they are now formed low and the primary branches trained to ascend obliquely, thus facilitating tillage operations, and, in this respect, even improving upon the high head with spreading or even drooping main branches. while the more progressive planters favor trees one year from the bud, which have been put upon two year old stock, some still prefer two year old tops. stocks are preferably california black, northern form. this is a large and vigorous tree, while the southern form is often or perhaps better, usually, a large shrub or small tree. the remarkable behavior of the vrooman orchard at santa rosa, in which there are sixty acres of grafted franquettes, has been the chief means of stimulating the very extensive plantings that have been made during the past five or six years in the pacific northwest. this is the largest orchard of grafted nuts of a single type variety in the united states and is a most excellent example of what follows grafting. the nuts are exceedingly uniform, and large size. they are marketed in the natural color and are especially attractive, particularly when of a reddish-golden tinge. the trees begin to bear at five or six years, though many instances are recorded where two year olds have borne a few nuts. usually only a few pounds per year are produced prior to twelve years, after that the yield increases rapidly until at sixteen years the trees will average approximately fifty pounds or more per tree under favorable soil, tillage, and climatic conditions, providing the trees are of selected varieties of good bearing qualities. one tree, known as the payne tree, top worked on to a native black, has a record of yielding as much as seven hundred and twelve pounds in one season, though it is not fair to use these figures in estimating the yield per acre of seventeen trees. while the walnut has received little attention in the eastern united states, there are sufficient data at hand now to warrant the statement that several meritorious varieties may be successfully grown in favorable localities. these nuts, though not rated as high as the best imported nuts or the choice california product, would successfully compete with the foreign nuts which are now rated as replacement nuts by the dealers in california's best grade. it is not safe to endorse the view that any waste or abandoned land may be converted into successful walnut orchards, though such lands may in due time produce trees that will bear nuts. a first-class walnut orchard can only be produced upon first-class land, deep, fertile soil, a low water table, an open subsoil, with choice varieties, grafted upon the most suitable stock and then given first-class tree-care. professor lake: i think a man now is making a tremendous mistake who thinks for a moment of advising the planting of seedling walnuts. we are bound to meet the problem of grafted fruit right away. the success in grafting in washington this year has been such as to make us feel certain that we may safely advise budding yearling stocks and expecting a return of from seventy to ninety per cent of successful sets. stocks giving best success in budding are california black. about two weeks after the budding is done, the tops are cut off two inches above, and allowed to bend over and protect the buds; and in the west, where they have intense sunlight, they have found it necessary to cover the buds with paper sacks. the budding which has given the largest success is hinge budding, a kind that i haven't seen discussed generally in the east. instead of being a t at one end, it is a t at both ends. there is a horizontal cut across, another below, and a split between. the buds are taken preferably from the last year's wood. we attempt to take the wood away from the bud, with the exception of that little spongy part that runs up into the bud, and is the core. mr. pomeroy: you speak of the hulling. do they have to hull the persian walnuts? professor lake: in many instances, especially in dry seasons, or in those sections where water is not particularly abundant. ordinarily, hulling is avoided by irrigating just preceding the time of falling. frequently the growers of large acreages say that it is cheaper to run them all through the huller. mr. littlepage: what would you prophesy about the average seedling persian walnut tree as to success and quality of nut? professor lake: i was led to think that all that was necessary to do was to plant the walnuts, because most of our authorities of twenty years ago said the walnut would come true to seed. i think out of several hundred trees planted throughout the state, and many we planted ourselves, not a seedling came true. i should think, normally, we should be very much dissatisfied in ten years from planting seedlings. as soon as anyone buds these with franquette, parisienne, concord, rush, pomeroy, and others, i am satisfied he will not want to chance it with seedlings. mr. littlepage: this dissatisfaction that may result from setting seedling walnuts, such as rush, nebo, pomeroy, and others, would be just as great, perhaps, as the dissatisfaction resulting in the west, would it not? professor lake: i can't see any reason, but that if there are present any of the native trees, they are bound to cross-fertilize. in california we have the royal hybrid produced at over a mile and a half distance from any known american blacks. the royal is a cross between the american black and the california black. mr. littlepage: i don't suppose it would be reasonable to expect that there is a persian walnut in the northern or eastern united states far enough from some native black to render it safe. professor lake: i should hardly think so. even if it is, i question whether a nut of real merit will come true to seed. president morris: is it true that even from single type orchards the nuts, while coming fairly true to seed, would give trees widely different in bearing propensities? professor lake: that is very true in this vrooman orchard that has been developed to the very best possible advantage. there are trees that haven't borne a nut to make them worth while, others have been remarkably vigorous. from these, a few people, knowing of their real merits, are propagating select strains for their own use. they have fifteen or sixteen years' record. i question, if you take a hundred franquettes from the vrooman orchard miscellaneously, whether you would get more than ten per cent that would be really as good as the vrooman. president morris: in california i went along the coast this summer from los angeles to oregon and washington, and looked over orchards. i find that in the west, as in the east, the tendency is for the persian walnut to store up an undue amount of starch in the kernel. it is apt also to store up an undue proportion of tannin, and to be insipid. that means that in this country we must develop our own type of walnut, and it is quite the exception to find among any persian walnuts growing on the atlantic coast or the pacific coast or in the middle of the country walnuts that are free from this tendency to astringency, to insipidity, and to toughness. when i was on the pacific coast looking over specimens in one agricultural collection, a young woman who was showing the collection said, "and here is a lot of franquettes, and chabertes, and mayettes, and parisiennes that we imported; and do you know, we found our walnuts very much better than those?" i said to her, "don't deceive yourself in this matter. this self-deception is a mistake. the thing to do is not to make that kind of a decision, but really to develop in our own country walnuts just as good as those, but not like them." this was exemplified in a group of walnut raisers. one would say, "here is a fine walnut that i raised." the other would say, "yes, that looks pretty good, but you have got to hire a good talker to sell it." another would say, "isn't this a fine thin shelled nut?" and the same thing would be said. now, the whole conversation of that meeting was to the effect that "you have got to have a good talker to sell it." those people send their good talkers all over the country, and they do sell the walnuts; and it is going to kill the walnut market, unless this is stopped. those points are ones upon which i would like to have an expression of opinion from mr. lake. professor lake: i may say that the western knowledge of the walnut is based very largely upon the character of the santa barbara softshell, and the people in the west are fully satisfied that the pacific coast walnuts are the best in the world. i am thoroughly of their belief, too. i agree thoroughly with the doctrine that we have got to improve our own varieties, and that is being done in the best way that we know at present,--by cross-fertilizing and growing the seedlings. a number have been developed the past few years. it is very true that the general public's taste, however, is not up yet to the connoisseur's in this matter, and i am satisfied that the ordinary grade of walnut is going to meet the public demand for a long time yet. the santa barbara softshell will sell to the american public for good profitable prices for some time, and in the meantime, the men who are really wideawake and have a knowledge of the situation are going to endeavor to improve the home strains. i can't see that we can hope for very much from france, for during the last two years the real mayette of france has been imported, because we have trees bearing in santa clara valley a mayette as near like the mayette of europe as it is possible to make them. the french have not been particularly anxious for us to get their best strains. president morris: in this connection, let me say i have seen mayette, chaberte, parisienne,--the best european walnuts--growing in this country, and in this country they do precisely like the best european grapes,--that is, they give us a different product. imported grafted stock will take from our soil those elements which make an astringent, tough, insipid nut. we have got to recognize it. don't let us fail to go on record as calling attention to that fact. that means if we import the very best european kinds and plant these, we are going to have the same records as with grapes. professor lake: this matter of quality is of considerable moment to the growers out there. last year i took occasion to write five of the leading dealers in new york, like parke and tilford. they said in their letters of reply, "we consider the quality as varying from season to season. some seasons we get the california product better than the european product; other seasons it is just the other way." it leads me to think seasonal variation has a great deal to do with the walnut, possibly. in some cases even the large dealers are not yet agreed that the american product is not yet good enough for the american market. president morris: shall we say that nuts for the connoisseur should not be bleached? professor lake: modern bleaching consists in running the nuts through a current of salt. it is applied in such a way that it does not do any injury whatever to the flavor or the kernel, unless possibly salting the kernel in cracked nuts would be considered injurious. the bleaching is beautiful. they are not over bleached. they use six pounds of salt to a thousand gallons of water, and run a current of ninety-five volts. it is sprayed on to the nuts as they pass through a revolving cylinder, the spray coming on in a fine mist. as they pass over the cylinder, they are graded and ventilated, and put into sacks. that is after they have been dried. they are ready in about twenty-two hours to be sacked and delivered. the old method of processing in soda and lime and sulphur certainly did injure them. mr. pomeroy: i am just a short distance from niagara falls and buffalo. when any of you are in that section, i would like to have you come and see my trees. there are the seven year old trees my father started, and the orchard is of five or six acres. some of the seedlings are in bearing now. i have a good many black walnuts in nursery rows, and i am going to begin grafting and budding. one thing i came for was to get information in regard to budding and grafting. in regard to the caring for the trees, it is a great pleasure to watch a tree grow and get it in shape. professor craig: it seems to me that out of the very interesting discussion we have had on this question of the persian walnut, and out of the discussion which has arisen from the papers of mr. littlepage and others on native nuts, we have obtained some very general principles which should be emphasized at this time. the one large principle that i want to call attention to is the principle which says that, in order to develop fruits--and we will include nuts in that general group--which shall be useful to the american public, we shall have to develop them under american soil and atmospheric conditions. in other words, the importation _per se_ of european stock of whatever kind is altogether likely to meet with failure. this is the history of american fruit growing from the beginning. the very first beginning of fruit culture in this country was the importation of european fruits, and these uniformly failed. success came when american colonists began to grow american seedlings. the fact that these have prevailed is shown by the percentage of american fruits the large orchardist produces at the present time. today nearly ninety-nine per cent of our apples are of american origin. the condition of today means success; the condition of a hundred years ago meant failure. in this persian walnut business, i think success is going to come to us through such work as mr. pomeroy and other interested amateurs are doing throughout the country, in selecting a good type of seedling here and there and growing seedlings from it. this homely old method of producing new types through seedling selection is, i think, going to do a great deal to ameliorate conditions the country over. i simply wanted to impress that idea, that if we nut growers are going to do something to help the nut interests of the country, we can do it by planting nuts and selecting nuts from the best types, again taking the best nuts from the best types and planting them; thus by keeping on selecting, we shall win success in the future. is there a future for _juglans regia_ and _hicoria pecan_ in new york and new england? john craig, ithaca, n. y. [read by title.] it is common knowledge that there have been frequent instances of the successful fruitage of persian walnuts throughout the entire northeast. the evidence is forthcoming in attractive samples of nuts. specimens have been received during the past two years from new england, pennsylvania, new jersey, and the lake region of new york, as well as the hudson river section. so far as i am aware, however, _hicoria pecan_ has not fruited to any extent further north and east than southern indiana. is it not remarkable that so little effort has been made to extend the natural range of this superb native nut northward? the fruiting habits of _juglans regia_ may be regarded as fickle, depending in some cases upon pollination, in others upon climatic conditions at the blooming time. one of its defects is its decided proterandrous habit, which seriously affects pollination and fruit setting. in general, the persian walnut is capable of cultivation in all safe peach growing sections. yet in the gulf states the complaint is made that it is too readily susceptible to stimulating influences of warm weather in the spring. again, the roots in that section are affected by fungi and insects. notwithstanding these charges, there should be a future in the north, as well as in the south, for this fine nut. it is hardly to be expected that success is to be attained in all sections of the country by using exclusively the material, by this i mean the strains and races, we have at the present time. for instance, in the south the root trouble is peculiar to that section, and it is probable that the root difficulties spoken of may be overcome by using native stocks in grafting and budding. the blooming habits, however, can only be modified by the relatively slow process of breeding. in the north, nature has already provided us with foundation material for the improvement of _juglans regia_. we have many promising varieties that have appeared more or less fortuitously here and there over the country. it is conceded that all of these do not possess the full range of desirable qualities, but they are sufficiently attractive certainly to challenge the best efforts of the plant breeder. we are encouraged too by such experiences as has come to us in the crossing of regia with allied species. a number of crosses of _regia_ and _nigra_ are recorded from the pacific coast. burbank, payne, and others have made notable progress in this line. it is a question, however, whether this line offers as certain reward as breeding in narrower lines, using the best individuals of _juglans regia_ which have come to us more or less by chance. the latter appears to me as the best field to operate. among the requirements in the northeast, it may be said that we need hardiness of tree, coupled with a determinate habit of blooming, more than any other characteristics. of course it goes without saying that we need thin shells, well filled with palatable meat. the work of messrs. pomeroy of lockport, n. y., j. g. rush of west willow, pa., and other individuals in the northeast is worthy of all encouragement. wherever persian walnuts are producing good nuts here in the northeast, the best specimens of the best individual trees should be planted in the strong hope of improving the strain. there should be a first rate promise of success in this field, for many of our walnuts are fruiting as individual trees, standing alone and isolated, and therefore, are probably self-fertilized, a circumstance which may assist in shortening the process of improvement by breeding. _hicoria pecan._ this is undoubtedly the best of all the native nuts, and the most worth while improving. the great popularity which this form of hickory enjoys in the south is undoubtedly due in considerable measure to the fact that it is adapted to a considerable range of territory. this adaptation is the natural acquirement of many years' evolution. at this time of the year, one sees in fruiterers' shops in new york and other cities appetizing looking baskets, containing cracked shagbarks and pecans. these nuts are enjoying a large share of popularity at the hands of the consumers. as these two forms are exhibited together, the observer may note the essential good qualities of each, and he may make a mental picture of the possibilities of a union which would eliminate the undesirable features and combine the desirable. the lack of hardiness of the pecan would be strengthened by the hardy northern form, while the breeder would aim to retain the excellent flavors of each, the good qualities of meat, but enclosed by a covering of paper shell texture. we want the hardiness and adaptability of the shellbark, combined with the thin shell, the excellent cracking qualities, and the pleasant flavors of the pecan. here is a truly attractive field. the fact that returns may be rather slow in maturing should not deter the plant breeder, for sometimes prizes come quickly. of course the field is one which appeals more strongly to the institution of indefinite life tenure than to the individual whose years of activity are relatively brief. what nature has done in the way of extending the range of the pecan northward has been clearly set forth in the excellent paper presented by mr. littlepage. this indigenous movement from the natural zone of the pecan towards the north and east has undoubtedly been infinitely slow. the important fact has been established, however, that not only has nature extended the natural range in the directions indicated, but mr. littlepage has shown that here and there a variety of exceptional merit has appeared, fortuitously and without assistance or guidance from man. these superior varieties are being placed under observation by interested nut enthusiasts like messrs. littlepage, niblack, and mccoy, and others, who are not only studying the nut in its native haunts, but are experimenting with methods of propagation so that we may confidently look forward to a stable supply of these natural selections in the years near at hand. here, then, we have the material for founding new races of northern nuts by combining them with our best hardy hickories. who will gainsay the prophecy that not far distant is the day when we may expect new hybrid strains of great economical importance arising from the union of our northern hickories with the most northerly forms of the pecan? shall we designate these hybrids as "shellcans," "shagcans," or "hickcans," after the nomenclatural methods of present day plant breeders? the splendid work of our president in the interbreeding of northern types of nuts gives us strong hope to expect results of this nature. in the matter of propagation we have learned certain essential fundamentals. first and most important is the firmly established fact that southern, pecan stocks are unsafe and generally unreliable in the region of the northern hickory. we must grow our own stocks from northern nuts. we must propagate by using home grown material exclusively, and as to methods of propagation, it is probable that we can follow in general the practice of the southern nurseryman, but unquestionably modifications in procedure will arise out of the sum of our experience which will tend each year to bring a larger measure of success. this association will perform an invaluable service in collecting these various experiences, winnowing the sound from the unsound, and disseminating safe deductions and reliable principles to the rapidly increasing band of nut culturists throughout the region of its activities. our second session has been an unqualified success. may this meeting be surpassed in respect to enthusiasm manifested, experience and knowledge disseminated, by each of the annual conferences to be held in the years to come. president morris: discussion as to the next place of meeting is in order. mr. rush: i would certainly be very glad to entertain the northern nut growers' association at lancaster city, pennsylvania, and will assure you in advance that i will give you the best hospitality that the country can afford. we have now associated with the walnut interests in lancaster county mr. jones of jeanerette, louisiana, who has been through that section and is pleased with the work that is being done there. i think it may be policy for the association to meet there. we can have our night session, and be absent several hours in the morning and look over some of the work. mr. jones contemplates topgrafting hickory trees at his new home, and we can have the opportunity of seeing with what success he meets. the association voted to accept mr. rush's invitation. president morris: we will hear the report of the committee on resolutions. resolutions passed by the northern nut growers association, december , . (read by reed.) be it resolved: that the northern nut growers' association assembled does hereby express its sincere thanks to the president and faculty of cornell university for placing at its disposal the facilities for holding its convention at this time. that special thanks be extended to dean l. h. bailey of the college of agriculture for the invitation to meet at this place and to prof. john craig for his many courtesies shown the association and its individual members. that we hereby express our thanks to president morris and secretary deming for their labor and untiring efforts to bring about a successful meeting. that we also tender our thanks to president morris for the liberal premiums offered for nut exhibits and to the many who have responded. that special attention be called to "the morris collection of the edible nuts of the world," maintained at this place by dr. robt. t. morris, president of this association. this collection is of the greatest possible educational value to those interested in the study of nuts and nut products. that, in view of the distribution and rapid spread of the disease known as "chestnut blight," especially among the american species, we express our hearty approval of the efforts being made by the federal government, the several state departments and especially the action of the pennsylvania state legislature in appropriating the sum of $ , . to aid in studying and combatting this dread disease, and that we urge the importance of continued efforts along these lines and similar action in all other states in which the chestnut species is of commercial importance, either for timber or nut purposes. that the secretary be instructed to send a copy of these resolutions to hon. james wilson, secretary of agriculture, at washington, d. c, and to commissioner of agriculture or director of experiment stations of such states as within which, according to his judgment, the chestnut species may be of sufficient importance to justify such action. c. a. reed, t. p. littlepage, geo. c. schempp, jr., _committee_. (read by littlepage.) that we thank messrs. collins, reed, and lake of the u. s. department of agriculture for attendance at this meeting and for their valuable information and assistance, and furthermore that we respect-fully invite them to attend the next annual meeting, and in the meantime lend the executive committee their assistance in making plans for next season's work and in carrying out the purposes of our organization. t. p. littlepage, geo. c. schempp, jr. the association voted to adopt these resolutions. president morris: we will adjourn, and the committee on competition will meet this afternoon for examination of specimens and decisions in regard to the respective values of the different specimens exhibited. appendix miscellaneous notes. those in attendance at the meeting were as follows: dr. robert t. morris, new york city, president mr. t. p. littlepage, washington, d. c, vice-president dr. w. c. deming, westchester, new york city, secretary-treasurer prof. john craig, ithaca, n. y., chairman of the executive committee mr. c. a. reed of the u. s. dept, of agriculture, special agent field investigations in pomology mr. j. g. rush, west willow, pa. prof. j. franklin collins, forest pathologist, u. s. dept, of agriculture prof. e. r. lake, assistant pomologist, u. s dept, of agriculture. col. c. a. van duzee, st. paul, minn., and viking, fla. mrs. w. c. deming, redding, conn. mr. w. n. roper, petersburg, va, editor american fruit & nut journal mr. leonard barron, editor country life in america, garden city, l. i. mr. a. c. pomeroy, lockport, n. y. professors crosby, de garmo, tuck, herrick, drew, of the university. mr. j. a. holmes, ithaca, n. y. mr. geo. s. tarbell, ithaca, n. y. mr. g. c. schempp, jr., albany, ga. mr. h. brown and mr. s. v. wilcox, representing thos. meehan & sons, germantown, pa. mr. f. m. rites, slaterville springs, n. y. students of the university and others. the thanks of the association are due professor craig for his contribution to the purposes of the convention of the services of his private stenographer which made possible a complete record of all the proceedings and discussions. the success of the meeting is largely due to the thorough preparation made by professor craig. report of committee on exhibits. by department of horticulture, new york state college of agriculture. a collection of the walnuts of commerce, comprising varieties, shown with a specimen of each in section. a collection of varieties of filberts. a collection of varieties of pecans. the morris collection of edible nuts of the world. this includes not only the nuts of the north, but the fullest collection of the nuts of the tropics that has ever been brought together. by j. g. rush, west willow, pennsylvania. two plates of black walnuts; one plate showing hybridity between persian walnut and butternut; one plate paragon chestnuts; one plate especially large american sweet chestnuts. by a. c. pomeroy, lockport, new york. four plates of walnuts, showing variation of seedlings; grown on trees varying from six to eight years old. by w. n. roper, petersburg, virginia. one plate mantura pecans. by t. p. littlepage, washington, d. c. an exhibit of eighteen varieties of seedling pecans, grown in the wabash region of indiana and kentucky. these seedlings represent very promising varieties, some of them being exceedingly thin shelled, most of them well filled and symmetrical in form. of these, five have been named, to wit: greenriver, warwick, hodge, hoosier, and major. mr. littlepage exhibits a plate of _juglans regia_ and a fine sample of _juglans nigra_. prize nuts. announcement by the president. in the interest of science and of american horticulture the northern nut growers association is making an effort to find nut trees of various kinds which produce superior nuts which can be used for propagation. prizes for special lots of nuts are offered. each lot of nuts sent for prize competition is to consist of twelve nuts from one tree, and the location of the tree is to be well marked, so that no mistake can be made later if cuttings are to be purchased from the owner or finder of the tree. nuts are to be sent by mail in a box or bag containing a card with the name and address of the sender plainly written. at the same time a letter is to be written separately, describing the tree in a general way, and giving the name of the town in which it grows. packages of nuts and descriptive letters are to be addressed to professor john craig, cornell university, ithaca, n. y. and all specimens must be sent by november , . in former years it has happened that several people from the same town have sent nuts from the same tree. under these circumstances, if the nuts take a prize, the prize must be given according to the date of the first specimens sent. in addition to the prizes given, valuable varieties receive the name of the person sending them, and this goes on record permanently. the sender of these nuts will often have opportunity to sell cuttings from the tree later at the common rate of five cents per foot. prizes are offered for the following nuts: st prize is to be two dollars, nd prize is to be one dollar, and the amount of postage will be returned for all lots of nuts sent which do not receive prizes. shagbark or scaly bark hickory (_hicoria ovata_). class a. large thin shelled nuts. class b. very small thin shelled nuts. shellbark hickory, king nut, big bud hickory (_h. laciniosa_). size is particularly desired with this species, but thinness of shell counts high. pecan (_h. pecan_). pecans sent for competition must be native nuts from new jersey, pennsylvania, delaware, maryland, virginia, west virginia, kentucky, indiana and ohio only, as these nuts are desired for northern horticulture. other hickories. sometimes a tree of various other kinds of hickories will produce a very desirable nut; consequently first and second prizes are offered for any hickory nut not belonging to the above three kinds. black walnut (_juglans nigra_). thin shelled black walnuts of good quality are desired. butternut, white walnut (_juglans cinerea_). size and thinness of shell are most important. persian walnut, english walnut (_juglans regia_). american grown varieties the only ones receiving prizes. asiatic walnuts (_juglans cordiformis_, _j. sieboldi_, _j. sibirica_). american grown varieties the only ones receiving prizes. beechnut. size stands first for prize qualifications for beechnuts. american hazels. thinness of shell and size are most important. chinquapin (_castanea pumila_). size is the most important qualification for this species. chestnuts. on account of the rapid spread of the chestnut blight no other kinds of chestnut besides chinquapins are desired at present. freak nuts. remarkable freaks of any species of edible nuts may win prizes. for instance, a black walnut with meat growing in only one half of each shell. r. t. morris, new york city, president northern nut growers association. prizes awarded in the resulting competition. . _hicoria ovata_ plate ii, first prize: plate i, second prize: exhibited by theron e. platt, newtown, conn. . _hicoria pecan_ mantura, first prize: w. n. roper, petersburg. va. major, second prize: t. p. littlepage, union trust building, washington, d. c. . _hicoria laciniosa_ first and second prizes: c. n. stem, sabillasville, md. . _persian walnut_ nebo, first prize: j. g. rush, west willow, pa. holden, second prize: e. b. holden, hilton, n. y. . _asiatic walnut_ juglans sieboldiana, first prize: j. g. rush, west willow, pa. . _chinquapin_ no. , first prize: j. g. rush, west willow, pa no. , second prize: j. g. rush, west willow, pa. . _freak nuts_ hickory no. , first prize: lillie e. johnson, gowanda, n. y. . _butternuts_ first prize: mrs. albina simonds, south royalton, vt. . _beechnuts_ first prize: malcolm newell, west wardsboro, vt. second prize: william davis, rutland, vt. . _black walnuts_ first prize: j. j. robinson, lamont, mich. second prize: dorothy mcgrew, r.f.d. , box , kent, o. the prizes awarded in this competition were contributed personally by the president. report of the committee on the nomenclature of juglans mandshurica and the shellbark hickories. the following are the questions sent by the secretary and the answers received: as there seems to be a difference of opinion as to the identity of 'juglans mandshurica' will you be so kind as to answer the following questions for the benefit of the northern nut growers' association at their annual meeting at ithaca, new york, dec. and , . q. what type of nut do you consider the "juglans mandshurica" to be? j. h. black, hightstown, n. j.: probably a juglans regia manchuria. t. e steele, palmyra, n. j.: no resemblance to persian walnut but very similar to butternut, a little longer and thicker than butternut and of little better quality. luther burbank, santa rosa, cal.: nigra, or the connecting link between butternut, eastern black walnut and a trace of sieboldi especially in foliage. h. e. van deman, washington, d. c.: it is almost identical with j. sieboldiana. j. m. thorburn & co., barclay st., n. y. city.: our idea of the type is that it resembles very closely in size, form and color of the shell the english walnut or juglans regia, though the shell is thicker and the quality of the kernel has not the pleasant flavor of the juglans regia. q does it resemble the persian walnut or the butternut? j. s. black: persian. t. e. steele: (see q. ). luther burbank: (does it resemble the persian walnut--) _no._ (--or the butternut?) very much in nut but less elongated and not pointed. _very_ thick shell. h. e. van deman: not similar to either of them. j. m. thorburn & co.: (see q. ). q. is it a nut of commercial or other value? j. s. black: yes. t. e. steele: i hardly think it a nut of commercial value as the shell is too thick. i should not consider it much better than the butternut. luther burbank: hardly unless improved. meat sweet like butternut. juglans sieboldi var. cordiformis is the very best of this type, thin shell, _very_ sweet meats. both these nuts vary _very_ widely in form. h. e. van deman: only of value as a shade tree or as a stock from which to make crosses. j. m thorburn and co.: as far as we know it has no commercial value here. we sell it only for seed purposes. q. how was it introduced into this country? j. s. black: by yokohama nursery co. of new york city. t. e. steele: i do not know. luther burbank: some twenty years ago both by myself and the arnold herbarium of newtown, mass. h. e. van deman: by nuts from manchuria, i have always understood. j. m. thorburn & co.: we cannot tell. we purchase direct from japan. q. what are the characteristics of the tree? j. s. black: very similar but hardier than persian. t. e. steele: very similar in growth to that of the japan walnut, not unlike the butternut. in fact many call them butternuts, but mr. van deman was quite sure they were the mandshurica when he picked one from the tree i have in mind. luther burbank: much like sieboldi. van deman: very thrifty and luxuriant with large leaves and large growth. bark light colored. j. m. thorburn & co.: it is a broad-headed tree growing about feet high. q. have you raised them yourself or can you say who has? j. s. black: we have raised trees but not the nuts. t. e. steele: i have never raised them and know of no one who has. luther burbank: young trees. my one tree is more spready than other walnuts, and so far though old does not bear. van deman: no, i have not grown the trees. think john or wm. parry of parry, n. j., have them. i have j. cordiformis. j. m. thorburn & co: we have never raised them ourselves. q. can you send samples or say where they can be obtained? j. s. black: we can furnish trees. get nuts from yokohama nursery co., new york city. t. e. steele: i know of but one tree near here, and i am mailing you one nut that i gathered a year or two ago, too long ago to be of any value except to show the character of the nut. if i can procure another nut or two of this year's growth i will do so and mail to you. luther burbank: have no samples but enclose usual form. from half shell. (drawings of this, of the surface character of the nut, and of "size and form of a common sieboldi.") h. e. van deman: perhaps from the parrys. no replies were received from r. e. smith, of the california agricultural experiment station, whittier; from jackson dawson, of the arnold arboretum; or from the yokohama nursery co., barclay st., n. y. city. summary of dr. morris's investigations as given by him on p. : the nut described in the u. s. bulletin as _juglans mandshurica_ is the one originally described and named by maxim more than thirty years ago and is a nut of the butternut type. a few years ago the yokohama nursery co., not knowing that this name had been previously applied, gave it to a nut of the _juglans regia_ type which they distributed. this nut had been previously named by de candolle, _juglans regia sinensis_. nomenclature of the shellbark hickories. the names "shellbark," "shagbark" and "scalybark" are at present used interchangeably by authors for different species of the hickory. it is advised that the association take an arbitrary stand on the nomenclature and state our choice of the name "shagbark" for _hicoria ovata_, "shellbark" for _hicoria laciniosa_ and "scalybark" for _hicoria carolinae-septentrionalis_. this should become a matter of official record and eventually clear up the confusion. the hickory bark borer. in country life in america for october , , there appeared an article entitled "warning!--the hickory bark borer is with us" by hermann w. merkel, forester of the new york zoological gardens. the following circular was issued by e. f. felt, new york state entomologist, under date of oct. , . dying hickory trees. numerous magnificent hickories have been killed by the pernicious hickory bark borer in the vicinity of new york city. it has destroyed thousands of trees in the central part of the state, while recent investigations show that it is at work in the hudson valley near tivoli and probably is injurious in numerous other places. the severe droughts of the last two or three years have undoubtedly been favorable to the development of this pest, since the vitality of many trees has been lowered and they have thus been rendered more susceptible to attack by insect enemies. the preliminary signs of injury, such as wilting leaves and dead twigs in mid-summer are exceedingly important because they indicate serious trouble before it has passed the remedial stage. examination of injured trees at the present time may show particles of brown or white sawdust in the crevices of the bark, and in the case of some a few to many circular holes appearing as though they had been made by number buckshot. this external evidence should be supplemented by cutting down to the sapwood. the exposure there of the longitudinal galleries to - / inches long, about / of an inch in diameter and with numerous fine, transverse galleries arising therefrom and gradually spreading out somewhat fan-shaped, is conclusive evidence as to the identity of this pest. only a little experience is necessary before one can recognize the work of this borer. the insect passes the winter in oval cells as stout, whitish, brown-headed grubs about / of an inch long, the beetles appearing from the last of june to the last of july. badly injured trees are beyond hope and should be cut some time during the winter and the bark burned before the beetles can emerge; otherwise many will mature and attack other trees next spring. it is particularly important to locate the trees which have died wholly or in part the past summer, because they contain grubs likely to mature and then be the source of trouble another year. general cooperation in the cutting out of infested trees and burning of the bark as indicated above will do much to check this enemy of our hickories. e. p. pelt. state entomologist. the following "press notice" was issued by the u. s. department of agriculture under date of nov. , :-- the dying hickory trees,--cause and remedy. within the past ten years a large percentage of the hickory trees have died in various sections throughout the northern tier of states from wisconsin to vermont and southward through the atlantic states to central georgia and to a greater or less extent within the entire range of natural growth of the various species. cause. while there are several and sometimes complicated causes of the death of the trees, investigations by experts of the bureau of entomology, u. s. department of agriculture, have revealed the fact that the hickory barkbeetle is by far the most destructive insect enemy and is therefore, in the majority of cases, the primary cause of the dying of the trees. how to recognize the work of the beetle. the first evidence of the presence and work of the beetle is the premature dying or falling of a few of the leaves in july and august caused by the adult or parent beetles feeding on the bark at the base of the leaf stem, but this work alone does not kill the trees. the next evidence of its destructive work is the dying of part of a tree or all of one or more trees. if the trees are dying from the attack of the beetle, an examination of the inner bark and surface of the wood on the main trunks will reveal curious centipede-like burrows in the bark and grooved on the surface of the wood. these are galleries and burrows of the parent beetles and of their broods of young grubs or larvae. the girdling effect of these galleries is the real cause of the death of the trees. habits of the beetles. the broods of the beetle pass the winter in the bark of the trees that die during the preceding summer and fall. during the warm days of march and april these overwintered broods complete their development to the adult winged form, which during may and june emerge through small round holes in the bark and fly to the living trees. they then attack the twigs to feed on the base of the leaves and tender bark and concentrate in the bark of the trunks and large branches of some of the living healthy trees and bore through the bark to excavate their short vertical egg galleries. the eggs are deposited along the sides of these galleries and the larvae hatching from them excavate the radiating food burrows which serve to girdle the tree or branch. the following recommendations for the successful control of this beetle are based on investigations, experiments and demonstrations conducted by the experts on forest insects of the bureau of entomology during the past years. recommendations. . the best time to conduct the control work is between october st and may st, but must be completed before the st to middle of may in order to destroy the broods of the beetle before they begin to emerge. . the hickory trees within an area of several square miles that died during the summer and fall and those of which part or all of the tops or large branches died should be located and marked with white paint or otherwise. . fell the marked dead trees and cut out all dead branches or the tops of the remaining marked trees which still have sufficient life to make a new growth of branches. . dispose of all infested trunks and branches in such a manner as to kill the overwintering broods of the beetles in the bark; (a) by utilizing the wood for commercial products and burning the refuse; or (b) utilizing the wood of the trunks and branches for fuel; or (c) by placing the logs in water and burning the branches and tops; or (d) by removing the infected bark from the trunks or logs and burning it with the branches or as fuel. . so far as combating the beetle is concerned it is unnecessary and a waste of time to dispose of trees or branches which have been dead months or more, because the broods of the destructive beetle are not to be found in such trees. . spraying the tops or branches or the application of any substance as a preventive is not to be recommended. nothing will save a tree after the main trunk is attacked by large numbers of this beetle or after the bark and foliage begin to die. . the injuries to the twigs by this beetle do not require treatment. . the bark and wood of dying and dead trees are almost invariably infested with many kinds of bark and wood-boring insects which can do no harm to living trees. therefore all efforts should be concentrated on the disposal of the broods of the hickory barkbeetle, according to the above recommendations. in order to insure the protection of the remaining living trees it is very important that at least a large majority of the dead infested and partially dead infested trees found within an entire community of several square miles be disposed of within a single season to kill the broods of this beetle. therefore there should be concerted action by all owners of hickory trees. on account of the value of the hickory for shade and nuts and for many commercial wood products it is important that the people of a community, county or state who are in any manner interested in the protection of this class of trees, should give encouragement and support to any concerted or cooperative effort on the part of the owners towards the proper control of the hickory bark beetle. the following is an extract from a letter from dr. felt to mr. merkel: "replying to yours of the th inst. i would state that chapter of the laws of , a copy of which is enclosed herewith, is, in my estimation, sufficiently comprehensive to include such an insect as the hickory bark borer." "it is certainly extremely unfortunate that trees past hope and infested by thousands of insects liable to destroy those in the vicinity, should be left standing through the winter and the pests allowed to mature and continue their nefarious work, especially as they could be checked at a comparatively slight expense and by the adoption of measures which ultimately must be carried out unless the trees are allowed to decay in the field. i am much interested in the matter." the following are extracts from a letter from dr. felt to the secretary, under date of nov. , : "your of the th is at hand and it gives me pleasure to enclose herewith a copy of a circular summarizing the hickory bark beetle situation in this state and suggesting the prompt adoption of remedial measures. this pest, as you are doubtless aware, is very injurious and has been responsible for the destruction of thousands of hickories, not only in the hudson valley but also during recent years in the central part of the state. only a few weeks ago we found a rather bad infestation in the vicinity of tivoli. you are doubtless familiar with my article on this pest, published in insects affecting park and woodland trees, n. y. state museum memoir , volume i, pages - ." at the annual meeting of the northern nut growers' association, held december th and th, , at the new york state college of agriculture, cornell university, ithaca, new york, the following resolutions were adopted: "be it resolved that, in view of the distribution and rapid spread of the disease known as the "chestnut blight," especially among the american species, we express our hearty approval of the efforts being made by the federal government, the several state departments, and especially the action of the pennsylvania state legislature in appropriating the sum of $ , to aid in studying and combating this dread disease; and that we urge the importance of continued efforts along these lines, and similar action in all other states in which the chestnut species is of commercial importance, either for timber or nut purposes. that the secretary be instructed to send a copy of these resolutions to the hon. james wilson, secretary of agriculture, at washington, d. c. and to the commissioner of agriculture or the director of experiment stations of the states within which, according to his judgment, the chestnut species may be of sufficient importance to justify such action. attention is called especially to farmers' bulletin no. , "the control of the chestnut bark disease," issued oct. th, , by the u. s. dept, of agriculture. and be it further resolved that, in view of the depredations in various parts of the country by the "hickory bark beetle," to which attention has been called by a press notice of the u. s. department of agriculture, by a circular issued by dr. e. p pelt, entomologist of the state of new york, by an article entitled "warning;--the hickory bark borer is with us," by herman w. merkel, forester of the new york zoological park, published in country life in america, oct. th, , and by an address before the annual meeting of this association by prof. herrick of the new york state college of agriculture; and in view of the presence of this destructive insect throughout the eastern states, and as far south and west as mississippi and nebraska; and in view of the presumption that its introduction into the pecan area of the united states would be a calamity; and in view further of the fact that it has been demonstrated that prompt action in the destruction of infested trees will prevent further spread of this pest, and that it is of the utmost importance that such action should be taken before the emergence of a new brood of this beetle in the spring of the year; the secretary be instructed to present these resolutions to the hon. james wilson, secretary of agriculture, washington, d. c, and to the commissioners of agriculture of new york and other states where the hickory bark beetle is a menace, urging immediate and energetic measures against the spread of this dangerous pest which in many localities threatens the hickory tree with serious destruction." jan. , . letter from the secretary to hon. calvin j. huson. the honorable calvin j. huson, commissioner of agriculture, albany, new york. sir:-- i have the honor to transmit herewith the resolutions passed by the northern nut growers' association at its annual meeting held at the new york state college of agriculture, ithaca, new york, dec. th and th, . in connection with these resolutions i wish to recall to your attention the fact that by the laws of new york, chap , entitled "an act to amend the agricultural law, in relation to fungous growths and infectious and contagious diseases affecting trees," which became a law july th, , the commissioner of agriculture is given full power to deal summarily with these and other pests. the testimony of all those fully acquainted with the facts concerning the "chestnut bark disease," and the "hickory bark borer" is unanimously to the effect that they have done such an amount of damage, and threaten such continued destruction, as to demand that every effort be made to check their ravages, and that even large expense will be inconsiderable in comparison with the enormous loss that will be inflicted if these most destructive pests are not checked. attention has been called in the resolutions to the action of the state of pennsylvania in appropriating the sum of $ , for taking action in the case of the chestnut bark disease. since the passage of these resolutions it is reported that the governor of the state of pennsylvania has called a conference to be held at harrisburg, february st and nd, for the purpose of considering further action to be taken in the case of this disease. it might be well that your office should be represented at this conference in order that the united action of the states may be brought about and that our state may not continue to lag behind in a matter so seriously affecting so many of its inhabitants. detailed information concerning both these diseases is contained in the literature to which reference is made in the resolutions. may i ask if you will kindly inform me what action, if any, has been taken by the commissioner of agriculture, or other department of the state government, for the study or the control of either of the diseases referred to. reply from the commissioner of agriculture. feb. , . i have your communication of the st inst., duly received and containing the resolutions passed by the northern nut growers association at its meeting in ithaca on the th and th of december last. chapter of the laws of constitute sections and of the agricultural law, under which this department has been working for several years for the control of such insects as are distributable by nursery stock, and for the preventing of the establishment in the state of dangerously injurious insect pests and fungous diseases. if the department were to attempt to control the hickory bark borer, it would require a character of work quite different from anything that we have undertaken for the reason that this insect would not likely be distributed in nursery stock. it is an insect that is not only a native of the country but is quite widely distributed over the state and is one that is given to irregular periodic outbreaks. of late its depredations have shown seriously in the vicinity of new york along the hudson valley and at numerous places in the state. the pest is not amenable to such treatment as can be used against many other deleterious insects. i am informed that the only way now known to control the insect is to first locate it and then destroy all trees or parts of trees in which the grubs are found before the middle of june. it appears to me that to attempt the suppression of the hickory bark borer, it would require a very large force of men and, of course, considerable money. relative to the chestnut bark disease, we had a conference at this office in the month of october last and the question was discussed by botanists and foresters from adjoining states and the whole matter was thoroughly thrashed out by those who were present, including representatives of the united states department of agriculture, washington. invitations have been received from the governor of pennsylvania to a conference to be held at harrisburg on february th and st and i have directed a representative of this department to be present. mr. c. h. pettis, superintendent of forests of the state conservation commission, joined in our conference here and i learn that someone will be sent from that commission to harrisburg. we have in the hickory bark borer and the chestnut bark disease, two very serious propositions, the importance of which i fully appreciate. it is not clear to me what methods should or can be adopted which will be productive of the greatest good. any suggestions that your association make will be highly appreciated. as soon as i learn of the result of the conclusions at the harrisburg meeting, i shall be pleased to take the subject up again. very truly yours, calvin j. huson, commissioner. letter from the secretary to commissioner of agriculture. march th, . hon. calvin j. huson, commissioner of agriculture, albany, new york. dear sir:-- your letter of february th in reply to mine of an earlier date in relation to the hickory bark beetle has been too long unanswered owing to a rush of professional and other work. i regret this delay as i would like to do all that i can to expedite the work which should be done as soon as possible to prevent further damage from this insect. if i am not mistaken chapter of the laws of is a new law under which the department has not previously worked and which states specifically that "no person shall knowingly or willfully keep any plants or vines affected or infected with--or other insect pest or fungous disease dangerously injurious to or destructive of the trees, shrubs or other plants; every such tree, shrub, plant or vine shall be a public nuisance, etc." it also states that if the commissioner of agriculture is notified of the presence of any such pests he shall take such action as the law provides, and the law provides for the destruction or treatment of diseased trees. this law appears to be not confined in its application to nursery stock, and in this view i am supported by such men as dr. e. p. felt, state entomologist, and forester merkel of the new york zoological park. it appears that the commissioner of agriculture not only has the right but it is his duty to take action under this law when his attention is called to a matter such as the one in question. the methods of procedure under this law seem to be sufficiently clear. wherever infected trees are known to exist the commissioner is directed to order the owners thereof to destroy them. failure to obey these orders constitutes a misdemeanor and the commissioner may have his orders carried out by his own agents. i am glad that you fully appreciate the serious nature of this pest which threatens great destruction of one of our most valuable timber and nut trees and i hope that no obstacle will be allowed to stand in the way of the enforcement of the full intent of the law. this association will aid such work in any way in its power. i would like to call to your attention a report in the yearbook of the u. s. department of agriculture for , page , of the successful treatment of an outbreak of this pest at detroit, michigan. also to an address to be published in the transactions of this association, a copy of which i will send you, by prof. herrick in which he recounts the successful treatment of another outbreak. april , . w. c. deming, m. d., sec., northern nut growers' association, westchester, new york city. dear sir:-- i am in receipt of your communication of the th of march, and have considered carefully the question of what can be done towards the control of the hickory bark beetle. as this is a species which at irregular intervals becomes abundant and capable of doing considerable local damage, yet i am inclined to think that so far as the department of agriculture can exercise any control, the hickory bark beetle should be classed among such pests as in a way have like habits of injury, such for instance as the apple tent caterpillar, forest tent caterpillar, green maple worm, fruit tree bark beetle, pine bark beetle, and other thoroughly established native and introduced species, all of which exert injuries at irregular intervals and then disappear. the hickory bark beetle suggests one of the problems which is difficult to handle, and it does not seem that much can be accomplished in a practical way by starting an agitation on the subject. the entomologist of the new york agricultural experiment station, geneva, says that the insect is common around geneva, and nearly every season an occasional tree succumbs to its work. he further says that he believes that hickory trees have some time in the past suffered from either a severe winter or drought, and that the shot-hole borer is attacking the weakened trees. owing to wide distribution, i do not see how i can direct a campaign against this particular insect at this time for the lack of funds. the appropriations at my disposal under sections - of the agricultural law, are scarcely adequate for the large amount of work which has already been started, and which, owing to its nature, must be kept up and finished each season. it is my opinion that general publicity would result in accomplishing much, if individual owners were informed how necessary it is to seek out and destroy the dead trees before the st of june, in order to prevent the insects attacking healthy trees adjoining. the habits of these insects are thoroughly known and their life histories have been worked out by our entomologists, and very definite information can be given for the control of the hickory bark borer. very truly yours, calvin j. huson, commissioner. resolutions passed at the conference called by the governor of pennsylvania at harrisburg feb. and for the consideration of the measures to be taken to control the chestnut-tree bark disease: whereas this conference recognizes the great importance of the chestnut tree as one of our most valuable timber assets, having an estimated value of not less than $ , , , and whereas a most virulent fungous disease has made its appearance in wide sections of the chestnut timber region, and already many millions of dollars of damage has been sustained, and the total extinction of the chestnut tree is threatened by the rapid spread of this disease, and whereas we recognize the importance of prompt action. therefore, be it resolved: that the thanks of this conference are tendered to governor tener for calling it, and for the courtesies he has shown that we appreciate the interest of the president of the united states as evidenced by his communication to governor tener, showing as it does, that the head of the national government is not unmindful of the great danger presented by the chestnut blight problem. that the commission appointed by the governor of pennsylvania be commended for the earnestness and diligence they have shown in the conduct of their work. that we urge the national government, the states and the dominion of canada to follow the example of pennsylvania, which is analogous to that of massachusetts in starting the fight against the gypsey moth, and appropriate an amount sufficient to enable their proper authorities to cope with the disease where practicable. that we favor the bill now before congress appropriating $ , for the use of the u. s. department of agriculture in chestnut bark disease work, and urge all states to use every means possible to aid in having this bill become a law at the earliest moment. that we believe trained and experienced men should be employed in field and laboratory to study the diseases in all its phases. that we believe definite boundaries should be established where advisable in each state beyond which limits an endeavor should be made to stamp out the disease. that we believe an efficient and strong quarantine should be maintained and that it should be the earnest effort of every state, the federal government and the dominion of canada to prevent the spread of the disease within and beyond their borders. in accord with this thought we strongly commend the efforts being made to pass the simmons bill now before congress. that we believe strong efforts should be made in all states to stimulate the utilization of chestnut products, and in order to do so, we recommend that the interstate commerce commission permit railroads and other transportation companies to name low freight rates so that chestnut products not liable to spread the disease may be properly distributed. that we recommend the national government, each state and the dominion of canada to publish practical, concise and well illustrated bulletins for educating owners of chestnut trees. that we believe further meetings on the line of this conference advisable and we hope the pennsylvania commission will arrange for similar meetings. that we thank the state of pennsylvania for its intention to publish immediately the proceedings of this conference. that copies of these resolutions be forwarded to the president of the united states, to the governor of every state, to the governor general of the dominion of canada, and the members of the federal and state legislatures, with the request that they do all in their power to aid in checking the ravages of this dread disease. * * * * * white's budding tool (patented april ) pecans, hickories, chestnuts walnuts, persimmons and all other trees $ . delivered _a scientific instrument for the propagation of the pecan and other trees by the annular, semi-annular, patch and veneer methods._ for sale by herbert c. white de witt, ga. * * * * * grafted and budded pecans and catalpa speciosa the ohio valley forest nurseries of lake, indiana, is engaged in growing forest tree seedlings of all kinds, but make a specialty of catalpa speciosa seeds and seedlings that are true to name. we are also engaged in the propagation of trees from the best varieties of northern pecans found in the states of indiana, illinois and kentucky. our supply of budded and grafted pecan trees is limited at this time, but we hope to be able to fill all orders by fall of . if interested in pecan trees that will grow and bear nuts in the north, write us for further information and prices. r. l. mccoy, proprietor; lake, spencer co., indiana * * * * * hardy pecan and walnut trees we grow hardy varieties of pecans and persian (english) walnuts under northern conditions for northern planting. varieties of pecans introduced by us won all the premiums offered on pecans in the morris competition, at the december convention of northern nut growers, cornell university, . we are the pioneers in the growing of hardy pecan trees. you get the benefit of our wide experience extending over several years when you plant "arrowfield" trees. our persian (english) walnut trees are of hardy northern types, budded on black walnut stocks. we shall have some unusually fine specimens for next season let us book your order, select some fine trees for you and bring them to prime condition for delivery at such date as you may designate. write for our booklet "nut trees". it contains information that will interest you. arrowfield nurseries box n, petersburg, va. * * * * * get a copy the american fruit and nut journal, of petersburg, va., is a bi-monthly publication covering every phase of the nut industry from the festek of greece and assyria to the chestnut, almond, walnut and pecan of america. it is ably edited, fully illustrated and handsomely printed. if you want full, accurate, reliable information pertaining to every phase of nut growing--varieties, cultures, insects, harvesting, selling--if you want a practical paper that interests, inspires and informs, read this journal. _subscription price, one year, one dollar; three years, two dollars. write now for a sample copy._ american fruit and nut journal petersburg virginia * * * * * nut trees why not plant nut trees about the home and combine profit with ornament and shade. you may not need the revenue, but you will certainly enjoy the nuts, if you plant jones' budded and grafted trees. nurseries at jeanerette, la., and willow street, pa. j. f. jones the nut tree specialist willow street, pa. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |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. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ northern nut growers association report of the proceedings at the third annual meeting lancaster, pennsylvania december and , the cayuga press ithaca, n. y. [illustration: professor john craig a founder of the association _died _] * * * * * table of contents officers and committees of the association members of the association constitution and rules of the association proceedings of the meeting held at lancaster, pennsylvania, december and , address of welcome by the mayor of lancaster response by mr. littlepage president's address. the practical aspects of hybridizing nut trees. robert t. morris, new york fraudulent and uninformed promoters. t. p. littlepage, indiana recent work on the chestnut blight. keller e. rockey, pennsylvania some problems in the treatment of diseased chestnut trees. roy g. pierce, pennsylvania nut growing and tree breeding and their relation to conservation. j. russell smith, pennsylvania beginning with nuts. w. c. deming, new york the persian walnut, its disaster and lessons for . j. g. rush, pennsylvania a review of the nut situation in the north. c. a. reed, washington, d. c demonstration in grafting. j. f. jones, pennsylvania some persian walnut observations, experiments and results for . e. r. lake, washington, d. c the indiana pecans. r. l. mccoy, indiana appendix: report of secretary and treasurer report of committee on resolutions report of committee on the death of professor john craig report of committee on exhibits the hickory bark borer miscellaneous notes: members present list of correspondents and others interested in nut culture extracts from letters from state vice-presidents and others officers of the association president t. p. littlepage indiana secretary and treasurer w. c. deming georgetown, conn. committees _executive_ robert t. morris w. n. roper and the officers _promising seedlings_ t. p. littlepage c. a. reed w. c. deming _hybrids_ r. t. morris j. r. smith c. p. close _membership_ w. c. deming g. h. corsan w. n. roper _nomenclature_ w. c. reed r. t. morris w. c. deming _press and publication_ w. n. roper t. p. littlepage w. c. deming state vice-presidents canada goldwin smith highland creek colorado dr. frank l. dennis colorado springs connecticut charles h. plump west redding delaware h. p. layton georgetown florida h. harold hume glen st. mary georgia g. c. schempp, jr. albany illinois dr. f. s. crocker chicago indiana r. l. mccoy lake iowa alson secor des moines kentucky a. l. moseley calhoun louisiana j. f. jones jeanerette maryland c. p. close washington, d. c. massachusetts bernhard hoffmann stockbridge michigan miss maud m. jessup grand rapids minnesota c. a. van duzee st. paul new hampshire henry n. gowing dublin new jersey henry hales ridgewood new york a. c. pomeroy lockport north carolina w. n. hutt raleigh ohio j. h. dayton painesville oklahoma mrs. e. b. miller enid oregon f. a. wiggins toppenish panama b. f. womack canal zone pennsylvania j. g. rush west willow texas c. t. hogan ennis vermont clarence j. ferguson burlington virginia w. n. roper petersburg west virginia b. f. hartzell shepherdstown members of the northern nut growers association abbott, frederick b., th st., brooklyn, n. y. armstrong, a. h., general electric co., schenectady, n. y. arnott, dr. h. g., emerald st., south, hamilton, canada. barron, leonard, editor the garden magazine, garden city, l. i. barry, w. c., ellwanger & barry, rochester, n. y. benner, charles, broadway, n. y. city. **bowditch, james h., tremont bldg., boston, mass. button, herbert, bonnie brook farm, cazenovia, n. y. browne, louis l., bodsbeck farm, new canaan, conn. butler, henry l., gwynedd valley, pa. casper, norman w., fairlawn, new burnside, ill. chalmers, w. j., vanport, pa. chamberlain, w. o., nicollet ave., minneapolis, minn. clendenin, rev. dr. f. m., westchester, n. y. city. close, prof. c. p., expert in fruit identification, u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. cole, dr. chas. k., rose st., chelsea-on-hudson, n. y. coleman, h. h., the northwestern mutual life ins. co., newark, n. j. corsan, g. h., university gymnasium, univ. of toronto, toronto, canada. crocker, dr. f. s., columbus memorial bldg., chicago, ill. dayton, j. h., painesville, ohio. rep. storrs & harrison co. decker, loyd h., greeley, col., r. , box . deming, dr. n. l., litchfield, conn. deming, dr. w. c. georgetown, conn. deming, mrs. w. c. georgetown, conn. dennis, dr. frank l., the colchester, colorado springs, col. ellwanger, w. d., e. ave., rochester, n. y. ferguson, clarence j., rep. eastern fruit & nut orchard co., college st., burlington, vt. fischer, j., rep. keystone wood co., williamsport, pa. fullerton, h. b., medford, l. i. gowing, henry n., dublin, n. h. gschwind, geo. w., humboldt st., brooklyn, n. y. haberstroh, arthur l., sharon, mass. hale, mrs. geo. h., glastonbury, conn. hall, l. c. avonia, pa. *hales, henry, ridgewood, n. j. hans, amedée, supt. hodenpyl est., locust valley, l. i., n. y. harrison, j. g., rep. harrison's nurseries, berlin, md. hartzell, b. f., shepherdstown, w. va. haywood, albert, flushing, n. y. hicks, henry, westbury station, l. i., n. y. hildebrand, f. b., monroe ave., chicago, ill. hoffman, bernhard, stockbridge, mass. hogan, c. t., ennis, texas. holden, e. b., hilton, n. y. holmes, j. a., eddy st., ithaca, n. y. hopper, i. b., chemical national bank, n. y. city. hume, h. harold, glen saint mary, fla. hungerford, newman, prospect st., hartford, conn. **huntington, a. m., w. st st., n. y. city. hutt, w. n., raleigh, n. c. james, dr. w. b., w. th st., n. y. city. jaques, lee w., waverly st., jersey city heights, n. j. **jones, j. f., jeanerette, la., & willow st., pa. jessup, miss maud m., thomas st., grand rapids, mich. keely, royal r., mt. vernon st., philadelphia, pa. walpole, mass., box . koch, alphonse, e. th st., n. y. city. lake, prof. e. r., asst. pomologist, dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. layton, h. p., georgetown, del. leas, f. c, so. th st., philadelphia, pa., and bala, pa. littlepage, t. p., union trust bldg., washington, d. c, and boonville, ind. loomis, charles b., e. greenbush, n. y. r. d. . lovett, mrs. joseph l., emilie, bucks co., pa. malcomson, a. b., nassau st., n. y. city. mayo, e. s., rochester, n. y. rep. glen brothers. mccoy, r. l., ohio valley forest nursery, lake, spencer co., ind. meehan, s. mendelson, germantown, phila., pa. rep. thos. meehan & sons. miller, mrs. e. b., enid, oklahoma, r. box - . miller, mrs. seaman, care of mr. seaman miller, rector st., n. y. mcsparren, w. f., furnice, pa. magruder, g. m., medical bldg., portland, oregon. morris, dr. robert t., madison ave., n. y. city. moseley, a. l., bank of calhoun, calhoun, ky. moses, theodore w., harvard club, w. th st., n. y. city. niblack, mason j., vincennes, ind. nichols, mrs. f. gillette, e. th st., n. y. city, and e. haddam, conn. patterson & taylor, s. dearborn st., chicago, ill. pierson, miss a. elizabeth, cromwell, conn. plump, chas. h., west redding, conn. pomeroy, a. c., lockport, n. y. potter, hon. w. o., marion, ill. reed, c. a., div. of pomology, u. s. dept, of agriculture, washington, d. c. reed, w. c., vincennes, ind. rice, mrs. lilian mckee, barnes cottage, carmel, n. y. rich, william p., sec'y mass horticultural society, mass. ave., boston. ridgway, c. s., "floralia," lumberton, n. j. riehl, e. a., alton, ill. roper, wm. n., arrowfield nursery co., petersburg, va. rose, wm. j., market st., harrisburg, pa. rush, j. g., west willow, pa. schempp, g. c., jr., albany, ga. route . secor, alson, editor successful farming, des moines, iowa. sensenig, wayne, state college, center co., pa. shellenberger, h. h., broadhead st., easton, pa. shoemaker, seth w., agric. ed. int. corresp. schools, scranton, pa. smith, e. k., phoenix bldg., minneapolis, minn. smith, goldwin, highland creek, ontario, canada. smith, j. russell, roundhill, va. smith, percival p., s. lasalle st., chicago, ill. tuckerman, bayard, e. th st., n. y. city. turner, k. m., broadway, n. y. city. ulman, dr. ira, w. th st., n. y. city. farm, so. monsey, rockland co., p. o., address, spring valley, n. y. van duzee, col. c. a., st. paul, minn, and viking, fla. walter, dr. harry, hotel chalfonte, atlantic city, n. j. wentink, frank, grove st., passaic, n. j. white, h. c., dewitt, ga. wiggins, f. a., rep. washington nursery co., toppenish, wash. wile, th. e., park avenue, rochester, n. y. williams, dr. charles mallory, e. th st., n. y. city, and stonington, conn. williams, harrison, gen. land & tax agt., erie r. r. co., church st., n. y. city. **wissmann, mrs. f. der., fifth ave., n. y. city. womack, b. f., ancon, canal zone, panama. wyman, willis l., park rapids, minn. * honorary member. ** life member constitution and rules of the northern nut growers association. _name._ the society shall be known as the northern nut growers association. _object._ the promotion of interest in nut-producing plants, their products and their culture. _membership._ membership in the society shall be open to all persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to place of residence or nationality, subject to the approval of the committee on membership. _officers._ there shall be a president, a vice-president, and a secretary-treasurer; an executive committee of five persons, of which the president, vice-president and secretary shall be members; and a state vice-president from each state represented in the membership of the association. _election of officers._ a committee of five members shall be elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating officers for the subsequent year. _meetings._ 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 executive committee 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 executive committee. _fees._ the fees shall be of two kinds, annual and life. the former shall be two dollars, the latter twenty dollars. _discipline._ the committee on membership may make recommendations to the association as to the discipline or expulsion of any member. _committees._ the association shall appoint standing committees of three members each to consider and report on the following topics at each annual meeting: first, on promising seedlings; second, on nomenclature; third, on hybrids; fourth, on membership; fifth, on press and publication. northern nut growers association third annual meeting december and , at lancaster, pennsylvania the third annual meeting of the northern nut growers association was held in the court house at lancaster, pa., beginning december , , at a. m.; president morris presiding. the chairman: the meeting will be called to order. we have first an address by the mayor of lancaster, mayor mcclean. (applause.) mayor mcclean: ladies and gentlemen of the northern nut growers association: the mayor of a city of the size of this, in which conventions meet so frequently, is so often called upon to make a speech that the prospect of having to do so causes him some disturbance of mind, not only on the day of the delivery of the speech but for many days preceding; but i confess that the invitation to come here today has had no such effect on me. i am very glad to meet and mix up with the members of this organization. the evolutionists tell us where we came from; the theologians, where we are going to; but no matter how much we may differ as to the theories of these respective leaders of thought, upon one thing we can all agree and that is that we are here. you ladies and gentlemen representing the northern nut growers association are here to interchange opinions and discuss questions which have to do with the greater success of the very useful industry, the youthful and useful industry, in which you are engaged. i am here as the mayor of this goodly town to tell you that you are not looked upon as intruders; that we will be blind when you help yourselves to our wine flasks, but that we will not be deaf should you ask for more. i am thoroughly in sympathy with the purpose of this organization, understanding it to be the encouragement of the planting of nut bearing trees in order that an addition to our present food supply may be provided; and that much waste land, now profitless, may be taken up and converted to practical and profitable uses; and further that through the medium of such tree planting and tree care as you propose, landscape embellishment in greater degree than that which now exists may be provided. we hear very much about conservation these days and it seems to me that the proposition which you advance is conservation in a very worthy and very high degree. the soil and climate of lancaster county seem to be peculiarly adapted to the growing of trees bearing nuts and fruits, and i am sure that the result of this convention will be to stimulate locally a very great interest in this worthy undertaking. you have chosen wisely in selecting lancaster as the place for this meeting, because we feel and we are satisfied that you will agree, after you have been here a few days, that this was the town that kipling had in mind when he wrote of the town that was born lucky. (laughter.) here you will find all the creature comforts, everything that makes for the pleasure of existence, good food and good water, and if there be any of you who have a liking for beverages other than water, it may be some consolation to you to know that in this vicinity the mint beds are not used for pasture, the punch bowls are not permanently filled with carnations, the cock-tail glasses show no signs of disuse and the corkscrew hangs within reach of your shortest member. (laughter.) we are a great people over this way. perhaps you are not aware of that, but we bear prosperity with meekness and adversity with patience. we feel that we can say to you, without boasting, if you seek a pleasant country, look about you. you may not know it, but it is a fact and the united states census reports ever since census reports have been made will prove it, that the annual valuation of the agricultural products of the county in which you now sit exceeds that of any other county in all this great nation. (applause.) another bit of local history may surprise you when i tell you that the combined deposits of the banks of lancaster county approximate the enormous amount of fifty million dollars, that they are larger than the total deposits of any one of seven states in the union that i can name and that they exceed the combined deposits of two of those seven states. but i don't want to take up your time with a recitation of local history, because i feel that your lancaster colleagues will give you all the information, and i don't want to spoil their pleasure in giving it by anticipating them. i congratulate you upon the success of this convention. i applaud the purpose for which you are united. i felicitate you upon your achievements up to this time, and predict for you a greater measure of usefulness and advantage in the time to come, which usefulness and advantage, let me suggest, can be made yours more promptly, certainly more surely, by your proceeding upon the principle that whatever is of benefit to the organization as a whole must be of benefit to each of its members, either directly or indirectly. i trust that you will go on with this good work and stimulate enthusiasm in your purpose in a nation wide way, working together with one common object, proceeding under the motto of the three guardsmen of france, "one for all and all for one." i now extend to you the freedom of the city. roam where you will. just one bit of advice i have to give. contrary, perhaps, to general report, this is not a slow town and therefore you are in more danger of being run down than run in. (laughter.) i will not follow the time honored practice of handing you the keys of the city, for the reason that when i heard you were on the way, i had the old gates taken off the hinges in order that your incoming might be in no way impeded. (laughter.) and now, in the name of the city of lancaster, its heart filled with the sunny warmth of july, i bid you welcome and promise that we will try to extend to you a hospitality as generous as golden october. (applause.) the chairman: will mr. littlepage please respond to the mayor's kindly address of welcome? hon. t. p. littlepage: mr. president: on behalf of the members of the northern nut growers association, i desire to thank the mayor very cordially for his delightful words of welcome to this city. we feel that the words haven't any strings to them, such as were indicated in a little poem i noticed the other day, which said that a young man took his girl to an ice cream parlor and she ate and she ate and she ate until at last she gave him her heart to make room for another plate. (laughter.) there apparently isn't anything of that in the cordial welcome which we have received here to this great county of lancaster. i know now after hearing the mayor's discourse upon the great resources of this county, why it was that a young fellow who had rambled out into the west and happened to drop into an old fashioned protracted meeting, when asked to come up to the mourners' bench, objected somewhat, and finally when they said, "well, young man, you've got to be born again;" replied, "no, it isn't necessary, i was born in lancaster county, pennsylvania." (laughter and applause.) i understand now why the young man was so sanguine, why it wasn't necessary to be born again, even under the auspices of the great spirit. it is very gratifying indeed to be in the midst of a great county of this kind that has made one of the great basic industries so successful. it takes three things to make a really great nation; it takes great natural resources, it takes great policies and it takes great people. we have nations in this world where the resources, the possibilities of agriculture and all lines of human endeavor are as unlimited, almost, as ours, but they haven't the people and in the cases where they have people of the right kind, they haven't adopted the policies. it takes those three things for any county, any state or any nation to be really great, and it is indeed gratifying to those of us who believe in the highest development, the best for humanity, to come into a county where the people, through their industry, their policies of advancement, have made that county one of the best farmed agricultural counties in the united states; and that is saying a great deal when you consider the greatness of this nation and her immense wealth and resources. it is indeed gratifying to all of us who are spending some time and some effort to further somewhat the advancement of the country along horticultural lines, to be met with a cordial welcome and to come into this community that has so highly developed her various resources: so, on behalf of this association and all its members, even the members that are not here, those of them who might, if they desired, take advantage of the mayor's corkscrew and carnation bowl, i thank the mayor and thank the citizens of this county and say that we are delighted to be among you. (applause.) the chairman: we will now proceed with the regular order of business. as my paper happens to be placed first on the list, through the methods of the secretary, i will ask mr. littlepage to kindly take the chair while i present notes on the subject of hybridizing nut trees. the practical aspects of hybridizing nut trees dr. robert t. morris, new york [illustration: dr. robert t. morris of new york _first president of the association, and _] in the experimental work of hybridizing nut trees, we soon come to learn that a number of practical points need to be acquired before successful hybridizing can be done. this is a special field in which few have taken part as yet, and consequently any notes upon the subject will add to the sum total of the knowledge which we wish to acquire as rapidly as possible. first, in collecting pollen; it is important to shake our pollen into dry paper boxes. if we try to preserve the pollen in glass or in metal, it is attacked by various mould fungi and is rapidly destroyed. we have to remember that pollen consists of live cells which have quite as active a place in the organic world as a red squirrel, and the pollen grains need to breathe quite as much as a red squirrel needs to breathe. therefore they must not be placed in glass or metal or tightly sealed. further, the pollen grains need to be kept cool in order to avoid attacks from the greatest enemy of all organic life, the microbes or the lower fungi. probably we may keep pollen for a longer time than it could ordinarily be kept, if it is placed in cold storage, but practically i have tried the experiment on only one occasion. last year i wished to cross the chinkapin with the white oak. the white oak blossoms more than a month in advance of the chinkapin in connecticut, and the question was how we could keep the white oak pollen. some of it was placed in paper boxes in cold storage; some in paper boxes in the cellar in a dry place. pollen which had been kept in the cellar and pollen which had been kept in cold storage were about equally viable. it is quite remarkable to know that pollen can be kept for more than a month under any circumstances. hybridization occurred in my chinkapins from this white oak pollen. sometimes, where the flowering time of such trees is far apart, it is important to know how we may secure pollen of one kind for the female flowers of the other. two methods are possible. in the first place, we may secure pollen from the northern or southern range of a species for application upon pistillate flowers at the other end of the range of that species. another way is to collect branches carrying male flowers before the flowers have developed, place them in the ice house or in a dark, cold room without light until the proper time for forcing the flowers, and if these branches are then placed in water, the water changed frequently as when we are keeping flowers carefully, the catkins or other male flowers will develop pollen satisfactorily a long time after their natural time of furnishing pollen, when they are brought out into the light. in protecting pistillate flowers from the pollen of their own trees, with the nut tree group where pollen is wind-borne rather than insect borne, i find that the better way is to cover the pistillate flowers with paper bags, the thinner the better, the kind that we get at the grocery store. it is best to pull off the undeveloped male flowers if they happen to be on the same branch with the female flowers, and then place the bags over the female flowers at about the time when they blossom, in advance of pollination of the male flowers. it is not safe to depend upon pulling off the male flowers of an isolated tree and leaving the female flowers without bags to protect them from pollen of the same species or of allied species, for the reason that wind may carry pollen to a great distance. one of mr. burbank's critics--i am sorry he has so many, for they are not all honest or serious--one of his critics, in relation to the crossing of walnuts, said that it was due to no particular skill on the part of mr. burbank, for, whenever the wind blew from the east, he regretted to say that his entire orchard of persian walnuts became pollinized from the california black walnuts nearly half a mile away. this is an exaggeration, because the chances are that most of the persian walnuts were pollenized from their own pollen, but in the case of some persian walnuts blossoming early, and developing female flowers in advance of male flowers, pollen might be carried to them from half a mile away in a high wind from california black walnut trees. black walnut pollen would then fertilize pistillate flowers of the persian walnut. i have found this a real danger, this danger of wind-pollination at a distance, much to my surprise. last year i pollinized one or two lower branches of female flowers of a butternut tree which had no other butternut tree within a distance of a good many rods, so far away that i had no idea that the pollen would be carried from the tree with male flowers to the one which happened to have female flowers only that year; consequently i placed pecan pollen on the female flowers of the lower branches of this butternut tree without protecting them with bags, and left the rest of the tree unguarded. there were no male flowers on that butternut tree that year. much to my surprise, not only my pollinized flowers but the whole tree bore a good crop of butternuts. this year, on account of the drought, many of the hickory trees bore female flowers only. i do not know that it was on account of the drought, but i have noted that after seasons of drought, trees are apt to bear flowers of one sex or the other, trees which normally bear flowers of both sexes. this year a number of hickory trees bore flowers of one sex only, and i noted that some shagbark trees which had no male flowers had fairly good crops of nuts from pollen blown from a distance from other trees. i had one pignut tree (h. glabra) full of female flowers which contained only one male flower, so far as i could discover and which i removed. on one side of this tree was a bitternut; on the other side a shagbark. this tree bore a full crop of pignuts, (hicoria glabra) evidently pollinized on one side by the bitternut and on the other side by the shagbark these points are made for the purpose of showing the necessity of covering the female flowers with bags in our nut tree hybridizations. we must sprinkle persian insect powder inside the bags or insects will increase under protection. when we have placed bags over female flowers, it is necessary to mark the limb; otherwise, other nuts borne on neighboring limbs will be mistaken for the hybridized nuts unless we carefully place a mark about the limb. copper wire twisted loosely is, i find, the best. copper wire carrying a copper tag with the names of the trees which are crossed is best. if i mark the limb with string or with strong cord i find there are many ways for its disappearance. early in the spring the birds like it so well that they will untie square knots in order to put it into their nests. later in the season the squirrels will bite off these marks made with cords for no other purpose, so far as i know, except satisfying a love of mischief. now i am not psychologist enough to state that this is the reason for the action of the red squirrel, and can only remember that when i was a boy i used to do things that the red squirrel now does. (laughter.) consequently, on that basis, i traced the psychology back to plain pure mischief. red squirrels and white footed mice must be looked after with great care in our hybridized trees. if the squirrels cannot get at a nut that is surrounded by wire cloth, they will cut off the branch and allow it to fall to the ground and then manage to get it out. white footed mice will make their way through wire, and mice and squirrels will both manage to bite through wire cloth unless it is very strong in order to get at the nut. the mere fact of nuts being protected by wire cloth or in other ways seems to attract the attention of squirrels. one of my men, a russian, said, in rather broken english, "me try remember which nuts pollinized; no put on wire, no put on tag, no put on nothing; squirrel see that, see right straight, bite off one where you put sign for him." (laughter.) the best way for keeping squirrels and white footed mice from ascending a tree, i find is by tacking common tin, slippery smooth tin, around the trunk of the tree and this may be left on only during the time when squirrels are likely to ascend the tree. they will begin long before the nuts are ripe. in the case of hazel nuts, i have surrounded the bushes with a wire fence or wire mesh, leaving a little opening on one side, and have placed steel traps in the opening. now here enters a danger which one does not learn about excepting from practical experience. i went out one morning shortly after having thought of this bright idea and found two gray squirrels in the traps. they had followed their natural instinct of climbing when they got into the steel traps, and climbing wildly had broken off every single branch from those hazels which carried hybridized nuts. there wasn't one left, because the squirrels when caught had climbed into the trees and had so violently torn about with trap and chain that they had broken off every single branch with a nut on it. so many things happen in our experiments that appeal to one's sense of the ludicrous, if he has a sense of humor, that i assure you nut raising is a source of great delight to those who are fond of the drama. the field of hybridizing nut trees offers enormous prospects. we are only just upon the margin of this field, just beginning to look into the vista. it has been done only in a limited way, so far, by crossing pollen and flowers under quite normal conditions. we may look forward to extending the range now of pollinization from knowledge based upon the experiments of loeb and his followers in biology. they have succeeded in developing embryos from the eggs of the sea urchin, of the nereis, and of mollusks, without spermatozoa. their work has shown that each egg is a single cell with a cell membrane and it is only necessary to destroy this cell membrane according to a definite plan to start that egg to growing. life may be started from the egg in certain species without the presence of the other sex. this may lead us into a tremendous new field in our horticultural work. we may be able to treat germ cells with acids or other substances which destroy the cell membrane so as to allow crossing between very widely separated species and genera. loeb, by destroying the cell membrane of the sea urchin, was enabled to cross the sea urchin with the star fish, and no one knows but we may be able, following this line of experimentation, eventually to cross the shagbark hickory with a pumpkin and get a shagbark hickory nut half the size of the pumpkin. that is all! (applause.) * * * * * (president morris then took the chair.) the chairman: please let me add that the hickory pumpkin idea is not to be taken seriously. that is a highly speculative proposition. i have found some times that, in a very scientific audience, men who were trained in methods of science, had very little selvage of humor,--little margin for any pleasantry, but this highly speculative suggestion, curiously enough, is not in fact more speculative than would have been the idea twelve years ago that you could hatch an egg, start an egg to development--without fertilization. mr. hutt: i would like to ask how widely you have been able to cross species? the chairman: it has been possible to cross species of hazels freely with the four species that i have used, the american hazel, corylus americana; the beak hazel, corylus rostrata; the asiatic, corylus colurna, and corylus pontica. these apparently cross readily back and forth. with the hickories i think rather free hybridization occurs back and forth among all, but particularly in relation to groups. the open-bud hickories, comprising the pecan, the bitternut, the water hickory, and the nutmeg hickory, apparently, from my experiments, cross much more readily among each other than they cross with the scale-bud hickories. the scale-bud hickories appear to cross much more freely among each other than they cross with the open-bud hickories; not only species but genera may be crossed, and i find that the walnuts apparently cross freely with the open-bud hickories and the open-bud hickories cross with the walnuts. i have thirty-two crosses between the bitternut hickory and our common butternut, growing. all of the walnuts apparently cross rather freely back and forth with each other. i have not secured fertile nuts between the oaks and chestnuts, but i believe that we may get fertile nuts eventually. the nuts fill well upon these two trees fertilized with each others' pollen respectively, but i have not as yet secured fertile ones. we shall find some fertile crosses i think between oaks and chestnuts, when enough species have been tried. mr. hutt: do you notice any difference in the shapes of any of those hybrids, the nuts, when you get them matured and harvested? do they look any different from the other nuts on the tree? the chairman: there isn't very much difference, but i seem to think that sometimes the pollen has exercised an influence upon the nuts of the year. theoretically it should not do so, but i noticed one case apparently in which i crossed a chinkapin with a chinese chestnut, and the nuts of that year seemed to me to present some of the chinese chestnuts' characteristics. mr. hutt: this year i crossed a number of varieties of pecans and in nearly all those crosses there was to me quite an evident difference in the nuts. for instance those gathered off certain parts of a pecan tree of certain varieties, schley or curtis or frotscher, would be typical nuts, but those hybrids or crosses that i produced were distorted, more or less misshapen and seemed to have peculiarities; so that when we came to look over the colony we were in doubt whether they were hand pollinated hybrids or had been pollinated before we got the blossoms covered. many of them evidenced a great number of distortions, and one of them i remember particularly whose shell was so thin it was just like a piece of brown paper; and there were several peculiarities that were quite noticeable in those hand pollinated nuts. the chairman: that is a very interesting point. when we come to consider deformities of nuts we shall find very many cases due to the character of the pollinization. i crossed the persian walnut with the shagbark hickory and had nuts that year of just the sort of which mr. hunt speaks, with shells as thin as paper. one could crush them with the very slightest pressure of the finger. the shells were not well developed. unfortunately the mice happened to get at all of those nuts. i don't know if they were fertile or not. the kernels were only about half developed. i should look for deformity in these nuts rather than a taking on of the type of one parent over the other, the idea being based on theoretical biological considerations. we had last year a photograph of a tree in california which apparently was a cross, a very odd cross--does any one remember about that california tree? mr. wilcox: it was a cross between juglans californica and the live oak. the chairman: both the foliage and the nuts were very remarkable and pertained to characters of these two trees. such a cross to my mind would be wholly unexplainable excepting on the ground recently brought out by loeb and his followers in crossing the lower forms of animal life and finding that the cell membrane of the egg, if destroyed, will allow of very wide fertilization subsequently with other species. it occurs to me now--i had no explanation last year, but it occurs to me now, knowing of loeb's experiments--that it is possible that one of the parents, the parent california oak tree carrying the female flowers, might have had its sex cells subjected to some peculiar influence like acid, sulphurous acid, for instance, from some nearby chimney. sulphurous acid perhaps from someone merely lighting a match to light a cigar under the tree; he might have so sensitized a few female flowers, may have so injured the cell membrane of a few female germ cells that cross pollinization then took place from a walnut tree. it is only on some such ground as the findings of loeb that we can explain such a very unusual hybridization as that, which appeared to me a valid one, of a cross between an oak and a walnut. (secretary deming then called attention to hybrids in the various exhibits.) professor smith: i should like to ask why, if this free hybridization takes place in nature among the hickories, you do not have a perfect complex of trees showing all possible variations in the forest. the chairman: in answer to professor smith's question i will start from his premises and remark that we do have such complexities. the hickories are so crossed at the present time, like our apples, that even crossing the pollen of various hickory trees of any one species does not promise interesting results unless we cross an enormous number. they are already so widely crossed that it is very difficult sometimes to determine if a certain tree is shagbark or pignut or shellbark or mockernut. for the most part the various species and varieties of hickories retain their identity because their own pollen is handiest, and different species do not all flower at the same time. their own pollen from the male flowers is apt to fall at the time when their own female flowers are ripe and under these circumstances the chances are very much in favor of the tree pollinizing its female flowers with its own pollen. on the other hand, there is hardly one chance in many hundred thousand for any crossed nut to grow, for the reason that most nuts are destroyed by mice, squirrels, rats and boys. if you have a hickory nut tree growing in a lot, and which has produced a bushel of hickory nuts year after year, do you know of one single nut from that tree which has grown? in this plan of nature, this plan of enormous waste of nature in order to get one seed to grow, the chance for a hybridized hickory nut to grow under normal conditions, is so small that we should have relatively few crossed trees growing wild in nature, though we do find quite a good many of them. professor smith: if i am not taking up too much time, i would like to put some more questions to you. the chairman: that's what we are here for. professor smith: have you ever tried the plan of serving collations to squirrels? why wouldn't it pay to give them portions of wheat and corn? second, what percentage of the oak pollen kept in cold storage a month was alive? third, what is the range of time that the hybridizer has to make the pollinization? must we go on the dot or have we two days or four days or a week, in the case of hickories and walnuts? the chairman: i think possibly as these are three direct questions, i might answer them now. no, i think it would be better to have all questions bearing on this subject brought out and then i will answer all together. so if you will kindly ask all the questions, i will then endeavor to answer them. mr. corsan: the squirrels bothered me last year. i've got forty acres of land for experimental purposes only and i started planting and the little beggars would dig down exactly where i planted the nuts, so i went into town and got a rat trap with a double section so i could catch them alive; and i caught so many by feeding them cheap pignuts, the sweet pignuts from michigan, that i brought them in and my boys sold them for twenty-five cents apiece. since then we have never been bothered with red squirrels. for the white footed mice i laid down large doors over some hay or long grass and they gathered underneath and then i lifted the doors up every day and with a stick i smashed hundreds of them. i have posted a notice to leave the skunk and mink alone; i don't want anybody on the place shooting them. the chairman: i will first answer professor smith's questions. this matter of serving collations for squirrels had best be done as collations are served at political meetings--with a trap attached. you don't know how many squirrels there are in the vicinity or how many white footed mice. you will be surprised at the numbers of the little rascals, and not only that, but the field mice, the common field mouse and pine mouse run in mole holes under the ground and can smell a nut a long way off. they are extremely destructive. what percentage of pollen grains of the white oak were alive? i do not know. enough to fertilize a number of flowers. the sooner pollen is used the better. i cannot answer the question exactly because i did not make an experiment in the laboratory to know what part of the pollen was viable. i put on a good deal of it and there were at least some viable grains in the lot. that, however, is a matter which can be subjected to exact laboratory tests without any difficulty. i am so busy with so many things that i can only follow the plan of the guinea hen that lays forty eggs and sits in the middle of the nest and hatches out all she can. now the range of time for pollinizing is a thing of very great importance and we have to learn about it. we must all furnish notes on this question. with some species i presume the duration of life of pollen, even under the best conditions, might be only a few days. under other conditions it may be several weeks; but we have to remember that, in dealing with pollen, we are dealing with a living, breathing organism. the secretary: i believe the experiment has been carried to completion of fruiting a thousand trees from nuts grown on one pecan tree without two of the resulting nuts being like one another or like the parent nut. is that true, mr. reed. mr. reed: yes, you might say ten thousand. the secretary: we have an illustration of the variability of the progeny of a nut in this collection of chestnuts by mr. riehl out in illinois. this is a parent nut, the rochester, and these others are seedlings from the rochester, except where marked otherwise, some showing a tendency to revert to the parent, and some promising to be improvements on the parents. the chairman: mr. secretary, i think we'd better confine ourselves to the hybrid question at the present time. the secretary: are not those all hybrids? the chairman: i don't believe any man can tell, unless you get the flowers, because you have the american and european types merging together so perfectly. some of them show distinctly the european type; others show distinctly the american type. that is what i would expect, however. the practical point is the question of quality. which one keeps the american quality and which one retains the coarseness of the european type? mr. harris: speaking of variations of nuts i think it is well known that there is quite a variation in the nuts of the oak. i noticed in one species, michauxii, which is an oak in the south, that its nuts varied a great deal. it is something of the type of the chestnut, the white oak or the rock oaks and it varies a great deal. i found one on my father's range in new jersey and also one on the potomac. the variations extend to the trees as well as the nuts. the chairman: the oak tree properly belongs in another tree group and some of the acorns are not only edible, but first-rate. in china there are at least three species found in the markets to be eaten out of hand or roasted. our white oaks here, some of them, bear very good fruit, from the standpoint of the boy and the pig, anyway, and it seems to me that we may properly include the oaks in our discussion. there would be great range in variation of type from hybridization between oak trees and i have seen a number of oak trees that were evidently hybrids, where the parentage could be traced on both sides, that were held at very high prices by the nurserymen. i asked one nurseryman, who wanted an enormous price for one hybrid oak, why he didn't make ten thousand of those for himself next year? it hadn't occurred to him. if there is no further discussion in connection with my paper we will have mr. littlepage's paper on nut promotions. mr. littlepage: dr. deming said that he thought it might be time that we have something just a little lighter--that either he should read a paper or i. (laughter.) inasmuch as he included himself, i took no offense whatever. the subject i have written on, roughly and hurriedly, is fraudulent and uninformed promoters. fraudulent and uninformed promoters t. p. littlepage, washington, d. c. [illustration: mr. t. p. littlepage of indiana _president of the association_] in the beginning, let me assert my confidence and interest in agriculture in general. this is one of the basic industries, upon the proper understanding and growth of which depends the food supply of the nation. it is admitted by scientists that, other conditions being equal, an adequacy or inadequacy in the supply of proper food makes the difference between great people and undesirable people. this being true, the various operations of agriculture must always be of the greatest concern to those who are interested in the nation's welfare. the "back-to-the-farm" movement is being discussed today in various periodicals, but back of the "back-to-the-farm" movement is a philosophy that has not been generally understood. it is not proper here to take time to discuss the reasons why the man in the "steenth" story of some magnificent office building, with telephones, electric lights, elevators, and all modern conveniences, longs for the time when he can roam again amidst the green fields in the sunshine and fresh air, but suffice it to say that in my judgment a majority of the professional men, and men in other walks of life, would, if they could, abandon their various employments and turn again to the soil. the boy on the farm dreams of the days when he can be the president of a bank, have a home in the city, own an automobile, smoke good cigars and go to the show every night. the bank president dreams of the day when he can turn again to the farm and walk in the green fields, where he can shun the various artificial activities of life, drink buttermilk and retire with the chickens. it may be asked what connection these statements have with the subject, and the answer is this--that in the minds of many thousands of people there is this supreme desire to some day own a portion of god's footstool to which they can retire from artificial and vainglorious environments to those under which they can be their real selves and follow pursuits to their liking. it is this that makes it possible for the promoter of various horticultural enterprises to succeed in interesting in his schemes the clerk, the merchant, the doctor, the lawyer, the school teacher, the preacher, and all others whose occupations confine them within the limits of the great cities. in the beginning, let us distinguish between the fraudulent promoter and the uninformed promoter. the fraudulent promoter is he who recognizes this great and worthy ambition of many people to buy a spot to which they can some day retire and work and rest and dream and enjoy the coming and going of the seasons, and the sunshine and the shadows, and who capitalizes this ambition, with that industry as his stock in trade which, at the particular moment, happens to offer the most attractive inducements. those familiar with the industry he is exploiting, can tell him by his actions, by his words, by his nods and winks. it is hard for the crook to disguise himself to the informed. distinguished from the fraudulent promoter is the uninformed promoter, but, so far as results are concerned, there is not much difference between them for the innocent investor. they both lead him to failure. they are unlike only in this, that the pathway of the one is lined with deception, crookedness and chicanery; of the other, with blasted hopes based upon good intentions but bad information. both lead to the self-same sepulcher which in the distance looks white and beautiful but when reached is filled with the bones of dead men. there is not much difference after all, when one comes right down to the facts, between the crook who starts out deliberately to get one's money and the fellow who starts out in ignorance and makes great promises of returns that he knows nothing about. both succeed in getting one's money and both succeed in misleading those who have a desire to lay aside something for their old days. we naturally feel more charity for him who has good intentions, but who fails, than for him who starts out with bad intentions. but, after all, only results count. did you ever receive the literature of one of these various concerns that has pecan or apple orchards to sell? how beautiful their schemes look on paper! with what exquisite care they have worked out the pictures and the language and the columns of figures showing the profits! while writing this article i have before me a prospectus of a certain pecan company that prints columns of attractive figures. fearful, however, that the figures would not convince, it has resorted to all the various schemes of the printers' art in its portrayal of the prospective profits from a grove set to pecans and satsuma oranges, and it tells you in conclusion that it guarantees by a bond, underwritten by a responsible trust company, the fulfillment of all its representations. yet what are the facts? their lands are located in a section where the thermometer falls to a point that makes highly improbable the profitable growing of satsuma oranges. and all their figures are merely estimates of the wildest character, printed in attractive columns, based upon nothing. as a member of the national nut growers association i was this year chairman of the committee on orchard records. i sent out blanks, with lists of questions, to many prominent nut growers to see if i could secure data upon which to base a report to the association. the replies i received showed the existence of some very promising young orchards of small size, well cared for, but they also showed that there was no such thing as an intelligent report upon which reliable data as to the bearing records of orchards could be based for any future calculations. there are two reasons for this. first, most of the figures we have are based upon the records of a few pet trees around the dooryard or garden, grown under favorable conditions. second, the young groves are not yet old enough for anyone to say, with any degree of accuracy, what the results will be. therefore, the alluring figures printed in these pamphlets are only guesses. furthermore, what of the contract of these concerns? what does it specify? you would be surprised to know the legal construction of one of these contracts, together with their guaranty bond. in most cases they advertise to plant, and properly cultivate for a period of five to seven years, orchards of the finest varieties of budded or grafted pecan trees, with satsuma oranges or figs set between. but the guaranty company is usually wise enough to have lawyers who are able to advise them of their liabilities, and about all they actually guarantee is that, after a period of five years, provided all payments have been promptly met, there will be turned over to the purchaser five acres of ground with trees upon it. five years old? no, they may not be one year old. budded or grafted? no, they may be mere seedlings. oranges set between them? no, the orange has passed out of the proposition before the bond stage. the companies generally print a copy of the bond, but usually in such small type that the victim does not read it, though the heading is always prominent. it thunders in the index and fizzles in the context. moreover, suppose suit is brought on one of these contracts and bonds? what is the measure of damages? what basis has any court or jury for fixing damages? and be it remembered that courts do not exist for the protection of fools against their folly. the principle "caveat emptor" is as old as the common law itself, and it means that the buyer must beware, or in other words, that he should inform himself, and that he cannot expect the courts to protect him where he has failed to exercise due caution and diligence. therefore, as a lawyer, i should very much hesitate to take on a contingent fee the suit of one of these various victims against a promoting orchard corporation. however, in any jurisdiction where there is a criminal statute against fraudulent representation and obtaining money under false pretenses, i should not hesitate, if i were the prosecuting attorney, to indict every member of such a corporation, and, to sustain the case, i would simply present to a jury of honest men the representations in their advertising literature, and then have the court instruct the same jury as to the validity and limitations of their contract. their advertising is brilliant enough to dazzle the sun. their contract is as dull as a mud pie. in addition to all of this comes the question of orcharding by proxy, and the success of the unit or acreage system, and many other similar questions; and let me say that i doubt if there is today in the united states one large development scheme, either in pecan or apple orchards, that will prove of ultimate financial profit and success to the purchaser. the promoter may get rich--he has nothing at stake. in most instances he has the price of the land in his pocket before there is a lick of work done on it, and the payments come in regularly and promptly to take care of his salary and the meager and unscientific development. of course i would not be understood as saying that pecan or apple orchards cannot be made profitable. i am of the opinion that reasonable sized orchards in proper locations and proper soil, of proper varieties, with proper care in handling, are good investments, and, as proof of my confidence, i am planting orchards both in the north and south. the adjective "proper" which i have used here may seem insignificant at the start but, believe me, before you have begun to clip the coupons off your orchard bonds this adjective will loom up as important as webster's unabridged dictionary. in fact you will wonder how it has been possible for anyone to forecast in one word such comprehensive knowledge. think of a man a thousand miles away putting money into the hands of some unknown concern, for five acres of unknown land, to be set in unknown varieties of trees, to be cared for by unknown individuals. can he not see that, in keeping with all the other unknown factors, his profits must also be unknown? we look at a great industrial enterprise, such as the steel trust, and marvel at its success. but it must be remembered that this industry started many years ago, and step by step built furnace after furnace and mill after mill, after the owners had tried out and become familiar with all the factors of that industry, and after great corps of trained experts had been developed, and after science had given to this industry many of the most marvelous mechanical inventions of the age. these facts are overlooked, however, when some fellow steps up and proposes to put a steel-trust-orchard on the market in twelve months. in most industrial enterprises there are well-known and established factors to be considered. in horticultural enterprises, however, no man knows what twelve months hence will bring. i read the other day with great interest the prospectus of a great pecan orchard started several years ago by a very honorable and high-minded man, and the promises of success were most alluring. what are the facts? the boll weevil came along and wiped out his intermediate cotton crops. the floods came later and destroyed acres of his orchards, and, if he were to write a prospectus today, it would no doubt be a statement of hope rather than a statement of facts. he would no doubt turn from the book of revelations, where at that time he saw "a new heaven and a new earth," and write from the book of genesis, where "the earth was without form and void." how many people have been defrauded by these various schemes, no one knows. how many clerks, barbers, bookkeepers, stenographers, students, preachers, doctors, lawyers, have contributed funds for farms and future homes in sections where they would not live if they owned half of the county. how many people have been separated from their cash by literature advertising rich, fertile lands in sections where the alligator will bask unmolested in miasma for the next fifty years, and where projects should be sold by the gallon instead of by the acre. some time ago it was reported that inquiries in reference to the feasibility and profits of various orchard schemes had come in to the bureau of plant industry of the agricultural department, at washington, in such numbers that the officials of that bureau had considered the advisability of printing a general circular, which they could send to the inquirers, advising them to make due investigation, and giving a few general suggestions about proxy farming and orchard schemes. i was advised by a friend in the middle west that the contemplated issuance of this circular by the bureau of plant industry had aroused a number of protests throughout the country, and that various senators and members of the house of representatives had entered strong protests with the secretary of agriculture against it. a number of these protests have come to my notice, and they take various forms of opposition, but are all unanimous against the department of agriculture offering to the prospective purchaser any information. various reasons for their stand were given by the protestants, but how flimsy and ridiculous they are when analyzed. congress for a number of years has been appropriating money and authorizing certain work by the department of agriculture. it is the people's money, and the people's department, and the information gathered by the experts in this department ought to be the people's information, and it ought to be possible for any citizen to write the department a letter about any proposition that he has received from any of these various promoters, and have the advice of those who know most about it. i suppose the department of agriculture has entirely too many duties to perform to undertake a work of this kind, but what an inconsistent position it is for a member of congress, who has been voting for appropriations to carry on this work, to appeal to the secretary of agriculture to suppress such information in order that some exploiter may get somebody's money under false representations. i think if it were possible today to know the list of concerns and companies who registered, directly or through agents, their opposition to this proposed warning circular, you would have a correct index of the concerns good to let alone. for no honest, reputable individual or company need be afraid of the work or suggestions of that great department. i have the pleasure of knowing many of the officials in the bureau of plant industry, and never anywhere have i seen a body of men so conscientiously engaged in the work of promoting legitimate horticultural and agricultural knowledge. it is the very life of that great department, and its officers and employees above everyone else are most interested in seeing the land produce the most and best that it can be made to produce, and they are best qualified to pass upon these matters. most of the questions in these various schemes are questions of soil and horticulture. one letter in opposition to the agricultural department's attitude, that was brought to my attention, stated that crops varied under different conditions, and that no one was able to tell what a certain soil would or would not produce throughout a period of years, and intimated that the department of agriculture might mislead the public; and yet the concern that sent it printed columns of figures guaranteeing returns from pecans and satsuma oranges in a section where orange growing is of very doubtful possibility. boiling down these objections by the promoters, they come to simply this: that the agricultural department, with no motive but to tell the truth, and with its corps of trained experts, might mislead the public, but they (the promoters) could not possibly be mistaken in their fabulous figures compiled for the purpose of getting money from some misinformed victim. proxy farming never was a success and i do not think it ever will be. one of my friends told me a short time ago of a very successful young pecan orchard on the gulf coast. upon inquiry i found that it was of reasonable size, nine years old, and that the owner had lived in it nine years. it was not acres in extent, or , acres, or , acres, but about acres. last summer i went into a beautiful apple orchard in southern indiana and saw about forty acres of trees bending to the ground with delicious grimes golden apples. on that particular day there were great crowds of people walking among the trees and admiring the fruit. i too walked among the trees a short time, but of greater interest to me than the trees was the old, gray-haired man who had made the orchard. the trees could not talk, but he could, and he told the story of the years of care, and diligence, and work, and thought, and patience, that showed why it is not possible to cover the mountains of a state with orchards bringing almost immediate and fabulous incomes. some time ago i stood talking to the old superintendent of the botanical garden in washington--william r. smith, now deceased--and while discussing with him the requisites for tree culture, he said "young man, you have left out the most important one of them all," when i asked him what i had left out, he said "above all things it takes the eye of the master." so it does, and the master is he whose vigilance is continual, who watches each tree as if it were a growing child--as indeed it is, a child of the forests--who has the care and the patience, and who is not dazzled by the glitter of the dollar, but who loves trees because they are trees. theoretically, one can figure great successes in big horticultural development propositions, but these figures rest upon theory and not fact. it would be difficult to state all the reasons why i have a firm conviction that such big schemes of every kind will fall, but i believe this conviction is shared by the foremost thinkers in the horticultural world. a four-year-old boy was once taken to see the animals in a circus. he was very much interested, but, when shown the tremendous elephant, shook his head and said "he is too big." a small grove properly handled ought to be an excellent investment. the various uncertainties and vicissitudes involved can, in a degree, be compensated for by great care; and i suppose it would be possible even with some of these big schemes--by placing enough money behind them--to insure a fair degree of success. it must be borne in mind, however, that these promoters, of whom we have been speaking, are not so much concerned in the successful orchard as they are in big salaries and profits, and, if one has money enough to pay big salaries and profits, and still pay for the proper care of the orchard, then he does not need an orchard. most of these promoters charge too much for a proper and honest development alone, and too little for the proper development plus the profits and salaries of the promoters. i wish it were not so. i wish the old earth could be made to smile bountiful crops without such expensive tickling, but this is one of the checks and balances that nature places upon her great storehouse of wealth. * * * * * the chairman: this is a matter of very great importance and i hope we shall have a good discussion, from a practical point of view, by men who know about fraudulent promotions and their effect. we ought to go on record in this matter right now. i know of numbers of teachers, doctors and other poor people who have put money into nut promotion schemes without knowing anything about the ultimate prospect of profit. mr. hutt: one noticeable thing about the promoter's literature is that he never knows anything about crop failure, and in the agricultural and horticultural world that is a thing that is painfully evident to a man who has been in business a great length of time. in the promoter's literature it is just a matter of multiplication; if one tree will produce so much in a year, a hundred trees will produce a hundred times as much. i got a letter the other day from mr. s. h. james, of beaumont, louisiana, and he said, "i have been very fortunate, i have actually had two good crops in succession," and when you come to compare that with the promoter's literature--why he knows no such thing as crop failure. anybody who knows anything about agricultural or horticultural work knows that we have winter and floods and everything else to contend with. the chairman: someone might tell us about failures they happen to know of in promotion schemes. mr. smith: i would like to ask if mr. littlepage isn't going to open up that barrel of actual facts that he has about yields? mr. littlepage: mr. president, i didn't know that i had a whole barrel of actual facts. when i started in several years ago a barrel wouldn't have held all of them, but i think that now i could put the actual facts in a thimble. i've got several barrels of good pecans, however, i'd like to open up and let mr. smith sample if he wants to. the chairman: let's hear about frauds from someone who knows how the land was managed and how the trees were managed and how it actually occurred. mr. van duzee: mr. president, i feel that i ought to say something, first in commendation of the paper itself. it is a question how far we, as an association, are responsible for the care of our fellowmen, but at this period when the industry is new, i feel that it is a very legitimate thing for us to do a little work to try and prevent these people from preying upon our fellowmen. the president remarked this morning that something was an evidence of the tremendous waste in nature. it is true, nature, in building a forest, wastes a vast amount of time and energy. these people who are preying upon the nut industry today find as their victims the weaklings which nature buries in the forest. those things are incidental and we must expect them, but i feel that a paper of this kind, at this time, is a very valuable thing and i hope it will receive wide publication. we cannot say too much to discourage this sort of thing. now, to respond, in a measure, to the president's request for actual facts, i am confronted with this proposition, that some of the men who have made the greatest failures are men who have done so through ignorance. they are honest men, they are personal friends of mine. i don't care to go too much into details, because they are just as sorry today as i am, but i have seen this done. i have seen hundreds of acres of nut orchards in the south planted with the culls from nurseries bought at a very low figure. i have seen these trees neglected absolutely, not in one case but in many cases. i have seen the weeds as high as the trees at the time when a telegram was received by the the local agent that a carload of the purchasers of these tracts was about to leave to look over their property. i have seen the local manager hustle out, when he got that telegram, and hire every mule in the community to come in and, with a plow, throw a furrow or two to the rows of trees so that they could be distinguished from the weeds they were growing among. as mr. littlepage has said, there can be no success in such operations; and i feel, looking at it in a very broad way, that this is a very good time to emphasize the point that those of us who have the greatest experience in the growing of nut trees do not feel that these enterprises are legitimate, or that they promise very much success. (applause.) mr. pomeroy: i live just a short distance from buffalo. a few months ago--i got it on the very best authority--there was some salesman in buffalo who didn't have time to call on all those who wanted to give him money for pecan propositions. he didn't have time, doctor, he just had to skip hundreds of them, he said; he was just going from one place to another, making his collections. buffalo is a city of only about , people and there must be some money being collected and sent in to somebody. the chairman: very glad to hear of that instance; let's hear of others. mr. littlepage: i would like, if possible, to answer mr. smith's question. i didn't know that he referred to facts about these promotions, i thought perhaps he meant facts about nut growing. mr. smith: you said you had made inquiries as to nuts, harvest yields, orchard yields; it was those, particularly, that i had in mind. mr. littlepage: oh well, i could give those to you readily. there are some very promising orchards, making a good showing under investigation, handled under proper conditions and of proper size. i would not want to say that those things are not possible. talking specifically of these overgrown schemes, one of them is recalled to my mind, a development company in southern georgia, that advertises very alluringly. it set out one year a lot of culls; they all died. i am told that they went out the second year and, without any further preparation, dug holes and set out another lot of culls. they too died; and then they went out the third year and planted nuts, and those trees, at the end of a year's growth, were perhaps six or seven inches high, and the salesman from that company, i understood, took one of the prospective purchasers over into a fine grove owned by another man on the opposite side of the road, and let him pick out his five acres from the orchard across the road. that's one type i could multiply indefinitely. mr. w. c. reed: i think this is a very important matter. as a nursery man who has sold a great many trees to promoting companies, i want to say that i have never, with one exception, seen an orchard that has been a success, but i have seen hundreds of failures, some of them where they have set out orchards of , trees and sold them off in one and ten acre tracts, and in only one case have i seen a success. i think these promotions should be avoided by the nut growers of the north. the chairman: this is very valuable information, coming from a dealer. mr. van duzee: i have found this in the yields of my orchards. six or seven or eight years ago, i discounted every source of information that i could have access to, as to yields, brought them to a conservative point, submitted them to the best informed men in the united states, and then divided those figures by five as my estimate of what i might hope to accomplish as my orchards came into bearing. i have since been obliged to find some excuses for failing to even approximate those conservative figures. i had this year in our orchard, a acre plot of frotscher trees which is one of the most promising varieties, six years of age, and there were not five pounds of nuts in the whole plot. i have had an orchard of acres, mostly frotscher and stewart, go through its sixth year with less than pounds of nuts to the entire orchard. i have another orchard of acres which in its sixth year has produced less than pounds of nuts. now many of these promoters guarantee to take care of these orchards, which they are selling, for per cent or per cent, or even half the proceeds of those orchards, from the fifth year. you can see readily that the entire crop of such orchards as i have been able to produce, would not begin to pay their running expenses the sixth and seventh year. the chairman: you took good care of yours? mr. van duzee: i think so. i think there are many gentlemen in the audience who have been through them, and it is conceded that my orchards are at least fairly good representatives of what can be done under normal conditions. mr. corsan: are yours southern orchards? mr. van duzee: these pecan orchards are in south-western georgia. mr. corsan: the northern nut growers association, as i understand, is a collection of men who are interested in finding out what we can do in the way of growing nuts for the north. we go to the markets and see baskets of cocoanuts, brazil nuts, california walnuts, but no nuts growing for the market around our neighborhood. in my own city, toronto, i can see some nut trees because i look very closely at everything, but the average person cannot see them because they are very few. i have a number of experiments on hand. if i succeed in even one of these experiments, i am satisfied to spend my whole life at it. i am not nervous, i can watch a hickory tree grow. (laughter.) i want to grow some nuts for the next generation. i haven't the slightest thought of making a copper of money out of it but i am going to enjoy the thing, and that's the idea of the northern nut growers association, or else i have made a mistake. the chairman: is there any further discussion on the matter of frauds? does anyone else wish to speak on this subject? mr. littlepage: it is indeed very gratifying to hear the president of the national nut growers' association, col. van duzee, speak on this subject and to have the honor of having him with us as a member of our association. it is gratifying to have him come out in such strong terms on this question. it has always been his policy and his reputation, so far as i have heard, to stand for what is best and squarest in nut culture. the chairman: the paper of mr. littlepage is one of very great importance, because the number of frauds associated with an enterprise is an indication of the fundamental value of the cause. these fraudulent nut promoters capitalize the enthusiasm of people who want to get back to the land, just as porters at the hotels capitalize the joy of a newly married couple. (laughter.) we have in this "back-to-the-land" movement, a bit of philosophy of fundamental character which includes the idea of preservation of the race. preservation of the race!--why so? nature made man a gregarious species and, being gregarious, he has a tendency to develop the urban habit. developing the urban habit, he fails to oxidize his proteins and toxins. failing to oxidize his proteins and toxins, he degenerates. recognizing the degenerating influence of urban life, by means of his intelligence he has placed within his consciousness that automatic arrangement, as good as the automatic arrangement which turns water on to a boiler, which says to him, "go out and oxidize your proteins and toxins." that is what "back-to-the-land" means. you've got to begin from this fundamental point. now then, if this represents a fundamental trait in the character of our species and we are acting in response to a natural law, then must we be doubly careful about having our good intentions, our good methods, halted by unwisdom. that brings to mind the point made about our present secretary of agriculture. i am very glad this has been made a matter of record here, for i am sorry to say that in connection with another subject--(health matters)--wherever there has been opportunity for the secretary to act, he has decided as a matter of policy on the side of capital and against the side of public interest. almost every time, so far as we have a record of the action of the present secretary of agriculture and of dunlap and mccabe, his assistants. we ought to state here, in connection with fraudulent nut promotions, that he has acted in favor of capital and against the public interest if it is true. it ought to go as a matter of record from this association. we may be bold in this matter, but we should be righteously bold because we are speaking for the public interest ourselves. we have nothing to gain; there is nothing selfish about this organization. we may be kindly and say that the secretary is at the mercy of shrewder men. mr. corsan says that we are interested in scientific work only. that is true at the present time, because all progress must be from a scientific basis. if our care in managing experiments is such that we cannot avoid getting rich, we will accept the result. (laughter.) i am glad that in connection with this discussion mr. corsan made one epigrammatic remark,--that he was not nervous and could watch a hickory tree grow. i tell you there's a lot of wit in that. mr. littlepage: he has good eyesight, mr. president. the chairman: the reason why we have so many fraudulent promotions is largely because of our american temperament; we are so nervous that we can't watch a hickory tree grow. in matters of public health, our secretary of agriculture has prevented actual criminals from being brought to justice--he made that his policy. i think those are the points that i wish to make in commenting upon mr. littlepage's paper and if he will make any concluding remarks we will be very glad to hear them. in regard to mr. hutt's suggestion that we cannot count on crop success or crop failure mathematically--now, there are fortunes to be made from the proper management of good nut orchards. we know of orchards where very large incomes are at present being made, and i am very glad that the sense and sentiment of this meeting is against quotation of that feature. i have not heard here one word in quotation of orchards which bring incomes of $ , a year or more from various kinds of nuts, and we know there are many such orchards. it is the failures upon which we should concentrate our attentions right now, and the reason for failure is not that nut growing is not going to make progress but that we cannot count on our nuts from a mathematical basis. one of my friends, an old frenchman, became very enthusiastic about raising poultry. he sent out requests for circulars to every poultry fancier who published circulars, and i will wager that he got per cent of answers to his requests for circulars about fancy poultry. he began to raise chickens, and my father-in-law met him on the street one day and asked how he was getting on with his pullets that were going to lay so many eggs. "oh," he said, "ze trouble is with ze pullet; she no understand mathematique like ze fancier. if i have one pullet, she lay one egg every day; if i have two pullet, _perhaps_ she lay two egg every day, and if i have three pullet, she _nevaire_ lay three egg every day." (laughter.) now i think that the remaining time this morning we had better devote to the executive session, then we had better meet at two o'clock for the election of our committee. the meeting then is at present adjourned, with the exception of those who will take part in the executive session, and we will meet again at two p. m. there is one point i wanted to make in connection with col. van duzee's remarks that a certain number of really honest men have allowed their names to be used in connection with promotion propositions. men who are quite skillful at learning the use of names, have gotten men of good intentions and kindly interest, i know, to lend their names as even officials of nut promotion companies. besides that, a good deal of garbled literature of recommendation has gone out in their circulars. i have had a number of circulars sent to me quoting abstract remarks that i had made relative to nut culture in general, and this has been applied concretely in circulars; the context did not go with it. i asked a lawyer what i could do about it, and after going over the question he said that i probably was powerless. after announcements by the secretary, the convention took a recess until p. m., at which time it was called to order by president morris and the regular program was resumed as follows: the chairman: the executive session will be held after the meeting, as many are here to hear the paper on the chestnut blight, so we will proceed at once to the order of business and listen to the first paper by mr. rockey. mr. rockey: this paper deals more particularly with the work that has been done in pennsylvania. but what has been done here may be considered to be typical of what has been done elsewhere. recent work on the chestnut blight keller e. rockey forester in charge of demonstration work, pennsylvania chestnut tree blight commission the history of the blight, briefly outlined, is as follows: in the diseased condition of the chestnut trees around new york city was noted and an examination of them showed that they were being attacked by a disease at that time unknown. investigations since then have shown that the blight had been at work there and elsewhere for a number of years before that time, but it has been impossible to determine just when it first appeared or where. the disease was studied and described at that time. on display here are specimens and photographs showing the appearance of the blight so that i will not go into that part of the subject in detail. i hope that you will notice, however, the symptoms by which the disease is recognized: st. the small red pustules which produce the spores and, on rough barked trees, appear only in the crevices. nd. the peculiar mottled appearance of the inner bark of the canker. rd. the discoloration of the outer bark. th. the danger signals, such as withered leaves in summer or persistent leaves or burrs in winter, suckers which develop at the base of cankers, and the yellowish cracks which soon appear in the bark over the cankers. workers in the bureau of plant industry, washington, d. c., have been studying the blight since . in the spring of , a bill creating the commission for the investigation and control of the blight in pennsylvania was passed, and the active work began in august . the method upon which the commission is working is outlined in farmers' bulletin no. , of the department of agriculture, and consists briefly of determining the area of blight infection and in removing diseased trees west of a certain line, with the purpose of preventing the western spread of the blight. this commission has ascertained as accurately as possible the amount of infection in the various parts of the state and the results are given in a map on display here. the state is divided into two districts by a line drawn along the western edge of susquehanna, wyoming, columbia, union, snyder, juniata and franklin counties, which is approximately the western line of serious blight infection. west of this line a large portion of the state has been scouted, and the remainder will be finished early in . we have learned by experience that in the winter, after the fall of the leaves, the best scouting work can be done. persistent leaves and cankers along the trunk are readily seen, and more and better work can be accomplished than in the summer, except when the snow is very deep. blight infections have been found in counties adjacent to this line: also in fayette county, near connellsville, in warren county, near warren, and in elk county, near st. mary's. these three infections were directly traceable to infected nursery stock, and in one case the blight had spread to adjacent trees. a large area of diseased chestnut in somerset county illustrates the harm done by shipping infected nursery stock. the centre of this infection is a chestnut orchard where about scions from an infected eastern orchard were grafted to native sprouts in . the percentage of infected trees in the orchard from which the scions were obtained, according to a count made this fall, averages per cent. evidently these scions brought the disease into this region, for the grafts have all been killed by the blight and every tree in the orchard is killed or infected by disease. on adjoining tracts over , infected trees have been cut, and there are a number of others in process of removal, radiating in all directions from the orchard as a center to a distance of three miles. another infection of trees was found in elk county. it is thought that three trees at the centre of infection were diseased in , although it is possible that one of these trees was already infected in . in , additional trees were infected; in , additional trees, and in , additional trees. the disease spread in all directions from the center of infection to a distance of feet. these infections are interesting in showing the rate at which the blight may travel in healthy timber. these infections have all been removed and it is the expectation that by the end of january all scattered spot infections will be removed from the territory west of the line previously mentioned, and that, to the best of our knowledge, these western counties will be free from blight. in the field force will be concentrated on the advance line and the work will be carried eastward. the commission has the power to compel the removal of infected trees. in the western part of the state this power has been exercised in the few cases where it was necessary. as a rule, however, the owners are not only willing but anxious to get rid of the infected trees, and our field men are given hearty support by individuals, granges and other organizations. the timber owners of elk county had printed and posted an announcement that the chestnut blight had been found in the locality and warned the people to be on the look-out for it. in addition the commission has had a man, for a short time at least, in each of the eastern counties of the state, and their time has been taken up principally by those who requested inspections of timber with the view of determining the percentage of blight infection and the best method to be pursued in combating it and realizing on their timber. our men are all deputy wardens, with the authority which is attached to this office, and are instructed to do their utmost to prevent fire damage. an exhibit which consists of specimens showing the blight in various stages together with photographs, literature, etc., was placed in about of the county fairs throughout the state. the appreciation of the public has been so clearly shown that next year it is the intention of the commission to continue and perhaps increase this phase of the work, and to place large permanent displays at the commercial museum, philadelphia, the state capitol, harrisburg, and other places. many of the annual teachers' institutes have been reached with a display and lecture. we have arranged also to have a speaker at fully one hundred of the farmers' institutes this winter. we are also arranging to have a permanent display at many of the public schools, normal schools and colleges, where instruction on the blight is given. an effort was made last winter to enlist the service of the boy scouts and we are indebted to them for considerable work, chiefly in an educational way. the successful outcome of all our work will depend in a large measure upon the owners themselves, and it is our purpose to give them all the information possible upon the whole subject. the commission established a department of utilization which is collecting information on the various industries which use or might use chestnut wood, listing the buyers and owners of chestnut wood, thus assisting owners of blighted chestnut trees in marketing their timber to the best advantage. the department is trying to increase the use of chestnut wood by calling attention to its many good qualities, and thus utilize the large quantity which must necessarily be thrown upon the market. there has been more or less discrimination against blighted chestnut timber. this has been in many cases unjust, since the blight does not injure the value of the wood for most purposes for which it is used. however, the owners sometimes fail to realize that the blight cankers are the most favorable places for the entrance of the borers, and that where a large number of trees are being considered, a percentage of them will be materially injured by insects which follow blight infection. where telegraph poles are barked, it is often seen that borers have attacked the wood under blight cankers, and have not touched any other part of the tree. all blighted timber should be cut before death to realize its best value, since insects and wood-destroying fungi cause the very rapid deterioration of dead, standing timber. there has been a good market in almost every locality for poles, ties and the better grades of lumber. cordwood presents the difficult problem of disposal. the best market for this is in the central part of the state, at the extract plants. the commission has secured from the pennsylvania r. r. a special tariff on blighted chestnut cordwood so that this product may be profitably shipped from greater distances than before. the commission has inspected all chestnut nursery stock shipped from nurseries within the state and has also provided for inspection of all chestnut stock entering the state. this should prevent a repetition of infections in the western part of the state which might destroy millions of dollars worth of timber. from time to time publications have been and will be issued by the commission, which are obtained free of charge upon request, or they may be consulted in the leading libraries throughout the state. an appropriation for $ , was given by the last congress for scientific research work upon the blight disease and work is being carried out in cooperation with the various states. several of the government investigators are now at work upon our force. some of the most important unsolved scientific problems of the blight, as given by secretary wilson, in his message, to congress, are as follows:-- first, the relation of the disease to climate. second, the relation of the parasite to the varying tannin content of the tree. third, the origin of the disease. fourth, relation of birds and insects to the dissemination of the disease. fifth, the nature and degree of resistance of the asiatic species. another problem in relation to tree treatment may be added, that is, the relation of spores and mycelium to toxic agents. the pennsylvania commission maintained laboratories during the summer at charter oak, centre county, and at mt. gretna, lebanon county. the latter has been moved to franklin and marshall college, lancaster, for the winter. we have also had a laboratory at the university of pennsylvania, which has been greatly enlarged this fall. the number of people who informed us that they had discovered a sure "cure" for the blight made it necessary to obtain an orchard near philadelphia where all such discoverers were given an opportunity to demonstrate the efficacy of their remedies. it might be noted that in every case the blight is thriving as usual. these cures consisted largely of an injection of a toxic principle by some means into the circulation of the tree. in some cases this was accompanied by a fertilizer of some kind, and this fertilizer may account for the apparently improved condition of the tree in some cases, after such remedies were used, since the growth was increased and the leaves and branches had a healthier appearance. this increased growth has not had any appreciable effect upon the rapidity of spread of the blight mycelium. as the experiments are not officially finished and recorded it is too early to give any further data. our pathologists have also conducted experiments in this same line but no medicinal remedy or fertilizer has yet been found. the varying chemical constituents of chestnut trees, principally tannic acid, have often been suggested in regard to the origin and spread of the blight. investigators are now working along this line and we hope, for valuable results before long. the origin of the disease, as already stated, is something of a mystery, and there is as yet no generally accepted theory, although many people have very pronounced views on the subject. many puzzling facts have been noted since investigating the disease in pennsylvania, among them being the large percentage of infection in eastern york and southern lancaster counties, the relative small percentage in certain localities around which the blight is generally prevalent, and recent infections found in warren and other western counties, a great distance from what is known as the western advance line of the disease. our pathologists have reported some very interesting facts in regard to the dissemination of the blight. in the preliminary report of the summer's work at our field laboratories the results tend to show: first, the prolific ascospore stage is very important in causing the spread of the blight, the spores at this stage being forcibly ejected from the pustules and borne through the air for some distance. this ejection of spores takes place under natural field conditions only when the bark has been soaked by rain, but the expulsion of spores is also dependent upon temperature conditions and ceases entirely at temperatures from to degrees f. and below. second, the wind plays a large part in local ascospore dissemination. third, birds and insects (except ants) are apparently of very little importance in the dissemination of the blight except in providing wounds. further investigations of the importance of ants is being made during the present winter. several kinds of beetles have been observed eating the pustules and are in this way beneficial, since tests show that they digest and destroy the spores. it has also been suggested by workers in the bureau of entomology that such beetles, which are of several kinds, may be of value in the attempt to control the disease. these are perhaps the only natural enemies discovered to date. the proper classification of the chestnut blight fungus has also been the subject of much discussion. last winter specimens of what in external characteristics appeared to be diaporthe parasitica were found in western pennsylvania, virginia and elsewhere, growing upon chestnut, oak and other species. this condition was puzzling and the subject of some controversy. it has been found, however, that this fungus, called the "connellsville fungus," is a distinct species closely related to the true blight fungus, being, however, entirely saprophytic. cultural distinctions are apparent and the ascospores differ in size and shape so that no further confusion need occur. upon the question of immunity of certain kinds of asiatic stock, there is very little to report beyond what was known one year ago. in the investigations made the work has been hampered by the fact that much of the so-called japanese stock is in reality a hybrid of european or american species. in , japanese seedling trees were set out at gap, lancaster co., for experimentation along this line. a recent examination showed that per cent are infected. concerning the variety or purity of this stock, i have not been informed. our force as well as others are at work upon the problem which will require many years' study. previous investigations seem to show that certain pure strains of japanese and korean chestnut are resistant to the blight. blight cankers may be found upon them but they are less easily infected and suffer less than the more susceptible varieties. with this as a working basis, considering the results that have been attained in other fruit by selection and hybridization, the situation is hopeful. prof. collins said at the harrisburg conference in february that "there is no reason to doubt that we may eventually see an immune hybrid chestnut that will rival the american chestnut in flavor and the paragon in size". in southern europe chestnut orcharding is a well established and profitable industry. in the united states chestnuts have been considered a marketable commodity ever since the indians carried them to the settlements and traded them for knives and trinkets. the demand has always exceeded the supply and at the present time about $ , , worth of nuts are imported from europe annually. with the development of the better varieties of the american nut has come an increased activity in the united states and the chestnut orchard industry promises to become one of very large importance. it has an added advantage that the trees can be grown upon the poorer types of soil which are not adaptable for farming or the raising of other fruit. at the present time there are in what is known as the blight area of pennsylvania, or eastern half of the state, about orchards ranging from trees up to acres in extent. these orchards are in varying stages of blight infection, some of them being almost entirely free, due to the attention which has been given them. in order to protect such orchards the commission is compelling the removal of infected trees within a certain radius of them. as you know the blight has been a very serious factor in this industry. some of the orchards have been completely annihilated and the income reduced from several thousand or more dollars per year to nothing. whether or not the blight will completely wipe out the orcharding industry is a subject of large importance. personally i believe that chestnuts will be raised commercially in pennsylvania in increased abundance, and as the various phases of the blight subject are brought to light, keeping the disease under control can be more easily accomplished. at the present time this is being done in certain orchards by the present methods of examining the trees often, treating each infection, or removing the tree. if this policy is successfully pursued for several more years it will demonstrate conclusively that chestnuts can be grown in spite of the blight and this will mean an opportunity to use vast areas of waste land in pennsylvania and in the other states, in a highly profitable manner. * * * * * the chairman: the subject of the next paper is some problems in the treatment of the chestnut. it will be presented by mr. pierce, after which we will have a general discussion of the entire subject. mr. pierce: mr. president, ladies and gentlemen: i see that, as we wrote our papers separately, some of the things i had in mind will be similar to those mr. rockey had. some problems in the treatment of diseased chestnut trees by roy g. pierce tree surgeon, pennsylvania chestnut tree blight commission the problems that present themselves to the growers of chestnut trees concerning the present disease may be summed up under three heads: first, what the disease is, how it is caused, and how it may be recognized; second, what is to be done with diseased trees to bring them to health or to prevent them from infecting other healthy trees nearby; third, what means in the future can be undertaken to keep a tree healthy, that is, to prevent reinfection. first, what the disease is, how it is caused, and how it may be recognized. the disease known as the chestnut tree blight is caused by the fungus, _diaporthe parasitica_, which usually finds entrance to the tree through wounds in the bark. the mycelium or mass of fungous filaments gradually spreads through the bark in much the same manner as mold spreads over and through a piece of bread, even penetrating the wood to a depth of sometimes five annual rings. the spread of the fungus, resulting in the cutting off of the sap flow, is the immediate cause of the wilting and dying of the leaves and branch above the point of girdling. this wilting of the leaves, followed later by the death of one branch after another as the fungus spreads, has given rise to the term "blight" of the chestnut trees. the danger signals which the chestnut tree displays when diseased are not a few. in summer, when the tree is first affected, the leaves turn yellow-green and wilt, later turning brown. small burs and withered leaves retained in winter are some signs of the diseased condition of the tree. at the base of the blighted part a lesion, or reddish brown canker, is usually found. this lesion may be a sunken area or, as is frequently the case, a greatly enlarged swelling, known as a hypertrophy. after a branch has become completely girdled sprouts or suckers are very apt to be found below the point of girdling. in old furrowed bark on the main trunk of the tree the presence of the disease is seen in the reddish brown spore-bearing pustules in the fissures. in determining the presence of the fungus in the furrowed bark of old trees, one must learn to recognize the difference between the light brown color characteristic of fissures in healthy growing bark, and the reddish brown color of the fungus. when the disease has been present several years the bark completely rots and shrinks away from the wood, and when the bark is struck with an axe a hollow sound is produced. many of the owners of chestnut trees throughout pennsylvania do not acknowledge that a fungus is causing the death of the trees. they state that since they have found white grubs or the larvae of beetles in nearly every tree that dies, that it has been the larvae that killed the tree. it is acknowledged that generally white grubs are found in dying chestnut trees, and that in nearly all of the large cankers or lesions these grubs are present. however, if one will take the pains to examine the small twigs and branches or the new shoots rising from the stumps, that are diseased, he will not find the grubs present. second, what is to be done with diseased trees to bring them back to health or to prevent them from infecting other healthy trees nearby. to bring the trees back to health implies that the disease can be cured. this is not always true for the tree may be already nearly girdled, when the disease is first noticed. a tree taken in time, however, may have its life prolonged indefinitely though it may have the blight in some portion of it every year. more particularly does this apply to valuable ornamental and orchard trees. prof. j. franklin collins, forest pathologist in the department of agriculture in farmer's bulletin no. on "the control of the chestnut bark disease" gives the following: "the essentials for the work are a gouge, a mallet, a pruning knife, a pot of coal tar, and a paint brush. in the case of a tall tree a ladder or rope, or both may be necessary but under no circumstances should tree climbers be used, as they cause wounds which are very favorable places for infection. sometimes an axe, a saw, and a long-handled tree pruner are convenient auxiliary instruments, though practically all the cutting recommended can be done with a gouge with a cutting edge of or - / inches. all cutting instruments should be kept very sharp, so that a clean smooth cut may be made at all times." all of the discolored diseased areas in the tree should be removed. small branches or twigs nearly girdled are best cut off. cankers in the main trunk or on limbs should be gouged out. carefulness is the prime requisite in this work. if the disease has completely killed the cambium, the bark should be entirely removed as well as several layers of wood beneath the canker. by frequent examination, however, diseased spots may be found on the tree where the mycelium of the fungus is still in the upper layers of the bark. it is not necessary then to cut clear to the wood, but the discolored outer bark may be removed and a layer of healthy inner bark left beneath the cut. the sap may still flow through this layer. the border of the diseased area is quite distinct, but cutting should not stop here but should be continued beyond the discolored portion into healthy bark, at least an inch. the tools should be thoroughly sterilized by immersion in a solution of . bichloride of mercury, or per cent solution of formaldehyde, before cutting into the bark outside of the diseased area. experiments have shown that a gouge or knife may carry the spores into healthy bark and new infection take place. experiments are being carried on in the laboratory to determine the length of time which spores will live in solutions of different strengths of fungicides. it has been shown that a cut made pointed at the top and bottom heals much faster than one rounded. the edges of the cut should be made with care so as not to injure the cambium. the chips of diseased bark and wood should not be allowed to fall on the ground then to be forgotten. a bag fastened just below the canker will collect most of this material as it is gouged out and prevent possible reinfection, which might take place if the material were allowed to scatter down the bark. canvas or burlap spread around under a small orchard tree might be sufficient to catch all of the diseased chips of bark and wood cut out of the lower infections. this diseased material should be burned together with blighted branches. after completely cutting out all of the diseased parts the cut surfaces should be either sterilized or covered with a waterproofing which combines a fungicide with a covering. among these might be mentioned coal tar and creosote, or a mixture of pine tar, linseed oil, lamp black and creosote. the trees which have been killed by blight, or nearly girdled, have been overlooked. these should be cut off close to the ground, the stump peeled and the bark and unused portions of the tree burned over the stump. the merchantable parts of the trees should be removed from the woods promptly, as all dead unbarked wood furnishes an excellent breeding place for the blight fungus. third, what means in the future can be undertaken to keep a tree healthy, that is, to prevent reinfection. the spores may be carried by so many agents that it is difficult to prevent reinfection. however it is clear that the farther infected products or trees are removed from healthy trees the less liable they are to have spores carried to them. cooperation with nearby owners of diseased trees will help solve this problem. spraying on a large scale has only been carried on, so far as i know, on the estate of pierre dupont, jr., at kennett square, pennsylvania. at this place there are many large chestnut trees ranging from sixty to ninety feet in height, many of which were planted some sixty-five years ago. mr. r. e. wheeler started the work of cutting out diseased limbs and cankers in october , and began spraying with bordeaux mixture in april . the formula - - , five pounds of copper sulphate and five pounds of lime in gallons of water was found to be injurious to the foliage in the spring. this was changed therefore, to - - , which had one pound less of copper sulphate. this did not seem to injure the foliage. about trees were sprayed twenty times during the season. nearly all of these were gone over four times to remove diseased branches and cankers, once in october , then in early summer and again in september and november . as an example take tree no. which was studied, december , . it is inches in diameter at breast height, and approximately feet in height. on this one tree six diseased limbs were removed, and sixteen cankers were cut out. of these sixteen, two infections continued, that is, were not completely cut out, and had spread; three had infections below old limbs which had been removed, and eleven were healing over. this tree was about feet away from other badly infected trees, though but feet away from other chestnut trees in the same row. the experiment of mr. dupont in spraying shows what can be done on valuable lawn trees. on the whole, these trees look well and healthy. trees which were not sprayed over three times and were within - feet from badly blighted trees, became infected in so many different places that it will be necessary to remove them. one of the problems to be solved next year will be that of the least number of sprayings which will be effective in preventing new infection. * * * * * the chairman: the question of the chestnut blight is now open for discussion. mr. littlepage: i should like to ask these gentlemen how far west they have heard of chestnut blight--that is, heard of it with any degree of authenticity, and also whether or not they care to express an opinion as to what the prospects are in the middle west, say out in indiana, illinois and ohio? mr. pierce: in answer to that question, i will say that in pennsylvania we have found infections in wayne county and also in fayette county, both near the western extreme of the state, but those have been attended to, very largely, and the boundaries closely determined. in ohio there have been several reports of the blight being found, but i don't think either of the reports have been proven. there has been a fungus that i have spoken of as the connellsville fungus, that has been all around in that neighborhood, south-western pennsylvania and eastern ohio. the chairman: is the connellsville fungus also _diaporthe parasitica_? mr. pierce: yes, sir. it was placed by mr. anderson, who did the work on that, in the same genus as diaporthe, but he preferred the name _endothia parasitica_. the chairman: the question is of changing the generic name, from _diaporthe_, on the basis of the previously established species? mr. pierce: yes, sir, previously established species of _endothia_. it is only a suggestion of mr. anderson; it was made by him. this was very similar to the true blight fungus and when our men first went out into the western part of the state, they reported these various cases that came up there as chestnut blight, and none of the pathologists of our force then were competent to determine the difference, except that the fact was noted even then that it was not growing as a parasite in the sense that the true blight fungus has been growing in the east. the chairman: that may be due to varietal differences, though, rather than specific? mr. pierce: yes, although mr. anderson seemed to think it was specific. the chairman: is there any further discussion? the subject is worthy of a good deal of comment. mr. pomeroy: i want to ask the speaker what the approximate cost would be for one spraying of a tree about that size, feet in height? mr. pierce: we have photographs on the table there showing our eight hundred dollar spraying machine, the same kind used in massachusetts in gypsy moth work. with this two men can spray about ten such trees in a day. i haven't got it down in black and white but i figured that, on those chestnuts at dupont's, they sprayed about gallons a day. ten trees a day would make it, say, with a $ . man, not very high for a tree. i think it costs in all something like four dollars a tree during the whole season, but that is a very rough estimate and the materials are not included. the chairman: the cost will have to be calculated on a sentimental basis for the ornamental trees, and on a commercial basis for the commercial trees. the actual value of the spraying has not yet been determined. this spraying cannot reach the mycelium in the cambium layer; if the disease has been carried in by a beetle or woodpecker your spraying would be ineffective. mr. pierce: yes indeed, that was just the thought mr. galena had, notwithstanding the fact that they cut out all visible infections and the trees were so blue with spray that you could see them for half a mile. the chairman: but, later on, cracks and squirrel scratches and all sorts of injuries would allow new spores to be carried in? mr. pierce: yes, sir. mr. reed: the future of the chestnut depends so largely on the conquering of this disease that no other horticultural problem of this nut is, just at present, imperative. so far as we know, all of the european and american varieties are highly subject to this disease, so much so that there is no inducement to plant them, and we are waiting for dr. morris and a few other hybridizers to find some hybrids, or straight japanese varieties, that are of sufficient merit, and of sufficient degree of resistance to this disease, for us to have a basis for building up the future industry. on the tables there are quite a number of exhibits from mr. riehl and mr. endicott of illinois. most of them are hybrids between the american and the japanese species, but, so far as we know, they have not been tried in communities where the disease prevails. we don't know whether they are resistant or not, as they are being grown in a section entirely outside of the area where the blight exists. i think i am right in that, am i not, mr. pierce? is there any chestnut blight in southern illinois? mr. pierce: there has been none reported. mr. reed: i think that the varieties that these men in indiana have originated are the most promising we know of. i think that in examining these specimens you will agree that they are of fairly high quality and good size, and if they prove to be resistant to the disease much may be expected from them. mr. hutt: i have not seen the chestnut blight at all. i hope that it isn't in our section. i have heard it was brought in from some point but i do not know whether it was identified exactly as the chestnut blight. mr. pierce: i saw a specimen sent from north carolina and it proved to be the collinsville fungus. mr. corsan: if you remember reading fuller's book on nuts, he reported that the chestnut blight extended through the carolinas but said that chestnuts were still coming from that direction in great abundance. up in canada we haven't the chestnut blight. the chestnut tree runs from the ohio river to the niagara river but it doesn't cross into michigan, except along the michigan southern and lake shore railroad where some enterprising gentlemen have planted the chestnut with the tamarack alternately all the way from cleveland to chicago. i examined the state of indiana across and from top to bottom several times in the summer and i never saw any chestnuts there, but i have seen some newly planted places in michigan; near battle creek i saw a farm of about fifty acres. we are having up in ontario, beyond toronto, a blight that has attacked the lombardy poplar and that looks similar to the chestnut blight. i have been watching it for the last ten years and the tree seems to have at last outlived it. it dies down and then a little sprout comes out from the carcass. the chairman: isn't that the poplar tree borer that always attacks the lombardy? mr. corsan: oh no, it's very similar to the chestnut tree blight. we can grow chestnut trees all we like but no one has brains enough to grow them. the farmers grow pigs and things but don't bother with chestnut trees; consequently the chestnut blight does not exist there. mr. pierce: i didn't answer a portion of mr. littlepage's question. mr. littlepage asked whether or not the blight might be expected in the middle west. that depends, more or less, upon the results of the work pennsylvania is now carrying on. if we can keep the disease from extending through the territory in which we are working, there is a very good chance to keep it out of the west. if we are not successful, it may be expected to develop, in time, over the whole chestnut range. there seems to be a very good opportunity for growing the chestnut commercially beyond its present range; that is, where it is so infrequent as not to be in danger from infected growths nearby. in the eastern part of the state different people have reported that the blight seemed to them to be dying out and, a number of these reports coming from a certain locality, the commission decided to investigate one which seemed to be better reported than the others. it was found, after a very extensive investigation, that this dying out was true only in the sense that it was not spreading, perhaps, as fast as it had been spreading before. the mycelium and the spores were healthy and were affecting the new trees in quite the same manner as the year before and as in other parts of the state. the chairman: the question of controlling blight after it has appeared is of very great consequence. concerning any commercial proposition with chestnuts the people are wide awake to the seriousness of the blight. they are afraid to go into growing chestnut orchards; they have had so many fake propositions in the past in pecan promotions that they are afraid of chestnuts and everything else. any proposition for bringing forward chestnuts commercially must be a plain, simple, straightforward statement of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. we are ready, all through the north and east, to raise hundreds of acres of chestnuts, such as mr. reed has spoken about, ones which resist the blight, or ones which resist the blight comparatively well. let us consider comparative immunity for a moment. we know how expensive it is to manage an apple orchard, and yet, with the present high prices, the profits on apple orchards, well managed, are great. may we not have chestnut orchards managed with the same degree of relative expense and the same degree of relative profit? i would like very much to hear from some of the men who have actually raised chestnuts in orchards concerning the relative care of the chestnut compared with the apple, and the relative profit. i see col. sober here; can't you tell us about your experience in managing the blight? can it be managed successfully in proportion as apple tree parasites are managed? col. sober: my experience has been this; i have four hundred acres of chestnuts in bearing. they range from five years to fifteen years old. i find that i can control the blight easier than i can control the scale on apple trees. if anyone doesn't believe this i invite him and all to come to my place and see for themselves. i think i have nearly one million seedling and grafted paragon trees. i don't think you will find fifty affected trees on the whole place today. i have men going in every grove at the present time who have inspected thousands of trees and found seven that had blight on the limbs, so i know what i am speaking about. the chairman: what is your method? col. sober: cutting out, cutting off anything i see; if it is really necessary, cut the tree down; but we don't often find that necessary because just as quick as we see any affected, or any limb dying or dead, we cut it off. i had my groves laid out in sections of a hundred feet wide and numbered; and i had charts made so that they can be inspected section by section. in that manner, every tree is inspected. one individual will inspect the trunk and another one the top. in each section i can show you as far as we have gone. i can show you how many trees are in each section and how many affected trees there are in that section, or whether there are any or not. i say i can control it easier than i can control scale and with less expense and i want that to go on record. there is no question about it. it can be seen at my place. i go over my groves about four times a year and have been doing it all the time, and i don't doubt but that i discovered this disease the first of anybody in the state, perhaps, in . i was looking around to cut scions and i saw one tree whose center was dead and around it were the finest shoots almost that i had ever seen for grafting purposes. i went to it and saw the center was dead. i cut some scions and today that is one of the finest trees i've got on my place. from what i know now that was a blighted tree. a member: did you paint over the scars? col. sober: no sir, but we are doing it now, using white lead. a member: how much blight is there around you? col. sober: i am surrounded with it on all sides. right up against my groves about per cent of the trees are affected. that is the report coming from the parties inspecting now for the blight commission. i shipped mr. mayo about four or five thousand trees this fall. i don't suppose there were a dozen that were thrown out, thinking they were blighted or diseased. we have records of all that up at my place. there are some trees right here now that came from my nursery. i wish you gentlemen could just see for yourselves; come out and see. the chairman: in advancing this chestnut on a commercial basis it had better be stated that it does not blight as badly as the american chestnut and that when blighted it can be cared for with less cost than the apple tree. i would suggest that some such notice be sent out with commercial stock. that would put it on the right basis so that the chestnut would find its position, which it is not finding now because the people are full of the blight; and if a frank, full statement of this sort were made i believe it would be extremely important. mr. rockey: i went through practically the whole extent of mr. sober's orchard recently and found one infected tree. i can vouch for the statement that he has made that he is almost surrounded by blight. the chairman: i have given attention to only a few of my own trees that were blighted because i have too much else to do and too large a place, a couple of hundred acres engaged in a small and large way,--a variety of ways--with nut trees; and the few i have cared to save after blight has begun i have saved by cutting it out very thoroughly and using either white paint or grafting wax. i used also pine tar and some gas tar. i killed some good trees that i wanted particularly to save by putting on gas tar. the matter of compelling the removal of infected trees is a very important one, but it must rest with the authorities. in the vicinity of new york we have so much hard wood that you cannot sell it unless you are in some sort of a trade combination. fine oak, fine hickory, fine chestnut, you can't dispose of in new york city, because we have such a lot of it. we have wild deer within fifteen miles of new york city on three sides of us on account of the forests. you have got to find some special way for disposing of this blighted chestnut timber. telephone and telegraph poles and ties all go for nothing, unless you happen to be so situated that you can manage the matter commercially, and a way should be found by the state so that people can dispose of their blighted timber, which is just as good as any other. it is very important to note that the boy scouts are interested, and we ought to encourage their interest. it is a splendid thing, getting the interest of boys engaged. you know how active a boy is in getting a snake from under a rock and he will do the same thing with the chestnut blight. it is his natural tendency to hustle when he gets after anything. this chestnut blight belongs to the microbe group and the microbe is the great enemy of mankind. in wars the microbe kills about eight men for every one killed by missiles. if we can encourage the interest of boy scouts in fighting the greatest of all human enemies, the microbe, including this little fungus, we shall have a splendid working force. in regard to the injection of poisons and medicines into trees, it seems to me that a very firm stand ought to be taken by all responsible men who know anything about plant pathology. we know that a poison injected into a tree must either act injuriously right there upon the cells of the tree, or else must undergo metabolic changes. a tree cannot use anything that is thrown into it, poison or food or anything else, until it has undergone a metabolic change; you must have a distinct, definite chemical process taking place and we ought to state that most of the substances which are alleged to be of value, when injected into a tree, are either absolutely worthless or injurious. one man tried to persuade me that his medication if applied to the cambium layer would be absorbed, and said that if i would only use it on a few of my trees i could see for myself. he said it would drive off even the aphides. i tried it on four trees affected with aphides and found that he told me the truth. it drove them off, because the trees died and the aphides left. one tree lived a year before being killed; it was a most insidious sort of death, but the aphides left that tree. (laughter.) some of the asiatic chestnuts resist the blight very well. curiously enough when grafted upon some of the american chestnuts they then become vulnerable. two years ago, from a lot of about one thousand corean chestnuts in which there had been up to that time no blight, i grafted scions on american stump sprouts and about per cent of those grafts blighted in the next year, showing that the american chestnut sap offers a pabulum attractive to the diaporthe, and that is a fact of collateral value in getting our negative testimony upon the point. concerning the question of carrying blight fifty miles, there's no telling how far birds will fly carrying the spores of diaporthe upon their feet. the spores are viscid and adhere to the feet of beetles, or migratory birds which sometimes make long lateral flights following food, rather than direct flights north and south. it is quite easy to imagine birds carrying this diaporthe over an interval of possibly fifty miles, making that distance in one night perhaps. someone may have carried chestnuts in his pocket to give to his granddaughter fifty miles away, and in that way carried the blight. if any grafted trees have been carried fifty miles, or any railroad ties, with a little bark on, carried fifty miles and then thrown off, it might blight the chestnuts in that vicinity. one can have as much range of imagination as he pleases as longfellow says, there is no limit to the imagination in connection with questions of spreading the blight of diaporthe. some of the japanese and corean chestnuts and some of the chinese chestnuts resist blight fairly well. among my chinkapins, i have the common _pumila_ and the missouri variety of _pumila_, which grows in tree form forty or fifty feet high. i have the alder-leaf chestnut, which keeps green leaves till christmas, sometimes till march when the snow buries them, and those comparatively young trees have shown no blight; but one hybrid, between the chinkapin and the american chestnut, about twelve years of age, has blighted several times. i have cut off the branches and kept it going, but this year i shall cut it down. it will start at the root and sprout up again. i thought i'd give up that hybrid, but having heard col. sober's report i will begin at the root and look after some of the sprouts. that hybrid is the only one of my chinkapin group that has blighted at all. in regard to the use of bichloride of mercury or formaldehyde, it seems to me that formaldehyde will be a better germicide than bichloride of mercury, because bichloride of mercury coagulates the albuminous part of the plasm and may destroy the cell structure, whereas the formaldehyde will be more penetrating and less injurious. one would need to know how strong a formaldehyde solution can be used safely. i presume the most vulnerable part of the tree would be at the bud axils. spraying must require considerable experience at the present time and is of doubtful efficiency for timber chestnuts i am sure. we would like very much to hear any further comment upon this subject. prof. smith: mr. sober's orchard is so unusually large that evidently it does not apply to average cases. the average man is buying chestnut trees for the garden or yard or lane. prof. collins has an acre on the top of a hill at atlantic forge and there he has fought diligently with the skill of a highly trained man, and the blight is gradually driving him back. i think that in a short time the trees on prof. collins' acre will be gone. i believe we need much more information before we can offer any hope that chestnut trees from a nursery will be safe against blight. i should like to ask the blight commission if they are at the present time planning to breed immune strains of chestnuts, and if not, i wish to suggest that it is a piece of work well worthy of their consideration. they might try grafting on american stocks, or on their own seedlings, some of the korean chestnuts, on any variety that promises resistance, and also hybridizing, with the hope of getting a good nut that will resist the blight. the chairman: that is a very important matter, no doubt. in regard to the few chestnuts bought for lanes and gardens, i know a good many men who have bought a few grafted chestnuts with the idea of setting out a number of acres if those few did well, being men of a conservative sort. men of that sort are the ones we want to have in our association. we want to have men who will buy four trees, and if they do well, set out four hundred acres. that is what a great many men have had in mind in buying two, four or six trees of any one kind; they want to try them out. that is the wise way, the conservative way, the truly progressive way. if we are going to have very large numbers of any one kind of chestnut set out, we must make a statement of the dangers, so that men may be forewarned. if they set them out without warning and are disappointed, they drop the entire subject and go to raising corn and hogs; and then, to save trouble, turn these hogs into the corn and get to doing things in the easiest way, rather than carry on the complicated methods of agriculture that belong to the spirit of the present time. i would like to know if many efforts are being made toward breeding immune kinds. i am at work on that myself. mr. pierce: our commission has recently gotten, i think, about fifty pounds of chinese chestnuts of several kinds, which they expect to plant for experiment. besides that they have made some other arrangements of which i know very little. this investigation will take years. the commission has been compelled to devote itself to so many lines of work that i am afraid this question has not been given the attention it might have had. i think in the future there will be a good deal done along that line. two of us have been given the title of tree surgeons, and we work, or make arrangements to have someone else work, sometimes the scout, in the orchards throughout the state. i have a list of two hundred owners of cultivated chestnut trees that i got in the last month from various sources. anyone in pennsylvania who has a cultivated chestnut tree, can send a postal card, get one of us out to examine the tree and see whether it is blighted, and we will demonstrate what can be done in the way of treating it. i have done that right along in the last two months. if it is only a single tree i cut out all i can myself. the chairman: there are two distinct questions; first, the chestnut as a food tree, and second, as a timber tree. your work has been chiefly with the chestnut as a timber tree? mr. pierce: no, mine has been mostly on the lawn, so that it is for nuts. experiments made on one or two species of japanese chestnuts show about per cent of tannin; the tannin in the american chestnut runs only per cent and in the small american, runs less. we know that the japanese is somewhat more immune than the american. we have already found that it has per cent more tannin. i believe one of us wrote you about experiments to find out the percentage of tannin in corean, north japanese, south japanese and chinese chestnuts. the investigation will be carried on for the next two or three months. mr. corsan: may i ask if there is any soil food that would increase the amount of tannin? trees protect themselves. we have watched the black walnut and seen him fight all sorts of enemies. the tree has poisons everywhere and the nut a thick shell to boot and doesn't coax enemies to get at him or to eat him until he is ripe. a member: have you found that fertilizing a tree increased the percentage of tannin? mr. rockey: that hasn't been determined yet but it will be studied. the chairman: it is a question if the tendency would not be for tannin to go over to sugar and cellulose under cultivation. i don't remember the chemistry on that. aren't there any expert chemists here who can tell us? the natural tendency of the tree under high cultivation would be to change tannin over into sugar and starch. mr. corsan: this talk of the chestnut blight reminds me of a remark made by a gentleman at a peach growing convention. he said the best thing that ever happened to this country was to get that san jose scale because it stopped lazy men from growing peaches. he said, "i don't mind it a bit and can make more money than when peaches were nothing a basket." probably nature will help us some way. the chairman: we have to consider what nature wants to do. mr. mayo: if i am in order, i would like to know whether this fungus trouble is likely in the future to attack or has at any time attacked, the apple, pear or quince? the chairman: i think it has been pretty well decided that they are not in danger. i will, however, ask mr. rockey and mr. pierce to answer that question. mr. rockey: up to the present time there has been no indication that the blight will get into them. this might be a good occasion for me to mention the connellsville fungus again. it was found on some of the oaks and other trees in this section of the country, and for a time it looked as though the blight was getting into other species, but since that fungus has been identified there has been no indication that the blight will extend beyond the chestnut group as a parasite, although you can inoculate oaks and other trees with the fungus and it will live in them, but only on the dead portion of the tree and not as the parasite lives on the chestnut. prof. smith: i should like to ask mr. sober if he has found any evidence that the paragon chestnut differs from the native chestnut in resistance to the blight, and if his paragons are different from other paragons? col. sober: i cannot say whether my chestnuts are different from the other paragon chestnuts or not, or whether they are as resistant to the blight. i know it is a very sweet chestnut. in regard to keeping my groves clean--from to , we had three broods of locusts and two hailstorms that opened the bark in almost every tree and branch. the limbs were stung by the locusts thousands of times, so that i didn't have a crop of chestnuts. professor davis was cutting off limbs for a couple of months so you see my trees were open, if any ever were, to receive the blight. the hailstorms destroyed the leaves and i didn't have any chestnuts that year in one part of my grove and with all that--you people come and see how clean it is, that's all there is to it. i know what i've done and what i can do. the chairman: the next paper in order is that of professor smith. nut growing and tree breeding and their relation to conservation professor j. russell smith, pennsylvania prof. smith: mr. chairman, ladies and gentlemen; i am going to ask your indulgence for including in my subject a matter that perhaps goes a little beyond the scope of this organization, for i wish to speak of fruit as well as nut-bearing trees. conservation, whose object is the preservation of our resources for future generations, as well as for ourselves, finds its greatest problem in the preservation of the soil. the forests can come again if the soil be left. it is probable that we can find substitutes for coal, and for nearly everything else, but once the soil is gone, all is gone; and the greatest danger to the soil is not robbery by ill cropping, because no matter how man may abuse the soil, scientific agriculture can bring it back with astonishing speed. but the greatest enemy of conservation is erosion, the best checks for erosion are roots. thus far, the only man who has been telling us anything about planting roots upon the hillsides is the forester. but he usually sets nothing but wood trees, which at the end of fifty or a hundred or a hundred and fifty years, we can cut down, and which, during the intervening time, have done nothing but cast shade, drop leaves and retain the soil. my doctrine is that the potentially greatest crop-producing plants are not those on which we now depend for our food, but are the trees,; that the greatest engines for production are not the grasses, but the trees. our agriculture is an inheritance from the savage, and the savage found that he could do better with annual grains than he could with nut trees, because he didn't know how to improve the nut crop by selection of the trees, while there came involuntarily an improvement in the other crops. no man today knows the parentage of some of the cultivated plants and grains on which we now depend. thus we came down to the present day of science, with the purely chance discoveries of savages as the main dependence of mankind for the basis of agriculture. we have within a decade discovered the laws of plant breeding. we know a good deal more about it now than ever before and are in a position to start about it very deliberately and with a reasonable certainty that we are going to get certain combinations of qualities if we keep at it long enough. thus the hickory and walnut offer perfect marvels of possibilities. look around on these tables and see the size of some of these things. there are hickory nuts - / inch long and there are shagbarks as full of meat as pecans and probably quite as good. there are in kentucky, i am told, hickory nuts that you can take in your fingers and crush. here we have the pecan, this great big shellbark from indiana, the shagbark from the north, and the thin shell nuts from kentucky. now hybridize these and i think, if you work at it long enough, you will get a tree that will have all those good qualities. the wonderful black walnut is a tree of hardiness, and the delicious persian or english walnut is a nut of acceptable form. the pair offers splendid possibilities in their hybrid progeny. we have fruits thus far recognized as of little value which offer great possibilities as forage producers. the mulberry bears from june to september and the persimmon from september till march and the pig harvests them himself. we have the possibility of a brand-new agriculture, depending not upon grains, but upon tree crops, provided someone will breed the crop-yielding trees which we can use. this will permit us to use entirely different kinds of land from that now considered best for agriculture. the natural necessities for plant growth, i believe, are heat, moisture, sunlight and fertility. now they are not all the limiting factors with man, because man adds the fifth, the arbitrary fact of arability, and that right away bars out about half of the fertile earth, because when we insist on heat, light, moisture, fertility _and arability_, we leave out that rough half of the earth equally fertile, idle, subject only to the work of the forester, who will give us a forest about . it might just as well be planted with a host of crop-yielding trees, the walnuts, hickory nuts, pecans, persimmons, mulberries--and the list is very long. there are at the present time in use in mediterranean countries twenty-five crop-yielding trees other than the ordinary orchard fruits. i am told that they have oak trees there which yield an acorn that is better than the chestnut. a pig will fill himself with acorns on the one hillside and with figs on the next hillside and then lie down and get fat. we are too industrious, we wait on the pig; i want the pig to wait on himself. but who is going to breed these things? these crop yielding trees? a gentleman told us this morning that he was not nervous, that he could watch a hickory tree grow, and stated that he had forty acres of land and was breeding trees for fun. here is dr. morris, who is having a delicious time doing the same thing. we should not have to depend on enthusiasts who are working for fun; we must not depend on such sources for the greatest gifts in the line of food production that man can imagine. this work should be done by every state in the union. i believe that it is capable of proof that we can get just as much yield from a hillside in untilled fruit and nut-yielding trees, as we can from putting that same hillside under the plough and getting wheat, corn, barley, rye and oats and a little grass once in a while. it will make just as much pig or just as many calories of man food from the tree crops as it will make under the plough. and under the plough that hillside is going down the stream to choke it and reduce the hillside to nothing. we have three classes of land. the first class is the level land, which belongs to the plough now and for all time. the third class, which is the unploughable steep mountain and hill land, is probably as great in area as the level land, and between the two is the hilly land that we are now cultivating to its great detriment, visibly reducing the earth's resources by bringing about rapidly that condition which has led to the saying in the old world: "after man, the desert." the roman empire, where men have had possession for two thousand years, proves, "after man, the desert." it is equally proven in much of china, but it can be prevented if these hill lands are put to trees. but we cannot afford to put those lands into trees unless the trees yield. i move that this association memorialize those persons who are in position to promote the breeding of fruit and nut-yielding trees, that we may bring nearer the day of tree-crop agriculture. i want a letter to go from this association with the authority of the association and its sanction, to the secretary of agriculture at washington and to all the men in authority in the bureau of plant industry at washington, to the presidents of the state agricultural colleges, the directors of experiment stations and professors who are interested in plant breeding. that will make a list of three or four hundred persons and involve an expenditure of a few dollars but i believe it will be productive of good. i hope that the association will see fit to lend its name and a little cash to that proposition, because if we can get the authority of the state and the money of the state, the results will come much more rapidly than if there are just a few of us doing it independently. (applause.) * * * * * the chairman: will someone put prof. smith's suggestion in the form of a motion? a member: i move that it be referred to the committee on resolutions. (motion carried.) mr. corsan: undoubtedly we all agree with prof. smith. he spoke of the persimmon. when i speak of the persimmon in my country nobody knows what i am talking about. i found two trees in battle creek, michigan, in a front yard. the person who owned them was an old lady. i said, "will you give me these persimmons?" she said, "yes, take them all; the neighbors come here and while they are getting the persimmons they bother me a lot. everybody seems to like them." they were delicious persimmons that were quite edible before frost, they are probably the two furthest north persimmon trees in the world. i went a little way around devil lake, and found pawpaws. they are a very good fruit when cultivated. the idea of preserving the soil and not sending it all into the lakes and down into the gulf of mexico--that is a good idea of prof. smith's. mr. gardner: i submit that that battle creek woman should start a new breakfast food. (laughter.) mr. corsan: every second year there is an immense crop on one of the persimmon trees; they are a male and female, i think. you can't see the branches for the fruit, and the thermometer there falls to degrees below zero. the chairman: you can graft the male trees with pistillate grafts if you want to, or you can transfer grafts both ways. the persimmon and pawpaw will undoubtedly both grow at toronto. they are not indigenous there because of natural checks to development in their sprouting stage, but if you buy indiana stock for toronto, such transplanted trees will both grow there, i am sure. this is not quite relevant to prof. smith's paper. it seems to me that prof. smith gave us a very comprehensive resumé of facts bearing upon the situation, perhaps not particularly calling for discussion. we are very glad to have his arraignment of facts. the next paper on the program will be that of dr. deming. while dr. deming is getting ready, i would like to have the trees shown. mr. jones will speak about his pecans, these specimens of young trees here. mr. jones: these are pecans that mr. roper brought up from the arrowfield nurseries. (here mr. jones described the trees.) the chairman: would those trees grow after they have been dried as much as that? mr. jones: i don't think so; pecans don't stand much drying. the chairman: no, unless you cut off all the roots. prof. smith: if we should dig up a tree like this and cut it off a foot and a half down, would it be all right to transplant it? mr. jones: yes, if your season should not be too dry. the chairman: what has been your experience with the stringfellow method of cutting off every single root? mr. jones: we cut the tap-roots off, but leave an inch of the lateral roots. the chairman: i think you can do better by following the stringfellow method and cutting off all the laterals. prof. smith: if you were going to transplant those for your own use where would you cut them off? mr. jones: about here, a foot and a half down. the secretary: and the top? mr. jones: yes, sir, i'd reduce the top about that much; i think we will have to work for a better root for the north. beginning with nuts dr. w. c. deming, westchester, new york city in his official capacity as secretary of the northern nut growers association the writer is frequently asked, by persons wishing to grow nuts, about climate, soils, varieties and methods. the following observations are intended to apply only to the northeastern united states, the country lying east of the rockies and north of the range of the southern pecan. they are intended more for the person who already has his land, or is restricted in his range, than for the one who can range wide for larger operations and will study deeper before deciding. it is probable that most nuts will grow wherever the peach will. outside the peach area there is probably not much use in trying to grow the pecan or persian walnut. yet it must always be remembered that nut growing in the north is, at present, almost entirely experimental and that anybody may be able to disprove the authorities. we are all experimenting now. by and by it will be different. in severer climates the chestnut, shagbark, black walnut, butternut, hazel, beech, pine, japanese cordiformis and hardy chinese walnuts can be grown or, at least, offer possibilities. in such climates the development of the native nuts by selection and crossing, and the adaptation of alien nuts, deserves, and will repay, experiment. it is to be supposed, as before said, that the hopeful beginner already has his land. let him choose the best part of it that he can spare. by "best part" is meant the most fertile, not too wet nor too dry nor, if possible, too hilly to cultivate. hard pan near the surface, and too thick to be easily broken up by dynamite, is not desirable. a nut orchard ought to have much the same preparation as an apple orchard. a practical way would be to plow deeply and harrow well in summer and sow a cover crop like rye and vetch or clover. the more stable manure, or other fertilizer, applied the better. let the field now be staked off thirty feet apart in squares, or in triangles if preferred. late in the fall dig the holes and plant nuts, three or four in each hole, two to four inches deep, according to size, and six inches apart. put a good handful of ground bone in each hill. unless the soil and subsoil are mellow, so that the long tap roots may penetrate deeply, it would be best to dynamite the holes, using a half pound of per cent or per cent dynamite at a depth of two and a half feet. this is a simple matter and the dynamite companies will furnish materials and instructions. it is also some fun. there is some danger that nuts planted in fall may be destroyed by rodents, that some will "lie over" and not sprout the first year, or that all the nuts in a hill may make inferior plants, so that some authorities advise putting them in a galvanized wire cage, the nuts only half buried, then covered with a few leaves during the winter and otherwise left exposed to the elements. in the spring they must be taken from the cage and planted in the hills before the sprouts are long enough to be easily broken. the different kinds of nuts should be planted in "blocks" rather than mingled, to facilitate handling. these nuts are to furnish trees that are later to be grafted or budded. after they have grown a while the weaker ones are to be removed, as necessary, until only the strongest remains in each hill. when grafted and grown to great size the brave man will thin them out to sixty feet apart. interplanting with fruits or vegetables may be practised. as to the kinds of nuts to be planted that depends on what you want to grow. if chestnuts it must be remembered that the bark disease is very likely to attack them, in the east at any rate. experiments with chestnuts outside the range of the blight are very desirable. the american (_castanea dentata_) and european (_c. sativa_) chestnuts are specially susceptible. the asiatic chestnuts (_c. japonica_, etc.) seem to have a partial immunity, especially the korean, and it is possible that the native chestnut grafted on these may be rendered more or less immune. it is being tried and is an interesting experiment. the asiatic chestnut trees are dwarfish in habit, come into bearing early, the nuts are generally large and some of them of pretty good quality. they may be planted as fillers between the trees of larger growth. the nuts may be bought of importers. (see circular on "seedsmen and nurserymen".) the small korean chestnut has been especially recommended. if you wish to grow the shagbark hickory (_hicoria ovata_) plant the best specimens of this nut you can get, or the bitternut (_h. minima_) which is said to be a superior stock for grafting. high hopes are held that that other favorite hickory, the pecan (_h. pecan_) may be grown far outside its native range, and the indiana pecan is the nut on which these hopes are founded. seed nuts may be obtained from reliable indiana dealers, but it is said that some of them are not reliable. the hickories may be budded and grafted on one another so that one kind of stock may serve for both shagbark and pecan. if you want to grow the persian walnut (_juglans regia_), often called the "english" walnut, the black walnut (_j. nigra_), seems to afford the most promising stock, though _j. rupestris_, native in texas and arizona, has been recommended and _j. cordiformis_, the japanese heart nut, is also promising. this nut can be recommended for planting for its own sake as the tree is hardy, a rapid grower, comes into bearing early and bears a fairly good nut. there are no grafted trees, however, so the variable seedlings will have to be depended upon. on any of these walnut stocks the black walnut and the butternut (_j. cinerea_) may also be propagated if worthy varieties can be found. there are none now on the market. the nuts mentioned are enough for the beginner and the three stocks, chestnut, hickory and walnut, will give him all he wants to work on and furnish plenty of fascinating occupation. the hazel, the almond and others, though offering possibilities, had better be left to those further advanced in the art of nut growing. now the nut orchard is started and the owner must push the growth of the trees by the ordinary methods, cultivation, cover crops and fertilizers. see any authority on growing fruit trees. in from two to five years the trees will be ready for budding and grafting, they will have made a good growth above ground, and a bigger one below, they are permanently placed and haven't got to be set back a year or two, or perhaps killed, by transplanting, with loss to the tap roots and laterals. in the writer's opinion that natural tap root of the nut tree growing down, down to water is not to be treated as of no importance. so let your seedlings grow up and down happily while you get ready the stuff with which to build their future character, for seedling trees are very slow in coming into bearing, and uncertain in type and quality of nut. grafted trees bear early and true to type. take your choicest bit of ground and put it in the best shape you know how. then order the finest grafted trees you can find on the market. (see circular on "seedsmen and nurserymen".) your choice will be limited for there are as yet only a few grafted varieties of the persian walnut and the indiana pecan, and but one of the shagbark hickory to be had. of chestnuts there are more and, in the south of course, plenty of pecans. but pecan growing in the south is another story. if you order chestnuts be sure that they do not come from a nursery infected with blight. get young trees because they are more easily established. order from two to four of each variety. fewer than two gives too small an allowance for mortality and more than four, besides the not inconsiderable strain on the pocket, will divide your attention too much; for you have got to give these trees the care of a bottle baby. set them sixty feet apart if you have the room. if not set them closer. better closer if that means better care. they may be set in the fall but probably spring is better, as early as you can get them in. follow the instructions of the nurserymen closely. digging holes with dynamite is probably good practice. put some bone meal in the soil around the roots but no strong fertilizer. some soils need lime. tamp the soil about the roots with all your might. it cannot be made too firm. then water them all summer, or until august if they have made a good growth. give them all they can drink once a week. sink a large bar about a foot from the tree and pour the water into the hole, as much as the soil will take. keep up cultivation and a dust mulch or, if you cannot do this, mulch with something else. mulching doesn't mean a wisp of hay but something thick or impervious. six inches of strawy manure, grass, vines or weeds; an old carpet, burlap, feed or fertilizer bags or even newspapers, held down with stones or weeds or earth, all make good mulches. these trees ought to grow and, whether you ever succeed in grafting your seedlings or not, you should have at least a small orchard of fine nut trees. the second summer with the trees will be something like the baby's. worms may bother them. look out for bud worms and leaf-eating caterpillars. give them all the water they can drink in the dry dog days. nurse them, feed them and watch them and they will grow up to bless you. some of them may bear as early as apple trees. these trees, and such scions as, from time to time, you may obtain elsewhere, are to furnish your propagating material. the plan just described may be modified in various ways, but the general principles are the same. instead of planting the nuts in their permanent positions they may be put in nursery rows where they may have the advantage of intensive cultivation. the best of the resulting trees may be grafted or budded in the rows, or after they have been transplanted and have become well established. this method is an excellent one and has distinct advantages and many advocates. yearling seedlings may be bought and set either in permanent positions or in nursery rows. of course the man who is in a hurry, who can disregard expense and who does not care for the experience and gratification of grafting his own trees, may set his whole plantation with expensive grafted trees and replant where they fail. the technique of budding and grafting you must work out yourself with the help of the instructions obtainable from several authorities, or, by far the surer way, study the art with a master. the essentials are good stocks and good scions, the right moment--and practice. excellent publications giving instructions in methods of propagation are: "the persian walnut industry in the united states," by e. r. lake; bulletin , bureau of plant industry, u. s. department of agriculture, : "the pecan," by c. a. reed; bulletin of the same department, : "walnut growing in oregon," published by the passenger department southern pacific company lines in oregon, portland, oregon, revised edition, ; and "nut growing in maryland," by c. p. close; bulletin of the maryland agricultural experiment station, college park, maryland. any of these may be had free on application. the files and current issues of the nut journals are full of information. join the nut growers associations, subscribe to the nut journals, get all the literature (see circular no. ) and you will soon be happily out of the fledgeling stage of nut growing and begin to do as you please. * * * * * the chairman: comment upon this paper is now in order. mr. lake: you say you are going to issue that? the secretary: on my own responsibility, but subject to modification. mr. lake: if that is going out as a circular of the association, i would like to suggest two slight changes. for instance, you wouldn't expect the ordinary nut tree to begin to bear as early as the ordinary transplanted apple tree. the chairman: some would. mr. lake: a summer apple would begin to bear much earlier than the ordinary nut tree. the secretary: well, chestnuts begin to bear very early after grafting. i refer only to grafted trees here. mr. lake: i thought that the paper had to do with trees that were planted as nuts. the secretary: no, i think i made that perfectly clear. mr. lake: what is that new statement about roots, that it is desirable to leave them? the secretary: that it is better that a tree should go undisturbed than that it should be transplanted. mr. lake: isn't there a question about that? the secretary: a question would arise in the hands of an expert, perhaps, but i think for an amateur, that a tree growing where the nut was planted is more likely to live and do well than a transplanted tree. mr. lake: i am not so certain about that, but what i had in mind was that the planter would get the idea that the tap-root was not to be cut off and that it is very desirable to the tree. the secretary: that's a good point. the chairman: about cutting the tap-root i have said yes and no so fast that i don't know which i've said last, and it seems to me that we ought to have discussion on this very point. the secretary: i have said that in buying these grafted trees you should set them out following the instructions of the nurseryman closely. mr. lake: but that statement about the tap-root would lead the average planter to think that it was very desirable to have the tap-root. the secretary: has it been settled that it is not desirable? mr. lake: well, i think it has been generally accepted that it is of no special value. the secretary: that trees will grow as well transplanted as if they have never been transplanted? mr. lake: well, i shouldn't want to put it that way, but this is the point: i would like to have the tree planter understand that a walnut tree doesn't need the tap-root and if he cuts off the tap-root in planting, there is no great loss. i wouldn't want to say that his trees wouldn't begin to bear earlier or bear larger if left in the original place. i prefer to transplant my own tree after it is grown, rather than run the risk of getting scrub trees in the post hole or on the hill. i prefer to select the grafted trees even without the tap-roots, which would be removed in digging, and planting them all uniform, rather than to plant the seeds. speaking for the amateur, i think the latter is good practice. the point i had in mind was that many people will not take the time to plant nuts but will want to set grafted trees, and the question is, should they have considerable tap-root--the grafted trees? the secretary: following my plan, a man would buy a small number of fine trees and set them out at once; that would probably be all he would undertake and all he could probably manage. he would also plant a small number of nuts on which to experiment in propagation. my experience up in connecticut has been that all my southern transplanted trees, almost without exception, have died. i have planted pecans and persian walnuts from a number of different nurseries. i have done it personally and done it as carefully as i could, but they have either made a very feeble growth indeed or have all died. on the other hand, the seeds i have planted have grown into very vigorous trees. mr. rush: i have had a little experience with the tap-root theory. you can't dig a walnut tree without cutting the tap-root, and that tap-root, i find, is practically of no benefit at all after you have your upper laterals, and an abundance of them; by cutting the tap-root growth is stimulated and a new tap-root is made. it is very largely in the mode of pruning the tap-root. you can readily stimulate the tap-root system. the chairman: you try to keep an equilibrium by cutting down the top in proportion? mr. rush: yes, sir. mr. pomeroy: in examining transplanted trees i found ten times as many roots where the tap-root had been cut; and there were two tap-roots. i like a tree with a good tap-root system and i am positive that if you transplant a tree you get a better root system, get a great many more roots. the chairman: the tree development, it seems to me, depends not upon the number of roots which are carried with it when it is transplanted, but upon the feeding roots which develop. now, if we cut back the tap-root, cut back the laterals, cut back the top, we have a tree carrying in its cambium layer, food, just as a turnip or beet would carry it--and i look upon a transplanted tree much as a carrot or beet, with stored food ready to make a new root. mr. harris: i planted last fall a year ago a lot of english walnuts. would the gentleman advise taking those up, cutting the tap-roots and planting them again? mr. rush: i don't think that would be advisable. mr. harris: they were grown from the nuts sown in a row last fall a year ago and grew very well. mr. rush: in propagating the english walnut we have had them do the best by transplanting when the tree is about two years old, but it will more or less disturb the vigor of a tree to transplant it. that is self-evident; it needs some time to heal those wounds that are made both in the root and the branch. mr. harris: what time of year do you bud them? mr. rush: in august. mr. hutt: i notice some trees here that are evidently two-year old pecans that have been cut back, and you notice that in every case several tap-roots have taken the place of the one. here are some others that have not been cut. these have gone straight down. they are strong roots with few fibers on them. on these other trees that have been cut the formation of tap-roots continues. they will go down till they strike a permanent water-table and then the tap-root will stop. in hyde county, north carolina, near the ocean, the water-table is close to the surface and there is a deep black alluvial soil with a great deal of water in it. in order to grow anything there they have to put in ditches to get the water out. the pecan trees growing there have absolutely no tap-roots at all, it rots off as soon as it strikes the permanent water-table; and i think that's the reason they produce such enormous quantities of pecans in that county. in bottomless, sandy land where there is no clay the root keeps on going down till it finds the permanent water-table, even if that is six or eight or ten feet down. these roots, as you see, were going right down to china to look at that king on the other side if they got a chance. it's the same with the long leaf pine. it has a tap-root below ground thicker than the trunk above ground. the reason is that it grows naturally on those bottomless places; the root goes down till it strikes water, then runs off laterally. if you cut the roots they are bound to make new tap-roots. you can see the place where they have been cut and in place of one tap-root you have two, going right down into that sandy soil till they find a water-table. i believe that a nurseryman who will cut off the root of the pecan tree when it is transplanted, will cause it to form more lateral roots and make a better tree. there's a great number of vigorous roots in this tree than in this, and this tree whose root has been cut off will make a tree much easier to transplant and will be a better tree than those with great thick roots without the fibers that have the root hairs upon them. a member: you wouldn't recommend cutting back that tap-root too severely, would you? mr. hutt: in planting a tree of this kind, i'd cut off a foot or inches. if you get about inches in a specially good soil, or about inches of root ordinarily that's all you want. a member: i should think that would depend quite a little on the height of the water-table. if you were planting on land where the water-table is low, you would leave more tap-root? mr. hutt: yes. a member: that was the reason i brought up the point, because i think cutting so short would be too severe. mr. hutt: the cambium is the only part of the tree that maintains growth. every wound kills the cambium to a certain extent, so i always cut off roots of any size with sharp shears as smoothly as possible. i cut far enough back to find good, fresh, living tissue. in moist soil that will callous over. in the south the soil is moist and we have growing conditions in the winter time, so it will callous over during the winter. in the north, i understand, you make a practice of planting in the spring, because of the weather conditions. mr. harris: in western maryland we have in the mountains a deep, sandy soil; there doesn't appear to be any water bottom to it; what would the tap-root do in that case? mr. hutt: it will go down until it finds what it wants, finds sufficient moisture. mr. harris: gravelly bottom? mr. hutt: if you have ever seen the roots of a long leaf pine, you've seen where the roots go to when they get a chance. prof. smith: i should like to ask dr. deming if he would give us his experience in propagating the walnut and hickory? dr. deming: a very important thing indeed for us nut growers in the north is to learn how to propagate. dr. morris has had some success; i haven't had any. i have tried it summer and spring, year after year. i believe there are a few pieces of bark, without buds, still growing. chestnuts i haven't found very difficult, but with the walnut and hickory i have had no success whatever, although i have practiced the best technique i could master. i think one reason why i have had no success is that i haven't had good material. i have had good stocks, but i haven't had good scions, not the sort of scion that the successful southern nurserymen use. still, dr. morris has had success with the same kind of material that i have failed with. the chairman: not very much success. mr. lake: dr. deming said that the land ought not to be too dry nor too wet. would you feel like saying that a water-table at inches was neither too low nor too high? mr. hutt: it depends a great deal on the nature of the soil, the water-pulling capacity of the soil. take a soil like that i mentioned, in hyde county, near the ocean; you can see it quake all around you. mr. lake: but would you say that the northern nut grower might safely put his orchard on soil that had a water-table within two or three feet of the surface? mr. hutt: i could tell if i saw that soil. if it is craw-fishy, or soil that is ill-drained or won't carry ordinary crops, i'd say keep off of it, but if it will bear ordinary crops it's all right; in some cases where the soil is very rich the plant does not need to go down into that soil anything like the depth it would in a poor soil. the poorer the soil the further the roots have to go to find nourishment. mr. lake: i think that is an extremely exceptional case in relation to northern nuts. there is very little such north carolina land in this section of the country, if i judge right. we don't plant nut-growing orchards up here in peaty soils, so dr. deming's recommendation was rather for very good agricultural soil. a water-table here must be eight or ten feet deep; in that event, it would not make any difference whether you left three feet of tap-root or inches. mr. hutt: no. the chairman: in the soils of some parts of new england, a tree would have to have a root three or four hundred feet deep to get to flowing water, but nevertheless trees flourish there. mr. lake: but the capillarity of the soil provides water for the tree above the water-table. mr. corsan: it all depends on the kind of nut. at st. geneva i came across a butternut that was growing in a soil that would kill a chestnut very quickly. the soil was very springy and wet and the butternut just loves that soil. i found that while other butternut trees bore nuts in clusters of one to three, this butternut tree was bearing them in clusters of ten and eleven. at lake george, right in front of the post-office, there was one tree twenty-four years old, two feet through, that grew butternuts in clusters of ten and you could get a barrel of nuts from it. it bore again this last summer heavily, not in clusters of ten but in clusters of seven or eight. when we have damp soil we can't grow the chestnut but the hickory nut will grow in a swamp, and so will the butternut. the chairman: and the beech. mr. corsan: the beech wants clay; it won't grow unless there is clay. the chairman: our beech will grow where it has to swim. mr. reed: before we get away from this discussion i think that we ought to commend dr. deming in the selection of this subject and in the handling of his paper. in my position in the government, we have a good many inquiries about nut matters, and they are usually from people who want to know how to start. the great call for information at the present time is from the beginners, not from the advanced people, and i am glad that dr. deming took that subject and handled it as he did, and i am glad that he proposes to issue it as a circular from this association. it will be a great relief to others who are called on for information. i should like to have a word, too, about this tap-root question. from what has been said it is pretty clear that there is quite a difference of opinion. we sometimes think we can improve on nature in her ways by harsh methods and, while i know it is customary in the nurseries of the south to cut the tap-roots back pretty severely, i wonder, sometimes, whether that is always the best thing. i haven't had any personal experience, but i have observed quite a good deal, and the tendency, it seems to me, is to try to develop as much as possible the fibrous root. sometimes that is brought about by cutting the tap-root, or putting a wire mesh below where the seed is planted, so as to form an obstruction to the tap-root, so that it necessarily forms a fibrous root. where the tap-root is the only root i doubt very much the advisability of cutting back too severely. col. van duzee: i have heard this subject discussed all over this country, in meetings of this kind, and a great deal of energy has been wasted. i do not think any of us know anything about it, but i do wish to say this, that when you come to transplant a tree from the nursery to the orchard, there are things of infinitely more moment than how you shall hold your knife between your fingers when you cut the roots. the exposure of the roots to the air, the depth to which the tree is to be put in the ground, the manner in which it shall be handled--those things are of infinitely more importance, because we know we can transplant trees successfully and get good results when the tap-root has been injured or almost entirely removed. i do not consider that the question of cutting the tap-root is of very serious importance, but i do think we should insert a word of caution as to the exposure of the roots of trees to the atmosphere, and make it just as strong as we are capable of writing it. the chairman: that is a very interesting point, that we have fixed our eye on the tap-root and talked too much about it. not long ago one of the agricultural journals decided finally to settle the question about the time for pruning grapes, whether it should be done in the fall, spring, winter or summer, and after summing up all the testimony from enthusiastic advocates for each one of the seasons, the editor decided that the best time is when your knife is sharp; and that is very much the way with the tap-root. be very particular in getting the root in and caring for it. mr. pomeroy: prof. close, in a bulletin issued two years ago, spoke as does col. vanduzee about protecting the roots of the trees; he said "when the trees are taken from the box that you receive them in, don't expose them to the sun or air, puddle every tree, and plant as soon as possible." i think that is pretty good advice. it doesn't cost any money, and takes very few minutes, to puddle the trees and it saves many of them. the chairman: i have tried the stringfellow method of cutting back top and root until my men asked me if i didn't want to transplant another tree instead, and they have grown just as well as trees on which i took great pains to preserve fine branching roots. the secretary: the last thing in my thought was to start a discussion of this perennial subject of the tap-root, but i should like criticism of this little circular, no matter how severe, because i am not finally committed to it and want to make it as useful as possible. prof. smith: every man likes to ride his own hobby horse. would it not be wise to suggest that some of these seedlings be put in odd corners? certainly the hickory and walnut are adept in making themselves a home in the roughest kind of land. the secretary: i have tried that, but i don't think, as a rule, the trees do well when stuck around in fence corners and odd places. to be sure the trees i put behind the barn or pig pen have grown beautifully, so that at one time i thought of building barns and pig pens all over the farm to put trees behind, but where they were set in fence corners and out of the way places they have not done very well. i think the experience of others is about to the same effect. prof. smith: my experience has been different from yours. i have some chestnut and walnut trees, on an unploughable hillside in the corner of my father's farm in virginia which i stuck there ten or a dozen years ago and have done very little to them. of course they are native. they have thriven. nature does it exactly that way. the secretary: it seems to me there is no question that they will do better under cultivation. of course they may do fairly well in odd places if they can dominate the other growth. prof. smith: a man could take a pocketful of the various kinds of nuts and go around his fence corners and plant a few. in an hour he can plant fifty, and if he gets one to grow it is good return for that hour's work. the secretary: i have advised people to take a handful of nuts and a cane when they go out walking and occasionally stick one in. the chairman: in our locality, people would ask, "why is that string of squirrels following that man?" mr. corsan: i have been planting nuts in that way for years. the chairman: if a man planted trees which belonged in his neighborhood, nuts that were already in the dominant ruling group, then his chances for success would be very good, but if he introduced in fence corners trees that had to adjust themselves to a new environment, he would find very few growing and the squirrels, other trees and various obstacles to development in the midst of established species, would wipe out most of them. nevertheless, as it isn't much trouble, i would advise anybody to take a pocketful of hickory nuts out with him when he goes for a walk and plant one every little way. a member: the idea is good; let us follow it up. mr. rush: i don't think it is feasible at all to plant trees around fence corners. the chairman: in our locality it would not do at all. a member: it won't do in any locality. the sods and grass around the tree will dwarf it and cause a very slow growth. our time is valuable and we can't wait on that kind of a tree to bring results. cultivation is the main need. sometimes trees will do well where the soil is rich and competition absent. in burlington, n. j. we found a walnut tree bearing enormous crops in a back yard. i have seen the same thing in this county, and also in carlisle, and the nebo tree, famous for its wonderful productiveness, has a similar environment. but it is high cultivation that usually is necessary for the best results in all trees, and walnut trees particularly. the secretary: here is a note relating to this subject: "the women of sapulpa, okla., who recently organized for city and county improvement and advancement, have determined to plant pecan, walnut and hickory trees on both sides of a road now being constructed through creek county, basing their action on the theory that two pecan trees placed in the back yard of a homestead will pay the taxes on the property. they believe that when the trees begin to bear they will provide a fund large enough for the maintenance of the road." the chairman: that's all right if you can look after them. mr. littlepage: it is very interesting to listen to these discussions of roadside trees and i have until recently been a strong advocate of them, but i have changed my opinion. i don't think there is anything in the planting of trees in fence corners or along the roadside, for several reasons. the first reason is that nobody knows how long it is going to take that tree to amount to anything. i wouldn't give two cents a piece for trees stuck out where you cannot cultivate them and get to them to fertilize them. another thing, we are right up against the problem of the insect pests of these trees and who is going to take care of them along the roadside? the insect pests will get on them and come into the fields of the man who is cultivating and raising trees legitimately. down in southern indiana, now, we find along the roadside hundreds of walnut trees that are every year eaten up with caterpillars. they love those trees and come over on to my trees. i keep my trees cleaned off pretty well. there's that problem. up to a short time ago i was an advocate of roadside trees. it would be all right if there was some means of cultivating them. if there is land somewhere that is of no use, so that it doesn't make a bit of difference whether the trees on it have insect pests or not, you can go out there and scatter nuts and let it alone and wait the length of time you've got to wait. i don't think it's of much value, however, even then. i don't think there is a thing in it. i used to pride myself on the fact that i had set out more trees than anybody else in the state of indiana. i haven't bragged about that for a long time, though i have set out, perhaps, in the last eight or ten years, or had set out under my direction, about , trees; i am not particularly proud of that any more, but i am proud to meet the fellow who has set out twenty or thirty acres of trees on good land, the best he's got, and cultivated them and kept the insects off of them and burned them up instead of letting them prey on the neighborhood. i think there should be a law passed that these trees along the roadside must be cut down or that somebody will have to take care of them. the chairman: the original idea of roadside trees was constructive in its nature but failed to include the idea that, with the increase of orchard trees, or trees of any one species, we increase the insect pests because we disturb the balance of nature; and by disturbing the balance of nature we give advantage to insects which then remain on neglected trees to prove a menace to our own orchards. it we have various towns setting out roadside trees and detailing the children to look after them, asking the children to report on them, i believe the thing can be made a success and that the taxes of many a small town can be paid from the nut trees along the roadside, provided you have one boy or one girl for each tree, their services to be given free and the profit from the tree to be given to the town. mr. corsan: how about the cattle? let them keep grazing around? the chairman: oh, my, yes. prof. smith: i think we sometimes let our feelings make us say things that our brains would scarcely approve. i believe mr. littlepage's charge against the tree on the roadside is not necessarily substantiated. i don't know just how he is going to take care of his trees, but if it requires a vehicle carrying spray, i submit that a roadside tree is about as well fixed as one in his field. if it requires a man with a stick or a hoe or a ladder, the tree on the roadside is in about as eligible a location as one in the field. if care implies the idea of turning over the soil, the roadside is handicapped, but nature has got along without having the soil upturned. my point is this; there is on nearly every farm in the east a little patch of land somewhere, a little row between a road and stream where a few trees can grow, and if fertilization is required, a few barrels of manure can go there as well as anywhere else. the fact that a tree is put in a place that is not ploughed doesn't mean that it is beyond all care. my point is that with care we can get trees in fence rows without tillage and that, in addition to dr. deming's formal and carefully cultivated plot, there is about every farm a place where a man can stick a few trees and give them such care as can be given without tillage. mr. littlepage: i agree heartily with prof. smith's theory, but having had some experience, i find those things that he describes are not done; there is just that difference, always, between theory and fact. i read a beautiful book once, written by a woman, entitled, "there is no death," and i found on inquiry that she had already buried four husbands. (laughter.) i was much interested in reading, once upon a time, rousseau's beautiful story of domestic life and i found that while he was writing it, his children were in an orphan asylum. a fellow teaching in the high school in terre haute, indiana, married one of the beautiful attractive young ladies of that town. shortly after they were married he was busy writing and turned and told her that he didn't love her any more and he wished she'd go home. she was heartbroken and left and it turned out later that he was writing a book on how to get to heaven. (laughter.) there's just the difference between theory and fact. this is a beautiful theory. i used to be the strongest advocate of it, but all you've got to do is to go on a farm and try it. the trees won't get big enough to amount to anything in our lifetime, because these things you say you will do to them you don't do; at least, that has been my experience, and i would like to ask anyone to point to any section in the united states today, from the atlantic ocean to the pacific, where this theory is carried out successfully; and yet i know it has been advocated for fifty years. the chairman: how about school children reporting on trees under their care? mr. littlepage: whenever you give the proper care to them you solve the problem--whenever anyone will convince me that that will be done. there is no reason, of course, why the tree won't grow in these places, but my experience is that they don't thrive. the chairman: i've put out thousands of them for public-spirited citizens, but it would be difficult to find one of them today. mr. rush: in france and in germany the land is very valuable and they take a great deal of pride in their nut trees. the nuts we have here in the lancaster market, persian walnuts, are largely brought from france, spain, italy and germany. the land being so valuable there, they devote much of their waste land to nuts, like mr. smith's idea of planting along the wayside, and they plant and cultivate them in their yards and in all corners. they would not, under any consideration, plant a maple tree just for the shade; the tree must serve for both fruit and shade, and those are some of the sources of foreign wealth. mr. harris: i don't think the question is so much one of planting in fence corners as that we have a great deal of waste land on which the soil is very well adapted to growing nut trees. i know that sometimes in growing peach trees it is almost impossible to cultivate them. i know places in western maryland where the rocks are lying so that you can hardly plough, and yet the soil is fertile and particularly adapted in some places for peach trees, and would be for chestnut trees. they have there a system of cultivation much as if you used the plough, and yet they are on steep hillsides. there is no reason, i think, why nut trees shouldn't grow there as well as on the level field where you can cultivate every inch of soil. the chairman: they are looked after, that's the whole thing. mr. gowing: i come from new hampshire and we have what used to be an old farm, but it is now a pasture and the soil is quite a potash soil, i think, amongst the rocks, and there's some apple trees planted there by the original man that worked this place. it was too rough to plough, but they have borne us as good apples some years as we have had on the place; and on this same piece of twenty acres or so, there's some chestnut trees more than two feet through that were cut off when the land was cleared, and they must have done well, for they grew to be such enormous trees. the chairman: the trees are planted on this same old stump land? mr. gowing: yes, sir. the chairman: a great deal of stump land can be planted in this way. mr. corsan: that wouldn't be planting them along roadsides and in fence corners. the chairman: no, they would be looked after; the whole thing is looking after them. a member: my idea is that there would be very few nut trees planted if every one was to start his own trees. they put off planting the trees even when they can get them at the nurseries, and if they had to start their own nurseries there wouldn't be one planted to where there's , now; and i think that in the end the nurserymen are going to attend to the planting of trees and the other people are going to attend to growing them. maybe i'm mistaken but did this government ever produce any trees? prof. smith spoke of appropriating money and letting the government get us some new variety. hasn't it always been private individuals who get the new varieties? i have been trying to think of some fruit tree, apple or something, that a state or the government has propagated. the chairman: in this country i believe the government has never done it, but in some parts of europe, especially switzerland, the taxes of some towns are paid by the trees along the roadside; but there every man has to report on his own trees and the proceeds go to support the town, and the taxes of certain small towns are actually paid today by roadside trees; but this is in a country where land is valuable, and every tree is under the direct supervision of a citizen who must report on it, and the product of that tree goes to the government, he giving his labor instead of paying taxes. prof. smith: i was merely pleading for the continuation and spread of that work, both geographically and in increasing the varieties of trees. mr. lake: i am heartily in favor of that, but i think it ought to be referred to a committee. i want prof. smith to write it out in the form of a letter. prof. smith: i am glad you called my attention to that. mr. lake: the government and the states are now engaged in such work and this ought to give it impetus. i think that the time and labor of the nut growers association, since its organization, will have been well spent if we succeed in bringing to fructification this one resolution. i want also to suggest that prof. smith include among the nuts, the beechnut, because there's more meat in beechnuts for the amount of shell than any other nut we grow. the chairman: if there is no further discussion, we will have now to spend a short time in executive committee work. i think we will ask to have a nominating committee appointed first. mr. rush, will you kindly read the list of the names of the men you proposed to act as a nominating committee? mr. rush then moved that the nominating committee consist of messrs. lake, hutt, c. a. reed, smith and deming, and the motion was adopted, after which the nominating committee reported as follows: for president, mr. littlepage; for vice-president, mr. c. a. reed; for secretary and treasurer, dr. deming. on executive committee: dr. robert t. morris, in place of mr. c. a. reed. on hybrids, prof. j. r. smith, in place of mr. henry hicks. on membership committee, mr. g. h. corsan, in place of prof. e. r. lake. on committee on nomenclature, dr. w. c. deming in place of prof. john craig; the other committees to stand as heretofore. mr. lake: i move that the secretary be instructed to cast the ballot of the association for these nominations. the motion was seconded and adopted and the ballot cast in accordance therewith. the chairman: now i will appoint as a committee on resolutions relating to prof. craig, dr. deming and the chairman; committee on exhibits, col. vanduzee, mr. roper and c. a. reed, and they will be here this evening to report on exhibits. committee on resolutions, prof. j. russell smith and mr. t. p. littlepage. there is no committee on incorporation. will someone propose that we have such a committee? the secretary: isn't it a desirable thing that the society should be incorporated? it was mentioned to me by a wealthy man that if anyone wished to leave, or give, some money to this association, they would be much more likely to do it if the society were incorporated. the chairman: i think it would be better for someone to make a motion. mr. lake: i move that a committee on incorporation be appointed by the chairman; a committee of three. (motion seconded and adopted.) the chairman: the committee on incorporation will consist of mr. littlepage and prof. close. this evening we will meet informally here at about eight and tomorrow at ten we have the meeting at the scenic to hear the papers of mr. rush and prof. lake and prof. reed, and see the lantern slides. we will first meet here at nine o'clock for an executive meeting and to look over the exhibits. the committees will report at that time. (after discussion, on motion of prof. smith, seconded by mr. littlepage, the selection of the place of the next meeting was left to the executive committee.) the report of the secretary and treasurer was then read. (see appendix) the chairman: you have heard the secretary's report. we had better take up, first, the question of deficit. what are we going to do about the $ . ? what prospects have we for the balancing of that account? the secretary: that account will be easily balanced, and more than balanced, by the dues coming in and then i will proceed to run up a deficit for next year. the chairman: you have heard the secretary's report. if there is no discussion, a motion to adjourn will be in order. (adjourned till december th.) * * * * * the convention met, pursuant to adjournment, december th, , at : a. m., president morris in the chair, and went into executive session. it was moved and carried that the president be empowered to appoint a committee to attend the conference at albany, called for the consideration of the hickory bark borer, by the commissioner of agriculture of the state of new york. the question of the publication of reports of the convention proceedings in the american fruit and nut journal, was next taken up and it was moved by mr. lake and carried that the papers and discussions of this society shall be used for its own publications exclusively, except as the executive committee deems it to the best interests of the industry to furnish them for separate publication. the secretary: on november th, i received a letter from calvin j. huson, the commissioner of agriculture of new york, to this effect. dear sir: at the coming land show in new york this department proposes to have, as a part of its exhibit, a collection of native and introduced new york grown nuts. can you give us the names of growers of the better strains of nuts who might be able to furnish material for such an exhibit. perhaps your association would be able to assist in the matter. the department will be able to stand a reasonable expense for cost of nuts, expressage, etc. perhaps a few seedling trees would add interest.... by the exhibit as a whole we wish to show the variety and quality of nuts that may be grown in this state.... very truly yours, calvin j. huson, commissioner. he wished me to assist in getting up an exhibit, but as he only gave us a week i was unable to do anything. i do not know that there is any action to be taken on that, but i read the letter simply to show that the interest in nut growing is increasing and that this is an opportunity for us to make an exhibit another year. mr. lake: would the secretary take the trouble to make a collection of nuts covering the territory of the association and submit it for exhibit at a meeting of this character, this land show, giving credit to the donors for material, somewhat as mr. reed has done in pecans for the national nut growers association? the secretary: i think i'd have a few minutes to spare to do that. mr. lake: i think it would be an admirable thing. the chairman: yes, it would advertise the organization extensively and be a constructive step in agriculture. * * * * * mr. littlepage, have you any report from the committee on incorporation? mr. littlepage: that is a matter that will require considerable thought and attention. it will require attention from several standpoints, as for example under what laws we might wish to incorporate, so i think the committee will reserve its report to make to the executive committee at some later meeting. the chairman: we have no other business, i believe, and will now retire to the hall where we will have the lantern slide exhibition. the morning session closes the meeting and we are to meet at two o'clock at the monument and from there go out to see certain trees in the vicinity. mr. rush and mr. jones are to show us these and their two nurseries. mr. lake: i would like to offer as a resolution, that the secretary be instructed to make arrangements with the publishers of the american fruit and nut journal for the distribution of one copy to each member as a part of his membership fee. the secretary will then be able to reach the members in his published notices without special printers' troubles of his own, and the members will be able to get some live matter right along. the motion was seconded and adopted, after which the executive session closed and the members adjourned in a body to the scenic theatre, where the regular program was resumed as follows: the chairman: we will have mr. rush's paper first. the persian walnut, its disaster and lessons for j. g. rush, pennsylvania the year just closing has been full of disasters both on land and sea, though i do not wish it to be understood that i am inclined to be a pessimist on account of these occurrences. i wish to speak of a disaster which overtook the walnut industry in the northern states. early in the year we had an arctic cold wave which put the thermometer from to degrees below zero. this cold wave apparently did no injury to the walnut trees at the time but late in the spring it was discovered that the wood cells were ruptured though the buds and bark were uninjured. in cutting the scions in early april the bark and buds seemed in good condition for grafting; but as the time approached to do the work it was readily seen, by its changed color, that the wood was injured, some scions of course more than others. those that were only slightly discolored were used in grafting. but as time passed the unhappy result came to light that out of about , nursery trees grafted only one graft grew. after climbing an foot walnut tree to get our scions, and paying a good price for them besides, this was rather discouraging. this cold wave, which was unprecedented for the time, had wrought other injuries to the nut industry. that was especially to the young trees that were transplanted the fall previous and last spring. the transplanting with a frost injury already was too great a strain on the feeble life of the trees. the consequence was that some of them died outright, and others made only a feeble growth. but where low and severe pruning was practised good results followed and such trees as were established on the original root system escaped the frost injury entirely. the young nursery trees with dormant buds were not affected in the least but made a strong growth of from three to seven feet this last summer. the intense cold wave was such that some old and young seedling persian walnut trees were killed outright, and not only the persian walnut but in a few instances the american black was very much injured; likewise the norway maple, magnolia, california privet and roses. also the peach both in tree and fruit. now in conclusion let me say, what is the lesson to be learned? first, as to the propagation of the persian walnut, great care should be taken that only trees that are hardy should be propagated from, as well as having good bearing qualities with a first class nut. second, after a freeze such as we had last winter, a special effort should be made to save the newly planted tree by close and severe pruning. as, for example, i had a very fine two year old hall persian walnut which was referred to me as dead. i cut the tree off about inches above where it was budded on the black walnut stock. it was not long after that signs of new life appeared and eventually it made a very fine, handsome tree. nature does indeed some wonderful tricks in this respect by which we can learn valuable lessons; and chief of these is close pruning. such a cold wave may visit us only once in a lifetime and should not discourage us from carrying nut culture to its highest development. we must not think for a moment that other walnut sections are exempt from similar visitations. they have them in the pacific northwest, and in france and germany. as regards the walnut industry for lancaster county or pennsylvania in general, i am safe in saying that a fair percentage of the farmers are taking hold of it. this is because of the fact that the san jose scale has practically destroyed all the old apple trees around the farm buildings, and, not wishing to have the building denuded of the customary shade and fruit, nut trees are planted instead. this is in reality the practice prevalent in france and germany where they utilize every foot of ground to profitable account. the life of an apple tree is from fifty to sixty years whereas a walnut tree is just in its prime at that age and destined to live for hundreds of years afterwards. then again the ravages of the chestnut tree blight are destroying the cultivated paragons just as freely as the chestnuts in the forests, which in a few years will be things of the past, thus giving still more room for walnut and other nut trees. the northern nut growers association was organized for a grand and noble purpose, that is to stand together shoulder to shoulder to devise ways and means to bring nut culture to a grand and glorious success. * * * * * mr. corsan: the temperature mr. rush spoke of rather surprises me. last year at toronto it did not fall lower than degrees below zero. we had summer almost until new year's and then a very severe winter until april. i didn't notice any evergreen trees killed, but at detroit, the bronx and various other places, i never saw a winter so disastrous for killing evergreens. the chairman: not only that but nurserymen all over eastern new england said they suffered greater losses last winter than ever before. prof. smith: i would like to ask mr. rush if it would be possible to cut scions by december st, so as to escape danger from such great freezes. mr. rush: i really have little experience in keeping scions. this fall i put some in the moist cold earth in the cellar. i think the experiment will be successful because i have known chestnut scions cut in the fall, to be kept under leaves in the grove till spring. prof. smith: i should like to suggest that you try the following experiment; bury them, wrapped up in a gunny-sack or something, entirely underground where they will have absolute moisture and be shut away from the air. i have found that very successful. mr. rush: sometimes the trouble is they get too moist. the chairman: there is a principle here, and we had better keep down to principles as much as we can. that principle is that if the cells of the scions are distended with water a certain chemical process is going on all the while, because a scion is just as much alive as the red squirrel; it is a living organism. now then, if the cells are a very little below normal dryness the chemical processes mostly cease, and that is better. we have to use nice judgment in avoiding having a scion so dry that its cells perish or so moist that its cells are undergoing chemical processes too rapidly. our scions are cut, say, the last of november, then covered with leaves enough to prevent freezing and thawing. that will carry scions pretty well through the winter and perhaps is the best way, but we must never forget that in dealing with scions we are dealing with living red squirrels just as when we are dealing with pollen. a member: are the leaves moist or dry? the chairman: the driest leaves in the woods contain more water than you think they do. they carry enough to maintain the life of the cells, if they are packed pretty firmly about your scions, and at the same time the scions are still allowed to breathe. i keep them above ground. i put a layer of shingles on the cellar floor, if i've got a bare ground cellar floor, and then a layer of very fine leaves like locust leaves, then a single layer of scions and then a good big heap of leaves over those, packed tight, a good big heap of apple leaves or anything you have at hand. try it on the basis of principles. it is a complex question. you can't settle any of these questions off-hand. every man who has had much experience has learned that he needs a whole lot more. prof. smith: have you had any experience in fixing up a bed of scions like that and putting it in cold storage? the chairman: yes, but you must tell the cold storage people not to let them get too dry. tell them you want them in moist cold storage, and to keep the temperature about . a member: we have found with walnuts that if you have the scions too damp they won't keep very long. if you have them just moist enough to hold them you can keep them all winter, maybe indefinitely. the chairman: if your cell is full of water the scion will work as hard as an irishman. a member: i find that we have to graft them above ground, in the north, and if they are too moist when grafted they will dry up, but if kept dry they will grow, because they will remain in good condition until the sap comes up in the stock. the chairman: yes, you must choose a position midway between too dry and too moist. mr. littlepage: that is very important; they won't stand dampness. mr. pomeroy: wouldn't it be well to dip the cut end of the walnut scion in wax to hold the sap? the chairman: i am afraid that would stop its breathing. you are dealing with a red squirrel all the while, remember that. col. sober: my method is this: i have a little room about six feet wide with ice packs on both sides and double doors. in that i pack my scions in this way: i take carbide cans made of iron and put damp sawdust, about an inch or so, on the bottom and then i pack my scions in the cans, cut end down, then i put the top on loosely. i have carried them over the second year in that way. the chairman: but you let them breathe all the while? col. sober: certainly, and they have but very little moisture. they are kept in a temperature of about degrees. prof. smith: how often do you wet that sawdust? col. sober: not once. the chairman: well, that's in keeping with our theoretical basis. col. sober: i cut scions any time between now and march. i don't take them out of storage until we use them. we graft up to the middle of june. the chairman: i found some hickory scions that had been accidentally overlooked, kept under leaves, and the buds in the cambium were perfectly good after two years. in regard to winter injury--in the vicinity of stamford, conn., the nurserymen reported greater losses of all kinds in nursery stock than they had had before in their experience. i noticed that some small branches of the persian walnuts had been injured, and particularly where grafts had started a little late and had not lignified quite thoroughly i lost whatever grafts had not had time to lignify. last winter the injuries in our vicinity consisted chiefly of two kinds; occasional killing of the small branches--this does little harm because, where the branch is killed and dies back for a certain distance, we have three or four more branches starting up, so that perhaps it is not sophistical to say that it does the tree good. we get a larger bearing area than if it were not for this occasional freezing of small branches. another form of injury occurs in the spring. the sap will start to ascend when we have warm days in february and march; then a few cold days come and, if we have absolutely freezing temperature at night, this sap freezes and when it freezes it expands, as water does everywhere, and the result is a bursting of the bark. that is an occasional happening with all trees but particularly with exotics. one kind of winter injury has been overlooked in connection with the walnut. the very last thing which the tree does in the autumn is to complete its buds for female flowers. that is the very last job the tree has on hand and if the tree cannot complete the buds for female flowers perfectly, then a very little wood killing will make that a barren tree, although it appears to be a good strong tree. that covers the kinds of winter injury i have seen in the vicinity of stamford, conn. (here col. c. k. sober of pennsylvania showed lantern slide views of his orchards of paragon chestnuts and his methods.) the chairman: we will have now mr. reed's address with lantern views. a review of the nut situation in the north c. a. reed, washington, d. c. in taking up the question of the present status of the nut industry of the northern states, we have to do more with what has not been accomplished than with what has been. very little has been done toward developing the northern chestnut. what has been done has been mostly with the european species and so far that has not been very satisfactory. the european species is quite subject to the blight. the japanese nut is not ordinarily of a quality equal to that of the american. it is thought, too, that with the japanese chestnut the chestnut blight has been introduced, which has been so serious to our native species. the walnut has not become well established in the eastern states. so far, most of the european nuts that have been imported have been too tender to adapt themselves to our climatic conditions, and the filbert, when brought from europe, proves quite subject to a blight that prevails everywhere with our native species, but with them is not so serious. in running over these slides, i will begin first with the chestnut. that is perhaps the best known species in this locality. that shows one of our native chestnut trees as it is familiar to you all in a great part of this territory under discussion, that is, the part of the united states east of the mississippi river and north of the potomac. that photograph was taken some time last june or july when the tree was in full bloom. the chestnut is one of the most beautiful of our native nut trees. this tree has the blight in one of the earlier stages and it is shown here merely to call attention to the disease, because no discussion of the chestnut industry at the present time can be complete without at least calling attention to the seriousness of that blight. that tree, perhaps, has not been affected more than two years, possibly one. is that right, mr. pierce? mr. pierce: about two. that's an or inch tree, isn't it? mr. reed: yes, sir. mr. pierce: it must be an or inch tree to be so badly blighted at the top. mr. reed: two years, but you see it's pretty well gone. we come now to the paragon, one of the first trees of that variety ever propagated. it was planted where it stands, by the introducer, mr. henry m. engel, at marietta, where they had quite an orchard at one time, but the blight is so serious that there are only a few specimens of the trees left. that tree is probably in the neighborhood of twenty-five years old. the next slide shows two trees of the same variety that we may possibly see this afternoon. they are on the farm belonging to mr. rush and they are about twenty years old. prof. smith: what have those trees yielded? mr. rush: they yield four, five, six and seven to eight bushels. you can see that they are not far from the barn and the roots run under that barnyard manure pile. mr. reed: what would you consider an average crop? mr. rush: they grow five or six bushels per tree. mr. reed: the greatest attention that has been paid to developing the paragon chestnut in orchard farming has been on the plan mr. sober has just shown, by clearing away the mountain side and cutting down everything but the chestnut sprouts. this photograph was taken in a thicket where the underbrush had not been cleared away. those are a good age now or perhaps a little bit older than we usually graft, aren't they, mr. sober? mr. sober: yes, sir; one or two years old. when they get to be three years old they are past grafting, according to my method. mr. reed: this photograph was taken at mr. sober's a little over a year ago, taken in the rain and is not very clear, but it shows the distance between the trees at the time when these trees were four or five years old--is that right? mr. sober: they are eleven year old trees. mr. reed: do you thin them out after they get that size? mr. sober: yes, sir, they should be thinned out more, but i hesitated on account of the blight; i have thousands that i could spare, but for fear the blight will take them out. a member: do you cultivate the ground? mr. sober: i don't cultivate it, i just pasture it. the land is fertilized, but not cultivated. mr. reed: that is a photograph of a large chestnut orchard in this county. it is not many miles from here. i understand that owing to the blight and to the weevil, that orchard has not been satisfactory, and i was told two or three days ago that it was being cleared away. the chairman: what varieties? mr. reed: paragon and native stock. a member: was that the old furness grove? mr. reed: yes, sir. that slide shows the congeniality, ordinarily, between the stock of the native chestnut and the paragon. the next slide shows a typical instance of malformation between the japanese and native chestnut. i understand that this is not unusual at all. the japanese, ordinarily, does not make a good union with the american sweet chestnut. that slide was taken in indiana. it is a twenty-five acre paragon orchard owned by mr. littlepage and senator bourne of oregon, planted in the spring of . the next slide shows one of the trees in the orchard during its first season. mr. littlepage had to have them all gone over and the burs removed. they were so inclined to fruit during the first season that they would have exhausted themselves if the burs had not been removed. they made a very promising start, but i understand from mr. littlepage that a number of the trees have since died. is there anything you'd like to add to that, mr. littlepage? mr. littlepage: i haven't yet quite determined the cause of the trouble. last winter i lost perhaps one-third of the trees with a peculiar condition. the wood under the bark was darkened. i sent some of them to washington the year before to see if there was any blight or fungus and they reported there was none on any of the trees, but this winter perhaps one-third of the trees died down to the graft. a few, however, would sprout from the scion, giving me, of course, the grafted top again. it seemed to indicate, perhaps, a winter killing and yet i would not undertake to assert that that was the cause, but it was very serious. prof. smith: was the land low or high? mr. littlepage: high land along a hillside, very excellent land for chestnuts. mr. reed: sandy loam? mr. littlepage: no, it's a hilly clay with a considerable humus and set in clover. the chairman: which way does it face? mr. littlepage: south. the chairman: that is rather bad. mr. littlepage: i don't know. i have some over on the other side of the hill and i don't know whether the killing was greater on the other side or not. mr. reed: we have before us a view of the original rochester and its originator, mr. e. a. reihl, of alton, ill. over in the court house we have on exhibition nuts of that variety which most of you have seen. you are aware, probably, that it is a native chestnut. it is one of the largest and best of the native chestnuts and originated in southern illinois, where so far the blight has not spread. it gives considerable promise for the future. we come back now to lancaster county to a chinkapin tree, a hybrid chinkapin. the original tree stands in a forest in this county, and as you notice there, it is a very good sized tree. you might think from the looks of the photograph that that is a chestnut, but the nuts are small and borne in racemes, so they are typical chinkapins. mr. lake: one parent was a chestnut? mr. rush: we don't know; it's a native tree; it's a hybrid. mr. lake: it's a supposed hybrid. mr. reed: yes, the chestnut and chinkapin grow close together. the chairman: what is the form of the nuts? mr. rush: round like a chinkapin. i think it was a chestnut on a chinkapin. mr. lake: if it is a chinkapin, what is there to indicate that there is any chestnut blood in it? mr. rush: the size of the tree and the fact that the nut matures with the chestnut. the chinkapin is about three weeks earlier than this variety of chinkapin. mr. reed: that photograph is typical of the rush hybrid chinkapin. we take up the butternut now. so far as we know, there are no named varieties of the butternut; there cannot be until some good individual tree is found which is of sufficient merit to entitle it to propagation by budding and grafting. it is one of the best known nuts in our field, especially in new england; it is more common there than it is further south. this slide shows the native butternut in the forests of southern indiana near the ohio river. of course, those trees in forests like that don't mature many nuts. it is not in the forests, ordinarily, that you will find individual trees of sufficient merit to entitle them to propagation. it is the tree in the open that has had greater opportunities than are afforded in the forest. mr. lake: are there any coniferous trees in that forest? mr. littlepage: no, that's an alluvial bottom, mr. lake. there is quite a long bottom by the creek where the butternut grows profusely. we have the same tree on the farm that senator bourne and i own. hundreds of those trees grow in the woods there. it's rich alluvial soil. mr. lake: the fact that it is rich alluvial soil does not usually bar coniferous trees; it may in your section. mr. littlepage: there are none there. mr. reed: the slide before us shows typical black walnuts that are almost as common, perhaps more so, in many parts of the area under discussion, than the butternut. this photograph was taken in michigan where the trees are growing along fence rows without cultivation or special attention. no one knows whether the nuts of those trees are of special value or not. it merely shows the starting point for improvement in the walnut. we come now to the persian walnut, which mr. lake will discuss more fully in a few minutes. this is one of the trees we will probably have an opportunity to see this afternoon. it is between mr. rush's nursery and the station, on the right hand side as you are going out. just above the top of the fence you will notice a dark line which indicates the point of union. the persian walnut was grafted on the black stock. the persian is of slightly greater diameter. now we have mr. rush in his walnut nursery. these are seedling walnuts in their third year. mr. rush: second year. mr. reed: second year from the time of planting. you will notice the luxuriant growth. the next slide shows the methods of propagation. this is the first step in the operation. the knife is similar to those on the tables in the court house. the next slide shows the second stage in the operation where the bark has been lifted and mr. rush holds the bud of the persian walnut in the fingers of his left hand, and the next slide shows the bud in position and being held firmly by a finger of the left hand. as soon as it is in position like that, mr. rush lifts the pencil--the instrument that he holds in the right hand and folds the bark back over the new bud and then cuts it on the outside, so that he makes a perfect fit. if anything, the bark of the black walnut overlaps slightly the bark of the bud, and the third step in the operation is the wrapping. below, right at this point, is a completed operation. that was done in august, using buds of the present season's growth, and in about how many days is it that you take off the wrapping? mr. rush: about two weeks. mr. reed: in about two weeks take off the wrapping; and about how much longer is it before you get a growth like that? mr. rush: about two weeks more, three weeks more. mr. reed: in about four or five weeks from the time of the operation a growth like that is not uncommon. prof. smith: when is the top cut off? mr. rush: when i see that growth is taking place i cut the top off in order to encourage the growth to get strong enough for the winter. of course our object is to keep the bud dormant until the following season, perfectly dormant, but sometimes they do make a growth and, if they do, cut them off at the top and force them. you will not get that bud to grow next summer, but another bud starts out below that branch and gives you your tree. mr. reed: that one dies then? mr. rush: yes, sir, invariably dies. mr. reed: there is one of mr. rush's own growing of the rush walnut, a little tree which, in its second season, matured two nuts. that photograph was taken just about the time the nuts were ready to be gathered. mr. corsan: i noticed in the nurseries at the michigan agricultural college, a lot of black walnuts that were sun-scalded. they were too far apart. can anyone tell us anything about this danger of sun-scald to the trunk? mr. reed: well, in this particular instance, the tree stands right next to a fence, so it is protected from the hot sun during a large part of the season. perhaps mr. rush could tell us whether he has had any trouble with sun-scald. mr. rush: not at all, none whatever, never. the chairman: there is, in some localities, a great deal of danger from sun-scald. in the vicinity of stamford, conn., most of the english walnuts will sun-scald more or less unless we look out for that and give them shade; mostly in the trunk below the branches. mr. lake: how about the nuts? the chairman: i haven't seen any scalding there. mr. reed: these are all interesting points and i am glad to have them thrown in. mr. rush can tell us about this slide. it is one of the cut-leafed varieties of walnut from california that he is propagating. it is more of an ornament than it is a commercial nut, isn't it? mr. rush: it is both combined. it is very productive and very hardy. the nut is not quite as large as the nebo. it is the cut-leafed weeping walnut. the first tree that came from california cost twenty dollars. it is very ornamental. mr. reed: this is a view of a seedling persian walnut orchard in bucks county, this state, some twenty or thirty miles north of philadelphia. it is now about ten years of age and is owned by mrs. j. l. lovett, of emilie. some of the nuts of this orchard are on exhibition over in the court house. the orchard was not given any special cultivation at the time this photograph was taken. the nuts from the trees, of course, are very ununiform, being seedlings, and the bearing of the trees is not especially large, but the apparent thrift and vigor of these trees gives a good deal of ground for looking forward to a walnut industry in the eastern states. prof. smith: do you know the origin of the seed? mr. reed: no, sir, we do not. the nuts from which those trees were planted were obtained and planted by mr. lovett who is now deceased. the chairman: one of the most important features, it seems to me, of grafting, is the idea that we can graft from prolific trees. the majority of trees, of walnuts, hickories, anything you please, are not remarkably prolific, but in grafting you select a tree that is prolific as one of the most desirable of its qualities. a member: you say that this grove was given no particular cultivation; are they careful to allow all the foliage to remain on the ground where it drops? mr. reed: i couldn't answer as to that. a member: mr. sober, do you do that? col. sober: yes, sir. a member: the point i wanted to make is that that is probably very much better than any cultivation that could be given. the chairman: the matter of cultivation is one we have got to settle in this country. i have been over the walnut orchards on the pacific coast, in the east and in europe, and i find three entirely separate and distinct methods of treatment. on the pacific coast, the rule is to cultivate every year and irrigate where they can, but to cultivate, at any rate, whether they irrigate or not. in the east, where people are supposed to be very industrious, we have adopted the lazier way of letting the trees grow in sod; but that is not so bad if we follow the principle brought forward by stringfellow of letting the leaves all decompose, and adding more fertilizer and more leaves and taking away nothing. in france and germany and england, where the trees are cultivated, particularly in france, where they are best cultivated, we find two methods; first, keeping up clean cultivation and adding a little lime every year and, second, add lime without the cultivation. one great feature of the treatment of the tree in france, where the best walnuts come from, is the addition of a little lime every year, even if it's a limestone ground, and that may possibly account for the delicate character of the french walnuts and the reason why they have the first call in the market. i don't know that that is true, but it seems to me, at least, a collateral fact, and collateral facts often mean something. mr. pomeroy: judging from my own experience i think that that orchard would be producing now two or two and a half bushels per tree each year if put under cultivation and given the care of an ordinary peach orchard. mr. reed: these are seedling trees, you understand, in that orchard we showed. this is a persian walnut tree in mr. rush's front yard. i've forgotten the variety. mr. rush: that is the kaghazi. mr. reed: now we come to the original hickories. this is one of the earliest hickory nuts propagated, in fact, it's about the only one so far. that tree is owned by mr. henry hales of ridgewood, n. j. prof. smith: have they fertilized it? mr. reed: no, not especially. it stands on good, fertile soil but i think no attention has ever been paid to it in the way of cultivation. prof. smith: have you its yielding record? mr. reed: it never made large records; as i recall it now, it has never borne more than a few bushels at any one time, perhaps two bushels. the chairman: one reason is because it has been cut back regularly every year for scions? mr. reed: yes, that's true. prof. smith: over two hundred years old, then? the chairman: i doubt if that tree is over fifty or sixty. mr. reed: that's what i should say,--somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty or sixty years old. mr. reed: that slide shows a typical grafted tree in mr. hales' garden. it's a nice shapely, thrifty tree about seven years old and only recently came into bearing to any extent. the nurserymen have had great difficulty in propagating it until recently. now that mr. jones has come up from the south and he and mr. rush are getting down together earnestly in the propagation of these northern trees, we will probably have more of them, but in all the years that mr. hales has been working with that particular variety, he has never been able to get more than a few trees grown in the nursery, so it is not disseminated to any extent. the chairman: do you think that this will be like the pecan and hickory, that some varieties will bear fifteen years after grafting and other varieties two years after grafting, for instance, as extremes? mr. reed: probably so, the same as it is with other fruits. the chairman: it seems to me that that is what we may fairly anticipate. mr. corsan: like northern spy apples and other apples. mr. reed: this slide is a little bit out of order. it's a native persian walnut tree that stands in this county. it is owned by mr. harness. mr. rush has propagated it under the name of geit. that photograph was taken in the fall of . last year it suffered greatly during the extreme weather, but it came out again and made a very good growth. this is the original rush tree that we may be able to see this afternoon. and this is the original nebo that we had hoped to be able to see but will probably not succeed. it is some seven or eight miles from mr. rush's home and we will hardly be able to make it this afternoon. the slide before us shows some european filberts that were planted by mr. hales and up to the present time they are doing nicely although they have never fruited especially heavily; but there is no blight. the chairman: how many years? mr. reed: i think those are ten to twelve years old. perhaps you have seen them. the chairman: yes. there are two features connected with the filbert that we ought to discuss right here. one is the tendency to its being destroyed by the blight of our american hazel, which extends to indiana, and another is the fact that it blossoms so early that the female flowers or the male flowers are both apt to be killed by the frost. all the members of this association ought to get to work to bring out a variety which will have the blight-resisting features and the later blooming of the american hazel. mr. reed: this slide shows a filbert we will probably be able to see this afternoon. it is in mr. rush's door yard and is still pretty young. i believe it has not borne of any account. mr. rush: it has borne a little. the chairman: how old is it? mr. rush: i think it's about five years old. it is a barcelona. mr. reed: the next slide is taken in the orchard of mr. kerr at denton, md. at one time he had a very nice orchard of these filberts, but the blight has gotten in and has about wiped out everything. in a letter from him this fall he said he had very few nuts of any variety, although he did have a few. a letter that came this week from j. w. killen, of felton, md., said he had found filberts to be about as unprofitable a nut, as any he could have grown. we will spend a few minutes now running over the pecan situation. we can hardly omit it altogether because there are so many people in the northern states who are interested in the pecan in a financial way. the chart before us shows first the native area. this part here is the portion of the united states in which the pecan is a native. you notice how far upward it extends, almost to terre haute, indiana, and across southern indiana along the ohio river, and it is right in here, about where the pencil indicates that some of our best northern varieties have originated. mr. littlepage and w. c. reed and others have shown us nuts over in the court house that originated there. the busseron and the indiana are the two most northern. they are a little way north of vincennes. no varieties so far of any merit have originated in illinois. while we have the map of illinois before us, i would like to point out the place where mr. riehl originated the variety of chestnut we referred to some time ago. down in more southern illinois is where we find mr. endicott. this darkened area along the southeastern part of the united states, and extending away up into virginia, shows the area to which the pecan has been planted with more or less success. this area extending down over the piedmont and up into virginia and west virginia, is the mountain area to which the pecan is not adapted. you never find pecans on the uplands. this thick, heavy area shows the territory within which the pecan has been most extensively planted. it is not common down in southern florida. you notice, too, that over here in texas there have been very few orchards planted to pecans. north of these shaded areas, anywhere up in ohio or pennsylvania or new york, the pecan has not shown any adaptability or has not shown sufficient adaptability to justify commercial planting. whatever planting of pecans is done in the area north of the shaded portions there must be considered as experimental. the chairman: the southern part of texas is actually in the tropical zone. it would be interesting to know if we have the pecan actually growing in the tropics. mr. reed: we have more or less vague reports that it is growing down near brownsville. i think mr. littlepage told us the other day of a friend of his who is planting pecans. the chairman: brownsville is very close to the tropics. mr. littlepage: mr. yoacum told me he had a grove down there that had not been a success so far. i know that quite a number of people have discussed the question of planting pecans in that section. mr. reed: this is one of the largest of pecan trees; it is the largest that it has ever been my personal privilege to see. it has a circumference of between and feet and a spread of about feet. we estimated that it was about the same height. it stands on the west side of the mississippi river, some distance south of baton rouge. mr. littlepage: what is the approximate water level below the ground? mr. reed: it is quite near the surface. mr. littlepage: i thought so. there are conditions you will observe that are unusual. in lands where the water level is near the surface, there is a tendency in the tree to shove out a lot of surface roots. you can travel all over the pecan belt of indiana and will never see a pecan tree that does not look as if it had been driven in the ground with a pile-driver, but i have noticed that you find those spreading roots where the water level is near the surface of the ground. mr. reed: it is interesting to know that right near this tree were other large trees, nearly as large, that were blown over, and they showed no tap-roots, but merely the surface roots, this slide shows a pecan bloom. the pistillate bloom is clear up on the terminate growth; the staminate, like other nut trees, is on the growth of last season and comes out somewhat in advance of the pistillate, necessarily. we come now to the wild pecans of texas. the recent census figures show that fully three-fifths of all the pecans produced in the united states come from texas. this photograph shows the native wild pecans along the colorado river. here is the pecan as a park tree. this picture was taken in llana park, new braunfels, in west texas. one of the nuisances in pecan trees is illustrated in the upper part of this photograph; you will notice the spanish moss that grows so densely on the pecan trees if neglected. unless the moss is kept out it gets so dense that it smothers the fruiting and leafing surface, so trees that are densely covered with that are able to make leaves only on the terminals. you notice in the rear the leaves of bananas that grow there throughout the entire year. the chairman: i have noticed that the mistletoe was a bad parasite on the pecans in some regions. have you found that? mr. reed: yes, that is true; that is one of the pests of the pecan. this slide shows a typical texas scene. the wild pecans have been gathered and are brought into town and are waiting the buyers. you will notice right here is a bag that has been stood up and opened, waiting for a buyer, the same as we see grain in the streets of northern towns, and here are pecans on their way from the warehouse to the car. the next slide shows another step; they are on their way now from texas to the crackery or the wholesalers. the crop of pecans in texas alone usually runs from cars to or cars. this year the crop is small and probably not over cars, so the prices are going up. this is the pecan crackery in san antonio, having a capacity of , pounds a day. the pecans are cracked by machinery and the kernels are picked out by hand. this slide shows a native pecan tree. the one in the foreground was from across the river near vincennes. it is one of the first northern varieties that was introduced, but it is now superseded. the next is the original tree of the busseron. the nuts from that tree are on exhibition over at the court house brought here by mr. reed. the tree was cut back quite severely several years ago to get budwood and has not made sufficient top yet to bear normal crops again. this is the original tree of indiana. beside the tree is the introducer, mr. mason j. niblack, the gentleman with his hand by the tree. now we come to the original green river, one of the northern kentucky pecans. it is in a forest more than twelve miles from evansville across the ohio river in kentucky. the trunk of that tree is typical of others in the forest. there is a pecan forest of perhaps acres, from which everything but pecan timber was removed several years ago. the slide before us shows the trunk of a supposed chance hybrid between hickory and pecan. the next slide shows a grafted tree of that variety. it is interesting to note the vigor of this hybrid. it is quite the usual thing to get added vigor with hybrids. this is one of the most beautiful, dense, dark green trees that i have ever seen in the hickory family. this tree is in northern georgia, but it is not so prolific as the parent tree. the chairman: does the shell fill down there? mr. reed: no, it does not. the chairman: it grows very vigorously in connecticut. it is a perfectly hardy hybrid, but i am afraid i shall only be able to use the crop for spectacle cases. mr. reed: this shows one of the most common methods of propagating the pecan, the annular system. it is a slight modification of the system mr. rush applies to the propagation of the walnut. this shows one of the tools designed especially for annular budding, the galbraith knife. the rest of the operation you already understand. it is merely placing the bud in position and wrapping the same as mr. rush does. the chairman: i would like to ask, does it make a great deal of difference whether the bud ring is half an inch long or an inch and a quarter long? mr. rush: it does not make any difference. the union takes place on the cambium layer. it is not made on the cut. the chairman: then the length of the bud is not of great importance? mr. rush: no, it is of no importance at all. mr. reed: this slide may be a little bit misleading. two nuts matured in the nursery on a scion that was inserted in february. the scion was taken from a mature tree and the fruit buds had already set and had enough nourishment to carry them through the season so that they matured. that is no indication of what may be expected in the way of bearing. it is one of the freaks. this is merely a view of a fourteen-year old pecan orchard in south-western georgia, a -acre orchard owned largely by one person. that is the orchard belonging to mr. g. m. bacon, a name probably familiar to some of you. those trees are set feet, inches apart, each way. there are twenty trees to the acre, just beginning to bear now. that photograph was taken some two years ago showing the first step in topworking. the top has been removed, as you notice, and the next slide shows the subsequent water-sprouts which are later budded. the lower branches were left in the first place to take up the sap while the new head was in formation. they have now been removed. our next point might be brought out in connection with this slide. one of the typical, sub-tropical storms, not unusual in the gulf states, swept over this area in september, just as the nuts were beginning to mature and defoliated the trees and whipped off the nuts. the sap was still in circulation, and the varieties that respond most readily to warm weather, that start earliest in the spring, sent out new leaves, so that foliage was foliage that ought to have come on the next year, that is, it was exhausting next year's buds. the same year the tree sent out its blossom buds, so it had no fruit the following season. this slide shows one of the pests in the pecan orchard, the twig girdler, at work. the insect deposits its egg under the bark up at about that point, then goes down below girdles the twig, and it breaks off, goes to the ground, and the insect comes out, goes into the ground and comes out the next season. there are a good many drawbacks that are occurring and more are to be expected the same as with other fruit. there are probably no more setbacks to pecan growing than there are to the growing of other fruit, but this is one of the things. this orchard was set in land bordering the flint river and at the time this picture was taken the water stood at the depth of three feet. it probably did no harm, because it didn't stay more than a week or ten days. sometimes it stays longer and in such cases it is a serious matter. in texas, floods come up like that into the branches of the trees, so high in some seasons after the nuts are formed, that the nuts deteriorate and fall to the ground. in such cases it is a pretty serious thing. (applause.) the time for which the "scenic" was engaged having expired, the delegates returned to the court house and the regular program was resumed. the chairman: we will next hear from mr. lake. mr. lake: my topic, aside from the slides, was concerning the result of the work at arlington this year. it is all written out but i don't propose to read the paper at this stage. i have not been a teacher and lecturer for years for nothing, and i don't propose to kill the few friends i have among nut growers by talking them to death when they are hungry and want to see something interesting. i will send this paper in due time to the secretary, and give way now to mr. jones. i did want to show you on the slides a few illustrations of cross fertilization between the japanese and the american walnut, but we will put those in engravings and put them in the northern nut growers' journal, so that you will see them there with better satisfaction. now one or two words about these persian walnuts. these are eastern grown seedlings, the best that i have been able to pick out. here is an oregon grown nut. that is the ideal type for dessert walnuts. this is the meylan. there is only one better, and that is the real mayette, of which we grow very few in the united states, but we are growing considerable of the meylan. whether we can grow this successfully here or not, i am not certain, but it is well worth trying. the better type of our nut seedlings in the east are from the parisienne. we must get a nut something like this that you can crack between your fingers, not one that is sealed so hard that it requires a hammer, and must get one with a very good quality of meat. one great advantage to the walnut grower in the east will be that he can get his crop on to the thanksgiving market, which is the cream of the market--something the western or european nut grower cannot do. so if we can grow a nut reasonably fair in quality we can expect excellent results. the chairman: mr. jones, will you give us your points now? mr. jones: dr. deming yesterday asked me to give a little demonstration of grafting and i have brought along a sort of transplanted nursery on a board, so that i might do so. (here mr. jones demonstrated methods of grafting the pecan.) the chairman: tell us about the wax cloth, mr. jones. mr. jones: we use that over the cut. the chairman: how do you make your wax cloth? mr. jones: we take a roll of this, possibly three or four yards long, very thin muslin, roll it up and drop it in the melted wax. the chairman: how do you make that wax? mr. jones: we don't measure the ingredients, but i think it varies from four to six pound of rosin, to one pound of beeswax and a tea cup full of boiled linseed oil and about a tablespoon of lamp black. prof. smith: what do you use the lamp black for, mr. jones? mr. jones: to toughen the wax so that it will not crack and so that it will adhere better. a member: how do you get your excess of wax off the cloth? mr. jones: we just throw the rolls on a board and press them. mr. reed: i believe you would find it easier to tear it up into strips than to put it in rolls. we have been using that method. we ran short of cloth and i went to town and got some and tore off a piece about or yards long and folded it up into strips that wide and dipped it in the pure beeswax and pressed it on a board and it was ready for work. col. sober: i take just a common corn cob and wind it on as you would on a spool, then, while the wax is warm, i dip it in; you can have the cloth half an inch wide or an inch wide just as you please. my way of making wax is, i take two pounds of rosin, one pound of beeswax and half a pound of tallow. i find that stands all kinds of weather. mr. jones: you prefer the tallow? col. sober: yes sir, i do. the chairman: beef tallow or mutton tallow? col. sober: i prefer mutton tallow; two pounds of rosin, one of beeswax and half a pound of tallow. then you want to boil it very slowly and thoroughly, and pour it in cold water. a member: do you unroll this roll of cloth? col. sober: i have a machine to turn it on just the same as you would on a spool. mr. jones: the strip goes through the wax? col. sober: no, you wind that, then when your wax is warm, you drop this in but secure the ends, then take it out and lay it by till it's all saturated; then i tear it off as i use it. i find that is the most convenient thing, and i generally get calico, that is pretty closely woven, but is rotten so that it tears easily. mr. jones: did you ever use raffia for tying your grafts? col. sober: no sir, i have not. mr. jones: we have used it on pecans and walnuts for the reason that it doesn't have to be untied as it bursts off with the growth of the tree. col. sober: this wax i have tried on thousands and thousands of grafts and it stands all kinds of weather. you can get wax that's been there or years and you can take it off now and use it. mr. jones: that is one advantage of using the tallow; linseed oil will dry out. col. sober: tallow is the best; that's been my experience. a member: if linseed oil is not used immediately or very soon, it gets hard. mr. jones: it's all right in wax and all right in cloth, too, if you keep it in a damp place till ready to use. mr. hutt: can you use parafine in place of beeswax? the chairman: have you tried this method on the other hickories besides the pecans? mr. jones: yes sir. the chairman: you've got shagbark to catch fairly well, have you by this method? mr. jones: yes sir. the secretary: how did your pecans and hickories do last summer? mr. jones: i've forgotten the exact percentage that grew. some died after they had made a growth of several inches. i think i left too many limbs growing on the hickories. some of them made quite good growth. a member: when is this kind of grafting done? mr. jones: we wait until the sap is up. the chairman: what do you cover the top with? mr. jones: with wax. we leave this open at the bottom, for the reason that the sap can get out and not ferment. if it holds the sap, it will sour you know. the chairman: how far down does your wax go, mr. jones? mr. jones: far enough to cover up the wrapping. a member: does that work on pecans as well as hickories? mr. jones: yes sir. to show the value of this patch, we have grafted rows side by side and got per cent where we used this patch and per cent where we waxed it over solid and left no ventilation or exit for the sap. a member: isn't that to keep the wax out of the cambium layer? mr. jones: yes sir, it does that too. prof. smith: are there any fine points about this trimming, other than mere wedge? mr. jones: no sir, only it's thick on one side, as you will see so that it wedges tightly. a member: isn't it a fact that you can use three and four year pecan wood just as well? mr. jones: yes sir, two year wood or three will give you better results than one year. col. sober: what time in the season do you graft? mr. jones: the th of april to the th of may here. prof. smith: what stage of stock do you prefer? mr. jones: well it doesn't matter, you can graft these after they have made a foot of new growth, if you've got a good dormant scion; you could put in a graft any time in the summer, perhaps. a member: how long do you leave on the paper bags? mr. jones: until the scion begins to grow. sometimes i have made a mistake and left them on until they grew up and curled down. prof. smith: what is the superiority of that over plain cleft grafting? mr. jones: you can do better work and do it quicker. i have put in grafts in a day. the chairman: you don't mind this arch being left up? mr. jones: that ought to go a little deeper, maybe, but it don't make much difference, so long as it is well waxed. prof. smith: the paper bag protects the scion? mr jones: yes sir. the object is not to protect the scion so much as to keep it dry. you want to keep the scion dry until it gets sap from the stock to start it into growth. prof. smith: is it necessary that this should be waxed cloth? mr. jones: no sir, we use paper ordinarily, of course we run wax over the paper in waxing the scion and then the paper is as good as cloth. col. sober: do you find it apt to curl up in windy days--the paper? i tried that and had all kinds of trouble until i got on to the tape. mr. jones: we don't try to tie with the paper; the paper is only to let the surplus moisture or sap out. a member: does this tend to hold that in or is it all held in by the patch there? mr. jones: this doesn't really need any tying, as it is large. the chairman: would you carry the patch around to the other side? mr. jones: no sir, just fill it up with wax. the chairman: and the juice runs out of there and will escape anyway. mr. jones: yes sir. a member: do you wax in addition to the paper you put on? mr. jones: we don't wax the scion all over. we used to take hot wax and run a thin layer over the whole scion, but we quit that and used the bag, because if you wax over a scion tight and it happens to have sufficient moisture, it will start growth with that moisture before it makes the union. prof. smith: do you wax the tip end? mr. jones: yes sir. prof. smith: do you wax this in here? mr. jones: yes sir; we fill that over with liquid wax. it is possible to have your wax too hot, and burn the scion. prof. smith: have you found that all the species of hickory take grafts with equal ease? mr. jones: we grafted some here last spring that started very nicely and then died. i don't know whether it was in the hickory stock or whether they were robbed by the sprouts; we didn't pull off any sprouts. there's a whole lot of things we don't know about grafting yet, but will know more in time. the chairman: how about using scion wood more than one year old? mr. jones: we prefer two or three year old wood for the scion. we have coming now, , walnut scions from california and they are all to be two and three years old. i have put in rows of with large two year scions and you could count and not find one dead among them and some of the scions were almost as big as my wrist. it's a job to cut them. you see that scion, being large, has enough vitality to hold it until it can make a union. a member: you want one bud on this? mr. jones: we generally have two buds. a member: do you use the same method on the persian walnut? mr. jones: yes sir; we got a little stingy one year and cut these all to one bud and hardly got any out of them. you've got to have wood enough to hold the scions dormant; of course there may be one or more buds on the scion. the chairman: and got to have food enough in them. mr. jones: yes sir. col. sober grafts chestnuts that way, but i have never been able to graft pecans and walnuts with very short scions. the chairman: i have caught chestnuts with one bud, but most of the nut trees want more food and you've got to have a lot in the scion. prof. smith: have you used that with pecans in the north? mr. jones: yes sir, this will be our method of propagation. after mr. jones had given further illustrations of the process of grafting, the convention adjourned. some persian walnut observations, experiments and results for e. r. lake, washington, d. c. the arlington work for in the propagation of the persian walnut consisted in top-grafting three and four year old nursery stock by several methods, as ordinary cleft, side cleft, bark cleft, prong, whip and modified forms of these. for wrapping we tried bicycle tape, waxed cord and cloth, with wax and plasticine for covering. the work was done during the latter part of april and first part of may. the stocks averaged from / to - / inches diameter, and were cut off from to inches above the surface of the ground. in a few cases bark grafting by modified whip form was performed upon the branches at a height of about feet. later in the season from june th to august th buds were placed by varying methods. in the earlier instances the buds were taken from left-over grafting stock. of the scion wood received last year all the wood from eastern growers was frost bitten and wholly failed to take with one or two exceptions. the pacific coast wood was received in excellent condition and operations with it were gratifying, especially with the ordinary cleft graft, and patch bud. next year's work in grafting will be confined to the cleft, and the bark-whip processes. this latter is very simple and under careful treatment promises to be a convenient and successful process. in the budding operations we resorted to a number of methods largely for the benefit of the information obtained from the practice, and not so much for the returns in propagated trees. however, for in the work of propagating for stock results we shall confine our practice to the patch method, though we may find from later tests that the hinge method so favorably looked upon by oregon is better suited to the work. various experiments with tying material were tried. raffia, cotton cord, waxed cloth and bicycle tape were used. the raffia and cord gave best results. a tight tie is needed. june-budding from the left-over graft-wood gave a very low percentage of "takes." most of the buds appeared to be drowned. buds from the current year's growth inserted from early to middle of august are at present apparently in good dormant condition. some july buds from the left-over graft-wood placed in the younger branches of a twelve year old american black took well and made from three to six inches growth. the branches were cut back as soon as the buds appeared to be set, a course that would not be advocated if one were doing the work for re-topping. the young wood from these buds is delicate and soft and in order to insure their living through the winter, so far as our efforts may avail, they have been enclosed in strong paper bags. in our budding and grafting operations we had no success with the japanese or chinese stocks. we expect to try them further as their rapid growth makes them much to be desired if a permanent union can be effected. so far as we have been able to learn from the southern propagators who have worked along this line, no difficulty has been encountered in effecting a short-life union,--four to six years on an average, though a few have kept alive for twelve years. the growth of the successful grafts has been very variable. in several instances in which both scions upon a stock grew, the growth was from two to three feet. in other cases the young wood was scarcely a foot long. the fact that the stocks and scion-wood varied widely in size and vigor and the further fact that the scions were from several varieties of western stock are quite sufficient causes for no uniform results in this respect. the wood of all successful grafts appears to be in excellent condition for the winter season and we are looking forward to an interesting further growth of these next year, though the trees have just been transplanted. in order to doubly insure ourselves against loss of the varieties now growing one half, or even more in a few instances, of the young wood has been removed and placed in a cold room so that further grafting or budding of these varieties may be made next year. nursery trees of the franquette, pomeroy, parisienne and unidentified others, on their own roots are making a pitiable effort at successful growth, while all wood on the black stock is making excellent growth. in one instance the wood of mayquette a cross between mayette and franquette formed two nutlets. lack of pollen was all that prevented the fruiting of one-year-old grafted trees. a splendid point for the unit orchard booster, but a point of no value to the real walnut grower. cross fertilization owing to the very vigorous weather of the past winter the catkins on the older persians at arlington farm were killed. in order to study the conduct and product of these trees we sought pollen elsewhere to fertilize their liberal display of pistils. we were successful in obtaining some from the trees of messrs. killen and rosa, and miss lea, but though this and some pollen of black, butternut and the japanese was used no pollenation was successful. in the case of sieboldiana, however, we succeeded in securing what appears to be fruit of certain definite cross-fertilization, as sieboldiana x nigra; sieboldiana x cinerea and possibly sieboldiana x regia. only in one instance did the nuts appear to have other than the usual characters of sieboldiana. the nuts of the cinerea cross were longer, more tubular and somewhat deeper furrowed and darker. unfortunately some conflicting results in the fruiting of the sieboldiana places the possible cross-fruits under a cloud. a peculiarity of the blossoming of the sieboldiana at arlington this year was that the stamens and pistils of an individual tree opened at dates of six to ten days apart, and with the tree used for crossing the catkins were all off before the pistils opened. as no two trees are near together, perhaps two to three hundred feet being the closest, natural cross-pollenating was not expected. however, after the cross-pollenations by hand were made and fruits set, and even matured, it was found that some clusters had from one to three more nuts than were hand treated. many of the clusters had less nuts than the number of pistils treated, which was to be expected. but how to account for the extra sets is a problem not clear for it is possible that pollenation might have occurred in one of two ways--by stray pollen grains from the hand operations by wind-carried grains from the trees. in any event only the fruiting of the trees from the nuts under consideration will settle it, and as these have been planted we are on the way to the solution. the indiana pecans r. l. mccoy, indiana the pecan is probably the best nut that grows. it belongs to the hickory family which is indigenous to north america. since water is its natural distributing agent it is most generally found growing intermixed with the large hickory nut or shagbark in creek and river bottoms. while the hickory is hardy enough to thrive even into the canadian provinces the pecan is not so hardy and is seldom found in the northern tier of states. it thrives well as far north as the northern boundary of illinois. the writer has seen a transplanted tree in bearing in branch county, michigan, and native trees along the mississippi river near the mouth of the wisconsin. the nuts in the extreme northern limit are not much larger than a hazel nut. but the nuts that grow in indiana and illinois from the ohio river on the south to rock island on the northwest and lafayette on the northeast are much larger. here are found many superior nuts worthy of propagation. in fact, the writer has before him a great many nuts of named and un-named varieties which he and mr. littlepage and others have discovered in their search for worthy nuts in the native pecan woods. there are many thousand acres of these groves on the ohio, green, wabash and illinois rivers where many trees are found which bear nuts as large as some of the varieties which are being propagated in the gulf coast country. the nuts of the evansville group are especially noted for their fine flavor. the people of this section will not eat southern pecans if they can get native nuts. this year several carloads of these native wild nuts will be shipped to the cleveland, boston, and new york markets. while the finer nuts seldom get into the markets at all but are bought by wealthy men in the locality where they grow. many men buy from a special tree year after year--its flavor suiting their taste. the yield from some of these larger trees (and there are many of them four feet in diameter and some as large as nineteen feet four inches in circumference at shoulder height) is very good. the writer has seen a number in the last few days which were estimated to have from four to six hundred pounds, the most of the crop having not yet been gathered. he knows of one tree which bore ( ) seventeen bushels and mr. louis huber of shawneetown gathered pounds from another tree. two hundred and eighty-five pounds of nuts were gathered and weighted from the luce tree. these nuts were gathered green for fear of their being stolen and it was estimated that fifteen pounds were left on the tree. also that the hail storm in early september destroyed fifty ( ) pounds more. hence the luce bore approximately eight bushels. the kentucky tree had four and one-half bushels by measurement. the warrick tree had, the best we can estimate, about pounds. the grayville, or posey as mr. littlepage wishes to call it, bore at least two hundred pounds by weight. one hundred and sixty pounds were gathered from the major and two hundred and fifty pounds from the green river tree. we do not think the hinton bore to exceed two pounds of nuts. we do not know the amount of nuts gathered from the indiana and the busseron trees. the buttrick tree had some three or four bushels of nuts this year but as a dredge ditch was recently constructed by it, destroying half of its root system, it did not mature its crop. this tree has been in bearing since and it has not been known to miss a crop previous to this year. in our search for nuts worthy of being propagated we have found several nuts as yet un-named that are in our opinion much superior to any northern nut that has been brought to public notice. but as we know little of their bearing record and do not wish to burden the nurserymen with too many varieties we will keep these trees under observation for a year or two before naming them. we have been trying to propagate some of the best varieties at our nursery for about three years. our first attempt was root-grafting in which our success varied from per cent to per cent under the best conditions. we found after some experience that it was not difficult to root-graft. but last winter, - , was the coldest winter for some years, the thermometer registering as low as degrees below. most of our root-grafts were killed back to the ground but few if any of them were killed outright. when spring came they started new growth and are now about four feet high. the fall of was very warm and wet and they were in vigorous growth until the first week in november when we had a hard freeze which killed the wheat, causing the worst failure in that crop ever known in this section. the winter then following being very cold we had two conditions against spring root-grafted pecans. but we failed to see any budded ones that were injured. however, we only had pecans budded to hickory which was done by mr. paul white in may, and, so far as we know, this was the first hickory top-worked to pecan in indiana. however, he now has quite a number top-worked last spring that have made a growth of three or four feet. we also have both budded and root-grafted pecans from last spring and summer so that in the spring we will have a better opportunity to see what effect the winter will have on them. so far as we are able to determine from our observation of a few orchards all pecan trees bought from southern nurserymen and planted in this section have either died out or made very feeble growth. although some large texas nuts have been planted here and grown, yet they have either not fruited at all or the nuts have proved no better than our native nuts. the northern pecan timber is not brash like the southern pecan but is very elastic and tough. an axe-handle made from northern pecan sells for ten cents more than one made from hickory and pecan timber is much sought after by axe-handle makers. the people in this section have in the last few years awakened to the fact that their swamps studded with pecan trees are about the most valuable lands they possess and many are the inquiries: "where can we get good budded or grafted pecans?" the idea of propagating the northern pecan is of very recent origin and while the few attempts at propagation have not as yet met with any very great success, yet we are hoping that the time will be when many acres of our lands shall be set in valuable pecan orchards and our highways lined with long rows of fine pecans, chestnuts, and english walnuts which shall serve the three-fold purpose of beautifying mother earth, yielding delicious food, and furnishing a place of rest for the weary traveler. appendix report of the secretary and treasurer bal. on hand, date of last report $ . annual dues and life membership . advertisements in annual report . sale of report . dr. crocker, paid for list of names . prof. collins, paid for reprints . ________ total receipts $ . expenses: expenses of prof. collins $ . printing report and reprints . other printing . postage . typewriting . stationery . miscellaneous . _______ total expenses $ . bill receivable . bill payable . _______ _______ $ . $ . deficit $ . our first annual report, embodying the transactions at the first and second annual meetings, was issued in may, and copies were sent to all members, to the principal libraries of the country, to officials of the agricultural department at washington, and to some state agricultural officials, to several agricultural and other periodicals for notice and review, and to various persons especially interested. eighteen copies have been sold. about , copies of each of the two circulars, "why nut culture is important" and "the northern nut growers association and why you should join it", have been sent to members and correspondents, and also revised circulars on the literature of nut growing and on seedsmen and nurserymen. an illustrated article about nut growing and the association appeared in the literary digest and many agricultural and other periodicals have had notices of our association and our meeting. * * * * * besides the regular notices sent to members and papers, different notices and brief statements about nut growing, were sent weekly for five weeks before the meeting to different newspapers published in the country about lancaster in the hope of getting a good local attendance. the pennsylvania chestnut blight commission assisted in this publicity campaign by sending postal card notices to about a hundred persons in the eastern part of pennsylvania who were known to have from a few to thousands of cultivated chestnut trees. the secretary's correspondence has increased so as to become, if it were not for enthusiasm, burdensome. often several inquiries a day are received and they come from all parts of the united states and canada. the following figures are brought up to date of going to press. our membership has nearly doubled since the last report was issued, increasing from to . we have lost member by death and by resignation. our present membership standing at . we have members in states, the district of columbia, panama, and canada. new york heads the list with members and pennsylvania comes next with . report of committee on resolutions read by professor smith resolved: . that we extend our thanks to the mayor and citizens of lancaster for the welcome and entertainment they have afforded us while here and for the excellent auditorium they have placed at our disposal. . that we extend our thanks to messrs. rush and jones and their entertainment committee. . that we extend our thanks to the pennsylvania chestnut tree blight commission for the attendance of their representatives. we note with keen interest their expressions of hope for the control of this cyclopean menace. . that we express our deep appreciation of the great interest and valuable services of dr. morris, the retiring president, and dr. deming, the secretary and treasurer, two officers to whose untiring efforts this association is largely due. . that we express the thanks of the association to those members and others who have enriched this meeting by their interesting exhibits. . that the following letter be sent from this association to the,-- secretary of agriculture, persons in authority in the united states bureau of plant industry, the presidents of agricultural colleges, the directors of agricultural experiment stations, and leading teachers in agriculture colleges. the northern nut growers' association, by resolution passed at its third annual meeting, held at lancaster, pa., in december , calls your attention to the importance of, and need for, the breeding of new types of crop yielding trees. we now have the possibility of a new, but as yet little developed, agriculture which may (a) nearly double our food supply and also (b) serve as the greatest factor in the conservation of our resources. (a) our agriculture at the present time depends chiefly upon the grains which were improved by selection in pre-historic times, because they were annuals and quick yielders. the heavy yielding plants, the engines of nature, are the trees, which have in most cases remained unimproved and largely unused until the present time because of the slowness of their generations and the absence of knowledge concerning plant breeding. we now know something about plant breeding, and its possibilities as applied to the crop yielding trees seem to be enormous. they certainly warrant immediate and widespread effort at plant breeding. a member of this association has shown that the chinquapin can be crossed with the oak; that all the walnuts freely hybridize with each other and with the open bud hickories, a class which includes the toothsome and profitable pecan. there is in california a tree which is considered to be a cross between the native walnut and the live oak. the mendelian law in connection with past achievements in plant breeding, and the experiments of loeb in crossing the sea urchin and the star fish are profoundly suggestive. the possibilities of plant breeding as applied to crop yielding trees seem to be enormous. they certainly warrant immediate and widespread effort toward the creation of useful strains which may become the basis of a new agriculture yielding food for both man and the domestic animals. (b) the time for constructive conservation has come. our most vital resource is the soil. it is possibly the only resource for which there is no substitute. its destruction is the most irreparable waste. so long as the earth remains in place the burnt forest may return and the exhausted field may be restored by scientific agriculture. but once the gully removes this soil, it is the end so far as our civilization is concerned--forest, field and food are impossible and even water power is greatly impaired. our present system of agriculture, depending upon the grains, demands the plowing of hillsides and the hillsides wash away. this present dependence upon the plow means that one-third of our soil resources is used only for forest, one-third is being injured by hillside erosion, and only one-third, the levelest, is being properly used for plow crops. the present alternative of forestry for hillsides is often impossible because the yields are too meagre. almost any land that can produce a forest, and much that has been considered too dry for forest, can produce an annual harvest of value to man or his animals when we have devoted sufficient attention to the breeding of walnuts, chestnuts, pecans, shellbarks, acorn yielding oaks, beech nuts, pine nuts, hazel nuts, almonds, honey locust, mesquite, screw bean, carob, mulberry, persimmon, pawpaw, and many other fruit and nut trees of this and other lands. the slowness and expense of the process of plant introduction and tree breeding limits this work to a few individuals with patience and scientific tastes and to governmental and other institutions of a permanent nature. the united states government and each state experiment station should push this work vigorously and we appeal to you to use your influence in that direction. you may find material of interest in our published proceedings and in the fruit and nut journal, the organ of the industry, published at petersburg, virginia. report of committee on the death of professor john craig read by dr. morris "the northern nut growers' association suffered very great loss in the death of professor john craig, at siasconset, massachusetts, on august , . "professor craig, from his many responsible positions in the horticultural world, had acquired a wealth of information which was always at the disposal of his friends and students. his training as a teacher gave such facility in expression of view, that his part in our discussions inspired the audience and called forth the best that others had to offer. "his type of mind was essentially scientific, and combined with this type of mind there was a rare quality of critical faculty in relation to the relative practical values of horticultural ideas and methods. his interest in the northern nut growers association belonged to a natural fondness for everything that promised new development, and he established at cornell university the first course in nuciculture,--so far as we are aware,--that has ever been formulated at an educational institution. "the personality of professor craig, characteristic of that of the scientist, was marked by simplicity and directness of manner, impatience with error due to carelessness or intent, but unlimited benign tolerance of all men who honestly expressed views opposing his own or who made conscientious mistakes. professor craig possessed that broad humanity which found quite as large interest in his fellow man as it found in his special study of plants, and his charming personality, strong manly bearing, scholarship, and active interest in whatever engaged his attention at all, will be ever remembered by those of us who had the pleasure and the profit of his acquaintance." mr. littlepage: i would just like to say, in connection with the very appropriate and excellent words which the president used in reference to prof. craig, that it certainly meets the most hearty approval of all of us who knew prof. craig, that this association go on record in this manner. at the first meeting that was held, by the few of us who met in bronx park museum at new york, to start this organization, you will remember the enthusiasm and the words of encouragement that prof. craig gave us at that time. he was there among the first and there was always intermingled with the scientific phase of the subjects that he discussed, the practical, genial good fellowship that made everyone like him; and after all, it is but proper that we stop for a moment and express our deep appreciation. in this life of turmoil and business hustle, i think that we sometimes do not quite realize the shortness of life, the shortness of the time that we have to accomplish any of those things in which we are interested; and it is the men who are giving their time to these scientific subjects, the results of which will inure to all humanity, who are certainly entitled to consideration and a kindly remembrance. that is why it was that i heard with such gratification the words of the president about prof. craig. report of committee on exhibits read by professor hutt by j. g. rush, west willow, pa. persian walnuts, four varieties: hall, burlington, nebo, rush; plate of mixed, imported varieties; seedling walnuts, paradox walnut, black walnuts and rupestris, (texas); two plates chinquapins; chestnuts, giant japanese; shellbarks: lafeuore, very good, large, weiker, fair; two seedlings: paradise nut; two plates filberts; lancaster co. pecans; budding knives. by wilmer p. hooper, forest hill, md. seedling persian walnut; sir clair; tree probably fifty years old, vigorous, hardy, annual bearer. on farms of l. j. onion, cooperstown, md. p. o. sharon, md. crop one bushel; crop one and one half bushels. alexis; tree twenty-eight years old; vigorous, hardy, annual bearer, flavor good. farm of alexis smith, churchville, md. crop one bushel; crop one bushel. sheffield; tree six years old; bought of hoopes brothers & thomas; hardy, vigorous; to feet high; on farm of mrs. s. t. poleet, cooperton, md., p. o. sharon, md. smith; tree forty to forty-five years old; large, hardy; on farm of j. t. smith, berkeley, md. beder; fifty to fifty-five years old; large, annual bearer; grown from nut on farm of david hildt, janettsville, md. hooker; tree twenty-two years old; origin franklin davis; vigorous, hardy, annual bearer, hard shell, fine butternut flavor; from farm of mrs. kate hooker, vale, md. by mr. knaub. shellbarks, five varieties: three black walnuts, two butternuts; one chestnut. by mrs. j. l. lovett, emilie, pa. six varieties of persian walnuts. by e. b. holden, hilton, n. y. holden walnut. stock seed nuts from j. m. thorborn & co., barclay st., new york city. juglans californica, juglans cordiformis, juglans sieboldi, juglans nigra, juglans cinerea, juglans sinensis, carya alba (shellbark), carya porcina (pignut), carya tomentosa (mockernut), carya sulcata, corylus rostrata, corylus amara, castanea americana. by e. a. riehl, alton, ill. a plate of rochester nuts and thirty seedlings of it, showing tendency to reversion; eight varieties of shagbark; eight varieties of shellbark; eight plates of sieboldi; eight plates black walnuts (thomas); rush chinquapin. collection of walnuts by professor lake, of washington, d. c. royal hybrid, california x nigra; paradox, california x regia; meylan, glady, sypherd, stabler, milbank, st. clair. by a. c. pomeroy, lockport, n. y. pomeroy walnuts and seedlings of the original tree. by t. p. littlepage, washington, d. c. indiana pecans, six varieties: warwick, posey, major, kentucky, indiana, hodge; hinton, mccallister hican, barnes walnut from washington, d. c., four varieties shagbark. by w. c. reed, vincennes, ind. indiana pecans, thirteen varieties: luce, beard, busseron, porter, squires, kentucky, hall, sullivan ( ), warwick, indiana, wilson. by col. c. k. sober, lewisburg, pa. photograph of his chestnut orchard and nursery. by c. a. reed, department of agriculture, washington, d. c. exhibition jars of holden walnut, warwick pecan, kentucky pecan, luce pecan, hales shagbark, kirtland shagbark, weiker shagbark. exhibition of squirrel, perfection and great grip nut crackers; white, jones and galbreath budding tools. by arrowfield nurseries, petersburg, va. seedling pecan trees. the hickory bark borer that our correspondence with the new york state commissioner of agriculture, as published in the annual report, has borne fruit is shown by the calling of a conference at the office of the commissioner at albany on february th, "to consider methods of control of the hickory bark borer". among those present were the following: frederick allien, representing riverdale park association. h. w. merkel, forester, new york zoological park; representing bronx, valley parkway commission. dr. w. a. murrill, acting director, new york botanical garden. j. j. levison, forester, department of parks, brooklyn. wesley b. leach, consulting arboriculturist, boro of queens. clifford r. pettis, superintendent of state forests, albany. dr. e. p. felt, state entomologist, albany. dr. w. c. deming, sec., northern nut growers' ass'n, westchester. george g. atwood, chief, bureau of horticulture, state dept. of agriculture, albany. b. d. van buren, assistant chief. dr. w. h. jordan, director, state experiment station, geneva. george l. barrus, conservation commission, albany. s. h. burnham, assistant state botanist, albany. dr. donald reddick, professor of plant pathology, college of agriculture, ithaca. glenn w. herrick, professor of entomology, college of agriculture, ithaca. w. h. rankin, conservation commission, albany. p. j. parrott, entomologist, state experiment station, geneva. f. c. stewart, botanist, state experiment station, geneva. after a prolonged discussion the following resolution was unanimously adopted: whereas, the hickory bark borer is at present extremely injurious and destructive to hickory trees in and around new york city, and has already destroyed and is threatening the destruction of thousands of valuable trees; and whereas, it has been demonstrated in several instances, on a large scale, that the hickory bark borer can be practically controlled; therefore, be it resolved, that we hereby respectfully request the commissioner of agriculture to take such steps as may be necessary to bring about the enforcement of the provisions of the agricultural law relative to insect pests and diseases with particular reference to control of the hickory bark borer; and be it further resolved, that the thanks of the conference are hereby tendered to commissioner of agriculture huson for his courtesies and the calling of the conference. the following "news items" of no date, but received in the early part of june, shows what action has so far been taken: state department of agriculture news items commissioner huson of the state department of agriculture is receiving considerable information relative to a serious outbreak of the hickory bark borer in the vicinity of new york and on long island. this borer is the principal cause of the death of thousands of hickory trees. the greatest infested area is in the northern part of new york city, in westchester county, in queens and nassau counties, though much injury has been observed throughout suffolk county, particularly along the northern shore of the island. the area of infested hickories is about the same as the territory where the chestnut trees have succumbed to the attacks of the chestnut bark disease. now that the chestnuts have so nearly disappeared and the fact that the hickory trees are also threatened with entire extermination because of the hickory borer, requests have been made by many citizens, that the commissioner of agriculture should exercise such authority as the law gives him in the control of this pest. that the hickory trees that have not been attacked may be saved, or in a very large measure protected has been proven in the zoological park and in the parks of brooklyn. the able superintendents of these two parks have for the last two or three years, been cutting out every infested hickory tree and in that way the other trees are found at this time to be free from insects and they have been saved from certain destruction. the hickory borer eats its way into the bark of the hickory trees in mid-summer. eggs are laid which hatch and the grubs feed in peculiar galleries in the bark and between the wood and the bark is such a way as to cut off the flow of the sap, thus causing the death of the trees. these grubs are in these galleries at this time of the year and will remain so until about the middle of june. it is, therefore, necessary that the infested trees be cut and destroyed before that time in order to prevent further widespread of the insects. the commissioner has been promised the hearty cooperation of many influential and interested citizens in this movement and agents of this department are on the ground with authority to inspect trees to ascertain the limit of infestation and they have been directed to mark such trees as should be removed and destroyed at once. all persons are requested to inform the department of the location of infested hickory trees and to extend to the inspectors such assistance as may be desired. department circular number on "dying hickory trees" will be sent to all applicants. calvin j. huson, commissioner of agriculture albany, n. y. miscellaneous notes members present: dr. r. t. morris mr. t. p. littlepage dr. w. c. deming mr. c. a. reed mr. w. n. roper prof. e. r. lake mr. e. s. mayo mr. a. c. pomeroy mr. j. f. jones mr. j. g. rush col. c. a. van duzee prof. j. russell smith prof. w. n. hutt mr. g. h. corsan mr. c. s. ridgway mr. h. n. gowing mr. w. c. reed mr. w. f. mcsparren. others present: mrs. c. a. reed mrs. a. c. pomeroy mrs. j. f. jones mrs. c. s. ridgway prof. f. n. fagan, dept. of horticulture, state college of pennsylvania mrs. fagan mr. roy g. pierce, tree surgeon, penn. chestnut blight commission mr. keller e. rockey, forester in charge of demonstration work, penn. chestnut blight commission col. c. k. sober, lewisburg, pa. mr. s. v. wilcox, rep. thos. meehan & sons, germantown mr. h. brown, rep. thos. meehan & sons, germantown mr. wilmer p. hoopes, forest hill, md. dr. a. h. metzger, millersville, pa. mr. amos m. landis, lancaster, pa. mr. blair funk, pequea creek, pa. mr. david s. herr, lancaster, pa. mr. edward harris, sr., cumberland, md. mr. edgar a. weimer, lebanon, pa. mr. benj. h. gochnauer, lancaster, pa. mr. c. g. reese, elizabethtown, pa. and others. correspondents and others interested in nut culture alabama williams, p. f., prof. of horticulture, ala. polytechnic institute, auburn alabama farm journal, montgomery, ala. arizona biederman, c. r., garces, cochise co. huntzinger, h. g., teviston rodgers, robt. a., forest service, u. s. dept, of agric, canille arkansas wilson, b. n., prof. of mechanical engineering, univ. of ark., fayetteville powers, r. c, so. trust bldg., little rock, ark. california mcneil, anna, center st., berkeley baker, w. a., greenfield leonard coates nursery co., morgan hill smith, r. e., agric exp. sta., whittier burbank, luther, santa rosa canada cleugh, h. h., castlegar, british columbia secord, harper, st. catherin's, ontario porter, w. t., st. clair ave., toronto sager, d. s., dr., brantford moyle, henry, bedford road, toronto ross, malcolm n., dept. public works, regina, saskatchewan saunders & co., w. e., london, ontario hubbell, w. s., spanish river lumber co., little current, ontario peters, e. w., somerset bldg., winnepeg graham, wm., hagensburg, british columbia colorado bell, bessie, miss, s. sherman, denver morgan, j. w., dr., s. penn. ave., denver connecticut cleveland, e. s., hampton buttner, j. l., dr., orange street, new haven jewell, harvey, cromwell gorham, frederick s., holmes ave., waterbury jenkins, e. h., agric. exp. sta., new haven spring, sam. n., state forester, new haven pratt, c. m., newtown hale, geo. h., mrs., glastonbury miles, h. s., dr., state st., bridgeport ives, e. m., sterling orchards, meriden cook, harry b., orange, ct. allen, g. wilford, m.d., boardman, ct. smith, geo. w., elm fruit farm, hartford lane, w. s., norfolk werle, jos. a., merwin's beach, milford williamson, robert, greenwich stauffer, w. f., no. s. burritt st., new britain boyd, wm. a. dr., westport lewis, elmer h., central village frothingham, channing, new canaan fletcher, albert e., box , farmington morre, r. d., colchester wolcott, c. b., p. o. box , plantsville delaware killen, j. w., felton mccue, c. a., prof., newark cowgill, l. p., dover cannon, miss lida, dover kosa, j. j., milford sypherd, c. d., dover whitehead, f. houston, lincoln studte, m. h., houston knipe, t. e., delaware city dunn, thos. f., dover webb, wesley, dover florida simpson bros. nurseries, monticello curtis, j. b., orange heights floyd, w. l., prof. of horticulture, university of florida, gainesville baldwin, ed. s., deland georgia wight, j. b., cairo wilson, j. f., dr., waycross mchatton, t. h., prof. of horticulture, athens edwards, b. h., macon, ga. southern ruralist, atlanta idaho vincent, c. c., prof., college of agriculture, moscow ackerman, w. b., p. o. box , twin falls hays, l. h., mace illinois lindholm, e., commercial ave., chicago stoll, wm. paul, glenlake ave., chicago schafer, j. f., mt. pulaski koonce, geo. w., greenville watson, bloomington banning, thos. a., mrs., chicago graham, r. o., bloomington karstens, peter j., chicago leslie, a. m., main street, evanston fisher, mr., "cairo citizen", cairo endicott, h. w., villa ridge hektoen, h., memo. inst. for infectious diseases, chicago mcveigh, scott, wrightwood ave., chicago evans, homer w., r. f. d. , plainfield buckman, benjamin, farmingdale horner, h. clay, chester burt, frank a., - so. race st., urbana somer, george w., no. n. la salle st., chicago spalding, c. w., no. byron st., chicago strawbridge, a. n., no. e. rd st., chicago remley, mrs. grace, franklin grove prochnow, i. w., no. second ave., rock island mcfarlane, h. w., chicago graham, w. h., fort gage fink, wm. h., no. n. pauline st., chicago crandall, c. s., urbana campbell, t. w., elgin badgley, b. h., no. greenleaf ave., chicago millroy, w. l., quincy sweeney, jno. m., no. manadnock block, chicago krossell, c. f. p., dr., no. indiana ave., chicago weeks, e. f., no. n. dearborn st., chicago heald, prescott, no. so. glen oak ave., peoria riddle, f. a., mrs., no. jackson boulevard, chicago kennish, f. h., no. east oak st., kewanee finley, j. b., care of moline polo and shaft co., moline braden, e. s., no. s. lasalle st., chicago kemp, e. f., no. s. lasalle st., chicago peterson, albert j., no. hayes st., chicago hewitt, r., no. e. chicago ave., chicago hopkins, a. m., r. , w. washington st., chicago hemingway, geo. r., oak park rut, z. d., park ridge dietrich, j. j., arlington heights hansell, e. f., no. w. lake st., chicago indiana leiber, richard, indianapolis garden, daniel a., elnora cathcart, alva y., bristol strassell, j. w., supt. of schools, rockport howard, w. t., r. f. d. , indianapolis boos, e. m., r. f. d. , milan boss co., john c, elkhart green, frank, no. so. st., newcastle house, m. m., college ave., indianapolis simpson & sons, h. m., vincennes woodbury, c. g., lafayette ray, elgin h., winamac, r. f. d. fellwock, p. b., up. fourth st., evansville hooke, ora g., albany, delaware co. smith, oren e., dr., traction terminal bldg., indianapolis whetsell, edward, kirkwood ave., bloomington swain, w. h., south bend knapp, dr., evansville yoder, a. c., dr., goshen knaub, ben., r. , box , north vernon lukens, b., mrs., anderson iowa dennis, a. b., dr., cedar rapids ruppersberg, e. a., miss, charles city college, charles city patten, c. g., charles city sawyer, l. h., des moines thompson, harry french, forrest city "successful farming" des moines "kimball's dairy farmer" waterloo kansas godfrey, f. m., holton skinner & co., j. h., topeka kentucky matthews, clarence w., state university, lexington horine, e. f., m.d., bardstown rd., louisville "inland farming", louisville brislin, john a., cash. farmers' bank of ky., frankfort kiefer, louis w., n. elm st., henderson louisiana hinton, e. g., weeks maine soule, sidney s., mrs., south freeport hitchings, edson f., college of agriculture, orono peardon, j. h., matinicus stryker, d. j., rockland chase, dr. walter g., wiscasset maryland michael, jesse j., frederick little, william e., westminister bunting, j. t., box , marion station benkert, george, baltimore heron, benj. f. l., box , mt. ranier coad, j. edwin, drayden, st. mary's co. munter, d. m., no. virginia ave., cumberland daingerfield, p. b. k., maryland club, baltimore bachrach, walter k., no. w. lexington st., baltimore hewell, john, no. w. lexington st., baltimore hays, amos h., parkton stem, c. w., sabillasville tyler, john paul, no. w. preston st., baltimore munter, d. w., no. runton ave., baltimore kerr, j. w., denton overton, w. s., r. f. d. , silver spring harris, edward, sr., s. liberty st., cumberland strite, s. m., broadway, hagerstown harrison's nurseries, berlin hoopes, wilmer p., forest hill irwin, arthur j., e. main st., frostburg mcdaniel, alex h., north east p. o., cecil co. massachusetts blood, w. h., mrs., jr., grove street, wellesley reed, orville, rev., granville, centre deroo, frank b., box , needham fox, jabez, irving street, cambridge hall, james l., kingston, box adams, norris w., box , worcester mass. agric. coll., amherst crosby, fred, bolton bailey, thos. w., kingston griffin, w. e., cor. central st. & b. & m. r. r., worcester dawson, jackson, mr., arnold arboretum, jamaica plain dowse, granton h., wrentham ellsworth, j. lewis, sec'y mass. state bd. of agric., boston fleming, charles b., norwood brounell, lewis, high street, fall river portmore, j. m., denison av., so. framingham humphrey, f. a., worcester waugh, f. a., prof., amherst beebe, e. pierson, boston mead, h. o., lunenburg torrey, john p., dr., andover affleck, g. b., hickory st., springfield deming, grove w., mt. hermon school elder, david, harwich, mass. james, gorton, so. station, boston sturtevant, e. l., brookline brown, j. frank, the corey hill hospital, brookline willwerth, a. h., no. greenwich park, boston day, w. taylor, no. main st., great barrington coney, harriet m., miss, no. church st., ware michigan brauer, h. a., w. huron st., ann arbor cobb, myron a., central state normal school, mt. pleasant ilgenfritz's sons co., t. e., nursery, monroe haines, peter s., detroit kidder, samuel, ann arbor paul, irwin, muskegon, r. f. d. garfield, chas. w., hon., grand rapids wermuth, burt, assoc. ed. "michigan farmer", detroit eustace, h. j., prof., state horticulturist, e. lansing carmichael, milton, yard bldg., detroit richardson, a. h., dr., the martha washington, mt. clemens baker, n. i., dr., himebaugh, clayton d., sheffield mfg. co., burr oak spring, o. l., wabash ave., detroit reshore, l. t., dowagiac adams, rollo k., middleville montgomery, r. h., jefferson ave., detroit "the gleaner", detroit davis, r. j., lock box , buchanan simpson, wallace n., no. w. main st., battle creek palmer, a. c., ellsworth faurote, fay l., lord bldg., detroit andrus, f. p., almont, lapeer co. gamble, m. d., e. f., coldwater horner, e. e., eaton rapids woolen mills, eaton rapids stryker, f. a., buchanan lake, geo., northville hanes, p. s., no. sheridan ave., detroit handy, j. w., m.d., no. west st st., flint minnesota fairchild, d. h., st. paul husser, henry, minneiska wedge, clarence, albert lea cutting, fred, byron underwood, roy, lake city alford, e. f., woodland ave., duluth latham, a. w., sec'y state hortic. soc'y, kasota bldg., minneapolis woodbridge, dwight e., u. s. bureau of mines, duluth tillinghast, e. g., leetonia mining co., hibbing lake sarah specialty farm, rockford farm stock & home, minneapolis missouri bostwick, arthur e., vandeventer st., st. louis stark bros.' nurseries and orchards co., louisiana williams, f. v., d.d.s., virginia, kansas city born, h. h. dr., park & compton sts., st. louis bailey, b. a., versailles wallace, e. s., office of city chemist, kansas city cummings, c. c., dr., joplin wilcox, walter h., forth ave., webster groves mosher, h. g., schell city new hampshire dillingham, thos. m., dr., marlboro clement, ruth e., miss, e. deering nebraska rolder, c. a., dr., hedde bldg., grand rapids nevada swingle, c. g., hazen gregory, e. r., dr., reno new jersey lovett, j. t., little silver pomona nurseries, palmyra bobbink & atkins, rutherford speer, lester w., passaic ave., nutley black, son & co., jos. h., hightstown chevrier, chas. s., p. o. box , trenton rice, john j., almonnesson parry, john r., parry totten, a. b., middlebush hartt, wm. s., box toms river dantun, a. p., walsted farm, freehold shoemaker, wm. e., bridgeton miller, jessie e., miss, w. passaic ave., rutherford hall & robert tubbs, willowwood farm, pottersville p.o. mount, t. s., hamilton sq. schulze, edward h., elizabeth spindler, m., no. halsey st., newark sonders, geo. b., p. o. box , mays landing palmer, h. c. h., main road, vineland putnam, g. h., vineland parkin, j. w., no. e. rd st., paterson martin, geo. w. r., no. chestnut st., newark lintner, geo a., summit, new jersey kirkpatrick, f. l., no. e. chestnut st., merchantville gilmore, jr., thos. j., no. montgonery st., jersey city haddon, chas. k., camden black, walter c, hightstown parkin, john m., no. e. rd st., paterson bailey, g. w., kenilworth eyferth, adolph, no. tenth st., n.e., west new york, n. y. matlack, c. l., no. potter st., haddenfield wellborn, c. e., weston somers, a. f., no. warren st., jersey city turner, h. j., box , montclair woodruff, leon, no. jefferson st., bridgeton davis, h. h., no. chestnut st., east orange butler, f. w., mrs., plainfield kevitt, t. c, anthonia maurer, e. h., no. s. broad st., elizabeth new mexico thompson, w. m., dr. logan new york hedrick, u. p., prof., experiment station, geneva murrill, w. h., botanical museum, bronx park, new york city bailey, liberty h., cornell agric. coll., ithaca the rochester nurseries, rochester l'amoreaux nursery co., schoharie green's nursery co., rochester lewis, roesch & son, nurserymen, fredonia burnette, f. h., phelps wheatcroft, s. f., brooklyn irwin, chas., rosedale st., rochester garrison, h. f., westfield benney, wm. h., church st., n. y. city harris, c. f., blandina st., utica thew, gilmore e., fifth ave., n. y. city yoakum, b. f., broadway, n. y. city trimble, j. h., st. paul st., rochester mcnair, e. o., erie co., bank bldg., buffalo baruch, h. b., new street studley, frank p., matteawan bostwick, henry j., clifton springs sanitarium, clifton springs wyckoff, c. h., aurora slocum, j. f., park street, buffalo sunnyfield nursery co., poughkeepsie morgan, h. e., pittsford williams & co., rose, miss, newark hechler, c. h., harbor hill, roslyn piccard, l. m., fulton st., brooklyn bardin, a. g., mr., brevoort pl., brooklyn townsend, broadway, n. y. city, room hunter, wm. t., jr., rose st., n. y. city gage, stanley a., mahlstedt place, new rochelle robertson, c. g., ormond pl., brooklyn sackman, karl bever, williams street younkheere, d., bailey ave., kingsbridge, n. y. city foster, e. w., central park, l. i. hemming, h., mrs., walworth st., brooklyn powell, e. p., clinton, otsego co. merkel, herman w., forester, bronx zoological park powell, geo. t., pres. agric. experts assoc, e. st., n. y. city britton, n. l., dr., director botanical gardens, bronx park, n. y. city walker, roberts, broadway, n. y. city sullivan, w. f., e. th st., n. y. city rosenberg, max, pleasantville, box bridgman, a. c., the standard union, brooklyn voorhis, ernest, rev., amsterdam ave., n. y. city buckbie, annie, miss, wisner, orange co. knight, geo. w., mrs., cambridge pl., brooklyn hickox, ralph, williamsbridge, n. y. city armstrong, m. e., miss, st. francis place, brooklyn perry, c. j., fulton st., auburn holden, e. r., jr., w. street, n. y. city charlton nursery co., rochester jones, l. v., miss, st. luke's hospital, newburgh hichcock, f. h., w. th st., n. y. city vickers, h. w., dr., little falls shepard, w. e., new paltz, ulster co. mendelson, d., pilkin ave., brooklyn hopkins, w., dey st., city smith, h. p., center moricrifs, suffolk, co. west, dr., e. th st., n. y. city grimmer, john w., armour villa park, bronxville leipziger, h. a., dr., hotel empire, broadway & rd st., n. y. city engesser, jas., n. washington st., tarrytown kepke, john, dr., nostrand ave., brooklyn manning-spoerl, j. o. o., dr., lafayette ave., brooklyn langdon, h. p., maple ridge, farm, constable wainwright, john w., dr., wash. sq., e., n. y. city teele, a. w., broad st., n. y. city grot, henry, e. th st., n. y. city graham, s. h., ithaca teter, walter c., wall st., n. y. city jewett, asabel, berkshire thompson, adelbert, east avon wiggin, thos. h., scarsdale "ridgewood times", myrtle & cypress aves., brooklyn schubel, geo., lit. ed., myrtle & cypress aves., brooklyn kelly, julia z., miss, college of agriculture, ithaca caldwell, r. j., broadway, n. y. city lincoln, egbert p., lincoln pl., brooklyn reynolds, walter s., dr., w. st st., n. y. city davidson, charles stewart, wall st., n. y. city slosson, richard s., carolina st., buffalo leutsch, nina, clinton corners armstrong, rob. p., n. y. state school of agric., canton manning, j. m., third ave., n. y. city righter, j. walter, fifth ave., n. y. city reynolds, h. l., palace arcade, buffalo spencer, w. f., no. bond st., brooklyn sauer, arthur w., broadway & driggs ave., brooklyn mezger, l. k., m.d., no. clinton ave., north rochester williams, olive g., miss, no. garfield ave., troy austin, nichols & co., new york bearns, j. h., jr., no. broadway dupree, wm., no. halsey st., brooklyn thomas, a. e., no. windsor place, brooklyn holt, frank l., no. broadway greffe, joseph a., box , boonton holden, e. r., jr., no. w. rd st hendrickson, b. w., care of j. k. armsby co., no. hudson st. hoyle, louis c., middletown hall, john, sec'y, rochester miller, francher, l., no. kirk block, syracuse mitchell, f. j., no. w. th st. leggett & co., francis h., franklin, hudson & leonard sts. krizan, jos., no. e. nd street jaburg bros., no. - leonard st. mathans, j. a., white plains nicholson, j. e., care of messrs. wassermass, no. broadway nicholson, j. e., no. rd st. & th ave., bensonhurst mills, w. m., no. goundry st., n. towanda sullivan, warren, no. morningside drive sweizer, karl, no. exchange place shook, f. m., dept. of tropical medicine randolph, lewis c., no. delaware ave. riley, r. m., garden city rogers, g. m., apt. . no. th st. williams & co., r. c., fulton & south sts. turner, fred. c., r.f.d. no. , box , schenectady tuthill, w. c., no. water st. sanford, a. e., no. bowman st., rochester smith, howard k., no. webster ave., brooklyn hewitt, r., ardsley on hudson evans, j. c., lockport hessinger, m. a., no. west d st. wetbeck, j. b., care of worcester salt co., no. & no. murray st. scott, thomas c., no. chenango st., binghamton dye, walter a., garden city ellison, e. t., no. jefferson ave., brooklyn brown, carl w., ripley, chautauqua co. teran, t. mrs., hotel calvert, new york city power, alice b., miss, no. st. paul st., rochester banks, e. m., no. west th st., new york city anderson, bryon wall, no. franklin ave., new rochelle mesner, e. d., no. carlton st., buffalo gawey, gerald, no. w. th st. maynard, a. r., waterloo johnson, m., no. w. th st. strawn, t. c., no. w. th st. bruce, w. robert, brick church institute, rochester broughton, l. d., no. lewis ave., brooklyn ouilshan, h. w., n. e. cor. th st. and th ave., bishop building, rooms - , new york city wadsworth, m. a., no. e. th st., brooklyn north carolina blair, wm. a., v. p. people's nat. bank, winston-salem ohio wise, p., maumee schuh, l. h., columbus rich, e. l., no. edgehill road, cleveland heights, cleveland neff, w. n., martel mcewen, will j., no. wilson ave., columbus miller, wm., gypsum marshall, robert, no. hollister st., cincinnati longsworth, i. r., lima kiser, frank a., fremont goetz, c. h., columbus draine, f. j., detroit ave., toledo cochran, j. h., napoleon bundy, c. c., no. mt. vernon ave., columbus penrod, a. m., camp chase poston, e. m., president, new york coal co., columbus rodgers, a. s., springfield gas engine co., springfield jeffers, f. a., monroe bank building, woodsfield kennedy, c. s., no. monroe st., east liverpool crawford co., m., cuyahoga falls hoyt, c. h., cleveland ashbrook, wm. a., hon., johnstown johnston, i. b., station k., cincinnati stasel, a. a., no. - / s. third st., newark book, g. m., bloomdale smith, e. r., no. s. collett st., lima rader, hal, no. chestnut st., nilec watt, frank e., no. show ave., dayton anderson, a. j., "ohio farmer", cleveland scarff, w. u., new carlisle durant, a. t., german-american ins. co., akron daugherty, u. g., r. d. , dayton miller, chas. d., n. garfield ave., columbus doren, jane m., bexley, columbus prickett, j. d., plymouth st., toledo zerkey, m. allen, justus, r. d. lohman, e., greenville ewart, mortimer, mogadore schumacher, arlin, pandora yunck, ed. g., central ave., sandusky nellis, a. s. byrne, dr., cor. third & webb sts., dayton rogers, w. b., st. stanislaus' house of retreat, cleveland parrott, frances, miss, r. d. , dayton rector, j. m., dr., columbus lauder, ed., dr., prospect ave., s. e., cleveland oregon robinson, c. a., r.f.d. , carlton, yamhill co. oregon r. r. & navigation co., portland power, frank w., sec'y state horticultural society, orenco gardener, v. r., associate prof, of horticulture, corvallis mcdonald, m., oregon nursery co., orenco magruder, g. m., medical building, portland fishback, p. l., monmouth panama deer, g. n., ancon, c. z. pennsylvania le fevre, b. w., elm st., lancaster harris, d. s., williamsburg, p.o. box wright, m. h., penn. shafting co., spring city hutchinson, mahlon, south th street, philadelphia taylor, c. b., philadelphia townsend, c. w., pittsburg allen, carl g., williamsport hall, l. c., avonia sober, c. k., lewisburg foley, john, forester penn. r. r. co., broad st. sta., philadelphia mann, chas. s., hatboro, montgomery co., r. d. springer, willard, jr., forest asst. pa. r. r. broad st. sta. philadelphia peck, wm. h., care of third nat. bank, scranton riehl, h. f., manheim hildebrand, f. b., duquesne wolford, c. h., prin. duquesne public schools, duquesne motts, sarah e., s. hanover st., carlisle watts, r. l., prof. of horticulture, state college hebbin, t. t., mckeesport ballou, c. s., potter co. marsden, biddle r., dr., chestnut hill, philadelphia fenstermacher, p. s., care of harry c. tripler, young bldg., allentown keeler, asa s., tunckhannock hess, frank p., jr., n. walnut st., mt. carmel george, w. h., edgewood, bucks co. scott & hill, erie st. francis, j., scott block, erie wilt, edwin m., no. brooklyn st., philadelphia wright, w. j., state college scott, w. m., no. centennial ave., sewickley small, norbert, edgegrove schotte, t. b., kittanning kirkpatrick, f. l., no. eleventh st., philadelphia gochnauer, benj. h., lancaster, r. f. d. no. engle, e. b., marietta cook, dr., george r., johnston chalmers, w. j., vanport, beaver co. cahalan, jno. a., no. chestnut st., philadelphia deweese, d. m., no. logan ave., sharon doan, j. l., school of horticulture, ambler. keystone wood co., williamsport fleming, h. n., no. downing bldg., erie hassell, h. w., dr., medical department, eastern state penitentiary, philadelphia pease, h. e., no. lamont st., pittsburgh palmer, c. l., dr., p. o. box, mt. lebanon spear, james, jr., wallingford hoerner, william s., chambersburg hazel, boyd e., box no. , madisonburg stover, c. j., ambler davis, thos. d., no. shady ave., pittsburgh hill, v. j., no. chestnut st., philadelphia richards, a. c., schellsburg stocks, george, no. heberton, pittsburgh rhoads, dr., j. n., no. s. broad st., philadelphia quimby, c. s., r. f. d. , phoenixville rhode island peckham, f. h., dr., thomas st., providence collins, franklin j., prof., hope st., providence heaton, h. w., m.d., no. iron's block, providence winslow, ernest l., providence bronsdon, m. h., chief engineer, the rhode island co., providence pleger, john j., box , manila texas blair, r. e., u. s. exper. farm, san antonio edward, chas. l., dallas kyle, e. j., prof, of horticulture, college station anderson, j. h., brighton canada, j. w., houston utah hansen, o. k., dr., provo hughes, m. a., dr., judge bldg., salt lake city vermont woodman, j. s., so. royalton cummings, m. b., sec'y state horticultural society, burlington parrish, john s., eastham, albermarle co. blue, c. e., ridgeway, charlottsville haynes, i. j., manakin virginia emerson, j. s., dr., red hill catlett, carter, gloucester washington washington nursery co., toppenish shomaker, joel, nellita moody, robert, everett stuart, john a., christopher nurseries, christopher davis, pauline, miss, box , pullman may, walter, empire bldg., okanogan western farmer, spokane march, g. l., kennewick west virginia bennett, louis, mrs., court ave., weston wisconsin kirr, a. r., box c, r. d. , fond du lac harold, geo. e., maiden rock, r. d. district of columbia van deman, h. e., washington swingle, walter, prof., bur. plant industry, washington coville, fred. v., prof., bur. plant industry, washington clinton, l. a., prof., dept, of agric., washington stabler, albert, ins. agt., washington bick, wm. h., h. st., washington hendrick, a. j., , rd st., washington life & health, takoma park sta., washington extracts from letters from state vice-presidents and others a well-known nut grower in delaware writes: "we have given the filberts a thorough test and found them one of the most unprofitable nuts ever tested. at one time we had under test about distinct varieties. after several years tests they all succumbed to the blight; a blight that attacked the old wood and killed it. some of our bushes or trees got as much as six inches in diameter before they were entirely killed back. possibly by thorough spraying from the setting of trees a success might be made. some varieties tested were very prolific and of fine quality. we succeeded in getting a fine lot of walnuts from the tree southeast of the potato house by applying pollen. they are as fine and as well filled and as large as any i have ever seen. several of our crosses had a few nuts this year, most of them are rather thick shelled. the trees though seem to be perfectly hardy. we have several japan walnut trees bearing this year some of which i consider first class, equal to the best shellbarks or pecans in cracking quality; besides they are so very prolific, producing as many as a dozen in a cluster. we can show specimens from several distinct varieties or types. the cordiformis seems to be one of the best. we also have some very fine black walnuts. one of our seedlings from the select nuts produces the largest walnuts that i have ever seen. the tree did not have very many on it this year. several of the other seedlings from the same planting produced fine nuts with good cracking qualities. we also had several pecan trees to bear a few nuts this year; most of the nuts were rather small but of fine quality, very thin shells and well filled. our japan chestnuts bore quite full. i think it possible to produce persian walnuts successfully in our locality. i also think the japan walnut offers a good field for investigation." from the state vice-president for colorado dec. , . so far as i can learn only two attempts have been made in this state to grow nuts. the first one consists in the setting out of about one hundred japanese walnuts by the antlers orchard co. their place is on the western slope in the fruit district and i am informed that the first winter the tops were killed but new shoots put out from the roots and the trees did well this year. the other attempt is one i made last spring. i set out a few pecan trees as an experiment near colorado springs. six of the seven trees lived and put out some leaves but did not make much growth. if they survive the winter i purpose planting more pecans and some other nuts,--chestnuts, black walnuts and possibly persian walnuts. * * * * * hilton, n. y. nov. , . dear sir: in reply to your inquiry i am inclosing notes on walnut culture in this locality. this noble fruit is not generally known here. i do not know of more than twelve or fifteen bearing trees in my county. of these all are without doubt seedlings, and are located in places where the peach will thrive. the soil in which they grow is varied: dunkirk fine sand, dunkirk silt loam, ontario fine sand loam, and ontario loam. (see soil survey of _monroe county_, n. y. u. s. dept. agriculture.) the altitude is comparatively low. the highest point in the county is only ft. above lake ontario, and the average elevation is not more than ft. the "holden" walnuts are growing at a still lower level. this tree, considering its surroundings and location, had a good crop this year. standing on the lawn uncultivated and unfertilized, hemmed in on three sides by other trees, it gave us at least three bushels of fine nuts. the wood showed no injury after last winter's intense cold. growth started in the spring just as the apple blossoms came out. the catkins are very large, at least much larger than those on the other trees we have, and hang on longer. one of our trees loses its male blossoms before the female bloom appears, but the "holden" is the last to lose them. about half of the clusters of fruit have two or three nuts in them. we began harvesting the nuts sept. th, just four months from the blossom. the dropping continued for a month, prolonged on account of lack of frost. last week the rochester democrat and chronicle reported the appearance of the first load of english walnuts ever brought on the local market. they were grown on fifteen year old seedlings, at east avon, n. y., by adelbert thompson. his orchard is said to contain trees. it seems very probable that the next twenty-five years will see the development of persian walnut growing, to commercial proportions, in those localities in the state where the peach will grow. i had a little experience last spring with southern grown walnut trees. last spring i received from louisiana eleven trees of the "holden" variety grafted on black walnut stocks. they were fine trees, the largest at least eight feet tall. six of these i set out in my own orchards and gave them intensive care and cultivation, but alas, growth was weak and at last they died. if i were to deduce any conclusions it would be that there is too great a difference between louisiana and new york conditions. from the secretary of the minnesota state horticultural society dear sir:-- i am addressing you as secretary of the northern nut growers' association in hopes that you can refer me to some one, perhaps a member of your society, in this part of the country to whom we can appeal to take part at the coming annual meeting of this society as champion of nut growing. while in our state we cannot successfully grow pecans, nor perhaps the sweet chestnut and some other nuts, yet some varieties do well with us and a larger interest in their growing should be stimulated. yours very truly, a. w. latham, sec'y. northern nut growers association _incorporated_ affiliated with the american horticultural society thirty-fourth annual report contents officers and committees state vice-presidents list of members constitution by-laws foreword--w. c. deming report of the secretary for - report of the treasurer for - the status of nut growing in . survey report john davidson, chairman of committee. side-lights on the - survey seasonal zone map of united states juglone: the active agent in walnut toxicity--george a. gries possible black walnut toxicity on tomato and cabbage--otto reinking preliminary studies on catkin forcing and pollen storage of corylus and juglans--l. g. cox storage and germination of nuts of several species of juglans--w. c. muenscher and babette i. brown a key to some seedlings of walnuts (juglans)--w. c. muenscher and babette i. brown further tests with black walnut varieties--l. h. macdaniels and j. e. wilde shelling black walnuts--g. j. korn better butternuts, please--s. h. graham the use of fertilizer in a walnut orchard--l. k. hostetter lime and fertilizers for our black walnut trees--seward berhow the propagation of black walnuts through budding--sterling smith northern nut growing--joseph gerardi nut puttering in an off year--w. c. deming nut nursery notes--h. f. stoke report from the tennessee valley--thomas g. zarger report from minnesota--carl weschcke be thrifty with nut trees--carl weschcke report of season --george hebden corsan american walnut manufacturers association carries out industrial forestry program--w. c. finley the crath carpathian walnut in illinois--a. s. colby ohio nut growers' meeting--g. j. korn walnut and heartnut varieties; notes and remarks--j. u. gellatly letters experiment station investigates tree believed to be the oldest chestnut in connecticut report of committee of ohio nut growers--a. a. bungart dr. john harvey kellogg--obituary officers of the association _president_--carl weschcke, south wabasha st., st. paul, minn. _vice-president_--dr. l. h. macdaniels, cornell university, ithaca, n.y. _secretary_--george l. slate, experiment station, geneva, n.y. _treasurer_--d. c. snyder, center point, iowa. _directors_ the officers--and j. f. wilkinson, rockport, indiana, and dr. a. s. colby, university of illinois, urbana, illinois. _committees_ _auditing_--dr. william rohrbacher, chairman. _finance_--carl f. walker, chairman, zenas h. ellis, harry r. weber. _press and publication_--dr. w. c. deming, chairman, mrs. alan buckwalter, clarence a. reed, george l. slate, dr. l. e. theiss. _varieties and contest_--alan r. buckwalter, chairman, john w. hershey, c. a. reed, d. c. snyder, h. f. stoke. _survey_--john davidson, chairman. _exhibits_--g. h. corsan, chairman, gilbert becker, paul c. crath, s. h. graham, homer l. jacobs, g. j. korn, o. c. lounsberry, sargent h. wellman. _program_--gilbert becker, chairman, john bregger, spencer b. chase, dr. h. l. crane, g. j. korn, j. w. mckay, clarence reed, g. h. corsan, prof. r. b. thomson, w. j. strong, dr. conelly, prof. white, prof. dwight. _membership_--dr. j. russell smith, chairman, l. v. kline, spencer b. chase, miss mildred jones, j. f. wilkinson, miss amelia riehl, h. f. stoke, s. h. graham, d. c. snyder, carl weschcke, john w. hershey, gilbert becker, harry r. weber. _dean of the association_ dr. robert t. morris, stamford, connecticut. _field secretary_ zenas h. ellis, fairhaven, vermont. _editor of publications_ dr. w. c. deming, litchfield, conn. _official journal_ american fruit grower, ontario street, cleveland, ohio. state vice presidents arkansas prof. n. f. drake alberta, canada a. l. young british columbia, canada j. u. gellatly california will j. thorpe canal zone l. c. leighton connecticut george d. pratt, jr. district of columbia l. h. mitchell georgia walter p. pike illinois dr. a. s. colby indiana hon. hugh d. wickens iowa d. c. snyder kansas frank e. borst kentucky e. c. rice maine herman g. perkins maryland dr. h. l. crane massachusetts sargent h. wellman mexico julio grandjean michigan harry burgart minnesota carl weschcke missouri victor h. schmidt nebraska william caha new hampshire prof. l. p. latimer new jersey a. r. buckwalter new york dr. l. h. macdaniels north carolina d. r. dunstan ohio harry r. weber ontario, canada rev. paul c. crath oregon c. e. schuster pennsylvania john rick quebec, canada dr. r. h. mckibben rhode island phillip allen south america celedonio v. pereda south carolina john t. bregger tennessee l. v. kline texas y. d. carroll vermont zenas h. ellis virginia dr. j. russell smith washington major h. b. ferris west virginia dr. john e. cannaday wisconsin marvin dopkins northern nut growers association members as of may , alabama mcdaniel, john, mcdaniel nursery specialties co., hartselle orr, lovie, penn-orr-mcdaniel orchards, r. no. , danville richards, paul n., r. no. , box , birmingham arkansas *drake, prof. n. f., fayetteville. johnson, searles, japton williams, jerry f., r. no. , viola california armstrong nurseries, no. euclid ave., ontario gray, g. a., th st., santa monica haig, dr. thomas r., h. st., sacramento kemple, w. h., west ralston st., ontario meyer, james r., guayale research project, box , salinas parsons, chas. e., felix gillet nursery, nevada city thorpe, william j., anna st., san francisco welby, harry s., buchanan st., taft canada cook, c., vine st., vancouver, b. c. corsan, george h., echo valley, islington, ontario crath, rev. paul c., r. no. , connington, ontario creed, fred h., sandwich st. w., windsor, ontario filman, o., aldershot, ontario gellatly, j. u., westbank, b. c. giegerich, h. c., con-mine, yellow knife, n w t housser, levi, beamsville, ontario * neilson, mrs. ellen, box , guelph, ontario papple, elton e., r. no. , gainesville, ontario porter, gordon, y.m.c.a., windsor, ontario somers, gordon l., london st., sherbrooke, quebec stephenson, mrs. j. h., north bend, b. c. trayling, e. j., richards st., vancouver, b. c. troup, alex, r. no. , jordon station, ontario wagner, a. s., delhi, ontario wood, c. f., c/o hobbs glass limited, notre dame st., west montreal, p. q. yates, j., e. th ave., vancouver, b. c. young, a. l., brooks, alta. canal zone leighton, l. c., box , cristobal colorado colt, w. a., lyons wilder, w. e., west th, la junta williams, erasmus w., p. o. box , durango connecticut biology department, avon old farms, avon coote, albert w., farmington ave., west hartford. david, alexander m., so. main st., west hartford dawley, arthur e., r. no. , norwich deming, dr. w. c., litchfield frueh, alfred j., west cornwall or ( perry st., n.y., n.y.) * huntington, a. m., stanerigg farms, bethel jennings, clyde, west main st., waterbury lehr, frederick l., elihu st., hamden lobdell, mrs. frank c., verna hill rd., fairfield milde, karl f., town farm rd., litchfield * morris, dr. robert t., rfd., stamford * newmaker, adolph, r. no. , rockville page, donald t., box , r. no. , danielson pratt, george d., jr., bridgewater rourke, robert u., r. , pomfret center, conn. senior, sam p., r. no. , bridgeport walsh, james a., c/o armstrong rubber co., west haven white, heath e., box , westport white, george e., r. no. , andover delaware lake, edward c., sharpless rd., hockessin district of columbia american potash inst., inc., librarian, th st., n. w., washington bush, dr. vannevar, hillbrook lane, washington littlepage, thomas p., union trust bldg., washington mitchell, col. lennard h., woodley rd. n. w., washington florida cook, dr. ernest a., c/o county health dept., quincy mcdaniel, j. c., box , haines city georgia eidson, g. clyde, westwood ave. s. w., atlanta hunter, h. reid, lakeshore dr. n. e., atlanta skyland farms, s. c. noland & c. h. crawford, prop., spring st. n. w., atlanta idaho dryden, lynn, peck swayne, samuel f., orofino illinois achenbach, w. n., n. michigan ave., chicago adams, james s., r. , hinsdale allen, theodore r., delavan anthony, a. b., r. no. , sterling baber, adin, kansas best, r. b., eldred bolle, dr. a. c., e. state st., jacksonville bontz, mrs. lillian, w. mass. ave., peoria bronson, earl a., simpson st., evanston churchill, woodford m., drexel blvd., chicago colby, dr. arthur s., university of illinois, urbana colehour, francis h., brown bldg., rockford dintelman, l. f., belleville duis, j. g., shattuc edmunds, mrs. palmer d., la hogue frey, mrs. frank h., west th place, chicago frey, frank h., west th place, chicago frierdich, fred, w. main st., belleville gerardi, joseph, o'fallon gott, lawrence e., p. o. box no. , enfield gusler, carl, n. taylor ave., oak park haeseler, l. m., w. madison st., chicago helmle, herman c., n. walnut st., springfield jungk, adolph, washington ave., alton kilner, f. r., c/o american nurseryman, so. dearborn st., chicago kinsel, dr. o. a., box , morrison knobloch, miss margaret, arthur kreider, ralph, jr., hammond livermore, ogden, forest ave., evanston logan, george f., dallas city love, w. wray, e. boone st., salem maxwell, leroy o., w. avondale st., champaign oakes, royal, bluffs peterson, dr. joel a., university ave., urbana powell, charles a., hickory st., jerseyville remaly, howard a., e. maple st., kankakee riehl, miss amelia, evergreen heights, godfrey trobaugh, frank e., west frankfort valley landscape co., box , elgin van cleave, bruce, chatfield rd., winnetka walantas, john, lituanica ave., chicago werner, edward h., ridgeland ave., elmhurst whitford, a. m., farina indiana behr, j. e., laconia boyer, clyde c., nabb gentry, herbert m., r. no. , noblesville minton, charles f., r. no. , huntington morey, b. f., s. th st., clinton olson, albert l., nuttman ave., fort wayne prell, carl f., west colfax ave., south bend skinner, dr. chas. h., indiana university, bloomington sly, donald r., r. no. , rockport tormohlen, willard, cleveland st., gary wallick, ford, r. no. , peru warren, e. l., new richmond wilkinson, j. f., indiana nut nursery, rockport iowa andrew, dr. earl v., maquoketa beeghly, dale, pierson berhow, s., berhow nurseries, huxley boice, r. h., r. , nashua cerveny, frank l., r. no. , cedar rapids christensen, everett g., gilmore city crumley, joe f., park rd., iowa city ferris, wayne, hampton gardner, clark, c/o gardner nurseries, osage harrison, l. e., nashua hill, clarence s., hilburn stock farm, minburn huen, e. f., eldora iowa state horticultural society, state house, des moines kivell, ivan e., r. no. , greene lehmann, f. w., jr., john lynde rd., des moines lounsberry, c. c., howard ave., ames mahon, milton, blakesburg mcleran, harold f., mt. pleasant rohrbacher, dr. wm., east college st., iowa city schlagenbusch bros., r. no. , ft. madison schlanbusch, dr. o. e., magowan ave., iowa city snyder, d. c., center point steffen, r. f., box , sioux city van meter, w. l., adel wade, miss ida may, avalon ave., waterloo wingert, john o., dallas center wood, roy a., castana kansas borst, frank e., shawnee st., leavenworth boyd, elmer, r. no. , box , oskaloosa funk, m. d., n. tyler st., topeka hofman, rayburn, r. no. , manhattan leavenworth nurseries, r. no. , leavenworth schroeder, emmett h., w. th, hutchinson wise, h. s., w. douglas ave., wichita kentucky alves, robert h., c/o nehi bottling co., henderson baughn, cullie, r. no. , box , franklin bureau of school service, university of kentucky, lexington cornett, lester, box , lynch gooch, perry, r. no. , oakville moss, dr. c. a., williamsburg rice, e. c., absher tatum, w. g., no. r. , lebanon watt, r. m., r. no. , lexington whittinghill, lonnie m., box , love louisiana fullilove, j. hill., box , shreveport louisiana state university and a. & m. college, general library, university maine pike, radcliffe b., lubec maryland crane, dr. h. l., bureau of plant industry station, beltsville gravatt, dr. g. f., forest pathology, plant industry, usda, beltsville hodgson, wm. c., r. no. , white hall hoopes, wilmer, forest hill kemp, homer s., bountiful ridge nurseries, princess anne kingsville nurseries, kingsville lewis, dean, bel air mccollum, blaine, white hall mckay, j. w., bureau of plant industry station, beltsville nogus, mrs. herbert, nd st., mt. rainier porter, john j., the terrace, hagerstown purnell, j. edgar, spring hill rd., salisbury reed, c. a., bureau of plant industry station, beltsville shamer, dr. maurice e., w. north ave., baltimore massachusetts allen, edward e., hotel ambassador, cambridge beauchamp, a. a., boylston st., boston booson, campbell, state st., boston brown, daniel l., state st., boston chatterton, r. m., cedar st., malden fitts, walter h., baker st., foxboro fritze, e., osterville garlock, mott a., arlington rd., longmeadow gauthier, louis r., wood hill rd., monson groff, george h., chestnut st., brookline kaan, dr. helen w., wellesley college, wellesley kendall, henry p., moose hill farm, sharon kibrick, i. s., main st., brockton labeau, henry a., massachusetts ave., north adams mctavish, w. c., congress st., boston perells, walter j., north-falmouth rice, horace j., elm st., springfield *russell, mrs. newton h., burnett ave., south hadley swartz, h. p., checopee st., checopee short, i. w., washington st., taunton stewart, o. w., milton ave., hyde park trudeau, dr. a. e., railroad st., holyoke van meter, dr. r. a., french hall, m. s. c., amherst wellman, sargent h., windridge, topsfield westcott, samuel k., richview ave., north adams weston nurseries, inc., brown & winter sts., weston weymouth, paul w., plymouth st., holbrook mexico grandjean, julio, p. o. box , mexico, d. f. michigan andersen, charles, andersen evergreen nurseries, scottville aylesworth, c. f., pinecrest dr., ferndale barlow, alfred l., flanders ave., detroit, becker, gilbert, climax binder, charles, e. michigan ave., battle creek boylan, p. b., cloverdale bradley, l. j., r. no. , springport buell, dr. m. f., dept. of health & recreation, dearborn bumler, malcolm r., lakeview, detroit burgart, harry, michigan nut nursery, r. no. , union city burgess, e. h., burgess seed & plant co., galesburg cardinell, h. a., michigan state college, e. lansing corsan, h. h., r. no. , hillsdale daubenmeyer, h., sylvester, detroit emerson, ralph, cortland ave., highland park, farrington, robert a., chittenden nursery, u. s. f. a., wellston gage, nina m., kensington rd., wixom hay, francis h., ivanhoe place, lawrence healey, scott, r. no. , otsego hewetson, prof. f. n., michigan state college, east lansing **kellogg, w. k., battle creek korn, g. j., r. no. , richland lee, michael, lapeer lemke, edwin w., townsend ave., detroit, lewis, clayton a., pine st., port huron mann, charles w., cutler st., allegan mason, harold e., montie, lincoln park mcshane, gerald, franklin st. s. e., grand rapids mcmillan, vincent u., woodward ave., detroit, miller, louis, o'keefe, cassopolis ricker, john e., marlowe ave., detroit scofield, mr. and mrs., box , woodland stocking, frederick n., harrisville stotz, raleigh r., franklin s. e., grand rapids, tate, d. l., westchester way, birmingham wise, c. e., r. no. , milford minnesota andrews, miss frances e., park view terrace, minneapolis cothran, john c., n. th ave. e., duluth grosch, robert h., drew ave. s., minneapolis hodgson, r. e., dept. of agriculture, s. e. exp. station, waseca skrukrud, baldwin, sacred heart vaux, harold c., r. no. , faribault weschcke, carl, so. wabasha st., st. paul missouri barnes, dr. f. m., jr., maryland ave., st. louis bucksath, charles e., dalton fisher, j. b., r. r. h. , pacific hay, leander, gilliam johns, jeannette f., r. no. , festus ochs, c. t., box , salem owen, dr. lyle, branson richterkessing, ralph, r. no. , st. charles schmidt, victor h., virginia, kansas city stevenson, hugh, elsberry thompson, j. d., west rd st., kansas city nebraska brand, george, r. no. , box , lincoln caha, william, wahoo clark, ivan e., concord delong, f. s., nd corso, nebraska city ferguson, albert b., dunbar hess, harvey w., the arrowhead garden, box , hebron hoyer, l. b., maple st., omaha lydick, j. j., craig wever, francis e., box , sutherland white, bertha g., leighton ave., lincoln new hampshire lahti, matthew, locust lane farm, wolfeboro latimer, prof. l. p., department of horticulture, durham ryan, miss agnes, mill rd., durham vannevar, dr. bush, e. jaffrey or ( hillbrook lane, washington, d. c.) new jersey blake, harold, box , saddle river brewer, j. l., allen place, fair lawn bottom, r. j., robertson rd., west orange buch, philip o., rockaway ave., rockaway buckwalter, alan r., flemington buckwalter, mrs. alan r., flemington case, lynn b., mountain ave. & piedmont dr., bound brook collins, joseph n., first st., westfield cumberland nursery, r. no. , millville donnelly, john h., mountain ice co., newark st., hoboken dougherty, wm. h., broadacres-on-bedens, box , princeton fuhlbruegge, edward, r. no. , box , pittstown gardenier, dr. harold c., westwood gottein, louis, so. clinton ave., trenton *jacques, lee w., waverly place, jersey city jewett, edmund gale, r. no. , port murray mcculloch, j. d., george st., freehold mueller, r., r. , box , westwood ritchie, walter m., st. george st., rahway rocker, louis p., the rocker farm, andover szalay, dr. s., garrison ave., teaneck terhune, gilbert v. p., apple acres, newfoundland todd, e. murray, r. no. , matawan tolley, fred c., berkeley ave., bloomfield van doren, durand h., redmond rd., south orange white, co. j. h., jr., picatinny arsenal, dover williams, harold g., box , ramsey youngberg, harry w., hillside ave., nutley new mexico bryan, lawrence, p. o. box , artesia williams, erasmus d., box no. , wagon mound new york benton, william a., wassaic bernath's nursery, r. no. , poughkeepsie bixby, henry d., east drive, halesite, l. i. bixby, mrs. willard g., grand ave., baldwin black, mrs. william a., w. th st., new york brinckeroff, john h., - hillside ave., jamaica brook, victor, rockingham st., rochester brooks, william g., monroe collins, james f., cold spring rd., stanfordville cowan, harold, southern bldg., the bronx, new york davis, clair, broadway, lynbrook de schauensee, mrs. a. m., easterhill farm, chester dutton, walter, terrace park, rochester ellwanger, mrs. william d., east ave., rochester fagley, richard m., perry st., new york, feil, harry, hilton-spencerport rd., hilton flanigen, charles f., greenfield st., buffalo freer, h. j., midvale rd., fairport garcia, m., rugby rd., brooklyn graham, s. h., r. no. , ithaca graves, dr. arthur h., botanic garden, brooklyn gressel, henry, r. no. , mohawk guillaume, ronald p., maine st., wmsville gwinn, ralph w., th ave., new york hasbrouck, walter, jr., new paltz heckelman, edward, s. franklin st., hempstead hubbell, james f., mayro bldg., utica iddings, william, ludlow st., new york kelly, mortimer b., battery place, new york kirstein, edward k., westminster rd., rochester *lewis, clarence, park ave., new york little, george, ripley *macdaniels, dr. l. h., cornell university, ithaca maloney bros. nursery co., inc., danville mevius, william e., east church st., eden miller, j. e., r. no. , naples *montgomery, robert h., e. th st., new york newell, p. f., elm st., nassau oeder, dr. lambert r., fifth ave., new york ohligor, louis h., r. no. , new city phillips, clyde f., olive ave., batavia pickhardt, dr. otto c., east th st., new york pomeroy, robert watson, wassaic potter, wilson, jr., pomona country club, suffern price, j., arbuckle ave., cedarhurst, l. i. rebillard, frederick, lark st., albany salzer, george, garford rd., rochester schlegel, charles p., south ave., rochester schmidt, carl w., linwood ave., buffalo schwartz, mortimer l., boynton ave., bronx, new york slate, prof. george l., state agricultural experiment sta., geneva smith, gilbert l., state school, wassaic smith, jay l., chester steiger, harwood, red hook stern-montegny, hubert, erbonia farm, gardiner sucsy, emil j., west nyack warren, herbert e., p. o. box , norwich wilson, mrs. ida j., candor, new york windisch, richard p., w. e. burnet & co., wall st., new york *wissman, mrs. f. de r., w. th st., new york north carolina dunstan, r. t., greenboro college, greenboro malcolm, van r., celo p. o., yancey county parks, c. h., r. no. , asheville oklahoma billups, richard a., hales bldg., oklahoma city clifton, edward c., east th st., r. no. , tulsa hirschi's nursery, n. robinson, oklahoma city hughes, c. v., n. w. , r. no. , oklahoma city jarrett, c. f., w. th st., tulsa meek, e. b., r. no. , wynnewood swan, oscar e., jr., e. th st., tulsa ohio bungart, a. a., avon cinadr, mrs. katherine, coath ave., cleveland, cole, mrs. j. r., woodland ave., columbus cook, h. c., r. no. , box , leetonia cranz, eugene f., mount tom farm, ira crooks, john l., chester, cleveland davidson, john, e. nd st., xenia diller, oliver d., dept. of forestry, experiment sta., wooster dubois, wilber, & son, madisonville, cincinnati, emeh, frank, genoa fickes, w. r., r. no. , wooster franks, m. l., r. no. , montpelier garden center of greater cleveland, east blvd., cleveland gauly, dr. edward, euclid ave., cleveland gerber, e. p., kidron gerhardt, gustave a., jefferson ave., cincinnati gerstenmafer, john a., pond s. w., massillon hoch, gordon f., glade ave., cincinnati hill, dr. albert a., pearl rd., cleveland irish, charles f., th st., cleveland jacobs, homer l., c/o davey tree expert co., kent jacobs, mason, jacobs rd., youngstown kappel, owen, bolivar kintzel, frank m., briarcliffe ave., cincinnati, kirby, r. l., box , r. no. , sharonville kratzer, george, kidron lacknett, g. s., e. main st., newark lehmann, carl, union trust bldg., cincinnati madison, arthur e., th ave. e., cleveland mcbride, william b., brandon rd., columbus, meikle, william j., thornhill dr., cleveland metzger, a. j., euclid ave., toledo ochs, c. t., box , salem ochs, norman m., r. no. , brunswick osborn, frank c., w. th st., cleveland ransbottom, earl a., w. market st., lima scarff's sons, w. n., new carlisle shelton, e. m., w. clifton blvd., lakewood, shessler, sylvester m., genoa silvis, raymond e., lindberg ave. n. e., massillon smith, sterling a., w. south st., vermillion spring hill nurseries co., tipp city toops, herbert a., cambridge blvd., columbus van voorhis, j. f., hudson ave., apt. b- , newark walker, carl f., e. overlook rd., cleveland *weber, harry r., east th st., cincinnati weber, martha r., r. no. , morgan rd., cloves willett, dr. g. p., elmore wischhusen, j. f., shore acres dr. n. e., cleveland oregon carlton nursery co., carlton doharian, s. h., p. o. box , eugene flanagan, george c., terminal sales bldg., portland miller, john e., r. no. , box -a, oswego russ, e., r. no. , halsey schuster, c. e., horticulturist, corvallis pennsylvania allaman, r. p., r. no. , harrisburg allen, lt. col. thomas h., st. thomas banks, h. c., r. no. , hollortown barnhart, emmert m., r. no. , waynesboro baum, dr. f. l., boyertown beard, h. k., r. no. , sheridan blair, dr. g. d., n. homewood ave., pittsburgh bowen, john c., r. no. , macungie brenneman, john e., r. no. , lancaster brown, morrison, carson long military academy, new bloomfleld creasy, luther p., catawissa dewey, richard, box , peckville driver, warren m., r. no. , bethlehem diefenderfer, c. e., rd st., fullerton duckham, william c., r. no. , allison park ebling, aaron l., r. no. , reading ellenberger, herman a., s. burrows st., state college etter, fayette, p. o. box , lemasters gebhardt, f. c., east th st., erie heckler, george snyder, hatfield heilman, r. h., beechwood blvd., pittsburgh hershey, john w., nut tree nurseries, downingtown high tor nursery, r. no. , pittsburgh hostetter, c. f., bird-in-hand hostetter, l. k., r. no. , lancaster jackson, schuyler, new hope johnson, robert f., r. no. , box , crafton jones, dr. truman w., coatesville jones, miss mildred, p. o. box , lancaster kaufman, m. m., clarion kirk, denard b., forest grove kline, dr. florence m., arlington apts., corner acken and center aves., pittsburgh leach, will, court house, scranton long, carleton c., walnut st., beaver losch, walter, e. high st., topston lutz, stanley w., egypt mattoon, h. gleason, commercial trust bldg., philadelphia mccartney, t. lupton, room , horticultural bldg., state college miller, robert o., rd and ridge st., emmaus moyer, philip s., union trust bldg., harrisburg owens, g. f., e. line ave., ellwood city reidler, paul g., ashland rial, john, harrison ave., greensburg *rick, john, pennsylvania sq., reading ruch, george, huntingdon valley rupp, edward e., jr., w. pomfret st., carlisle sameth, sigmund, grandeval farm, r. no. , kutztown schaible, percy, upper black eddy schmidt, albert j., smithfield st., pittsburgh siebley, j. w., star route, landisburg shelly, david b., r. no. , elizabethtown silin, i. j., echo mountain, fairview smith, dr. j. russell, elm ave., swarthmore southampton nurseries, southampton stoebener, harry w., penn. ave., pittsburgh theiss, dr. lewis e., bucknell university, lewisburg waggoner, charles w., harmony ave., rochester *wister, john c., clarkson ave. and wister st., germantown wood, wayne, r. no. , newville wright, ross pier, west th st., eric rhode island **allen, philip, dorance st., providence r. i. state college, library dept., green hall, kingston south america pereda, celedonia v., arroyo , buenos aires, argentina south carolina bregger, john t., clemson south dakota bradley, homer l., lacreek national wildlife refuge, martin tennessee chase, capt. spencer b., hqs. det. sta. camp, camp tyson kirk, charles h., oak ridge howell nurseries, sweetwater mcdaniel, j. c., p. o. box , brownsville rhodes, g. b., r. , covington zarger, thomas g., norris texas carroll, y. d., mcfadden st., beaumont florida, kaufman, box , rotan price, w. s., jr., gustine utah oleson, granville, laird ave., salt lake city, petterson, harlan d., jefferson ave., ogden vermont aldrich, a. w., r. no. , springfield *ellis, zenas h., fair haven foster, forest k., west topsham virginia acker, e. d., co., broadway brewster, stanley ii., "cerro cordo," gainesville burton, geo. l., college st., bedford carey, graham, fair haven dickerson, t. c., th st., newport news gibbs, h. r., mclean johnson, dr. walt r., b. monument ave., richmond landess, s. s., n. quantico st., arlington lewis, pvt. hewlett w., h. & h. co., engr. avn. cam. bn., a. a. b., richmond morse, chandler, valross, r. no. , alexandria nix, robert w., jr., lucketts peters, john rogers, p. o. box , mclean pertzoff, dr. v. a., carter's bridge stoke, h. f., watts ave., roanoke stoke, dr. john h., - boxley bldg., roanoke varcity products co., middlebrook ave., staunton webb, john, hillsville zimmerman, ruth, bridgewater washington altman, mrs. h. e., cedarbrook nut farm, nooksack barth, j. h., box , r. no. , spokane carey, joseph e., letona ave., seattle clark, r. w., phinney ave., seattle denman, george l., east nina ave., spokane ferris, major hiram b., p. o. box , spokane kling, william l., r. no. , box , clarkston linkletter, f. d., th ave. n. e., seattle lynn tuttle nursery, the heights, clarkston martin, fred a., star route, chelan naderman, g. w., r. no. , box , olympia shane bros., vashon wilson, john a., east th ave., spokane west virginia cannaday, dr. john e., charleston general hospital, charleston hoover, wendell w., webster springs slotkin, meyer s., th ave., huntington, wisconsin aoppler, c w., box , oconomowoc bassett, w. s., main st., la crosse dopkins, marvin, r. no. , river falls downs, m. l., n. leminwah st., appleton koelsch, norman, jackson zinn, walter g., p. o. box , milwaukee *life member **contributing member constitution article i _name_--this society shall be known as the northern nut growers association, incorporated. article ii _object_--its object shall be the promotion of interest in nut-bearing plants, their products and their culture. article iii _membership_--membership in this society shall be open to all persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to place of residence or nationality, subject to the rules and regulations of the committee on membership. article iv _officers_--there shall be a president, a vice-president, a secretary and a treasurer, who shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting; and a board of directors consisting of six persons, of which the president, the two last retiring presidents, the vice-president, the secretary and the treasurer shall be members. there shall be a state vice-president from each state, dependency, or country represented in the membership of the association, who shall be appointed by the president. article v _election of officers_--a committee of five members shall be elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating officers for the following year. article vi _meetings_--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. article vii _quorum_--ten members of the association shall constitute a quorum but must include two of the four elected officers. article viii _amendments_--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 amendment having been mailed by any member to each member thirty days before the date of the annual meeting. by-laws article i _committees_--the association shall appoint standing committees as follows: on membership, on finance, on programme, on press and publication, on exhibits, on varieties and contests, on survey, and an auditing committee. the committee on membership may make recommendations to the association as to the discipline or expulsion of any member. article ii _fees_--annual members shall pay two dollars annually. contributing members shall pay ten dollars annually. life members shall make one payment of fifty dollars and shall be exempt from further dues and shall be entitled to the same benefits as annual members. honorary members shall be exempt from dues. "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 or the donation. article iii _membership_--all annual memberships shall begin october st. annual dues received from new members after april first shall entitle the new member to full membership until october first of that year and a credit of one-half annual dues for the following year. article iv _amendments_--by-laws may be amended by a two-thirds vote of members present at any meeting. article v members shall be sent a notification of annual dues at the time they are due and, if not paid within two months, they shall be sent a second notice, telling them that they are not in good standing on account of non-payment of dues and are not entitled to receive the annual report. at the end of thirty days from the sending of the second notice, a third notice shall be sent notifying such members that, unless dues are paid within ten days from the receipt of this notice, their names will be dropped from the rolls for non-payment of dues. annual report of the northern nut growers association incorporated for the third time in the forty-four years of our existence our annual convention has been omitted. each time this has been due to war conditions. the first was in , the others in and . no report was issued for but one was compiled for last year, and this present little volume will show that your members and officers are still functioning. we have great hope for the future. an important part of this report is the result of the work of the chairman of the survey committee, mr. john davidson, a good job well done. considering the still elementary state of nut growing it is remarkable--a really immense undertaking. the responses to this survey show enthusiasm that is encouraging. the war and its emphasis on food seems to have increased interest in nut culture. w. c. deming. report of the secretary for - the association has had a successful year in spite of the war and the cessation of our annual meetings because of the restrictions on wartime travel. interest in the association and nut culture appears to be well-maintained. the program committee assembled a report for and is already working on one for . during the past year the membership increased from as of august , to as of july , . if this rate of increase continues, we shall pass the mark before the end of . in the report members were listed and each year since then has shown a substantial increase. accompanying this letter is a questionnaire from the survey committee which is designed to extract as much information as possible from the members. the secretary is especially interested in the section on personal information as it should give some idea as to the interests of the members and indicate how they may best be served by the officers and committees. the program committee can also use this information in preparing programs. president weschcke announces that the committees and state vice-presidents for will continue for another year. the membership circulars which contain the list of nut nurseries and a list of publications on nut culture may be had from the secretary by all who wish to distribute it. the sets of reports as now sold lack the report for . the few remaining copies are being reserved for agricultural libraries. if members have copies of this report for which they no longer have any use their return to the secretary's office will be appreciated as it may make possible the supplying of complete sets to libraries. treasurer's report report of the treasurer--aug. , to sept. , _receipts:_ memberships $ . (philip allen $ . ) (exchange . ) sale of reports . sale of index . sale of advertising ( report) . carl weschcke contribution . ------- $ . $ . _disbursements:_ fruit grower subscriptions . printing and mailing report . reporting convention . expense of president none expense of secretary . expense of treasurer . supplies and miscellaneous . ------- $ . $ . ------- ------- excess of receipts over expenditures . balance on hand aug. , . ------- balance on hand sept. , in north linn savings bank $ . d. c. snyder, treasurer the status of nut growing in survey report john davidson, _chairman of committee_ this survey of nut tree growing in the united states and canada is a cross section of the industry and has been conducted through the membership of our association. questionnaires were submitted to all members, of whom a very satisfactory percentage responded with reports which usually were as complete as the age of the planted trees made possible. our thanks are due to all who had the patience to reply to so searching a questionnaire. their reward, we hope, will be increased by nuggets of information from others. the survey committee is indebted to the officers of the association, to mr. slate particularly, who took care of the multigraphing and mailing drudgery, and to the experienced men who lent invaluable aid in formulating and revising the exhaustive and detailed questions. the results are here set forth in three sections: northern united states, southern united states and canadian. it is evident that trees which do well in the south may act very differently in the north; yet, to a certain and very important extent, the experience of the south has a bearing upon conditions in the north. for example, the pawpaw, though not a nut tree, has seemed to edge itself into the affections and interest of many nut tree men. it is in reality a tropical fruit which has adapted itself to northern latitudes. the pecan seems to be trying to do the same thing. both illustrate a way of working that nature practices more or less with all species. by cross pollination and selection, human hands are having a part in speeding up this process of adaptation in pecans, persian walnuts and other tender species. in fact, this is one of the jobs to which the association is dedicated. we wish here to pay tribute to the nurserymen of this association. most nurserymen are intelligent and honest but sometimes they have a tough time of it. their worst competitor is a nurseryman who sells seedlings for named varieties, who advertises widely and prospers upon the work of others. when we think of the painstaking care of the honest nurseryman, of his days of drudgery, of the thousands of failed experimental trees and plants that he destroys, of the service he renders his fellows, we know that we should make slow progress without his help. the conscientious worker in the experiment stations is in the same category. he does his best work largely for love of it. in addition to many letters and other valuable sources of information this survey covers reports from more than planters of named varieties of nut trees. many are also planters of seedlings from selected and named varieties with which they are experimenting and from which they are making selections for future tests. some are experimenting with cross pollination. as one example of careful work, we have now on file blue prints from the new jersey department of conservation and development, from gerald a. miller, of trenton, showing exact locations by name and number of one of the largest variety collections of hybrid walnut trees in the world. from the brooklyn botanic gardens, arthur h. graves, curator, we have valuable records of the breeding of chestnut trees, with selections made primarily for tree growth and timber production. there is also hope for some good nuts from the trees. the timber, in money value, is of course more important than the nuts. if successful, we shall again have both. it is difficult to interest "hurry-up" americans in planting trees for future generations. they want results now. but the sooner we develop reliable and adaptable fruiting trees for general planting, the sooner will thousands of people begin to plant trees. the late rapid growth of membership in this association shows an awakened interest that could be swollen into a mighty flood of tree planters if good trees were available. if there were more agencies like the tennessee valley authority, more trees of the better sort would be developed. its tree crop activities have now been transferred to a "forest resources division" under the supervision of mr. w. h. cummings, and its testing and selection work is going ahead steadily. thomas g. zarger, jr., botanist, is handling the black walnut work in connection with other investigations of "minor forest products." the headquarters is at norris, tennessee. charles v. kline, now assistant chief of the watershed protection division, still keeps his old interest in the black walnut and tree crop program. definite and important results are bound to follow from so sustained and well organized a project. most state agencies complain of lack of appropriations and help. the real trouble lies in lack of vision and knowledge upon the part of legislators. the president has proposed an immense program of communications and highway development as a post-war project. we suggest that fruitful land is still more important, and that highways through desert countries are almost unknown except as means for getting from one fruitful land to another. perhaps this association could do more than it has done toward spreading the gospel among legislatures. the largest source of contribution to the survey is, of course, from the northern united states. for purposes of tabulation, we have included everything north of central tennessee in this class. nearly one hundred planters of nut trees contribute their experiences in this section. of the lot, only fourteen of them plant trees for sale as nurserymen. today we could keep more of them with stocks sold out. seventy-six are interested in planting primarily for the production of nuts; fifty-seven, in grafting and budding trees from named varieties; forty-five in planting seed from the better varieties, either for production of stocks upon which to graft or, in large quantities, for observation and selection. as many as twenty-six are doing important work in hybridizing. fifty-one are top-working young trees to better varieties. only twenty-one count upon the growth of timber for a part of their profit. but certainly the growth of timber, especially black walnut, is not an item to be left out of consideration. much, here, depends upon the manner of planting, whether in orchard or forest formation. however, even in orchard plantings, the stumps alone are valuable for beautifully patterned veneers. fifty-seven correspondents tell us that they are testing standard varieties, while forty-two are interested in discovering and developing new varieties, certainly an index to the pioneering and creative urge which dominates many of our members. as is to be expected, most of our newer members are thus far feeling their way by growing a few of the better varieties for home use. only nine of the whole number say that they are working with nut trees at an experiment station. as to the species of trees being planted, black walnut heads the list with eighty-nine planters. persian walnuts are next with seventy-three, including five who specify carpathians or circassians. sixty-eight are planting chinese chestnuts, and sixty-four hickories. filberts and pecans are tied with fifty planters each; forty-eight say they are planting hazels; forty-three heartnuts; and forty-two persimmons--if we may include these trees for the time being among the nuts. thirty-eight are planting butternuts; thirty-two, japanese walnuts; twenty-eight, pawpaws; twenty-seven, mulberries; twenty-four, japanese chestnuts. after these, in order, come almonds along the southern borders, beech toward the north, hicans, tree hazels, oaks, japanese persimmons, honey-locust, jujube, black locust (the correspondent explains, "for bees and chickens"), manchurian walnuts, and finally, coral and service berries. as an indication of the adaptation of species and varieties to the climates in which these men, and several women, are working, they listed at out request the following native trees found most plentifully in their sections. black walnuts and hickories stand at the head of the list, as reported by seventy-five correspondents each. then follow in order, butternuts, hazel, beech, oaks (probably overlooked by many), pecans and chestnuts. of nut trees found sparingly in these sections, butternut trees, surprisingly, take first place, indicating broad adaptation but a certain weakness, perhaps a slow susceptibility to blight or fungi, which prevents this tree from being found plentifully. it is significant that it is found most plentifully in the more rigorous areas of new england where fungous ravages are discouraged by cold. add chinquapins to the number of scarce trees, and the list is complete. as a further gauge of climatic conditions, fifty reported that peaches are reliably hardy in their sections, while fifty said they are not. this, according to the late thomas p. littlepage, is a fairly reliable index to the climatic adaptability of present varieties of northern grown pecans. ninety-two planters reported that their seasons are long enough to mature concord grapes. only four said "no." for catawba grapes? "yes," said forty-two; "no," fourteen. for field corn? "yes," ninety-three; "no," four. this question was improperly asked. field corn varies too widely in length of maturity for accuracy in this respect. lowest temperatures expected range from °f above to °f below zero, with the usual lower range in the greater portion of the northern states, from zero to ° below. lowest known temperatures range all the way from ° to ° below, but in most portions from ° to ° below. returns indicate that winter injury is not always, nor even usually, the result of low temperatures but, rather, to the condition in which the trees enter the winter. if late excessive growth leaves them with wood not wholly dormant, they suffer. if not, they will stand extraordinary low temperatures with little or no damage. one way to guard against this damage is by preventing late growth. a means of doing this will be found in an important contribution by mr. h. p. burgart, of union city, michigan. mr. burgart says: "after years of experience with growing, selling and planting nut trees, i have had to have a neighbor show me the best way to care successfully for them. i have studied and practiced mr. baad's methods, and in comparing them with my former practice, and with the practice of others who have failed with their trees, i will suggest the following cultural procedure to be given all plantings when possible, and to be continued for at least three years, or even longer for best nut production. "nut trees should be given clean cultivation right after being planted (in the spring) and until august st. this encourages root growth and conserves moisture. then sow a cover crop of rye, cow peas or soy beans to take up moisture, slow up growth and prevent the late sappy condition that is often responsible for winter injury. leave the cover crop over winter and turn it under in the spring for humus. before turning under, a light application of some kind of manure, along with some superphosphate and potash, should be sprinkled around each tree. then thorough cultivation again until august, and repeat. "soil for nut trees should be tested for acidity, nitrogen, phosphate and potash. it has been determined that most nut trees prefer a ph range of . to . ; but i have frequently found people planting trees on soils of . and . , where nothing but sickly growth could be expected. "where it is not possible to work all of the ground between nut trees, cultivation should begin with a three or four foot circle around each tree, annually increasing this space with the growth of the branches. cultivation, with attention to humus and fertility, are necessary to proper tree growth and nut production. sod culture will never do." mr. burgart's method has the advantage not only of guarding the trees from excessive winter injury but at the same time adds an almost immediately available source of humus and nutrients to the soil for spring growth. if followed, it should greatly reduce the number of reports of winter injury, failure to start, and of weak growth afterward. excessive summer heat is not so great a problem in most portions of the northern states. the highest expected temperatures range, in our reports, from ° to °; mostly from ° to °. the highest known are reported to be all the way from ° to °, but mostly from ° to °. a method of guarding against heat damage will be found in a communication from mr. h. f. stoke, of roanoke, va., which appears later in this report. drouth and hot, dry winds are more dangerous enemies than either cold or heat. it is somewhat ominous that, out of eighty-three reports, forty-two, originating all the way from maine to oregon and from canada to tennessee, report the occurrence today of frequent drouths, while forty report hot, dry winds. surely the need for tree planting is immediate and urgent. mulching, and the protection of recently planted trees by wrapping their trunks, are preventives of some damage, but can not stand up forever against the longer and longer periods of drouth now being reported, during which the water table is gradually being lowered beyond the reach of tree roots. the length of the frost-free season has an important bearing upon the production of nuts after the trees are matured. this is true in the south as well as in the north. one of the most frequently reported causes of loss of nut production in southern sections is an early spring, inducing growth of buds and blossoms, followed by a frost. no protection seems to have been found against this damage except by use of heavy smudges. large orchardists protect themselves, but planters of small groves rarely do so. this explains the autumn scramble, reported by many members, in search of early fallen nuts. we should continue our search for trees which produce nuts of early maturity. thus far the search has not been too successful among most species, but some progress has been made and the future is more encouraging in this respect than it was a decade or two ago. some early maturing nuts have been found and pollen from the trees is being used for cross-pollination with better known nut producers. in the northern states, dates of the latest spring frosts range from april to june , with the average around may . the earliest fall frosts come from sept. to oct. , with the average about sept. to . where the frosts fall much outside these limits--too late in the spring or too early in the fall--protective measures will help but will not always prevent damage. _soil conditions._ there is a slight preponderance of clay soils over loam among the returns from planters. loams and sandy loams are tied for second place. a smaller number report that these top soils lie shallow over hard-pan or rock. fewer still report a soil underlaid with sand or gravel. by far the best growth for most kinds of nut trees, as well as the best production of nuts, is to be found where trees are planted in deep loam. next come the trees in clay loam; then come trees in sandy loam and in clay over sand or gravel. numerous complaints of poor growth come from members who have trees set in a soil which is shallow over rock or hard-pan. some of the hazels and butternuts are reported as able, for a time at least, to establish themselves in such soils, but their fight for survival seems precarious and is apparently short-lived. black walnuts, particularly, require deep, rich soils into which their long taproots can easily penetrate. this is one of the few nut tree facts so definitely established that there can no longer be any doubt about it. the reports show that the planting of black walnuts in any but good deep soil should be discouraged. it leads only to disappointment and often to loss of interest. a somewhat sandy soil, particularly if loamy, seems adapted to the planting of chestnuts and to such trees as do well on ground that will successfully grow peach trees. if such soil is found upon a hillside or hill top, so much the better. all such soils, of course, require more attention to fertility maintenance, for they leach out more quickly than soils with more of a clay constituent. do any of the nut tree species prefer an acid to an alkaline soil? this is a question our questionnaire does not answer. thirty correspondents say their trees are set in a lime soil, fourteen in an alkaline soil (which may or may not, in the commonly accepted usage of that term, have lime as a source of alkalinity). sixty-one report an acid soil. only eight of this group report the use of lime, two the use of bone meal, and one of wood ash as acid correctives. unfortunately, we did not ask definitely about the reaction of trees to the use or non-use of lime. puzzled by this comparative neglect of lime as a corrective on acid soils, we asked mr. h. f. stoke, of roanoke, va., a very accurate and acute observer, who had reported plantings in both kinds of soils, what his experience had been. also we asked miss mildred jones, whose experience with nut trees is second to none, the same question. their replies follow: mr. stoke says: "in response to your inquiry, 'what nut trees, if any, do best in acid soils?' i should reply that the chestnut leads the list, followed closely by the mockernut hickory. "throughout its native habitat the heaviest stands of the native chestnuts are to be found on acid soils over granitic and sandstone formations, rather than on limestone ridges. the best stands are on granite ridges, partly due, no doubt, to the poverty of sandstone soils. "the mockernut hickory occurs about anywhere on the poor, acid, clay soils of the south, its vigor depending on fertility. shagbark does not occur on the acid (granitic) blue ridge mountains, but is found on the limestone alleghanies running parallel only a few miles away. i have never seen a shagbark hickory between roanoke and the coast, more than miles away, but it occurs freely to within two or three miles on the west. the difference is not in elevation or rainfall, but in the soil. "on the other hand, black walnut occurs on both acid and limestone soils, but seems to prefer the latter. part of its preference may be due to the generally greater fertility and better drainage to be found in limestone soil. persian walnut, i believe, when on its own roots, is more or less allergic to acid soil. wild hazels grow here on both limestone and granite soils. "frankly, i believe the matter of soil acidity, as such, is rather over-emphasized. there are other factors entering into the problem that are of as great or greater importance. i doubt if there was actually any really alkaline soil, in its native state, in the humid region lying east of the mississippi river. in the glaciated region lying to the north, the soil seems to have been more nearly neutral (ph ). such was the case in iowa and in minnesota where i homesteaded many years ago. "throughout the south the soil averages much more acid, even much limestone soil being greatly benefitted by liming. north or south, soil acidity is greatly affected by drainage and by the resulting native vegetation. "peat or muck soils are notably acid; also they are notably deficient in potash. the addition of wood ashes greatly benefits such soils in two ways. on the other hand, the addition of wood ashes to a soil already alkaline might be harmful even though in need of potash. "in the last several years i have been making some soil experiments that i may write up when i am sure i know what i am talking about. in general, i may say i should prefer a soil slightly on the acid side for any and all tree and farm crops if i had an eye to future fertility. lime breaks down vegetable matter and makes its constituent plant foods quickly available, but prevents a build-up of humus in the soil. the effect is very pronounced in times of drought, the alkaline soil crops drying up much more quickly than do those on acid soil. on the other hand, such soil elements as phosphorus seem to require the lime as a flux to prevent the phosphates from becoming fixed and unavailable to crops. "in regard to peat moss, it is undoubtedly acid, but it is beneficial in its water-holding properties and in the comparatively slow release of its nutritive elements. lime added to the peat will break it down rapidly and make it more available as a fertilizer, but until the decomposition reaches a certain point; its effect is to impoverish rather than to enrich the mixture. this seeming paradox can perhaps best be explained by some experiments i have been making with sawdust. a number of plots were prepared and given various treatments, including mixing one surface-inch of sawdust with the soil, and wheat was sown on the area. "wheat sown on the test plot without any treatment or fertilizer was normal for the poor clay soil on which the experiments were made. where sawdust, only, was added, the wheat came up but sickened and produced no filled heads. the same was true where lime was added to the sawdust. where heavy applications of nitrate of soda were added to the sawdust treated plots, both with and without lime, the 'sickness' disappeared and wheat was matured. "my analysis of this, coupled with experiments in composting, leads to the following conclusion: during the period of decomposition of the sawdust (hastened, no doubt, by the lime), the bacteria of decomposition fed so heavily on the nitrates in the soil that the plants were starved. when the material had reached the condition of humus, the bacterial activity decreased to the point where fertility was restored. "the above analysis accounts for the fact that coarse vegetable material, injures crops, when plowed under, for the current season. fresh succulent material decays so quickly that it becomes almost immediately available, releasing its constituent plant food. "with proper conditions of moisture and aeration, sawdust, when mixed with quickly decaying material like kitchen garbage, can be reduced to an excellent, usable humus in three summer months. in fact, it is then better material than if permitted to lie out in the weather for fifteen years. "there is another factor i think important in tree growth, especially where summers are hot, and that is soil temperature. "for any of our nut trees i should say that an acidity test of ph to would be entirely satisfactory. if the soil is infertile, some form of humus should be worked in at the time of planting. if much such material is used, some lime may be added. better yet, wood ashes and bone meal will furnish potash, phosphorus, and the lime necessary to correct acidity and maintain the phosphorus in an available condition. add to this, proper drainage and cool soil achieved by, first, cultivation, and later by heavy mulching, artificial shading, or shrubby undergrowth extended outside the root area, and your tree should 'go to town.' when the tree is large enough to shade its own root area it will take care of its own soil refrigeration. nature knew what she was about when she planted trees in forests. trees require warm heads (sunshine) and cool feet (shade), just the opposite from us humans." mr. stoke's letter recalls a very ancient arabian proverb connected with the date palm. "the date palm tree must have his head in hell and his feet in water." we are indebted both to mr. stoke and to the arab scientists for many things. miss mildred jones' reply, fortunately, goes into other and equally important phases of the same subject. she says: "anyone who is going to lime and fertilize nut trees should take at least a five year period for his work, using lime and fertilizer each year, and not dump it all in one year, then wait for results. he should study the return on a five year basis. one year is too short a term. weather conditions can upset a program to the extent that both lime and fertilizer may not have their effect until the following year. let those who really want to know, make graphs of growth in young trees and of nut production from older trees, in pounds, for five years, as against five of the same years during which trees similarly situated received no fertilizer or lime. "i shouldn't be at all surprised if those who state in reports to you that they have an acid soil, merely have a top acid soil. they may be growing their trees in basic limestone soils. walnut trees grow in this environment very well, because they are found growing wild in woods where laurel and other types of plants loving an acid condition grow. this is true here in our county, but these soils are not seriously acid. they grow good garden crops. "ground, or pulverized, limestone is the safest type of lime to apply to trees or crops, in my estimation. some of it is ground so fine that it looks like hydrated lime and is used for medicinal purposes. i am inclined to think that any reports you received that noted injury from the use of lime may have been due to the use of burned lime (calcium oxide) which is caustic when wet. this type of lime may be used in winter, but during the growing season, or too close to the growing season, may injure trees. i believe such injury depends entirely upon weather conditions, but it is a good thing to be on the safe side and use a lime which will not have the hot reaction that burned lime has. "your reports will serve an excellent purpose if they lead to getting a yearly record by planters on bearing and tree growth of their varieties. few people know enough to go into the matter of soils and treatments intelligently. one can hardly blame them. it is a baffling subject. an unbalance in one element will lock up another element until one has quite a time unlocking them again. it seems that a conservative middle course is about the best to advise." upon reflection, it seems likely that if our questionnaire had asked specifically about the use of lime, many more reports would have been received of its use. in response to an inquiry as to how weed competition near young trees is controlled, the replies are encouraging. forty-seven practiced mulching; forty-five, mowing; thirty-four, occasional cultivation; twenty, regular cultivation, and a few others, slag or cinders around the trees. as is evident, some used several of the above methods. a few used none and suffered losses. their honesty is admired, and their experience, disappointing as it is, is useful information. as to fertilizing, forty-three reported the use of manure in some form as the principal material; twenty-eight used nitrogenous fertilizer; twenty-one, a complete fertilizer. other materials were, in order, lime, compost, bone meal, ammonium sulphate, wood ash, tankage. one used a mixture of muck and manure and got results in excellent growth where the use of muck alone produced unsatisfactory growth. several reported injury from too much fertilizer or from too late an application. tree growth was thus pushed on into late fall; the trees were too sappy to stand the winter freezes and suffered from winter killing. the same result was reported from "over-cultivation." in this connection, we refer back to the letter from mr. h. p. burgart, of michigan, whose suggestions on cultivation and fertilizing are well worth careful study and practice by all who have had this trouble. it is possible that some planters, especially those whose trees are set on hillsides, where erosion is a robber of fertility, would modify mr. burgart's practice of turning under the green crop in the spring. they might prefer, as indeed might others who would like to see their green manure nearer the top of the soil, to disk in the green crop rather than bury it deeply with mouldboard plows. they would of course follow it up with repeated diskings until the time came for sowing another cover crop. this is, however, entirely in line with mr. burgart's recommendations. pursuing this subject to its conclusion, we next asked: "_when young trees failed to grow with you, what percentage of these failures was due to_ ..." (various causes enumerated below)? the question was misunderstood. many evidently gave percentages of all trees planted. others, correctly, gave percentages merely of the trees which failed to grow. as nearly as could be arrived at, about percent of losses were among trees that failed even to start; percent failed from weak growth the first year or two; percent from failure to maintain later growth; percent were winter killed, and or percent died from rodent or similar (mole, gopher, deer, bear) injury. it is evident that by far the greatest losses were suffered within the first two years--not less than seventy percent. probably more. it would seem that two years of intensive care should not be too burdensome a stint for a reward which lasts a lifetime. rodent and similar injuries were no doubt kept low because of extra protective care. hardware cloth (galvanized wire / " mesh, " high, preferred) around each tree proved the most common and effective preventive. following this, in order of use, were: wrapping the trunks (including wrappings of tar paper); mounding with earth or ashes; poison bait, dogs and cats, clean cultivation; resinous paint; spray (with purdue formula mentioned); and, finally, hogs, against mice. anti-rodent treatments which proved injurious to trees were reported to be; tar paper wrappings; coal tar washes; close-set creosoted posts; oil sprays; "any paint"; any chemical to smear on trunks; rooting cement. for those who are located in regions where deer are a source of injury, mr. j. u. gellatly, of west bank, b. c., reports the successful use of an old and heroic russian formula. spray or paint all branches with manure water, using hog or human offal. deer will stay away. naturally. next come answers to some personal questions as to experiences from which the reader may glean a wide variety of suggestions. the first of these questions is: "_what is your one greatest source of success?_" the answers seem to show many royal roads, each of which was the one road for someone. the answers: mulching young trees; watering care; planting seeds; planting one-year seedlings; wrapping-with paper; % moist peat mixed with earth in transplanting; manure; sod in bottom of planting hole and use of nitrogen later; setting trees at bottom of slopes; clean cultivation until august then sowing rye, soy beans or cow peas as cover crops to turn under in spring; topworking hickories; grafting in cool, moist spring weather; pigs in orchard; chickens in orchard; planting - -foot trees severely cut back, burlap wrapped, heavily mulched. it seems a pity that limitations of space do not permit the telling of the various stories connected with the above glimpses of successful solutions. each represents a little or a big success story connected with an individual problem. it is sufficient, perhaps, to know that someone somewhere found that each was the answer to his own difficulties. the next question brings out the reverse side of the planters' work: "_what is your chief source of failure?_" the answer most often given was the honest one, lack of attention. we can all convict ourselves here, either involuntarily or otherwise. especially during this period of warfare, when so many have been taken away from their plantings and have been unable to get help, there is no question but that our trees have suffered. the next in frequency is "unsuitable soil." following this come: lack of water; poor planting; planting too big a tree; spring planting of nut trees; buying to year-old trees; climate; transplanting failures; grafting; grafting in dry, hot, springs; top-working old trees; stink bugs on filberts (nuts); lack of drainage; forcing with nitrogenous fertilizer; fertilizing young trees too much; birds breaking off top growth. it had been the intention to confine this question to young trees, but it was not so phrased, so we shall let the answers stand as they are. it is a bit ironical that some found their chief source of failure exactly where others had made their best success. the explanation must lie in differences in technique, in soil or in some other local condition. skill, knowledge, and persistence must always play a great part in any success. we next asked, "_what have been your chief difficulties with established, bearing trees?_" the difficulties here shift from matters of soil, rodent protection and the like to other types; caterpillars, neglect, winter injury, limited crops, failure of nuts to fill, disappointing quality of nuts, bag and tent worms, blight, "blight" due to drought, too early leaf fall, insects in early spring, trees drowned out in flooded bottom lands. it is probable that this last disaster happened to younger trees. as to the species of trees chiefly damaged by these causes, black walnut comes first (possibly because more of these trees have been planted), then hickories, persian walnuts, chestnuts (blight), heartnuts, pecans, filberts, butternuts, and finally butternuts in the south areas from fungus troubles. trees reported to have been least damaged were, first, butternuts, then hazels and filberts, black walnuts, hickories, manchurian walnuts, jap. walnuts, heartnuts, chestnuts, pecans, persian walnuts. in response to the specific question, "_what insects damaged the trees?_", we found that walnut caterpillars were more common than any others, followed closely by web or "tent" worms. the japanese beetle is a close second and is broadening its entrenched positions steadily. others are flat-headed apple borers, lace-wing fly, aphis, leaf hoppers. to this list two reporters added sapsuckers among the insects. these birds would almost girdle some of the branches with punctures. insect damage was reported as serious by eight reporters, as slight or occasional by six, and of yearly occurrence by nearly all. others reported damage as serious if not controlled. "_what do you do to control the insects?_" was then asked. most of the answers referred to clustering types of insects and involved removal of the clusters by burning, by cutting off the infested twigs, or by scraping off the clusters from the trunks in the early morning or late evening. others sprayed with lead arsenate, "sprayed in late summer with lead arsenate", sprayed with nicotine sulphate for aphis and lice. other methods mentioned were early cultivation, shaking the tree with a pole early and often, and chickens in the grove. some of these means are adapted manifestly, to small plantings and others to larger groves. none mentioned the attracting of birds by plantings of trees or shrubs that bear berries or small seeds. when trees are tall enough to be beyond reach of poles or sprays, the birds become more essential as insect destroyers. "_what insects damage the nuts?_" weevil, by long odds. next come husk maggots or "shock worms", codling moth larvae, borers, stink bugs on filberts, butternut curculio. no cure is given for this trouble except the very valuable one of keeping chickens, or, better still, turkeys running freely in the plantation. clean cultivation will, of course, destroy many larvae that hibernate under trash. "_what species are most injured by disease?_" none are immune, apparently, though three reporters in favored regions answer "none" are injured. black walnuts suffer from leaf-spot, blight, or canker, especially in seasons when the trees have been weakened by drought. hazels and filberts are next, then persian walnuts, butternuts, native chestnuts, chinese chestnuts, pecans. blight in chestnuts, nectria canker and blight in black walnuts, blight in filberts (cryptosporella), scab in pecans, and die-back melanconium oblongum in butternuts. these are the kinds of diseases most to be feared among nut trees. sprays, chiefly with bordeaux mixture and copper base solutions, are recommended. if nut orchards were generally as well sprayed as apple and peach orchards, we should hear less of disease among nut trees. as it is, nut trees are in general far more resistant by nature to disease than fruit trees, but it will not do to take unlimited resistance for granted. as progress is gradually made in the selection of varieties for better nut production, it is very likely that there will be a weakening of this resistance to disease. better cultural methods, resulting in more robust growth, will build up resistance. better sprays and more spraying will act as a barrier not only to disease but to most insect enemies as well. "_what disease, if any, affects the nuts?_" fortunately, very few diseases are reported. "none," say most of our reporters. a scab is reported for the first time this year in some sections on pecans. "galls" are reported on some hickories. a husk blight appears to affect persian walnuts in some places, and nut production is very seriously affected among black walnuts by defoliation prematurely, either because of drought or leaf-spot. the cure is undoubtedly the same as for disease affecting the trees, namely spraying. "_what proportion of nuts are taken by the squirrels?_" the answers to this question range all the way from "all if allowed" to "none if prevented." if the nut trees are located near a forest, the proportion will be large; if not, much smaller. most correspondents say that the proportion is very small, but nearly a third of those who make any report on this at all, say such losses are rather heavy. in the extreme north, there seem to be no squirrels to bother. several report thefts, particularly of filberts, by chipmunks, while one complains about both mice and jaybirds as filbert lovers. the most effective squirrel control is the rifle or shotgun. rat traps, using black walnuts as bait, are second choice and said to be effective. the banding of isolated trees with tin (one says cotton batting) will prevent squirrels from climbing. a good cat or several of them will be useful, say several reporters. one judicious correspondent says that, in general, there are two popular ways of handling the situation; one by shooting, the other by cussing--most practiced, least effective. one grower, not to be outdone by the patient chinaman or japanese, in september ties up each chestnut burr in a cloth sack. take your choice; but it will be well, if you wish to remain in good standing with the law, either to do your shooting during the open hunting season or, if at other times, catch your thief in the act and, wastefully, let him lie where he falls when shot. so says the law, at least in some states. on the other hand, there are many who will say, with one reporter: "i do nothing about it. i like squirrels." [this note by chairman--not w. c. d.!] _the marketing of nuts!_ the purpose of this section was not to inquire into methods of marketing but merely to determine, if possible, what marketing of nuts is now being done. it is little enough. chestnut lovers have all but forgotten the taste of good chestnuts. black walnut buyers, confectioners, bakers, report that it is next to impossible, at least for the duration of the war, to get deliveries of nuts, especially shelled nuts. the market for a good product is best only when the product is easily and plentifully obtainable. forty-one growers reported that they sell nuts commercially. the others do not because they have no surplus to sell. only six sell kernels. the others sell whole nuts. owing to a misreading of the question, few reported on profitable varieties. those who did, reported thomas as first, then stabler and ohio. of pecans, major first, then greenriver, busseron, indiana, niblack. of chestnuts, hobson is the only one mentioned, and of filberts only the jones hybrid. most growers reported on species instead of varieties. of these, black walnuts stand first, then pecans, chestnuts and filberts. in the far northwest, filberts stand first. most growers have the feeling that the hybrid chestnut, _mollissima x dentata_, is coming fast and offers one of the best chances for profitable commercial planting. at present only three reporters who specifically commit themselves on the subject say they count upon the sale of nuts as an important item in their income. fifty-one do not. fifteen definitely expect, and sixteen others have hopes, that nuts may some day become, at least to an extent, good income producers for them. practically all express themselves as willing to sell or exchange either nuts or cions for propagation purposes. _discovery of promising nut trees._ some thirty-odd "wild" trees which bear nuts of unusual promise have been reported by discoverers in their answers to this survey. it is more than likely that some of them have been previously reported. the committee has no means of knowing. however, it is hoped that, out of the lot, one or two may be good enough for propagating or for contributions of pollen for cross-pollination. the names and locations of the owners of these trees have been turned over to mr. c. a. reed, associate pomologist, u. s. d. a., beltsville, md., for further investigation. it has been found that such information should not be prematurely published, since it leads to trouble for the owners and to possible undue valuations being placed upon the trees in question. _rating of varieties._ first, it will be best to state how the committee arrived at a rating. certain well-known varieties were printed by name, and blanks were left to be filled, if desired, with names of special favorites of the reporter. those listed by name were not all good, but were widely planted. we wished to know exactly what the planters' experience had been not only with the better varieties but with other old stand-bys which were suspected of being below standard. we asked reporters to mark their sheets with the following scale symbols: xxxx for best; xxx, very good; xx, good; x, average. o, poor; oo, failure. in tabulating final summaries, the committee valued the xxxx symbol at %; xxx, %; xx, %; x, %; o, o%; oo, minus %. twenty percent was arbitrarily deducted from any % rating, and % from any lesser rating, in case no other reports on the same tree were received from other reporters. qualities upon which ratings were made were hardiness, average yield (rating), yield in pounds per tree or acre, age of oldest trees, age at first crop, percentage filled nuts, husking quality, cracking quality, size of nuts, weight of kernels, quality of kernel. naturally, not all reporters were able to evaluate all of these qualities, so many spaces were left blank. for instance, hardiness could be rated for a very young tree, but not yield. in any future survey, we should advocate including a rating on early maturity of nuts, since this is a quality essential in trees planted farthest north. _black walnuts._ six names of well-known varieties were printed upon our sheets and, of course, most of the reports are centered around these trees. twenty-four varieties were voluntarily written in and reported on by correspondents. no doubt some of these varieties will in time replace some of the older ones. reports on them are now too scattered and too much uncorroborated to enable us to do them justice here. for the present we shall have to content ourselves with those which have sufficient evidence. of the printed list, thomas takes first place with rating of . %, which is a cumulative percentage of all percentages earned on the most desirable black walnut qualities. the method of obtaining this thomas overall percentage is as follows: add all the thomas percentages in the paragraph below. their average will be found to be %. reports from canada and the southern area bring this average up to . %, as stated. stambaugh is second with a rating of %. rohwer rates %; ohio, %; stabler, %, and ten eycke, %. the last three seem to stand in jeopardy of replacement by other varieties. breaking these percentages down according to their qualities, the trees in the northern u. s. area were rated as follows, using the valuations noted in the second paragraph at this section entitled _rating of varieties_: in hardiness thomas rates ; stambaugh, ; rohwer, ; ohio, ; stabler, ; ten eycke, . in yield, thomas rates %; stambaugh, ; ten eycke, ; rohwer, ; ohio, ; stabler, . yield per tree or per acre was not well enough reported to warrant reliable ratings. in percentage of filled nuts, thomas rated %; stambaugh, ; rohwer, ; ohio, ; stabler, ; ten eycke, . in husking quality, thomas, %; stambaugh, ; rohwer, ; ohio, ; stabler, ; ten eycke, . in cracking quality, thomas rated %; stambaugh, ; rohwer, ; ohio, ; stabler, ; ten eycke, . in size of nuts, thomas rated %; stambaugh rated %; rohwer, ; ohio, ; stabler, ; ten eycke, %. in weight of kernels, thomas rated %; stambaugh, ; rohwer, ; ohio, ; stabler, ; ten eycke, . in quality of kernels, thomas rated %; stambaugh, ; rohwer, ; ohio, ; stabler, ; ten eyck, . it would have been more accurate, of course, to have again divided these returns according to the warmer and cooler regions from which they came, but the report has certain limits which can not be over-stepped. all these varieties are represented by some trees twenty years old or older. thomas was reported to be the youngest to bear. its average age at first crop was exactly five years; stambaugh, years; rohwer, . years; ohio, . ; stabler, . ; and ten eyck, . years. other varieties, the names of which were written in, are each sponsored by one or more correspondents who were attracted by their outstanding excellence with respect to the following qualities: =hardiness:= creitz, homeland, mintle, elmer myers, tasteright, pinecrest, patterson, horton, vandersloot, lamb, deming purple, brown, tritton, cole, sifford and korn. =yield:= creitz, homeland, mintle, cozad, vandersloot, brown. =filled nuts:= homeland, mintle, cornell, niederhauser, cozad, vandersloot, brown, tritton, cole, sifford. =husking quality:= creitz, homeland, mintle, patterson, todd, snyder, cozad, horton, vandersloot, lamb, deming purple, brown, tritton, cole, sifford. =cracking quality:= eureka, snyder, mintle, patterson, brown, tritton. =size of nuts:= homeland, todd. =weight of kernels:= mintle, todd, snyder, cornell, niederhauser. =kernel quality:= creitz, homeland, mintle, korn, snyder, cornell. this, of course, cannot be a complete list, but we give it as reported to us. it will be well to keep an eye on several of them. mr. l. k. hostetter, lancaster, pa., sends us the only report which gives a year-by-year record of nut production from black walnut trees. he says: "i am especially interested in persimmons, service-berries, wild cherry, mulberry and elderberry. of about varieties of persimmon here i consider early golden and josephine the best. of or more varieties of mulberries i consider downing and paradise the best. paradise is a large purple mulberry i found near here. it has an exceptionally good flavor. "following is a record of my crops of black walnuts, grafted varieties: , bu.; , bu.; , bu.; , bu.; , bu.; , bu.; , bu.; , bu.; , bu.; , bu.; , bu.; , bu.; , bu." mr. hostetter sells his nuts both as kernels and in the shell. he says that he can now count upon this crop for a substantial contribution to his annual income. _seedling chestnuts._ none but chinese and japanese varieties were reported on. more of the chinese seedlings have been planted than of the japs. the latter excel in hardiness, yield, size of nuts, but the chinese have a better percentage of filled nuts, have better husking quality and much better quality of kernel, according to growers. of course, being seedlings, neither is entirely dependable in any of these qualities. the best that can be said is that the planter of a chinese seedling has a better chance than the planter of a jap seedling if he is after nut quality. _named chestnuts._ outside of the report on hardiness, the returns on these varieties are too meagre to enable one to arrive at a corroborated conclusion. in hardiness, the hobson stands first with a rating of %. zimmerman and carr are tied at %; yankee rates %. reliable seems to be little planted but also seems to rate well in hardiness. hobson again stands first in yield, with carr and zimmerman second. the ratings are % and % respectively. reliable comes next, then yankee. in early bearing, hobson stands first, carr next. all seem to fill well, also have good husking quality. carr is said to bear the largest nut, with hobson and zimmerman next. in quality of kernel, hobson and reliable stand out from the others. hobson, on the returns, has much the best of it in general excellence. however, the last word has by no means been said in connection with hybrid chestnuts. in no field of nut culture is so much hybridizing being done. we expect to see many contenders for preeminence in this most promising branch of the industry. _pecans._ the returns on pecans are also very incomplete after we go beyond the young tree age. perhaps one reason for this is that young orchards of pecans require a longer time for growth than many other species before they begin to bear. the reports confirm this view. records of crops from present plantings are none too numerous. in the reports on hardiness among the pecans, major stands first with a percentage score of ; greenriver ; busseron, indiana and giles are tied at ; posey ; butterick . records of yields are not numerous enough to be conclusive, but major, busseron and butterick lead. this is in the absence of reports on greenriver, posey, niblack, and other important varieties. _hybrid pecans._ the records for hardiness here, as with other pecans, are marred by lack of good reporting. so far as the record shows, pleas--hican var. (hickory x pecan) is the outstanding variety for hardiness in regions north of its origin. it scores %; norton and rockville, % each; gerardi, ; burlington, ; bixby, des moines and mccallister, % each. records of yields are not forthcoming. such records as we have of filled nuts show them to be in general, unsatisfactory. in fact, however, no reliable conclusion can be reached from a study of the pecan reports unless it should be--a sad one--that the questionnaire or the questionees fell down here. _filberts._ the story brightens. many are working with filberts. in the northwest, the growing of filberts is developing into a commercial enterprise of good proportions. our records are correspondingly more complete though they show that there is plenty of room for improvement in the development of varieties of desirable quality. in hardiness, winkler leads in the reports with a score of . %, with jones hybrid a very close second at . %. bixby is next, then buchanan. of the "written-in" varieties, excellent hardiness is reported for cosford, hazelbert, kentish cob, early globe, burkhardt's zeller, comet, gellatly no. , chinese corylus, brixnut and longfellow. yields rule best with rush and jones hybrid. winkler, bixby and buchanan follow closely. failures in this respect are noted for barcelona, duchilly, italian red and white aveline. cosford has a good report. rush and jones hybrid fill well, as do cosford, hazelbert, buchanan and, usually, winkler. husking qualities are quite good for all varieties named except winkler and, in some places, rush. cracking qualities are fairly uniform in all varieties reported. in size of nuts, jones hybrid and winkler have a more uniformly good record, with hazelbert, duchilly, white aveline, barcelona, brixnut and longfellow following closely. in kernel quality, rush, winkler, cosford, duchilly, bixby, buchanan and longfellow are named as among the best. _butternuts._ the record is very scant. weschcke, sherwood and buckley, according to these reports, are hardy. weschcke and craxezy yield well. sherwood is the most precocious in early bearing with weschcke close up. sherwood, craxezy and weschcke fill well and the latter two crack well. buckley leads in size of nuts, with sherwood close, and all have good kernel quality. we have no reports on aiken, deming or devon. _persian walnuts._ in most portions of the north, the reports show that franquette, mayette, pomeroy and rush are not adapted to our climate--too tender. broadview has the best record for hardiness, followed by one or two of the crath carpathian numbers, and with breslau, lancaster and bedford showing up well. in yields, broadview and payne have the best reports, followed by breslau, lancaster and bedford. in size of nuts, breslau, lancaster and franquette are first; broadview and payne next. in quality of kernel, bedford, franquette, lancaster and payne, in that order, are claimed as best, with mayette, breslau, crath, pomeroy and broadview following. since kernel quality is a matter of taste, it seems unlikely that any rating on it will prove satisfactory to everybody. _hickories._ returns are numerous and well distributed. in hardiness, stratford leads with a rating of %; glover rates ; fairbanks, ; romig, ; weiker, ; kentucky, . others, written in, with best ratings by their growers, are, in the following order; beaver, hales, barnes, clark, caldwell, taylor, weschcke, beemen, bridgewater. schinnerling, hagen and abscota are close up. best yields are reporting for stratford and fairbanks. close up are barnes, glover and schinnerling. weschcke, glover, weiker, beeman and bridgewater are most precocious in early bearing. best filled nuts are reported, in order of precedence, for stratford, fairbanks, walters, beaver, hagen, weschcke, beeman and bridgewater. =husking quality:= reports were inadequate. cracking quality, in order or rank, glover, stratford, hagen, beeman, weschcke, schinnerling, kirtland, weiker, bridgewater. =size of nuts:= in order of rating, weiker, bridgewatar, fairbanks, weschcke, stratford, beeman, schinnerling, hagen. in weight of kernel: first, abscota, then barnes, glover, fairbanks, kentucky, kirtland. =quality of kernel:= in order of preference, kirtland, glover, weschcke, hagen, stratford, bridgewater, weiker, abscota, schinnerling, kentucky, beeman, stratford, beaver. too much dependence should not be placed upon the order of precedence in the above lists after the first two or three, since, in many instances, there is not sufficient corroboration from separate sources to warrant more than a tentative position, especially for some of the varieties listed at the ends of the classes. _heartnuts._ the hardiest, in the order reported, are walters, fodermaier, gellatly, faust, bates. lancaster, does not bear well and is not hardy in the northern areas. best yields reported are from walters and bates. other reports are inadequate or absent. most precocious, bates and gellatly. best filled heartnuts, with best husking and cracking qualities as well as best quality of kernels; returns are about equally divided between gellatly, walters and bates, with walters and gellatly somewhat larger in size. it is to be regretted that reports are incomplete or absent in connection with many varieties of nuts. we feel, however, that, in the main, the above ratings, especially when arrived at from cumulative evidence, reflect with fair accuracy, the present status of nut tree conditions in northern united states. _canada._ in all its chief characteristics, the canadian nut growing experience follows the pattern of northern united states. the reports received from canada numbered about one-tenth those received from the northern states--upon the whole, a satisfactory cross section. in summarizing these reports it will be necessary only to call attention to such practices and experiences in canada as are at variance with those already reported from the northern states. for example, in response to the question, "what species are you planting experimentally or commercially?" we find, surprisingly, that persian walnuts displace black walnuts from first place, at least in these reports, and that filberts and heartnuts come next. then come black walnuts, butternuts, hickories, hazels, chinese chestnuts, persimmons, jap walnuts, almonds and a scattering of other species. leading native wild trees are, first hazels, then black walnuts, hickories and butternuts. winter climate is widely varied, being temperate along puget sound and close to the southern tier of the great lakes, but subject to great extremes in the prairie provinces. lower winter temperatures in these provinces average from zero to ° below, while the lowest recorded is reported to have been ° below. it is evident that canadians have widely variable problems, in spite of which three canadians, exactly the number reported from the northern states, tell us that the sale of nuts is an important item in their annual incomes. it looks as though, in comparison, northern u. s. growers could do better. with an average frost-free season of less than five months (from may to oct. ), canadians do this. the normal dates of latest spring frosts average from april to may , and of earliest fall frosts, from sept. to oct. . extremes at either end often shorten the season somewhat. soil conditions are generally good, with plenty of loam and sandy-loam, half lime, half acid; but drought is serious in places, necessitating irrigation. one wonders whether, if more of us were pushed to it, we might not find irrigation so profitable that we would never again be without it. cultural and soil corrective practices are, in general, similar to those previously reported. less trouble is experienced from rodents--mice, rabbits, squirrels--but more from deer. wrapping the trunks of young trees is more generally practiced than with us of more southern latitudes, and disk cultivation is more generally favored. in reply to the question, "what was your one greatest source of success?", the answers include, pollination by hand, the use of good trees, disking, planting hardy seed, and budding persians on black walnut stocks. failures were due mostly to the inevitable causes, cold, drought, weak growth. alkaline soil is mentioned in one report as a chief difficulty. bud worms, june beetle, leaf hoppers and walnut caterpillars are also enemies, but canada seems free from some of the other pests that have invaded the united states. the most profitable species reported by canadians are filberts, black walnuts, with "soft-shelled" walnuts mentioned by mr. gellatly, of west bank, b. c. from ontario, mr. a. s. wagner, of delhi, writes, "we are collecting (nuts) now to make tests of various types of black walnuts this winter. there are one or two plantations of trees which will soon be bearing, and the future looks interesting." _black walnuts._ four varieties appear in canadian reports which have not been mentioned previously: impit, troup, gifford and neilson. gifford and neilson are said by mr. corsan, of ontario, to be heavy croppers in canada, neilson "very heavy." impit is a splendid, upright-growing tree which should do well for timber production as well as for nuts. all trees printed in the questionnaire, ohio, rohwer, stabler, stambaugh, ten eyck and thomas, are given "good" ratings for hardiness except thomas which is fair. gibson bears large nuts of good cracking quality. neither japanese chestnuts nor pecans are reported on from canada. chinese chestnuts and hybrid chestnuts are reported as planted and hardy, thus far, but have yet to bear. _filberts._ holden, craig, firstola, comet and brag show up as hardy and bear good crops of nuts of good quality. other promising varieties are petoka (new variety, small, thin shell,) daviana, churchvelt--significant name! barcelona, duchilly, italian red, rush, white aveline and bixby are reported to be not hardy. winkler is hardy. mr. j. u. gellatly, of west bank, is working with a number of tree hazels, chinese, indian, turkish and a cork-barked variety. all are rated by him as hardy in his area. they are young trees, not yet reported in bearing. _butternuts._ in addition to previously named varieties, edge is added and is given a foremost rating in all departments, the rating on others is not conclusive. _persian walnuts._ no new light is thrown on the performance of varieties already listed. broadview is one of the hardiest, a good producer of fair nuts. watt produces a large nut of finest flavor. geloka is a good nut, and corsan is hardy but bears a smaller nut of lesser kernel quality. _hickories_ do not seem to interest canadians. stratford, first, and weiker, second, are leaders. stratford bears heavily but its quality in canada is not up to par. _heartnuts_ are a canadian specialty. gellatly, of all varieties in the printed list, is reported as best in all departments. of the twelve varieties written in by reporters as worthy of special mention, it is difficult to make a just appraisal. okanda, o. k., and crofter are reported perfectly hardy through minus ° of cold. others, hardy and good in all departments, are, mackenzie, canoka, walters, rover, calendar and smyth. stranger seems not quite so hardy, but mr. corsan calls it "the best heartnut grown", splendid in flavor, thin shelled, a little small but with a better than usual percentage of kernel. if heartnuts have a future, which seems almost inevitable, it looks as though canada, if it continues as it has started, will be one of the main sources of supply for varieties. the canadians are doing a creative job. _the southern area._ there are no nurserymen who report from the southern area. practically all are interested in the production of nuts, but they are more alive than their northern neighbors to the value of timber, and more of them count upon it for a part of their profit from the planting of nut trees. interest is about equally divided between methods of propagation, grafting, budding, top-working, planting seed of better varieties, artificial cross-pollination, and searching their neighborhoods for wild trees that show promise of superiority. the species being planted experimentally or commercially are, in order of precedence, black walnut, persimmon, pecan, persian walnut, chinese chestnut, hickories, filberts, hazels, heartnuts, jap chestnuts, almonds, mulberry, native chestnuts, jap walnuts, pawpaws and beech. species of wild trees found locally follow closely the pattern of planting mentioned above, which is as it should be. climatic conditions are, in-general, favorable. peaches are in most places reliably hardy. lowest temperatures normally expected range from ° above to ° below zero; and the highest normal summer temperatures range from ° to °. dates of normal late spring frosts have a very wide spread, being all the way from march to may . normal early frost expectancy is from oct. to nov. . all long-season crops mature well. the chief climatic enemies are drought and hot, dry winds. as to growth conditions, clay soils predominate, but with plenty of loamy bottom land for nut planting. acid soils predominate somewhat over lime soils, growing more unfavorably alkaline in the south-west. cultural practices are generally the same as in the north, but with a greater proportionate use of mowing and mulching, no doubt induced by the need for protection against greater heat, as well as for conservative of moisture. a greater proportionate failure of young trees to start first year's growth is also probably due to heat injury in the spring and summer following planting. tree wrapping seems to be the corrective chiefly indicated. the difficulties principally mentioned with matured trees are again mostly climatic; drought, sun-scald, early advent of spring followed by late frosts, delayed dormancy in the fall, poor filling in dry seasons, and biennial fruiting. insect enemies which damage both trees and nuts are practically the same as in the north only there are more of them. rodent damage and squirrel theft seem less troublesome there owing, perhaps, to protective measures and to the well developed hunting instinct among southern farm boys. a larger proportion of growers than are reported in the north sell nuts commercially, with pecans, walnuts, and chestnuts listed as the most profitable species. the practice is still limited as an important source of income, but a much greater proportion of planters look confidently forward toward profitable operations in the future. _black walnuts._ it is evident that in some of the warmer parts of the united states, california, for instance, the word "hardiness" takes on a certain connotation that we should understand better in the north. its meaning there is "resistance to delayed dormancy", as one california report states it. as a matter of fact, it might be advisable for us all everywhere to think of hardiness in these terms. delayed dormancy is hazardous in any tree, whether natural to it or induced artificially by late summer or early fall cultivation and fertilizing, and whether the tree is located in the north or in the south. when a tree goes into the winter with sappy wood, it is injured, and we say it is not hardy. that this is true in the south as well as in the north is well attested by the returns on black walnut trees of the south. there, the tree gives us a picture surprisingly similar to that of the north. in the south, if the tree's dormancy is delayed, it does not get its proper rest between crops and it dies or is stunted, in one way or another, for some time thereafter. in the north, if the following winter is severe, it simply dies. perhaps the winter killed it. or perhaps we killed it with unseasonable pampering. reports show that in the south, rohwer, stambaugh, and ten eyck lead in hardiness in the printed list of black walnuts, with a score of % each. ohio, stabler and thomas each average %. of the written-in names, sifford and beck are reported hardy, followed by creitz. elmer myers has only one report, which is rather unfavorable in this respect. in yield, creitz has the best rating, then thomas, stambaugh, sifford, stabler and beck, in that order. thomas is the most precocious in early bearing. one report has it that thomas kills itself, sometimes, by overdoing it in this respect. stabler, sifford, creitz and beck come next. all of these varieties are reported as having well filled nuts, with stabler in the lead, which may come as a surprise to many. other qualities, such as husking and cracking, size, and quality of kernel, are reported to be the same as in the north except that stabler leads in cracking quality, with thomas a rather poor second, owing, perhaps, to a shell too well filled for cracking without shattering the kernels. _seedling chestnuts._ more chinese chestnuts are planted than japs. they are hardier, yield better crops, are more precocious, and have a far better quality of kernel. the japs excel only in size. _named chestnuts._ hobson is hardy and an extremely precocious bearer of finest quality. carr follows. reports on these varieties, however, are not numerous enough to enable one to reach a satisfactory appraisal. two marron strains are mentioned as producers of very large nuts; otherwise this variety's record is not impressive. _pecans._ posey and greenriver are given top mention for hardiness, with busseron, major, and niblack next. in the more southern areas, of course, the more tender varieties are favored, such as mahan, success, burchett, schley and stuart. mahan seems to be the one most favored for general excellence in yield, flavor, and cracking qualities. it must be said, however, that, in flavor, these larger pecans are inferior to the best pecans of the indigenous northern varieties which are now being propagated. but because of their size, beauty, and productiveness, they will probably maintain their present leadership commercially. _hybrid pecans, filberts, butternuts._ reports from the south are inadequate for appraisal. the inference one must draw is that they are not being planted extensively there. _persian walnuts._ the object of the inquiry, of course, was primarily to get information about varieties which might be capable of expanding their range toward the north. in this, so far as the southern reports are concerned, we have not been successful. placentia and eureka are mentioned in one report but their records, as reported, are not particularly good. corroborative evidence is needed. upon the whole, the south, strangely enough, seems not to be the place to look for persian walnuts for the north. in california, the varieties of persians, juglans regia l., are well rooted to the ground. they object to more northern locations. this may not be entirely true of another species, j. hindsii, which in the past has shown a tendency to cross with other members of the juglans tribe. crossed with the native black walnut, the hybrid known as "royal" was developed, a robust grower which bears little. crossed with the persian, "paradox" was produced. we are indebted to mr. harry s. welby, of taft, calif., for some interesting j. hindsii varieties of good size and rather large, well filled kernel capacity. upon their exterior, the nuts resemble the persians, and the kernel has the persian flavor. inside the shell, the structure is that of the american black, with a substantial woody cross-brace, and the shell itself calls for a hammer for cracking. neither paradox nor royal have proved of value except for stocks upon which the growers graft or bud their commercial cions. much experimenting has been done in hybridizing j. hindsii, thus far without producing more than comparatively sterile "mules", but, the tendency to cross having been demonstrated, this work should be continued. mr. welby's samples have been sent to mr. c. a. reed, at the beltsville experiment station, for evaluation. "perhaps someone will know," says mr. welby, "the limit of cold j. hindsii will stand." mr. welby's comments accompanying his report are too interesting to omit. he says: "on the grounds of an oilfield camp, i have carried on collaboration with the u. s. d. a. bureau of plant introduction for twenty years. the importation of graftwood of eastern soft shell black walnuts has been "on my own." of black walnuts we have bearing trees among ornamental plantings. there has been a marked change of attitude from the early days when i was more or less looked upon as a freak for working with them. the nuts are valued today. the original objective has been attained. "in the meantime, i have purchased, miles north of here, a twenty; have fenced and planted it to a brand of permanent pasture grasses known as "evergreen", furnished by a grass specialist, dale butler, of fresno. prior to the grass, black walnuts, grafted and ungrafted had gone in. a strip bordering the highway was reserved for trees, we hope pistachio. there are now thirty of that variety, bearing, in an interior block. "we have for years purchased black walnut meats in the chico area. that would be a paradise for a black walnut man. and years ago i visited teharna, a deserted village from the storybook, a former pony express station--wonderful black walnuts! upon placing my camera upon a stump of a tree that grew in the street-parking, which had been logged, i braced the camera with a chip of this four-foot stump and discovered that the tree had been a curly walnut. the trees there are not _j. hindsii_, but missouri blacks planted by forty-niners. "concerning pistachio: i doubt, considering the percentage of members who would be interested, whether i should bring this up, but there is need for just such an organization as the n. n. g. a. behind this tree. it does not lend itself to common nursery practice. it should be raised from seed, potted or in cans, reared without babying for several years, a horticulturist brought in, and your pistachio vera male and female blossoms worked to _p. atlantica_ or _chinensis_. lots of work but it is worth the trouble. it is deciduous with a hickory-like foliage; clusters of nuts clothed in pink-cheeked hulls. bailey reports best nuts come from sicily. perhaps knowledge of them will be more widely disseminated when the boys return." _hickories._ this species seems not to be of great interest to the south. the old varieties are not mentioned in the reports. nugget is mentioned by mr. w. d. dockery, of steele, ala., as one of the best. it grows well, yields well, its kernels have a good size and their quality is unusually good. of _heartnuts_, only one is mentioned, the lancaster, which leaves much to be desired in performance in the south. _suggestions and requests._ in response to the questions, "is there any service that n. n. g. a. could render you not now being met?" and "have you any suggestions for future work?", a number of responses were received which are worth noting. dr. o. d. diller, state exper. sta., wooster, o., "we are thinking in terms of another state wide nut contest in the fall of ." it will be remembered that the last ohio contest brought the brown and tritton trees to light. both are making friends by good production of good nuts. this is a suggestion for promotion in other states. sylvester shessler, genoa, o.: "planted nuts from tritton parent tree in . one seedling bore a larger nut than the parent tree. several others bore very small nuts but all well filled." j. russell smith, swarthmore, pa., "urge the members to run local contests for good nuts. it may bring members if not nuts, and you may find some good new neighbors you didn't know about." (one easily worked plan is to see the secretary of your county fair board, offer to pay half or all prize money for best nuts from a single tree in your own and surrounding counties. see that judging is done by someone who knows how or do it yourself.) alfred j. frueh, w. cornwall, conn., "have had quite a lot of winter injury on the south-west side of black walnut trunks grafted near the ground. note that seedling walnuts have a ridged, corky bark on the trunk already the second year, whereas a grafted trunk maintains its smooth bark for to years. am now grafting on seedling stock to feet above the ground and much of the winter injury is thus eliminated." a. b. anthony, sterling, ill., "if they can be had disease free, promote the planting of a few of the most choice chestnuts in widely scattered regions where no one grows such trees. possibly our children can get back to chestnut growing." seward berhow, huxley, ia., "in a separate (pamphlet) or included in an early report, give a complete list of all named varieties, especially black walnuts, name of nut, name and address of originator, location of original tree, north latitude, year discovered, nuts per pound, score for cracking, kernel, prizes won. this would be very valuable for quick reference." the t. v. a. has issued a pamphlet giving much of this information. also, we believe, mr. c. a. reed is at work on a book which will be worth waiting for. j. u. gellatly, westbank, b. c.: "could not the association supply samples of recommended nuts or perhaps give lists of those who would sell small ( or ) nut samples. i have sent out such samples of or each of varieties i have on hand up to or kinds, at cents per package, post paid. this is not enough to pay for the time consumed but is a good advertising practice." harry s. welby, taft, calif.: "the ground squirrel is a pest here. black walnut as bait will attract them in winter when fruits are scarce. at that time i have had some success with a box trap treadled by an electric contrivance instead of figure . can anyone tell me any experience with scent baits which i believe biological survey trappers sometimes use? it may be a delicate question, but i should be interested in knowing more if the information is available." r. t. dunstan, greensboro college, greensboro, n. c.: "i would be happy if this survey brings to light information on the behavior of the best and more recently discovered hickories. (if not,) i believe an article on performance of such varieties as whitney, grainger, bergor, davis, wilcox, schinnerling, etc., perhaps similar to that by reed in proceedings, would be highly valuable and welcome. perhaps a report on t. v. a.'s nut tree work in recent years would also be worth while." c. h. parks, asheville, n. c.: "would be interested in a chestnut that will grow in southern appalachian regions." (see mr. h. f. stoke's report above. chairman.) harold g. williams, ramsey, n. j.: "i believe that most useful trees, both fruit and nut, that are now commercially important, were developed from selected seedlings grown in the area in which they are being used. i have a suggestion. how about a concerted breeding program for nut trees with full membership participation? the best parent trees should be selected from present plantings of grafted, named varieties. ship these seeds, or one or two year old seedlings from them, to each member on a subscription basis. let each member make a trial planting of as many trees as he can. when these trees come into bearing there will be a better chance of finding superior strains that are adapted to their environment. hybridizing by cross pollination requires more time and skill than many of our members possess. there are, however, members who now own orchards containing some of the best varieties, such, for instance (among the black walnuts) as thomas, stabler, stambaugh, and perhaps elmer myers, planted in such close proximity as to allow for cross pollination. seed could be purchased from them and resold to members for their planting; costs to be kept fairly low, with annual reports required as to care, cultivation, fertilizing and growth. "an alternate plan would be to turn over such seed to hershey, smith, and other member nurserymen to plant, grow the young seedlings under best conditions, and furnish to member cooperators whose pledged subscriptions are to take care of the cost. this would give the cooperating nurseries a piece of business that could be depended upon (of a kind that would take comparatively little time as compared with that required for grafted trees), in return for their support. these trees could be planted fairly close, since most of them would prove to be useless as nut producers. if an outstanding variety is found, everything around it should be chopped down to give it room for development. i personally would raise and report upon some two dozen trees of this kind, and if a large group joined in the work, hundreds of tree could be tested." comment: that the chairman of this committee thinks the above suggestion a good one, and the project a good gamble, is evidenced by the fact that he has about a thousand of such trees now growing. seed was bought from mr. harry weber's, rockport, ind., and mr. c. f. hostetter's bird-in-hand, pa., plantations in the fall of and planted at once. most of the seed was from thomas trees which had been flanked in the plantations with stablers and other named trees, and from stablers similarly flanked. the trees have now had six years' growth. he hopes for first nuts in _from seedlings planted in deep loam only_. growth elsewhere has been negligible. if no outstanding nut producers are found, there will at least be some splendid timber, already assured. it should be stated at once, however, that those whose object is the assured production of nuts, rather than the discovery or development of a new variety, should never plant anything but the best grafted trees bought from reliable nurserymen. your decision should be governed by your interest. if you wish to be sure of nuts of a certain quality for home use, buy grafted trees of that quality. if, on the other hand, you have the urge to probe into the unknown and possibly create a new type, the above project will appeal to you, especially if you should lack training and time for more painstaking work. the following account is an example of the latter kind. arthur h. graves, curator, brooklyn botanic garden, says: "we are breeding chestnuts for the purpose of obtaining a disease-resistant timber tree stock similar to the old chestnut tree which has now nearly disappeared on account of the blight. we started breeding chestnuts here at the botanic garden in , and now after thirteen years of work, have on our plantation at hamden, conn., litchfield, conn., where the white memorial foundation is cooperating with us, and redding ridge, conn., where mr. archer m. huntington and the connecticut agr. exp't station are cooperating, about hybrids, a large number of combinations of chinese, japanese and american chestnuts, many of them now in the third generation from the beginning of the breeding period in . "we are carrying out our breeding program in the following way: "we have selected the chinese and japanese species to cross with the american because the asiatic species are disease-resistant, and we hope to incorporate this quality of disease-resistance with the tall timber growth of the american. we find that the chinese are in general more disease-resistant than the japanese. other stocks which have been incorporated in our hybrids are the european _c. sativa_, the southern chinquapins _c. pumilia_, _c. ozarkensis_, _c. floridana_, and dr. van fleet's old hybrid, presumably of _c. crenata_ and _c. pumila_, which goes under the name of s , and _c. seguinii_. after the hybrids become old enough, we inoculate the tallest of them with the blight fungus in order to get an index of their disease resistance. the most disease-resistant are bred together and of their offspring the tallest are selected, inoculated, and the most disease-resistant are bred together again. for example, this year we had hybrids from last year's breeding experiments set out in a special nursery at hamden and carefully tended during the season. of these we have selected which are the tallest and straightest, that is, inches and over. the others were sent to washington, d. c., where the division of forest pathology, department of agriculture, is working along a similar line, but with more attention to the nut phase of the problem. "our ultimate aim, of course, is to establish a race of chestnut trees which shall replace our now practically extinct american chestnut. the loss in money value from this timber tree has amounted to millions of dollars in comparison with which the value of its nut crops is very small indeed. "however, we are interested in the nut problem, and whenever any particularly fine nuts appear we note the fact. we have now a strain of chinese chestnut which has not yet come into bearing which we believe will have nuts as sweet as the old american chestnut, but much larger." with this forward-looking note we close our report. we have a foundation upon which to build that is substantial and tried. the pioneering work of a patient, far-sighted, and distinguished group of workers has shown us much of what to do and what not to do. it is now up to us, the farmers, the planters, to multiply their work and continue it. side-lights on the - survey very many interesting bits of information have been included in the survey reports; so many that the committee has regretfully omitted some that hardly seemed properly to belong with the material of a survey, which after all must have some limits. one such item is from j. c. mcdaniel, of haines city, fla., and has a special interest for members of this association. he says: "perhaps you will be interested in data on one of america's largest chinese chestnut trees, even if it does grow in florida, at monticello. it stands adjacent to a lot in which the late j. f. jones had a nursery for a short time in the early years of this century, and apparently was planted at that time, around forty years ago. the trunk is now more than inches in diameter below where it divides feet above the ground. from this level, the tree branches profusely and has a symmetrical, rounded crown. it is healthy, not having a sign of the bark disease, although a native chinkapin feet away is badly infested. it has abundant bloom and sets heavy crops of burrs but, lacking another variety for pollination, the number of nuts matured is small. nuts are about average size for the species, of typical sweet flavor, and separate readily from the pellicle. many of them become infested, before ripening, with a fungus which rots the kernel, apparently the same one which infests chestnuts and chinkapins at savannah and albany, georgia. mr. paul goldberg, of monticello, the present owner, states that the tree has been bearing annually during the twenty years his family has owned it." this nut-rot among the oriental chestnuts is one of the diseases that have become troublesome elsewhere. it is being studied and efforts are being made to combat it. thus far, so far as we know, no effective cure has been found. a report upon present progress would be worth while. oscar e. swan, jr., tulsa, okla., reports an enviable situation. he says: "my nut trees are growing on a farm where more than years of cultivation have failed to kill the native pecan sprouts. they come up year after year from the top roots. since acquiring the place in , i have allowed the pecan sprouts and the few native walnuts to grow unchecked except where necessary to cut them out to avoid crowding. the growth of these sprouts is quite vigorous, and they are ideal for top-working. i have top-worked a few trees every spring and now have about grafted trees all the way from to feet tall. many are too close together for full grown trees and i plan to thin them. my problems, so far, are the mechanical ones of top-working. i have settled upon a modification of the biederman bark graft, which gives very good results. after the grafts are well established, the trees get very little attention except for cutting out the crowding trees. they are literally growing 'wild', yet the growth has been better than transplanted trees would have made with the best of care, because the root systems are well established in a situation which suits them. "this system of neglect probably explains why i have failed with some species and varieties such as the butternut and some of the hickories. occasionally i am pleasantly surprised, as in the case of some seedling carpathian walnuts which, grafted upon some established black walnut sprouts, came through the severe drouth in fine shape without benefit of mulch, cultivation, fertilizer, or watering. the same applies to the helmick hybrid. (a two year old tree, a hybrid walnut, grafted and growing well on black walnut stock, and which mr. swan says will bloom next year.) i have pampered my chinese chestnut trees with cultivation, mulch and manure, as they are located in poorer, drier soil. they were badly hit by the drouth. some died in spite of the attention. "as to varieties, i am far enough south to grow all the standard southern pecan varieties, although several do not have a long enough season to mature their nuts. i am trying the northern varieties and, so far, am well pleased with their growth as compared with the southern kinds. it will be a few years before i can report on the size and quality of their nuts." j. c. mcdaniel again: "source and variety of seed in chinese chestnuts have a great influence on the performance of seedlings. numerous seedlings from the original hobson tree began fruiting in their second season of growth, and half of the ones i have are fruiting during their fourth season. on the other hand, i have a tree from imported seed which grew nine seasons before setting and ripening its first burr. the above data refer to my planting near hartselle, morgan county, ala., and that vicinity. i have several black walnut trees under observation, native trees, on which data are not yet complete enough for evaluation." if any man deserves a bright n. n. g. a. medal, it is a. l. young, of brooks, alberta. lowest temperature expected in winter, ° below; lowest known, ° below. highest expected in summer, °. frequent drouths? yes. hot, dry winds? yes. native nuts found plentifully? none. sparingly? none. yet mr. young plants nut trees. it is men like that who have made canada what it is. it takes more than mere weather to stop them. the never-say-die spirit of pioneers speaks throughout his report: "black walnuts, butternuts, some oaks, hazels and american chestnuts (ohio buckeyes) all came through last winter well. however, late frosts reduced the nut crop. of these species, filberts are not getting anywhere. winkler, i believe, will eventually make a go of it. heartnuts got a rough deal last winter, and european buckeye chestnuts were hurt a little by late spring frosts. some manchurian walnuts also got a setback with spring frosts, and some did not. carpathian walnuts killed back quite a lot, so did most of my hybrid walnuts. hybrid hazels seem perfectly hardy. pecans, beechnuts and sweet chestnuts almost passed out of the picture last winter. giant hickory from ontario seems hardy but particular about the kind of soil and conditions. when irrigated, too much water will kill them. and this is true also of walnut and butternut seedlings. i have no acreage of nut trees. i grow seedlings and plant them wherever i find a place protected from the stock and within reach of moisture from the irrigation ditch, as this is a desert, cactus country. "i always have a stock of seedling trees on hand, and whenever visitors show any interest, i give or send them fruit or nut trees and a few perennial flowers. so there are sure to be a few nut trees, some day, growing successfully throughout alberta. "there is more benefit from this northern seed, especially as i am using a commercial pollen with the hope of getting a hardy white walnut with possibly a coarse bark like the black to ward off sun-scald in this climate. they are on their way. i don't know when we'll be eating these imaginary nuts. however, it is not so long ago that fruit growing on the cattle range was a dream. i grew the first pears in alberta, so far as we know. now we are insulted if there is not a crop of fruit every year. i have many seedlings of standard apples, unnamed, that are really choice fruit, and, of course, a few named varieties that are doing fairly well. minnesota has done great work in apple and plum breeding for the north. we are enjoying some of them right here. "i am sorry that i have no data on husking, cracking, etc. really even the hardiest, best trees bear nuts that, while of fair size, do not have fleshy kernels, and some have three sections instead of two. butternuts are very sweet with fair size kernels. i was surprised, after a long hard winter, to find the ginkgo trees still alive and gaining growth. credit some or all this result to j. u. gellatly and paul crath for supplying me with seed, seedlings, and pollen to carry on with. i am greatly obliged to them and also to george corsan of echo valley, islington, who has a wealth of nut interest. "we have had a mighty dry year here, so, between irrigating and tending the largest herd of ayrshire cattle in the prairie provinces, i have been busy. the town of brooks is probably the only town in canada on straight ayrshire milk; and the change in brooks from a box-car on a siding years ago to the brooks of today, with its hundreds of healthy children now on the streets, is the marvel of a man's lifetime." george h. corsan, echo valley, islington, ont.: "last winter, - , was by far the coldest ever recorded. no damage to filberts. a few inches of twigs were hurt on certain english walnuts. the stranger heartnut, a tender variety, passed through unscathed. persimmons and pawpaws passed without a bud killed. these are perfectly hardy varieties. jujubes passed o. k., but that may be due to the very deep snows." dr. oliver d. diller, associate forester, ohio experiment sta., wooster, ohio: "you will be glad to know that the experiment station has set aside some land for improved varieties of nut trees. if you find some promising walnuts which might be tested in this part of the state, we should be glad to have you keep us in mind." this is indeed welcome news and will be appreciated by all growers in this area. j. g. duis, shattuc, ill.: "a chicken yard is one of the best places to grow nut trees." j. u. gellatly: "i do not believe in selling nuts for seed purposes except on a very large scale." j. c. mcdaniel: "a neighbor lost some year old chinese chestnut trees following a summer drouth on silty loam soil, rather shallow to hard-pan. it is my observation that deeper, sandier soils (not too extremely sandy) are best for chestnuts in the coastal plain and other regions subject to summer drouths. in the mountains where summer rainfall is more uniform, they thrive also in clay soils." g. h. corsan: "best success in grafting (hickories) has been in juicy, wet springs. heartnuts must not be budded until late august (in islington, ontario). heartnuts must not be pruned." a. l. young, alberta: "there is a demand for young walnuts for pickling." (does anyone know the details--when to pick, how to pickle?) (note by ed. several recipes and methods in am. nut journal now out of print but indexed by ed. copies of this index in his hands and those of mr. c. a. reed at washington. also recipes in rd ann. report p. ). sterling a. smith, vermillon, o.: "with me, summer budding is the most successful means of propagating black walnuts." j. russell smith: "chinese chestnuts will blight some if under-nourished." which includes the wrong kinds of soil, if uncorrected. "does anyone know for sure how to get pawpaw seed to germinate?" several have asked this question. the chairman has had the same trouble, so can not answer. (note by ed. see "nut puttering in an offyear" in this report.) so far as the correspondence shows, no state or federal department buys seed on a large scale (with the exception, now, of chestnut seed) from trees of the better named varieties with which to grow seedlings for distribution by state nurseries for forest planting. all nut seed seems to be gathered haphazardly. w. g. tatum, lebanon, ky.: "a nut tree with plenty of root, top cut back one third, promptly set, roots protected, stem wrapped, inches, mulch applied, set either spring or fall, grows for me % of the time. failures are not worth mentioning if the above conditions are met." carl weschcke, st. paul, has a dozen or so extra hardy persian walnuts by selection from some , seedlings. also is introducing the hardy "hazelbert," result of crosses between wild varieties and filberts. "dip wire screen guards in red lead and they will be good for twenty years." thomas and stambaugh, among the black walnuts, are, with justice, entrenched leaders, but it will be well to watch patterson, mintle, elmer myers, eureka, creitz, todd, and other promising new ones less well known. thomas is more prolific in the south (generally) than in the north, which indicates that its bloom may possibly be out nearly enough to suffer in the north from late frosts. among chestnuts, the weight of evidence favors hobson, carr and reliable, though j. russell smith says he has something he likes better than the first two. among pecans, major, greenriver, pleas; among filberts and hazels, winkler, jones hybrid, cosford, gellatly, brixnut; among persian walnuts, broadview, one or two crath varieties, payne, breslau; among hickories, stratford, fairbanks, barnes, glover, weschcke. these seem, so far as the returns show, to have outstanding points of superiority. in any such survey, injustice is bound to be done to some not fully reported. outside of filberts in the northwest, no northern grown nut can yet be said to have reached the status of a profitable commercial crop. (exception: the narrow pecan belt along the southern terminus of the ohio river valley; mostly wild trees.) dr. a. s. colby, university of illinois says, "the report from the state statistician at springfield indicated a crop of , pounds of pecans for illinois in . i don't know just where they came from." short crops were reported in calhoun and gallatin, leading nut producing counties. no reports have been received as to the size of pecan crops in the kentucky and southern indiana portions of the same belt. the search for better varieties must continue, but it is also altogether likely that with an orchardist's attention, with cultivation, mulching, fertilizing, spraying one to three times yearly with bordeaux and lead sprays, we might approach the commercial goal more closely with what we have today. is anyone treating a bearing nut orchard as well as he would treat an apple orchard? that's the test. s. h. graham of ithaca, n.y. says: "the ohio is commonly regarded as hard to hull. with a chained tire husker it hulls as well as any." he rates it for hardiness and a percentage of to for filled nuts, while thomas yields only to %. [illustration: seasonal zones compiled from the u.s. department of agriculture records, based on the average date of the last killing frost in spring] juglone--the active agent in walnut toxicity _by george a. gries, connecticut agricultural experiment station_ the problem of walnut toxicity dates back at least to the writings of pliny. in his "natural history," this roman philosopher stated that "the shadow of walnut trees is poison to all plants within its compass" and that it kills whatever it touches. the first rebuttal to the existence of such a toxicity was forwarded by evelyn in the th century. this author discussed the high regard in which walnuts were held in burgundy as field trees. the roots of these trees were below the plow sole and thus did not affect either cultivation nor the growth, of grasses and cereals beneath them. the pros and cons of the problem have been reviewed several times in the recent proceedings of the northern nut growers association. (greene, ; macdaniels and muenscher, ; brown, .) that the roots of walnut trees are toxic to the roots of certain crop plants in direct contact with them is widely accepted. in nature this toxicity seems to be limited to plants with tap root systems such as tomato and alfalfa (davis, ) and those with other types of deep root systems such as apple trees (schneiderhan, ), rhododendrons (pirone, ), and privet. this toxicity is exhibited only when there is a direct contact between the roots of the two plants involved. (jones, ; massey, ). that the wilting observed under walnuts is due to a toxic product from the bark of the walnut, and does not result from a lack of water, is substantiated by the fact that the vascular or water conducting system is discolored for several inches above the point of contact with the walnut root. this symptom is very similar to that produced by vascular disease fungi. no such discoloration results from wilting due to competition for water. this symptom of toxicity has been overlooked by many workers in the field. massey ( ) suggested that the toxic component of walnuts might be juglone. this idea was further supported by davis ( ). today this concept is widely held. chemically this substance is known as , hydroxy- , , naphtho-quinone and belongs to a group of strong oxidizing agents with commercial uses, including tanning agents, medicinals, poisons, etc. a knowledge of the physiology of juglone in the walnut is essential to an understanding of the divergent results obtained by various experimenters. juglone, as such, occurs probably only in minute quantities in the inner root bark, and in the green husks of the nuts. these regions are, however, rich in a substance known as hydrojuglone. this compound, the colorless, non-toxic, reduced form of juglone is immediately oxidized to its toxic form upon exposure to the air or some oxidizing substance from the roots of other plants. upon standing in the air juglone again disappears, being either changed back to hydrojuglone or broken down into other non-toxic substances. this sequence of events may be noted in a fresh green husk of a black walnut. when the fresh husk is cut, the interior is white but immediately turns yellow as the colorless hydrojuglone is transformed into the yellow juglone. upon standing or drying the husk becomes black as further chemical changes occur. it is impossible to extract juglone from these dried husks without first reoxidizing them. it now becomes possible for us to understand some of the discrepancies in the studies on walnut toxicity. if walnut bark or other plant parts are allowed to become desiccated, no toxicity may be found. if the roots of plants do not contact plant parts containing juglone or hydrojuglone, their oxidizing ability can not produce the toxin. further the relative amounts of juglone in various species of _juglans_ has not been completely investigated. it does occur definitely in _j. nigra_ and _j. cinerea_ and has been reported as being in _j. regia_. other species need investigation before being included as sources of juglone. it is known that many plants are not adversely affected when grown under or near walnut trees. some of these have root systems too shallow to contact the roots of the walnuts, especially in plowed ground. some plants may send out sufficient surface roots to keep the plant alive in spite of injury to the deeper roots. the possibility that the roots of some plants are capable of withstanding the oxidizing power of the juglone is currently under study. in early american folklore, the inner bark and the husks of the nuts were used as a source of a yellow dye for cloth. this yellow dye is juglone. the ancients also used this method of dying both cloth and hair. another property of juglone is its toxicity to fish. a few years ago it was a common practice in the south to cut the husks from young nuts and throw them immediately into a still pond of water. the fish, stunned by the juglone, would rise to the surface and were collected and eaten. no one seemed to worry about the effects of such poisoned food on the consumers. juglone is toxic to fungi and bacteria. of all the medicinal powers attributed to walnuts by the greeks and romans, its use in curing certain skin diseases including ringworm has held up through the ages until many today can recall the use of the green husks for control of ringworms. brissemoret and michaud ( ) reported the use of juglone in clinical cases for the cure of eczema, psoriasis, impetigo and other skin diseases and concluded that juglone deserves extensive use in dermatology. to our knowledge the medical profession has not followed up the possibilities which this substance offers. the author is familiar with one case in which pure juglone was applied to a persistent ringworm infection. the infection disappeared within a month after treatment was begun. though conclusions can not be drawn on a single case, certainly this observation lends credence to the medicinal lore of the ancients and the american pioneers. during the fall and winter of - , investigations on juglone were started at the connecticut agricultural experiment station in conjunction with studies of the effect of other plant toxins on the roots of higher plants. when the toxicity of this oxidizing compound was established, it was produced in some quantity both by extraction from walnuts after the method of combes ( ) and by synthesis after the method of bernthsen and semper ( ). working on the assumption that the killing of germinating fungus spores and root hairs are similar phenomena, juglone was subjected to standardized laboratory tests for fungicidal value. in a series of experiments, this compound proved to be equally toxic with the copper in bordeaux mixture. such a high degree of toxicity was deemed worth further investigation, so juglone was tested as a seed protectant and as a spray in field trials for the control of black spot of roses. as a seed protectant, juglone failed miserably. it's toxicity to the noncutinized surfaces of root tissues was so great that germination was abnormal and greatly impaired. the injury noted here was apparently the same as that discussed by brown ( ) and that which occurs normally in the field. in field tests on the control of black spot of roses juglone stood up well. no phytotoxic activity could be noted on the cutinized stem and leaf surfaces. on the variety george ahrens, juglone gave equal control with - / times as much mesh sulfur, the standard control for this disease. summary . under certain conditions walnut trees exhibit toxicity to those plants whose roots are in intimate contact with the roots of the walnut. . this toxicity is due to the action of juglone, the oxidized form of hydrojuglone, a non-toxic substance occurring in the inner bark and green husk of walnuts. . juglone has been used in dermatology to cure various skin disorders including both bacterial and fungus diseases. . as a seed protectant, juglone is unsuitable because of its inherent toxicity to the non-cutinzed root surfaces. . laboratory and field tests have shown juglone to be an excellent fungicide literature cited . bernthsen, a. and a. semper ueber die constitution des juglons und seine synthese aus naphtalin. ber. d. deutsch. chem. gesellsch. : - . . . brissemoret et michaud sur une nouvelle classe de médicaments de la peau; les quinones peroxydes. jour. pharm. et chim. e ser. : - . . . brown, babette i. injurious influence of bark of black walnut on seedlings of tomato and alfalfa. northern nut growers' assn., proc. : - . , . combes, r. sur un procéde de preparation et de purification des dérivés oxyanthraquinoniques et oxynapthoquinoniques en genéral, du juglon et de l'émodine en particulier. bull. soc. chim. c ser. : - . . . cook, mel t. wilting caused by walnut trees. phytopathology : . . . davis, everett. the toxic principle of _juglans nigra_ as identified with synthetic juglone, and its toxic effects on tomato and alfalfa plants. amer. jour. bot. : . . . greene, k.w. the toxic (?) effect of the black walnut: northern nut growers' assn., proc. : - . . . jones, l. r. and w. j. morse the shrubby cinquefoil as a weed. th ann. rpt, vt, agr. expt. sta. - . - . . macdaniels, l. h. and w. c. muenscher black walnut toxicity. northern nut growers' assn., proc. - . . . massey, a. b. antagonism of the walnuts (_juglans nigra i._ and _j. cinerea_.) in certain plant associations. phytopathology : - . . . pirone, p. p. the detrimental effect of walnut to rhododendrons and other ornamentals. nursery disease notes ; - . . . plinius secundus, c. the historie of the world. english translation by p. holland, a. islip, london. . . schneiderhan, f. j. the black walnut (_juglans nigra l._) as a cause of death to apple trees. phytopathology : - . . possible black walnut toxicity on tomato and cabbage _by otto a. reinking new york state agricultural experiment station_ the toxicity or antagonism of black walnut roots and those of certain other plants has been a controversial question. l. h. macdaniels and w. c. muenscher in a report on page of the thirty-first annual meeting of the nut growers' association held in cited evidence pro and con relative to the toxic effect of black walnut on various crops. they concluded that because of conflicting evidence, the problem of walnut toxicity was still unsolved and needed further investigation. in , babette i. brown reported on page of the thirty-third annual report of the northern nut growers' association, on the injurious influence of bark of black walnut roots on seedlings of tomato and alfalfa. it was concluded, from carefully conducted tests, that walnut roots produce a substance that may be injurious to certain other plants. experimentation showed that the walnut root bark produces a substance that is injurious to alfalfa and tomato seedlings. during the past years, a number of instances of stunting and wilting of tomato plants in the vicinity of black walnut trees has been observed. in , a very definite case of wilting and stunting was noted in cabbage plants growing in the vicinity of a black walnut tree. severely wilted tomato plants were observed on july , , in a field of tomatoes near egypt, new york. this case was typical of others observed in tomato fields in recent years. the wilting and stunting were all located in one corner of the field, on both sides of which large black walnut trees were growing, and extended out in the field for a distance somewhat greater than the height of the trees. the rest of the field planted with the same stock of tomatoes was entirely healthy. the field had been planted to beans in and prior to that had been in grass for at least years. the vascular bundles of affected plants were browned as in verticillium or fusarium wilt and in some bacterial diseases. no cankers or discolorations were observed on the external parts of the plants. in order to determine whether or not the wilting was caused by a fungus or bacterium, plants were collected for microscopic examination and for culturing to show possible presence of pathogens. the microscopic examinations showed the absence of fungi or bacteria in the vascular system or other plant tissues. the browning in the vascular bundles appeared to be confined to the phloem tissue. all attempts to culture a pathogenic fungus or bacterium from affected tissue was negative. portions of diseased plants with discolored vascular bundles were placed in a damp chamber and no fungus or bacterial growth developed from the vascular system. from these field and laboratory studies, it was concluded that the wilting and stunting were not produced by a plant pathogen. since the affected plants in the field were all confined to the area adjacent to black walnut trees, and the fact that it had been shown that the bark of this tree does produce a substance that is toxic to certain plants, it was concluded by circumstantial evidence alone that the wilting possibly was due to black walnut toxicity or antagonism of some sort. in august of , studies were made on wilted and stunted cabbage plants growing in a semicircle on one side of a field adjacent to a walnut tree (fig. ). the field was located near hall, new york, in a region known to be infested with cabbage yellows. from a distance, the affected plants appeared to have yellows, but upon close study, it was found that they were merely wilted and stunted and did not show the other typical symptoms of the yellows disease. the root systems of wilted plants did not show the presence of club root or black rot infection. the plants in the field were all of one variety and came from the same seed bed. microscopic studies and attempts to culture a fungus from the vascular bundles of affected plants showed the absence of any fungus that might have caused, the disease. since the affected plants showed no symptoms of known cabbage diseases and as they were growing in a semicircle adjacent to a walnut tree, it was concluded that the presence of the root system of this tree might have been the cause of the trouble. [illustration: fig. . wilted and stunted cabbage plants growing in a semicircle adjacent to a black walnut tree. note large, healthy plants in foreground, side and background about a semicircle of smaller, wilted plants, growing in an area affected by the root system of the black walnut tree.] these two instances of wilting and stunting of plants in the vicinity of walnut trees give further circumstantial evidence that the trouble might have been caused by the toxicity or antagonism of black walnut roots. detailed experiments with the plants in question would have to be run to prove this assumption. preliminary studies on catkin forcing and pollen storage of corylus and juglans l. g. cox, _cornell university_ methods of collecting and storing pollen are of great interest to those engaged in plant breeding. very little reliable information is available for the various nut species compared with many other horticultural plants. the following preliminary experiments were conducted to obtain data on germination media, forcing methods, and storage conditions for corylus and juglans sieboldiana pollen. the former was mostly from hybrid plants produced by crossing the rush filbert (corylus americana) with european varieties. _the optimum temperature and sugar concentration for germination of corylus pollen._ the cut ends of corylus branches with mature catkins collected march , were immersed in water and forced into shedding pollen in a room at a temperature of approximately ° centigrade. the collected pollen was sifted upon the surface of a thin layer of sugar-agar in petri dishes. commercial cane sugar was used in preference to purified sucrose, because other studies have shown it to contain impurities which stimulate pollen germination. a range in sugar concentration from % to % by weight in % intervals was made up in distilled water containing . % agar, heated to boiling and poured into the petri dishes. the pollen was incubated at ° c. and at ° c. on the agar medium for and hours respectively prior to making the germination counts. pollen was assumed to have germinated if the length of the pollen tube exceeded the diameter of the pollen grain. at ° c. germination was prompt and uniform with a maximum of . % at % sugar concentration. at ° c. the rate of germination was very slow and incomplete at the end of hours with a maximum of % germination at % sugar concentration. for subsequent work a temperature of ° c. and a sugar concentration of % by weight was taken as a standard. _the effect of temperature and humidity during forcing on the viability of the pollen_ pollen shed from catkins forced in a warm, dry room (about ° f.), and in a cool, humid greenhouse ( ° f.) gave pollen germinating % and % respectively, which indicated that the air temperature and humidity surrounding the developing catkins may have considerable effect on the viability of the maturing pollen. the experiment was repeated by forcing the catkins at ° c., - ° c., and - ° c., at two humidity levels. the low humidity level corresponded to the natural room humidity, about % and the higher level of nearly % was achieved by enclosing the branches with catkins in large sealed cans over a water surface. as soon as a majority of the catkins began to shed their pollen or to absciss their full developed anthers, the catkins were removed and dried on a sheet of smooth paper at room temperature until the pollen was shed. the pollen was then collected and stored at ° c. until used. the results obtained are given in table . table . percentage germination after hours of filbert pollen forced at different temperatures and humidities. -------------------------------------------------------------- temperature ° c. - ° c. - ° c. low humidity high humidity -------------------------------------------------------------- later experiments indicate that the pollen viability is greatly lowered if the catkins are removed from the higher humidities prior to the maturity of the anthers as indicated by their tendency to shed their pollen. apparently the high humidity hinders the dehiscence of anthers and shedding of the pollen grains. _effect of catkins extracts on pollen germination_ the failure of pollen to germinate in the catkins at % humidity suggested the possibility that the catkin tissue might contain some substance which prevented germination of the mature pollen grains until after it was shed. two mature catkins plus remnants of their unshed pollen were ground in a mortar with a small amount of water in clear quartz sand. one cubic centimeter of the resulting turbid suspension was added to cc. of warm fluid agar and mixed by rotating the petri dish. pollen which gave a % germination on the standard medium showed only % germination on this catkin extract. germination was distinctly abnormal with short stubby pollen tubes, often with numerous nodular swellings. in general the pollen tube grew up into the air away from the surface of the agar, rather than down into it or parallel with the surface as in normal germination. _storage of corylus and juglans sieboldiana pollen_ sulphuric acid solutions to give humidities from % to % in % intervals were made up. the storage chambers consisted of atlas one-pint, wide-mouth fruit jars. in the bottom of each was placed a small -oz. bottle containing cc. of the sulphuric acid solution. the pollen was placed in small glass vials loosely stoppered with cotton. two lots of corylus pollen of - / and - / initial viability respectively, and one lot of juglans sieboldiana pollen of well over % viability were used in the experiment. storage temperatures of ° ° and ° were used. the corylus pollen was placed in storage march , , and the juglans april , . the pollen was taken out of storage november , and germinated on the standard agar-sugar medium at ° c. for hours. results are given in table ii. table ii. the effect of storage temperature and humidity on percentage germination of corylus and juglans pollen ------------------------------------------------------------------ kind of temperature degrees per cent relative humidity pollen centigrade ------------------------------------------------------------------ corylus ° -- juglans -- -- -- corylus ° . -- juglans -- -- -- corylus ° . . . . juglans -- -- . -- . ------------------------------------------------------------------ this preliminary work indicates that corylus pollen can best be stored at ° c. at to % relative humidity and juglans pollen at ° c. at to % relative humidity. _summary_ . the optimum sugar concentration for germination of corylus pollen is around % by weight in . per cent agar at ° c. . forcing the catkins at a low temperature ( ° c.) and at high relative humidity ( %) favors the development of a high percentage of viable pollen. . the catkins contain some substance which when added to the germination media inhibits pollen germination and causes abnormal types of germination. . preliminary results on pollen storage indicate that corylus americana pollen can be stored for eight months or more in a viable condition at ° c. with a range of to % relative humidity. juglans sieboldiana pollen can be stored at ° c. at to % relative humidity. whether or not pollen stored for this length of time would be effective in plant breeding should be tested by actual trial. the supposition based upon studies with other pollens is that germination tests are a reliable indication of the effectiveness of pollen in fertilization. storage and germination of nuts of several species of juglans w. c. muenscher and babette i. brown _cornell university, ithaca, n.y._ while working on the general problem of the possible toxic effect of the roots of species of walnut (_juglans_) upon other plants we have had occasion to germinate the nuts to produce seedlings for experimental use.[ ] the storage treatment employed previous to planting the nuts provided a successful method of supplying viable nuts. the simple treatment used, a modification of that suggested by barton,( ) is briefly described and the results that may be obtained are indicated in a report of some germination data from the plantings of . the nuts were harvested after they had fallen from the trees and were stored in a cool place as soon as possible thereafter until the time when the husks were removed. those harvested at ithaca were put in cold storage at once; those harvested in california or texas were delayed a few weeks during shipment. the husked nuts were stratified between layers of moist peat cm. thick in two-or five-gallon crocks. the uppermost layer of nuts was covered with peat to a depth of about cm. the nuts were placed in a cold room at to ° c. in late autumn and left until they were planted, between april and june . nearly all species used germinated well after about five to six months of cold storage. table shows the results obtained from treated nuts of ten species of _juglans_ when they were planted in the open field, in soil in the greenhouse or in moist sphagnum in the greenhouse. while some variation in germination is observed, most of the species gave a good germination under all treatments. the field planted seeds were somewhat slower in appearing above the soil surface than those planted in the greenhouse. this delay may have been caused by the cold rainy weather soon after planting. the firmness of the soil, a clay loam, may also have retarded the emergence of the seedlings. the germination percentages are based upon lots of nuts except in a few species in which only nuts were used. differences in the percentage of germination obtained from various plantings of the same species are slight in most species. even the larger differences in germination obtained in a few species cannot be considered significant but probably indicate variations in the quality of the original lots used. summary walnuts husked soon after harvest, before they are completely air-dried, and stored in moist peat at to ° c. for five to six months have their dormancy broken and remain viable for at least three months thereafter. this treatment is effective for all ten species tested. it is probably effective for all species of _juglans_. this method of handling the nuts has the advantage over outdoor stratifying or autumn planting which often result in much damage or loss of nuts from the activities of rodents. table . germination of nuts of _juglans_ spp. after stratifying in peat over winter, at - °c. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ per cent germination ------------------------------------- |date |planted in| |planted kind source |entered|soil in |planted |in |in |greenhouse|in field|sphagnum |storage|april |april |june -----------------------------------+-------+----------+--------+-------- nigra (cornell) ithaca, n.y. |oct. | | | nigra (cayuga) ithaca, n.y. |oct. | | -- | cinerea--ithaca, n.y. |oct. | | | regia (sorrentina) chico, calif. |nov. | | | regia (franquette) chico, calif. |nov. | | | -- regia--chico, calif. |nov. | | | -- sieboldiana--ithaca, n.y. |oct. | | | -- honorei--chico, calif. |dec. | | | pyriformis--riverside, calif. |nov. | | | rupestris--alpine, texas |oct. | | | major--riverside, calif. |nov. | | | californica--pomona, calif. |nov. | | | californica quercina--chico, calif.|dec. | -- | | hindsii--riverside, calif. |nov. | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ references-- . brown, babette i. injurious influence of bark of black walnut roots on seedlings of tomato and alfalfa. northern nut growers association, : - . . . barton, lela v. seedling production in _carya ovata_. _juglans cinerea_ and _juglans nigra_. contr. boyce thompson inst. : ( ) - . a key to some seedlings of walnuts w. c. muenscher and babette i. brown _cornell university, ithaca, n.y._ while working with the seedlings of several species of walnuts certain diagnostic characters, by which the common species can be separated, became evident. these characters have been used to make a key to seedlings from one to three months of age. this key has been found helpful to us and it is here presented in the hope that it may prove useful to others who need to handle and determine walnuts in the seedling stage. the key has two main divisions based upon the types of leaves on the main axis. the first division includes three species, _juglans sieboldiana_, japanese butternut, _j. cinerea_, american butternut, and _j. regia_, persian or english walnut, all of which have only compound green leaves. in addition, one or more pairs of minute simple scales or buds occur on the lower part of the stem but above the cotyledons. the second main division includes species in which the seedlings have several simple, alternate, scale-like leaves followed successively by serrate, lobed and finally compound leaves forming a gradual series. this group includes _juglans rupestris_, texas black walnut, _j. nigra_, eastern black walnut, _j. honorei_, ecuador walnut, _j. pyriformis_, mexican walnut, _j. major_, arizona black walnut, _j. californica_, california black walnut, and _j. hindsii_, hind's black walnut. it is important that the leaves on the primary axis arising from the plumule are examined. if the primary axis is injured secondary shoots may arise from the axils of the cotyledons. these may develop various types of leaves not necessarily like those of the primary axis. the key is based upon seedlings grown in the field and in the greenhouse at ithaca, new york. _a key to seedlings of some species of juglans_ . leaves on the primary axis all compound; to pairs of opposite or subopposite reduced scales or buds sometimes present on the lower axis but above the cotyledons. . scales or buds wanting between the lowest compound leaves and the leaves and the cotyledons _j. sieboldiana_ . scales or buds in pairs on to nodes below the compound leaves. . stem with pair of opposite scales or buds near the base; leaflets hairy, serrate _j. cinerea_ . stem with to pairs of opposite scales or buds below the compound leaves; leaflets glabrous, entire or denticulate _j. regia_ . leaves on the primary axis alternate, forming a gradual series from simple, entire scales to compound leaves; the lower to leaves simple. . lateral veins of leaflets all or mostly all terminating in the notches between marginal teeth _j. rupestris_ . lateral veins of leaflets or their main branches all or mostly all terminating in the apex of marginal teeth. . midrib of leaflets glandular hairy. . glandular hairs on midrib of young leaflets interspersed with stellate clusters of gray glandless hairs; lateral leaflets ovate to broadly lanceolate, rugose _j. nigra_ . glandular hairs on midrib of young leaflets interspersed with sessile, usually yellow glands; lateral leaflets lanceolate, not rugose _j. honorei_ . midrib of leaflets glabrous or nearly so, sometimes with scattered, sessile glands. . leaflets lanceolate, with acuminate apex; rhachis glabrous. . leaflets widest near middle; vein-islets prominently raised; free ends of veins wanting or if present distinct to the apex and mostly unbranched _j. pyriformis_ . leaflets mostly widest below the middle; vein-islets not prominently raised; free ends of veins slender, terminating in indistinct branches _j. major_ . leaflets ovate or nearly so, with obtuse or acute apex; rhachis somewhat pubescent. . petioles of the lower compound leaves less than cm. long; leaves crowded on a short axis _j. californica_ . petioles of the lower compound leaves from + to cm. long; leaves more distant on an elongated axis _j. hindsii_ further tests with black walnut varieties l. h. macdaniels _and_ j. e. wilde, _cornell university_ in the northern nut growers association committee on varieties and judging standards proposed a tentative schedule for the judging and evaluation of black walnut varieties( ). it was pointed out at that time that for one reason or another none of the schedules which had been used in judging walnuts were satisfactory and usable in giving an accurate estimate of the cracking quality and value of a variety. it was recognized also that the schedule proposed was only tentative and that it would need to be modified in the light of future testing and experience. in the question was again considered( ) and on the basis of tests which had been made, changes were proposed which would make the schedule more realistic. since then many tests have been made using the modified schedule. the purpose of this paper[a] is to give the data secured in these tests and to consider again the value of the schedule and possibilities of improvement. [footnote a: the authors are indebted to many persons for furnishing samples for testing and for making duplicate tests. this cooperation is gratefully acknowledged with thanks.] recently a number of papers have been published dealing with the evaluation of black walnut varieties. in kline and chase( ) compiled the available published data and additional tests made by the tennessee valley authority on nut weight and kernel percentage of black walnut selections. two hundred and twelve clones and tests are reported. as would be expected the samples of the same variety from different localities show variation in weight per nut and in total per cent kernel. for example, in samples of the variety ohio the weight per nut varies from . grams to . and the per cent kernel from . to . . twenty-one tests of thomas show variations in single nut weight from . to . grams and in per cent kernel from . to . . in general the samples grown in the north were made up of smaller nuts with less per cent kernel, indicating that the varieties were not suited to that latitude. in kline( ) worked out a somewhat technical method of evaluating walnut varieties on the basis of cash return per hour of labor spent in cracking with a hand operated cracker. a formula is proposed in which the variables of price and other factors may be substituted. the approach is on a commercial basis and the method is not intended for use in evaluating small samples. the paper represents many tests and establishes or affirms by statistically treated data several points of general interest in walnut testing, namely, ( ) that a nut sample is large enough to show varietal or other differences of a gram in total weight or per cent of kernel weight, ( ) that unless extreme accuracy is desired, moisture content may be ignored in making tests of nut samples if the nuts have been hulled and air dried for about two months and ( ) that the mean weight per nut and per cent kernel of nuts from the same tree may vary appreciably from year to year, for example a variation of . grams per nut and . per cent in kernel weight is reported for snyder. such variation is recognized and emphasizes the necessity of testing a variety in any locality for a number of years if correct valuation is to be made. in kline's paper earnings per hour for fifteen black walnut selections are given showing a maximum of $ . for the variety norris, $ . for ohio down to $ . for an unnamed seedling. lounsberry( ) published kernel cavity measurements for clonal selections and related these to kernel weight per nut. measurements of the thickness of the partition separating the halves of the kernel are also given. he does not relate these characters to scoring or cracking quality. the purpose of the scoring system under discussion in this paper is to provide a realistic method of judging the relative merit of different clones of black walnuts that can be used mostly by members of the northern nut growers association or others having some skill in cracking technique. at the present time the association has little reliable information either as to the performance of different varieties under different conditions in any one locality, from year to year on the same tree, or the suitability of any one variety growing in far different parts of the united states. it is important that such information be available and a workable basis of evaluation would be of the greatest value in obtaining it. much of our information at the present time is from the many tests made by n. f. drake( , , ) which are of great value in rating varieties. his schedule is an improvement over any previously proposed but fails to provide standard sampling and cracking procedure and includes the items of flavor and color which are in no way objective characters. the use of a point score based on the concept of a "perfect nut" is cumbersome and considered undesirable by the committee. it is recognized that the value of a variety depends also upon the bearing habit of the tree, the nature of the husk, disease resistance and other characters. it has been five years since the present schedule was proposed and enough tests have been made to give a basis for judgment as to the merits and weaknesses of the schedule. as stated in the original committee report it is generally agreed that the best measure of the value of a nut of any clone is the amount of usable or marketable kernels that can be obtained from a given weight of shucked nuts with the least labor. the characteristics of the nuts that contribute to this value are recognized as follows: . the size of the individual nut. . the per cent of kernel of total sample weight recovered without recracking and without the use of a pick. . the total per cent of kernel of total weight of sample. . the number of quarters. . the plumpness of the kernels. . the number of empty nuts or nuts with shrivelled kernels in the sample. flavor and color may be important but are so dependent upon personal preference and on the treatment of the samples before testing that they cannot be rated numerically. in considering the value of any schedule the following questions are pertinent: . is it possible for one operator testing one lot of nuts to obtain the same score with replicate random samples? . is it possible for different operators to obtain approximately the same score on replicate samples? . does the score give an accurate evaluation of the variation of a variety from year to year in one locality or in the same year in different localities? the latter is very important in determining the regions to which the variety is best adapted and the performance of the variety in any one locality. . what are the causes of variation in the scores obtained? which of these reflect the inherent worth of the sample and which are related to technique, personal equation and methods of handling the sample? . what changes may be made in the schedule to weight the various factors to give a more realistic score of what changes in procedure will make the schedule more realistic? table gives data on replicate samples tested by the same operator. in the samples of spear, numbers - the variation is as follows: weight of single nut . grams, per cent kernel first crack . , total per cent kernel . , number of quarters , penalties . points, score . points. in scores figured without penalty the variation is . points. sample no. was cracked november before the nuts were dry and hence is not comparable with others. analysis of these differences indicates that the variation in nut weight is closely related to the number of shrunken and empty nuts in the sample. this is a difficult factor to evaluate in a practical way. at the time of the report it was suggested that the score should be figured on the basis of filled nuts. this cannot be arranged easily in testing because if the operator cracks the nuts before weighing there is almost sure to be loss of fragments of shell. trying to correct the original weight in any way is necessarily inaccurate. deciding whether or not the kernel of a nut is sufficiently shrivelled to deserve a penalty is a matter of judgment which is a personal matter. the variation in per cent kernel first crack and total per cent kernel probably represents fairly the difference in the samples. the total per cent is a wholly objective value and varies practically as much as the per cent first crack. uniformity in the number of quarters is striking. this large number is undoubtedly related to the fact that many of the kernels were shrunken enough to be penalized and others were perhaps shrunken enough so that they did not tightly fill the shell cavity. in general it may be said that the more tightly the kernels fill the shell the more difficult it is to extract large pieces. thus having the kernels a little shrunken but not enough to seriously reduce their weight favors a higher score. of course, in some varieties the kernels may he plump and still not fill the shell tight enough to make cracking difficult. this is a desirable condition. variability in penalties is more important (i. e. . points) than any other factor in influencing the final score. without the penalties the scores of samples to would be . , . , . , . , . and . respectively which is fairly uniform. statistically the presence of empty or shrivelled nuts in a lot from which samples are taken increases the number required to make a satisfactory sample by greatly increasing the individual variation of the single nut. table variation in the score of tests of duplicate samples made by the same operators. twenty-five nut samples. nuts grown at ithaca, n.y. . black walnuts. key: a: wt. nut grams b: % kernel st crack c: % kernel total d: quarters number e: penalty f: score ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- variety treatment a b c d e f remarks ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- spear no. s hours . . . - . . empty, shr. d hours spear no. d hours . . . - . . empty, shr. spear no. d hours . . . - . . empty, shr. spear no. dry . . . - . . empty, shr. spear no. dry . . . - . . empty, shr., bnd. qtrs. spear no. dry . . . - . . empty, shr., bnd. qtrs. spear no. nov. . . . . only partly dried, halves snyder no. dry . . . - . . shr., bnd. qtrs. snyder no. dry . . . - . . empty, shr., bnd. qtrs. snyder no. soaked . . . - . . empty, shr., bnd. qtrs. snyder no. soaked . . . - . . empty, shr., bnd. qtrs. snyder no. dry . . . - . . shr., bnd. snyder no. nov. . . . . qtrs. eldridge dry . . . . halves, not geneva, n.y. well dried out " dry . . . . ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- with the variety snyder a difference of . grams in weight per nut in samples to suggests poor sampling technique as this is an objective value. a difference of . per cent in first crack suggests carelessness on the part of the operator in cracking or difference in soaking as this is quite out of line with the variation of . per cent in per cent weight of total kernel. the difference of quarters is considerable but represents only . score points. as with the spear the variation in penalty of points is greater than other factors except per cent first crack (i.e. . % points). the difference in score of . points is obviously greater than desirable, but probably indicates the relative value of the samples. without penalties the difference is . points. sample of spear and number of snyder were cracked november th when only partly cured and show the importance of curing in obtaining an accurate rating for a sample. the score of each variety was increased materially in all characteristics and no shrivelling was apparent. as a practical means of recovering the kernels in large pieces, cracking before the nuts are dried out is a decided advantage provided the kernels are cured before they are stored. the duplicate samples of eldridge check very closely and show no significant differences. in table are given the results of ten tests on carefully replicated random samples of snyder black walnuts. in making these samples the nuts were spread in a single layer on the floor and lots of cut off the edges of this layer without selection of any kind. even with such selection there is a variation of . grams in the average weight of single nuts from different samples. per cent kernel first crack shows a minimum of . and a maximum of . in the ten samples. this difference is related mostly to the presence of empty nuts in the low scoring sample as compared with none in the high scoring sample. the high score is also in part due to soaking. this variability is about the same as with total per cent kernel indicating that cracking technique was uniform. comparing samples and in more detail it is found that the difference of . points in the score is caused by the presence of empty nuts in the sample. the average weight of kernels per single nut in sample is . grams. the difference in the weights of the kernels of the two samples is grams or about the weight of the kernels of nuts. these empties also reduce the score by reducing the number of quarters recovered. where empty nuts are involved, it is doubtful if random sampling will reduce variation unless the size of the sample is greatly increased, a practice which is not a practical solution in that a nut sample is about as large as can be handled with any facility. it would seem that this difference in scores was a fair indication of the merit of the two samples. the scores of the other samples show a fair degree of uniformity. the high score of sample is probably related to the soaking treatment though the scores of sample also soaked is lower than that of sample which was not soaked. it seems that when these conditions and with this variety stored in a fairly high humidity, soaking had little effect except to increase the number of halves recovered. table cracking tests by single operator with random replicate samples of snyder black walnuts. crop. nut samples. key: a: wt. nut grams b: % kernel st crack c: % kernel total d: quarters number e: penalty f: score sample treatment a b c d e f remarks ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- dry as received . . . - . . empty, shr. dry as received . . . - . . shr. soaked hrs., dried hrs. . . . - . . empty, shr., bnd. qtrs., hvs. soaked as above . . . - . . shr., bnd. qtrs., hvs. held in cellar days . . . - . . empty, shr., (high humidity) bnd. qtrs. held in cellar days . . . - . . shr., bnd. qtrs., hvs. held in cellar days . . . - . . empty, shr., bnd. qtrs. held in cellar days . . . - . . shr., bnd. qtrs. held in cellar days . . . - . . black counted as empty, shr., bnd. qtrs. held in cellar days . . . - . . empty, shr., bnd. qtrs. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- another lot of random replicate nut samples of ohio black walnut from the original tree was made by scooping the nuts out of a bag with a quart berry box which held about nuts. care was used not to select the samples in any way. the lightest sample weighed grams, the heaviest weighed grams or a difference of grams per nut. the score of these two samples was . and . respectively apparently because there were no empty nuts in either sample. the results of tests on of these replicate samples of ohio are given in table . the nuts were apparently a uniform lot. the kernels while of good quality were in most cases not quite plump and did not fill the cavities of the shell tightly. this doubtless accounts for the large number of quarters recovered. the kernels on the whole were plumper than with the variety snyder reported in table and there were fewer empty nuts. of the samples that were not soaked the variation of . per cent in the per cent first crack is of the same order as variation of . per cent for total per cent kernel and indicates uniform cracking technique. the data in table gives evidence of the effect of treatments before cracking. the first nine samples marked with an asterisk were held for several weeks in a damp cellar and have an average test score of . . the last seven samples were held in a dry but unheated room for a week before cracking and show an average test score of . . the average score for the two soaked samples was . . soaking also increased the number of halves and quarters recovered in the same way as shown with variety snyder in table . none of these samples was excessively dry. in this table the lowest score (sample ) is directly related to the presence of empty nuts in the sample. the low score of sample is mostly related to low per cent first crack which is caused by large number of bound quarters and the high penalty related to empty nuts and shrivelled kernels. these scores seem to indicate the value of the samples but bring out the difficulty of obtaining equal scores from such replicate samples. the other scores in the table are probably as close to each other as can be expected with samples of this sort. in this and the preceding tables the number of bound quarters is given as an indication of cracking technique. with the hershey cracker the nuts of many varieties will split into four quarters without releasing the kernels. the number of such bound quarters is increased if the operator does not put sufficient pressure on the anvils to crush the shoulders of the nut and free the kernel. on the other hand if too much pressure is used and the anvils brought too close together the kernels will be crushed and the score affected adversely. with some varieties, for example, the adams as shown in samples and in table , the nuts are so pointed at each end that the standard anvils do not strike the shoulders of the nut and many bound quarters result. with such varieties cracking with a hammer would probably give a better score. anvils with deeper cavities in the ends would be an advantage for such nuts. table tests by the same operator of duplicate samples of ohio black walnuts, treated in various ways before cracking. nut samples. crop. key: a: wt. nut grams b: % kernel st crack c: % kernel total d: quarters number e: penalty f: score sample treatment a b c d e f remarks --------------------------------------------------------------------------- *dry . . . - . . shr., bnd. qtrs., halves *dry . . . - . . empty, shr., bnd. qtrs. *dry . . . - . . shr., bnd. qtrs., halves *dry . . . - . . empty, shr., bnd. qtrs., halves *dry . . . - . . shr., bnd. qtrs., halves *dry . . . - . . empty, shr., bnd. qtrs., halves *dry . . . - . . shr., bnd. qtrs., halves *dry . . . - . . shr., bnd. qtrs., halves *dry . . . - . . shr., bnd. qtrs., halves soaked . . . - . . soaked hr., moist , dried hrs., shr., bnd. qtrs., halves soaked . . . - . . soaked as above, shr., bnd. qtrs., halves dry . . . - . . shr., bnd. qtrs., halves dry . . . - . . empty, shr., bnd. qtrs., halves dry . . . - . . shr., bnd. qtrs., halves dry . . . - . . empty, shr., bnd. qtrs., halves dry . . . - . . shr., bnd. qtrs., halves dry . . . - . . shr., halves, end reversed in cracking dry . . . - . . shr., bnd. qtrs. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- table variation in score of replicate samples of varieties of black walnuts tested by different operators and of same varieties from different sources wt. % kernel % nut st kernel quarters variety source grams crack total number score ------------------------------------------------------------------------ operator thomas--weber, ind. . . . . thomas--jones, pa. . . . . thomas--baum, pa. . . . . thomas--worton, md. . . . . average . . . . . operator thomas--weber, ind. . . . . thomas--jones, pa. . . . . thomas--baum, pa. . . . . thomas--worton, md. . . . . average . . . . . operator thomas--jones, pa. . . . . thomas--baum, pa. . . . . thomas--worton, md. . . . . average . . . . . operator ten eyck--weber, ind. . . . . ten eyck--jones, pa. . . . . ten eyck--baum, pa. . . . . ten eyck--worton, md. . . . . average . . . . . operator ten eyck--weber, ind. . . . . ten eyck--jones, pa. . . . . ten eyck--baum, pa. . . . . ten eyck--worton, md. . . . . average . . . . . operator ten eyck--weber, ind. . . . . ten eyck--jones, pa. . . . . ten eyck--baum, pa. . . . . ten eyck--worton, md. . . . . average . . . . . operator ohio--weber, ind. . . . . ohio--jones, pa. . . . . ohio--baum, pa. . . . . ohio--worton, md. . . . . average . . . . . operator ohio--weber, ind. . . . . ohio--jones, pa. . . . . ohio--baum, pa. . . . . ohio--worton, md. . . . . average . . . . . operator ohio--weber, ind. . . . . ohio--jones, pa. . . . . ohio--baum, pa. . . . . ohio--worton, md. . . . . average . . . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ table gives the results of tests of similar samples of three varieties from four different sources by three different operators. the tests are not satisfactory because pretreatment was not uniform and there is insufficient data on penalties which are omitted. some samples of the varieties ten eyck and thomas contained empty nuts and shrivelled kernels which would preclude equal scores. the variety ohio was uniformly filled from all sources. in the variety ten eyck there is a difference of . per cent in total per cent kernel in samples from the baum orchard. this was related to empty nuts in the sample cracked by operator . in the variety ohio in which the kernels were plump the greatest variation between duplicate samples in total per cent kernel is or only about per cent of average total per cent kernel. an examination of these data show the following points of interest: ( ) that the duplicate samples showed considerable variation in weight of single nut and total per cent kernel, characters not dependent on personal skill or judgment. operator did not crack the whole sample of and may have selected the larger nuts, thus securing a greater weight per nut with all varieties. the superior filling of the nuts of ohio appears to be related to the fact that in the orchards in question this variety was observed to hold its leaves longer than the others which lost their leaves in late summer before harvest by leaf blight. shrunken kernels are a logical result of early defoliation. in the per cent of kernel obtained in first crack operator recovered a higher per cent than operator in all of the eleven possible comparisons and higher than operator in out of possible comparisons. this probably is the result of soaking the samples by operator and not by the others or possibly due to greater skill or care in cracking. the number of quarters recovered by operator is greater in all cases than that obtained by either operator or . this is also a result of soaking or skill or both. the score of operator was in all tests of duplicate samples higher than that obtained by operator and higher than the scores of operator in out of comparisons. the scores of the different samples are apparently mainly determined by the per cent recovered at first crack and the number of quarters, at least the only cases where the scores of operator exceed those of operator are where the per cent first crack and the number of quarters are greater for operator . this is related to the presence of empty nuts. the data obtained for the variety thomas by operator and show for the most part the same relative scoring of samples from different sources. for example with both operators the score of the samples from the weber orchard was lower than that from the jones and baum orchards and the sample from the jones orchard scored higher than that from the baum orchard. in the samples from the worton orchard the relative scores are reversed. the scores o£ operator are quite out of line. with the variety ten eyck the differences between scores of samples from different sources are not consistent. operator obtained scores that were essentially alike for all four samples whereas the scores of operator show differences of more than points. this is related to empty nuts in the sample. with the variety ohio there is reasonable uniformity in the scores obtained by all operators. this was the only variety with well filled nuts and for that reason alone the score would be less variable. table tests by different operators on duplicate samples of black walnuts, soaked and unsoaked. nut samples. crop. key: a: treatment b: wt. nut grams c: % kernel st crack d: % kernel total e: quarters number f: penalty g: score ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- sample a b c d e f g remarks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- operator ohio no. dry . . . - . . bnd. qtrs., shr., halves ohio no. soaked . . . - . . bnd. qtrs., shr., empty operator ohio no. dry . . . - . . empty ohio no. soaked . . . - . . empty ohio no. soaked . . . - . . shriveled ohio no. dry . . . - . . empty operator grundy no. dry . . . - . . shriveled, bnd. quarters grundy no. soaked . . . - . . all out st crack, halves operator grundy no. . . . - . . empty grundy no. dry . . . - . . shriveled operator adams no. dry . . . . . bnd. qtrs., well filled, good quality adams no. soaked . . . - . . empty, bund. qtrs., shr. operator adams no. dry . . . - . . empty adams no. . . . - . . empty ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the average scores of all samples of each variety are ohio . , thomas . , and ten eyck . . these are not out of line either with the scores obtained for these varieties elsewhere or the relative merit of the varieties. because of the variability obtained in the tests shown in table , another series of tests of similar samples by different operators was arranged in the summer of . the samples of ohio were some of the same lot reported in table . the varieties grundy and adams grown in michigan were carefully sampled to give comparable lots. the results of these tests given in table show no greater variability between the scores of the two operators for any one variety than between tests by the same operator and indicate that it is possible for different operators to obtain comparable scores on duplicate samples provided great care is used in treating and cracking the samples. the differences in average score between the different varieties is consistent and apparently gives a correct indication of their relative merit. grundy shows an average score of . , ohio . and adams . . the high score of grundy is related to the large size of nut and high per cent first crack. the low score of adams is related to small size of nut and low per cent first crack resulting from a large number of bound quarters. the kernels of this variety were plump, filling the cavity of the shell full and shattered on cracking. in table are given the results of tests of selections or clones. in general it appears that the score is a fair indication of the worth of the sample. low scores are related mostly to low per cent first crack and to the presence of empty nuts or shrivelled kernels in the sample. it is evident also that if a sample is too dry with many varieties a low score will result. just what soaking treatment is most expedient is not too clear. soaking hours and drying proved to be a satisfactory practice. the method followed by mr. stoke of soaking for minutes and keeping the sample in a wet burlap sack for hours is all right but is cumbersome if many samples are to be tested. soaking one hour and holding hours in a closed container like a coffee can give good results but percentage should be figured on dry weight and kernels should be air dried for hours before weighing. one weakness in the schedule is that it tends to give a small nut an advantage if the per cent kernel obtained in first crack is high. thus a sample of the mintle grown in iowa which weighed but . grams per nut and total per cent kernel of scored . points chiefly because the per cent first crack was . . the same variety grown at ithaca weighing . grams per nut but with . per cent first crack and . total scored . . possibly a penalty could be taken for nuts weighing less than grams. on the other hand a large nut like the grundy weighing about grams would have a point score advantage over mintle and this may be enough for this character. the six samples of thomas grown on different trees in ithaca, n.y. in show great variation in score as has been the case in other years. poor scores are related to shrunken kernels and such samples come from trees that are making poor growth because of poor soil conditions and competition with weeds. also shriveled kernels are the result of defoliation by early frosts which may be very local and affect some trees and not others. table tests and scores of black walnut varieties from various sources. nut samples unless otherwise indicated. all scores figured on basis of nuts. key: a - *treatment d--dry s--soaked no.--hours dried or soaked b - wt. nut grams c - % kernel st crack d - % kernel total e - quarters number f - penalty g - score -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- variety source a b c d e f g remarks -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- adams becker, mich. d . . . . poor; bound quarters ' benton smith, wassaic, s- . . . - . . plump kernels, good flavor, n.y. empty sample no. ' d- nuts ( ) sample no. " d . . . - . . empty nuts ( ) bontz snyder, iowa s- . . . - . . nut long like ohio. shell ' d- chamber smooth. nearly all kernels shrunken. prominent spur; oily; poor to med. extr.; few shrunken boothe stoke, va. s- . . . - . . good quality; flavor good, ' d- blind qtrs.; ext. poor burrows snyder, iowa s- . . . - . . no data ' d- calhoun becker, mich. d . . . . end cracks, empty nuts, ' shr. cayuga ithaca, n.y. s- . . . - . . kernels, good extr. middle ' d- tree climax becker, mich. d . . . . some shrunken kernels ' cornell ithaca, n.y. s- . . . . ( ) ' d- % no empty nuts, kernels full, creitz stoke, va. s- . . . - . . very good extr., good color ' - excellent cracker. shell thin; cresco ithaca, n.y. s . . . . thin; good nut; flavor mild ( ) ' eldridge geneva, n.y. s- not promising at ithaca ( ) ' d- . . . - . . dried in husk; kernels shrunken finney snyder, iowa s- . . . - . . shell thick; kernels shr., ' d- spurs prominent. tough to crack freel ithaca, n.y. s . . . . shell thick, kernel thin. not ( ) ' a good nut galloway snyder, iowa s- . . . - . . kernel smooth, flavor good. ' d- extraction good harris snyder, iowa s- . . . - . . dark color. all kernels ' d- withered. flavor poor. extraction very good homeland stoke, va. s- . . . . smooth kernels; flavor good; ( ) ' d- closed suture karnes stoke, va. s- . . . . tight in shell. kernels oily, ' d- shatter. flavor good. shining pellicle korn korn, mich. d . . . . kernels fill cavity very full. ' shatter mccoy snyder, iowa s- . . . - . . smooth kernel; some slight ' d- shrinking. thick shell mcgee becker, mich. d . . . . bound qtrs., hard pointed ' nuts, hard cracking michigan korn, mich. ' d . . . . kernels plump, very good nut mintle snyder, iowa s- . . . - . . flavor mild, extr. very good. ' d- very good nut, smooth shell mintle ithaca, n.y. s- . . . . no empty nuts, kernels plump, ' d- good extraction ohio snyder, iowa s- . . . - . . shell chamber smooth. flavor ' d- sharp. extraction fair. rohwer snyder, iowa s- . . . . kernel smooth, extr. fair. ' d- kernels plump. rohwer stoke, va. s- . . . - . . fair extraction; flavor fair. ' d- spur prominent. blind qtrs. schwartz snyder, iowa s- . . . - . . end cracked. spurs prominent. ' d- some shrinking. not too good. blind qtr. sifford stokes, va. s- . . . - . . large nut. good extr. kernels ' d- shrunken snyder jacobs, ohio d . . . . not entirely cured ( ) ' snyder smith, wassaic, d . . . . bound qtrs. kernels lg. ( ) n. y. ' rather dark, a good nut sparrow ithaca, n.y. s- . . . - . . empty, all shrunken, end ( ) ' d- % cracks; poor quality sparrow smith, wassaic, d . . . . well filled, kernels bright, ( ) n.y. ' good flavor, good nut sparrow snyder, iowa s- . . . . flavor good; smooth nut, spur ' d- medium prominent. blind qtrs. sper becker, mich. ' d . . . . kernels somewhat shrunken " d . . . . no. , not completely sper dried. not recleaned stabler stoke, va. s- . . . - . . flavor mild. easy extr. ' d- blind qtrs. many shrunken stabler wilkinson, ind. s- . . . - . . end cracks; bound qtrs. ' d- empty nuts, shr. kernels stambaugh graham, ithaca, ( ) n.y. recleaned . . . - . . all kernels shrunken. poor s- d- % quality sterling korn, mich. d . . . . kernels plump. very good nut ' tasterite graham, ithaca, n.y. ( ) n. y . recleaned . . . % . all kernels plump; quality ' s- d- fair thomas snyder, iowa s- . . . - . . good extraction. some ' d- shrunken thomas wilkinson, ind. s- . . . . end cracks; bound qtrs., ' d- kernels plump; oily, clinging thomas no. ithaca, n.y. d . . . . some shrunken ' tree thomas no. ithaca, n.y. s- - / . . . - . . empty nut; some shrunken no. ' d- thomas no. ithaca, n.y. d . . . . no. ' thomas no. ithaca, n.y. d . . . - . . empty nuts; all shrunken ' no. thomas no. ithaca, n.y. s- . . . - . . empty nuts; shr. kernels; ( ) blind qtrs. thomas ithaca, n.y. s- . . . - . . empty nuts; shr. kernels ( ) no. ' d- thomas wilkinson, ind. s- . . . - . . empty nuts; shr. kernels, ' d- bound qtrs. troup graham, ithaca, s- . . . - . . all kernels shr., empty ( ) n.y. ' d- % nuts, quality poor vail ithaca, n.y. s- . . . empty nuts, shr. kern., ( ) ' d- %- . . blind qtrs., end cracks vandersloot " s- . . . - . . empty nut, shr. kern., d- bound qtrs., ext. poor wiard snyder, iowa s- . . . . one of best, well filled. ' d- smooth kernel, good flavor, good extraction discussion in the light of the data presented some conclusions can be drawn on the various questions raised at the beginning of this paper. it is evident that if approximately the same score is to be obtained by one operator on duplicate or replicate random samples, great care must be used in sampling. there is a tendency in taking samples to pick out the larger nuts or in some other way fail to take a good random sample. selections submitted for contests are likely to be quite misleading as to the value of the variety and reflect in considerable part the contestant's skill in selection rather than the merit of the clone. the freel walnut seems to be an example of this. at least as grown at ithaca it is very disappointing. it is evident that if comparable scores are to be obtained the samples receive the same treatment particularly as regards moisture content. samples should be dried sufficiently to show the shrinkage of poorly developed kernels but in no case be allowed to dry to the point of checking the shells. uniform soaking practice is a step in the right direction. a green or partially dried nut will test much higher than one properly cured as evidenced by snyder, sample and spear, sample in table . it seems probable that no schedule can be devised that will eliminate the necessity for skill on the part of the operator. to obtain satisfactory uniformity in scores, it is essential that the operator be skilled in the use of the cracking machine and use continuous care in applying the necessary pressure and in holding the nut in the anvils. undercracking or overcracking, reversing the ends of the nut in the anvil or failure to hold the nut vertical may affect the score. the presence of empty or poorly filled nuts in a lot of nuts from which samples are taken at random introduces greater variability in the samples than that found in lots with all nuts filled. this is true because the chances of getting an equal number of empty nuts in nut samples are small and the presence of each empty nut decreases the per cent kernel and also the numbers of quarters possible. variations due to empty nuts could be eliminated by greatly increasing the number of nuts in the sample but this is not practical for the purposes this schedule is intended to serve. the question of whether or not it is possible for different operators to obtain equal scores on duplicate samples is not satisfactorily answered by the data in table . as the data stand the scores are far from equal. there is, however, a consistency in the scoring of each operator and it is quite probable that with more uniform treatment of nuts before cracking and more careful sampling better agreement would be achieved. this is borne out in the data given in table in which the variation in scores between the two operators was no greater than that obtained by the same operator. from a study of the data secured it appears that the causes of variation in the scores of duplicate or replicate samples are the result of ( ) lack of care in making replicate random samples, ( ) differences in treatment of samples before cracking, particularly as regards moisture content, ( ) differences in the skill or care of the operator making the tests, ( ) presence of empty nuts or shrivelled kernels in the sample which introduces variation not compensated for in a nut sample and further complicates the matter because assigning penalties for shrivelled kernels involves personal judgment. the first three of these can be minimized or eliminated by care and skill. the fourth item is not so easy but procedure can at least be standardized. increasing the size of the sample is not practical if much testing is to be done. all things considered it would seem that the scores indicate fairly well but not accurately the relative merit of the samples and thus can be relied upon to determine the relative merit of a variety or clone, the suitability of the variety for growing in a given locality and the variability of a variety grown in the same region but under different conditions. to determine the merit of a variety as compared to another both must be grown under the same conditions. the over-all value of a variety can only be determined from samples of well filled nuts. in any case the more samples tested the better. the following suggestions are made as to procedure: . in taking a random sample no selection as to size, uniformity, or any other quality should be made. suggested procedure would be to scoop up about nuts in a berry basket or with the hands from the main supply and reduce the sample to without conscious selection. what we in the northern nut growers' association want is a measure of the merit of the crop of the tree or variety in question and not the value of a highly selected sample. . it is not practical to bring samples to a uniform moisture content before cracking is done. the following precautions, however, may be followed: (a) take care to see that nuts are reasonably well cleaned and free from fragments of husk. scrubbing or beating the nuts together in a sack will usually remove most of the loose material. of course the best practice is to wash the nuts immediately after shucking. (b) cure samples until they are dry enough not to lose more weight preferably in an unheated room. this takes at least a month or weeks. (c) avoid storing the samples in a heated room where they will become so dry that the shells will check or crack. if this occurs the normal cracking fracture of the shell is destroyed and a satisfactory test cannot be made. (d) nuts that have become so dry that the kernels shatter may be moistened by soaking about hours in cold or lukewarm water then holding them in a moist condition for - hours, followed by drying for - hours before cracking. nuts that are to be soaked should be weighed before soaking and the dry weight used in figuring percentages. the kernels of soaked nuts should be dried for hours before weighing, preferably under the same conditions in which the samples were stored before weighing. . care and skill on the part of the operator are of the greatest importance, particularly in the thoroughness of cracking. the most important variable in the score is the per cent kernel recovered at first cracking. the score is reduced by undercracking the nut so as to leave the quarters bound or by overcracking to the point of smashing the kernels. if the nuts have a long point so that the rims of the anvils do not contact the shoulders of the nut, poor cracking will result. at the present time a cracker with interchangeable anvils is not available. using different sized iron pipe couplings in a vise may help solve the problem. some varieties will crack better with a hammer than with a cracker of the hershey type with standard anvils. in cracking a sample for test the operator should try to recover the most possible out of the first crack without using a pick or recracking. . the empty nut problem is probably the most difficult and is not satisfactorily solved by cracking nuts in excess of until filled nuts are secured. this necessitates weighing the sample after the nuts are cracked which is usually impracticable because of loss of parts of shells in cracking and because additional nuts are not available. empty or shrivelled nuts in a sample are a serious defect which should count heavily against it. on the basis of experience it seems that a better method is to crack the random sample of nuts and let the empty nuts and shrivelled kernels affect the score as reduced weight per nut, reduced per cent kernel and the penalty as well. shrivelling that is obvious and which adversely affects the appearance of the kernels should be penalized. possibly further experience will suggest a better way of handling this problem. the proposed score of a sample is made up as follows: . the weight of a single nut in grams. . the per cent kernel of total weight of sample recovered after first crack x . . the total per cent kernel of total weight of sample divided by . . one tenth point for each whole quarter recovered. . penalty of one score point for each empty nut in the sample. . penalty of / point for every nut with shrivelled kernel. the makeup of this score does not differ from that previously used except in the matter of procedure with empty nuts. it is felt that the items included are weighed in a realistic manner and that difficulties in scoring have been due to methods of handling the samples rather than in the scoring schedule itself. it does not seem likely that this schedule or any schedule will be valuable unless used by experienced operators who are willing to take the precautions indicated. also it is apparent that wherever possible more than one sample of a lot to be scored should be tested and the average score used. references cited . macdaniels, l. h. report of committee on varieties and judging standards. no. nut growers assn. proc. : - . . . macdaniels, l. h. is it possible to devise a satisfactory judging schedule for black walnuts? no. nut growers assn. proc. : - . . . kline, l. v., and s. b. chase. compilation of data on nut weight and kernel percentage of black walnut selections. am. soc. hort. sci. proc. : - . . . kline, l. v. a method of evaluating the nuts of black walnut varieties. am. soc. hort. sci. proc. : - . . . lounsberry, c. c. measurements of walnuts of united states. no. nut growers assn. proc. : - . . . drake, n. f. judging black walnuts. no. nut growers assn. proc. : - . . . drake, n. f. black walnut varieties. no. nut growers' assn. proc. : - . . nut growers assn. proc. : - . . shelling black walnuts _by g. j. korn, berrien springs, michigan_ the methods used in the shelling of black walnuts by one of the commercial growers in southeastern pennsylvania may be of interest to some of our nnga members. for the last three seasons i have helped this grower with the harvesting and shelling of his crop. the thomas variety predominated in his -acre nut orchard. this variety is truly a very outstanding nut when properly grown. the thomas is large, cracks well, its kernels may be readily removed in large pieces, mostly quarters, and they are of excellent flavor and color. care in selecting the orchard site, soils, methods of cultivation, fertilizing and spraying appear to be of prime importance in the production of high quality nuts. the matters i shall speak of in this article, however, will have to do mostly with the harvesting, husking, curing and cracking of the walnuts and picking their kernels. when the walnut husks may be easily dented with the thumb they are ready to gather. this is usually about october in that locality. the harvesting is begun immediately, as the kernels will become somewhat damaged as to flavor and color if the husks are allowed to darken and decompose. when the nuts have ripened they do not remain in prime condition for harvesting for more than about to days. by this time the husks will have begun to decompose and darken the kernels. just as soon as the nuts are ripe they are shaken from the trees. the nuts are gathered into bushel baskets and hauled in a pick-up truck to the husker. one of the old cannon type corn shellers, once quite common in pennsylvania, is used to husk the nuts. a farm tractor furnishes the power to run the husker. the nuts are run through the husker a couple of times to assure a clean job of husking. the cleanly husked nuts drop into a basket at the end of the husker. only minutes or slightly more time is required to turn out a bushel of husked nuts. the freshly husked nuts are washed in a large copper kettle of water by vigorously stirring them a few minutes with a common garden hoe. about - / bushels of nuts are washed in each batch. all nuts that float lightly on the water are skimmed off and discarded. the nuts are then spread out about or nuts deep on trays to dry. the frames of the trays are made of x inch lumber and are - / feet wide and - / feet long; / inch mesh galvanized chicken wire netting forms the bottoms of the trays. walnuts dried indoors in the shade produce lighter colored and finer flavored kernels than do those dried outdoors in the sun and rain. when nuts are being dried indoors, care should be taken to see that they have a good circulation of air or the nuts may start molding in the early stages of their curing. although the outside of the walnut shells may dry off quite rapidly, it takes considerable more time for the inside of the nut to cure properly for storing. the nuts should be left on the trays for a few weeks to insure thorough curing. [illustration] the cracking of the nuts is done with one of the small mechanical crackers that is to be found on the market. the more care exercised in the cracking at the nuts, the less work and time will be required in separating the kernels. after cracking the nuts they are sifted through a series of screens. this helps very materially in preparing them for rapidly picking their kernels. it is quite important that this operation be done properly if the kernel picking is to be made simple and rapid. the cracked nuts are first sifted through a screen made of -inch mesh chicken wire netting. next the nuts are sifted through a screen made of / -inch mesh hardware cloth. all material which will not pass through this screen should be kept separate. some of these pieces will require recracking and kernel picking with the fingers. the material which has passed through the / -inch mesh screen is now sifted on a hardware cloth screen with meshes to the inch. only the very fine material will pass through this screen which is not suitable for further kernel recovery. the material which remains on the / -inch mesh screen is now placed on the table especially made for kernel picking. this table is shown in the accompanying sketch. the table is of suitable size to allow two people to use it at the same time. the operators sit on stools about inches in height, and work from the low side of the table. a small amount of the material is brought forward and spread out very thinly before the operator. a piece of / -inch softwood dowel about inches long with no. sewing needles imbedded in one end is used to pick up the kernels. the needles are placed in the form of a square and should be only about / of an inch apart to do the best work. the picks should not be used to pry kernels from the shell, as the needles would soon become bent and worthless. the picks are meant to be used only to pick up the kernels from _among_ the shells. as soon as the operator has removed all the kernels from the small amount of material he has brought forward from the rear of the table, he shoves the shells into the hole at the edge of the table and they drop into a receptacle. the pick is used with the right hand, and the kernels are removed from the pick with and into the left hand. as soon as a convenient handful of kernels has been obtained, they are dropped into a small pan which sets on the table near the operator's left hand. the rapidity with which kernels may be picked by using these methods is surprising. it is sometimes necessary to moisten the nuts and hold them in this condition for or days before cracking them, to keep the kernels from shattering unduly. after the kernels are picked out they are dried very thoroughly. trays whose bottoms are lined with screening somewhat finer in mesh than that used for windows, are used to dry the kernels. care should be taken to not overheat the kernels, or their flavor and color will be impaired. good clean lard or similar cans with tight fitting covers are used for storing the kernels. the kernels are stored in a cool dry place. any kernels which are to be kept over the summer months, are placed in cold storage. better butternuts, please _s. h. graham, ithaca, n. y._ "as to palatability, there are many persons who would be disposed to place the butternut at the very head of edible nuts." this is the opinion of luther burbank in vol. xi, page , of "luther burbank, his methods and discoveries." the butternut tree is noteworthy as being at home in a greater variety of soils than the blackwalnut as well as being hardier than the black walnut or the hickory. it ripens so early that the nuts always have plenty of time to mature while the richly flavored kernels are rarely shrunken and never astringent. despite these good qualities, a search through the publications of the northern nut growers' association for the past thirty years proves that comparatively little interest has been manifested in it. it would seem quite in order to inquire into the reasons for this neglect. five of them come to mind: . too early blooming. . difficulty of propagation. . curculios. . melanconis disease. . lack of sufficiently good varieties. the butternut too often blooms so early that its blossoms are caught by frost. the filbert has the same fault and so, to a less extent, has the persian walnut. late blooming varieties of each have already been selected. it does not seem too much to hope that late blooming varieties of butternut may also be found. i know of one butternut that has had good crops every year but one for the last ten years but have never visited it at the right time to observe its blooming habit. president weschcke reports that butternuts on black walnut stocks have their blooming retarded for a few days. many experienced nut tree propagators have little success in grafting the butternut. but mr. harry burgart of michigan, has found that nursery trees may be successfully grafted if the operation is performed at a point three or four feet from the ground, while the late dr. g. a. zimmerman of pennsylvania, found that very early grafting gave him the best results. he reported that his best catch was from grafts set march tenth. some moderately successful propagators do not pay careful attention to outside temperatures when they cut their scions. in contrast to this let us see what mr. j. f. jones thought about it. he was undoubtedly the most successful nut tree propagator in the east and he was always as generous in sharing his hard earned knowledge as he was skillful in its application in his own commercial nursery. note this from his paper in the annual report. "in the case of trees that bleed freely when cut, we must guard against taking scions after hard freezing weather and before the tree has fully recuperated. this semi-sappy conditions following low temperatures that freeze the wood seems to be a provision of nature to restore the sap lost by evaporation. we always try to avoid taking scions of any kind soon after hard freezing weather. i have found scions of english and japanese walnuts, cut from trees in this condition, to be practically worthless for propagation, although they may have been cut in late winter long before the sap gets up in the tree naturally." this warning would undoubtedly apply to the butternut as it bleeds freely when cut. another pitfall for the inexperienced propagator lies in storing scions in packing material that is too moist. sphagnum is commonly used. it should be no more than slightly moist to the touch. if left to run wild, the butternut curculios are a serious menace to the butternut, the japanese walnut and the persian walnut. their life history as described at length in u.s.d.a. bulletin , is briefly as follows: the beetles (called elephant bugs by some because the side view resembles the elephant) spend the winter in the ground. as soon as new growth appears on the host tree they begin feeding on the tender leaves and stems. soon they begin laying their eggs in crescent shaped punctures which they cut in the new shoots and nutlets. the larvae hatch in a few days and tunnel through the pith of the shoots seriously injuring and stunting their growth while the infested nuts soon fall from the tree. the eggs may be laid from late may to early august. they hatch in a few days. the larvae complete their growth in four or five weeks when they enter the ground to pupate. in about a month they emerge as adult beetles and begin feeding on leaves and leaf stems as their parents did in the spring, but they will do no egg laying until the following spring. poison spray applied in early spring and again in late august and september should so reduce their numbers that they will not become a serious pest. our state experiment station suggests the use of a cryolite spray as it is more effective against curculios than arsenical sprays and less likely to injure tender walnut foliage. the mitchell hybrid, (butternut x heartnut) with us, appears to have natural immunity to the curculio. this brings to mind a secondary but very important reason for finding better butternuts,--namely that they may be used as a starting point for the super variety that someone should give the world from his long rows of crosses between the best butternuts and the best heartnuts. the nut growers of this country are indebted to dr. arthur h. graves of the brooklyn botanic garden for a complete study of the melanconis disease of the butternut. this study was begun in new york city but has since been widely extended. he thinks that the disease is probably present throughout the entire range of the butternut and is usually responsible for the dead limbs that are so often seen in butternut trees. the japanese walnut is also susceptible. the disease usually enters the tree through twigs that have been injured in some way. his conclusions, after thorough scientific laboratory and field work covering a period of over twenty years, is that it is caused by a weak parasitic fungus attacking rapidly only when the host tree is in a weakened condition; that it may lie practically dormant in vigorous trees and that it may be successfully combatted by fertilizing, mulching, providing necessary water in time of drought and avoidance of any condition that might weaken the tree. all dead twigs and all twigs showing fruiting bodies of the fungus should be pruned off some distance below the apparent infection as soon as discovered and the pruning wounds painted. dr. graves thinks it possible that butternuts grafted on black walnut stocks may have their vigor increased sufficiently to help in warding off the disease. mr. weschcke says that, although the melanconis disease is prevalent in his locality, there has never been the slightest indication of it on the butternut trees which he has growing on black walnut stocks. if kept free of disease the butternut may reach great size. dr. robert t. morris has stated that when he was a boy there were magnificent butternut trees over the greater part of connecticut. there still remains the stumbling block of lack of really outstanding varieties bearing nuts of good size, large percentage of kernel and perfect shelling quality with heavy and regular bearing. this is a large order to fill but it is a fair guess that somewhere there are wild trees better than any thus far brought to light. trying to locate them should be an exciting assignment for a nut tree enthusiast. do not think lightly of a butternut tree just because it looks small and unthrifty. it may be that the fault lies in an unfavorable location. only an appraisal of the nut will establish its value. the butternut is fairly abundant throughout its range which extends well up into canada. in central new york there are uncounted thousands of butternut trees along fence rows, in the large and small valleys and along little streams. one person with limited time can hardly hope to examine more than a small proportion of them during the period when the nuts are ripe. the scout for better nuts should lose no opportunity to tell his errand to the people that he meets. i have found the average stranger interested and cooperative. he may direct you to a superior tree that you would never otherwise find. for this work one must be able, like the successful inventor, to hold his enthusiasm after many disappointments. if the coveted variety is not found, one at least has been out in the woods and fields during a wonderful time of year. the use of fertilizer in a walnut orchard _by l. k. hostetter, pennsylvania_ sometime in the fall of professor fagan of pennsylvania state college, and mr. graham of cornell university, called on me and proposed to make some fertilizer tests in my walnut orchard. the following spring professor fagan sent me bags of fertilizer, one bag for each tree. these tests were divided into three parts and each part had one tree that received nitrogen, superphosphate and potash, one that received nitrogen and superphosphate, one nitrogen and potash, one superphosphate only and one potash only and a sixth tree that received no fertilizer. in the first group all the trees received a liberal amount of mulch. in the second group they received no mulch but the same fertilizer as the first group and in the third group they received the same fertilizer, no mulch but raw lime was added to the fertilizer. one tree received lime only. there was a heavy sod in the part of the field where these tests were to be made. this sod was torn up with a springtooth harrow (weed hog) about march th and the fertilizer was applied on may th. that year was a very poor one in which to make these tests, for during all of july and august we had continuous rainy and cloudy weather and by the first of september all of the leaves had turned yellow and dropped. most of the trees had a big crop of walnuts which were gathered about october th, the nuts from each tree being kept separate. after they were cracked the kernels were weighed and graded and believe it or not, the tree that received lime only had the best grade of kernels, and second best were one that received lime and potash and another lime, nitrogen and potash. the tree that received mulch and potash also had a very good grade of kernels. in the same tests were repeated. this was again a poor year for we had very little rain during all of august and september just when the trees needed it most. the tree that received nothing had the best quality of kernels and again all the trees that received potash had good kernels. in i grew two acres of tobacco and the following spring the stalks were cut in one-inch pieces and put on about twenty-five trees. the first year i could not see that it did any good but this past summer all the kernels from these trees were just perfect. it surely is a pleasure to crack walnuts when at least % of the kernels are perfect. lime and fertilizers for our black walnut trees _by seward berhow, iowa_ in - - black walnut crops from trees growing in timberland in competition with other trees were nearly a total failure. the nuts were fair in number but not filled, the kernels badly shriveled, tough, lacking greatly in flavor and discolored. some of these black walnut trees have been bearing for years. are they through, due to having used up all the soil fertility? wild or native black walnut trees, growing on good soil and not crowded have done better. it looks to me as if it is time our experiment stations, particularly those having black walnut trees on or near their grounds should start studying the cultural requirements of nut trees in the way of lime and fertilizer for better nuts. i have experimented by applying lime and fertilizer to a few bearing trees with very good results. but we need to know the proper amounts to be used for all sizes of trees from the transplants to the bearing trees of different sizes. such investigations can best be conducted by our experiment stations. there is a very substantial increased demand for grafted nut trees each year. this is evidence that we should make a study of our nut tree culture and care. the propagation of black walnuts through budding _by sterling smith, ohio_ the propagation of black walnuts by budding has proven a highly successful experience. by following this method over a period of several years, under normal weather conditions, the results have been fairly uniform. stocks, upon which to bud, may either be secured from private nurseries, state forestry departments, or by planting the seed of vigorous native nut trees. if one desires to produce his own stock, the nut seeds should be planted soon after they are gathered. a garden nursery row makes a desirable place for small plantings. if a large scale increase is contemplated it is best to plant the seeds where the trees may be left to grow to maturity. plant two or three seeds a few inches apart (within a hill) and space these hills as the land available will warrant, anywhere from twenty-five to fifty feet apart. should all the nuts sprout there will be a three-to-one chance for a healthy tree, and if more than one good tree is produced in each hill the excess stock may be transplanted. after the stock has grown for one year it should be cut back to within four inches from the ground. such stock makes good material for experimental grafting. by pruning the stock in the spring it forces new growth upon which to place buds later in the season. in the budding process the jones patch budder has been very successfully used. along the southern shore of lake erie the first week in july is a favorable time to begin this procedure. due to the fact that the northeast side of the tree is the coolest and shadiest the greater part of the day, there the buds should be set. with the budding tool cut through the bark of the stock, several inches above the start of the new growth. do not remove the bark. this produces a gathering of callus-forming material at this point and aids in the healing in of the bud which is to be later placed there. my experience shows successful results in many instances where i had failed to make this previous cut. bud wood should be new and vigorous growth, the first five or six buds nearest the spot from which the growth started being the best. when the bud wood is available cut off the first four or five leaf stalks close to the buds. by the time the buds are ready for use the remainder of the leaf stalk will have ripened or dried and fallen off, and the bark underneath hardened off. if this is not the case the bark is apt to rot at this point, which is directly beneath the bud itself. bud wood, procured from any source, should be trimmed with the stub of the leaf stalk cut as closely as possible to the bark. if the budding is not done immediately those cuttings may be wrapped and stored in a cool place (about ° f.) for several days before using. in a hot, dry season the actual budding should be started soon after the middle of july. due to the excessive amount of rainfall during , buds which were set on july th yielded poor results, while those applied later in the summer, about august th, healed in one hundred per cent. procedure: cut the patch bud from the bud stick with the bud in the center of the patch. place this patch bud between the lips, as this is a clean and convenient place to hold it. next, cut the patch, which has been previously marked out, and quickly place the new patch in the opening, tying in place. as many as three or four buds may be similarly set before they are coated with wax. parapin wax (a paraffin and pine gum mixture) is an excellent substance for coating the buds, due to its rubber-like, non-cracking qualities. a convenient homemade contrivance for melting the wax may be made by soldering a small can into the top of a railroad lantern. rubber bands of good quality have been made especially for budding by several large rubber companies. these are ideal for tying the buds in place and may be reused several seasons. treekote, an asphalt emulsion, has proven a successful substance for coating the new work. after the buds have set for two weeks remove the rubber bands and examine. where buds have failed to heal in properly, and room remains on the stock, new buds may be applied just below the scar. when the trees show signs of growth, the following spring, cut them back to the top of the bud patch, cover the cut with treekote and prevent all growth on the original stock from developing. the placed buds are frequently slower in starting than the natural buds. a stake driven beside the young stock makes a convenient support for the rapid new growth, which should be tied to prevent breaking by strong winds. trees started in the nursery may be transplanted to permanent locations the following spring, inasmuch as the spring of the year has proven a more satisfactory time for transplanting than the fall. to attain success in transplanting the newly dug tree, roots should be exposed as little as possible to the air. prepare the holes before digging the trees, moving one tree at a time for best results. move as much of the root stock as possible, usually about to inches. trim roots with a sharp knife, making a clean cut facing downward. remove at least half of the top growth of the tree and plant at once, tamping the loose dirt firmly about the roots. water generously and slowly around the loose soil to aid in washing the dirt thoroughly around the newly disturbed roots. with severe pruning, trees may be transplanted after new growth has started. during periods of drought the soil around the trees should be thoroughly soaked from time to time. in conclusion, it may be said that due to varying conditions of soil, climate and locality, for best results the proper time to bud may be either earlier or later in localities other than northern ohio. various factors may alter the procedure in those localities due to the individual operator's experimentation, from which he has devised methods giving him the best results. * * * * * note: the trade-name items mentioned in this article may be obtained from any reliable nursery supply house. northern nut growing _by joseph gerardi, illinois_ judging from the demand for nut trees the public is fast becoming aware of the possibilities of growing its own nuts. heretofore nut growing has been confined to two favorable sections of the united states, the west coast and the southern pecan groves. but, now we can safely plant the pecan as far north as springfield, illinois, and from all indications some trees found in cass county will extend the northern limit another one hundred miles. the pecan is the favorite nut of nearly everyone, in fact it is preferred to any other nut for its pleasing flavor and easy cracking. wild nuts used to be gathered from native trees without consulting the owner, but since they are selling at good prices the owners of trees gather them themselves. fortunately, through efforts of far-seeing individuals some very good pecans have been found that can be grown successfully much farther north than the southern pecan belt. our nut enthusiast, dr. a. s. colby, has drawn the attention of the writer to three promising pecans that he located in cass county, illinois. this extends the northern pecan limit much farther north than we formally considered them adaptable. for this locality we can now boast of quite a list of pecans that have been doing well. of the older introductions greenriver and busseron can safely be recommended, and of course, the local finds are all good here, at least the parent trees are doing so well that the public is planting them in preference to the older introductions. west of the mississippi river giles, clarkville and norton can be recommended. prospective pecan planters should bear the following remarks in mind. environment has a decided influence on the behavior of plants and the nut tree is no exception. as they are taken farther north of their original habitat the nuts become smaller and do not fill as well. the black walnut may be considered an exception to this statement. many local finds and some southern pecans are perfectly hardy as far north as chicago and ontario, but can not be expected to ripen any of their nuts. many southern pecan trees in this locality are wonderful lawn trees but as bearers they are worthless. the black walnut the list of black walnuts is altogether too long. of the numerous introductions only a few are retaining their popularity. in this section i would still plant stambaugh for its cracking and bearing qualities and its thin shell, but its flavor does not equal that of thomas and mintle. the mintle is smaller but a much better cracker than thomas. it is also a young and heavy bearer, grows fast and straight as a candle and grafts easily. the elmer myers will become the most popular black walnut in sections where it does well, provided its thin shell will withstand machinery hulling without injury to the nuts. we have not fruited the myers as yet. the black walnut is fast rivaling the pecan, and for confection surpasses it because it retains its flavor after being cooked or baked. persian walnuts the persian walnut in spite of its popularity does not appeal to me. its flavor can not compare with that of the pecan, hickory, or black walnut. besides, it is too exacting as to climate and soil. we have tried all the supposedly hardy ones but so far only one will withstand our changeable climate. this one came from a new york nursery and the name was lost. we list it as the schmidt for the man who owns the tree. this tree is now some twenty years old and bearing well. so far it is remaining healthy as also are the trees grafted from it. our trouble with all other varieties of this species is that they make a second growth in fall and then succumb to frost. of all the broadviews, shafers, pekins and crath seedlings we have grafted in the last ten years not one is now alive in this locality. something puzzling to me is that two broadview seedlings we now have growing from seed i obtained from mr. corsan of islington, ontario, are growing slowly but are still healthy after the ' and ' seasons. all the rest of the trees from this same seed succumbed. filberts, hazels and their hybrids the winkler hazel failed to bear the past season the first time in years. all pure filberts we have tried in this locality are a failure. of the hybrids, bixby and buchanan are promising. chestnuts the mollissima chestnut is very promising in southern illinois. the tree requires protection in this locality as it sun scalds badly if not protected. no doubt many orchards will be planted in the future. propagating nut trees this is a fascinating subject full of disappointments. we have our ups and downs as does everyone else who attempts it. i get numerous letters telling of their experience and troubles asking for details just how to go about it. what makes it so fascinating is that in certain seasons we have fabulous success and them again in others almost complete failure. fall of ' and spring of ' we averaged % catches in budding chestnuts. fall of ' and spring of ' our chestnut budding was just about nil, only or % catches, and i am at a loss how to account for this variance. a budded chestnut tree is much superior to a grafted one as far as the union is concerned. grafted trees usually do not knit well the first season while at two years the union is good. so we also must learn our chestnut propagation all over again. i have a letter before me from brother borst asking why his walnut buds took so well and not one of them vegetated in spring. this happened to us a number of times on both walnuts and hickories. also, in the same season, we have had one or two varieties, of which we did not set many buds or grafts, to show % catches, while other varieties set the same day would be % failure. apparently all scions used were in prime condition. why then this great variance? while we used the double-bladed knife for budding and the side graft for grafting, other methods are just as successful under skilled hands. the skill of the operator has much to do with it. =fall budding of persimmons.= the persimmon has only about ten days in which it will fall bud. before or after this period budding will not succeed. it also is important that the scions be taken from thrifty trees a number of years old. the ordinary "t" shield budding gives good success on the persimmon either spring or fall. the spring bud sticks should be perfectly dormant. butternut and japanese walnuts and their hybrids none of these are worth the space they occupy in this locality. - on which i reported last year didn't set a nut this season. of all the heartnuts i am acquainted with none are satisfactory. there is a siebold tree in st. louis that so far we have been unable to graft that promises to be adapted to this vicinity. it is good bearer, good cracker and pleasant flavor. this class of nuts is adopted to the north where the pecan is unsatisfactory. the hicans and hickories the hicans are numerous in this and adjacent counties. while a number of them are good, i have located none that can compare favorably with bixby, gerardi, and pleas for this locality. the pleas is a bitternut hybrid and has some bitterness in the kernel, but no more than the english walnut and people like it. of the twenty hicans we have tried the above three only are satisfactory. in this latitude the hicans are unquestionably the most satisfactory nut trees to plant. they grow fast, bear young, have a high flavor, crack well and are unsurpassed as shade or lawn trees. here the gerardi and bixby are the best so far fruited. the pleas is very ornamental but lacks flavor. the burlington and fairbanks are adapted to the north but here are not satisfactory bearers. i have reports on about gerardi hican seedlings. they are all worthless, smaller in nut than either pecans or hickories. the peculiar thing is that some of the pecans are decidedly bitter in flavor as also are some of the hickories. two of the seedlings show shellbark blood. =handling the nut weevil and plum curculio.= two years ago the few nuts the gerardi hican had were all wormy. last spring i cultivated the ground with a one-horse cultivator and gave our chickens free access to the feast. they made so good a job of it that not a single nut was stung this season. where the ground can be flooded for several days this will also exterminate the weevil. the same treatment applies to plum curculio. cultivation should be done before growth starts in spring, or quite late in fall. if anyone ever got a pleas hybrid nut to grow i would appreciate ever so much to hear from him. so far all my trials to germinate the nuts have failed. i may add that in my estimation no land on this globe is blessed with a nut flora that equals that of the united states. nut puttering in an off year _by w. c. deming, connecticut_ i did manage to get over to avon old farms, the boys' school, and topwork a few hickory trees. all grew, about a dozen, except three scions of one kind that i put in one tree. this is the third year that i have grafted hickories on the grounds of this school, some three thousand acres. the school was planned and built by mrs. theodate pope riddle, and i was told there that it cost seven million dollars. it is a beautiful and original group of buildings in the lovely farmington river valley, well worth visiting. mr. sperry the science teacher, is deeply interested in the nut trees. dr. arthur harmount graves and i have both given him a number of chestnut trees, and i have added a variety of others, walnuts, persimmons, papaws, pecans, filberts and others as well as the topworked seedling hickories. the trees have been given reasonably good and intelligent care. many trees were badly winter killed or injured last winter when the temperature dropped to twenty-four below zero in hartford, official, and is said to have reached forty below in litchfield county. japanese chestnuts were especially badly injured. but hybrids having an american strain seemed generally to be little injured. filberts also showed bad injury. pecans, persimmons and a papaw seemed to have weathered the winter, though they should be further observed before deciding. the nut trees have been set out in orchard form over tracts of a number of acres and well fertilized. the land is good. incidentally mr. sperry expressed the thanks of the school with more than one bottle--of fine maple syrup which he and the boys make every spring. the mollissima chestnut tree in my yard at litchfield, which dr. graves considers remarkable because it bears a moderate crop of fertile nuts every year without apparent benefit of outside pollination, was stripped almost bare of branches by an ice storm. it had reached thirty five feet in height, mainly, perhaps because pretty well surrounded by taller trees. now it has to start over again from a much lower height. it bore a few nuts on the remaining branches this year. on account of the restrictions on driving i did not visit mr. beeman at new preston, but he wrote me that he had a few quarts of hickory nuts, chiefly glover from one of his large topworked trees. he has a couple of acres set out to grafted hickories, some of which have been bearing for several years. pretty good for a man now who began nut growing less than ten years ago and who has serious physical handicaps. he is the man, as many of you do not know, who, when he began with nut trees, built scaffolds feet high about each of two hickory trees in his yard, and topworked them almost to the last branch by a method of his own one reason for his success is that he is a violin maker with a record of perhaps fifty violins, violas and 'cellos, and he makes his own tools. he is a modest man whom it is a privilege to know. i have had some interesting experiences with papaws this year. for the first time i have succeeded in growing the seed intentionally. the only other time when i have had seedlings was when a bunch of them came up by themselves in the yard as thick as hair on a dog. last year ( ) in the fall, i scattered a lot o£ seed in a perennial bed and poked them in with a cane and also in a reentrant angle of a house looking to the northeast, behind some rather luxuriant christmas roses (helleborus niger) where there wore also lilies-of-the-valley and jack-in-the-pulpits and the soil had been rather heavily enriched. in both places the papaws came up quite freely, especially in the angle of the house where the sun struck only a short time each day. the chief reason, however, was probably the rich, deep soil. these seedlings with taproots to inches long were easily transplanted with their leaves on. i brought four of them to st. petersburg, florida. they are said to be native in upper florida. dr. zimmerman, who was our authority on papaws, said that he thought hand pollination was necessary for good crops. i have been making observations on this for several years and in obtained confirmatory results. last spring ( ) i hand-pollinated a tree about feet high using pollen from a number of other trees. this was the same tree on which i had had good results in over the limited part of the tree that i had been able to reach from the ground. this year i used a stepladder. also, because the tree was close to a tool house, on the grounds of the park superintendent, i was able to reach the top of the tree from the roof of the tool house. from this tree i gathered about fruits, all but two perfect, weighing together pounds. there were several bunches of three and four and one of six. the quality i did not think as good as some. but it seemed a pretty good demonstration of the value of hand pollinating. in the yard of a house in hartford, belonging to the widow of a high school classmate of mine, i found a number of papaw trees, some of them as big as they often grow, perhaps forty feet high and up to a foot in diameter. the lady told me that they used to bear abundantly when her neighbor just over the fence kept bees. since these are gone she has had very few or no fruit at all and the squirrels got them, if there were any. i pollinated a lot of blossoms that i could reach from the ground and in the fall they were quite loaded with clusters of fruit, but much smaller than those on the first tree described. they were, however, of better quality. there was also a small number of fruit in the high branches of the trees and some of these the squirrels cut off, but apparently just for fun as i did not see any sign of their eating them. i am writing this in st. petersburg, florida. i boarded first with a man who describes himself on his card as a tree surgeon doing grafting and budding, spraying, fertilizing and pruning. this year he took the agency for the mahan pecan and has sold quite a number at $ each, with one order for twenty trees. these are put out by the monticello, florida nursery. the history of their buying the mahan pecan tree, and a picture of the parent tree in its original home, is given in the files of the american nut journal, an index of the seventeen volumes of which i completed this year. mr. stewart sets out all the trees he sells and is meticulous in doing so. nearby is a good sized mahan tree with still quite a crop of nuts (in november) after a good many have been gathered. mr. stewart speaks well of this pecan tree as a good bearer, with nuts well-filled and of good quality. i haven't cracked enough of them to verify these statements but they are offered by the monticello nursery in fifty-pound lots. they sell at webb's in this city for cents a pound. schleys i believe sell for cents at the same place. the mahan is, i think, the largest pure pecan, about a third larger than the schley and those i have seen were equally thin-shelled. i mention this because i had supposed that pecans did not do well as far south as this. yet i see many trees about the city, some with fair crops on them and some in good foliage, though many, or all of them i have observed, are partially defoliated by the fall web worm. i saw one fine tree that i was told was a stuart. the moneymaker also is said to do well here. i speak particularly of the mahan because it has not, so far as i know, had the unqualified approval of the experts. but what has? and i don't know that it deserves it. it is a joy to be among the many citrus fruit trees, the guavas, papayas, avocadoes, loquats, surinam cherries, new and strange fruits and flowers of many kinds in florida. the australian or queensland nut, macadamia ternifolia, grow and bear well here, i am told--but the squirrels got all the nuts! but the greatest joy of all is the freedom from ice and snow. nut nursery notes _by h. f. stoke, roanoke, va._ the present season has seen an increase of interest in nut tree planting that is new in my experience. this interest is apparent not only in retail orders, but is reflected in inquiries received from large general nurseries, many of which have not been listing nut trees. i do not believe that this interest in food-producing trees is a passing phase of the war, but that it will continue if honestly catered to and wisely directed. with apologies for personal reference, the demands of my small commercial nursery on my time and attention have become so heavy that i am faced with the necessity of either building a permanent organization of skilled workers or dropping out altogether. due to advancing years and other considerations i am choosing the latter course. because of this i feel free to make certain remarks as to the future of nut tree production that i would hesitate to make if i were still in the business. without doubt many of the large commercial general nurseries will take up the growing and selling of nut trees. we who have pioneered in this work, should welcome the increased public interest that will result from the more extensive advertising and cataloging of nut trees. the specialist who has worked out propagation, pollination and variety problems should be more than able to hold his own against the competition of newcomers in his field, however large. as all old-timers know, there are certain factors in the growing of nut nursery stock that do not lend themselves to the mass-production methods of the large general nurseries. stocks, generally, take longer to produce. it may take as much as six years to produce a saleable hickory tree from the time the seed is planted. failures in grafting and budding walnuts run high, especially with beginners. a catch of twenty-five per cent means either selective hand digging must be resorted to or seventy-five per cent of the seedling stock must be sacrificed if power digging is used. suitable grafting stock for chestnuts is still a matter of controversy. good authorities claim that chinese chestnut is unreliable as a root stock while others, including myself, as stoutly maintain that the main need is for proper technique in grafting and budding. these and other considerations, including the training of workers in improved technique, offer certain obstacles to the newcomer which, in turn, offer certain temptations that may result in harm to the whole movement toward nut tree planting. to be specific, the difficulty of producing good grafted or budded trees of named varieties may readily tempt the less scrupulous to sell any kind of nondescript seedling, while at the same time giving the public the impression that superior stock is being offered. this is, in fact, already being done. i have before me the catalogues of three large general nurseries. one of them offers what are obviously seedling chinese chestnuts in these words: "only two years from now, right on your own grounds, you can pick up big, fat, tasty chestnuts from the trees you plant this year." of english walnuts--no variety name given and quite obviously seedlings--the following description is given: "thin-shelled, large, delicious nuts, producing heavy crops and demanding good prices". in both these cases the prices asked are as high or higher than good, grafted, named varieties can be bought for elsewhere. the second catalogue offers seedling black walnuts, not so designated, and also "thomas improved" black walnuts at a higher price. seedling english walnuts, not stated as such, are offered as having commercial possibilities and being as good in quality as those grown elsewhere. the third catalogue is entirely ethical and legitimate. it lists a limited assortment of well-selected varieties under their true names. when misguided buyers purchase a seedling chestnut tree with the expectation of "picking up big, fat, tasty chestnuts in two years from planting" and realize a handful of nuts after ten years of waiting, or nothing but empty burrs because of lack of pollination, nut tree planting gets a black eye. the same is true when the buyer tenderly nurses a weak-rooted english walnut seedling for fifteen years before he gets a few small, thick-shelled, astringent nuts. when nurseries that show honesty in their advertising write me for information i give them the best i have. when their advertising is otherwise i do not trouble to answer. one party, after asking many questions, wound up by saying he wanted "to get in on this nut game." my impression was that if he had said "shell game" he would have more accurately stated his case. buyers should be on their guard not to be deceived by flowery, but vague descriptions. if catalogues list nut trees by recognized variety names it is pretty safe to assume that the trees are as represented. if recognized variety names are omitted the trees may safely be considered to be seedlings and that they will produce a wholly unknown quantity, no matter how alluring the advertising. of course, this is not intended to discourage the planting of new varieties offered by nurseries of known reputation for integrity, nor of such strains as the crath carpathian walnut importations, from which new varieties are emerging. as a practical note i wish to state that the black walnut is by far the most satisfactory stock on which to graft walnuts of any species. not infrequently seedling english walnut trees take from ten to fifteen or more years to come into bearing. i have fruited fifteen or more varieties by grafting on black stocks, and in no case has it required more than five years for the trees to bear. frequently they have borne in two or three years. the english walnut is also a more vigorous grower on black walnut roots than on its own. the sherwood butternut grafted five or six years ago on butternut stocks has not borne yet; grafted on a small black walnut in the nursery row in it bore one nut in and has many staminate buds for visible at the present time. walters heartnut bears the second or third year on black walnut; it has not borne for me on butternut after seven years. the same holds good for the other heartnuts. in the grafting of chestnuts, defective (incompatible?) unions can generally be spotted the first year. they develop with a transverse fissure into which the bark ingrows. good unions show new tissue entirely around the closing wound; the final scar as healing approaches completion being vertical, i. e. longitudinal with the stock. this result can be obtained by proper technique. the members of the association can do much to further the cause of nut tree planting by discrimination in recognizing the ear-marks of honest advertising and encouraging their friends to make their purchases from conscientious, responsible nurserymen. our association nursery list is a valuable help in this direction. report from the tennessee valley _by thomas g. zarger, tva, norris, tennessee_ _black walnut industry_--in the early fall of , a survey was made of the black walnut industry in the tennessee valley and nashville basin. four commercial cracking plants had shelled million pounds of nuts purchased in . this year, cracking plants have offered to buy unlimited quantities of nuts in the shell at the relatively good price of $ . per pounds. because of the manpower shortage, especially on the farm, the collection of nuts has not exceeded the preceding year. pasteurizing plants had processed a quarter of a million pounds of kernels purchased in . this year only three pasteurizing plants will operate, and a smaller quantity of kernels will be processed. the kernel supply from the home-cracking industry has decreased because the sanitation requirements of the federal food and drug administration are difficult to meet in the homes. _bearing habits of wild black walnut_--looking forward to a fuller utilization of the wild black walnut crop, the bearing habits of the black walnut tree is being investigated. four-year records are now available on tree growth, nut yield, and nut quality of sample trees located throughout the tennessee valley. for trees, with a range in diameter from to inches total dry nut yield, in pounds, averaged as follows: , ; , ; , ; , . there is some evidence of alternate bearing, with a heavy crop followed by a very light crop. how much larger nut crop a larger tree is expected to bear was found to increase on an average trend from pounds of filled nuts for a tree of -inch diameter to pounds for a -inch tree. judged on the basis of nut quality, only one of the sample trees compared favorably with standard propagated varieties of black walnut. filled nuts on the average, amounted to percent of total nut crop weight, and had a total kernel percentage of . recovery of marketable kernels averaged percent of total nut weight. in order to learn still more about the bearing habits of the black walnut, records on all sample trees will be carried on for two more years. _macedonia black walnut_--a sample of black walnuts from a tree growing on the home place of mr. n. u. turpen at the macedonia community at clarksville, georgia, were sent to us for evaluation in . the nuts were thought to be two years old--from the crop. when tested, the kernel content averaged about percent--the highest on record for a black walnut. the tree, supposed to be the one which bore the nuts we tested, had not borne any appreciable amount since . since the tree yielded good crops in and , we are now in a position to report further on the macedonia walnut. based on cracking tests of nut samples, the average nut weight and kernel percentage were . grams and percent in ; and . grams and percent in . it is apparent that the macedonia black walnut has not exhibited those exceptional characteristics of thinness of shell and high kernel percent which were found in the original sample tested. report from minnesota--letter from carl weschcke to miss mildred jones the winter of - was the most damaging on fruit and nut trees within my experience of years in river falls, wisconsin. the main reason was that we had a long wet fall and all vegetation was in a succulent green condition when our first snow storm of september th hit us. for other details of this winter and the armistice day storm of , the second in its deleterious effect on horticultural varieties, please write mr. c. g. stratton, coop. observer, of river falls, wisconsin, who is in charge of the u. s. government weather bureau there. mr. stratton furnished me with an affidavit showing one of our very coldest winters in which the temperature went down, in february, to ° below zero. this was in . this winter of extreme cold did very little damage to trees, and an apricot on which i had taken out a plant patent, subsequently called the harriet apricot, went through this winter without any damage and bore fruit the next year. this gave me such confidence in its hardiness that i began to propagate it for sale. the winter of - wiped out practically all of the apricot trees of this variety and all of the early richmond cherries that had been growing on my farm for nearly twenty years. it killed more than half of the catalpa trees which were nearly as old. it also killed outright a large stabler black walnut which had been grafted on a minnesota seedling nearly twenty years previous. this was a fine large flourishing tree that bore each year and i had thought because of this behavior that stabler was to be considered one of the hardiest of the black walnuts. it had stood up better than thomas many winters. i could go on enumerating failures of many other varieties and species but it is a long story and a sad one. to make this report more concise i will now give you my opinion as to what is hardy under these severe tests. to begin with, one of your father's hazel hybrids, of which i have two bushes, stood all of this very well. these bushes, which are perhaps fifteen years old, are still flourishing, although the main trunks are decaying rapidly. several of the sprouts are blossoming freely. these two bushes have borne only one crop of nuts, although they blossom freely, and the catkins are about as hardy as anything in the filbert line that i have seen. the reason for their not bearing is lack of pollination. i never did find out what was satisfactory, even at the time that i hand-pollinated them to get a crop of nuts. the nuts are much more satisfactory than winkler or rush hazels. the rush is absolutely worthless here; is subject to blight and is very tender to our winters. the winkler is a very hardy variety, bears something every year. the trouble with the winkler is that it matures its nuts so late, much later than the jones' hybrid. i never have propagated your father's hybrid for sale as i did not know a hardy pollinizer for it. i have sold a few winklers, recommending them for proper locations. i have one winkler planted by a small lake cottage up at delta, wisconsin. this is about thirty miles west of ashland, wisconsin. this territory is very uncertain for successful corn raising so the winkler is quite a hardy bush. four hybrid plants that bear worthwhile nuts, which grew from seed planted in and , are perfectly hardy, almost as hardy as the native wild hazel and hardier than any other worthwhile filbert or hybrid that we have. this hardiness is no doubt due to the fact that the mother plant was an ordinary wild wisconsin hazel. these hybrids, from the native hazels, we call "hazilberts," and have obtained a united states trademark on all plants produced after this manner. here again i have not recommended nor sold any of these because of my lack of knowledge as to the correct pollinizer; this has yet to be developed. they do not pollinize themselves nor do they pollinize each other satisfactorily. they have all the finest characteristics that you could ask for except prolificacy which may be due to the lack of a proper pollinizer. they are the most resistant to the hazel blight of anything that i have worked with so far in years. hard winters, such as we have had recently, have no deleterious effect on them. they blossom and do not lose any of their wood and apparently there is no injury. they are very vigorous plants and can be trained to a single tree standard or they make very tall-growing vigorous bushes. i have placed these filberts and their hybrids first on my list of recommended trees because they are going to be the backbone of nut tree production. i have nearly one hundred experimental european filberts, mostly of wild varieties, of which about a dozen are hardy both in pistillate and staminate bloom, even in our most severe winters, although of this dozen only about two or three have nuts which could possibly be considered commercial. practically all of these are being injured in one way or another by the blight. many have passed out of existence and only two or three have been able to resist the blight so that it doesn't seem to make any headway. i do not do anything for a blighted filbert--it must take care of itself. i have experimented along these lines, however, using chemicals and other means of protection. i do not know of anything adequate except to build resistance in the plant itself through cross-breeding. the next really successful plant is the weschcke butternut. this is a native butternut which i discovered on my own farm. every local woods has butternut trees in it. we must have at least five hundred butternut trees in our woods; they are subject to some kind of a bark disease but this seems to encroach on the life of the tree very slowly since trees that i remember showing signs of this disease nearly twenty years ago are still living. they are awful looking sights, however, by this time. such large trees that have developed this blight are possibly in the neighborhood of fifty years old. the weschcke butternut is a medium size to small butternut. its great value lies in the fact that it splits exactly in half and the shell structure is so shallow that by merely turning the nut upside down the kernel falls out--nothing to hold it in the shell. very frequently the kernel stays absolutely intact, its wings being held together by the little tender neck joining them at the point of the nut. the nut kernel is tender and light colored. the difficulty here is grafting them on black walnut roots; after they are grafted they grow very rapidly and bear at once. i have had them bear the first year grafted. next in line of hardiness and reliability is the weschcke hickory. this is now an old-timer; since its successful grafting in it has borne an ever-increasing crop every year. this is not to be measured in bushels, however, but in pounds. no other hickory nut has begun to touch it, in its regularity, reliability and its quality: that is, no hickory so far north. it is the thinnest shelled hickory of any that i have ever tested out, and releases its kernels about the best of any. it has one fault, however; the staminate blossom is abortive, never produces any pollen. it needs a pollinizer and we have been recommending the bridgewater and the kirtland which we know by actual experiments have produced pollen in large amounts, sufficient for pollinization of this tree. even before kirtland and bridgewater pollens were available those trees, grafted to the weschcke, bore hickory nuts every year, but in very small quantities. i am now quite sure that they borrowed pollen from the wild bitternut trees which are in abundance nearby. there is also the other possibility, which has not been conclusively proved, that this variety is a parthenogen. innumerable hard frosts in early springs have destroyed butternut crops and walnut crops, but these hickory nuts invariably come through such seasons and escape the early fall frosts, which come in september, for the reason that the nuts are matured usually the second week in september. we therefore can recommend the weschcke hickory freely. we have not determined how far north it can live, but i believe the th parallel is very safe, and as far west as the dakota line. it originated at fayette, iowa, and probably would thrive far into the south. it grafts extremely well on the wild bitternut hickory root which is about the hardiest known. your father was very partial toward it as a stock. this root system does not handle all hickories by any means. in all my trials using pecan scions the only pecan which grafts well on it and survives indefinitely, is the hope. this is also a very hardy tree but we cannot recommend it as a nut tree because we have never seen the parent tree bear any nuts. the parent tree is now twenty years old. quite a large tree but no nuts. it is growing in an unfavorable location for bearing since it is shaded by much larger trees. it is growing right here in st. paul. the bridgewater and the beeman are two more hickories which are very hardy and which come into bearing quickly, also are successfully grafted on bitternut root. they do not mature their nuts so reliably nor so early by any means as the weschcke. for a little further south they might be very reliable. they are fully as hardy and satisfactory in every other respect. the hickories that have proved to be fairly hardy but have produced very few nuts are the cedarapids and the kirtland. the beaver hybrid hickory is probably next for nut production satisfaction, grafts well on bitternut root but does not seem to have a long life. the trees that i bought from your father nearly twenty years ago are now dead although they lived to become large fine trees and bore in some seasons very nice crops of nuts. the fairbanks hickories, grafted some seventeen or eighteen years ago, are still surviving, but bear very few nuts, some seasons practically nothing at all. they very seldom ripen as they mature very much later than the natives or the other varieties mentioned above. i do not consider the fairbanks a very edible nut anyway as they become very rancid after a couple of months. the beaver is not a good keeper either. this is rather an important characteristic in a nut and one in which the weschcke excels, as in ordinary office temperature it usually keeps two or three years. i believe that this is partly due to the thin shell. my theory is that the thin shell expands and contracts with heat and moisture conditions without cracking. this prevents air from getting at the kernel, and since it is the oxygen which is mostly responsible for rancidity, this exclusion of air probably accounts for the fresh state that these nuts maintain for a long time. i have noticed that thick-shelled shellbarks and, to a lesser degree the shagbarks, crack open, in minute hairline cracks, and these nuts which split like this invariably soon become rancid. now the black walnuts are next in order. for many years i considered the ohio a worthless variety. they would seldom mature any of the nuts, and although they were regular bearers the thick hull was a nuisance. i have had twenty years' experience with this variety and they are the hardiest of all the old ones. they stand up very well and each year the nuts become a little more satisfactory. evidently the trees have the ability to acclimatize themselves and they stand up better than thomas, stabler or ten eyck of the old varieties that i have tested. more recent varieties which i have tested and have proved satisfactory, are the paterson and the rohwer; i recommend these two above all other black walnuts. i have two seedlings which i am watching with a great deal of interest. one is from minnesota and the other is a failed grafted tree which sprang up from the root and so far is beginning to bear prolifically a medium sized nut with a rather thick shell which does not crack out very well but the quality is superb. it has a thin hull which you can pop off by merely pressing your thumb against it after it is thoroughly dry, coming off very clean leaving a good looking nut. the kernel is very light straw-colored and you can generally get them out in good pieces, about one-quarter of the whole kernel. above all it matures very early, about the middle of september or sooner, and this is the deciding factor for any nut, because, no matter how well it cracks, how prolific it may be, or hardy, if you do not get a ripe nut you have nothing for here in the north. i feel quite certain that this is going to be the standard black walnut for the north. for want of a better name i have been calling it the "ruffy" because the hull, when green, has a pimply surface and a rough appearance. the other black walnut that i am watching is a seedling resulting from ten bushels planted nearly twenty years ago, the only tree to bear because of the crowded condition of all these walnuts planted so close together. i have been watching it for six or seven years and was never able to get a mature nut until this year. reason was that in most of the seasons the nuts were empty; other times i did not wait until they were fully ripe, being too anxious to find out what was inside. this tree i have named the "walbut" because it seemed to me it might be a cross between a butternut and a walnut. the kernel is very light colored. it cracks out the best of any walnut i have ever tested. it is difficult to graft, so far in my experience. i have no living grafts from it although i have tried again and again to graft it on other large isolated stocks in the orchard. it has a square shape, with deep indentations near the point. it is something to watch, and work with although it does not seem to be extra hardy in spite of the fact that it is a native tree. at present it is merely an interesting variety to experiment with and it may possibly be of some use later on. the branches have shown curious little birdseye markings--it has a habit of developing buds which die and form little brown structures in the wood and it is possible that the tree may be a fancy timber tree. the shell has only one structure down the center, thereby insuring that the halves come out whole. an ornamental known as the lace-leaf walnut is very hardy here, doesn't winter kill at all but so far has not borne any nuts. the deming purple is not hardy; the stabler is very unreliable considering the last few years; the thomas is still one of the best except it suffers from winter injury occasionally; the ten eyck very seldom bears any nuts although we have several very large trees now. the elmer myers possibly has a chance; it is still living. the snyder has survived the last few winters and in my opinion it is one of the best nuts i have ever seen. the grafts have borne a few nuts already in the second year of grafting. they set a couple of nuts even after a severe winter last year, but they fell off during the summer, much the same as the thomas and many of the ohio did. the same thing happened to practically all of my hybrid hazels, also the winkler and even the wild hazel kept continually dropping the nuts until there was practically nothing left. no doubt this effect was produced by a peculiar season. we should not hold it against the nut trees since it was a universal condition. last summer about one-half dozen of the pecan trees which i had been playing around with for twenty years, started to blossom but only had staminate bloom, there might possibly be a crop of pecans this coming year--i do not have any hopes that any of these seedlings will be able to mature their nuts, but there is always a possibility and they are certainly hardy. none of them that i have tried to graft will live on bitternut roots. chestnuts are difficult to get started but once they are started they grow very well although there are only a few surviving out of many thousands of seeds planted. every year one or more comes into bearing--they generally do not mature their nuts, and what i have tasted of them are not anything to brag about except that they are sweet; the size is insignificant and they evidently have much of the native chestnut blood. i am still testing such varieties as the carr, zimmerman, and connecticut yankee. so far these have shown themselves to be quite tender varieties. i do not consider the chestnut worthwhile because of the constant threat that if a grove should be started it might soon have the blight in it. i have several chinese chestnut seedlings which are making a fairly good growth and in time may become productive trees. we have one hybrid white oak which has an edible kernel but out of about one hundred nuts you might get one wholesome one free from weevils. the tree is very old and is rapidly declining. the nut is small but the tree is quite prolific. i merely mention it to show that there are possibilities in developing the oak. i think our mutual friend, j. russell smith, would probably like to hear this as he advocates the use of oaks, and i agree with him that there are possibilities for human food to be used first-hand. i am all out of sympathy with second-hand food production as pork or beef or any meat products, as you know. one reason is that it is economically wrong as it takes many times more acreage to produce meat than vegetables for the same amount of food energy to be derived. my authority, the encyclopedia brittanica, which says it takes pounds of dry fodder to produce pound of dry beef, and pounds of dry fodder to produce pound of dry mutton, etc., etc. be thrifty with nut trees _by carl weschcke, minnesota_ there has been too much accent put on the profit to be made on nut production. no matter how much income a man may receive, if he has not learned to save out of that income he will never be better off for having received it. now, nut trees offer a particularly practical way of saving out of income. if one has a large family to feed the saving may amount to a hundred dollars or more a year. when this fine food, contained in the kernels of nuts, is used right in your own family, and supplies the family's entire requirements of nuts, you will find that you have made very substantial savings in your family food budget. first of all, it is different from income from the sale of nuts because when you sell nuts they must be sold in the competitive market, and usually to the wholesaler if you have a considerable amount to dispose of. therefore you save the profit made by the wholesaler and the retailer by using your nut crop rather than selling it. this is really being thrifty. if you have a large crop of nuts you will find that you can easily increase the uses in combination with other foods so that less other food has to be purchased in order to meet the family needs. and with the higher prices of ordinary foods you can easily visualize what a tremendous saving this might be. nuts are a fine luxury food, but in a way they can quickly become a necessary food by being used as a replacement for meat. i don't like to use the term "substitute for meat" as it implies that nuts are inferior to meat, and nothing could be further from the truth. nuts are more _nutricious_ than any meat, pound for pound, and what meat can you store away that will keep as sweet and edible as a nut for so long a time! plant nut trees to save your income not to increase it. you will never have to pay a tax on that saving. report of season _by george hebden, corsan, canada_ the winter of - was one of the coldest ever known here. one day it was ° below zero and another it was ° below. filberts did not seem to take any notice of the severe cold and my stranger jap heartnuts that are said to be tender went through with flying colors. one or two varieties of russian walnuts (j. regia) froze to the ground as did all the pomeroys. some of the crath walnuts froze from a few inches to a yard, but the majority did not lose a bud. strange to say all the extremely large varieties of j. regia came through unscathed as did my chinese. asiatic tree hazels missed cropping but came through unscathed. winkler and rush hazels were not harmed, though the rush is a bit tender and succumbed the winter of - . in fact - was a harder winter on trees than - as that winter all but my daviana filberts were hit more or less. last fall ( ) all trees went into their winter's sleep in most excellent condition and the twigs are hard to the top buds. signs on twig terminals indicate a large crop of nuts for the fall of . thus i hope to be able to have on display for the convention-to-be a most interesting show. besides nuts of all the hardy varieties i always have a real big show of hardy and tropical water lilies and lotus, a complete collection. also a complete collection of grapes and many other horticultural curios rarely seen. i was many years finding persimmons hardy enough to survive our winters, but at last i have at least and maybe varieties that passed last winter in perfect condition. i am north of lake ontario and just a mile west of toronto. i doubt that northern pecans, big western shellbarks and hicans will have a long enough season to ripen. the weiker hickory, which is a cross between shagbark (carya ovata) and shellbark (c. laciniosa) hickories, ripens completely each season. catawba grapes won't ripen except in a rather long summer. just across the lake the golden muscatel grapes have ripened two or three times in my memory. barcelona and kentish cob seem to be the only two filberts that are tender with me. du chilly and italian red live and crop regularly. i have several very large new varieties of seedling filberts. i like to grow seedling filberts, they show wonderful variations in fruiting. the same with heartnuts. i never lose a seedling heartnut for if the tree yields an unsatisfactory nut i promptly bud it to a stranger which is the most regular and heaviest cropping heartnut i know of. yes, every year a monster crop of nuts whose meats come out whole. our hybrid jap heartnut Ã� native butternut crosses are of three types and all excellent and will hold their own with any nut that grows. no nut can beat our butternut for eating. but the shells are too thick, the trees crop only about every years, are unhealthy and shed their leaves soon after september st. on the other hand, the hybrid outlooks it, outcrops it and outlives it and our friendly neighbor russia is very greatly intrigued with these new nuts developed here at echo valley. they are thin-shelled, very easy to crack, meats come out easily, trees have a tropical look, crop early, grow fast and very large, leaves hang on green almost to november and the crop ripens early, just after the filberts which are the first nuts to ripen with me, while the winkler hazels are the last, though the hybrid filbert-hazels are almost as late. a very beautiful sight here are the many different nut trees growing on black walnut stock to be seen all over the acres. they are heartnuts, jap walnuts, hybrids, english walnuts and butternuts, as well as superior named black walnuts. people don't want beautiful trees nearly as much as they do trees that grow nuts. for instance, they don't buy pecans from me, because though they are quite hardy and beautiful, yet the northern pecans don't mature their crop sufficiently in our short season. down in extreme southwestern ontario the pecan has cropped and ripened. one mistake we must not make is not to be too sure of the value of a nut because it is large, thin-shelled and has a fine flavor but is a poor cropper. the nut that produces a very heavy crop is the valuable nut. thus mcallister hican and the stabler black are worthless because of their extremely thin crop. another nut that looks large and excellent on the tree is the ohio black walnut, whose huge dirty hull and small nut condemns it. i like thin-hulled nuts that come out clean. american walnut manufacturers association carries out industrial forestry program _by w. c. finley, forester_ the forestry program now in operation is ambitious in scope, and has as its objectives the promotion of forest practices which will encourage growing and harvesting american walnut as a permanent crop. one of the greatest evils which we are attempting to eradicate is the cutting of small diameter trees. the walnut industry has expressed a desire to conserve small diameter fast growing walnut trees for future use and is advocating that farmers, timberland owners and log producers leave these trees in the woodlots to grow into high quality timber. we are trying to educate the farmer, timber owner and log producer in forestry practices which will serve not only their best interests, but which in the final analysis, will serve the lumber industry as a whole. trees less than inches d.b.h. if cut constitute a real loss in potential high quality and more valuable logs because the logs they produce are too small to be used advantageously. on the other hand, trees of inch d. b. h. and up are in demand and are playing a patriotic role in furnishing material for use by the armed forces, namely gunstocks. the public in general, and tree farmers and timber owners in particular, must be made aware of the fact that while the present walnut timber supply is adequate, conservation of immature trees must be practiced to the full to assure the industry with sufficient raw materials for future use. success in this particular phase of our program is being enhanced greatly through the excellent cooperation of extension foresters, state foresters, u. s. forest service, timber production war project foresters, foresters of the soil conservation service and tennessee valley authority foresters. these various agencies are working hand in hand with us on those objectives of our program which, in a measure, dovetail with various phases of their own programs. one of the most interesting aspects of our program is our work with -h clubs. we are sponsoring a contest among those members who are interested in forestry. each contestant is required to plant seedlings, record certain data and write a story about his woodlot giving specific information. two winners will be chosen from each county participating. winners will be chosen on the basis of the best story submitted; judges will be -h officials and the extension forester from each state. the reward to be presented winners will be one week's vacation at -h summer camp with all expenses paid by the american walnut manufacturers association. this contest is open to all -h club members in the states of indiana, illinois, iowa, kansas, kentucky, michigan, missouri, ohio and tennessee. in addition to this, the association forester will conduct a one day forestry program at the summer camps at which time he will present the winners with special certificates. the program was planned by the association's forestry committee, consisting of chester b. stem, c. b. stem, inc., new albany, indiana, chairman; b. f. swain, national veneer and lumber company, indianapolis, and seymour, indiana; clarence a. swords, sword-morton veneer company, indianapolis, indiana and burdett green, secretary-manager of the american walnut manufacturers association, chicago, illinois. the committee worked in close cooperation with harris collingwood, washington, d. c., forester for the lumber industry. of especial help were several of the midwest's outstanding foresters from regional and state offices of the various governmental forestry agencies--men who have had years of woods experience in the areas where most of the walnut association's forestry activities will be carried on. the crath carpathian walnut in illinois _by a. s. colby_ the persian walnut (_juglans regia_), usually and incorrectly called the english walnut, has been highly prized both for the beauty of the tree and the quality of its nuts since ancient times. the species flourishes in southern asia and europe and in our southwestern and pacific coast states, but most of the attempts that have been made to fruit it in northern and eastern sections have failed. the varieties or strains tried there were for the most part native to sections of the old world where the winters are comparatively mild and they were therefore not able to survive our colder and more changeable climate. the late e. a. riehl, of alton, illinois, tried repeatedly to grow named varieties of this nut which are successful in california, but often stated that the species had no future in illinois. in extreme southern illinois, at robert endicott's place, in villa ridge, several persian walnut trees are growing but their bearing habits are disappointing. one of the most promising recent developments in northern nut culture is the introduction into america of hardier strains of the persian walnut, through the efforts of rev. paul c. crath, of toronto, canada, a native of poland, and whose father was the head of the agricultural college in the ukraine. he went back to his own country as a missionary in the early 's, and there noticed the hardiness of the persian walnuts growing in that severe climate. realizing the possibilities of these strains for fruiting in north america, he combed that rich russian agricultural region in the carpathian mountains for seed for experimental planting over here, harvesting it from trees uninjured at temperatures of - ° f. these parent trees were carefully selected for regular production of good crops of thin-shelled, easily-cracked nuts of good quality. the trees were growing at such distances from others that cross-pollination was avoided. rev. crath had observed that seedlings from such self-pollinated trees usually bore nuts that closely resembled those of the parent. each tree from which nuts were saved was given a number in order to keep future records straight. the nuts were planted in a nursery established by rev. crath near toronto. wishing some point in this country where his trees could be distributed without the difficulty and delay incurred in moving small shipments across the border, rev. crath arranged with mr. samuel h. graham, of ithaca, new york, to take sole charge of their distribution in the united states. considerable interest has been aroused in the possibilities of these strains and their distribution has been wide-spread, with over , seedlings sent to many northern states since . in a few more years, after a considerable proportion of these numbered seedlings have come into bearing, we shall have some valuable information regarding their possibilities in sections of the country where previously it had not been considered possible to grow persian walnuts. several illinois horticulturists have planted seedlings of these strains and have already brought one or more of them into bearing. others have used scion wood of the crath types in top-working black walnut trees. the sample crath carpathian walnut no. on display at the meeting of the illinois horticultural society at quincy was grown by mr. royal oakes, of bluffs, illinois. mr. oakes topworked a black walnut with crath seedling no. scions in and harvested six nuts in . at the illinois agricultural experiment station at urbana, we have over crath seedlings under number, planted in and . they are all healthy and vigorous, and several bore pistillate flowers in . comparatively little is known about the bearing habits of the crath walnut strains. several growers have noted that their trees began to bear pistillate flowers within a few years after planting but set no nuts. evidently the staminate catkins necessary for pollen production are somewhat slower in appearing. other strains of persian walnuts are said to be slow in this regard, usually beginning to bear female flowers from to years before male flowers are produced. it is thought possible that persian walnut pistils will accept black walnut pollen. mr. oakes reports that there were no staminate flowers on the crath (from which he picked the nuts he exhibited at quincy), but black walnut pollen was abundant nearby at that time and for good measure he also brought in butternut bouquets. as he states, "something worked." the prospective planter should understand that these new walnut strains are as yet only in the experimental stage. it is believed that some of them have considerable promise, at least in the southern and the central, and possibly in the northern, parts of this state. however, they must be properly planted and cared for if one expects them to grow and bear. too close planting should be avoided and some attention must be given to forming the head when the tree is young. no one knows exactly when they will bear, how much, and how long. in their native country, trees have been observed estimated to be over years old. most of us can expect to enjoy nuts from trees we plant, with more for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. one might ask also in this connection, as does one nut nurseryman, "how soon will a chinese elm or soft maple bear nuts?" [illustration: parent tree of ohio black walnut, on the farm of charles arbogast, - / miles northwest of mccutchenville, ohio. the tree is - / feet in diameter and very vigorous. it is said to bear heavy crops in alternate years. photograph by o. d. diller, ohio agricultural experiment station, oct. , .] [illustration] ohio nut growers' meeting _by g. j. korn, berrien springs, mich._ a meeting of ohio nut growers was held at the wooster, ohio, experiment station on september , . a very pleasant and profitable afternoon was had in the exchange of ideas and reports on the growing of nut trees. most of those present were members of the northern nut growers' association. as the annual meeting of that organization had been cancelled for the duration of the war, the ohio members decided to hold a meeting of their own at wooster. the growers presented reports on the varieties with which they are working and evaluated their merits and performance. as an example, mr. a. a. bungart of avon, said he had spent a good share of his spare time for two summers in examination of several hundred native black walnut trees, and has never found a nut as good as the varieties todd or thomas. he still feels, however, that there are superior walnuts growing wild and that continued search for them is well warranted. several other kinds of nut trees are being grown by mr. bungart, such as filberts, chinese chestnuts, and crath persian walnuts. in a summary of his report he said, "in viewing the growing of nut trees, i am convinced that it is a wonderful hobby, and that the contributions of various individuals and groups will eventually establish nut growing in the northern states on a commercial basis." mr. eugene cranz of ira also gave a very interesting report. this past summer mr. cranz passed his eighty-first birthday, and for many years has been keenly interested in general forestry practices. one of his particular interests is nut culture; a very superior hickory tree grows on his place, which bears a very high quality nut. during the course of his remarks, he expressed great optimism in the matter of developing the chinese chestnut into a valuable commercial nut crop. mr. j. lester hawk & son of beach city, concurred in mr. cranz's opinion on this matter, and cited as an example the hobson chinese chestnuts which they planted on their property in . these two trees have been bearing crops of well-formed tasty nuts for a period of years. mr. hawk reports that he had sold several hundred seedling trees from these trees last year, and reports that he has about , one-year seedling trees in his nursery at the present time. many other interesting reports were given on cultural practices and on the merits of various types of nut trees adaptable to northern conditions. mention should be made of the especially fine illustrated talk given by l. walter sherman, superintendent of the mahoning county experiment farm at canfield. colored slides were shown by mr. sherman, of his grafting technique and of individual trees throughout the state from which he has collected scions. three acres of the mahoning county farm are being devoted to nut growing and research at the present time. this planting includes different varieties of black walnut. mr. sherman is keeping an accurate record of the trees as they develop, their source of scions, and other items that may be of interest. besides recording this data, he is also making color slides of his cultural methods and progressive stages of the trees' growth. in spite of unavoidable interruptions to their individual efforts occasioned by the war, those in attendance expressed the belief that real progress is being made in this particular field. a committee was chosen to draft tentative plans for a -year research program on nut culture in ohio. the great enthusiasm shown at this initial meeting indicates that a meeting of ohio nut growers is likely to become an annual event. on my return home to michigan from attending the ohio meeting, i stopped off near mccutchenville, ohio, to visit the parent "ohio" black walnut tree. the accompanying photos taken by mr. o. d. diller, dept. of forestry, experiment station, wooster, ohio, show the majesty and beauty of this great tree. walnut and heartnut varieties notes and remarks _by j. u. gellatly, westbrook, b. c._ barlee black walnut-- crop grown in kelowna, b. c.-- nut-- . per lb., kernel-- . per lb., . % kernel. broadview nuts-- crop, nuts-- . per lb., . kernels per lb., best kernel . per lb., . shells per lb., . % kernel. callander heart nut-- nuts-- . per lb., kernels-- . kernels per lb.-- . % kernel. canoka heart nut-- crop-- nut-- . per lb., - / % kernel, . shells per lb., . kernels per lb. canoka heart-- crop-- nuts average-- . per lb., . shells per lb., . kernels per lb., . % kernel. chinese or manchurian walnuts crop grown o. k. valley-- nuts-- . per lb., kernels-- . per lb., shells-- . per lb., . % kernel. kernels very fine flavour. coglan walnut--from coglan, b. c.-- nut-- . per lb., kernel-- . per lb., shell-- . per lb., . % kernel. a very good thin shell nut of franquette type. franquette walnuts crop--outside dry storage or unheated shed. nuts-- . per lb., largest nut-- . per lb., kernel of this nut . per lb., small kernel . per lb., medium kernel-- . per lb., kernels-- . per lb., shells-- . per lb. . % kernels. kernels best of flavour. gellatly heart nut-- crop-- nuts-- . per lb., . kernels per lb., . % kernel. shell heavy--cracking only fair. heart nut--from r. p. wright, erie, pennsylvania, u. s. a.-- nut-- . per lb., . kernels per lb., . shells per lb., . % kernel. impit black walnut-- crop-- nut-- . per lb., kernel-- . per lb., . % kernel. nuts-- . per lb.,-- kernels-- . per lb., . % kernel. impit black walnut-- crop-- nuts-- . per lb., kernels-- . per lb., . % kernel. cracking time minutes to crack with hammer. mackenzie heart nut-- nuts-- . per lb., kernels-- . kernels per lb., % kernel--extracting and opening with knife-- minutes. north star walnut-- crop grown in o. k. valley-- nuts-- . per lb., kernels-- . per lb., shells-- . per lb., . % kernel. nursoka heart nut-- crop grown at peachland, b. c.-- nut-- . per lb., . shells per lb., . kernels per lb., . % kernel. extracting time minutes. [illustration] [illustration] o. k. heart nut-- crop grown at kelowna, b. c-- nuts-- . per lb., . kernels per lb., . % kernel. . minutes to open and extract with small penknife. penoka heart nut-- crop-- nut-- . per lb., . kernels per lb., . % kernel. rover heart nut-- crop-- nuts, average-- . per lb., . shells per lb., . kernels per lb., . % kernel. rover heart nut-- crop-- nut-- . per lb, . kernels per lb., . % kernel. rover heart nut-- crop-- nuts-- . per lb., . kernels per lb., % kernel. smythe heart nut-- nuts-- . per lb., kernels-- . per lb., . % kernel. well sealed but easy to open. spreadoka walnut "j. regia"-- nuts-- . per lb., kernels-- . per lb., shells-- . per lb., . % kernel. thacker heart nut-- crop-- nuts-- . per lb., kernels per lb., . % kernel. vaux english walnut-- crop--a new seedling on j. u. gellatly's lot. large nuts--heavy shell. nut-- . per lb., kernel-- . per lb., . shells per lb., % kernel. walsh walnuts-- crop grown in o. k. valley-- nuts . per lb., kernels-- . per lb., shells-- . per lb., . % kernels. kernels bland flavour. walters heart nut-- crop-- nuts-- . per lb., . kernels per lb., . % kernel. minutes to open and extract with penknife. walters heart nut-- crop-- nut-- . per lb., . kernels per lb., . shells per. lb., . % kernel. no. e. --from ross pier wright-- west th st., erie, pennsylvania, u. s. a. nut-- . per lb., . kernels per lb., . shells per lb., . % kernel. watt walnut--from himalayan mts., india, b. c.--grown . large nut-- . per lb., kernel-- . per lb., shell-- . . per lb., . % kernel. letters _abstract of letter from thomas mitchell, w. th st., new york, n. y., to julio p. grandjean, box , mexico, d. f._ i am a tree breeder interested in creating hybrid crop trees, oaks and, if possible, bi-generic hybrids of carob with honey locust and with mesquite. i have, in the past seven years, made over a thousand crosses of poplars and about inter-specific oak crosses. this spring i made oak crosses at the arnold arboretum, of which about % seem to be ripening viable acorns. i have a list of varieties of hybrid oaks and about varieties of american asiatic and european species which are available here or at the arboretum. i will send this list to any one who is interested in trying to graft them on native oak seedlings, and will send scions to any one willing to send me acorns, scions or pollen. i believe the oak tree to be, potentially, more valuable than any other crop tree. _abstract of letter from w. g. tatum, lebanon, kentucky, to the chairman of the survey committee._ we have had reports from e. c. rice of absher, ky., but his work with trees and his wonderful personality are not well enough known to us. besides his large plantings of nut and fruit trees he does general farming. he has almost all of the finer varieties of nut trees, many of them large, in bearing and doing well. lewis edmunds of glasgow, ky., discoverer of the edmunds black walnut, is a general farmer whose plantings of nut tree, while not large, include many of the older and better known sorts, as well as later discoveries of his own, including a very thin shelled walnut, shagbark hickories, a seedless persimmon; and he is planning a large planting of chestnuts. he has a stuart pecan that bears well-filled nuts every year, apparently without benefit of pollen from another tree. our experiment station has issued a new leaflet on nut growing in kentucky and our state forester, mr. jackson has given radio talks on the subject. i am planning and planting all the time and have at least a small start of most of the better strains of all varieties. i have a little nursery where i grow and graft my own trees. i consider edmunds a very fine black walnut. i think that more free exchange of graftwood should be encouraged among our members, and we should encourage and help newcomers in learning the art of grafting. i got % of my stambaugh grafts to grow this season, in a row of stocks running from the size of a lead pencil to that of the average man's little finger, using scions near to the size of the stocks, grafted by the "whip and tongue" splice method. _letter from h. f. stoke to miss mildred jones:_ i am pleased to comply with your request to report on those varieties that have given me the best results in this locality. it is perhaps unfortunate that some of them are unknown or obscure varieties that are not generally in the hands of the nursery trade. (as an aside, i am quitting the nursery business, so what i say is without prejudice or any personal bias.) i am listing the varieties in order of my estimate of them for this locality based on my own personal experience. i am becoming increasingly hard boiled in my judgments based on two considerations: first, that a nut tree should bear within a reasonable time and that the crops should be regular and reasonably abundant; second, that the nuts should be fit to eat after they have been grown. these two considerations knock out many varieties that have been highly touted. _filberts._ the buchanan and its second generation seedlings have been better filled and more productive than any of the european hazels. italian red comes next. brixnut and longfellow are strong, healthy growers, but the former does not fill well and the latter bears sparsely. barcelona is out. _chinese chestnut._ hobson, carr, zimmerman, reliable. hobson heads the list as most precocious and productive. it requires a pollenizer. carr will bear partial crops without cross-pollination. zimmerman is almost as productive as carr, but its need of cross-pollination is unknown to me. reliable is the smallest of the four, of high quality and a steady bearer of moderate crops. pollination requirements not known. (the original zimmerman sent me by dr. zimmerman was worthless. the present zimmerman, furnished me by dr. smith, is a satisfactory nut.) _japanese chestnut._ austin is the best of the lot. _hybrid chestnut._ one of dr. colby's hybrids is promising but has not been released and should not be listed without his permission. the hybrid i have been selling as stoke is a better nut than any of the japs, including austin. a moderate producer of moderate crops of beautiful, high quality nuts ripening the first of september. the government's s van fleet hybrid is a very prolific hybrid of rather poor quality. it should be satisfactory for people who cook their chestnuts. mr. c. a. reed should be consulted before listing. s will outyield any chestnut i know of. tree is less vigorous than stoke and more subject to blight. _black walnut._ homeland, creitz, mintle, thomas. homeland is a local nut and is unknown to the trade. it makes a poor test score, partly because of its pointed shape, partly because of the plumpness and tenderness of the kernel. it fills out much better than thomas growing beside it: bears moderate crops every year, both on the parent and on grafted trees. it is a nice, upright, healthy grower; new growth tinged with purple. i consider quality first class. creitz bears regularly and well; nuts very like ohio but husks thin and it cleans much better. kernels apt to be shrivelled somewhat. mintle good bearer, plumper than creitz, pellicle somewhat off color. thomas does not fill so well, especially if given much nitrogen, which homeland will stand. stabler worthless here. _english walnut._ bedford, lancaster, payne, franquette. bedford is a local nut found on an abandoned farm in bedford county, va. a regular bearer of high quality nuts of the mayette type. blossoms late, a little before mayette and franquette. the only one of fifteen varieties that i have fruited that can be depended on to pollinize itself; medium size, well sealed, cures well, no bitterness to pellicle, no "sticktite" nor moldy nuts. lancaster, very large, very vigorous tree, precocious, prolific, quality of nuts good but not best; staminate blossoms early, pistillate late. requires a pollinizer. franquette, mayette and bedford should answer. payne will not stand winter temperatures much below zero; requires cross-pollination; needs seemingly met by crath and broadview. good nut of good size and quality, precocious and very prolific. moderate grower. worst fault starts too early in spring. good for south and upper south. i forgot to mention that one of the worst faults of lancaster is that the nuts must be dried promptly on ripening; sometimes the kernels mold before the nuts fall from the tree. franquette should rank with bedford except that it usually bears poorly, although rarely it bears a good crop. always blossoms freely. trouble seems to be pollination. bedford may be the answer; mayette is not, and also bears very poorly. king and chambers, recommended by carroll bush as pollinizers for franquette, produce their staminates too early here. broadview is vigorous, precocious, prolific, large with a pellicle too bitter for human consumption. nuts sometimes spoil on the tree, like lancaster. _heartnut._ like most english walnuts heartnuts blossom too early in the spring and are usually killed back by late frosts here. walters is the only one that blossoms late enough to produce usually a crop. i still think that a well-filled sifford is the best black walnut i have seen, but the parent tree generally produces poorly-filled nuts, and the young trees have been very slow to come into bearing, so i have left it off the list. early defoliation appears to be the cause of poor filling in wet seasons. when well filled it runs % kernel. any and all of the nuts listed, of all species, are perfectly winter-hardy here, except that payne english walnut was injured by a temperature of below zero some years ago. all english walnuts, except franquette and most seedling chinese chestnuts lost their crops last spring by a freeze may th. hobson, carr, zimmerman and reliable came through with crops. it will be most unfortunate if the many nurseries that, in my opinion, will go into nut tree production should boost seedling trees just because they do not have or cannot produce the named varieties. if the public can be at this time educated to demand select varieties it will influence the planting of nut trees favorably for the next hundred years. if they get shunted off on to seedlings it will take another twenty-five years to awaken the present interest. one might as well expect an apple growing industry to spring from the indiscriminate planting of seedling apple orchards. this goes especially for the english walnut and the chinese chestnut. _abstract of letter from rev. p. c. crath, cannington, ontario._ only a limited report is possible this year. in toronto there are four carpathian walnut trees to feet high which bear nuts regularly. one of these bears nuts of huge size, another smaller nuts with very thin shell and with the flavor of the cashew nut. the other two trees produce regularly medium sized nuts with thin shells. in islington, near toronto, carpathian no. belonging to mr. j. robson continues bearing. mr. robson died last spring and i am naming this tree no. the "robson" in his memory. the eight carpathians along the welland canal are doing well and bear every year. the tree in the yard of the rev. foster at welland is a nice big tree and bears every season but squirrels carry off all the crop. in ontario until the present time the curculio has not attacked carpathian walnuts. prof. c. t. currelly of canton has some nice big trees of his own grafting. one of these is of the landyga type that in its seventh year now has never shown any cold injury. we can feel assured that the landyga type is the best for the cold regions of ontario. a tall and beautiful no. that had a bacteriological canker near the root has thoroughly healed. other no. trees on the same estate are doing fine. the original no. (now robson) on prof. currelly's farm is doing exceptionally well. it is the type of a good market walnut. the harbey carpathians, belonging to j. regia maxima, with very thin shells are also doing well. my ukrainian and turkish filberts on currelly's estate have now become small bushes, in number bearing abundantly. _abstract of letter from sylvester m. schessler, genoa, ohio._ to keep scionwood i place sticks, such as elder, on a cement floor, lay the scions crosswise on these, cover them with sawdust and throw an oilcloth over this. in may i graft by the slotbark method nailing the scion and tying with string or rubber bands and wax with acme grafting compound put on cold. i cover with a two pound paper sack and later stake up the new growth. i like fair sized scion wood cut from near the base of the new growth and often graft with two year old wood carrying some one year wood. i will exchange graft wood and have several varieties of ohio prize winners bearing nuts. i also do budding by the patch method. experiment station investigates tree believed to be the oldest chestnut in connecticut progress report from connecticut experiment station, dated november , many years ago, at a time when the american chestnut was still the king of the woods, a farmer set out a small orchard of nut trees on the bank of the connecticut river flood plain north of hartford. now, some years later, one lone japanese chestnut survives. dr. donald f. jones of the agricultural station in new haven, who recently investigated the tree, believes it is by far the oldest living chestnut in the state. and the most interesting thing about the tree is that it shows no signs of blight, the disease that destroyed all the native chestnuts. dr. jones' attention was called to the tree late last fall by a hunter who noticed a deposit of chestnut hulls in the river bank. on investigation, the man discovered the tree and was impressed by its size. this fall the tree was visited in search of nuts. there, rising above the brush and brambles of what is now a tobacco field, stood the chestnut, foot high and inches in diameter. the men were able to rescue only six nuts, their visit being a little late for the main harvest. the nuts were among the largest dr. jones has seen. they have been planted at the experiment station farm in mount carmel. inquiry in the neighborhood of the chestnut revealed that two or three people knew about the tree and had gathered the nuts that are produced profusely every other year. one of the neighbors recalled that years or more ago, when he was but years old, a man named john p. jones had set out the nut trees. but the original source of the trees is unknown and it remains a question whether the planter got the trees from a nursery in this country or directly from the orient. though the lone survivor is somewhat neglected, with several dead branches that have been left untrimmed, a neighbor was interested enough in its possibilities to plant some of the nuts. this resulted in one six-year-old seedling tree. unfortunately, this already shows blight and is apparently the result of pollination by some blighted american seedling or sprout in the neighborhood. the nuts collected this fall may also give disappointing results but should transmit to later generations the blight-resistance of this japanese parent. in addition to planting the nuts, dr. jones will take scions from the tree for grafting on young trees at the station's mount carmel farm. those should produce results more quickly than the seeds. next summer pollen will be collected from the tree for use in hybridizing some of the young trees already growing here. dr. jones has for many years been interested in the development of a useful chestnut for connecticut conditions. some of the young trees, crosses between american and asiatic types, show promise but will take several years of testing to prove their value. the new "find" may be of considerable help in shortening the length of time necessary to get a tree that is blight resistant, of large fruiting habit and of good timber quality. (note by editor--this tree has been known to me for probably fifteen years. it was brought to my attention by mr. charles vibert of east hartford and named by me the "vibbert," [with two b's to insure the right pronounciation]. the name has been published and i have sent scions to a number of people and grafted trees myself. the tree bears a very large nut, twelve selected ones weighing over a pound. i have gathered a good many quarts of them and exhibited them in hartford and litchfield. so far as my observation goes this large size is at least partly due to the fact that there is only one filled nut in a burr, the other two being aborted. this fact, and the fact that the crops are small, i have attributed to the partial inefficiency of self-pollination, there being no evident outside source of pollen. one year i grafted several other varieties into the top of the tree. most of those grew a year or two but then died. i have believed that this was due to blight. there has been much dead wood in the tree ever since i have known it and i had supposed that this was blight.) report of committee of ohio nut growers _a. a. bungart, chairman_ on september , , members of the northern nut growers' association living in northern ohio met at the wooster experiment farm to discuss nut growing in the state. at this meeting a committee was formed to work out plans and suggestions for a twenty-year nut growing program. it was felt that greater progress would result if something more definite were done by way of coordinating the work of the forestry department with the effort of individuals. the committee, meeting here on october , , submits the following report. the chairman has attempted to incorporate most of the material submitted by members of the committee and by others. the committee recommends the appointment of a full time research man in nut culture, or two part-time workers. this man, or men, would form the hub around which the year program would be built. there should be a division of labor: certain individuals already embarked on a program of their own should continue their work and coordinate it with a specialist at wooster, or whatever place is designated as headquarters. for example, mr. silvis favors the hickory over all other nut trees. as a young man he can reasonably look forward to many years of experimentation with various varieties and under different conditions. mr. davidson is following a plan of planting large numbers of black walnut seed from blocks of trees in which natural crossing might combine the desirable characteristics of several better-than-average named varieties. mr. sherman has collected english walnuts from trees in the northern part of the state. already he has seedlings of many varieties growing at canfield. now, each of these projects is excellent and should be encouraged in every way. whenever members of our organization find new and better nuts of those species, they should send nuts, or scions or data about the trees, to these gentlemen. as time goes on there should be opportunities to farm out projects to individual growers. mr. fickes, for example, by experience and because of his favorable location could well carry out experiment suggested by a specialist, (or as a research worker to help with one of his own.) it would seem, apart from large scale operations to be mentioned later, that the specialist or expert should make his headquarters a clearing house for information sent by members. it should be his job to study some of the scientific phases of nut culture, such as artificial crossing, pollenizing data on various species and varieties of nut trees, genetic investigations, value of the proper root stocks, and, as time and information would warrant, the publishing of monographs on phases of nut growing. finally such specialist might consider broadly the problems of securing an increased food supply from ohio forests. . devote the acres at apple creek to nut tree planting. plant two or three trees of each variety that has especially good traits. also set out numbers of seedling stock upon which to graft scions of promising trees. by having the main planting near the experiment farm, the plant breeder at wooster should also attend to nut trees. . the forestry department should procure seed of hardy english walnuts and of other nut trees; grow one-year seedlings and distribute these in small numbers (not over five or six) to people who will plant them in good locations. such action should be started at once; in twenty years or less something good might result. . continue the planting of all promising varieties of the different species of nut trees at mahoning so that the bearing habits, production, etc., could be under strict observation and study, and so that a supply of scion wood might be available for other plantings and for commercial propagation. . establish a similar project in some other section of ohio; the southeastern section would seem to be the logical place when nut growing becomes a commercial industry in ohio. . a. graft promising hickories in the tops of established hickory seedling trees. there is a volunteer stand of such hickories on the lands of the mahoning valley sanitary district that would be ideal for such top-working. no doubt many other such places could be located. b. same as "a" but using black walnuts. c. same as "a" but using english walnuts. suitable black walnut seedlings are now growing on the mahoning valley sanitary district for projects b and c. . encourage the planting by the forestry department of better seed from the best named varieties. while this would be a long-range program it would be preeminently worth while. the forests of ohio have all but disappeared. organizations with vision and unselfishness must begin to replace them. . urge a program of education. nut trees require good soil and proper care. it would be folly for an organization to sponsor a program for nut tree planting, unless the growers are provided with proper cultural directions. the tendency in the past has been to plant nut trees in out-of-the-way places, and let nature take her course. nature took her course; the result, scrubby trees and disgruntled planters. . initiate future nut contests for the purpose of arousing public interests in nut growing and for bringing to light new varieties. four-h clubs, county agents, boy scout troops, sport clubs, all might be urged to co-operate with the forestry department, or with our own organizations, in making a state-wide survey for better nuts. one member of the committee thinks that the ohio farmer contest did not bring to light all the good wild trees, although every nut grower is indebted to that splendid paper for its cooperation in the past. . favor a moderate amount of publicity. any plans, developments, or discoveries should be put before the public in scientific journals, farm papers, and the daily press. but propaganda of a sensational of exaggerated nature ought to be discouraged. in other words, the committee thinks that false claims and high pressure publicity on new varieties would do more harm than good. . study the pollenizing problems of all the better varieties of nut trees, especially the black walnut, chestnut and hickory species, and test the better varieties to find those best suited to ohio conditions. . develop and perfect a simplified means of propagating nut trees and incorporate this information in a bulletin for all who are interested in nut trees. many farmers and fruit growers shy from nursery prices for nut trees. if they could propagate their own they would be more likely to plant them. . a. urge a means of developing better kinds of nut trees and nut hybrids for ohio. specifically, embark upon a program of artificial crossing and hybridizing. while some might object to the length of time required to check results, the committee thinks it possible to check three generations within a year program. this could be expedited by budding or grafting the crossed seedling upon the stock of a bearing tree. the original seedling should be saved to check its growth, shape and other characteristics not apparent in the grafted branch. a thomas-elmer myers cross might possibly combine the desirable traits of both parents, or a mcallister-shagbark cross might increase the productivity of the former. a nut, for example, having the cracking qualities of the english walnut, and the hardiness and retention of flavor when cooked or baked of a black walnut, would be a worthy achievement. also, securing pollen from a hybrid english black walnut and back crossing with either species might produce the dream tree. n. b. hybrid vigor might be a blessing for the quicker growth of all forest trees. experiments in nut trees might be applied to other species. . b. establish in the same tree two varieties suitable for crossing. this seed should be distributed for propagation by the forestry department to public institutions and to others for reforestation on waste lands or water-shed project or private grounds. by selecting isolated trees for this mating, the nuts would either be self-pollinated or a cross of the desirable varieties. this it would seem would yield better nuts than the hit-an-miss methods of nature. . use a new yard stick for measuring the value of nut trees for commercial production. size of nut, thickness of shell, cracking qualities are desirable traits but they might not be deciding factors in evaluating a tree. other factors equally important perhaps even more so, are size of nut clusters, rate of growth, consistency in bearing annual cross, yield per tree of shucked nuts, resistance to blights and insect nests. . compile a list of the best articles that have appeared in the n.n.g.a. reports and print them in pamphlet form for distribution to ohio growers. all the articles on black walnuts would be found in the one booklet, and so on for all other trees in which ohioans would be interested. . check carefully the experiences and observations of all the members so as to assemble data on the behavior of nut trees. this information would be more useful in determining what crosses would be desirable. the thomas nut, for example, has been both praised and condemned. what would be the concensus of opinion on the merits of this much debated variety? . make northern ohio the nucleus of the n.n.g.a. geographically and climatically, this section of the state represents an ideal spot for nut tree experimentation, in the northern states. the experiment farms at wooster and canfield, the findley state forest, the various state properties, all could be brought into a closely knit functioning project. conclusion the committee thinks that a year program along these lines, or a modification of them, will eventually prove successful. if such an organization can offer farmers and all others interested in nuts and conservation a better walnut, filbert, hickory or chestnut suitable for ohio soils and ohio climate the effort would seem worth while. so far people interested in nut culture have been called "nuts." practical-minded people are apt to smile at such nut experiments, but a glimpse at our state proves that nut enthusiasts have vision, and a faith in the future; that they are modern johnny appleseeds with more of johnny's methods but less of his madness. the history of our state is a history of squandered natural resources, of get-rich-quick methods, of wanton destruction of all forms of plant and animal life. if this organization can in a small way stop the erosion of gullied hillsides, check the rampage of swollen rivers, arrest the fertility of ohio farms from floating to the gulf or the ocean, if it can find some substitute for the magnificent chestnut trees now gone forever, if it can make better nuts grow where none or poor ones grow now, if it can sell conservation and a love of trees to every farmer in ohio, this organization or any other will be conferring a rich legacy upon future ohioans. obituary _dr. john harvey kellogg_ died at the age of at his home in battle creek, michigan, on december , , from pneumonia. until his death he was one of our two honorary members, the other being his brother, w. k. kellogg. our only other honorary members have been henry hales, h. e. van deman, and dr. walter van fleet. the kelloggs were thus honored because of their large gifts to the association, their entertainment of the association twice at battle creek, and the numerous papers on nuts as food sent to the association by dr. kellogg. he once gave us $ as prizes for a nut contest. he was present at our stamford meeting and at those in battle creek. a full account of his life and works was printed in the n.y. times for december , ; and from a medical standpoint, in the journal of the american medical association for december , , p. . other accounts may be found in the michigan newspapers and elsewhere. he was certainly one of our most eminent members. he was resolute and sincere in his beliefs, forceful and persistent in advocating them though they differed quite radically from the beliefs of most of the medical profession. he would not permit his patients to use alcohol, tobacco, meat in any form, or tea and coffee. those who had been excessive users of these things were often immensely benefitted by a stay in a kellogg sanitorium. he joined our association on account of his advocacy of nuts as food to replace in part the absence of meat. of late years he had laid more emphasis on soy beans. whatever may be thought of his radical views on food there can be no doubt that he did an immense amount of good not only by his treatment of individual patients but also by the wide dissemination of his teaching and his invention of many useful forms of so-called "health foods." printed by the corse press, inc., sandy creek, n.y. northern nut growers association incorporated report _of the proceedings of the_ twenty-first annual meeting [illustration] cedar rapids, iowa. september , , , northern nut growers association _incorporated_ report of the proceedings of the twenty-first annual meeting cedar rapids, iowa. _september , , , _ contents officers, directors and committees state vice-presidents list of members constitution by-laws proceedings of the twenty-first annual convention nuts and nut growers of the middle west--s. w. snyder address of professor t. j. maney methods in scoring the black walnut--prof. n. f. drake nuts in north dakota--prof. a. f. yeager report on the nut contest--dr. w. c. deming new members' experience and questions discussion on chestnut growing the paraffin method in transplanting nursery stock--prof. j. a. neilson some notes on the japanese walnut in north america--prof. j. a. neilson thirty years experience in the care of scionwood--f. o. harrington experiments and observations in searching for best seedling nut trees--j. f. wilkinson more nuts--less meat--dr. j. h. kellogg induced immunity to chestnut blight--dr. g. a. zimmerman plant patent act--thomas p. littlepage banquet president's address report of the secretary business session treasurer's report harvesting and marketing the native nut crop of the north--c. a. reed beechnuts--willard g. bixby the contest--willard g. bixby attendance record officers of the association _president_ j. a. neilson, hort. dept. m. s. c., east lansing, mich. _vice-president_ c. f. walker, e overlook road, cleveland heights, ohio _secretary_ w. g. bixby, grand ave., baldwin, n. y. _treasurer_ karl w. greene, ridge road, n. w., washington, d. c. _directors_ j. a. neilson, c. f. walker, dr. w. c. deming, k. w. greene, w. g. bixby, s. w. snyder _committees_ _auditing_--z. h. ellis, l. h. mitchell _executive_--j. a. neilson, c. f. walker, a. s. colby, k. w. greene, w. g. bixby, s. w. snyder _finance_--t. p. littlepage, w. g. bixby, w. c. deming _press and publication_--j. russell smith, r. t. olcott, w. c. deming, k. w. greene, z. h. ellis, a. s. colby _membership_--f. h. frey, r. t. olcott, j. w. hershey, z. h. ellis, k. w. greene, f. o. harrington _program_--w. c. deming, a. s. colby, s. w. snyder, c. a. reed, c. f. walker, r. t. olcott _hybrids and promising seedlings_--c. a. reed, w. g. bixby, howard spence, j. a. neilson, s. w. snyder, r. t. morris _nomenclature_--c. a. reed, r. t. morris, w. g. bixby, j. a. neilson _survey_--c. f. walker, w. g. bixby, f. h. frey _dean of the association_ dr. robert t. morris, of new york and connecticut _field secretary_ zenas h. ellis, fair haven, vermont state vice-presidents arkansas prof. n. f. drake univ. of arkansas, fayetteville california will j. thorpe divisadero st., san francisco canada j. u. gellatly west bank, p. o. gellatly, b. c. china p. w. wang sec'y kinsan arboretum, n. sechuan road, shanghai connecticut dr. w. c. deming main st., hartford, conn. dist. of columbia karl w. greene ridge road, n. w., washington england howard spence the red house, ainsdale, southport illinois prof. a. s. colby university of illinois, urbana indiana j. f. wilkinson rockport iowa s. w. snyder center point kansas w. p. orth route , box , mount hope maryland t. p. littlepage bowie massachusetts james h. bowditch tremont building, boston michigan harry burgardt union city michigan minnesota carl weschcke south wabasha st., st. paul missouri p. c. stark louisiana nebraska william caha wahoo new jersey miss m. v. landman cranbury, r. f. d. no. new york prof. l. h. macdaniels cornell university, ithaca ohio harry r. weber east th st., cincinnati oregon stanley c. walters mount hood pennsylvania john rick penn square, reading rhode island phillip allen dorrance st., providence vermont zenas h. ellis fair haven virginia dr. j. russell smith round hill washington d. h. berg nooksack west virginia dr. j. e. cannaday box , charleston members of the northern nut growers association arkansas * drake, prof. n. f., univ. of arkansas, fayetteville california crafts, dr. j. g., martinez thorpe, will j., divisadero st., san francisco university of california, berkeley canada gage, j. h., flatt ave., hamilton, ontario gellatly, j. u., west bank, b. c. ryerse, arthur c., simcoe, ont. watson, dr. w. v., st. george st., toronto china * kinsan arboretum, n. szechuan road, shanghai connecticut bartlett, francis a., stamford deming, dr. w. c., owen st., hartford hilliard, h. j., sound view * montgomery, robt. h., cos cob * morris, dr. robert t., route , box no. , cos cob pratt, george d., jr., bridgewater williams, dr. chas. mallory, stonington district of columbia foster, b. g., g st., n. w., washington greene, karl w., ridge road, n. w., washington * littlepage, t. p., union trust bldg., washington mitchell, lennard h., california st. n. w., washington reed, c. a., dept. of agriculture, washington stiebling, mrs. anna e., monroe st. n. w., washington taylor, d. w., the highlands, washington von ammon, s., bureau of standards, washington england spence, howard, the red house, ainsdale, southport illinois anthony, a. b., sterling armstrong, mrs. julian, witchwood lane and moffet rd., lake forest bontz, mrs. george i., route , peoria brown, roy w., spring valley colby, arthur s., univ. of illinois, urbana frey, frank h., room lasalle st., station, chicago gibbens, geo. w., route , godfrey knox, loy j., first nat'l bank, morrison morton, joy, lisle meyer, dr. r. c. j., hillsdale riehl, miss amelia, godfrey, ill. spencer, mrs. may r., w. decatur st., decatur university of illinois, urbana indiana betz, frank s., (personal) betz bldg., hammond isakson, walter r., route , hobart tichenor, p. e., merchants bank bldg., evansville wilkinson, j. f., rockport iowa adams, gerald w., route , moorehead boyce, daniel, route , winterset harrington, f. o., williamsburg iowa state horticultural society, des moines luckenbill, ben w., wapello snyder, d. c., center point snyder, s. w., center point schlagenbusch bros., route , fort madison van meter, w. l., adel williams, hugh e., ladora kansas orth, w. p., route , mount hope maryland close, c. p., college park lancaster, s. s., jr., rock point mehring, upton f., keymar porter, john h., the terrace, hagerstown purnell, j. edgar, salisbury massachusetts allen, edward e., perkins institute for the blind, watertown * bowditch, james h., tremont bldg., boston brown, daniel l., state st., boston bryant, dr. ward c., greenfield hale, richard w., state st., boston russell, newton h., burnette ave., so. hadley center wellman, sargeant h., windridge, topsfield williams, moses, tremont st., boston michigan bradley, homer, care kellogg farms, route , augusta burgardt, h., route , union city graves, henry b., forest ave., west, detroit healy, oliver t., care mich. nut nursery, route , union city kellogg, dr. j. h., manchester st., battle creek neilson, prof. james a., care mich. state college, east lansing stocking frederick n., cadillac ave., detroit minnesota andrews, miss frances e., clifton ave., minneapolis weschcke, carl, lincoln ave., st. paul missouri stark bros. nursery, louisiana windhorst, dr. m. r., univ. club bldg., st. louis nebraska caha, william, wahoo new jersey * jaques, lee w., waverly st., jersey city norton, w. j., scotland road, south orange new york abbott, frederick b., rd st., brooklyn bixby, mrs. willard g., baldwin bixby, willard g., baldwin ellwanger, mrs. w. d., east ave., rochester gager, dr. c. stuart, care brooklyn botanic gardens, brooklyn garber, hugh g., fulton st., new york graves, dr. arthur h., washington ave., brooklyn harman-brown, miss helen, croton falls hodgson, casper w., care world book co., yonkers holden, frank h., care r. h. macy & co., new york * huntington, a. m., e. th st., new york lester, henry, main st., new rochelle macdaniels, l. h., care cornell univ., ithaca * olcott, ralph t., box , rochester pickhardt, dr. o. c., e. th st., new york schlemmer, claire d., islip solley, dr. john b., e. th st., new york state agricultural experiment station, geneva steffee, john g., sixth ave., brooklyn tice, david, - saving bank bldg., lockport vanderbilt, george v., greenville * wissman, mrs. f. de r., w. th st., new york ohio fickes, w. r., route , wooster gerber, e. p., apple creek park, j. b., care ohio state univ., columbus walker, c. f., e. overlook rd., cleveland heights * weber, harry r., east th st., cincinnati oregon walters, stanley c., mount hood pennsylvania abbott, mrs. laura woodward, route , bristol baum, dr. f. l., boyertown deeben, fred, trevorton gable, jos. b., stewartstown gribbel, mrs. john, wyncote, p. o., box hershey, john w., downingtown hostetter, c. f., bird-in-hand hostetter, l. k., route , lancaster kaufmann, m. m., clarion leach, will, cornell bldg., scranton mathews, george a., route , cambridge springs miller, herbert pinecrest poultry farm, richfield paden, riley w., route , enon valley * rick, john, penn. square, reading sauchelli, v., koppers bldg., pittsburgh schmidt, a. g., nazareth smith, dr. j. russell, swarthmore theiss, lewis edwin, muncy wright, ross pier, west st st., erie * wister, john c., clarkson ave. and wister street, germantown zimmerman, dr. g. a., so. th st., harrisburg rhode island allen, phillip, dorrance st., providence vermont aldrich, a. w., route , springfield ellis, zenas h., fair haven virginia stoke, h. f., watts ave., roanoke trout, dr. hugh h., care jefferson hospital, roanoke washington berg, d. h., nooksack richardson, j. b., lakeside west virginia cannaday, dr. j. e., care general hospital, charleston hartzell, b. f., shepherdstown * life member constitution article i _name._ this society shall be known as the northern nut growers association, incorporated. article ii _object._ its object shall be the promotion of interest in nut-bearing plants, their products and their culture. article iii _membership._ membership in the society shall be open to all persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to place of residence or nationality, subject to the rules and regulations of the committee on membership. article iv _officers._ there shall be a president, a vice-president, a secretary and a treasurer, who shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting; and an executive committee of six persons, of which the president, the two last retiring presidents, the vice-president, the secretary and the treasurer shall be members. there shall be a state vice-president from each state, dependency, or country represented in the membership of the association, who shall be appointed by the president. article v _election of officers._ a committee of five members shall be elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating officers for the following year. article vi _meetings._ 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 executive committee 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 executive committee. article vii _quorum._ ten members of the association shall constitute a quorum, but must include two of the four elected officers. article viii _amendments._ 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 a copy of the proposed amendment having been mailed by any member to each member thirty days before the date of the annual meeting. by-laws article i _committees._ the association shall appoint standing committees as follows: on membership, on finance, on programme, on press and publication, on nomenclature, on promising seedlings, on hybrids, on survey, and an auditing committee. the committee on membership may make recommendations to the association as to the discipline or expulsion of any member. article ii _fees._ annual members shall pay five dollars annually, to include one year's subscription to the american nut journal, or three dollars and fifty cents not including subscription to the nut journal. contributing members shall pay ten dollars annually, this membership including a year's subscription to the american nut journal. life members shall make one payment of fifty dollars, and shall be exempt from further dues. honorary members shall be exempt from dues. there shall be an annual, non-voting, membership, with privilege of the annual report, for all county agents, agricultural college and experiment station officials and employes, state foresters, u. s. department of agriculture officials, editors of agricultural periodicals, college and high school students, boy scouts, girl scouts or camp fire girls and similar organizations, on payment of one dollar as annual dues. article iii _membership._ all annual memberships shall begin either with the first day of the calendar quarter following the date of joining the association, or with the first day of the calendar quarter preceding that date as may be arranged between the new member and the treasurer. article iv _amendments._ by-laws may be amended by a two-thirds vote of members present at any annual meeting. article v members shall be sent a notification of annual dues at the time they are due, and if not paid within two months, they shall be sent a _second notice_, telling them that they are not in good standing on account of non-payment of dues, and are not entitled to receive the annual report. at the end of thirty days from the sending of the second notice, _a third notice_ shall be sent notifying such members that unless dues are paid within ten days from receipt of this notice, their names will be dropped from the rolls for non-payment of dues. report of the proceedings of the twenty-first annual convention of the northern nut growers association (incorporated) september , and , cedar rapids, iowa the first session convened at o'clock at the hotel montrose, president neilson in the chair. the president: we have a long and varied program to present, and inasmuch as we have only one day for the discussions it will be necessary to make the best use of our time. first we will read letters and telegrams from members who are not able to come. the secretary: this letter is from dr. morris. "i was counting on getting out to the nut growers' association meeting this year and having the pleasure of seeing all of my old friends once more and getting the inspiration that fills the air at our meetings. i find it absolutely necessary, however, to cut off all distractions until i can get two books finished. work upon them has been delayed and the line of thought changed so often that it becomes a duty to confine myself to literary work, but i hope to be with you during our next twenty meetings." this telegram is from mr. bixby. "have mailed mr. snyder abstract of report on nut contest and paper on beechnuts. regret i cannot be at convention. crop of nuts here is better than ever before. best wishes for success of convention. willard g. bixby." the president: i am going to name two committees. the resolutions committee: mr. weber, mr. frey, dr. deming. the nominating committee: mr. frey, mr. snyder, dr. smith, dr. zimmerman, mr. hershey. professor herrick, secretary of the iowa state horticultural society, would like to make a few remarks. prof. herrick: i want to extend to you greetings from the iowa state horticultural society. mr. snyder knows that at our state fair we had a wonderful exhibit of edible nuts. it has just closed. we had six tables of good length, feet, well filled, in fact crowded. we never in the history of the society have provided enough room for the edible nuts. we hope this year at the midwest horticultural exhibit at shenandoah it may be possible for you to send your exhibits. there will be $ , in cash premiums. every one of you will receive an official premium list the first of next week. we have in southern iowa a great deal of land well adapted for this industry, and i assure you that the iowa horticultural society is very much interested in the spreading of the gospel. the president: we appreciate the invitation that professor herrick has given us. one of the inspiring factors in my interest in nut culture came to me some years ago when i came to the iowa state college to take graduate work. i went to des moines with professor maney to see the exhibit staged by mr. snyder. our first paper this morning is by mr. snyder, "nuts and nut growers of the middle west." mr. snyder: i will confine my remarks to the newer things that you haven't heard of. i will first note a shagbark hickory that stands in my own neighborhood, an outstanding variety we call hand. this is very much like the vest in shape and size and cracking quality. according to my tests, this variety cracks out % meat, and since it is a local variety and i know it is hardy and fruitful, i am placing it ahead of the vest for the middle west. it is certainly equal to it in every way and hardy and fruitful. while the vest hasn't yet matured nuts i am rather doubtful whether it will prove of any value here. there is one nut that i have been drawing attention to in the past few years, called hagen, that i have frequently said was the best nut growing in iowa. i have found one we call the elliott that appears to be just as good, so nearly like it that it is hard to separate them when they are mixed up. the elliott stands near oxford, a little south of here. the best cracker i have found in iowa is one called sande. this stands in story county, about miles north of ames. i found this on the tables at our state fair and the superintendent of the nut exhibit called my attention to it in particular. said it had been appearing there for a couple of years back, and that he thought it was very well worth our attention. i took up correspondence with the parties who were bringing it to the fair and they agreed to give me such information as i wanted about it, so i drove up there. when i got there i found they didn't own the tree. they had been stealing the nuts, putting them on exhibit and getting the premiums. they wouldn't take me to the tree because they didn't own it. they did tell me who owned it and i went to see him. i told him the circumstances. he just got red-headed at once. the idea of someone stealing the nuts and getting the premiums! we got right into it. the up-shot of it was i got some scions and some nuts. just a lick of the hammer and two halves drop out, don't have to pick them out, just roll out. it is an excellent nut. it was a rather young tree and very fruitful. very good quality with a little thicker shell than other varieties. we have another one, the ward. this is another % cracker, very excellent flavor. while it appears to be a small nut, after you have cracked it the meats look almost as large it has such a very thin shell. as you might say almost all meat. dr. deming: what do you mean by % cracker? mr. snyder: the shells and the meats when separated and weighed just balance each other. i have looked up another one. at present i haven't any authority for naming this variety. i am just calling it independence because of the community in which it is found. i will take this up with the parties that own the tree and get authority for naming it if they will consent. this is just a temporary name for a very excellent variety. it is owned by a party named geisel. they have a well-known nut that has been taking premiums in our midwest. this is another in the same grove that is just as good as the geisel. it is a very good nut, very fine flavor, good cracker and more than ordinary size. we have another one that stands in sight of my home, that is called dewees. this is a large tree that possibly is somewhat over a hundred years old, and its common crop is about five bushels of hulled nuts. it is a free cracker, excellent quality and very prominent in the locality in which the tree stands. there is another one that appeared in the midwest exhibition here in cedar rapids a few years ago, called the lynch. it was brought out by the boys and girls club and received a good deal of publicity at that time on that account. it is a thin-shelled nut and very good cracker but not of the highest eating quality. i hunted up the tree and got some scions from it and distributed them. i didn't use any of them myself, didn't think it good enough, the eating quality not good enough to suit me. it is an excellent variety however. dr. smith: something like the ben davis? mr. snyder: yes. dr. colby: the ben davis makes the profit though, dr. smith. mr. snyder: we have found another one that came out at the cedar rapids exposition. i am calling it the cline. i have no authority to call it that. the tree stands here in cedar rapids. i haven't had time to see it since two years ago when it was brought to my attention. if i am any judge of quality this is the finest hickory nut i have ever found. its eating quality is just ahead of anything i know of in the hickory line, and it's of fair size, a little above medium and a good cracker and a long keeper. i have frequently tested them. i only got a handful to start with. i have tested these time after time to see how long it was going to keep. the last time i tested it was this last spring and it was in excellent condition. there are a good many of our hickory nuts that turn rancid in six months. but a nut that keeps two years, and i don't know but what they are good yet, is going to be a very big item in hickory nut culture. dr. drake: have you kept these eighteen months in good order? mr. snyder: yes. mr. hershey: would soil conditions have anything to do with it? mr. snyder: possibly but i don't think so. the fairbanks, for instance, from different soils; i can see no difference in their keeping. mr. hershey: i know that is true of grapes that are grown in different sections. mr. snyder: i can see no difference in the fairbanks. in a few weeks' time it loses its edible qualities. i wouldn't care for it after it is a few weeks old. after it is thoroughly cured and dried, i don't think the fairbanks fit to eat. member: how about the stratford? mr. snyder: the original stratford was cut for fire wood in . just before it was cut it bore a heavy crop of nuts. yesterday i cracked one. i was right hungry and needed something to eat. i could eat them yet. it is a great keeper. i know it was four years old or over. member: how does it crack? mr. snyder: it is a good cracker and very thin shelled. the stratford is, i think, a hybrid of the shagbark and bitternut. it is very evident that it is a hybrid by the appearance of the nuts. but it doesn't have that property of the fairbanks of spoiling as it dries. the two nuts are very different in that. you will find a great range of quality in these hybrids. i believe that puts me through the list of hickories of which i have made a list. i have a number of others under observation that may in the future be of importance. i have several black walnuts that have made their appearance since our contest was completed. we now have one called the finney. this stands in marshall county right beside the northwestern railroad track. i sent this to professor drake of arkansas for testing and he reported it was a little better than thomas, so i think we have a variety there that is worth taking care of. i received the sample of nuts through a friend, i believe it was three years ago. i didn't see anything particularly attractive in the outside appearance of the nuts, so threw them aside and didn't test them until some months later. i passed it up at that time as not being better than the thomas, anyway, and some months later i cracked another one of them. i went on that way for the last year until this last fall. i had quite a quantity of them and every time i came across them i would sample them. finally i sent some of them to professor drake, with the results that i have mentioned. so now i have concluded that it is a very worthwhile variety and i have begun propagating them. dr. drake: did you call it by another name before? mr. snyder: well, i believe i called it brenton. dr. drake: that is the name i remember. mr. snyder: from the extreme north line of our state, a place called cresco, i received samples of a walnut. this i considered on its first appearance as being a worthwhile variety and i took it up with the party who sent it to me and we agreed to call it cresco. it is a very thin-shelled walnut, above medium size, excellent eating quality, and coming from so far north, and ripening and being of such excellent quality, i thought it was worth looking after and we began propagating it under that name. we have another one that made its appearance in the cedar rapids exposition, that has been named safely. this is of the ohio type of walnut and i believe will prove to be just as good, possibly better. the first samples received of this were ripened under unfavorable conditions and were not fully up to their best. i think this will be worth looking after, although i have not yet made an effort to propagate it or get scions. it is owned by a cousin of mine so i could get them. the best thing i have found in the state of iowa i have authority to call burrows. this is the finest cracking black walnut i have ever found. just a crack of the hammer--four quarters. you don't have to pick them out. it stands near the county line of marshall county, near a little town called gillman. the president: have you specimens of all of these? mr. snyder: yes, specimens on the tables. i believe this puts me through the list of nuts as far as anything new is concerned. i am quite an enthusiast about the black walnut. there is a double purpose in the black walnut here in iowa because our saw mill men tell me, and we have the largest manufacturing walnut mills here in iowa, they tell me the iowa grown walnut is the most valuable black walnut and they will pay the best price for it. this alone makes it valuable to plant black walnuts here in iowa. another thing, they are easily and quickly grown. our millers tell us that anyone who cuts down a walnut tree ought to be compelled to plant two. if we all followed this rule the supply would never be exhausted. we know the demand will not be. mr. hershey: couldn't we pass a law here, as they have in germany, that every man has to plant thirty trees before he can get married? the president: have you found a first class butternut? mr. snyder: none, except those that have been listed for a couple of years. the buckley is the best in the state. sherwood is next. those two are the best. the president: in michigan we are interested in getting a good butternut. mr. snyder: by the way, we have on the table a hybrid. this hybrid is a cross between the sieboldiana and the american butternut. we call it the helmick hybrid. we have propagated it for our own use at home. we have it under restrictions. i have six seedlings that i have produced from seed of this helmick hybrid that are crossed with the stabler black walnut. in these seedlings are wrapped up three distinct species, the stabler (juglans nigra), japanese heartnut (juglans sieboldiana cordiformis) and the american butternut (juglans cinerea). i know this is the result because when the helmick hybrid bloomed its cluster containing eighteen nutlets would have perished for want of pollen to fertilize them because it had produced no staminate blossoms of its own. there being nothing on the place with ripe catkins shedding pollen, i was watching them very closely for fear there would nothing else bloom in time to fertilize the nutlets, and the first thing to offer ripe pollen that could be used was the stabler walnut, from which i gathered a handful of catkins and carried to the helmick hybrid and dusted pollen over the cluster of nutlets and succeeded in saving six out of the cluster of eighteen. these matured into full grown nuts which were saved and each of them grew into a nice young seedling. i know beyond question that these seedlings represent the three distinct species mentioned because there was nothing furnishing pollen with which to fertilize them except the stabler walnut. the president: the work that mr. snyder and dr. drake and dr. deming are doing in locating good varieties of nuts is certainly very valuable. if we had the whole country hunting for good nut trees we could tell what the country is producing. we have a great many valuable varieties throughout the united states and canada. our next speaker is professor t. j. maney of the iowa agricultural college at ames. i am very much pleased that the experiment stations in some of the states are actively interested in the propagating of nut trees. new york, iowa and ohio are doing work along this line and no doubt other experiment stations are interested. in quite a number of them there is a great lack of interest, and perhaps i should say of knowledge, about nut culture in general. prof. maney: during the past six or seven years, during our regular annual short course, we have been having a week for a nut short course and we have been very fortunate in having mr. harrington and mr. snyder there. that work has already resulted in the establishment of a nut project that will continue to grow during the coming year. you recall that mr. neilson revived the subject of paraffin. i notice that he always wound up with a plea that someone invent an apparatus to apply the paraffin. what i have here is an answer to the plea. this apparatus consists of a two and one-half inch pipe with a spray nozzle attached. the idea is to put into the tube hot paraffin and apply pressure here, and then with a plumber's blowtorch keep the paraffin heated. the handle is covered with asbestos. i didn't spend much time in working this up but i think it works fairly well. there is one difficulty in perfecting your apparatus to apply hot paraffin, and that is the fact that when it comes out it immediately congeals into a sort of snow. you just can't atomize hot paraffin. the only way is through air pressure. i used this on some dahlia roots quite successfully. this did the work very well in that case and i think for applying it to rose roots and plants of that kind it may work quite successfully. another thing i thought might be of interest to you is some work in grafting by the use of paraffin. last year i was interested in grafting some apples. on july th i made some regular cleft grafts, using the green wood as the scion after removing the leaves. dr. smith: wood of that year or previous? prof. maney: that year. the entire graft was covered with paraffin. this picture was taken on september th, a period of days later, and during that time growth was inches. i am sure it can be worked very successfully with different fruit trees. it is especially valuable in replacing dead grafts. these grafts went through the very severe winter very successfully. i am sure i appreciate this opportunity to appear on the program, and i hope to continue with the work at ames and perhaps appear at future dates. mr. weber: may i ask how hot it got that summer? prof. maney: oh, the temperature was up to , and . mr. weber: what kind of paraffin did you use? prof. maney: just ordinary paraffin. mr. weber: did you notice any bad results? prof. maney: no, apparently no ill effects. mr. weber: paraffin has a tendency when it gets extremely hot to run down and kill the graft. dr. smith: what would be the effect of putting in some beeswax? prof. maney: i think that would be all right. mr. weber: paraffin this summer killed two nut grafts for me. dr. zimmerman: are you sure it was the paraffin? i have finally come to the conclusion that when the sun gets hot enough to melt the wax it will kill the graft anyway. mr. weber: i noticed the heat did not kill another one that i did not use the paraffin on. previous years it simply scorched the tree. dr. zimmerman: the heavy coating of wax protects a little from the heat, i thought. mr. harrington: in very hot weather i put heavy paper around the graft and a handful of dirt. that protects it from the sun. mr. weber: i have tried that. the president: i am very much interested in seeing professor maney's spraying apparatus. we also tried to spray and got something like snow. we also found that the wax congealed in the nozzle. last spring i almost blew my head off. i am now experimenting with a material which acts as an emulsifying agent on waxes and resin. i have developed a formula, paraffin pounds and pick up gum one pound. i dissolve the emulsifying agent and heat the wax. this solution can be sprayed on trees without difficulty when it is warm. when it gets cool, however, we have to heat it again. i hope to have some definite reports to make as to the feasibility of this later on, and possibly on conifers as well. we have been up a tree when it came to spraying wax and we have been at a disadvantage in transplanting conifers. regarding the comments as to paraffin wax melting, i do have a little difficulty on the south side and sloping to the northeast. the sun's rays would be rather direct. i think the suggestion mr. weber made was very good. two-thirds paraffin and one-third beeswax. possibly we would have to increase the beeswax where trees are growing on a southern slope. dr. zimmerman: i found the hottest place inches above the soil. i shade grafts with a piece of shingle. the president: the principle in grafting trees is to regulate the moisture and the temperature factors. as a means of regulating the moisture i use german peat around the graft. mr. hershey: have any of you had experience in grafting on the north side of the stock? i found that quite a good scheme, so that the heat doesn't kill the grafts. we grafted on the th of june this year. the president: professor drake has done a good deal of work in locating good varieties of black walnuts in the southwest and i am sure he will be glad to tell you what he has found. let me repeat what i said about mr. snyder's work, that the most valuable work that is being done is the discovering of new varieties of nuts. prof. drake: i shall talk about the methods i use in scoring the black walnut in arkansas. color of kernel. the way i have determined that is to first make a measuring scale. get walnuts whose kernels show different color. the lightest i call number one. it is quite easy to divide them into five different groups. i feel that this grading can be pretty well done, except possibly for the flavor, all the way through. applying this method to different nuts, here is the result that i have obtained with the best ones: i find the stabler to rank first, with total grade points of . . for making the test with the stabler i have had stabler nuts from a number of different places, snyder, reed, university of missouri and nuts i have grown myself. the next two will be a surprise to you and i feel quite sure that after further tests they may grade differently. the next highest is the ogden. i believe it was found in kentucky in or . score of . . the ogden nuts that i tested were thoroughly dry and gave an excellent cracking quality, and i expect the test would go down a little bit had they not been dried so long. i am sure, however, the ogden is an excellent cracker. i don't know just how the flavor of the ogden will be. i have some feeling that the flavor will not be as good as some. the third is the adams. this one comes from west park in the northern part of iowa. it is one that runs very high in kernel per cent. this gives a total score of . . while i think of it, there is one point about the method that i use for scoring that is better, i think, than some other methods that have been used, that it gives credit for even a part of a per cent. you will notice that i run these out to the third point. i can't say about the adams color. that nut also had been thoroughly dried and i think the cracking quality shows better than it ordinarily would. i think that is a variety that we should keep in mind and especially that it should be used for crossing because of high percentage of kernel. the fourth comes from arkansas, that i have called the "walker." scored . i suppose we can't claim it entirely from arkansas, although it was planted there about years ago. the owner moved there from illinois. there are five or six trees, two of them with excellent nuts. the chances are that the score of this would be lowered somewhat if it were more thoroughly tested. last year when i tested i only got four. he told me that was almost the most complete failure he had ever known for that tree. of those four only two were good. one of them i tested before it was thoroughly dry and i felt that i couldn't test it properly. the other nut i tested was larger. it weighed about grams. i am sure that size will be cut down when we can get the nuts from a normal crop. this year the tree has a good crop and it can be tested more thoroughly. the next on the list is the burrows. i think i only had two nuts for testing this variety. so this score may be somewhat altered. i always try to test at least ten nuts, and another year if i can get a sample i will test them again. the score was . . following that is another one of mr. snyder's, the finney, from iowa. that scored . . after that comes our old standard variety, the ohio, . . thomas . . following the thomas is a variety, the bohanan, with a score of . . after that the asbury, . ; and the iowa variety from iowa that john rohwer sent me, . . the iowa is a little bit better cracker than the rohwer. not quite as high percentage of kernel. slightly larger nut i believe. the iowa nut is a little rougher on the outside than the rohwer. following the iowa is the edgewood from arkansas. this is another of those trees, the parent tree coming from illinois, score . ten eyck, score . . knapke, score . . very good producer. following that is the arkansas variety from my home with a score of . . the next variety comes from british columbia, the attick, . . as i have said, of some of these i have not had sufficient nuts, and some of them are more thoroughly dry than others. i am sure there will be some shifting in place. however, for the better walnuts that i have and the ones i have plenty to test with i feel that there will be little change from where i have placed them. i have made another grouping. for large size the walker scores the highest with . points. now as to cracking quality, the throp %, ogden . %. member: what did you crack them with? prof. drake: with a hammer. dr. colby: do you use any fertilizer in your orchard? prof. drake: i have some. at first i didn't but afterwards i used some barn yard manure and some nitrate. of late years i put some bone meal around the roots when i plant them. the president: any further discussion of this interesting paper? dr. deming: do you use the hammer in cracking entirely? prof. drake: yes, sir. dr. deming: why do you not use the mechanical cracker? do you not think the commercial value of the black walnut is best tested by using a mechanical cracker? it will never be cracked with a hammer. prof. drake: that point is well taken. in the first place i didn't have a commercial cracker but plenty of hammers. another thing, the commercial crackers are being developed. unless we all try them out in the same way there would be no value in it. i thought it would be more accurate to use a hammer. the president: professor a. f. yeager is unable to be with us. therefore, dr. colby will read his paper. nuts in north dakota _by prof. a. f. yeager_ the growing of nuts in north dakota has hardly been considered as a possibility even by the average amateur up to the present time. nevertheless, evidence is gradually accumulating that some varieties of nuts can be grown as an addition to the home orchard in nearly all parts of the state. we have no native nut plants except the hazel and our native hazel seldom produces nuts in any quantity in the wild state, hence the possibility of growing them for profit undoubtedly lies some distance in the future. nut bearing plants which have been introduced with success are the butternut and the black walnut. trees of these two species are to be found in small numbers at various points in the state and have in practically every case been grown from nuts planted where the trees are now standing. in the past many failures have been reported with trees grown from nuts sent up from the south. such trees as are now standing are the hardy remnants of considerable numbers of seedlings started, most of which have fallen by the wayside because of the rigors of our climate. black walnut trees raised from seed produced on trees which have reached fruiting age in north dakota seem to possess the necessary hardiness. as to whether the named varieties of walnuts would be a success in this territory remains a question. their culture has not been attempted. butternuts are naturally a more northerly species than black walnuts but have not been so widely planted in north dakota. nevertheless there is a sprinkling of bearing butternut trees in some of the pioneer groves. seed from these was planted at the experiment station in the fall of . the seedlings prospered and some of them bore nuts in , one tree producing nuts that year. since then there has been a crop each year and the trees have been making a growth of a foot or more per year. this would seem to indicate that the butternut has possibilities, at least as a producer of nuts for home consumption. both the black walnut and butternut are subject to damage by late spring frosts which kill off the opening blossoms. while it is not likely that north dakota will be a commercial nut growing state, we can look forward with confidence to the time when a group of nut trees will be included in the grove which will surround each north dakota home. * * * * * the president: butternuts and walnuts grow in manitoba. i know of trees. member: mr. gall reports that heartnuts have endured the winter in northwestern manitoba. the black walnut has grown quite well in swift current. that part of canada is much colder. the president: our next paper is a report on the nut contest. mr. bixby had planned to be here, but was unable to come. has dr. deming anything to offer? dr. deming: i have no very definite report to make on the nut contest, because it wasn't finished until about two weeks ago and i haven't had time to work on the results. the important part of the report is the result of mr. bixby's scientific calculations on the properties of the nuts, and this will be published in the report. the contest this year cannot rank in extent and value with the contest of . one reason for that is that the nut crop last fall seems to have been everywhere very deficient, and in fact many contestants sent in nuts from the year before. the second reason is that we didn't get good advertising. i don't know exactly why we didn't. at first i didn't think we were going to get any nuts at all. but belated notices in the fruit grower, and especially in the farm journal, finally waked up a lot of contestants. possibly a third reason why the contest was not as successful as in was that there were so many kinds of nuts for which prizes were offered. i think that is rather confusing. i think we had better do as in and offer a prize for a single nut each year, rather than prizes for all the nuts each year. take one nut one year and another nut the next year, and so on, and then begin over again. at the same time i think we ought to have a standing prize for nuts of each species, that is for any better than those we already have. we have such a prize for the hickory, the bowditch. at different times other members have offered prizes for other species. i would be glad to offer another standing prize of $ for some other nut in addition to mr. bowditch's for the hickory. three hundred eighty-eight people sent in nuts. that was many fewer than in . people wrote letters but never sent any nuts. there were different black walnut specimens this year and in . we had some very valuable black walnuts. some fully equal to, if not better than, those we already have. very few came from the south. more came from the northern states. wisconsin, minnesota and michigan were well represented. we got different specimens of butternuts. some of these were very good. most of them were from the north, vermont and wisconsin leading. we got specimens of shagbark hickory, shellbarks and others, perhaps hybrids or other species. there was one california black walnut and only beechnuts, very small indeed. not worthy of propagation at all. there were a few odd nuts. only chestnuts were sent. i think that was because we did not get our publicity out soon enough. the chestnut crop matures earlier and in many instances the crops were out of the way. of these chestnuts, were japanese. when you first tasted them they tasted like potato but later developed a large amount of sweetness. there were american chestnuts. dr. zimmerman would call them small because his standards for the american chestnut are larger than my new england ideas. when the chestnuts first came in they were quite green. in a few days they hardened. if i dried them a little and then put them in boxes they began to mold and soon would be a mass of mold. it always seemed to begin at the butt end and would gradually spread over the whole nut and then get inside and spoil it. i washed some in boric acid, others in formaldehyde, and that hardened them. then i tried packing them in pulverized sugar and in salt. that extracted all the water so that in a few hours you could pour out half a glass of water. i packed them in peat moss and sand and treated them in various ways, and finally packed them in fresh hardwood sawdust. in this they kept in good condition. dr. smith: did you try sphagnum moss? dr. deming: no. another writer says an excellent thing is ground limestone. the president: did you get any japanese walnuts? dr. deming: we got only three, of no merit. member: the value of the nut tree is going to be determined by its vigor and its bearing qualities. if it doesn't produce any nuts it isn't going to be any good. mr. bixby and dr. deming have allowed nothing for the bearing qualities. dr. zimmerman: i am wondering whether it might be possible in some way to get these different factors together and judge the nuts from all angles. dr. deming: that, i think, is absolutely necessary. that is, to combine these two scales of judging, the tree characteristics and those of the nuts. ultimately we have got to allow a large factor for adaptation and productiveness. dr. zimmerman: a nut may crack well at one time and not so well later on. the moisture of the nuts is a factor. dr. deming: i don't agree with dr. smith that we should not use the mechanical cracker. dr. smith: we also want the hammer. we must crack them in the most favorable way. dr. deming: i think the hammer is of very little value. i think we should crack them all with a mechanical cracker. if you crack with a mechanical cracker, the two plungers come together by compression, which crushes the ends in and makes the sides burst out, thereby releasing the kernel. mr. hershey: with the mechanical cracker the shells burst away from the kernel. mr. frey: my experience is that the mechanical cracker outclasses the hammer. the walls of the nut shatter outwards and save the kernel, whereas with a hammer you mash the nut. i can't see the value of the contest in when the scion wood for those nuts can't be secured until . there is too much delay. i think if we would establish a permanent award for a better nut of any variety that is sent in we will make better progress. one nut that i know was put in the contest last year. the tree was cut down before they could even write for the scion wood. member: i got a shipment of chestnuts at one time. i took a ten-gallon milk can and put two inches of sawdust in it. i originally had pounds of nuts but sold some of them. i had or pounds left. i sealed them up tight, put the lid on, and a year from the next april i opened the can. the ones on the bottom had started to grow, they had tops of or inches long and they had a network of roots. but on top of those the nuts were in perfect condition. i shipped some of them to washington. i planted some of them. perhaps out of were in perfect condition and they grew. dr. smith: i would like to suggest another method of keeping chestnuts. pack them in sphagnum moss, put them in cold storage and freeze them solid. mr. hershey: mr. bixby digs a trench, plants the nuts in it, covers them with leaves and then with an inch or two of soil. the president: one of the officers of the bureau of plant industry, traveling in asia, took some seeds and dipped them in paraffin wax. i know it is an excellent method of keeping dahlia roots. we have another item on our program, "new members' experience and questions." possibly we have some new members here who have had experiences and would like to tell us of them. member: my first experience was with mr. snyder at ames. i saw on the program a nut lecture, so i went. for the past two years i have been attending the short course and heard mr. snyder lecture. a year ago this spring i got some scions from mr. snyder. four scions out of grew. it was the first time i had ever done any grafting at all. i used paraffin for grafting. the president: you got very good results indeed. this year i made a miserable failure. i believe i only got about % to grow. i hope you always have the same good luck. dr. smith: if he wants to keep his record he better not do any more grafting. dr. zimmerman: pretty near everybody this year reports a miserable failure. there must be some reason. dr. smith: it may be the drought. prof. drake: i only got three to grow. we had enough rain in the spring. dr. zimmerman: my opinion is that last winter was hard on wood. there was an early freeze in the central states. my observation is that the wood was injured through the winter. i think any scion wood was not very good. prof. drake: in our part of the country the temperature ran from to below zero. mr. hershey: if you notice in making the graft little pin points of black on the scions, you can almost bet on a failure. dr. zimmerman: some of the worst looking scions at times grow the best. you put them on and they all grow. another time you have beautiful scions and they all die. mr. harrington: there is injury you can't see with the naked eye. the wood was unripened when our winter set in. we had a very severe winter in our section here. my practice has been to store my scion wood in november. mr. frey: the cold weather in january wouldn't affect that. i am inclined to think the scion wood injury was done before winter set in. member: when is the best time to gather scion wood? mr. harrington says in the fall. i have been getting mine in february. is it better to cut the wood when entirely dormant, or would it grow better if cut when the sap starts in the spring? mr. harrington: i want my scions cut early. dr. smith: how early can you cut them? mr. harrington: when the scars from the leaves have dried up thoroughly. i have known them even in december to be still sappy. they didn't grow well that year. i often cut them the last week in november. mr. hershey: i would advise dr. smith not to cut too early in the fall. dr. zimmerman: from my papaws i cut scions in the fall. the president: from the comments made here this morning i have an opinion that the question certainly needs looking into. we could cut our scions earlier. dr. zimmerman: i wouldn't cut them at that time if i didn't have to. mr. hershey: i think that is a good admission. another thing, if you paraffin your scions you need cat's paws to hang on to them. dr. morris said last year, "melt your paraffin off with hot water." we tried it, got paraffin all over ourselves and cooked the wood. so then we scraped the paraffin off. dr. deming: dr. neilson has said if there are any new members we would like to hear from them. if there are no new members there should be some. our secretary sits at the table, ready and anxious to receive the dues and names of new members. i have always felt that we never treat new members with sufficient deference. i think we should ask them to talk about their experiences, to tell us what they have done, to tell us what they would like to do, to ask us questions, and that we should make them feel more at home. the president: that is very much to the point. dr. deming: why isn't the chestnut more appreciated in this country? why aren't the farmers acquainted with the possibilities of growing chestnuts here in the middle west? yesterday dr. zimmerman and i were at mr. harrington's and there we saw chestnut trees that would make your heart warm to look at. why can't the people of the middle west, where the chestnut is not native, be awakened to the great possibilities of growing the chestnut commercially? it is easy to grow. it bears early, and abundantly. what can we do to make it better known? i would like to ask dr. zimmerman. dr. zimmerman: chestnut growers say "we can't keep them." several years ago i got a hundred pounds of chestnuts down in illinois. i sold them out to friends of mine. in a few weeks those chestnuts were dry enough to use for roller bearings. that is the reason they don't like the chestnut. i think that hurts the chestnut business more than anything else. mr. hershey: i would like to ask why insist on introducing the chestnut when we have the black walnut? i would just as soon eat bran as a chestnut. now the black walnut you can keep for two years. dr. zimmerman: in the last few years i have been in intimate contact with chestnuts. i don't see why the people here don't take them up. if you don't do it the people on the west coast are going to plant chestnuts and ship them to the eastern market. you people can raise chestnuts. the eastern markets are full of chestnuts from europe. what we need is chestnuts like the riehl's. the large european chestnuts are of poor flavor. take the varieties you can grow around here and send them to the east and you will get cents a pound for them. authorities tell us the trees will die off. i tell you you will all die off after a while. you aren't going to quit working because you are going to die off. within three years you will have trees that will bear. you may get from twelve to fifteen crops off of them before they die. so far as the food quality of the chestnut is concerned it is not a balanced diet, mostly sugar, but it is a splendid food. the difficulty is in keeping it soft. but it is not a difficult thing. cold storage will keep the chestnut in splendid shape for eating purposes. i would plant chestnuts and plant them now. sooner or later, if they die off, we in the east will be prepared to replace them, but for the present you will have the whole field east of the rocky mountains. i do not know of another opportunity as great as the chestnut. i just wish i could take acres of this land with me back to my rocky pennsylvania farm. dr. colby: in illinois the chestnut is not native and people don't realize that it can be grown. some of the speakers have mentioned the riehls. i want to mention the endicott place. mr. endicott tells me that it is increasingly difficult to supply the demand for his chestnuts. he sells his nuts sometimes a year in advance. developing of cleaning machinery and sorting machinery is going on apace. mr. endicott is interested in a sorting machine such as we use for apples. it is true we are going to get the blight out here sooner or later. meantime we are going to try to anticipate it by securing hybrids which are resistant and of good quality at the same time. mr. snyder: i would like to say a word as to planting chestnuts here in iowa, and especially here north. what has been said is true of the southern part of the state. we may grow varieties there that it would not do to plant in the northern part of the state. i think i can show you tomorrow if you visit my place that i have had considerable experience in planting chestnuts just as an experiment. the first planting mostly has gone out because of our climatic conditions. we have severe winters. we must be careful what varieties we plant and what stocks they are worked on when we do plant them. a few years ago a nurseryman wrote me he would like to go out of business and he had chestnut seedlings for sale. i bought his seedlings. i lost them all the next winter. why? because of their mixed parentage, european and japanese. they were not hardy, that was all there was to it. if the nurserymen here and farther north will be careful in the selection of the varieties they use, we can grow them. there are two factors, the stocks you graft on and the varieties you want to grow. mr. frey: in my old home place there are native chestnuts over years old. mr. snyder: if we had time i could take you to visit a grove of chestnut trees, planted by one of the oldtimers, possibly seventy years ago. i haven't been able to learn where the seed came from, evidently from some northeastern country. that is where i get my seeds. any trees that i have grown from seedlings are dependable trees. mr. herrick: one point should be carried in mind. while we think of des moines as located in central iowa, as far as temperature is concerned it is really southern iowa. the weather at ames, which is miles north of des moines, is far more severe. at des moines we can raise grimes golden apples. at ames it is almost impossible. i think that the reason more people are not planting more of these good varieties of walnuts and other species is that they cannot get the trees. and then they are very high priced. mr. snyder says that it takes a long time to propagate these trees. people don't like to pay $ . or $ . for a tree and then maybe not have it grow. as i understand, mr. snyder is about the only nurseryman in the state that furnishes nut trees, i mean new varieties. mr. boyce: would it be a good plan to plant black walnuts and grow the seedlings right where you want your orchard? mr. snyder: i think that is a very good plan. dr. colby: an excellent way if you can get a man to do the grafting. mr. boyce: what would be a reasonable price for grafting? dr. colby: mr. wilkinson has done considerable of that kind of work. prof. drake: i have been more successful in budding. mr. hershey: we can't in pennsylvania. in the winter the buds kill off. the president: mr. hershey's experience is like mine, about $ . a graft. i will say that if i give grafting demonstrations, as i have in michigan, i always tell my audience a little story. once upon a time there was a wild west show. an old indian chief on the outside proclaimed the merits of the show. he always finished by saying, "and now, ladies and gentlemen, if you go into this show i positively will not give you your money back." i generally tell my audience i positively will not guarantee anything. if none of the scions grow they can't come back and say, "i told you so." dr. deming: i would like to have our president talk about methods of making the transplanting of nursery grafted trees safer for the purchaser. dr. neilson has had a good deal of experience in setting out nursery stock. the president: quite naturally in the progress of time we gain some knowledge by experience. sometimes that experience is very costly. we remember it more clearly. during the past year i made a few observations on transplanting nut trees. some of you who were at ontario in and new york last year, heard me speak of doing it by means of paraffin coating which has been successful in quite a wide area of this country and in canada. the difficulty was that during very hot weather the wax melted and ran down and did some injury on the south side of the tree. i did notice that if you inclined the tree to the southwest just a little there was very little injury, whereas if they leaned to the northeast there was injury. i would suggest this, that if you are planting on southern slopes and happen to be in localities where there are very high temperatures, you use - beeswax and - paraffin. beeswax has been proven to be quite safe over wounds and trees in general. this treatment has been used over a very wide area, in states and canadian provinces. we have information at hand on , roses, , pecans, , apples. we have had very few complaints from the people who have used this treatment. because of that, i firmly believe that the principle of applying a protective coating to the upper part of the tree and branches is correct. i have made another observation in protecting roots against devitalizing. certain kinds of trees, hickory, walnut, are very susceptible to injury to the roots. i tried paraffin on the cut roots and got very good healing. i found that wherever i packed moist peat around the roots there was very good response. last spring i took about seedling black walnuts and put half in good loamy soil, the other half in moist peat. i got very good results from those packed in peat. in the loam in weeks not one scion had grown. i took those pots and took out the dirt. i later planted them in a cold frame in peat and practically every one of those walnut trees grew. i believe that the peat had some beneficial effect. mr. frey: from the time the nut tree is dug until it is planted the nursery should pack it so it will keep moist. the purchaser should not let the wind or sun strike it. i had some trees sent from texas to oklahoma. the fellow who did the work heeled them in improperly. every tree died. keeping the roots moist is half the problem. the president: very important indeed. mr. gellatly shipped heartnut trees to augusta. these trees were packed in moss and paraffined. they arrived in excellent condition. the trip took six weeks and they travelled , miles. dr. smith: what season? the president: about the first of april, and arrived about the middle of may. dr. deming: could you make an artificial ball in which the roots of a plant could be packed? say peat moss, which is light, and send that to the customer and tell him to plant it just as it is. the president: i think possibly that can be done. the wedge nursery of albert lea, minnesota, have a method of packing roses in sphagnum moss. they soak this material very thoroughly, embed the roots in it, and outside this material they apply some water-proof covering. afternoon session, september th, the president: at our last meeting in new york, dr. deming suggested that it might be well worth while to make a study of the japanese walnut. his suggestion appealed to me, for i have been interested in the occurrence and distribution of this species. i have not had an opportunity to travel very widely on this continent, so i have had to depend partly on the observation of other people. i sent out a questionnaire to members of our association and horticultural experiment stations throughout the united states and got a good response. some notes on the japanese walnut in north america _dr. j. a. neilson, michigan_ the japanese walnut, juglans sieboldiana, and its varietal form cordiformis, were said to have been introduced into america from japan about by a nurseryman at san jose, california. from this and other subsequent introductions a considerable number have been grown and distributed in the united states and canada. a recent inquiry by the writer brought forth some interesting data relative to the occurrence and distribution of this species in north america. this inquiry shows that it has been widely distributed and is reported in the following states: arkansas, arizona, alabama, connecticut, california, delaware, illinois, iowa, indiana, kentucky, massachusetts, missouri, minnesota, maryland, maine, mississippi, michigan, new jersey, new york, new hampshire, ohio, oregon, pennsylvania, rhode island, vermont, virginia, west virginia, washington, and wisconsin. no reports were received from south carolina, louisiana, montana, north carolina, north and south dakota, idaho, georgia, colorado, kansas, texas, and wyoming, and negative reports were received from florida, new mexico, nevada, oklahoma, and tennessee. in none of these states is the japanese walnut abundant in the same degree as other kinds of nut trees, but in some states it was reported more frequently than in others. it occurs more abundantly in pennsylvania, new york, connecticut, new jersey and delaware than in other states. in canada it has been reported from prince edward island, nova scotia, new brunswick, quebec, ontario, manitoba, alberta and british columbia. in ontario it is found occasionally from windsor to the quebec boundary and from lake erie to north bay. there are several fine large trees in southern ontario, some of which are worthy of propagation. many of the trees in ontario and other eastern provinces grew from nuts distributed by the writer several years ago. for five years in succession the writer bought the crop from a large heartnut tree near jordan station, ontario, and distributed the nuts all over canada to those who were interested. more than twelve thousand nuts were thus distributed and i know from observation and reports that seedling trees are now growing from the atlantic to the pacific. i am going to tax your credulity to the utmost and tell you that one of my correspondents reports heartnut trees growing in the peace river area of northern alberta. i have no recent report from my friend but i know that the trees came through two winters in that far northland. possibly in the days to come a superior seedling or a hybrid may be found in these numerous seedlings which will be worth propagating. some of these trees have already borne nuts and many have made very good growth. the japanese walnut has also been reported from new zealand and several states in australia, england, france, germany and other european countries. _climatic adaptation_ from the foregoing it can be seen that this species of walnut has been widely distributed and is now growing in countries with a wide temperature range. reports are on hand which show that the trees have endured temperatures of below zero f. to ° above zero. from this it need not be assumed that all japanese walnut trees will stand great extremes of heat and cold, for experience shows that they will not. it does show, however, that some individuals at least have marked hardiness to cold and heat and have endured temperatures much greater than the english walnut. the best results in growth and fruitfulness have been obtained in those regions of moderate rainfall where the apple and sweet cherry grow successfully. _soil requirements_ the japanese walnut seems to thrive on many soil types ranging from a heavy clay to a light sand, but does best on what is popularly known as a well drained fertile sandy loam with a friable clay subsoil. it will not do well on strongly acid soils and those who have planted trees on such soils should apply lime in liberal quantities. poorly drained soils or very light soils deficient in humus are also not suitable. _tree and nut characteristics_ the japanese walnut has several characteristics which make it desirable as an ornamental and as a nut-bearing tree. it grows rapidly, has large numerous luxuriant leaves which give it a tropical effect, and usually has a symmetrical outline. it bears early, sometimes in the second year from the graft, yields heavily and is often reported to yield regularly. a heartnut tree owned by mr. sylvestor kratz of jordan station, ontario, produced nearly seven bushels of husked nuts one season and mr. j. w. hershey reports a yield of ten bushels of heartnuts from a tree near olney, pennsylvania. he also reports a cash return of $ . from one tree grown by mr. killen of felton, delaware. these were heartnuts and sold for to cents a pound. mr. j. v. gellatly, westbank, b. c., obtained a yield of ten bushels of unhusked nuts from a heartnut tree of medium size. the yields from the common type, j. sieboldiana, have also been heavy, but since no figures are available no definite statements can be made. in the japanese walnut as in other species of nuts there is marked variation in nut characteristics, such as size, thickness of shell, cracking quality, extraction quality and flavor of kernel. heartnuts have been found ranging from / in. to - / in. in length. the largest heartnut i have ever seen came from gellatly brothers of westbank, b. c. this nut was - / in. long by - / in. wide and was fully in. thick. i also located a fine sieboldiana type which is said to be the largest found up to date. (see specimens in jars). some of these good kinds possess excellent cracking and extraction quality. mr. john hershey of downingtown, pa., reports several good easy-cracking strains not yet introduced and mr. gellatly has one called o. k. that can easily be cracked with a hand nut cracker. i have also found one that i believe is a hybrid and which has excellent cracking and extraction quality. these specimens came from a seedling heartnut grown by mr. claude mitchell, scotland, ontario. the nuts are longer than any heartnut found so far. the kernels in many cases fall out whole or in halves. this strain received the o. k. of prof. reed and dr. deming and as you know when a nut gets by either of those gentlemen it has to possess some merit. the good result produced by nature without any assistance from man suggests the possibility of getting even better results from parents of superior characters. i believe the japanese walnut offers interesting possibilities in breeding with the butternut and possibly the black and english walnut. definite plant breeding work should be done with these species as well as with all other species of nuts. the japanese walnuts generally grow fast but usually do not attain a large size. in most cases the trees rarely grow more than feet tall with a spread of to feet, but occasionally specimens attain much larger size. the writer saw a heartnut tree on mr. kratz's farm near jordan station, ontario, which had a trunk diameter of ft., a height of ft., and a spread of ft. near st. thomas, ontario, there is a large sieboldiana tree which is ft. across the top and is about ft. tall. mr. ricks reports a huge tree near olney, pennsylvania, that is ft. across the top and ft. tall and dr. deming reports a tree with a spread of ft. _varieties_ through the efforts of the northern nut growers association members several good varieties have been found and propagated. these varieties have been widely distributed but have not been extensively planted. the results are variable as might be expected, but generally the reports are satisfactory. in the eastern states the following varieties seem to do reasonably well: faust, bates, ritchie and stranger. in british columbia, messrs. j. u. and david gellatly have located several very good strains such as gellatly, o. k., calendar, walters and rosefield. these newer varieties from the west have several good characters and are worthy of a wider trial in the east. _diseases and insect pests_ in common with most other forms of plant life the trees are susceptible to some insects and diseases. reports of injury by the walnut weevil, conotrachelus juglandis, and also by codling moth larvae have been received. in some cases the foliage is attacked by rust fungi and some injury is also done by leaf spot. prof. reed reports witches broom attacking some trees in the south and one case of this disease was observed by the writer in ontario on a siebold-butternut hybrid. notwithstanding these defects it is believed that the japanese walnut is less attacked by disease and insects than most other species of nut trees. _opinion of observers_ the opinion of a group of people on the merits or defects of a tree species or project is worthy of consideration. in order to get an expression of opinion as to the merits of the japanese walnut the following question was asked: do you consider the better strains of japanese walnut worthy of more extended planting? the answers to this inquiry were numerous and varied. the great majority were in favor of increased plantings but a few were somewhat dubious. nearly every one agreed that the species possessed marked beauty and was worthy of more extended planting as an ornamental. some gave preference to the nuts over the black and english but the majority thought the quality was not quite up to the standard of these two species. some observers reported favorably on the heartnut for culinary purposes and as an ingredient of ice cream and candy. with these latter comments i have had personal experience and can heartily agree. _summary_ from the evidence furnished by correspondents and from personal observation the good qualities of the japanese walnut may be summed up as follows: rapid growth, marked beauty of form and foliage, early bearing, productiveness, and more than average hardiness to winter cold. the nuts from superior trees are easier to crack than the butternut, hickory and black walnut, but not so easy as the pecan and persian walnut. these superior varieties yield nuts with a mild flavor which appeals to the taste of many people, but others think the flavor is not quite pronounced enough. this species crosses readily with the butternut and offers interesting possibilities for the plant breeder. the trees appear to be somewhat less susceptible to insects and diseases than other walnuts, but this may not always hold good. the defects of the japanese walnut most frequently mentioned are lack of flavor and pollination deficiencies. some trees produce staminate flowers too early for proper pollination and thus do not yield a crop unless another good pollinator grows nearby. susceptibility to sun-scald and to san jose scale are some other weaknesses. many of the trees commonly grown are undesirable because of small size of nuts, poor cracking quality and too mild a flavor. a careful consideration of the good and bad characters of japanese walnuts suggests the following program before the culture of this species can be placed on a sound basis. . a systematic and thorough search of the united states and canada for productive trees yielding nuts of large size, of good cracking and extraction quality and pleasing flavor. . the propagation and wide dissemination of these superior strains to members of the northern nut growers association and particularly to experiment stations where there seems to be a striking lack of information on this and other species of nuts. . systematic improvement by means of hybridization with the butternut and other suitable species. a program such as this would yield information of great value and would probably establish the culture of this species on a sounder basis than it now is. until this has been done the logical course to follow is to plant the best varieties in limited numbers in areas where the black walnut thrives and even in areas too cold for the black walnut. * * * * * the president: i have been connected with experiment stations and colleges for the past number of years but i was quite surprised to find such a general lack of knowledge of nut trees, and especially of this species. the members of the experiment stations who are here do not need to feel badly. my remarks wouldn't apply to them. member: any varieties of this that bloom late? the president: yes, mr. gellatly of west bank, british columbia, has a variety that blooms rather late. j. u. gellatly and his brother david have the best collection of japanese walnuts in canada, of heartnuts especially. professor reed was to give us a paper on harvesting and marketing. we have just heard that his paper will be here tomorrow. the next paper is by mr. f. o. harrington. thirty years' experience in the care of scionwood _f. o. harrington, williamsburg, iowa_ prof. colby wrote me some months ago asking if i would not write a paper for this meeting on "fifty years' experience in nut growing." i answered that i had not been particularly interested in nut culture until within a few years, and that i believed i could be of more use to our members by telling them something of the care of scionwood. i am going to tell you of my method used for thirty years constantly with only slight changes from the beginning. any man who has had any experience knows that it is important that scionwood should be carefully kept, that it should not be kept in air so dry that the bark would shrivel to any appreciable extent, or, on the other hand, a still worse condition, where it is so damp that the bark will loosen and the buds start. it is difficult enough in nut tree grafting to obtain reasonably fair success with the scions in perfect condition, where used in late spring, and it is something of a heart breaking proposition to try it with poor scionwood. to the nurseryman, with his winter grafting of fruit trees, the keeping of the scionwood long enough for his purpose in the cold of the winter season is no problem at all. it can be stacked in a pile in any cool cellar (not too wet) and covered over with leaves and blankets, or what not, and it is all o. k. for that period. it is a far different matter to hold small amounts of wood absolutely dormant through the changing conditions from winter to summer, and perhaps as greatly changed conditions of moisture through several months. and how shall this best be accomplished? ice house conditions are not, i think, generally very satisfactory. the right cold storage facilities might be satisfactory, but not readily accessible to most of us. i used to use boxes in the cellar, with careful packing with forest leaves and somewhat careful attention to moisture conditions, with penalties for lax attention always enforced. i know one nurseryman who, beside the regular nursery fruit tree grafting scion wood, kept many scions of nut trees. he had a deep outdoor cellar, or cave, which was always cool and not too dry. in this, in large boxes of sawdust, he kept his scions for spring use. just how much attention as regards moisture conditions he had to give this i do not know, but through his knowledge and experience with it i think his scions were usually in good condition. now i will quote to you on the care of scions from j. f. jones' paper on "the propagation of nut trees" in the report of the annual meeting of the northern nut growers association, page : "it is not in the selection of scions that the beginner usually fails to make his grafting a success, but in handling the scions. scions for grafting need not to be put in cold storage. in fact cold storage at the usual temperatures seems to be injurious to scions. cool storage, that is temperature maintained below the freezing point, is o. k., but in my experience this is not necessary. we store them in a cellar with a ground floor. this is damp and cool and the cases the scions are stored in are without bottoms and set on the damp cellar floor. the cases are lined with tar paper or light roofing, both the sides and the lid. the latter is hinged for ease of getting out scions as needed. no packing is used around the scions and they draw enough moisture from the damp ground below to hold them plump and in good condition. good scions stored in this way can be kept for weeks, or even months if need be, in excellent condition. nut scions for grafting are soon spoiled if packed too damp, even if kept at temperatures considerably below that required to cause the sap to flow in trees outside." again i quote from dr. w. c. deming ( report, page ), "top working hickory trees for the beginner": "scions packed away for any length of time are apt to go wrong, either by drying too much, by being too moist and starting to grow, or by heating, molding or rotting. a simple way to keep them is to dig a hole about three feet deep in the ground outdoors in a dry and sheltered place where water can never reach them, as under the back porch. have the scions in convenient lengths of one to two feet. wrap them in a bundle, or bundles, in a light tar paper, which helps to prevent mold. leave the ends open for ventilation. lay the bundles in the bottom of the hole and cover the top of the hole with an old carpet, or several newspapers. this description gives a general idea of the conditions under which scions should be kept. a man may vary it according to his own conditions, bearing in mind the principles. it is of vital importance to the success of grafting that the scions should be in good condition. the usual mistakes are in keeping them too wet and too much wrapped up. they should be examined frequently to see that they are keeping well." i have brought to your attention what have been considered the very best methods of keeping scionwood dormant and in best possible condition, and all agree that this is of vital importance for successful grafting. i will now call your attention to a better method than any of these, equally simple and inexpensive, and so much better in its action that scions may be kept by it two and three years in about the same condition as when severed from the parent tree; and to prove this statement i have here with me for your examination scionwood of several kinds of nut and fruit trees that have been kept in the harrington graft box one year and two years. at the present time i have no older wood in my graft box, for the simple reason that in the summer of the cover of the box, which had been in several years, rotted so that the top caved in, leaving it open to too much air, thus in time spoiling what wood was in it; and before putting in new wood in november i had to dig out the old box and replace with a new one. for wood will rot in time in the ground. i have had, at different times in the past, scionwood in my box three years old, much of it seemingly still good. i have not used any of it for grafting at three years, but i have with good success the second year old from cutting. i started experimentally with this method and box thirty years ago and there has not been a year since in which i have not used it, so you may readily understand that it is not an untried theory i am giving you. a much valued member of our society, j. f. jones of lancaster, pa., now deceased, wrote me at one time, "you undoubtedly have the best method of keeping scionwood known at the present day," and prof. close, head of the pomology department of agriculture, washington, d. c., made the same statement to me. my own box is located in an evergreen grove on dry land, but a shady position to the north of a building might answer fairly well. until the last eight years my box was for a long period, under and between two large butternut trees growing out in the open, except at the northward. in my opinion it is highly desirable to cut and store all scionwood before severe temperatures of the winter occur, preferably between thanksgiving and christmas because very severe freezing is liable to produce some little injury to the cambium layer, at least in some years, and if that injury be even very slight it will usually spell failure when used. the graft box, as i am using it, is about thirty inches long by eighteen inches deep and fifteen inches wide. it has a solid cover but has a six inch square hand hole through on top in front, covered by a loose board lying flat and about ten inches square and butting back against a cross bar nailed across the box two inches back of the doorway opening. no bottom in the box but it has three cross bars nailed across inside to hold all scionwood up two inches from the earth floor. any scion that touches the earth floor will either begin to grow or begin to rot. the box is entirely buried two to three inches under the ground except over the trap door. the spot must be perfectly drained. over the box a space about six feet wide by seven feet long is insulated from temperature changes with straw packing to height, in center, of three feet and protected from rain by a wood roof of boards, shingles, or prepared roofing resembling, a little, the old wedge tent. to get into the box burrow in under by pulling out the straw in front, but not too large a tunnel, and far enough back to get at the trap door cover where it can be slipped off and scions put in, the door replaced and all the straw crowded back into place. thereafter it is easy to slip the straw out and back to get at the box. in any case the packing is always carefully replaced, as the insulation of the earth near the box is of first importance. _graft box air conditions_ the small amount of moisture coming into the box from sides and earth bottom, in ordinary conditions, seems to be very exactly balanced by the very small amount of dry air that finds ingress to the box from outside through the straw packing and the trap door, although after very long wet spells, at whatever season of the year, it has been my practice to bring all the scions out into the open air and allow both the scions and the interior of box to dry out for as long as seems needful. the reverse condition, that of too little moisture, i have never had to take notice of. occasionally a little white mold in box and on scions may require a little open air treatment. no other condition seems to require any special care. i do not know how much larger a box than i have used would give equal satisfaction, for i have not demonstrated that feature, but obviously there must be at some point a limiting factor between the desired casualty of moisture and its opposite in the box. i am inclined to think that a box of double that capacity could safely be used, but advise that, where large amounts of scionwood are needed, more than one box be used until a test has been made with less valuable wood to find the size limit. * * * * * dr. smith: you speak of airing the scions. how long do you do that? mr. harrington: it depends on the conditions that require the airing. for instance a thaw in the winter, or a rainy spell. again in the summer a long rainy spell. in these cases i open up the box, maybe leave it a couple of hours. dr. smith: that kills the mold, two hours' exposure? you never sterilize the inside in any way? mr. harrington: i never have. it might be a good idea. the mold doesn't seem to affect the scions. experiments and observations in searching for best seedling nut trees _j. f. wilkinson, indiana_ searching for the best seedling began long before the coming of the white man to america, by indians and animals and the birds which store nuts for their winter food. this search has always been continued through the nut growing territory by the crows, squirrels and other birds and animals. go to a pecan grove early in the fall when pecans are ripening and there is no better evidence that a tree is an early ripener and produces a thin shelled nut than to see a bunch of crows feeding from it. the children living near a pecan grove in early fall will go where crows and birds are feeding to gather nuts that are dropped by them, and later, when all trees have ripened their nuts, these children have their favorite trees to gather from. i have seen the little ones around enterprise, of before school age, that would have a preference and could select from a basket of pecans the ones from their favorite tree. it is surprising how good their judgment is. the hunter also watches this in the early hunting season, going to the earlier ripening hickory and walnut trees, for it is there he will find the squirrels feeding. my own experience in gathering pecans dates back to my first school days, for there were scores of pecans trees near the school building, and as soon as i was large enough to climb a tree i spent many days each fall gathering nuts and soon had a fair knowledge of all trees for a radius of several miles around. the first trees of the now named varieties, the indiana and busseron, were located and brought to notice by the late mason j. niblack. in the summer of my life-long friend, mr. t. p. littlepage, while on a vacation, was camping on the ohio river near my home and was then very much interested in superior seedling nut trees. it was at that time, in a talk with him, that i became interested in the propagation of nut trees. at this time he took me with him to locate the "warrick" tree which stands on pigeon creek in warrick county, indiana. the next day he, r. l. mccoy and myself went to the greenriver grove where the major and greenriver trees were located. these are now being propagated and are considered outstanding varieties. also a trip was made to posey county, indiana, where the hoosier tree was located. this variety was soon dropped. from that time on r. l. mccoy and myself kept up a constant search until he left indiana in . since then i have done a lot of work along this line myself. this work is carried on by arranging with nut buyers and gatherers in the nut growing localities to be on the watch for any unusually good nut and to send in a sample, with the name of the owner of the tree, or the party gathering the nuts, so the tree may be located later. hundreds of samples have been received, the most of which were eliminated on examination of the nut itself. in the case of any that seem promising a trip is made to the tree for further information. each fall i receive word of trees producing a superior quality nut and in most cases from the description given, whether it be by letter or a personal talk with the informer, one would believe that a really worthy tree had been found. but generally on investigation it proves to be only just above a good average tree. a variety to be worthy of propagation must pass a rigid test. first, the nut must be of desirable size, thin shell, plump kernel, good flavor and good cracking quality, and last but not least the tree must be a good and regular bearer. accurate records on the bearing of these trees are very hard to obtain as they often grow in isolated places and their product is known to all in that neighborhood, and at least a part of the crop is often taken by some one who makes no report on the amount, so the best information to be had on this is often incorrect. when a promising tree is located the surest way is to visit it each fall for several years just before gathering time and see the crop on the tree. in almost every instance the size of a nut is exaggerated by the owner or informer unintentionally. they are honest but their imagination gets the better of their judgment. then their knowledge is often limited to their own trees and those of their neighbors, and the nut they prize may be the best they know of, but when compared with nuts from a greater territory is found to be of only fair size. the usual way one will describe the size of a pecan is to say it is as large as his thumb and about two thirds the length of his forefinger, and so thin shelled that two of them can easily be cracked in the hand with only a light pressure. i usually carry some sample nuts of the named varieties on these trips for comparison and it is seldom that the owner or informer of a tree believes any of these to be larger than those produced by his favorite tree until a comparison is made, and then he will often declare they are not as large this season as usual. this brings to mind many incidents which are very clear in my memory, one especially, when mr. mccoy and myself had heard of the kentucky pecan tree which is opposite grandview, ind. we went to grandview to get first hand information on this tree from one who had gathered the nuts from it and while talking to the party he was trying to tell us how large the nut was. i first took a busseron pecan from my pocket and he said it was much larger than that. i then resorted to some large southern ones none of which he thought were as large as his favorite. at last i produced a mcallister. after some hesitation he admitted it was larger than the kentucky. at this mr. mccoy gave a hearty laugh and told him his imagination had the better of his judgment. almost every one who owns any number of nut trees has one that is better than the rest, and naturally he prizes this one highly and wishes it propagated. i have traveled many hundreds of miles going to trees on reports of others, only to be disappointed. where the tree is found to be promising and no bearing record is obtainable, then an annual trip for several years is necessary to determine the bearing record. these trips require time, expense and labor for very often a part of the trip has to be made on foot. several years ago claude luckado, a professional pecan gatherer of rockport, spent several weeks one fall in a large pecan grove on the wabash river and brought back several samples of very promising pecans, one especially that i considered very worthy of further consideration. i reported this one to mr. c. a. reed, and a year or two later, when on a trip through this section in the fall, he suggested a trip to this tree. i arranged with mr. luckado to go with us to show us this tree, which is about seventy miles from rockport. we left there on the first traction car for mt. vernon, ind. from there we went in a ford touring car without any top and only one rear fender and drove over nine miles of the worst roads i ever motored over to the wabash river where we hired a motor driven mussel boat to take us four miles down the river. the remaining three miles we made on foot, reaching this grove about ten a. m., and searched until late in the afternoon without locating the tree. this day and trip i am sure mr. c. a. reed well remembers. two years later when roads and weather were more favorable, mr. luckado and myself left rockport one morning at four a. m. and drove all the way to the grove, arriving there early in the morning and searching until late in the afternoon and again without results. but when one takes into consideration that this tree is standing somewhere near the center of an unbroken forest of hundreds of acres in which it has been estimated there are near , bearing-size pecan trees, it is some task to locate a certain tree, though the search for this tree will be made again. it is very often that two or more trips are necessary to locate a tree and about nine times out of ten when the tree is found it is not considered worthy of propagation. many amusing incidents and not a few hardships are remembered in these past experiences. during the past three years i have made four trips into southwestern missouri and southeast kansas where there are thousands of native pecan trees growing. some trees in this section have been brought to notice which seem promising. i now have several promising new varieties under test and observation. the search for new and better varieties must be kept up, for no doubt there are yet unknown as good and possibly better trees than we have yet located. * * * * * dr. zimmerman: have you ever known anything about the marmaton, owned by j. e. tipke at rockwell, missouri? mr. wilkinson: i have a sample of it. dr. zimmerman: mr. tipke sent that to me. he told me it wasn't as good as others but he said it never missed a crop. the president: for the benefit of those who have not been down to mr. wilkinson's i would like to say you will find it very worth while to go there. in mr. wilkinson invited me to go with him through southern indiana, to see some of the large pecan trees he had there. when i got there i really had to take two looks to see the top of some of those trees. i found one tree that i would have to make three spans, in this manner, to get around. one tree is said to be feet tall and - / feet around. after visiting that section and seeing the very many interesting trees i concluded that mr. wilkinson really hadn't told all that was to be told. mr. wilkinson is a very modest person. when he tells you a certain thing you can make up your mind he is not exaggerating in the least. mr. wilkinson: many times in determining the crop we have to climb the tree. for instance, the major is feet to the first limb. it is very often necessary to climb the tree to make an estimate of the crop. the president: wasn't there one tree there with a spread of feet? mr. wilkinson: this was in greenview. that was the largest pecan tree known in indiana, feet to the first limb, just a straight column. the spread of the top was to feet. the wind blew the tree down. mr. hershey: that tree according to mr. wilkinson never missed a crop. while i was there they took me to a tree that had pounds one year. it was on a cheap piece of land that was bought for $ . . the year we were there it produced pounds, a light crop. another lady told us of a family that bought a piece of land that had about pecans scattered over it. that kept them in ample supply of money and they didn't have to do much more to make a living. the president: the next is a report by dr. j. h. kellogg. mr. kellogg is not able to be with us and dr. colby will now read it. more nuts--less meat _dr. j. h. kellogg, michigan_ the oft reiterated appeals to the american public to "eat more meat to save the livestock industry" and exploitation of a so-called "all-meat diet experiment" by stefansson and anderson, justify the presentation of the special claims of other foodstuffs, so that those who desire to regulate their eating in accordance with their bodily needs, rather than to meet the exigencies of business, even to aid a declining industry, may have a fair opportunity to judge comparative merits and draw sound conclusions based upon scientific facts, rather than misleading statements or the biased dictates of custom. if the american people are really suffering for lack of meat the efforts of the meat board of chicago should be regarded as a noble philanthropic effort to correct a national fault and to avert the dire consequences of the physical collapse which must necessarily result from a deficiency diet. but if it is not true that the average american eats less beefsteaks, chops, sausage, etc., than he needs, but as a matter of fact is actually suffering notable injury because of the great consumption of flesh foods of all sorts, then this persistent appeal to the american stomach to render economic service as well as to do its work of digestion, is not only a most extraordinary business anomaly but a grave menace to the health and welfare of the american people. the discussion of this question is germane to the objects of this convention, since nuts are the vegetable analogues of meats, and hence we cannot reasonably ask nor expect that more nuts will be eaten simultaneously with an increased consumption of meat. and so i shall undertake to give in this paper some of the reasons why we may properly urge the people of this country to eat more nuts and less meat. nut meats are the real and original meat. says prof. henry c. sherman, of columbia university in his admirable textbook, "food products": "to speak of nuts as 'meat substitute' is natural under the present conditions and reflects the prominence which has been given to meat and the casual way in which nuts have been regarded for some generations. looking at the matter in evolutionary perspective, it might be more logical to speak of meats as 'nut substitute' instead." evidently professor sherman believes, as do many other eminent scientists, that nuts were a staple in the diet of primitive man. professor elliot, of oxford university, in his work, "prehistoric man," calls attention to the fact that in the early ages of his long career, man was not a flesh eater; and the famous professor ami, editor of the ethnological history of north america, and other paleontologists, hold that man began the use of meat only after the glacial period had destroyed the great forests of nut trees on which he had formerly feasted. this, however, likewise agrees with holy writ. we read in genesis : : "and god said, behold i have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." so the real meat grew on trees and herbs. beefsteak and chops are poor substitutes for the real meat, which still constitutes the food of the human race, for with the exception of the anglo-saxon race and a few savage tribes, meat forms no substantial part of the human diet. the teeming millions of india and china, which constitute nearly half of the whole human race, eat practically no meat. the thronging millions of central africa thrive on corn, nuts, bananas, peanuts, manioc, sweet potatoes and melons. the same is true at the present time of the natives of mexico, central and south america, who find in maize, beans, potatoes and various tropical fruits ample and satisfying sustenance. the average american consumes pounds of meat a year; the japanese, four pounds; the people of south china less--practically none at all. taking the human race as a whole, meat fills only a very insignificant place in the world's bill of fare. bread is the staff of life, and nuts, the real meat, are gradually recovering their old prestige. it is only in comparatively recent years that meat has entered so largely into the bill of fare of civilized nations. major j. b. paget, a writer in the _english review_, calls attention to the fact that there has been in england a deterioration in stature and otherwise since the peninsular war, the reason for which he thinks "is not difficult to discover. we are the same race with the same climate and the same water. the only difference is our diet." according to wellington's quartermaster general's report, the rations of the men who fought the peninsular war under the iron duke, was one pound of wheat per day and a quarter of a pound of goat's flesh. but they had to catch the goats who ran wild in the mountains and so they seldom got that part of their ration. according to general sir william butler these soldiers were "splendid men with figures and faces like greek gods." and he adds with regret, "such men have passed away." major paget tells us that the spaniards were greatly impressed by the fine teeth of these english soldiers and especially of their wives who accompanied them. of their diet the major says: "these men before they enlisted were nearly all agricultural laborers who were brought up on a hard, wholemeal bread, garden produce, and apparently very little meat, as the consumption of meat was then _three pounds per head per annum_." it is to be remembered also that nuts form a substantial part of the diet of that large and interesting family of vertebrates, the primates, represented by the gorilla, the chimpanzee, the orang-utan and the gibbon, animals that do not eat meat, and that man is also a primate. no authority has ever offered any reason why man's diet should differ from that of other primates. man is not naturally a flesh-eater. infants usually evince a dislike for flesh when it is first given them. adults who use flesh foods are attracted by their flavors rather than by the nutritive elements which they supply. as a matter of fact, more and better food material is supplied by plant foods and at a far less cost. meats are notably deficient in vitamins, while nuts are rich in vitamin b, some, as the hazel nut, containing one-fifth as much as dry yeast. the precious vitamin a, found in only very meager amounts in meats, is found in the almond, the pine nut, coconuts and peanuts. the minerals, too, are found in better proportions and in larger amounts in nuts than in meats. the deficiencies in essential elements in a lean meat diet are so pronounced that when chalmers watson fed rats on meat they became deformed and sterile, their mammary and other sex glands degenerated and in three generations they ran out completely. watson attributes the steady and very pronounced lowering of the birth-rate in great britain to the increased consumption of meat in that country, which has risen in a little more than a century from pounds to more than pounds per capita, while the birth-rate has fallen until it closely approximates the mortality rate. the same thing has happened in the older sections of this country, especially the new england states. according to newburgh, of the university of michigan, the large consumption of meat in this country may be responsible for the high death rate from bright's disease, which is mounting higher every year. and the same is true of diseases of the heart and blood vessels, which now claim more lives annually than any other cause. he finds that when rabbits are fed meat meal mixed with flour in bread, they soon become diseased through changes in the bloodvessels and die of old age before they are a year old. hindhede, of copenhagen, a physiologist of world-wide renown, and food commissioner for denmark, in a notable paper read before the race betterment conference at battle creek, january, , remarked as follows: "one notices the terrible death toll in america due to bright's disease. i can no longer doubt that the high meat diet ruins the kidneys, especially in view of dr. newburgh's experiments, proving as they do that we may, with mathematical certainty, produce bright's disease even in rats by placing them on a high meat diet. "i feared that you might doubt my statistics, and might consider me merely another 'crank,' so i placed my figures before dr. sundwall, professor of hygiene of the university of michigan, and asked him to check their correctness. dr. sundwall and dr. newburgh recalculated the data, and authorized the publication." hindhede found the number of deaths per , from six causes--alcoholism, apoplexy, disorders of digestion, cirrhosis or hardening of the liver, nephritis (bright's disease), and diabetes--to be in this country and in denmark on a low meat diet, . he calculates that the adoption in this country of the danish diet, which would eliminate more than half our meats, would save the lives of not less than , of our citizens annually. and yet there are vested interests which continually clamor for the increased consumption of meats. fortunately the american people are becoming enlightened on the subject of diet and are using less meat and more green vegetables, with less bread and cereal breakfast foods and more milk and potatoes. nutrition researches are daily teaching us new lessons in dietetics, some of which are of commanding importance. one of the most significant of these is the necessity for taking account of the nature of the ash left by a foodstuff in the body. there are basic or alkali-ash foods and acid-ash foods. foods of the latter class when freely used cause acidosis. meats are high up in the list of acid-ash foods. it is for this reason that such animals as the lion and flesh-eating men have little endurance. the american team made a poor showing at the last international olympic meet, in the writer's opinion because of their excessive meat-eating. according to roosevelt, a vegetarian horse, with a heavy man on his back (teddy), was able to run down a lion in a mile and a half. thousands of short-winded, asthmatic people who are tired all the time and take cold at every change of the wind and think they are overworked because they find it so hard to work, are victims of acidosis from a heavy meat diet. if such persons will eliminate meat from their diet and add a pint of milk or buttermilk, they will experience an immediate physical uplift which, in some cases, will seem almost incredible. meat contains poisons, the natural wastes of the body. by its use, the labor of the kidneys is more than doubled. besides, fresh meats are always swarming with bacteria, and not the harmless sort that are found in buttermilk but the pernicious germs which have their headquarters in the colons of animals. meats always become infected with these filthy colon germs in the process of slaughtering and the longer it is kept the more numerous the colon germs become, for they multiply amazingly fast, and this is the reason the meat becomes more tender when "hung" for a long time. i was consulted not long ago by the manager of a large popular hotel who wanted suggestions about feeding his guests. i recommended special care in the selection of meats and the choosing of that which had been most recently killed. "oh!" said the manager, "my chef is on to that. he is very particular. you know our hotel meat usually has a beard of green mold on it an inch long. my chef is very careful. he never allows the beard to be more than a quarter of an inch long." another hotel manager told me they often had to cut away nearly half of the meat because it was so green and rotten. this is not pleasant information but it is simply commonplace, every-day fact. sausage, hamburger steak and "game" with a high flavor, are little if any better than carrion, and the poisons which such foods introduce into the body must all be detoxicated by the liver and eliminated by the kidneys, and thus they are worn out prematurely by overwork. "as sweet as a nut," is an old bon mot which hides no such repulsive picture. the nut, inside its germ-proof shell, is solid nutriment of the purest sort, the very quintessence of nutrient value, sunlight in cold storage. the nut represents food energy in its most delectable and concentrated form. from an economic standpoint, the nut leaves flesh foods so far behind that they are almost out of sight. experiments to determine the digestibility and nutritive value of nuts were conducted several years ago by the eminent professor jaffa of the university of california. his researches conducted over many months, using human volunteers as subjects, showed that nuts were well digested and created no intestinal disturbances. later experiments confirmed and extended the observations of professor jaffa. these experiments, conducted by professor cajori of yale university in the yale laboratory and in the laboratory of the battle creek sanitarium, have finally definitely settled the question. says professor cajori, with reference to his results: "a few years ago a rather extensive series of digestion experiments were inaugurated at yale university in an effort to settle the question of the indigestibility of nuts and also to test out some of the commercial nut products to find what effect roasting, boiling, and other processes that nuts are subjected to had on their digestibility. through the courtesy of dr. kellogg of battle creek, it was possible to follow up these experiments with a series at battle creek. it is of the result of these tests that i wish to speak." * * * * * "our digestion experiments show the following results: for protein digestion of nuts--almond %, pecan %, pine nut %, english walnut %, brazil nut %, and coconut %." "how, then, explain the undoubted discomfort that many people experience after eating nuts? i believe the explanation rests on the fact that our common american way of eating nuts is not the rational way. we would not consider topping off a heavy meal with eggs, meat, or cereals, or eating these in large quantities between meals without realizing that we were exposing ourselves to possible digestive discomfort. no more, then, can we expect to eat nuts, which are even more concentrated or "heavy" than meats or eggs, merely as an adjunct, without occasional discomfort. unpleasant results from so eating does not condemn the nut as indigestible; rather it condemns our mode of using that nut. further, we must recognize that a nut is a hard compact substance, and that unless completely masticated is not readily penetrated by the digestive juices of the alimentary canal. this was very well brought out in our experiments with dogs. the dog bolts his food and where there were large fragments of the nuts in the food they appear unchanged in the feces, while if the nut was ground fine before feeding it was readily digested. comparisons of nut butters and nut pastes with the whole nut also brought out this point. the completely comminuted nut butters showed consistently higher degrees of digestion than the whole nut." nuts should be used as a food staple, a major element in the bill of fare, rather than as a dessert, and special care must be taken as to thorough mastication, which is almost equally true of apples, bananas and numerous other fruits which possess a firm flesh. to overcome the objection that some people are unable to masticate nuts properly on account of defective teeth, and to insure the proper assimilation even if not properly chewed, the writer some forty years ago conceived the idea of converting the nuts by crushing and grinding into a paste, in other words, chewing the nuts by machinery. the peanut was first utilized in this way and rapidly won its way to public favor. now, many scores of carloads of that nut are eaten under the name of "peanut butter." almonds were next used, and were found to make a delicious nut paste, or butter, which by the addition of water and a little salt, became a most delicious cream. in the form of almond cream or milk nothing could be conceived in the way of nourishment which the body can more easily appropriate and more fully utilize. as regards the necessity for eating meat, this question was definitely settled by the inter-allied scientific food commission which met during the war, without doubt the most authoritative body on the subject of food and nutrition that was ever brought together. the question of a minimum meat ration was discussed by the commission, and it was decided to be unnecessary to fix a minimum meat ration, since, in the words of the commissioners in their report, "no absolute physiological need exists for meat, since the proteins of meat can be replaced by other proteins, such as those contained in milk, cheese and eggs, as well as those of vegetable origin." quite in line with this official action was an editorial in the _journal of the american medical association_, which states that "man's health and strength are not dependent on the assumed superior virtues of animal flesh as a dietary constituent." a supreme advantage of nuts over meats is that they are absolutely free from any possible taint of disease. those delectable foods, the walnut, the pecan, the hickory nut and the almond, are never the vehicle for parasites or other infections. nuts are not subject to tuberculosis or any other disease which may be communicated to human beings. speaking of his childhood diet, professor stephen mizwa says: "we had chicken, too, but i rarely tasted one unless i was sick and the chicken was sick." the voluntary eating of sick animals may be less common in this country than in poland, but the eating of the flesh of diseased animals may nevertheless be much more extensive. within the year there were slaughtered in the united states a hundred million beeves, sheep, pigs and goats, one whole beast for every man, woman and child in the united states. of this vast multitude of animals the federal inspectors examined nearly two-thirds ( , , ) and found one and a half per cent so badly diseased that the whole or part of the carcass was condemned. in other words, nearly a million ( , ) carcasses were found seriously diseased. but there were , , other beasts killed and eaten which were not inspected; and they were without doubt much more badly diseased, a fact which was in many cases, most likely, the reason why no inspection was made. allowing that three per cent of these were diseased, which is a low estimate, the total number of diseased animals found in the , , slaughtered was not less than , , , or one in fifty of the total number. and most of these were eaten by human beings either wholly or in part. if we should abandon meat eating in favor of nuts we would not have to worry about what our victuals died of. by the substitution of nuts for meats all dangers associated with flesh eating may be avoided; hence their use should be encouraged in every practical way. national and state legislators should make liberal appropriations for the study of the soil and climatic conditions best suited to nut culture, and otherwise encourage this infant but most important industry. * * * * * mr. bricker: have any of you come in contact with a black walnut, seemingly deformed, in which there is only one lobe in the shell? the president: dr. deming, what is your observation of the stabler with one lobe? dr. deming: % are one lobe. mr. hershey: mr. bixby found, i think, %. we don't know why there should be nuts with one lobe. dr. smith: in my observation of the stabler, the percentage of one lobe nuts is very small, not more than %. mr. bricker: also there is a large black walnut at atalissa, with a very thin shell. i have seen some of them, however, that were not very well filled last year. the president: is that a little town in iowa? mr. bricker: yes. below iowa city, east of west liberty. the president: mr. wilkinson has something interesting to tell us about the discovery of a black walnut valued for its lumber. mr. wilkinson: possibly professor smith knows more about that than i do. the first i knew of it mr. lamb wrote that he had found an unusual figured walnut. he had already sent scions to dr. morris and mr. bixby, and dr. morris suggested he send me some. when the log came mr. lamb found it unusually highly figured. he traced it to where it was loaded. they went to the fields and chopped into the tops until they found the tree by the figure of the wood. it had been cut two months and the wood was entirely dry. mr. bixby sent me two very tiny grafts. the tree sawed out something over , feet of veneer that sold from to cents per square foot; quite a large tree. it sawed out five logs and the stump sawed out feet. several thousand dollars for the tree. i saw several pieces of the tree last year. the most beautiful thing i ever saw. most highly figured log that ever came into the mill at chicago. dr. zimmerman: prof. lake sent me scions named the lion. dr. deming: the figure is not in the scion wood. dr. zimmerman: the scion wood i put on was quite curly. dr. smith: does the curly character show in the sap wood or the heart? the president: you have to go away from home to know what is going on there. it is the first i have known about that very interesting tree. i would like to get some trees of that curly type. mr. w. k. kellogg is very much interested in having us propagate that type. dr. zimmerman: mr. link told me mr. linton had some. mr. harrington: it seems to me very strange that the stump didn't sprout. mr. wilkinson: the stump was used. dr. deming: there must have been roots. the president: sometimes it is difficult to get them to grow. mr. weber: three miles northwest of blufftown there is a natural hybrid between the white and chinquapin oaks. there are some samples out on the table. we picked up some of the nuts and found them edible. no trace of any bitterness whatever. you come out of blufftown on no. . about a half mile above the town you turn to the left and go about a mile or more. it is at the intersection of the erie quarry road. it has a wire fence around it. dr. smith: how do you know it is a hybrid? mr. weber: from richard leber. it was discovered by a man by the name of williamson, and he suggested that the state acquire the land in order to preserve the tree. dr. smith: it will be another source of carbo-hydrate food. the president: dr. zimmerman is a specialist on chestnut blight, and particularly on inducing immunity. induced immunity to chestnut blight _dr. g. a. zimmerman, piketown, pa._ several years ago i started out to get rid of the chestnut blight. on several occasions before this notable body i told of the successes and failures i had encountered, still believing that i was on the right road and insisting that an antigen would be absorbed in sufficient amount to stimulate immunity. science has since vindicated that assertion and men are now injecting all sorts of chemicals, and even dyes to stain the grain of the wood. i have been very cautious in the past and perhaps should be more so now, in view of the fact that only a comparatively few years have elapsed since i began my work on plants. still, after having used vaccines on human beings and animals for twenty-one years, and observing that plant life reacts to an antigen in a similar manner, i am at least entitled to the same conclusions. this gives me an opportunity of knowing years in advance just what to expect. while my work is still going on as an experiment i have no hesitancy in saying that i can and have put as much active immunity to the blight into the chestnut in five years as nature has been able to place in perhaps four or five thousand years by her usual method. however it is only fair to state that such results cannot be accomplished by mere oratory. injections must be made and the antigen must go into the plants, not in single doses, if you please, but by the thousands. in recent years there has been considerable discussion relative to the chestnut coming back. this simply means further delay. the chestnut will come back but not before from to years yet. there are few roots that will stand mutilation for that period, and the few plants that do survive will have taken the shrub form like the chinquapin, and the nuts will likely be as insignificant. i have plants from a tree that holds as much immunity in the natural way as any i know, being rated at x, and these plants have inherited an immunity equal to the parent, no more and no less. i have, however, a lot of seedlings from paragon and champion trees rated at from x to x. these seedlings may confidently be expected to perform as their parents and produce many plants of equal resistance. i shall not discuss the antigen or its method of administration. that has been covered rather carefully in former papers. i do want to say a word, however, about root stock. in a blight region it is preferable to have chestnuts on their own roots. the nearest to own-rooted plants is a graft on their own seedlings. the chinese and japanese chestnut in my hands has made a very poor root stock for the american chestnut or its hybrids. the european chestnut is only fair, with the chinquapin somewhat better, but having the disadvantage of being troublesome to get from the seed. the american chestnut, or its american hybrids, is by far the best, providing we can get one with immunity. i think the rochester will shortly fill this need. the chestnut oak has made a rather interesting stock for a few varieties, notably a chinese and no. , a native american chestnut sent to me from bloomsburg, pa. i now have a few of these double grafted with other varieties. i might say that i am no longer interested in any chestnut, no matter how resistant it may be, unless the nut is of large size and fine quality, because i can immunize a plant bearing a good size, fine quality chestnut much easier and in a shorter time than one can be developed through hybridization from an inferior nut. i am usually, like most folks, looking for the path of least resistance. my work has been a good deal divided during the past few years because, while i started out with the chestnut alone, now i am carrying a dozen other fruits, nuts and berries. in closing let me state that my principle of induced immunity is sound and the procedure feasible and practical. * * * * * the president: about the result of grafting the chestnut on a species of oak. how long have these scions been growing? dr. zimmerman: about three years. mr. hershey: how long? dr. zimmerman: this is not the oak that i had reference to when you were up there. these are about three years old. i think they grow a little better than on the chestnut. many of them died. i have another scheme now; that is grafting the scions as high as i can. get them united and then bend them over and get them to root. some are doing nicely, others have died. dr. smith. i think you complimented us by thinking we could follow you. do you intend to vaccinate the chestnut and make it immune and then expect it to transmit that immunity in its seed? have you checked up in the second generation? dr. zimmerman: i haven't had time yet. dr. smith: thus far you have established immunity in the living tree? dr. zimmerman: yes, and i have a bunch of seedlings now from nuts from immunized trees that i planted last spring. i have of those. i expect them to inherit immunization from their parents. dr. smith: we vaccinate each generation of youngsters. dr. zimmerman: i was speaking of the experiments with guinea pigs. dr. smith: isn't smallpox vaccination against your theory? dr. zimmerman: i don't think so. they are doing it with other things. i found a human being giving the reaction for typhoid for seventeen years after he had been immunized. dr. smith: have you any evidence for or against the decline of immunity in the tree? dr. zimmerman: i think it will decline. dr. smith: then we have got to keep on immunizing like spraying. i didn't mean necessarily annually. i mean perhaps it is not a permanent achievement. dr. zimmerman: i imagine that the tree will be sufficiently attacked by blight to keep the immunity up. it is wise to have it attacked once in a while. mr. hershey: isn't this only carried on until you get natural resistance? dr. zimmerman: i know that it will be a long time before i can have chestnut trees to produce like mr. harrington's. but i am going ahead. i can't wait years. all i need is some time and i will produce chestnuts of the finest varieties, as mr. harrington has. dr. smith: how long will it take? dr. zimmerman: they will hold their immunity as well as the chinese. the ones i have are worth planting right now. i have trees that are standing up better than any chinese chestnuts are. it takes a long time before the immunizing principle is so disseminated that every part of the tree will have an equal resistance. i can easily see that by cutting off a scion and grafting it i may get hold of one that has not had its immunization distributed as it should be. dr. smith: a fairly ignorant man can take machinery and spray an orchard. can he do the same with immunizing? dr. zimmerman: no sir, he can not. dr. smith: perhaps i should not have used the word ignorant. a farm hand can spray and make a pretty good crop of apples. dr. zimmerman: no, he can't do it. it hasn't been easy. i have run into all kinds of obstacles. as soon as i injure the stock a little bit the blight takes it. as soon as i can raise them on their own roots it will be all right. that will come. dr. smith: have you seen chestnut grafts root as the apple does? dr. zimmerman: yes, right below the surface. a couple of them were that long. they will send out roots. then i have noticed on some, that at the place where i grafted the callus got quite large. it got too dry and died off. i have never rooted american chestnut cuttings. i have rooted some chinese chestnuts. the president: some of the chinese chestnuts root quite readily from those small shoots that come up from the ground. i conducted a little experiment in trying to propagate the chinese chestnuts by cuttings. i made cuttings. they all dutifully and beautifully died. i don't mean to say that the chinese chestnut cannot be rooted by cuttings. dr. zimmerman: i noticed one chestnut that was toppling over and the leaves were withering. the rats had taken it off just below the ground. i couldn't find a root anywhere, but it was callused. i cut it back and planted it again. it must have roots now for it is still green. otherwise it wouldn't live this long. the president: your experiments are of very great interest. if you are successful you will deserve the gratitude of this and future generations. mr. harrington: do you remember when we were down at the riehl nursery that we ran into a chestnut that produces to in a burr? the president: i remember one tree that had a great many nuts. mr. harrington: i had one with nuts and they said there were some with . was that the one named gibbons? dr. colby: that has three nuts to the burr. dr. deming: dr. colby, there have been two instances of blight infection in illinois. could you tell us how the eradication was done? dr. colby: in each case the tree was burned and the disease entirely eradicated by fire on the spot. the president: dr. colby has a paper from mr. littlepage on the plant patent law. "plant patent act" _by thomas p. littlepage, district of columbia bar, washington, d. c._ the plant patent act is an effort by congress, as stated in the committee reports on this bill, "to afford agriculture, so far as practicable, the same opportunity to participate in the benefits of the patent system as has been given industry, and thus assist in placing agriculture on a basis of economic equality with industry." the act is rather short and is set forth below: [public--no. -- st congress] [s. ] an act to provide for plant patents. _be it enacted by the senate and house of representatives of the united states of america in congress assembled._ that sections and of the revised statutes, as amended. (u. s. c., title , secs. and ), are amended to read as follows: "sec. . every patent shall contain a short title or description of the invention or discovery, correctly indicating its nature and design, and a grant to the patentee, his heirs or assigns, for the term of seventeen years, of the exclusive right to make, use, and vend the invention or discovery (including in the case of a plant patent the exclusive right to asexually reproduce the plant) throughout the united states and the territories thereof, referring to the specification for the particulars thereof. a copy of the specification and drawings shall be annexed to the patent and be a part thereof. "sec. . any person who has invented or discovered any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvements thereof, or who has invented or discovered and asexually reproduced any distinct and new variety of plant, other than a tuber-propagated plant, not known or used by others in this country, before his invention or discovery thereof, and not patented or described in any printed publication in this or any foreign country, before his invention or discovery thereof, or more than two years prior to his application, and not in public use or on sale in this country for more than two years prior to his application, unless the same is proved to have been abandoned, may, upon payment of the fees required by law, and other due proceeding had, obtain a patent therefor." sec. , section of the revised statutes, as amended (u. s. c., title , sec. ), is amended by adding at the end thereof the following sentence: "no plant patent shall be declared invalid on the ground of noncompliance with this section if the description is made as complete as is reasonably possible." sec. . the first sentence of section of the revised statutes, as amended (u. s. c., title , sec. ), is amended to read as follows: "sec. . the applicant shall make oath that he does verily believe himself to be the original and first inventor or discoverer of the art, machine, manufacture, composition, or improvement, or of the variety of plant, for which he solicits a patent; that he does not know and does not believe that the same was ever before known or used; and shall state of what country he is a citizen." sec. . the president may by executive order direct the secretary of agriculture ( ) to furnish the commissioner of patents such available information of the department of agriculture, or ( ) to conduct through the appropriate bureau or division of the department such research upon special problems, or ( ) to detail to the commissioner of patents such officers and employees of the department, as the commissioner may request for the purposes of carrying this act into effect. sec. . notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this act, no variety of plant which has been introduced to the public prior to the approval of this act shall be subject to patent. sec. . if any provision of this act is declared unconstitutional or the application thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the validity of the remainder of the act and the application thereof to other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby. approved, may , . * * * * * it is admitted by all who understand anything about horticulture that this act is intended to meet a long-felt want. the world owes much to many hard working scientists who have developed many valuable plants, both ornamental and edible, and up to the date of this act such producer had no way of reaping any very material financial benefit from his labors. the man who might invent some new and useful gadget for an automobile or other machinery was protected under the patent law, if he availed himself of it, but the man who developed a beautiful flower, a fine apple or a fine nut was wholly without protection. the term "asexually" as used in the act, is generally understood by horticulturists to mean any method of producing a plant except from seed. it will be observed, in referring again to the act, that the man who discovers some new plant and propagates it by any of the methods covered by the term "asexually" can have such plant patented under the terms of this law, but the patent law is one that is always construed strictly and obviously the application for patent would have to be made in the name of the man who actually discovered the plant. of course, after securing such patent, he could assign it the same as any other patent is assigned, but the question would constantly arise in this connection as to who actually was the first discoverer. most of the sporadic fine plants, especially fruit and nut bearing trees, were matters of neighborhood knowledge many years before they actually attracted the attention of some one who recognized their full value and knew how to propagate them, and the question would arise immediately as to who was the real discoverer. undoubtedly the man who tramped constantly around in the neighborhood of a fine nut or fruit tree and actually saw the tree but did not recognize its value, is like the man the poet describes when he said: "a primrose by the river's brim, a primrose only was to him, and nothing more." this man could not be said to be a discoverer under the terms of this law; but on the other hand the plowman who might be plodding his weary way homeward and see a fruit or nut tree bearing something unusual and who would recognize its unusual and distinct differences would be the real discoverer, but unless he could prove the fact that he had called it to the attention of others in some manner he would have difficulty in complying with the patent law and making a proper showing of originality as required by that law. but he would also, in addition to being the discoverer, have to asexually reproduce it and this he might not be able to do on account of his lack of knowledge of propagating methods. the language of the law presents some very interesting problems to those of us who have tramped the fields and valleys in search of nut trees producing better nuts than those already propagated, and it incidently brings into the patent practice a brand new requirement. the ablest patent lawyer in america might not know the difference between a bud and a graft, a layer or cross-pollination. i have frequently had some very able lawyers who visited my farm and had their attention called to a pecan tree grafted onto a hickory, ask what kind of nuts it would bear. of course when they ask such questions as that i promptly change the subject and begin to talk about the weather or something else; i certainly do not try to educate them in the fundamentals of tree propagation. it will also require specialists in the patent office who likewise know something of horticulture and reproduction methods of plants. it will also be noted that the law excludes tuber-propagated plants. the committee report states that: "the bill excepts from the right to a patent the invention or discovery of a distinct and new variety of a tuber-propagated plant. the term "tuber" is used in its narrow horticultural sense as meaning a short, thickened portion of an underground branch. it does not cover, for instance, bulbs, corms, stolons, and rhizomes. substantially, the only plants covered by the term "tuber-propagated" would be the irish potato and the jerusalem artichoke. this exception is made because this group alone, among asexually reproduced plants, is propagated by the same part of the plant that is sold as food." it will be noted that there is quite a spread, however, between the exact language of the law and the committee report, for example: under the law it would appear that a dahlia might be excluded, and it also raises the question, under the language of the law, as to many of the root plants, such as peonies and others. obviously, congress did not intend to exclude plants such as the dahlia, peony and others, as evidenced from the excerpt in the committee report above quoted, and whether the matter of the production of a new dahlia by cross-pollination and tested out through the growth of the bulbs, can be made to harmonize with the language of the law is the question. the committee report says that tubers mean only "irish potatoes and jerusalem artichokes." it always occurred to me that the sweet-potato is also a tuber, but the committee report apparently attempts to exclude it. there are any number of interesting questions that occur to those of us who are fortunate enough to have some knowledge of the law as well as a few fundamental principles of horticulture, but in spite of whatever weakness the law may or may not have, it is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, and meets a long-felt want. the secretary of agriculture said in his letter to the committee: "the proposed legislation would appear to be desirable and to lend far-reaching encouragement to agriculture and benefit to the general public." thomas a. edison, who is also quoted in the committee report, said: "nothing that congress could do to help farming would be of greater value and permanence than to give to the plant breeder the same status as the mechanical and chemical inventors now have through the patent law. there are but few plant breeders. this (the bill) will, i feel sure, give us many burbanks." it is certainly to be hoped that many of those interested in northern nut culture, as well as in fruits and ornamentals, will avail themselves of the privileges of this bill to give us something better. we are not satisfied with our varieties today and should not be. the greatest problem in nut culture, as well as fruit and ornamentals, is the question of variety. it will also be the most important question a hundred years from now, but the man who produces these better varieties should do so with the knowledge that under this law the fruits of his labor will be protected and he will at least have the same opportunity to receive remuneration therefrom as the inventor of a gadget. * * * * * dr. colby: i have talked with a number of men interested in the law. while they agree that it is a step in the right direction they feel that it will be a rather difficult thing to administer it. plants differ from other objects or things or "gadgets" and considerable experience will be necessary on the part of the administration before the law will be made workable. * * * * * a banquet was held at the hotel montrose on the evening of september at which about forty members and guests were present. the menu follows, and it will be noted that nuts were featured: canape, montrose (dates stuffed with nuts) iced celery mixed nuts queen olives soup, rothschild (garnished with chestnuts) roast young capon stuffed, hickory nut dressing, jelly au gratin potatoes puree of chestnuts, baked frozen fruit & nut salad, cream nut dressing wafers hot parkerhouse rolls black walnut ice cream nut layer cake coffee after the banquet the president spoke as follows: once upon a time i read a poem, which unfortunately i do not have here but in effect it was this: in our progress through life a great deal of injury is wrought by not showing our appreciation of people while they are with us. let us give them our flowers now. we do want now to say a few things about the founder of our organization. in my history of this association dr. deming was the person who first proposed an association of this kind. i believe this was about or years ago, perhaps longer than that. at any rate the association has been going for some time and it was brought into existence through the thought of dr. deming. we should be very glad to hear from dr. deming. dr. deming: thank you. it is very gratifying indeed but i wish you hadn't. it is very difficult to express gratitude properly. i cannot make a speech like our friend dr. smith here, who i hope will make one. i can't tell a good story like our president. in fact, i feel like that man who said, "how happy is the moron, he does not give a damn. i wish i were a moron. my god! perhaps i am." david fairchild says that it takes the energies, the fortunes and the lives of pioneers, the best people of our country, to build up a new plant industry. i congratulate you all in being included in that class of pioneers, the best people of this country. but we haven't yet built up the great nut industry that we would like to build. i might tell you how the idea of the nut growers association arose. in i got a little farm of forty acres in connecticut. in i read an article by dr. morris, "nut culture as a side line for physicians." i immediately wrote the doctor and he said in fifteen years i could have an income of $ . an acre from nuts alone. that seemed to me exactly what i wanted, $ , a year and live very comfortably. so i bought all the nut trees i could find. i bought nut trees from every nursery in this country that offered them in the north. i got pecans from the south. i sent to california and got filberts and english walnuts. i sent to europe for english walnut seeds. i bought twenty acres of chestnut sprout land and grafted the sprouts. just as the chestnuts were beginning to bear the blight came along. that ended them. the english walnuts i set around in fence corners and they grew a little smaller every year and, finally disappeared. that was the end of the english walnuts. at that time i couldn't graft hickories. with great labor i collected hickory scions and sent them to nurseries in the south and had them grafted. they arrived in the north after the ground had frozen. i told the hired man to heel them in. he heeled them in but left the top of the roots out. in the spring they were all dead. by that time my dander was up a little. i thought there must be other men who were having the same trouble. if we could have a little organization we could tell each other our troubles and perhaps work them out together. i wrote dr. morris, john craig, professor close, mr. hales, and one or two others, and we met together in the botanical museum in bronx park and organized the northern nut growers association. that is all i had to do with it. whether we will ever come to the place where they will have bands out and ticker tape flying, when we come to town--that is the thing i used to dream about a little when we first started. but i don't think we are destined to burst wide the gates of fame yet. we may after we have achieved our objects. as dr. fairchild has said, all our money, lives and energies must be devoted to them. we then may achieve post-mortem fame. i want to say one thing, however, before i stop. we can't advocate the planting of nut trees if there are no nut trees to be had. therefore, i think the northern nut growers association should do all that is possible to encourage the nursery men who are propagating nut trees. we should consider the propagating nursery men as a vital and essential part of the work we are trying to do. the president: dr. deming made some reference to stories. once in a while a story does flit across my mental horizon. i want to tell you how the word "nut" may have a very humorous interpretation. once upon a time in michigan a man died. after he died the local minister went around to console the widow. when he came of course the lady was grieving. this clergyman was a very young man and he attempted to console her thus: "now, my dear mrs. smith; that which you see is just the husk, the nut has gone to heaven." another time i addressed the women's canadian club. i was invited to address this group on nut culture and the president in introducing me told a story about a minister too. in this case the minister got up in his pulpit and made an announcement: "my dear friends, my sermon is on liars. i am glad to see so many present." this lady said, "of course, mr. neilson cannot say 'i am going to talk today on nuts, i am glad to see so many present'." i would like to give you an outline of the progress made during the past year. in writing this i had to inject into it a great deal of my own activities. i simply couldn't get out of it. i ask you to overlook the frequent references of a personal nature. president's address _prof. j. a. neilson, east lansing, mich._ this is our twenty-first meeting and the first one to be held in the state of iowa where tall corn grows, where good nuts thrive and good people live. we are glad to come to the midwest and meet some of its people, and see what our friends the snyder brothers and others are doing to extend the culture of nut trees in iowa and other midwest states. in looking over the records of the past year we find the usual experiences common to the lot of man. we find loss and gain, sorrow and joy. our sense of loss and sorrow is heightened when we think of the passing of our good friend and efficient secretary mr. henry d. spencer of decatur, ill. his sudden death was a shock to us all and we feel that his passing is a distinct loss not only to our association but to his city and state. it is also a loss to us as individuals in the severance of those helpful friendships which do so much to cheer us on our way and make life worth while. in association matters, mr. spencer was most active and efficient. he was zealous, original and energetic, and did a lot to create interest in nut culture in his state and other midwest areas. of him, as of others who have labored faithfully for an ideal and passed to their reward, may it be truly said, "the just die in their turn, but falling as the flowers, they leave on earth their fruit that outlives them." while we have lost a capable secretary and good friend we have been fortunate in securing the services of dr. a. s. colby as a successor to mr. spencer. the news of mr. spencer's passing came just before your president left lansing to address the illinois state horticulture society on nut culture. in casting about for a new secretary, it occurred to me that dr. colby was the logical man for the position. while at urbana where the horticultural society met i broached the matter to dr. colby. at first he was unwilling but after some discussion he finally consented to take the position provided the university authorities at urbana would agree to his taking on new duties. dr. blair, head of the horticultural department at urbana, was then approached on the matter and graciously consented to allow dr. colby to assume the secretaryship for the balance of the year. dr. colby has fulfilled his position in a very capable manner and i am sure the other executives and members are grateful to dr. colby and dr. blair for their cordial cooperation and help in our time of need. as president i am also deeply grateful to our good and faithful friend dr. w. c. deming for taking over the duties of secretary while dr. colby was in england attending the world's horticultural congress in london, and enjoying a well deserved holiday. i trust dr. colby has returned to his duties with renewed zeal and increased knowledge and i hope he will be able to share some of that knowledge with those of us who were not fortunate enough to attend that great congress of horticulturists. at our last meeting our late secretary, mr. spencer, outlined the worthy scheme of staging a nut exhibit at the chicago garden and flower show, held in the stadium at chicago. considerable work was done by mr. spencer before he died, and afterward by dr. colby when he took over the secretaryship. your president was able to assist dr. colby in various ways, such as staging the exhibit, in helping financially, and in personally attending the exhibit for five days. this exhibit of nuts was made up of entries from indiana, illinois, iowa, ohio, michigan, ontario and british columbia. it attracted a great deal of attention and i am sure was the means of creating interest and disseminating a lot of useful information on nut culture. we were ably assisted in this project by mr. j. w. wilkinson of rockport, indiana, and mr. frank frey of the rock island railway, chicago. both of these gentlemen contributed valuable exhibits and gave generously of their time during the progress of the exhibition. our past president, mr. snyder, also sent very useful exhibits. in the carrying out of his duties as specialist in nut culture for the michigan state college, your president feels that some progress has been made since april, . during that period arrangements have been definitely made, or are about to be made, by that princely public benefactor, mr. w. k. kellogg, which will set aside several hundred acres for nut culture. about thirty acres of this area have already been planted to seedlings and grafted walnuts, chestnuts, hickories, heartnuts, hazels, and filberts. these trees have done as well as could be expected under the hot, dry weather of these past two summers. arrangements are actively under way for planting acres next spring and a much larger area in the following spring. we expect to assemble a first class collection of the best hardy varieties of native and introduced nut trees and hope as the years roll on that definite progress will be made. in september , a nut contest was drawn up and announced to the public of michigan and adjoining states. this contest created a great deal of interest and many entries were received. cash prizes of $ . each were offered for walnuts and hickories and awards of merit were given for other species. there were plates composed as follows: black walnuts , english walnuts , butternuts , heartnuts , japanese walnuts , hybrid walnuts , hickories , chestnuts , hazels . these entries were used in staging what is said to be the largest exhibit of nuts ever displayed in the northern united states. from these numerous entries several selections of value were made. from these selections, six black walnuts, two heartnuts, three hickories and four chestnuts were chosen for propagation. some of these have been propagated and plans are made to propagate a greater number next year. the writer spent one week in ontario during march for the purpose of introducing scionwood and trees of promising varieties of english walnuts, heartnuts and hybrid walnuts. thirty trees of the carpathian strain of the persian walnut were introduced and all are now alive on our grounds at lansing. these carpathian walnuts have endured several winters at toronto and montreal and so far have not shown any winter injury. if further trials show that this strain is hardy it will be a decided improvement over any other persian strain in the northern states or canada. good varieties of heartnuts and filberts were brought in from british columbia and are now growing nicely at the kellogg farm. grafting demonstrations were given at nine different places throughout the state during the month of may. these demonstrations were attended by fair sized audiences and much interest was shown in the operation. in addition to the address before the illinois horticultural society, your president gave an address on nut culture to the michigan state horticultural society at grand rapids in december last, and also had on display a large collection of michigan nuts. the address on nut culture and the display of nuts created considerable interest. he was also invited to address the iowa state horticultural society on nut culture and the iowa state nurserymen's association on the paraffin treatment of nursery stock, but could not do so because of a previous engagement. arrangements have been made however to give these addresses at the meeting of the above associations at shenandoah, iowa, in november next. the ancient parable of the sower who went forth to sow and who scattered seed on stony ground, by the wayside and on good soil, had a successful manifestation in the president's experience this last year. in march, , i gave an address on nut culture to a small but influential audience in st. thomas, ontario. this meeting was due to the enterprise of dr. c. c. lumley, the capable secretary of the chamber of commerce in st. thomas and one of our valued members. at this meeting i displayed a collection of canadian grown nuts and suggested the use of nut trees for roadside and ornamental planting as well as for other purposes. these suggestions fell on rich soil, figuratively speaking, and bore fruit in an astonishing manner. in a short time an elgin county nut tree growers' association was organized and a definite plan of operations outlined. one of the projects consisted in planting the kings highway, no. in elgin county, with walnut trees. with the cooperation of horticultural societies, service clubs, schools, etc., over nut trees were planted in one day last spring, and besides that more than other nut trees were planted on the home grounds of the people in this county. the encouraging feature of this project was the statement by dr. lumley that your president was the inspiration of all this planting. without a sympathetic and energetic audience i could not possibly have done much by myself, and i am sure dr. lumley and his associates deserve great credit for their vision and energy. may their numbers be multiplied and their shadow never grow less. "and some seed fell on rich soil and brought forth a hundred fold." you will very likely be pleased to learn that your president is interested in an advisory capacity in a project having for its object the gift of a good nut tree to every member of the women's institute of ontario. this organization is composed almost entirely of rural women and is one of the most active and helpful societies in the country. the institute gave me hearty support in my efforts to promote the culture of nut trees in ontario, and on several occasions passed resolutions asking the government to adequately support my work. there are over , women in this organization and it will take time and money to accomplish the objective, but no worthwhile movement ever progressed without a vision and a plan. in conclusion i would like to read a beautiful little selection entitled "save the trees in portugal." in reading this i am going to ask you to transpose the title to "save the trees in the mid-west," and to think in terms of nut trees. save the trees in portugal travellers in portugal report that in many places where timber trees are to be found, in woods, parks and gardens, one sees the following inscription headed, "to the wayfarer": "ye who pass by and would raise your hand against me, hearken ere you harm me. "i am the heat of your hearth on the cold winter night, the friendly shade screening you from the summer sun, and my fruits are refreshing draughts, quenching your thirst as you journey on. "i am the beam that holds your house, the board of your table, the bed on which you lie, and the timber that builds your boat. "i am the handle of your hoe, the door of your homestead, the wood of your cradle, and the shell of your coffin. "i am the bread of kindness and the flower of beauty. "ye who pass by, listen to my prayer; harm me not." a practical application of this beautiful message would add to the beauty and productive capacity of this country and would give pleasure and profit to its people. dr. j. russell smith was here called upon and gave entertaining and amusing accounts of his early struggles with nut culture and of some of his travels in foreign lands. * * * * * the president: i would just like to add to what i have said that the rev. paul krath of the united church of canada is now about to leave for a five year absence in central europe. he tells me he would like to sell the balance of those hardy carpathian walnuts. i have faith in them. i think they are worth the price he asks for them for an experimental purpose alone. dr. smith: do you know where the seed was procured? the president: on the high slopes of the carpathian mountains. the winter temperatures go down rather low. in fact lower than in toronto. mr. hershey: juglan regia? the president: yes. in early september the buds were quite matured, wood was ripened up and favorable for enduring the winter temperatures of toronto. i have an impression that it gets to below zero. the trees have come through the winter at montreal where they have even lower temperatures. member: how would we get them in? get a permit from washington? the president: it can be done. dr. smith: an application for the lot can be made. the president then asked for the report of the secretary. report of the secretary the year - has been one of growing interest on the part of the public, laying the foundation for a more rapidly increasing membership and wider influence on the part of the association. following the untimely death of secretary h. d. spencer, of decatur, illinois, we were asked by your president, professor neilson, to carry on the work of the office for the remainder of the year, in view of our previous experience. this we were glad to do because of our interest in the work. the great loss of the association in the death of mr. spencer should be here recorded. mr. spencer was keenly interested in nut growing in the north. he believed in its future and because of his retirement from active professional work could give his attention to the many details connected with the development of our program. his loss is keenly felt among the membership. your secretary has attempted to make the public, only more or less awake to the possibilities of our work so far, more nut culture minded. the burden of correspondence has become increasingly heavy. hundreds of inquiries have been received, many from those mildly curious, but a large share from people anxious to learn of the possibilities of northern nut culture both for pleasure and profit. we have noted an increasing interest among those able to take up our new enterprise and have done what we could to make it an intelligent interest through radio, newspaper, and magazine publicity, speaking engagements at horticultural society and farmers' institute meetings and classroom instruction. the enthusiastic support of officials of these and similar organizations should be noted here. space has been freely offered for use in fruit growing magazines and state horticultural society publications to supplement the columns of our official organ to spread the information regarding our activities, thus reaching a wider circle of potential members. we are glad to report some membership gains the past season. in these activities we are handicapped by lack of funds. we have been particularly fortunate these past few months in having the co-operation of the university of illinois in that your secretary has been able to handle hundreds of letters through the department of horticulture channels free of cost to the association except for the stationery and postage. one outstanding event of the season in the line of publicity sponsored by the association was the exhibit at the central states garden and flower show held in the chicago stadium april - , . preliminary arrangements had been made by mr. spencer with the manager, mr. john servas, insuring us free space. mr. servas cooperated with us to the fullest extent and the appreciation of the association was expressed to him by your secretary at the close of the show. we spent considerable time both in the preliminary arrangements and on the ground, being in attendance throughout the week except when president neilson, mr. wilkinson, and mr. frey were in charge. to these gentlemen, as well as to dr. robert t. morris, dr. j. r. smith, and mr. s. w. snyder, who with president neilson contributed the $ . necessary for rental of the glass show case, and to many of our members in the middle west who sent samples of nuts, we owe a debt of gratitude. our exhibit also included books and magazines on nut culture, nut-cracking machinery, grafting tools and waxes, and other material of interest to the prospective grower, all contributed by members or others interested in our work. the exhibit attracted much interest as a part of the magnificent show. we were busy from morning until night answering questions, most of them intelligent, and made many friends among a group of people whose intelligence level is high. two hundred people asked for further information relative to some particular subject and a mimeographed sheet was prepared in the secretary's office after our return which went out to them. we have had the cooperation of the illinois state department of agriculture more than ever this past year, as evidenced by their support of our exhibit at chicago, through providing funds for the preparation of a case of nut varieties suitable for planting in illinois and, secondly, through the cooperation of the state forestry department. an immense tract of land has been acquired for reforestation in southern illinois and money was available this past spring for the purchase of nut trees for planting there. your secretary has been working with r. b. miller, of the state department, in the selection and planting of the better named varieties of nuts. additional plantings will be made there and it is believed that a fine beginning has been made toward the establishment of a nut arboretum in that section. there are many new things of interest developing in our field and those relating to it which need further study as a means of developing our usefulness. the plant patent law, new methods of propagation, the variety question, the disease factor, new methods of harvesting, grading and marketing, to mention a few problems, are bringing about a new era in northern nut growing and need our combined efforts in their solution. we believe that the time is fast approaching for the appointment of a paid secretary who can devote more time to the development of our work. we will leave to you the working out of the details. dr. colby supplemented his report with a talk about his trip to europe during the summer where he went primarily to attend the world horticultural conference in london. after some further informal discussion the meeting adjourned. field trips the second day, september , , was given over to a visit to the snyder fruit and nut orchards at center point in the morning, where the group inspected the varieties being grown with great interest, an excellent lunch at noon under the trees, prepared and served by the snyder brothers and miss snyder, their sister, and an afternoon spent in the snyder nursery where the various nut trees which can be grown in iowa were observed. business session at snyder farm meeting called to order by president neilson. a vote of thanks was extended to miss snyder and the snyder brothers for their hospitality. s. w. snyder responded briefly. the meeting place for next year was then discussed. invitations were extended from rochester, new york, downingtown, pennsylvania, geneva, new york, and other places. it was finally voted to meet in geneva, new york, in september during the week of the annual meeting of the new york fruit testing association. the selection of the date was left in the hands of the executive committee. the report of the nominating committee was then called for. the association re-elected professor j. a. neilson as president, c. f. walker as vice-president, and karl green as treasurer for the ensuing year. professor a. s. colby was unable to continue as secretary and that office was held open. the president and board of directors were instructed to appoint a new secretary.[a] the financial status of the association was next discussed at length. it was voted that a letter be prepared and sent to the membership asking for contributions. the report of the nut survey was then briefly presented by c. f. walker, chairman of the committee, as a progress report. he stated that nut trees of various varieties had been recorded and data concerning tree performance and adaptation were being collected. frank h. frey reported that he did not feel it advisable at this time to affiliate with the american fruit & vegetable shippers' association because of the expense to be incurred. the secretary extended greetings of mr. ellis of vermont whom he met at the meetings of the international horticultural congress in england last summer, and of mr. howard spence of england to the association. it was a pleasure to report that mr. spence had been instrumental in having experimental work with nuts initiated in england. the third day was devoted to a tour of the country round about burlington where mr. snyder and mr. john witte showed us many of the most valuable parent trees found in that section. some of these trees included the witte and elmer pecans, the two varieties recommended by mr. snyder for planting in that section; the hill and iowa shellbark hickories, the two best so far found in iowa; the burlington, tama queen, and eureka hickories, the oberman and campbell pecans, and the swartz black walnut. [footnote a: note: mr. w. g. bixby was appointed and accepted the office.] treasurer's report receipts balance, sept. st, : in bank in washington, d. c. $ . litchfield savings society . _______ $ . paid in advance memberships @ $ . . back memberships @ $ . . sub. to american nut journal . contributions and sale of annual reports . loan, merchants bank and trust co., washington, d. c. . _________ total to be accounted for $ , . disbursements american nut journal, subscriptions $ . hotel pennsylvania, n. y., rent for projector . reporting new york meeting . mimeographing . stenographer, secretary's office . printing, secretary's office . expenses, secretary's office . printing, treasurer's office, two years . printing annual report . h. d. spencer, expenses to new york meeting . stamps . expressage . exchange, canadian check . curtailment on loan . interest on loan . _________ total expenses $ , . deficit . balance due on loan . note--although the expenses exceeded the receipts, no actual overdraft occurred because certain bills were not paid until funds from the next year came in. however, both overdraft and loan have been taken care of through contributions made during november and december, . respectfully submitted, karl w. greene, treasurer. harvesting and marketing the native nut crops of the north _by c. a. reed, associate pomologist, u. s. department of agriculture_ the native nut crops in the northern portion of the country, east of the rocky mountains, offer a possible source of considerable income, if gathered while in prime condition and properly prepared for market. thousands of bushels of highly edible nuts annually go to waste in that portion of the country covered by the great mississippi valley, the appalachian region and the middle atlantic seaboard. these are chiefly black walnuts, hickory nuts, and butternuts, although it is probable that several hundred tons of beechnuts which annually go ungathered should be included. these last are too small for human consumption in this country, under the existing relations between human labor and the quality of available food. nevertheless, there are ways by which they can be put to profitable use. the kernels of black walnuts and butternuts are in great demand. the potential supply of the former is usually abundant but the small number of butternut trees in the country automatically makes the possible supply of nuts of that kind very limited. the kernels of both these, walnuts and butternuts, and also of the best northern hickories, particularly the shagbarks and shellbarks, are highly palatable and nutritious. in these respects they compare favorably with any other kinds of nuts on the market. these northern species are singularly free from an impregnation of tannin in the pellicles which leaves a bitter after taste so familiar with certain of their chief competitors in the nut market. black walnut kernels in particular appear to be firmly entrenched in the markets of this country. they are in keen demand with many classes of manufacturers. this demand is on the increase with no apparent possibility of foreign competition, as the eastern black walnut, _juglans nigra_, the finest of the american blacks, is grown nowhere outside of the united states except in certain districts of a narrow adjoining fringe of neighboring canada. the present year may be one of the best likely to occur soon in which to harvest and prepare these nuts for the market or home consumption on the farm. the drought has undoubtedly reduced the crop as a whole, although at this writing the yield appears considerably greater than that of . at harvest time it will probably be found that many of the nuts are below normal size and that the kernels are imperfectly developed. the quantity of the finished product which it would be possible to place on the market would therefore appear likely to be small. on its face, with a light crop of poor grade in prospect, it may be difficult to understand why this should be a propitious year to inaugurate a systematic harvesting and marketing campaign. however, in explanation of this, _first_, there are no carry-overs from last year. so short was the crop of that manufacturers found the supply exhausted before the end of last january. many sent out urgent appeals hoping to find some source of supply. they offered the inviting price of cents a pound for good grade kernels, f. o. b. the farmers' shipping point. yet it was all in vain as the kernels were not forthcoming. _second_, as a result of the recent extreme drought and the consequent shortage of some of the more staple crops, there will likely be considerable slack time on many farms. where this is the case and there are nut crops in the field it will likely be found in many cases that they may be gathered and sold to good financial advantage, assuming that right methods are employed in harvesting and preparing for market. _third_, where there are nuts in quantity too limited to justify gathering and preparing for market, they should still be gathered and as carefully prepared as though for the market and used on the home table. they will be found to be most excellent and pleasing food. to obtain the highest prices for black walnuts or butternuts, certain fundamentals should be kept in mind. . they should be sold only in the shelled condition. . the kernels must be delivered early. . they should present an attractive appearance. . they should be in thoroughly sanitary condition. the explanation as to why they should be sold in the shelled condition is simple. the weight of shell is too great to justify shipment in that condition. in the shell, walnuts and butternuts seldom bring more than $ . or $ . per bushel and the demand is exceedingly limited, especially after the earliest part of the season. again, the shells are of no value except for fuel. fuel of this kind by freight or express is exceedingly costly. again, the nuts must be cracked somewhere and the kernels removed before they can be used, and farm labor is much cheaper than that of the city. regardless of where the labor is from, the cost of cracking the nuts and picking out the kernels, or "shelling" as the operation is called in the trade, is charged back to the farmer. the shelling of these nuts is something in which the whole family on the farm can join. delivery should be early as it is then that prices are best. the use of shelled nuts is practically an all-year affair, yet, just as soon as the supply begins to bulk up in the hands of the wholesalers, prices promptly go lower. the condition in which black walnut kernels reach the market is ordinarily very poor. little attention appears to be paid to the matter of sanitation, and practically no thought is given to their appearance. as a rule, shipment is made in burlap bags of double thickness. little thought is ever paid to separating the kernels according to shade of color and it is rare that the kernels are properly cured after being removed from the shells. oil and moisture given off by the kernels are taken up by the burlap bags, and by the time delivery is made to the wholesaler, the kernels are in no sense attractive and are often unsanitary. fortunately, the kernels are carefully gone over by employees of the wholesaler by whom all spoiled pieces are removed and, in the process of manufacture, the kernels are usually so heated as to dispel any danger from ill effects due to the unsanitary condition. the successive steps essential to harvesting and preparing for market may be grouped as follows: . harvest the nuts as soon as mature. . remove the hulls promptly. . cure the nuts somewhat. . crack the shells and remove the kernels very soon. . in cracking, the kernels should be separated into five grades--lights, darks, intermediates as to color, small pieces and crumbs. . before packing for shipment the kernels must be artificially cured until they no longer feel moist to the hand when it is run through the container. . barrels or boxes of wood, or strawboard lined with water-proof paper, should be used in packing for shipment. these should not be closed until immediately before shipment. . as soon as received by the buyer the containers should be opened and the kernels spread out in clean bins where they may receive frequent inspection. _harvesting_ the nuts should be picked from the ground within three or four days from the time they fall. if possible the limbs should be jarred so as to shake the nuts from the tree. good nuts will usually be found to mature within a very few days and may readily be shaken down. at this time the hulls will be perfectly sound and not objectionable, in so far as staining the hands is concerned. but if the hulls be broken open the juice which they emit will leave a lasting stain on the hands or garments. but the hulls need not be broken to any great extent. _hulling_ the ordinary corn sheller on the farm is undoubtedly the most practicable instrument for removing the hulls, generally available at this time. if the hulls are still green enough to be firm, the nuts may be placed in the machine by hand. otherwise, some arrangement may be worked out by which the nuts may automatically be fed into the machine. after hulling by this method the nuts should be put into a tub or tank of water and thoroughly washed with a broom or stiff brush. when the nuts are hulled promptly and well washed it will be discovered that the natural color of walnuts is light or whitish and not black. the dark color is wholly due to stain from the green hulls. this stain, by the way, loses its effectiveness as soon as the hulls turn dark. stains from nut hulls which have lost all trace of green color, so that the hulls are black, are readily washed from the hands. after the nuts have come from the sheller they may be handled by shovels or by forks with tines close together. they should then be cured for a few days. for this purpose they should never be placed in piles or deep layers. preferably they should be spread out in trays with bottoms of wire mesh or narrow cleats so as to be open. these should be put where there will be a free circulation of air all about. where trays are not available the nuts may be spread on a barn floor and the doors left open during the day. if the weather is bright they may be spread on boards laid on the ground directly in the sun, although it is probable that they should be given partial shade during extremely hot days. various methods of hulling other than by the corn sheller are in use. some involve merely stepping on the nuts with a forward movement of the foot, just as the hulls are softening. this is not particularly satisfactory as the nuts must still be picked out of the mashed hulls by hand. besides leaving a very persistent stain on the hands this method is unsatisfactory for two reasons; it is not at all rapid and very far from perfect in the degree to which it removes the hulls. other methods involve the use of automobile wheels. sometimes machines are driven over the nuts as they are thinly spread on the ground. again a wheel is jacked up and set in motion in a tub of water in which the nuts have been placed. both methods have their advocates. the writer has had experience with the former only, yet he can conceive of little to commend either method. still another method is that of pounding off the hulls by hand. of all common methods this has the fewest conceivable advantages. it is slow, thoroughly inefficient, and extremely objectionable from the standpoint of the stain. what is perhaps far the most satisfactory method of any yet used for removing the hulls, from every standpoint except that of expense, is one evolved by the department of agriculture in . it consists merely of running the nuts through large-sized vegetable paring machines. these machines consist of metal containers, circular in form and having a capacity of approximately - / bushels. the inner walls are lined with hard abrasive surfaces. a bushel of nuts is placed inside, the lid closed, a stream of water turned into the container, and the machine set in operation. by means of gears attached to the bottom of the container which is separate from the walls, plated and perforated, the bottom spins around several hundred times per minute. the nuts are made to beat violently against the rough walls with the result that, in from - / to minutes, depending upon the firmness of the hulls, the nuts are ready to be taken out. they are then perfectly hulled, thoroughly washed and light or whitish in color. with a few days of drying, the nuts should be ready for cracking. _cracking_ as soon as fit for cracking, and before becoming so dry that the kernels break badly, the nuts should be shelled. the hammer and a solid block of wood, or a piece of metal with a shallow cupped depression in which to place the nuts while held for hitting, is the most common outfit in use. various handpower machines are appearing on the market, and already designers are at work attempting to devise power machines. the former have been in use for several years. the latter are mostly quite new and untried. about all that can be said regarding such machines is that they are much needed and that it is not improbable that there will soon be several makes of efficient machines in the field. _grading the kernels_ as soon as the shells have been cracked, the kernels should be extracted. all large pieces, including chiefly quarters and whatever halves there are, should be separated into three shades: lights, darks and intermediates, as previously mentioned. all sound, small pieces, regardless of shade, should be put into a fourth grade and all unsound kernels and particles too small to separate from minute particles of shell, should be put into a fifth grade and fed to poultry in moderate quantity at one time. unless given artificial heat before packing for shipment, the kernels are fairly certain to become moldy and even to cake together in a solid mass while in transit. to do this they should be placed in trays or pans and put above or back of a kitchen stove where they will not get hot enough to be injured. the hand should be run through the kernels not infrequently so as to detect any excessive heat and also to determine by experience the proper degree of dryness. after being kept warm and being frequently stirred until the kernels seem properly dry they may be removed and allowed to become cool. they should then be re-examined with the hand so as to determine the apparent dryness. if they feel at all moist, they should be returned to the drying position and the operation repeated. the writer has had no personal experience in this matter and so cannot give precise directions. however, the farm wife can probably work out a very satisfactory system in her kitchen. _packing and shipping_ although previously discussed, the importance of clean, sanitary and attractive containers for shipment can scarcely be overstressed. without such precaution no one need hope to work up a permanent business, for, regardless of how secure he may feel with the trade he will eventually find his customers turning to others who are willing to go to this trouble. when the time comes for shipping the boxes may be closed up and delivered promptly to the transporting agency. the containers should again be opened as soon as the destination is reached and an examination made as to the moisture condition of the kernels. _handling other nuts_ so far as harvesting and hulling hickory nuts is concerned, the matter is not at all complicated. good nuts drop with the first sharp frost. those with good kernels inside become automatically separated from the hulls. those which do not easily become separated from the hulls should be discarded as they are rarely of any value and should not become mixed with the good nuts. with a moderate amount of curing these nuts should be ready for market. they usually bring better prices in the shell than do walnuts; but on the other hand they are in less demand after being shelled. perhaps this is because the trade has not been built up but it is a recognized fact that black walnut kernels are practically in a class by themselves among the nuts of the world, in the extent to which they retain an agreeable flavor in cooking. hickory nut kernels should be given a much greater place than they now occupy in the cooking and baking for the farm table. a few finely chopped kernels mixed with breads, cakes, or cereals will be found highly acceptable to most palates. butternuts are generally too scarce to justify much attention. they could probably be hulled by vegetable paring machines quite as efficiently as are walnuts but, so far as known to the writer, this has not been tried. beechnuts make excellent food for poultry and certain kinds of livestock. to convert the crop into cash is largely a matter of using the land under the trees for the right sort of grazing. in european countries beechnuts are highly valued as a source of salad oil. mr. bixby of this association is taking steps to procure trees bearing as large sized nuts as possible with a view to subsequent breeding. so far as known to the writer beechnuts in this country are not gathered in quantity. beechnuts _by willard g. bixby, baldwin, n. y._ although the association has now been in existence years there has so far been little progress, we might almost say no progress, made in getting an improved beechnut. all have agreed that the flavor of the beechnut was excellent, that it had a shell so thin that it could be opened with a pocket knife, that it was an oily nut and would keep, like the thin shelled hickories, walnuts, etc., and not a starchy one, which would dry out like chestnuts and acorns, that it would grow and bear well in northern sections where the best nuts we have do not grow well, but also that it was so small as to practically nullify the above mentioned excellent qualities. if we ever get a beechnut the size of a chestnut we shall have a most needed addition to our nut bearing trees, but there has been so little hope of finding such that no one has paid much attention to the beech. as a matter of fact not within the last ten years have there been any prizes offered for beechnuts except those provided by the writer at his own expense, neither have there been at any time during the writer's recollection any varieties suggested excepting one or two by omer r. abraham, martinsville, ind., which nobody has growing, so far as known to the writer. it was thought that there might be a large fruited species of beech growing in some part of the world as is the case with the chestnut, walnut, hickory and hazel, and that it would only be necessary to import it to get what was needed, or at least to make a good start in getting what was needed. rehder in his wonderfully helpful "manual of cultivated trees and shrubs" gives seven species of beech, one in america, fagus grandiflora, one in europe, f. sylvatica, two in japan, f. sieboldii and f. japonica, two in china, f. longipetiolata and f. engleriana and one in asia minor, f. orientalis. these are growing in the arnold arboretum and leaves, buds and fruits are to be seen in the herbarium there. a day spent there, however, half in the arboretum and half in the herbarium, convinced the writer that there is at present no large fruited species of beech known to botanists. there is an incompletely known species of chinese beech, f. lucida, whose fruit is not in the arnold arboretum. while it is of course possible that there may yet be a large fruited species somewhere in the world, still the relatively slight differences in the leaf, bud and fruit of the seven species already known makes this seem improbable and leads us to conclude that the genus "fagus" is the most uniform in the species that make it up of any genus of nut bearing trees. this seemingly reduces us to the necessity of seeking variation in species already known. fagus sylvatica has been by all odds longest in cultivation and many varieties are known. rehder lists principal varieties with many other sub varieties. these have leaves varying in color, purple, copper color, pinkish, yellow and whitish spotted with green, beside the usual green, also in shapes of leaves, some very narrow almost linear, some very small and deeply toothed, others large and roundish up to in. broad and in. long. the varieties vary in bark from the smooth bark typical of the beech to bark like that of the oak. they also vary in habit of growth, being mostly erect but some pendulous and some dwarf with twisted contorted branches. but no one seems to have ever heard of a large fruited beech. it is inconceivable however, that a tree can vary in every particular except in the fruit and it is believed that it only requires sufficient searching to find large fruited varieties. there are difficulties, however, in the way of finding unusual beeches which do not occur with walnuts, chestnuts and hickories, which are trees where the nuts have such merit that they are usually spared even if in the middle of a cultivated field, while the beech is usually a forest tree. a nut contest brings hundreds and thousands of walnuts and hickories but only very few beechnuts. correspondence with the forestry departments of every state having such departments generally evinced interest in the search for a large fruited beech, but those replying universally disclaimed any knowledge of such. while it is believed that there are such in america, perhaps as many or more than in europe, and efforts should be made here to find such, there are many reasons for believing that a search in europe will be more immediately productive of results than will the search here. the beech is much more esteemed in europe than here and has been extensively planted in forests that for centuries have been operated for constant production of timber. it is believed that the contents of those forests are as a class better known to their keepers, at least the beeches there are better known than in the forests in the united states. the number of propagated ornamental varieties noted in the second paragraph gives evidence of this. the history of one or two of these varieties will make this clearer. three beeches with red or copper colored leaves as far back as were recorded as growing in a wood near zurich, switzerland. most of the purple beeches now growing are believed to have been derived from a single tree discovered in the last century in a forest in thuringia in germany. there may be or may have been many such in america but they would not have appeared valuable to the woodmen who probably would be the only ones who would see them and then the leaves would not have been visible in the winter when trees are most frequently cut. that the deming purple black walnut is in existence is due solely to the observation and action of dr. deming who gathered scions and got them growing before the original tree had been cut for the purpose of getting space for improving a road. that this tree could be seen from the road was how it came to the attention of dr. deming. had it been in the midst of a large forest it might have been cut in winter for timber without the cutter knowing it was unusual. that we have such a wealth of varieties of the beech valuable as ornamental trees and none valuable for the large nuts they bear, certainly suggests that the tree varies in every way except in the size of the nuts it bears, but this is not believed to be so. the growing of ornamental trees is an old industry. there are hundreds of nurserymen today growing ornamentals and only few in comparison growing nut trees. it is not so many years ago that there were none growing nut trees. a beech with purple leaves appeared valuable years ago and was disseminated by nurserymen while one with nuts times normal size would probably not have been propagated for there would not have been sale for it. it would have only been known locally as unusual and probably the tree would have been cut for timber when it reached the proper size. the search for a large fruited beech is not going to be easy but it is believed that persistent work will eventually triumph, much as the contest brought more shellbark hickories of value to the attention of the association than all previous contests put together. the shellbark is a tree the best varieties of which it is difficult to learn about. unlike the shagbark hickory it is not generally found growing near buildings or in fields or pastures. its natural habitat is the bottom lands of the mississippi river and its tributaries, lands that are overflowed part of the year. there will have to be a campaign, perhaps for several years, till people begin to look for large fruited beeches; then will come a harvest of them. the relatively few beeches that have come in to the contests suggests that methods used heretofore should be somewhat modified in beechnut search. probably a campaign of education among foresters might be more productive of results than among farmers, at least it should supplement it. the search for improved beechnuts evidently has more different kinds of difficulties than the search for any other nut and considerable thought on the matter leads me to suggest that a committee be appointed to study the nut and to seek large fruited specimens especially to look into methods for getting them and report to the association a year hence, said committee to finance itself. this suggestion is made because it is believed that efforts made in europe to find a large fruited beech will be more immediately productive of results than in america for the reasons noted above. even if the committee consists of but one man correspondence abroad would be better carried on in the name of a committee of the association than in the name of an individual and it is believed would be more productive of results. the contest _by willard g. bixby, baldwin, new york_ this has at last been finished. it is a memorable achievement in many ways. it has taken much longer to award the prizes than at any previous contest, which is a matter of deep regret to me. but, if we except the shagbark hickories and the beechnuts, the value of the nuts is so far ahead of those received in any other contest as to make the results of all previous contests commonplace in comparison. the highest award for black walnuts in the contest was for the stambaugh points, which recalculated using the present constants would be points, while all the prize winners in the contest were awarded more points than , the nut taking the tenth prize being awarded two points more or and the nut taking first prize being awarded points more or , the difference being largely in generally superior cracking quality of the nuts. the highest awards for butternuts, in print and readily referred to, are in the report where the butternut taking first prize was awarded points, which after recalculation with present constants would be points, and there were nine prizes awarded this year where the score was higher than . the shagbark hickories were disappointing, none equalling several of the best ones reported in the contest. this is laid to the general poor quality of the shagbark hickory nuts in . one observing contestant sent in nuts from the crop, as well as nuts of the crop, to show us how much better they were normally than were those of the crop, and as a matter of fact the nuts sent in by him tested out several points higher than those of the crop. on the other hand, other hickories, carya laciniosa and carya ovalis, which never before were awarded prizes in a nut contest, this year came up into the winning class and we had some large laciniosas of real merit this year, a matter which is likely to be of great importance, as it is noted in considerable detail later on. the chestnuts were few in number, yet some very good nuts were received, and as most were from trees which had been growing in sections where the blight has been present for many years, it is believed that they will be of value in getting a blight resistant chestnut of horticultural merit. this work now is really under way. the beechnuts received were but in number and were pretty good although too small to be of horticultural value. considerable is noted later on the likelihood of getting larger beechnuts and a way is suggested to get them. under the headings black walnuts, hickories, chestnuts, butternuts and beechnuts will be found an abstract of the awards of prizes awarded each. it is believed that this will be all that there will be time to present to the convention. the results of each test in detail will be typed out for printing in the report for it is believed these are of permanent value. results of tests on many of the well known nut varieties will also be given. some of these appeared in the report but owing to the change in the constants necessitated by the discovery of new and better nuts these figures are somewhat out of date. some of these also appeared in the report but there are serious typographical errors there and it is believed that it will be of value to have results of the tests on nuts of the contest appear in the report, in connection with tests on well known varieties. the prizes to be awarded are as follows: black walnuts-- prizes--amount $ . hickories-- prizes--amount $ . butternuts-- prizes--amount $ . chestnuts-- prizes--amount $ . beechnuts-- prizes--amount $ . ________ total $ . that there are more than ten prizes, when there were prizes offered but for ten, is due to our custom, when two or more nuts receive the same score and win a prize, to provide an additional prize of equal amount for each one. there have yet to be awarded prizes for those chestnuts of the contest which show high resistance after being inoculated with blight spores. this cannot be done for two years at least for scions must be gotten growing and have reached a diameter of / " to / " before this can be properly done. the writer intended, when the contest reached the stage just now reached to endeavor to get a meeting of those members best qualified to pass on characteristic "quality and flavor of kernel" of those nuts put down by him as prize winners. this is the only characteristic where personal opinion has not been replaced by the precise methods, but time did not permit. the delay in completing the contest has been very unsatisfactory. it has been caused by a combination of circumstances which it is not believed will occur again. instead of a contest limited to one nut, as the contest was, we had here, as well, butternuts and hickories in large numbers, the hickories in particular being more numerous than the black walnuts, and the nuts came in very late, all of which largely increased the nuts to be gone over and delayed dr. deming in the preliminary examination. the nuts did not reach me till the last of april, a time when spring work outside was pressing. it takes a person of some experience before even the weighing methods in force for measuring quantitatively nut characteristics can be properly done and while some work was done on the contest practically every day from april th on, only about an hour a day could be put on it, and it went so slowly that after about a month, i set about hiring someone who should devote his or her time to it. it took about six weeks before someone was obtained and properly trained, which brought us into july, since which time the work went on well but the number of nuts was large and i had to personally pass on the final award, which must be carefully done and necessarily a good deal of time was taken, far more than anticipated. the experience of this year's contest has shown me how to better handle another if it falls to my lot to do so. i would get dr. deming to send in the nuts, which after the preliminary examination, he thought worthy of carefully testing, instead of waiting till the preliminary examination of all received had been completed. this would get them here in the winter when work is light for the man i have here, who is thoroughly trained for making these tests. those rejected at first by dr. deming he could go over again later, as is his custom, and possibly pick out some good ones which did not show up well when first received. black walnuts the black walnuts sent into the contest were the best that had been seen up to that time, yet those received in the contest are so far ahead of those as to make us wonder if we shall again find a contest where the black walnuts received equal those received in . most remarkable was the case of mrs. e. w. freel of pleasantville, iowa, who sent in black walnuts from four different trees, each one of which took a prize, no. the first, no. the second, no. the eighth, and no. the tenth, the first time in the history of the nut contests that anything approaching this record has occurred. this is also the first contest where a nut of any other black walnut species than juglans nigra has come anywhere near the prize winners. the score card used in the contest was the same as that used in the contest but with the constants recalculated as required because of nuts received in the meantime which made this necessary. the prizes awarded are noted below: name and address species score prize amount mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, ia., nut. no. nigra $ . mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, ia., nut no. nigra . mrs. j. a. stillman, mackeys, n. c. nigra . annie m. wetzel, new berlin, pa. nigra . john rohwer, grundy center, ia., the iowa nigra . mrs. irwin haag, new castle, ind. nigra . dane learn, % harley learn, aylmer, ont., r. r. no. nigra . mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, ia., nut no. nigra . a. f. weltner, point marion, pa., r. f. d. nigra . mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, ia., nut no. nigra . _______ $ . there are some other black walnuts worthy of honorable mention which were awarded from points to and which it is believed are worthy of experimental propagation. one of these is from a. e. grobe, chico, cal., species, hindsii, total award points, which is the only california black walnut of value sent in to the contests up to this time. nut notable for size were received from: mrs. r. f. frye, carthage, n. c., r. no. , box , wt, . g, nigra, score . c. t. baker, grandview, ind., wt. . g, nigra, score . a. p. stockman, lecompte, la., wt. . g, nigra, score . nuts notable for cracking quality were received from: mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, ia., cqc %, cqa . %, total points, nigra, points total. mrs. j. a. stillman, mackeys, n. c., cqc %, cqa . %, total points, nigra, points total. j. u. gellatly, gellatly, b. c., cold stream no. , cqc %, cqa . %, total points, nigra, points total. annie w. wetzel, new berlin, pa., cqc %, cqa . %, total points, nigra, points total. a. f. weltner, point marion, pa., r. f. no. , cqc %, cqa . %, total points, nigra, points total. mrs. a. sim, rodney, ont., cqc %, cqa . %, total points, nigra, points total. nut notable for high percentage of kernel: ferdinand huber, cochrane, wis., . % points, species nigra, total award points. mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, ia., nut. no. , . % points, species nigra, total award points. attractive color of kernel: while a number were awarded four points out of a possible , none of the black walnuts sent in were especially notable in this respect. hickories this is the first lot of hickories that has come in for a contest conducted by the association in a number of years. the last contest, that of , was for black walnuts only. it is true that at the meeting of the judges who passed on the black walnuts entered in the contest there were a number of fine hickories shown which had been received in the contest conducted by the philadelphia society for the promotion of agriculture, but so far as the writer is aware we have to go back to to reach the last contest at which prizes were awarded for hickories. the contest marked a notable change in the method of awarding prizes. as noted at some length under black walnuts, that score card was made simpler, by the judges who passed on the nuts received in the contest, by awarding points previously given for characteristics that seemed of less importance to others, so the hickory score card was carefully gone over to see if a similar change could not be made to advantage. as it is believed that hickory nuts will be sold in the shell, as are pecans, it was not possible to do this to the same extent as with black walnuts. however, the characteristic "form," which is difficult if not almost impossible to estimate with any kind of precision, it was thought for the present at least might be disregarded. husking quality is important but it was impossible to properly award points for this characteristic in a nut contest, because the nuts are husked before being sent in. the points allowed for excellence in these qualities were added to others, which gave points to cracking quality absolute instead of , and points to quality and flavor of kernel instead of . it has been generally considered that a nut which is awarded points, even though it took no prize, was worthy of experimental propagation. there were hickories in the contest which were awarded points or more. of those actually awarded prizes for a combination of good qualities, twenty-one in number, thirteen were thought to be shagbarks, or it might be more exact to state that we had not sufficient evidence to think them to be otherwise, although some are suspected not to be pure carya ovata, four were thought to be carya dunbarii (carya ovata x laciniosa), two were thought to be carya ovalis, and two carya laciniosa. in this contest the shagbarks showed up poorly, being the highest score awarded, when from the number of entries one would have expected the highest to have been awarded points or over. on the other hand this is the first contest where a prize has been awarded to a shellbark, carya laciniosa. among hickories awarded points or over were five shellbarks, two of them large ones, one weighing . g, per lb. and one weighing . g, per lb. the importance of this will be realized when we consider that, in the contest, out of prize winning nuts four prizes were awarded to nuts believed to be carya dunbarii (carya ovata x laciniosa) and there were two or three others that may prove to be. while natural hickory hybrids are not particularly rare yet they are far from common. at one time, while on the levees north of burlington, iowa, the number of pecan x shellbark hybrids seen impressed the writer, yet a careful count showed these hybrids to be only about hybrid in pure pecans. considerable experience in making or attempting to make hickory hybrids leads the writer to believe that the proportion of hickory hybrids will be much less than this. if, however, we assume it to be in and the fact that among this years meritorious nuts hybrids are out of or out of , we would calculate that the chances of getting meritorious nuts out of hybrids is about times as great as out of pure species. we really have not sufficient data at present to attempt to make such calculations yet the glimpse they give us of the promise of wonderful results from the systematic production of hybrid varieties between selected parents is most alluring. the number of prizes awarded to carya dunbarii (carya ovata x laciniosa) shows a line of work of particular promise. we have plenty of good shagbarks, carya ovata, and now that he have really good shellbarks, carya laciniosa, of large size, fair cracking quality and good flavor which we never had before, we have selected material for the production of shagbark x shellbark hybrids, a class which has produced the weiker hickory, four of the contest prize hickories and some other hickories of merit which have come to the attention of the writer during the past two or three years. as we have a number of good northern pecans we have also selected material for the production of pecan x shellbark hybrids, a class which has produced the mcallister pecan. if the contest does nothing more than to bring to light these fine shellbarks it is worth all it cost. the contest also has shown some mockernuts of large size and better quality than ordinary but still not good enough to be in a class with the shellbarks noted above. the number of years that we have been testing hickories without getting good shellbarks leads us to hope that we will eventually get good mockernuts. the prize winning hickories are noted below: name and address species points prize amount mrs. c. lake, new haven, ind. ovata $ . ferdinand huber, cochrane, wis. ovata . john d. bontrager, middlebury, ind. ovata . john roddy, napoleon, ohio dunbarii ? . steve green, battle creek, mich. ovalis ? . [a]mrs. hamill goheen, pennsylvania furnace, pa. dunbarii ? . menno zurcher nut no. , apple creek, ohio ovata . edgar fluhr, kiel, wis. ovata . [a]elmer t. sande, story city, ia. dunbarii ? . n. e. comings, amherst, mass. ovata . edward renggenberg, madison, wis. ovata . c. d. wright, nut no. , sumner, mo. laciniosa . mrs. john brooks, ottumwa, ia. ovata . arlie w. froman, bacon, ind. ovata . [a]mrs. c. e. hagen, guttenberg, clay co., ia. dunbarii ? . l. s. huff, white pigeon, mich. ovalis ? . j. k. seaver, harvard, ill. ovata . joseph sobelewski, norwich, conn. ovata . caleb sprunger, berne, ind. laciniosa . grace peschke, ripon, wis. ovata . john muriel thomas, henryville, ind. ovata . [a] means that these varieties were known to the association before the contest. there are nearly as many others which came within two or three points of being prize winners and which it is believed should be propagated experimentally. these will be noted on the complete report. there are also the following which are notable for unusual excellence in one characteristic and which it is believed should be propagated experimentally and are here given honorable mention. george s. homan, easton, mo., laciniosa large, wt. . g, h. m. . mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, ia., shellbark, no. , laciniosa large, wt. . g, h. m. . w. p. ritchey, marietta, tex., alba large, wt. . g, h. m. . j. droska, pierce city, mo., alba large, wt. . g, h. m. . _______ $ . butternuts the last contest where prizes were offered for butternuts was that of and no nuts of value were entered. the contest has a number of unusually good ones. the score card for butternuts was revised for this contest on the basis of the one adopted for the black walnut in the contest and the constants recalculated. the prizes awarded are noted below: l. k. irvine, menominee, wis. cinerea $ . h. j. thill, bloomer, wis., box cinerea . c. f. hostetter, bird-in-hand, pa. cinerea . john f. kenworthy, rockton, wis. cinerea . f. e. devan, rock creek, ohio cinerea . e. j. lingle, pittsfield, pa. cinerea . john hergert, st. peter, minn., nut no. cinerea . evert e. van der poppen, hamilton, mich. cinerea . mrs. a. b. simonson, mondove, wis. cinerea . mrs. e. sherman, montague city, mass. cinerea . w. a. creitz, cambridge city, ind. bixbyi ? . mrs. abbie c. bliss, bradford, vt. nut no. cinerea . at first it might be thought that but one species of nuts would be sent in as butternuts, and this was true up to or years ago. the chance hybrids of the japan walnut and the butternut, named juglans bixbyi by prof. c. s. sargent of the arnold arboretum, resemble the butternut so much that as time grows on it is increasingly probable that these will be sent in as butternuts. one came in to the contest and it is thought that the creitz of this contest may possibly be such. chestnuts the chestnuts received were relatively few in number but most of them were from sections where the blight had been present many years. those that were from sections where this condition did not prevail were not allowed to enter. there were a few american chestnuts, some very good ones, from sections where the blight had not destroyed the native chestnut but these were not entered. as it happened all entered were of japanese or chinese species, which was somewhat of a disappointment to those who hope that a blight resistant american chestnut will yet be found. it certainly looks so far as if varieties of chestnuts for the blight area, of horticultural value, would be japanese, castanea crenata, or chinese, castanea mollissima. the chestnuts were judged early and scions sent for in order to get a start on the second part of the chestnut problem, that of testing the resistance of these seemingly resistant varieties to the chestnut blight. the scions received were disappointing in quality and disappointing in the extent to which they were gotten started this year. the writer set scions on chinese (mollissima) stock, mr. hershey set them on american (dentata) stock and the u. s. dept. of agriculture set them on japanese (crenata) stock, but owing to the poor scions only part of them are growing. the writer got eight varieties out of twelve to start but it is questionable how they will do, for mollissima stock is thought to be good only for mollissima varieties and the varieties were all crenata, and so, while a start has been made on the problem of getting blight resistant chestnuts of horticultural value it is only a start and much work remains to be done. the prizes awarded were as follows: name and address species points prize amount frank b. austin, milford, del. crenata $ . c. warren swayne, west grove, pa. crenata . charles v. stein, manheim, pa., r. f. d. no. , nut no. crenata . dr. w. c. deming, hartford, conn. mollissima [a] ----- charles v. stein, manheim, pa., r. f. d. no. , nut no. crenata . helen w. smith, linden lodge, stamford, conn. crenata . may cline, route , belvidere rd., phillipsburg, n. j., nut no. crenata . may cline, route , belvidere rd., phillipsburg, n. j., nut no. crenata . howard a. folk, brielle, n. j. crenata . w. russell parker, box no. , little silver, n. j. crenata . ralph p. atkinson, setauket, n. y. crenata . victor page, elmsford, n. y. crenata . frank atler, edison, pa. crenata . [a] not entered in contest. beechnuts never before, so far as the writer is aware, has there been a score card proposed for beechnuts, but the need of one is apparent and the following is suggested till a better one is found. it is not doubted that one will appear, for our present score cards for hickories, walnuts, etc., are the result of changes made as nuts received in the contests have shown such to be advisable, and work on the beechnut is years or so behind that on other nuts. size is the most important characteristic in the beechnut, for all are thin shelled and practically all are well flavored. if we had a beechnut the size of a chestnut we should have a most valuable addition to our nuts. the points awarded for size have therefore been on the basis that eventually we would get a beechnut the size of a chestnut, although we are very far from that now. forty points are allowed for size and it is figured that eventually we will get a beechnut grams in weight which is the weight of a medium size chestnut. the constants used in figuring the number to be awarded for other characteristics require little comment for they are figured on the basis of existing nuts as constants have hitherto been calculated. the suggested score card is as follows: weight points color of shell points percent of kernel points ease of removing pellicle points quality and flavor of kernel points total points the details and methods used in judging beechnuts this year, also the calculations of the constants and the details of the awards, will be typed for the report. the prizes awarded were as follows: mrs. john m. pepaw, johnson, vt. grandiflora $ . mrs. george marshey, johnson vt. grandiflora . james radle, harbor springs, mich. grandiflora . anthony andreson, burke, n. y. grandiflora . fagus sylvatica sylvatica [a] ----- fagus sylvatica purpurea sylvatica [a] ----- ______ $ . [a] not entered in the contest it is not believed that nuts of fagus sylvatica (european beech) will test out better, generally, than nuts of fagus grandiflora (american beech) but the beechnuts were not tested till late, and the european beechnuts had been kept in a refrigerator, while the american beechnuts had not, which very likely may have been the cause for better retaining both the flavor and pellicle-removing quality, which made these nuts receive more points for these characteristics and so be awarded more points than the first four. the meager results in getting beechnuts large enough to be of horticultural value in this contest, as well as in previous contests, and the failures of considerable effort on the part of the writer independently to locate large beechnuts, have caused him to put much thought on the matter and to have come to the conclusion that the search should be conducted in europe as well as here, for the following reasons: the beech in europe is much more esteemed as a valuable tree than here, largely because of its value for fuel. it has for many years, if not for centuries, been a tree that has been largely planted in those forests, state and private, which have been managed on the basis of sustained production, and it is not doubted that the men in charge are more familiar with the beech trees in the forests under their jurisdiction than is the case in america. the european beech has shown the most amazing variation in color, size and shape of leaves, color of bark, and habits of growth, which have been perpetuated by grafting as ornamental varieties, and it seems likely that there are equal variations in the nuts which only remain to be discovered. in short, while there may be no more large fruited beeches in europe than here, it is believed that the chances of finding them are better. attendance record james a. neilson, east lansing, michigan. c. f. walker, cleveland heights, ohio. mr. and mrs. john w. hershey, downingtown, pennsylvania. mr. and mrs. harry r. weber, cincinnati, ohio. dr. and mrs. g. a. zimmerman, harrisburg, pennsylvania. mr. and mrs. m. a. yant, cedar rapids, iowa. mr. and mrs. newton h. russell, hadley center, massachusetts. mr. and mrs. e. w. freel, pleasantville, iowa. mr. and mrs. w. l. crissman, cedar rapids, iowa. mr. and mrs. c. w. bingham, cedar rapids, iowa. mr. and mrs. f. o. harrington, williamsburg, iowa. frank h. frey, chicago, illinois. r. s. herrick, des moines, iowa. arthur huston, cropsey, illinois. dr. w. c. deming, hartford, connecticut. j. k. hershey, ronk, pennsylvania. hugh e. williams, ladora, iowa. c. w. bricker, ladora, iowa. millard harrington, williamsburg, iowa. dr. j. russell smith, swarthmore, pennsylvania. daniel boyce, winterset, iowa. t. j. maney, ames, iowa. j. f. wilkinson, rockport, indiana. snyder brothers, center point, iowa. dr. r. j. meyers, moline, illinois. rev. l. d. stubbs, cedar rapids, iowa. vance mccray, cedar rapids, iowa. ray anderson, cedar rapids, iowa. a. b. anthony, sterling, illinois. george f. stoltenberg, moline, illinois. john h. witte, murlington, iowa. w. l. van meter, adel, iowa. miss elva becker, cedar rapids, iowa. n. f. drake, fayetteville, arkansas. prof. a. s. colby, university of illinois, urbana, illinois. none +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |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. | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ northern nut growers association incorporated affiliated with the american horticultural society th annual report convention at wooster, ohio september , , table of contents officers and committees state vice presidents list of members constitution by-laws proceedings of the thirty-seventh annual convention address of welcome--dr. j. h. gourley response--john e. cannaday, m.d. address of retiring president--carl weschcke report of secretary--mildred m. jones report of the treasurer--d. c. snyder aims and aspirations of the ohio nut growers--a. a. bungart notes on the annual meeting nut growing under semi-arid conditions--a. g. hirschi weather conditions versus nut tree crops--j. f. wilkinson nut tree notes from southwestern ohio--harry r. weber black walnut nursery studies--stuart b. chase my experiments, gambles and failures--john davidson nut trees in wildlife conservation--floyd b. chapman commercial aspects of nut crops as far north as st. paul, minnesota--carl weschcke the status of chinese chestnut growing in the eastern united states--clarence a. reed bearing record of the hemming chinese chestnut orchard--e. sam hemming walnut notes--g. h. corsan self-fruitfulness in the winkler hazel--dr. a. s. colby hickories and other nuts in northwestern illinois--a. b. anthony nut trees for ohio pastures--dr. oliver d. diller how hardy are oriental chestnuts and hybrids?--russell b. clapper and g. f. gravatt growing chestnuts for timber--jesse d. diller improved methods of storing chestnuts--h. l. crane and j. w. mckay essential elements in tree nutrition--w. f. wischusen nut tree propagation as a hobby for a chemist--dr. e. m. shelton notes on propagation and transplanting in western tennessee--j. c. mcdaniel propagating nut trees under glass--stephen bernath the economic, ecological and horticultural aspects of intercropping nut plantings--dr. f. l. o'rourke nut work at the mahoning county experiment farm, canfield, ohio--l. walter sherman the ohio black walnut contest of iowa black walnut contest grafting methods adapted to nut trees--h. f. stoke beginnings in walnut grafting--c. c. lounsberry forest background--john davidson graft the persian walnut high in michigan--gilbert becker pecan growing in western illinois--r. b. best random notes from eastern new york--gilbert l. smith yield and nut quality of the common black walnut in the tennessee valley--thomas g. zarger the field tour--c. a. reed report of resolutions committee obituary--gourley, bixby letters to the secretary; notes; extracts list of exhibits attendance officers of the association _president_--clarence a. reed, piney branch rd., n.w., washington, d. c. _vice president_--dr. l. h. macdaniels, cornell university, ithaca, n. y. _treasurer_--d. c. snyder, center point, iowa _secretary_--mildred m. jones, box , lancaster, penna. _director_--carl weschcke, s. wabasha st., st. paul, minn. _director_--dr. a. s. colby, university of illinois, urbana, ill. _dean_--dr. w. c. deming, litchfield, conn. _parliamentarian_--john davidson, e. second st., xenia, o. executive appointments parliamentarian john davidson legal advisers sargent wellman, harry weber auditing e. p. gerber, g. a. gray, r. e. silvis finance carl weschcke, harry weber, d. c. snyder press and publication l. h. macdaniels, george l. slate, g. h. corsan varieties and contests--gilbert becker, gilbert l. smith, l. walter sherman, a. g. hirschi, seward bethow survey john davidson exhibits--h. f. stoke, mrs. g. a. zimmerman, mrs. herbert negus, i. w. short, gilbert l. smith, h. h. corsan, g. h. corsan, l. walter sherman, j. f. wilkinson, royal oakes, seward berhow, george brand, a. g. hirschi, r. t. dunstan, spencer b. chase and abe margolin, carl weschcke, program--mildred jones, george l. slate, l. h. macdaniels, o. d. diller, thomas g. zarger, r. p. allaman, clarence a. reed membership--mrs. s. h. graham, a. a. bungart, mrs. herbert negus, george kratzer, lewis a. theiss necrology--mrs. h. f. stoke, mrs. john hershey, mrs. william rohrbacher, mrs. john davidson, mrs. j. f. jones place of meeting (both and )--george l. slate, l. h. macdaniels, g. h. corsan, d. c. snyder, g. j. korn official journal--american fruit grower, ontario st., cleveland, ohio state vice presidents alabama lovic orr alberta, canada a. l. young arkansas searles johnson british columbia, can. j. u. gellatly california dr. thomas r. haig canal zone l. c. leighton colorado w. a. colt connecticut william g. canfield delaware edward c. lake georgia g. clyde eidson idaho fred baisch illinois joseph gerardi indiana dr. charles h. skinner iowa e. f. huen kansas h. s. wise kentucky dr. c. a. moss louisiana j. hill fullilove maine radcliffe b. pike maryland wilmer p. hoopes massachusetts dr. r. a. van meter mexico julio grandjean michigan gilbert becker minnesota r. e. hodgson mississippi dr. ernest a. cook missouri dr. f. m. barnes, jr. nebraska george brand new hampshire l. a. dougherty new jersey mrs. a. r. buckwalter new york clarence lewis north carolina dr. r. t. dunstan ohio g. a. gray oklahoma a. g. hirschi ontario, can. g. h. corsan oregon e. russ pennsylvania h. gleason mattoon quebec, can. gordon l. somers rhode island phillip allen south america celedonia v. pereda south carolina john t. bregger south dakota homer l. bradley tennessee thomas g. zarger texas kaufman florida utah granville oleson vermont a. w. aldrich virginia dr. v. a. pertzoff washington f. d. linkletter west virginia meyer s. slotkin wisconsin w. s. bassett wyoming w. d. greene northern nut growers association membership list as of january , alabama orr, lovic, penn-orr-macdaniel orchards, r. d. , danville richards, paul n., r. d. , box , birmingham arkansas johnson, searles, japton upham, harry, "quinta nogalada", cove williams, jerry f., r. d. , viola california armstrong nurseries, n. euclid ave., ontario field, lt. eugene a., usn, u.s.s. whitney, c/o postmaster, san diego haig, dr. thomas r., h st., sacramento kemple, w. h., west ralston st., ontario parsons, chas. e., felix gillet nursery, nevada city walter, e. d., alameda, berkeley welby, harry s., buchanan st., taft canada brown, alger, r. d. , harley, ontario casanave, r. d. , euburne, b. c. corsan, george h., "echo valley", islington, ontario crath, rev. paul c., r. d. , connington, ontario eddie & sons, ltd., pacific coast nurseries, sardis, b. c. elgood, h., trans canada highway west, chilliwack, b. c. english, h. a., box , duncan, b. c. filman, o., aldershot, ontario gellatly, david, box , westbank, b. c. gellatly, j. r., westbank, b. c. giegerich, h. c., con-mine, yellow knife, nwt housser, levi, beamsville, ontario maillene, george, naramata, b. c. manten, jacob, r. d. , white rock, b. c. * neilson, mrs. ellen, mcdonald ave., guelph, ontario papple, elton e., r. d. , gainsville, ontario porter, gordon, y.m.c.a., windsor, ontario somers, gordon l., london st., sherbrooke, quebec trayling, e. j., richards st., vancouver, b. c. wagner, a. s., delhi, ontario wood, d. f., hobbs glass ltd., duke st., toronto, ontario yates, j., e. th ave., vancouver, b. c. young, a. l., brooks, alta. canal zone leighton, l. c., box , cristobal colorado colt, w. a., lyons wilder, w. e., west th, la junta connecticut canfield, william g., west main st., new britain david, alexander m., s. main st., west hartford dawley, arthur e., r. d. , norwich **deming, dr. w. c., litchfield frueh, alfred j., west cornwall graham, mrs. cooper, darien * huntington, a. m., stanerigg farms, bethel jennings, clyde, west main st., waterbury lehr, frederick l., elihu st., hamden lemieux, w. e., grove st., rockville mcsweet, arthur, clapboard hill rd., guilford milde, karl f., town farm rd., litchfield morencey, edward, kensington st., manchester * newmaker, adolph, r. d., , rockville page, donald t., box , r. , danielson pratt, george d., jr., bridgewater rodgers, raymond, r. d. , westport rourke, robert u., r. d. , pomfret center scazlia, jos. a., matson hill rd., south glastonbury senior, sam p., r. d. , bridgeport tower, sidney, birchwood rd., east hartford walsh, james a., c/o armstrong rubber co., west haven warfel, robert, main st., glastonbury white, heath e., box , westport white, george e., r. d. , andover delaware lake, edward c., sharpless rd., hockessin district of columbia librarian, american potash institute, inc., th st., n. w. washington reed, clarence a., piney branch rd., n. w., washington georgia eidson, g. clyde, westwood ave., s.w., atlanta hunter, h. reid, lakeshore dr., n.e., atlanta neal, homer a., neal's nursery, r. d. , carnesville skyland farms, s. c. noland & c. h. crawford, spring st., n. w. atlanta idaho baisch, fred, e. main st., emmett dryden, lynn, peck hazelbaker, calvin, lewiston kudlac, joe t., box , buhl rice, e. t., parma swayne, samuel f., orofino illinois adams, james s., r. d. , hinsdale allen, theodore r., delevan anthony, a. b., r. , sterling baber, adin, kansas best, r. b., eldred bolle, dr. a. c., state st., jacksonville bontz, mrs. lillian, w. massachusetts ave., champaign bradley, james w., n. prospect ave., champaign breeden, robert g., lane technical high school, w. addison st., chicago bronson, earle a., simpson st., evanston churchill, woodford m., drexel blvd., chicago colby, dr. arthur s., university of illinois, urbana colehour, francis h., brown bldg., rockford dietrich, ernest, r. d. , dundas dintelman, l. f., belleville edmunds, mrs. palmer d., la hogue frey, mrs. frank h., west th place, chicago frey, frank h., west th place, chicago frierdich, fred, w. main st., belleville gerardi, joseph, gerardi nurseries, o'fallon haeseler, l. m., w. madison st., chicago helmle, herman c., n. walnut st., springfield johnson, hjalmer w., dorchester ave., chicago jungk, adolph, washington ave., alton kilner, f. r., american nurseryman, s. dearborn st., chicago knobloch, miss margaret, arthur kreider, ralph, jr., hammond livermore, ogden, forest ave., evanston logan, george f., carpathian nursery, dallas city maxwell, leroy c., w. washington st., champaign oakes, royal bluffs powell, charles a., hickory st., jerseyville pray, a. lee, north main st., leroy sonnemann, w. f., experimental gardens, vandalia valley landscape co., box , elgin walantas, john., s. union ave., chicago werner, edward h., ridgeland ave., elmhurst whitford, a. m., whitford's nursery, farina youngberg, harry w., port clinton rd., prairie view indiana behr, j. e., laconia boyer, clyde c., nabb garber, h. g., indiana state farm, greencastle gentry, herbert m., r. d. , noblesville glaser, peter, r. d. , box , evansville hite, chas. dean, r. d. , bluffton minton, charles f., r. d. , huntington morey, b. f., s. th st., clinton olson, albert l., nuttman ave., fort wayne pritchett, emery, park ave., fort wayne prell, carl f., west colfax ave., south bend ramsey, arthur, muncie tree surgery co., muncie skinner, dr. charles h., indiana university, bloomington sly, miss barbara, r. d. , rockport sly, donald r., r. d. , rockport tormohlen, willard, cleveland st., gary wallick, ford, r. d. , peru warren, e. l., new richmond wilkinson, j. f., indiana nut nursery, r. , rockport iowa andrew, dr. earl v., maquoketa beeghly, dale, pierson berhow, seward, berhow nurseries, huxley boice, r. h., r. d. , nashua cerveny, frank l., r. d. , cedar rapids christensen, everett g., gilmore city cole, edward p., chestnut st., atlantic crumley, joe f., park rd., iowa city ferguson, albert b., center point ferris, wayne, hampton gardner, clark, gardner nurseries, osage harrison, l. e., nashua hill, clarence s., hilburn stock farm, minburn huen, e. f., eldora inter-state nurseries, hamburg iowa fruit growers' association, state house, des moines kaser, j. d., winterset kivell, ivan e., r. d. , greene kyhl, ira m., box , sabula lehmann, f. w., jr., john lynde rd., des moines lounsberry, dr. c. c., howard ave., ames mcleran, harold f., mt. pleasant meints, a. rock, diron miller, robert h., box , spencer rohrbacher, dr. wm., east college st., iowa city schaub, john m., locust st., ottumwa schlagenbusch bros., r. d. , ft. madison snyder, d. c., snyder bros., inc., nurserymen, center point steffen, r. f., box , sioux city van meter, w. l., adel welch, h. s., mt. arbor nurseries, shenandoah wood, roy a., castana kansas borst, frank e., shawnee st., leavenworth boyd, elmer, r. d. , box , oskaloosa burrichter, george w., c/o mrs. james stone, n. th st., kansas city funk, m. d., n. tyler st., topeka hofman, rayburn, r. d. , manhattan leavenworth nurseries, r. d. , leavenworth schroeder, emmett h., w. th st., hutchinson wise, h. s., w. douglas ave., wichita yoder, d. j., r. d. , haven kentucky alves, robert h., nehi bottling co., henderson baughn, cullie, r. d. , box , franklin cornett, lester, box , lynch gooch, perry, r. d. , oakville moss, dr. c. a., williamsburg tatum, w. g., r. d. , lebanon watt, r. m., r. d. , lexington whittinghill, lonnie m., box , love louisiana louisiana state u., a. & m. college, general library, university fullilove, j. hill, box , shreveport maine pike, radcliffe b., lubec maryland crane, dr. h. l., plant industry station, beltsville eastern shore nurseries, inc., dover rd., easton fletcher, c. hicks, lulley's hillside farm, bowie gravatt, g. f., plant industry station, beltsville harris, walter b., andelot inc., worton hodgson, wm. c., r. d. , white hall hoopes, wilmer p., forest hill kemp, homer s., bountiful ridge nurseries, princess anne kienle, john a., land's end farm, queenstown kingsville nurseries, h. j. hohman, kingsville lewis, dean, bel air mannakee, n. h., ashton mccollum, blaine, white hall mckay, dr. j. w., plant industry station, beltsville negus, mrs. herbert, - nd st., mt. rainier porter, john j., the terrace, hagerstown purnell, j. edgar, spring hill rd., salisbury shamer, dr. maurice e., w. north ave., baltimore thomas, kenneth d., n. ellwood ave., baltimore massachusetts atwood, gordon e., crescent st., northampton beauchamp, a. a., boylston st., boston brown, daniel l., esq., state st., boston fitts, walter h., baker st., foxboro fritze, e., osterville garlock, mott a., arlington rd., longmeadow gauthier, louis r., wood hill rd., monson graff, george h., chestnut st., brookline hanchett, james l., r. d. , east longmeadow kaan, dr. helen w., wellesley college, wellesley kendall, henry p., moose hill farm, sharon kibrick, i. s., main st., brockton la beau, henry a., massachusetts ave., north adams rice, horace j., elm st., springfield * russell, mrs. newton h., burnett ave., south hadley short, i. w., washington st., taunton stewart, o. w., milton ave., hyde park swartz, h. p., checopee st. checopee trudeau, dr. a. e., railroad st., holyoke van meter, dr. r. a., french hall, m. s. c., amherst wellman, sargent h., esq., windridge, topsfield westcott, samuel k., richview ave., north adams weston nurseries, inc., brown & winter sts., weston weymouth, paul w., plymouth st., holbrook mexico grandjean, julio., ave. cinco de mayo, num. , mexico city michigan andersen, charles, andersen evergreen nurseries, scottsville avery, r. o., r. d. , brooklyn aylesworth, c. f., pinecrest dr., ferndale barlow, alfred l., flanders ave., detroit, becker, gilbert, climax blackman, orrin c., box , jackson bogart, geo. c., r. d. , three oaks boylan, b. p., cloverdale bradley, l. j., r. d. , springport buell, dr. m. f., dept. of health and recreation, dearborn bumler, malcolm r., lakeview, detroit burgart, harry, michigan nut nursery, r. d. , union city burgess, e. h., burgess seed & plant co., galesburg cook, e. a., m.d., director, county health dept., corunna corsan, h. h., r. d. , hillsdale daubenmeyer, h., sylvester, detroit emerson, ralph, cortland ave., highland park gage, nina m., kensington rd., wixom hackett, john c., diamond ave., s.e., grand rapids hagelshaw, w. j., box , galesburg hay, francis h., ivanhoe place, lawrence healey, scott, r. d. , otsego **kellogg, w. k., battle creek king, harold j., sodus korn, g. j., n. rose st., kalamazoo lee, michael, lapeer leist, dewey, livingston dr., flint lemke, edwin w., townsend ave., detroit lewis, clayton a., pine st., port huron mann, charles w., cutler st., allegan mason, harold e., montie, lincoln park mcmillan, vincent u., woodward ave., detroit miller, louis, o'keefe, cassopolis o'rourke, prof. f. l., hort'l dept., michigan state college, e. lansing otto, arnold g., three mile drive, detroit reist, dewey, livingston dr., flint scofield, mrs. carl, box , woodland scofield, carl, box , woodland stocking, frederick n., harrisville stotz, raleigh r., franklin, s.e., grand rapids tate, d. l., westchester st., birmingham wargess, r. d., rose st., battle creek whallon, archer p., r. d. , stockbridge minnesota andrews, miss frances e., park view terrace, minneapolis cothran, john c., n. th ave., e. duluth donaldson co., l. s., nicollet ave., minneapolis hodgson, r. e., dept. of agriculture, s. e. exp. sta., waseca o'connor, pat h., hopkins skrukrud, baldwin, sacred heart vaux, harold c., r. d. , faribault weschcke, carl, s. wabasha st., st. paul missouri barnes, dr. f. m., jr., maryland ave., st. louis bucksath, charles e., dalton campbell, a. t., meadow lane, kansas city fisher, j. b., r. r. h. , pacific giesson, adolph, pine hill farm, weingarten hay, leander, gilliam howe, john, r. d. , box , pacific johns, jeannette f., r. d. , festus nicholson, john w., ash grove ochs, c. t., box , salem richterkessing, ralph, r. d. , st. charles schmidt, victor h., virginia, kansas city stark brothers nurs. & orchard co., louisiana stevenson, hugh, elsberry thompson, j. d., west rd st., kansas city nebraska adams, frederick j., webster st., omaha brand, george, r. d. , box , lincoln caha, william, wahoo clark, ivan e., concord delong, f. s., second corso, nebraska city ferguson, albert b., dunbar ginn, a. m., box , bayard hess, harvey w., the arrowhead gardens, box , hebron hoyer, l. b., maple st., omaha lenz, clifford q., maple st., omaha marshall's nurseries, arlington weaver, francis e., box , sutherland white, bertha g., leighton ave., lincoln white, warren e., binney st., omaha new hampshire dougherty, l. a., university of n. h., durham lahti, matthew, locust lane farm, wolfeboro latimer, prof. l. p., dept. of horticulture, durham malcolm, herbert l., the waumbek farm, jefferson messier, frank, r. d. , nashua ryan, miss agnes, mill rd., durham new jersey bangs, ralph e., allamuchy beck, stanley, south monroe ave., wenonah blake, dr. harold, box , saddle river bottom, r. j., robertson rd., west orange brewer, j. l., allen place, fair lawn buch, philip o., rockaway ave., rockaway buckwalter, mrs. alan r., flemington buckwalter, geoffrey r., route , box , flemington cumberland nursery, r. d. , millville donnelly, john h., mountain ice co., newark st., hoboken dougherty, wm. m., broadacres-on-bedens, box , princeton franek, michael, rutherford ave., franklin fuhlbruegge, edward, r. d. box , scotch plains gardenier, dr. harold c., westwood goitein, louis, s. clinton ave., trenton * jaques, lee w., waverly place, jersey city jewett, edmund gale, r. d. , port murray lovett's nursery, inc., little silver mann, philip, bloomfield ave., newark mcculloch, j. d., george st., freehold mueller, r., r. d. , box , westwood piskorski, mrs. adelaide m., jersey ave., jersey city ritchie, walter m., st. george st., rahway rocker, louis p., the rocker farm, andover sheffield, o. a., hamilton place, hackensack sorg, henry, chicago ave., egg harbor city sutton, ross j., jr., r. d. , lebanon szalay, dr. s., garrison ave., teaneck terhune, gilbert v. p., apple acres, newfoundland todd, e. murray, r. d. , matawan tolley, fred c., berkeley ave., bloomfield trainer, raymond e., roller bearing co., box , trenton van doren, durand h., redmond rd., south orange white, col. j. h., jr., picatinny arsenal, dover williams, harold g., box , ramsey yorks, a. s., lamatonk nurseries, neshanic station new york barton, irving titus, montour falls beck, paul e., beck's guernsey dairy, transit rd., e. amherst benton, william a., wassaic bernath's nursery, r. d. , poughkeepsie bixby, henry d., east drive, halesite, l. i. blauner, sidney h., west end ave., new york bradbury, captain h. g., fifth ave., new york brinckeroff, john h., - hillside ave., jamaica brook, victor, rockingham st., rochester brooks, william g., monroe cowan, harold, southern bldg., the bronx, new york davis, clair, broadway, lynbrook deschauensee, mrs. a. m., easterhill farm, chester dutton, walter, terrace park, rochester ellwanger, mrs. william d., east ave., rochester fagley, richard m., perry st., new york feil, harry, hilton-spencerport rd., hilton flanigen, charles f., greenfield st., buffalo freer, h. j., midvale rd., fairport frifance, a. e., elmdorf ave., rochester fruch, alfred, perry st., new york garcia, m., rugby rd., brooklyn graham, s. h., r. d. , ithaca graham, mrs. s. h., r. d. , ithaca graves, dr. arthur h., botanic garden, brooklyn gressel, henry, r. d. , mohawk gunther, eric f., e. waukena ave., oceanside, l. i. gwinn, ralph w., - th ave., new york hasbrouck, walter, jr., new platz hill, ben h., beverly rd., douglaston, l. i. hubbell, james f., mayro bldg., utica iddings, william, ludlow st., new york irish, g. whitney, valatie kelly, mortimer b., battery place, new york knorr, mrs. arthur, central park, west apt. , new york kraai, dr. john, fairport larkin, harry h., van rensselaer st., buffalo lewis, clarence k., park ave., new york lewis, h. w., c/o ann cangero, roslyn little, george, ripley lowerre, james d., bedford ave., brooklyn * macdaniels, dr. l. h., cornell university, ithaca macewen, harold, r. d. , fulton maloney brothers nursery co., inc., danville mevius, william e., e. church st., eden miller, j. e., r. d. , naples mitchell, rudolph, riverside drive, new york mitchell, thomas, e. th st, new york * montgomery, robert h., e. th st., new york mossman, dr. james k., black oaks, ramapo newell, p. f., elm st., nassau oeder, dr. lambert r., fifth ave., new york ohliger, louis h., r. d. , new city page, chas. e., r. d. , oneida penning, tomas, r. d. , box , saugerties price, jacob, price theatre co., west th st., new york price, j., arbuckle ave., cedarhurst, l. i. rasmussen, harry, r. d. , frederick st., e. syracuse rebillard, frederick, lark st., albany salzer, george, garford rd., rochester schlegel, charles p., south ave., rochester schlick, frank, munnsville schmidt, carl w., linwood ave., buffalo schwartz, mortimer l., boynton ave., bronx sheffield, lewis f., c/o mrs. e. c. jones, townline rd., orangeburg slate, prof. george l., experiment station, geneva smith, gilbert l., state school, wassaic smith, jay l., chester steiger, harwood, red hook stern, otto, stern's nurseries, geneva stern-montagny, hubert, erbonia farm, gardiner szigo, alfred, - a. th ave., jackson heights, new york timmerman, karl g., chapel st., fayetteville waite, dr. r. h., willowwaite moor, perrysburg weis, john f., jr., r. d. , carter rd., fairport wichlac, thaddeus, genesee st., cheektowaga wilson, mrs. ida, candor windisch, richard p., w. e. burnet & co., wall st., new york * wissman, mrs. f. de r., w. th st., new york north carolina dunstan, dr. r. t., greensboro college, greensboro finch, jack r., bailey malcolm, van r., celo p. o., yancey county parks, c. h., r. d. , asheville ohio barden, c. a., morgan st., oberlin bitler, w. a., mcpheron ave., lima bungart, a. a., avon chapman, floyd b., denune ave., columbus cinadr, mrs. katherine, coath ave., cleveland clark, r. l., melbourne rd., east cleveland clay high school, r. d. , toledo cole, mrs. j. r., woodland ave., columbus cook, h. c., r. d. , box , leetonia cranz, eugene f., mount tom farm, ira crawford, l. e., sylvarium gardens, columbia rd., n. olmsted davidson, john, e. nd st., xenia davidson, wm. j., old springfield pike, xenia diller, dr. oliver d., dept. of forestry, experiment sta., wooster dubois, miss frances m., glenshade ave., cincinnati elliott, donald w., rogers emch, frank, genoa evans, maurice g., s. main st., akron fickes, mrs. w. r., r. d. , wooster foraker, major c. merle, elmwood ave., barberton foss, h. d., hamlin st., akron franks, m. l., r. d. , montpelier frederick, geo. f., w. th, cleveland garden center of greater cleveland, east blvd., cleveland gardner, richard f., wagar ave., cleveland gauly, dr. edward, euclid ave., cleveland gerber, e. p., kidron gerhardt, gustave a., jefferson ave., cincinnati gerstenmaier, john a., pond s. w., massilon goss, c. e., dover ave., akron gray, g. a., jefferson ave., cincinnati hamlin, howard e., waltham rd., columbus haydeck, carl, west rd st., cleveland headapohl, miss marjean, r. d. , wapakoneta hill, dr. albert a., pearl rd., cleveland hoch, gordon f., glade ave., cincinnati holley, dr. c. j., elm st., bridgeport hunt, kenneth w., yellow springs irish, charles f., e. th st., cleveland jacobs, homer l., davey tree expert co., kent jacobs, mason, jacobs rd., youngstown jacque, john v., n. drive, cleveland kappel, owen, bolivar kintzel, frank m., briarcliffe ave., cincinnati kirby, r. l., box , r. , sharonville kratzer, george, kidron krok, walter p., w. th st., lorain laditka, nicholas g., stickney ave., cleveland lashley, chas. v., s. main, wellington lehmann, carl, union trust bldg., cincinnati livezey, albert j., barnesville madson, arthur e., - th ave., e. cleveland mcbride, william b., brandon rd., columbus meikle, william j., thornhill dr., cleveland metzger, a. j., euclid ave., toledo miller, arthur r., r. d. , wooster mutchler, glenn m., box , massillon neff, wm., martel nicolay, chas., hess ave., cincinnati oches, norman m., r. d. , brunswick olney high school, r. d. , eggleston rd., toledo osborn, frank c., w. th st., cleveland pomerene, w. h., coshocton poston, e. m., jr., e. main, columbus rowe, stanley m., r. d. , box , cincinnati scarff's sons, w. n., new carlisle schaufelberger, hugo s., r. d. , sandusky shelton, dr. e. m., w. clifton blvd., lakewood sherman, l. walter, mahoning co., exp. farm, canfield shessler, sylvester m., genoa silvis, raymond e., lindbergh ave., n. e., massillon soliday, e. c., madison ave., lancaster southart, dr. a. f., - / south main st., mt. gilead smith, sterling a., w. south st., vermilion spring hill nurseries co., tipp city stocker, c. p., lorain products corp., f st., lorain sylvarium gardens, l. e. crawford, columbia rd., n. olmsted thomas, w. f., s. main st., findlay toops, herbert a., cambridge blvd., columbus urban, george, ardendale rd., south euclid van voorhis, j. f., hudson ave., apt. b- , newark walker, carl f., e. overlook rd., cleveland weaver, arthur w., oliver st., toledo * weber, harry, r. esq., e. th st., cincinnati weber, mrs. martha r., r. d. , morgan rd., cleves weibel, a. j., florida ave., cincinnati whitmer high school, whitmer drive, toledo willett, dr. g. p., elmore wischhusen, j. f., shore acres dr., n.e., cleveland yates, edward w., parkview ave., cincinnati yoder, emmet, smithville oklahoma hirschi's nursery, n. robinson, oklahoma city hubbard, orie b., kingston hughes, c. v., n. w. -r no. , box , oklahoma city jarrett, c. f., w. th, tulsa meek, e. b., r. d. , wynnewood pulliam, gordon, osage ave., bartlesville ruhlen, dr. chas. a., w. steele, cushing swan, oscar e., jr., e. th st., tulsa oregon borland, robert e., mill st., silverton carlton nursery co., forest grove dohanian, s. m., p. o. box , eugene flanagan, george c., terminal sales bldg., portland miller, john e., r. d. , box -a, oswego russ, e., r. d. , halsey schuster, c. e., horticulturist, cervallis pennsylvania allaman, r. p., r. d. , harrisburg anundson, lester, chestnut st., erie banks, h. c., r. d. , hellertown barnhart, emmert m., r. d. , waynesboro beard, h. g., r. d. , sheridan blair, dr. g. d., n. homewood ave., pittsburgh bowen, john c., r. d. , macungie breneiser, amos p., -n. th st., reading brenneman, john s., r. d. , lancaster brown, morrison, carson long military academy, new bloomfield buckman, c. m., schwenkville catterall, karl p., frank st., pittsburgh clarke, wm. s., jr., box , state college creasy, luther p., catawissa dehaven, edwin, wall ave., pitcairn dewey, richard, box , peckville dible, samuel e., r. d. , shelocta diefenderfer, c. e., third st., fullerton driver, warren m., r. d. , bethlehem ebling, aaron l., r. d. , reading etter, fayette, p. o. box , lehmasters gardner, ralph d., box , colonial park gebhardt, f. c., e. th st., erie gorton, f. b., emmet dr., erie heasley, george s., r. d. , darlington heckler, george snyder, hatfield heilman, r. h., beechwood blvd., pittsburgh hershey, john w., nut tree nurseries, downingtown hewetson, prof. f. n., fruit research lab., arendtsville hostetter, c. f., bird-in-hand hostetter, l. k., r. d. , lancaster hughes, douglas, east st st., erie jackson, schuyler, new hope johnson, robert f., r. d. , box , crafton jones, mildred m., n. west end ave., lancaster jones, dr. truman w., coatesville kaufman, m. m., clarion kirk, denard b., forest grove knouse, chas. w., colonial park leach, hon. will, court house, scranton long, carleton c., college ave., beaver losch, walter, e. high st., topton mathews, mrs. geo., r. d. , cambridge springs mattoon, h. gleason, south van pelt st., philadelphia mccartney, j. lupton, rm. , horticultural bldg., state college mercer, robert a., e. phil-ellera st., philadelphia miller, elwood b., c/o the hazleton bleaching & dyeing works, hazleton miller, robert o., rd & ridge st., emmaus moyer, philip s., union trust bldg., harrisburg niederriter, leonard, state st., erie reidler, paul g., ashland rial, john, harrison ave., greensburg * rick, john, pennsylvania sq., reading robinson, p. s., gettysburg rupp, edward e., jr., w. omfret st., carlisle sameth, sigmund, grandeval farm, r. d. , kutztown schaible, percy, upper black eddy schmidt, albert j., smithfield st., pittsburgh sheibley, j. w., star route, landisburg shelly, david b., r. d. , elizabethtown smith, dr. j. russell, elm ave., swarthmore stewart, e. l., pine hill farms nursery, r. d. , homer city stewart, john h., yule tree farm, akeley stoebener, harry w., penn ave., pittsburgh theiss, dr. lewis e., bucknell university, lewisburg twist, frank s., northumberland waggoner, charles w., harmony ave., rochester washick, dr. frank a., cottman ave., philadelphia weinrich, whitney, s. lansdowne ave., lansdowne wicks, dr. a. g., baywood ave., mt. lebanon * wister, john c., scott foundation, swarthmore college, swarthmore wood, wayne, r. d. , newville wright, ross pier, west th st., erie zimmerman, mrs. g. a., r. i, linglestown rhode island + allen, philip, dorance st., providence r. i. state college, library dept., green hall, kingston south america pereda, celedonia v., arroyo , buenos aires, argentina south carolina bregger, john. t., clemson south dakota bradley, homer l., lacreek national wildlife refuge, martin tennessee howell nurseries, sweetwater mcdaniel, dr. j. c, tenn. dept. of agriculture, state office bldg. nashville meyer, james r., agronomy dept., university of tenn., knoxville rhodes, g. b., r. d. , covington richards, dr. a., whiteville roark, w. f., malesus zarger, thomas g., norris texas florida, kaufman, box , rotan price, w. s., jr., gustine utah jeppesen, chris., wildwood hollow farm nursery, provo city oleson, granville, laird ave., salt lake city peterson, harlan d., jefferson ave., ogden vermont aldrich, a. w., r. d. , springfield ellis, zenas h., fair haven. perpetual membership "in memoriam" farrington, robert a., vermont forest service, montpelier foster, forest k., west topsham ladd, paul, hilltop farm, jamaica virginia acker, e. d., co., broadway brewster, stanley h., "cerro gordo", gainesville burton, george l., college st., bedford case, lynn b., r. d. , fredericksburg dickerson, t. c, - th st., newport news gibbs, h. r., mclean johnson, dr. walter r., garrisonville morse, chandler, valross, r. d. , alexandria nix, robert w., jr., lucketts pertzoff, dr. v. a., carter's bridge peters, john rogers, p. o. box , mclean pinner, h. mcr., p. o. box , suffolk powell, frank, stuart stoke, h. f., watts ave., roanoke stoke, dr. john h., - boxley bldg., roanoke thompson, h. c., short & thompson, inc., hopewell variety products co., middlebrook ave., staunton virginia tree farm, woodlawn webb, john, hillsville zimmerman, ruth, bridgewater west virginia cannaday, dr. john e., charleston general hospital, charleston cross, andrew, ripley frye, wilbert m., pleasant dale glenmont nurseries, arthur m. reed, moundsville, w. va. golden chestnut nursery, arthur a. gold, cowen gross, andrew, ripley holcomb, herbert l., riverside nurseries, p.o. box , s. charleston hoover, wendell w., webster springs margolin, abe s., university of west virginia, morgantown slotkin, meyer s., - th ave., huntington washington altman, mrs. h. e., king st., bellingham barth, j. h., box r. d. , spokane bartleson, c. j., box , chattaron biddle, miss gertrude w., gordon ave., spokane carey, joseph e., letona ave., seattle clark, r. w., phinney ave., seattle denman, george l., east nina ave., spokane ferris, major hiram b., p. o. box , spokane jessup, j. m., cook kling, william l., r. d. , box , clarkston latterell, ethel, greenacres linkletter, f. d., - th ave., n.e., seattle lynn tuttle nursery, the heights, clarkston martin, fred a., star route, chelan naderman, g. w., r. d. , box , olymphia shane bros., vashon wisconsin bassett, w. s., main st., la crosse brust, john j., w. wells st., milwaukee dopkins, marvin, r. d. , river falls downs, m. l., n. leminwah st., appleton johnson, albert g., r. d. , box , waukesha koelsch, norman, jackson ladwig, c. f., st. lawrence, beloit mortensen, m. c., stanson ave., racine zinn, walter g., p. o. box , milwaukee wyoming greene, w. d., box , greybull * life member + contributing member ** honorary member constitution article i--name this society shall be known as the northern nut growers association, incorporated. article ii--object its object shall be the promotion of interest in nut-bearing plants, their products and their culture. article iii--membership membership in this society shall be open to all persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to place of residence or nationality, subject to the rules and regulations of the committee on membership. article iv--officers there shall be a president, a vice-president, a secretary and a treasurer, who shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting; and a board of directors consisting of six persons, of which the president, the two last retiring presidents, the vice-president, the secretary and the treasurer shall be members. there shall be a state vice-president from each state, dependency, or country represented in the membership of the association, who shall be appointed by the president. article v--election of officers a committee of five members shall be elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating officers for the following year. article vi--meetings 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. article vii--quorum ten members of the association shall constitute a quorum but must include two of the four officers. article viii--amendments 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 amendment having been mailed by any member to each member thirty days before the date of the annual meeting. by-laws article i--committees the association shall appoint standing committees as follows: on membership, on finance, on programme, on press and publication, on exhibits, on varieties and contests, on survey, and an auditing committee. the committee on membership may make recommendations to the association as to the discipline or expulsion of any member. article ii--fees annual members shall pay two dollars annually. contributing members shall pay ten dollars annually. life members shall make one payment of fifty dollars and shall be exempt from further dues and shall be entitled to the same benefits as annual members. honorary members shall be exempt from dues. "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 or the donation. article iii--membership all annual memberships shall begin october st. annual dues received from new members after april first shall entitle the new member to full membership until october first of that year and a credit of one-half annual dues for the following year. article iv--amendments by-laws may be amended by a two-thirds vote of members present at any meeting. article v members, shall be sent a notification of annual dues at the time they are due and, if not paid within two months, they shall be sent a second notice, telling them that they are not in good standing on account of non-payment of dues and are not entitled to receive the annual report. at the end of thirty days from the sending of the second notice, a third notice shall be sent notifying such members that, unless dues are paid within ten days from the receipt of this notice, their names will be dropped from the rolls for non-payment of dues. proceedings of the thirty-seventh annual convention report of the proceedings of the northern nut growers association at its thirty-seventh annual convention, held at wooster, ohio, september , , , , in the auditorium of the ohio agricultural experiment station. the convention was called to order at a.m. with the president, carl weschcke, in the chair. address of welcome by dr. j. h. gourley, of the wooster experiment station the thing that would strike me particularly about this meeting we are having is to see people come from so far away; a group that is on fire with interest in a fruit which has no great economic importance, in a place like the central west, in comparison with other fruits. another thing that is interesting, as contrasted with other fruit groups, would be this; that the extent to which nuts become of great economic importance in these places lies very largely with you. it seems to me that without the insistent desire of a very small minority of people an industry like this would not get very far. ohio has not done as much as she should. you may have come to ohio to give us a shot in the arm. on behalf of the director, i want to extend to you a cordial welcome to the experiment station and to wooster. this station has acres of land and one-third is at wooster-- acres. we have district and county farms, , acres in state forests and parks. this station has introduced a number of varieties of wheat. sixty to seventy-five per cent of all wheat in ohio is grown from varieties that originated at this station. this station was organized in at columbus. the federal hatch act permitting this type of organization was passed in ; thus ohio was five years ahead of the federal act. in , the station was moved from columbus to wooster. the state act provided that an experiment station should be located within fifty miles of columbus, but later it was permitted to extend the distance to miles. they settled on wooster, which is miles. the tendency is to work more and more closely with the state university. the trend seems to be so they will function as one agricultural institution. i would like to extend the keys of the station to you, but the keys may not unlock the fruit storage. i trust you will have a most profitable time while you are with us. response by john e. cannaday, m. d., charleston, west virginia it is a pleasure to meet here under such favorable auspices and to be received with these hospitable words by dr. gourley. in recent years, ohio has gone far in nut growing under his leadership and that of his staff. pennsylvania also has done a great deal to put nut growing on its feet. my own state, west virginia, is also making good headway. in the early 's i got the 'bee', but i lost two or three of my first few trees. in i imported some chestnuts from japan for planting and tried out various schemes in nut growing. in my opinion, chestnuts are the most important nuts for human food that grow in the temperate zone. it is interesting to observe how chestnuts follow true to seed in many respects. i have been advised that all of the chestnuts grown in china are from selected seed. every foot of steep mountain land in some sections of italy is said to be completely covered with chestnut trees. in my state, the weevil is the scourge of chestnuts; i had hoped that after the chestnut blight destroyed our native chestnuts, the chinese and japanese chestnuts would be free from that pest. where it came from i do not know, unless it came from the chinkapin. west virginia has chinkapins and these, being blight resistant, apparently have kept up the supply of weevils. occasionally, shortly before the chestnuts begin to ripen, a few decay from some type of rot. i took a census of my chestnut trees recently and found trees of bearing age. some of the largest are to feet in height, with a trunk diameter of inches or more. none have been pruned but have maintained their normal branch formation and grow low. the timber tree must be yet to come. i have read interesting statements to the effect that in parts of china and burma, there are chestnut trees of timber shape and size. chestnut trees are likely to become of extreme importance in our future economy. the nuts fill a very significant place in our dietary needs. we should continue to plant chestnut trees and take care of them. i have also from to younger trees that are coming on, and i want to plant additional chestnut trees every year. the black walnut and hickory nut are very important, but the chestnut crop is the corn crop of the nuts. address of retiring president carl weschcke, st. paul, minnesota our last convention at hershey, pa., in september , was a very outstanding one. not only was it successful because of good attendance, excellent addresses and the places of interest we visited, particularly the home of mildred jones, our secretary, at lancaster and of the late dr. g. a. zimmerman at linglestown, but it was important because it marked the beginning of a long period during which we had to forego our conventions. the death of dr. zimmerman shortly before that meeting dampened our usually jovial spirits when we were entertained at his home, but his wife did much to alleviate this. to me, the last convention we held was by far the most important since the very first one at new york in november, , because at it i received the honour of being chosen president for the ensuing year. this was during the era when presidents were usually re-elected for a second term, but i assure you that i have not served as president for this long period because i have been seeking to emulate other presidents, but only because the war years prevented our holding the annual meetings at which our officers are elected. in mentioning any part of the history of our group, we should always remember that we owe its existence to dr. deming, who is now dean of the association. now it is not my province to make a long speech about the n. n. g. a., because a number of other people will talk to you about it. i believe that the growth of our society in recent years has fulfilled the fondest dreams of dr. deming, since we have almost doubled our membership since . we now have approximately over members. people all over the united states are becoming aware of the value of nuts as food important to men. it is too bad that nuts have not been available on a competitive price basis with other foods, and that luxury prices have limited interest in nuts among the women buyers. a better understanding of the uses and comparative value of nuts is gradually coming about which will result in a tremendous demand on the nut-growing industry, which of course, includes the nurserymen who develop and grow all varieties of nut trees. it is unfortunate for our newer members that they will never have the opportunity of knowing those men who were among our earliest and most valued associates whom death has recently taken from us and that they are thus deprived of the pleasure and knowledge they might have gained through personal contact with the wisdom and friendliness these men displayed. let us all take advantage of every opportunity we have to meet with and learn from the senior members of our group who are with us today. they are the salt of the earth, i assure you. to those of you who have come long distances from your homes to attend this annual meeting of the n.n.g.a., to our hosts and to all of my good friends here, may i express my great pleasure at meeting again with you after so long a time. secretary's report mildred m. jones, lancaster, pennsylvania in addition to the regular routine duties of answering inquiries about the association, sales of reports, giving information about nut trees, where they may be obtained, and sources of additional reading material and reference material about nut tree work, a large part of the time i could devote to association affairs this year was in preparation for this meeting. because of travel restrictions, and the fact that the canadian national exhibition would not be held this fall, and assurance from the toronto convention and tourist association, inc. that the exhibition would be resumed in the fall of , and that it would be a newer and greater show, it seemed advisable to place these facts before the members, and allow them to vote on their preference for a meeting place this fall. in addition to responses from the officers, i received votes from members, of which were for wooster, ohio, for beltsville, maryland, and for canada. since the letter asking for votes carried the understanding that we were putting the canadian meeting off for a year by voting for a place in the u. s. this year, and were not canceling the canadian invitation, this would explain the small vote for canada. our program committee this year was comprised of three members and myself--mr. c. a. reed, whose many years of association work and wide acquaintance made him an invaluable source of suggestions; dr. oliver diller, who took charge of the tremendous task of handling local arrangements; and mr. a. a. bungart, who helped greatly in procuring speakers. these men helped so splendidly that i should like here to voice my thanks and appreciation. much new data for the revision of the -page pamphlet giving information about the association, sources of seeds, nut tree nurserymen, and reference material for reading has been gathered for printing. since i accepted the secretaryship in time for the first convention after the war, it seemed advisable to me to hold this material until it could be turned over to my successor who will be elected at this meeting, rather than put the association to the expense of printing only a small number of circulars. a good many inquiries were received during the year for sources of certain varieties of nuts. it would help the secretary, and also the members, to have a list of those who have nuts for sale. treasurer's report for period from october , to september , receipts: annual membership $ . contributing membership-- philip allen . sale of reports . zenas h. ellis legacy . miscellaneous . ------- $ , . disbursements: subscriptions to fruit grower $ . supplies . secretary's expense . treasurer's expenses . miscellaneous . ------- . ---------- excess of receipts over disbursments $ , . balance on hand--october , , . ---------- total balance--september , $ , . deposited in walker state bank $ , . cash on hand . $ , . notes on the annual meeting a telegram was sent to dr. deming in reply to one of greeting from him, and various committees were appointed. mr. corsan suggested that an exhibit of nuts be placed on display in the royal york hotel, toronto, canada. mr. hirschi said that for killing trees by poison he uses two pounds white arsenic, one pound caustic soda and one gallon of water. a member stated that a few drops of mercury would answer the same purpose. mr. hirschi stated that he found the niblack pecan an almost perfect cracker, bringing a premium price. mr. wilkinson stated that while the niblack pecan had never been a prolific bearer, the nut has few equals. perhaps intensive cultivation would improve the bearing. it was voted to leave the date of the next meeting to the executive committee. mr. spencer chase, of the tva, invited the members to meet in tennessee at an early date. the president: "we should consider this a fine invitation for . for we should honor our commitments and go to canada." a free discussion occurred on the suggestion to establish a nut journal and on the proposal to raise the dues. the president suggested that the way to get the work of association done promptly would be to pay for it. dr. mckay expressed doubt about the inadvisability of raising the dues. mr. walker thought that if the dues were raised it should be to the extent of a dollar on account of the inconvenience of sending fractional currency. the treasurer suggested the advisability of getting out a mimeographed letter to record progress. mr. slate emphasized the importance of producing a good report to hold the members. mr. hershey also approved the idea of getting out a news letter or progress report. the president suggested that one thousand members would settle the whole question. mr. jay smith stated he thought the association should advertise in some way, especially in sportsmen's magazines. a motion on the part of mr. stoke to raise the dues by fifty cents per year was lost. the nominating committee made the following nominations for officers for the ensuing year, - : clarence a. reed, president dr. l. h. macdaniels, vice-president miss mildred m. jones, secretary d. c. snyder, treasurer the nominating committee also, through its chairman, mr. weber, recommended that appropriate steps be taken at the next annual meeting to amend the constitution to consolidate the offices of treasurer and secretary so that they can be filled by one person, and that the remuneration of the secretary-treasurer be fixed at fifty cents per member. mr. stoke moved that the report of the nominating committee be approved, and that the nominees be declared elected. motion was seconded and carried. mr. d. c. snyder offered the following resolution: "because of the great and enduring service that dr. william c. deming has rendered the association, i move that he be named dean of the association and be given an honorary life membership, without payment of dues." the motion was seconded, and carried with applause. on being called to the chair, the newly-elected president, clarence a. reed, spoke as follows: "i take this as a very great honor; it is an equally great responsibility. all i can say is that i appreciate it deeply, and that i will give you the best service i have in me." the ohio section of the northern nut growers association, inc., submitted a copy of its constitution containing a provision that it affiliate with the northern nut growers' association by having its accredited members become also members of both associations. after an open discussion by officers and members of both associations, a resolution was adopted by the northern nut growers' association expressing appreciation to the ohio organization for their offer of affiliation, and accepting such affiliation on the terms stated. it was also brought out as the sense of the meeting that the executive committee work out any necessary details in connection with this and any subsequent affiliation on the part of any district or state association, the same to be submitted to the next annual meeting of the northern nut growers' association for ratification. it was also recommended that the president appoint a member of each affiliating association to the executive committee of the northern nut growers' association. this statement is made in lieu of an accurate transcript of the proceedings, or a verbatim report of the resolution as adopted, neither of which is available. aims and aspirations of the ohio nut growers a. a. bungart, avon, ohio in one of the previous bulletins of the nnga, there appeared an eighteen-point program formulated by the ohio nut growers. no doubt you are wondering what has been done and is being done to make this program function. we have eliminated one point, the one on the pollen bank. at the time our program was being prepared we assumed that nut pollen could be stored for several weeks or months: since nut pollen does not remain viable in storage, we shall substitute a point on the use of lime, fertilizers of various formulas and the use of trace elements in nut culture. the ohio forestry association on january , , passed a resolution approving our eighteen-point program. as you are well aware, the war put a damper on many activities, nut and otherwise. here in ohio, the nut crops of and were virtually failures; even the crop of is decidedly spotty. yet in spite of the war and adverse weather conditions, the ohio growers are looking forward, and planning for the future. as a group we are directing our efforts to the attainment of two specific objectives. in the first place, we have almost $ collected as prize money for state nut contests. i take this opportunity to announce a donation of $ from mr. john davidson, of xenia, ohio. with the aid of such a generous contributor, we are able to offer a first prize of $ ; second prize of $ ; third prize of $ ; fourth prize of $ ; fifth prize of $ ; and five one-dollar prizes for black walnuts. in three or five years we intend to have another contest; either a sweepstakes of $ , or a repetition of the amounts offered this year. we may keep the contest open next year and the year after for those wishing to enter nuts for the final awards. in this way, too, we include black walnuts which are not bearing this year. our follow-up will work something like this: we intend to keep a record over the years of the performance of each of the ten prize winners and the ten honorable mentions of the contest. to that end we have made a score card. the first section of this card will contain information useful to the department of forestry and to nut culture in general, but it will not be a factor in selecting the prize winner unless a virtual tie might result in the sweepstakes contest. this section will include: . location--owner, county, rural route, village, town, state route, etc. . location of tree--isolated, moderately crowded, in dense woods, farm, pasture, city lot, fence row, general ecology; types of other trees in neighborhood, air drainage, exposure. . size of tree--circumference - / ft. from the ground, probable age, height, limb spread; shape, tall, short; symmetry or lack of it. . type of soil--bottom land, slope and direction, upland; clay, loam, alluvial; presence or absence of humus; acidity; sod or cultivated, mulch or not; depth and kind of subsoil. . moisture conditions--presence of stream or tile drain, proximity to to stream, lake, pond, etc. . fertility conditions--wild natural state, near barnyard, fertilized or not with manure or commercial fertilizers, application of lime, etc. the second section will contain information that will aid in awarding the final prizes. superior rating under this head might, in the final judging, make an "honorable mention" of the contest the best all around performer three or five years hence. this section will include: . resistance to disease and insect pests points . bearing habits over the given period; annual, biennial, occasional points . length of growing season; rate of growth; time of blossoming (staminate and pistillate flowers), time of leafing out, time of nut ripening, time of leaf fall points . size of nut clusters, range in number of nuts, per cluster, number of pounds of immature nuts points . size of crop in proportion to tree points total points some formula will have to be worked out for the last, i.e., size of crop in proportion to the size of tree. perhaps we might say the crop equals (pounds of nuts) / (r squared x h) in which "r" would represent the radius or half the limb spread and "h" the height, measured from the top to lowest branches. for example, if a tree that yielded pounds of nuts had a limb spread of feet and was twenty feet high, it would have a value of / ( squared x ) or / . the fraction, of course, could be eliminated if the number of nuts were substituted for pounds. it is hardly likely that such a formula would be used for all the trees, probably only in instances where scores in other respects were close. the third section of the score card will record the rating of the judges on the cracking qualities and other characteristics of the nuts themselves. any form accepted and approved by the nnga will be satisfactory. we plan to use this system for hickory, butternut and other nut contests. without a mr. davidson, however, we shall be compelled to reduce our prizes for the other contests. i should like to take this opportunity to thank mr. c. a. reed for originating this plan. he told us we ought to know more about the trees from which the prize nuts were taken. our score card aims at a complete record. our second aim is to secure a full time research worker in nut culture under the horticultural department of ohio. we have the promise of director secrest that he will include in his biennial budget an appropriation for such a specialist. we have the encouragement of dr. gourley, the head of the department. but both men will expect us to do our part. both expect us to speak for our group and our project when the time comes. we accept that responsibility. our group has already contacted the members of the finance committee that passes on the budget, and we expect to have our representatives present when the budget is discussed in committee. at present, to be sure, we cannot furnish or even promise an endowment in money. sixty nut grower members can scarcely compete with such powerful groups as the apple growers, the hybrid corn breeders, the poultrymen and others. we can, however, furnish an endowment of men. among our members we have such men as mr. davidson, mr. shessler, mr. cranz, mr. smith and mr. weber, along with many others who have done a great deal with nut trees. a research worker could draw upon their advice, their experience, their technique. he would have as his assistants men who were actuated by no mercenary or selfish motives, and would give of their time and trees to make this dream a reality. certainly much of the experimental work such as the crossing of varieties could well be performed on the trees of individual members. the need of such an expert is obvious. the job of getting ahead in nut culture is too big for any one of us. we all know, frequently to our regret, that nut growing is a slow and at times a discouraging business. if we are honest with ourselves we have to admit failures again and again; yet the work is creative and fascinating. we always plan to eliminate some blunder, to perfect some method, next year. sometimes a man has a green thumb, or a magic touch, or whatever it takes to make grafts grow, or buds take, or hunches to succeed. such a man was mr. otto witte, of north amherst. as a nonagenarian, he was ever looking ahead to another year with his beloved trees, but he died in his nineties. some of his prize trees have been cut down and probably others will be. what has happened to the experiments of years? another such man was mr. ross fickes, of wooster, whose skill in grafting nut trees was at once our envy and our admiration. when his farm is sold, will the new owner sense the hand of the master and watch carefully over the walnuts and hickories, or will he cut them down? i suppose that death brings an end to many a business, but the nut business is a new one, and a slow one, too. it is regretted that a life time of patient care and painstaking research is lost to us and to nut culture. true, a nut specialist will not keep death from the door of nut growers, nor will he save their groves from destruction, but he can keep a record of each grower's trees. he can plant his trees and lay out his plantings on state land where there would be more assurance of permanency. once a nut department is established there is good reason to suppose that the work would go on until certain objectives were attained. well, what should our specialist specialize in? may i suggest a few activities? such a specialist would be the proper person to keep the score cards of the prize-winning black walnuts, hickories, butternuts and english (persian) walnuts of nut contests held in the state. he would have the time and space for grafting scions from such trees for further observation and study. in the second place, he could plant and study other varieties under identical conditions and observe their performance. by correlating these data with the records of individual growers he ought to be able to recommend certain varieties of nut trees for various sections of the state. in ohio, we have chapters of the izaak walton league; we have friends of the land; we have sportsmens clubs; we have extensive tracts of municipal and state land. we have the problem of doing something constructive with strip mining areas; we have, and will have under contour farming, little crazy-quilt blocks of land unsuitable for cultivation. all these agencies and all these needs tie in with the intelligent use of trees, particularly nut trees, because they serve a fourfold purpose; lumber, food, erosion control, and a balanced wild life. here is where the nut specialist would enter the scene. by collecting data, by pooling the results of the individual growers, and especially by selection and breeding, he should be able to recommend the proper varieties of nut trees for specific needs. it seems to me, however, that the main job of such a worker should be to produce a streamlined black walnut, a thin-shelled, good-cracking, fast-growing walnut. the black walnut is, indeed, a regal tree. it grows all over the state. here is a tree of almost infinite variation. what an opportunity for the genetic scientist! what an opportunity for the nut specialist! in connection with the improvement of the black walnut as a nut and timber tree, the specialist might well investigate the english or persian walnut. what about the possibilities of circassian walnut lumber? what is to prevent the growers and the specialist from planting the english walnut for timber? here in northern ohio, english walnut trees have been cut for timber. there are probably several hundred english walnut trees scattered through the northern counties of ohio. some of them are from to inches in diameter. a few are second generation. as these trees seem to be fairly rapid growers it would seem reasonable that nuts from these hardy trees would grow into valuable timber, apart from the value of the nuts. perhaps all these aspirations and aims seem utopian. probably such a program would keep a dozen workers occupied. in cooperation with the forestry department, however, students might be assigned to study certain phases of nut culture. a ph.d. dissertation might well be written on the variation of the thomas walnut in ohio. in conclusion, the ohio growers will try to produce better nut trees. through prize contests they hope to find what nature has produced. through the services of a scientist they hope to find what man can produce. the two aims dovetail. we are reasonably certain of the prize contests; we are not yet certain of securing the nut scientist. ohio is host to the nnga this year. may the ohio growers ask you for your moral support in this venture? the nnga is the mother organization. through the efforts of the officers, past and present, the association is in a flourishing condition with prospects of a very bright future. whatever we do in ohio, whatever will be done in other states and countries will be a monument to the nnga. the groping years, the hard years, are behind. the spade work has been done. we want you to feel that the aims and aspirations of the ohio growers sprang from your advice, your experiments and enthusiasm. i would like to add a final word about the unique advantage we enjoy here in ohio. we have the cooperation of a powerful and excellent farm paper, "the ohio farmer." through its pages our contests get a wide publicity. mr. ray kelsey has furnished us with folders announcing the contest and the purpose behind it. we have the cooperation of the experiment station here at wooster and its affiliated agencies. drs. secrist and gourley have been kind, encouraging, helpful. dr. oliver diller, of the forestry department, and mr. walter sherman, of the mahoning farm, have helped and worked with us in a hundred ways. we feel the nnga ought to know about this harmonious and whole-hearted team work. nut growing under semi-arid conditions a. g. hirschi, oklahoma city, oklahoma the pecan is the major nut crop in oklahoma. the timber growth along the rivers and creeks contains enough pecan trees, if they were properly distributed, to make one continuous pecan grove entirely across the state. pecan improvement work is only in its beginning. the oklahoma pecan grower's association was organized in . it is devoted to the general improvement of the pecan, and to the dissemination of information gained by the members from their experience and observation. dr. frank cross, head of the department of horticulture of our a & m college at stillwater, is very active in nut improvement and is giving us much valuable assistance. early in the history of our association we began to graft the large improved varieties on our seedling trees. true, many mistakes were made. i recall when all our trees producing small and inferior nuts, were cut down level with the ground, and the sprouts growing from the roots, were budded or grafted to paper-shells. this meant a long wait for production. we soon realized it was better to stub back the limbs and graft these, or permit the sprouts to develop and bud them, plus saving most of the framework of the trees, which gives us heavy production of grafted pecans in a short time. competing growth, that is underbrush and all kinds of trees other than pecans, rob the grove of moisture, sunlight, and plant food. this growth was formerly removed by hand grubbing, but now with a large bulldozer it is pushed right out of the ground into piles where it is burned. now the ground is clean, no stumps to grub out, and ready for a cover-crop or clean cultivation. nothing remains but pecan trees, some elm, hackberry and oak, too large for the bulldozer. these are poisoned and burned right where they stand the following winter. for poisoning a mixture of two pounds of white arsenic and a pound of caustic soda to a gallon of water, if applied from an oilcan with a spout in an open circle chopped in the bark so as to girdle the tree, will usually deaden it in a short while. within the year nothing is left but pecan trees. these are watched carefully for production and shelling quality and, if not desirable, or standing too thick, are removed for greater spacing for permanent trees. today, only the smaller pecan trees are top worked, either to named varieties or to selected seedlings. due to changed conditions of market and labor, the native pecan has come into its own. the pecan sheller buys % of the native pecans. he will pay only a few cents more for the big paper-shell. the native pecan is as staple as butter and eggs. every produce man buys them for the shelling plants. this leaves the big paper-shell to seek a special market at an advertising cost. due to the small differential in the wholesale price of the native and the paper-shell, the larger native trees are no longer top-grafted but are encouraged in every way for heavy production. thus, when creek and river bottom thickets are opened up to sunshine and air, nothing left but pecan trees properly spaced, and this on land usually considered worthless, these trees will quadruple in production and pay a handsome return on a $ per acre valuation. this is a real and altogether possible two-story agriculture to those who are fortunate enough to own undeveloped pecan timber land. many of our members have beautiful groves redeemed from the wild with bounteous crops of nuts overhead and cattle grazing on enriching cover crops underneath. the pecan means a lot to the farmers of oklahoma. the average yearly tonnage is about , , pounds, with a peak production of , , pounds. this amounts to an average of $ , , annually, with a peak of $ , , . i want to show you what it means to some of our members to develop their native pecans, either as natives or grafted to improved varieties. the proceeds from one lone pecan tree in mr. skorkosky's cotton patch paid the taxes on his farm several different years. thus encouraged, he redeemed a small thicket, added a few nursery trees of paper-shells, about ten acres in all, which now often makes a return equal to the rest of the farm. mr. kramer paid $ , for acres, with part in seedling pecans. he sold $ , worth of pecans several different times, and the rest of the farm makes a good return in pasture and hay. he also has acres that often makes a return of $ per acre in pecans, besides pasturing herfords. mr. kramer destroys trees by girdling. mr. pfile makes it a business to buy farms on which there are pecan thickets. one farm has acres, all top-grafted to improved varieties. trees were small and no production for five years, supporting production for the next four years. tenth year grossed $ , ; eleventh year, $ , ; twelfth year, $ , , and this year his conservative estimate is $ , . mr. camp has acres in pecans, % improved varieties. he planted acres on upland sandy land on terraces, with pecan trees feet apart and an apple tree between each two pecan trees. the tenth year he produced , pounds of paper-shells and , bushels of apples. more recently he planted acres on upland, but planted the pecans feet apart on terraces with an apple tree between. in this orchard he produces / of a bale of cotton per acre and plants vetch in the fall between cotton rows. in october he had four crops on this land, cotton, vetch, apples and pecans. he says apple trees alternated with pecans on terraces are ok. cotton, potatoes and sweet potatoes between the terraces for the first ten years are ok, but vetch as a winter cover crop to improve the soil must not be neglected. grover hayden has the largest native pecan grove in the world-- , acres fenced hog tight. he started years ago as a farm hand. he had rather have acres of pecans than , acres of alfalfa. now after years he owns the place at a purchase price of $ , , not counting improvements and equipment. his average production is about , pounds per year. in , he produced , . he held back his crop and together with his crop, he sold both for $ , . think of the faith a man must have in pecans in oklahoma to go in debt for $ , as mr. hayden did! he rode a pony that was mortgaged for all it was worth from arkansas to this ranch. those of us who do not have native or seedling pecan trees to work with, must develop orchards from nursery trees. i was raised on a poor farm in missouri. i always had a desire to take a poor piece of land and see what i could do to improve it. consequently, i planted improved pecan trees of different varieties and all other kinds of nut trees, fruit trees and a variety of berries on a piece of worn-out upland, pronounced by our county agent to be the poorest piece of ground in our county, and predicted it would be a complete failure. i planted the pecan trees feet apart, and interplanted with other nut and fruit trees. the trees were planted on the contour with youngberries and many others planted in rows between the tree rows, making a perfect soil conservation arrangement. barnyard fertilizer was used to start the trees. every september, vetch and rye were sown as a cover-crop and soil-builder and disked into the soil the following spring. clean cultivation is practiced during the summer to conserve moisture. this procedure has been adhered to most rigidly without a single crop failure. at years most of the trees are producing $ worth of paper-shells. the youngberries and plants sold have paid the expense of the orchard and a handsome profit besides, until the trees needed all the room. this project has proved to my satisfaction that profitable nuts and fruit crops can be grown on upland, if soil conservation and improvement are practised. the limiting factors of nut and fruit production are plant food and moisture, and if these are supplied, good production is assured. black walnuts the native black walnut of oklahoma is small and of little value. most pecan growers have a few native black walnut trees they graft to the improved varieties. i have thomas, stabler, ohio, mintle, myers, and others. thomas has been used most extensively, but does not fill well on upland. however, in deep sand and low bottoms it fills perfectly. it is an alternate bearer and is subject to sunscald in our hot dry summers. ohio and stabler have not proven satisfactory. mintle is a fine nut, splendid cracker, fills well, but is an alternate bearer. i like myers very much, a consistent bearer, has thinnest shell of all, vegetates after frost in spring, has abundant foliage and twigs, holds leaves until late autumn. myers is my choice of all varieties at present. however, as with pecans, what varieties to use is each grower's individual problem. we will be looking for better varieties years from now. for five years i am offering $ annually for the best seedling black walnut. write to our a & m college, horticulture department, stillwater, oklahoma, for rules and regulations of the contest. how to make money with black walnuts i believe i have discovered the best way to market black walnuts. i have not had much success selling them either husked or unhusked, "too hard to crack." then someone remarked, "if you would crack them and put in some horseshoe nails to pick out the meats, they might sell." there it is: the secret is discovered. the lowly and almost extinct horseshoe nail will sell cracked black walnuts. i have the reputation among local hardware dealers of having more horses than any man in oklahoma. black walnuts and horseshoe nails are reminiscent of the good old days down on the farm. the big fat meats of improved cracked walnuts peering through the sides of one or two pound cellophane bags pinned shut with a couple of horseshoe nails is a temptation few people can resist. leave a few packages with your grocer or druggist and try it. i get ¢ per pound for the whole walnuts, and ¢ for those cracked. i sell several thousand pounds every season, and since the black walnut does not become rancid we sell them all the year. i have a down-town shop window to display nuts and fruits. we husk our walnuts by running them thru an ordinary corn-sheller, or by jacking up the rear wheel of an automobile, put on a mud chain, with a trough underneath, place car in gear and scoop walnuts into trough in front of the wheel. this will husk them rapidly and well. we should promote the growing of more improved black walnuts. most catalog nurseries still list seedling walnuts. we sold thomas and myers black walnut trees to one mail order nursery, and they could have used more. english walnuts i tried all the california varieties, but these lacked hardiness. the wiltz mayette grew into a big fine tree but the armistice day freeze proved fatal. breslau, broadview, schafer, and several others with some carpathian seedlings are just coming into bearing. some give promise of adaptation here. i am determined to find a prolific and adapted variety. in the meantime we must content ourselves to grow this most attractive tree with its large waxy leaves and beautiful light-colored bark as a useful novelty. heartnuts here is a surprise nut and tree to oklahoma people. both are unlike anything ever seen here. when they see this most unusual tree, with its tropical leaves and taste the delicious nuts they want a tree for their yard. visitors stare in amazement at the immense catkins, and the grape-like clusters of nuts that develop later. this is a heartnut year. in most all varieties, ten to fifteen nuts to the cluster hang from the terminal of each twig. the leaves sun-burn easily. in spite of this we had a heavy crop of well-filled nuts. of the several varieties i have, stranger is the most prolific. fodemaier, and walters bloom late enough to escape our late spring freezes, are larger nuts, and should prove to be the best eventually. butternuts butternuts grow native in missouri and arkansas. our section is most too hot and dry for them. however, i have a few grafts of buckley and weschecke bearing nicely, grafted on native black walnuts. hickories the wooded hills and river bottoms contain several kind of hickories. i have several pecan trees grafted to the pleas and mccallister hybrids, but they are light producers in oklahoma. i have acres of river bottom hickory nuts in southwest missouri that bear abundantly. oriental persimmons persimmons grow native here. the early golden, an american variety, is very productive and ripens in september long before frost. of the orientals i have tamopan, eureka, fuyu, data maru, tanenashi. most all bear heavily, in fact usually overbear. they stand our dry weather better than does the native persimmon. the very large fruit usually in colors of yellow and red attract much attention from visitors who think they are oranges. the persimmon belongs to the ebony family. the fruit contains as high as % sugar and in the orient is a national dish. we propagate them by grafting our native stock. pawpaw the pawpaw is native in missouri and arkansas and in the eastern part of oklahoma. it is a beautiful tree and very productive. we shade the small trees here until they get started, after which they do quite well. the fruit is a favorite with many. chestnuts i think the greatest tragedy that ever befell american horticulture was the chestnut blight. not so long ago every hill and mountain-side east of the mississippi river, from near the gulf of mexico to the canadian border was covered with native chestnut trees producing millions of pounds of food for man and beast. today all has been devastated by this terrible blight and nothing remains save leafless trunks, like tombstones, in memory of a grand food tree. in , tom and mary jones left their kentucky mountain home to establish a new one in oklahoma. as with all pioneers they brought seeds of many species with them, including chestnuts. i now own the farm they homesteaded. on it today there is an american chestnut tree feet in diameter with a limb-spread of feet. this grand tree has been an inspiration to me, surviving our hot dry summers and outliving two generations of fruit trees by its side. this beautiful tree, now nearly years of age, was proof-sufficient that chestnuts would grow in oklahoma. i began to plant chestnuts. i planted all the riehl varieties--progress, dan patch, van fleet and others. i also had boone, an american and japanese hybrid, brought about by endicott, also of illinois. these have borne well. being isolated and outside of the native chestnut range, they have not blighted. since , the government has imported many thousand seed chestnuts from china. later, it distributed little trees among the nut growers in an effort to re-establish chestnut growing in this country. this chinese chestnut is blight-resistant. the best chinese seedlings have been selected for propagation and have been named; of these i have stoke (a hybrid), hobson, carr and several others. they are very prolific and often set burs the same year set out. mr. stoke sent me scions of the newer varieties this spring--colby's hybrid, and stoke seedling's nos. and . i grafted these on chinese stocks; they set burs and matured nuts the same year grafted. the named varieties of chinese chestnut are the most precocious bearers of all the nut trees, are adapted and worthy of planting over a wide area. it should be the duty of every man who is interested in food trees to lend a hand to help re-establish chestnut growing in this country, now that we have blight-resistant varieties. almost within the shadow of our state capitol, on a main highway leading from our fair city, i have planted - / acres of blight-resistant chinese chestnut trees, as a living memorial to our only child, harold, who gave his life to our country in a jap prison camp in the philippines. we shall devote the rest of our days to this living memorial, and leave means for its continuance, so that passers-by in generations to come may be reminded of the world's greatest tree tragedy, and to demonstrate that chestnuts which once grew native over half the nation, and were laid low by a terrible disease, may again be grown. in conclusion, let me warn you to improve your soil continually. no tree can be better than the soil in which it grows. no man is a greater exponent of soil improvement than one of ohio's most illustrious sons, louis bromfield. in his book, "in pleasant valley," he says, "what we need is a new kind of pioneer, not the sort which cut down the forest, and burned off the prairies, and raped the land, but the kind which creates new forests and heals and restores the richness of the country god has given us." weather conditions versus nut tree crops by j. f. wilkinson, indiana nut tree crops, like other crops, are dependent on heat, light and moisture in proper amount at the right time to produce a crop of nuts of normal quality; soil conditions also to be taken into consideration. these conditions are probably more essential to a nut crop than most of us have realized; even the weather of the preceding season of late summer and fall may affect or determine next seasons nut crop. the size of the nut depends on the weather in spring and early summer, for when the shell is once formed and hardened little more growth can be expected under any conditions, while plumpness of kernel depends on favorable conditions in late summer and fall. after the shell is formed it fills with water which gradually changes to kernel, beginning at outer part next to shell, and unless there is plenty of heat, light, and moisture, kernel may not be filled, which will cause kernel to shrink, and not be plump, neither will it have normal germinating vitality, flavor, or weight. in the past there have been seasons when nuts were not up to normal quality, but i did not realize then just what caused this condition, until a few years ago, i heard a party remark that a dry season was an indication of a good nut crop the following year. recalling back several seasons this, as a rule, has been true, especially where there was no unusually early fall freezes, and spring weather was favorable. the season of here was one of the driest on record. up until the middle of august, nut trees were showing signs of going dormant. late in june, sap was getting so low that i did all my budding late in june, a month earlier than usual. this early dry weather caused the nuts that year to be very small, especially on trees growing under less favorable conditions. trees that were well cultivated produced nearer normal sized nuts. about the middle of august rains began, and these nuts were well filled. the rains of august brought new life into the trees causing them to hold their foliage unusually late, and not being thoroughly dormant before cold weather, at which time no doubt many of the fruit buds were killed, with the result that a very light crop of nuts was set in spring of . spring opened very early with a bright warm march starting growth before usual time, even some trees set pistillate bloom by the first of april; then later in april it began raining, and rains continued most of the summer with much cool, cloudy weather with the result that most of the nuts failed to properly fill, or mature. this was true of hickory nuts, walnuts and pecans of both the named varieties and native seedlings. while the nut crop was very light of both pecans and walnuts, i had a few trees with fair crops, though none of the nuts had well filled plump kernels. some of the first nuts to ripen seemed to have fairly well filled kernels after gathering and kernels got dried out, they shriveled and lacked flavor. walnuts seemed to suffer even worse than the pecans. i was not able to find a walnut tree in this section that produced good planting nuts; even farm crops suffered, especially corn of which much of the crop was not of normal quality. the spring of began very much as in with a very warm march, again causing trees to start growth unusually early, and this spring, pistillate bloom was visible on some pecan trees in the last days of march. this weather condition remained until about the middle of april when cool rainy weather set in lasting for a month with frosts and light freezes as late as may th, which took all the nut crop in this section with the exception of a very few walnuts, and these were of very poor quality. another very peculiar thing happened in spring of . the posey and giles varieties, both of which are usually heavy bloomers of stamen bloom, failed to set a single catkin this spring, while trees of other varieties growing near them set heavy crops of catkin bloom. the behavior of nut trees in this section in the past two years, both of which have been unusual seasons, is evidence that nut crops are subject to weather conditions, not only of the present, but of previous season as well. nut tree notes from southwestern ohio harry r. weber, cincinnati, ohio influence of stock on scion at my farm home in the northwestern part of hamilton county, ohio, at about feet elevation, on clay soil, the carpathian walnuts commence growth too early in spring for their own good and my comfort, well knowing what lurking jack frost can do to them. these carpathian walnuts are uninfluenced by their black walnut understocks, the schafer variety alone excepted. i also have two schafer trees that came grafted apparently on carpathian understock; but these start as early as the others. the schafer exception, to which i refer, is grafted on a native black walnut stock to which the broadview variety also had been grafted. (the schafer variety is patented. i had permission to use the graft as i did.) with these two hardy varieties in the same tree, which itself is a late starter in the spring, i unwittingly laid the foundation for an unanticipated result. this became apparent after a severe early spring frost in caused me to examine all my hardy (persian) walnut trees to note the effects of that freeze. the new growth of broadview on the same tree with the schafer was frozen, while the schafer with the rest of the tree was dormant. the new growth of the other two schafer trees; of breslau top-worked on two trees; of broadview on another tree; of an unknown variety on still another tree; all trees being native black walnut, all were frozen. the same was true as to breslau seedlings and also a kremenetz on minnesota black walnut. of course, all these trees staged come-backs with no bad after effects. in april, , we had a severe hail storm that clipped clean the second new growth from these trees. the topworked schafer was still dormant, while its companion broadview in the same tree suffered like the rest. the spring of showed the topworked schafer still dormant, while all the others were active. the broadview on the same tree with the schafer was almost in full leaf before the schafer and the rest of the understock showed signs of growth. a number of persons thought the rest of the tree was dead. the keystone black walnut i have a cut leaf black walnut tree, of value as an ornamental, which originated in pennsylvania. although it had catkins for several seasons, not until the past season did it produce, and then only one lone nut. the husk of that nut had a smooth exterior similar to that of a persian walnut; but it lacked the characteristic black walnut odor. in fact, it had none. if this tree has any persian walnut blood in its makeup, that hybrid strain may have manifested itself in the foliage; in any event, there was an influence of some kind that caused the change in the usual type of foliage. i was more interested in planting the nut to see what kind of foliage the seedling will have rather than in cracking it for examination to determine its value as a nut. throp walnut the parent throp tree stood bordering a road along the ralph throp farm in indiana, miles from my home. about six years ago, with the permission of mr. throp, and being a very old tree, it was cut down as its branches interfered with overhanging wires. when i last saw the stump early in , it had staged a come-back by throwing numerous suckers. however, the main point in mentioning this tree is to register the fact that it bears two kinds of nuts, single-lobed, or peanut type, and doubled-lobed, with the peanut type predominating. a throp tree of mine showed this variation, and on my next visit to the throp farm, in the presence of mr. g. a. gray, one of our members, mr. throp definitely confirmed the fact that the parent tree bore the two kinds of nuts aforesaid and that the peanut type predominated. i am prompted to make this statement for the reason that one of our prominent members, well versed in the performance of our best varieties of northern nut trees, had not been aware of the dual performance of the throp tree, until i called it to his attention. black walnut nursery studies s. b. chase, tennessee valley authority, norris, tennessee briefly summarized, here are the results of a series of black walnut nursery studies undertaken in and by the tennessee valley authority. the object was to develop nursery practices which would yield the large uniform seedlings most desirable as understocks for grafted or budded trees. germination and stratification it is known that either fall- or spring-planted walnuts germinate readily if the nuts are viable and if those planted in the spring are properly stratified over winter. to find out just what effect spring and fall planting has on germination and to compare various methods of stratification, three seedlots were given the following treatments on november , : . planted in seedbeds . stratified at - ° f . stratified outdoors . stored dry at - ° f . stratified at - ° f . stored dry at - ° f . stratified at - ° f subsequently soaked in water prior to planting nuts from the three seedlots were kept separate and planted in random plots in three seedbeds. each treatment was therefore represented nine times with a total of nuts in each treatment. to determine whether time of outdoor stratification has any effect on germination and emergence, three other seedlots were treated as follows: . planted november , . stratified january , . stratified november , . stratified february , . stratified december , . stratified march , . stratified january , these three seedlots were also planted in three seedbeds with a total of in each treatment. with one exception, all nuts in the two tests were planted april , . one of the two lots stored dry was soaked in water for five days, then planted april . seedbeds were equipped with screen wire cloth at a depth of inches. ~results~: in both tests, fall nut planting resulted in the best germination. germination was higher for nuts planted in the fall than for nuts stratified on the same day for spring planting, although the difference was significant only in the second test. outdoor stratification produced the best results, followed in order by indoor stratification at - ° f and - ° f. none of the nuts stored dry germinated. time of stratification proved to be important. any delay after november resulted in reduced and retarded germination and consequently smaller seedlings. depth of planting and seed orientation the effect of planting depth on germination and on seedling size was investigated by planting black walnuts one, two, three, and four inches deep. other nuts were planted in three positions: ( ) radicle end up, ( ) on side, and ( ) radicle end down. ~results~: germination was unaffected by any of these treatments. the emergence of the seedlings was retarded by deep planting and hence the final diameter of seedlings was smaller. there was little difference in seedlings from nuts planted one and two inches deep but they were noticeably larger than those planted and inches deep. planting nuts with the radicle end down invariably produced seedlings with undesirable crooks in the root-stem region which made them unsuitable for grafting. planting nuts radicle end up produced straighter seedlings than planting them on their side. the latter method was the most economical for nursery practice. seed size to study the effect of kernel size on size of seedling produced in the nursery, nuts from nine wild trees and thomas nuts were planted. kernel weights ranged from . to . grams; nut weight from . grams to . grams. ~results~: with one exception where germination was poor, nuts with small kernels produced small seedlings and nuts with large kernels produced large seedlings. under nursery conditions the need for uniformly large seedlings for budding and grafting is apparent. the results of this study indicated the desirability of using seed nuts with large kernels for production of understocks. seedbed and budding studies density of stand in seedbeds influences seedling size. as size of seedling is important in budding and grafting black walnut, information on the most desirable spacing in seedbeds was needed. in three seedbeds thomas nuts were planted in three nut spacings: x inches, x inches, and x inches. in other plots nuts were planted x inches and after emergence the stand was thinned. all seedlings from the thinning test were set out in nursery rows the following spring and those large enough were budded in the summer. ~results~: increasing the spacing produced seedlings of larger girth and shorter height--a desirable characteristic in black walnut budding stocks. the most desirable spacing appeared to be x inches. even though the number of seedlings resulting from this spacing was approximately half the number produced at x inches spacing, more usable seedlings were produced at the wider spacing. thinning seedlings spaced x inches resulted in larger girth of those remaining--very similar in size to seedlings spaced x inches. seedlings from the thinned and unthinned plots averaged . cm. and . cm. in diameter, respectively. in the nursery row percent of the larger transplanted seedlings were large enough for budding the following summer, while only percent of the smaller seedlings attained proper size. bud survival was percent on the larger stocks indicating the desirability of using large stocks. my experiments, gambles and failures john davidson, xenia, ohio in reading the past reports of this association, i find one thing lacking. one becomes interested in a report dated, let us say, or years ago, which contains an account of a project then started. it had great possibilities. what was the outcome? we do not know. no mention of it has appeared since. did it fail? let us say it did. why? the answer to this final query is almost, if not quite, as important as would be an account of the means employed to make it successful--if it succeeded. i should like to know, for example, whether anything remains of the neilson-post project in michigan and what its history has been. i should like to hear more, also, about the outcome of many of mr. gerardi's intensely interesting and original experiments, such as his method, described in the th annual report, of asexual propagation of heartnut trees on their own roots; or his method of artificially creating beautifully marked burls on black walnut logs by systematically and repeatedly scoring the bark. these and many others. which experiments were successful and which were not? mr. gerardi's original and adventurous mind is the sort that should be probed for the benefit of those who come after us. my report today is my own short and tentative contribution to such a resume. in the report, on page , you will find my ambitious and optimistic "farm plan for nut tree planting." in it i tried to outline a plan which could be used by any practical farmer with but slight sacrifice of useful land. its last sentence reads as follows: "meantime, i shall have kept practically all my land in profitable use all the time." well, that depends upon what is interpreted as "profitable use." tree growth is surely profitable. the plan, in substance, was as follows: first, plant acres in a modified forest formation to selected seed, mostly black walnut, the trees to stand feet apart in rows feet apart. use the space between the rows first for truck gardening and later for an interplanted row of some fast-growing species for timber. no grazing permitted. second, plant another acres to a nut orchard using grafted trees of named varieties spaced feet apart. protect from livestock and permit grazing. finally, plant seed in another acres, spaced feet apart, the seedlings to be eventually topworked to the wood of promising discoveries from the first plot. protect and cultivate or graze. what has been the outcome of this plan to date? the proposed plan worked very well in a -acre plot where a meadow was planted to an orchard of grafted trees, mostly pecans and carpathians, which were protected by cattle guards, but was not completed in the seedling -acre plantation where the trees stood feet apart in rows feet apart. no grazing was permitted there, but berries and truck crops were put out. i couldn't keep it up. the reason: a world war, and lack of help for the intensive type of farming required for the project. finally, when i attempted to interplant the rows with fast-growing trees, weeds choked out most of them in spite of my own efforts. my own physical and time limitations defeated me in the interplanting undertaking. this leads up to an enumeration of my mistakes. first, i did not start early enough in life. the elements of health and strength have their part in success. then, too, let us see what might have been the result if i had started at the age of . remember, in this first tract of acres i planned a forest plantation of selected black walnut seedlings, some chosen for nut quality and some for large, straight timber growth. a tract of acres planted x x feet will hold about trees. allow for thinning and other reductions. if only trees should reach log size in years, that is, by today for me, at an average of $ each, they would come to $ , --a very tidy estate. just now there are perhaps well grown trees in the good portion of the ground in this acres. pleasantly enough, they do not now seem to need the interplanting of faster-growing trees in order to develop upright growth but are pushing each other up as they stand, x x feet apart. in this planting, then, there is evidence of successful timber growth in the good ground but of almost complete failure in the poor ground. another failure is to be noted in my original plan for cattle guards. these guards were feet in diameter, and about feet in height. these were satisfactory for sheep after i had installed pipe for posts, but not for cattle. trees grow horizontally as well as vertically. cattle, reaching for these side shoots, reached over the guards and pushed in and under. i later reduced the guards to a -foot diameter of stronger woven fence-wire with -inch stays, not -inch, and raised the height to not less than feet. the cattle may now nibble off the side shoots if they wish but the vertical growth is protected. above feet the trees can spread out without danger. others say, "permit no grazing at all." this statement, i think, should be made with certain qualifications. where bluegrass bottom is used for the orchard planting of pecans or black walnuts, there is a possible slight reduction in growth from lack of cultivation, but this loss will be nowhere nearly proportionate to a farmer's loss of pasturage. and even in my x x -foot planting of seedlings, though no grazing was permitted while the trees were young, now the older trees are large and strong enough in the good soil to take care of themselves. some lower branches are rubbed off but they should be off anyhow. also, thank heaven, the weeds are at last kept down by grazing, the grass is utilized and, most important of all, the hazard of grass fires is entirely wiped out. i know of a neighbor's planting destroyed in this way and i shall always fear fire. i should not permit grazing in a general purpose woods lot where young growth is constantly coming on. failure three: i have failed completely to interest my tenant in my project. each mowing or clean-up job is just a chore to him. i can't blame him. why should i expect anything else? with a world war on hand, and with his son in the army, and with two farms to care for, the immediate bread-and-butter jobs come first and my mowing suffers. however, the wonderful trees somehow continue to grow in spite of weeds and wars, perhaps a bit more slowly than they otherwise might, but i am in no hurry. the last war casualty was my original plan to make a further orchard planting of seedlings in loco, ready to be top-worked to the wood of some outstanding find among the selected seedlings. it has not been done--period. i think i do have one or two rather outstanding nuts among the seedlings, but this leads up to another casualty which must be faced by all of us--a temporary one, fortunately, namely, crop failures due to the weather. the larger trees began to bear at age seven. then, three years ago we had a drouth. for the two years since then, we have had summer in march and winter in may. the catkins were mostly killed and the pistillate bloom was delayed in growth upon the new wood until most of it came too late for even such pollination as was so sparingly available. thus we have had no generally good nut producing season for three years in our part of ohio. as a result, my truly outstanding nut is still in hiding, and i am waiting for a good season to bring it out. another disappointment with me has been the carpathians. they partially winter-kill each winter. their trunks still live and send up shoots. i let them stand, hoping for an eventual hardening of the wood. i regard them not as failures but as not yet proven. for purely experimental purposes i planted apple and peach trees close up to the walnuts. whichever won out was to stay. both are there yet. there is as yet no sign of the results of toxicity. they stand, literally, arm in arm. one success i feel may safely be chalked up. in selecting seed for my original planting, some were chosen for better nuts, as stated, and some because of the magnificent growth of the parent trees. one such tree gave me seedlings that are definitely superior in growth to other trees which stand in equally good soil--in fact, in adjoining rows. this is noteworthy. as for the seed selected for nut quality, because of the three poor producing seasons now past, the result is not so apparent. i can only say that, out of some score or more sources, the nuts produced upon such seedlings as have fruited tend to resemble the qualities of their parents. they all show some variations. each nut tree is a new individual but with a family inheritance strongly enough marked to make the planting of seedlings, when done in large quantities, from the best parents, a sort of gamble in which the percentage is in favor of the gambler--which is, as you should know, unusual. one utterly complete failure must be noted. i shall never again plant a black walnut seed or tree in any but good soil. even the best inheritance cannot prevail against hardpan or worn-out soil. i was unfortunate, when i made my first and largest planting of seed, in not knowing about the northern nut growers association. so i advertised for local nuts, paying double for the seed i accepted. so far as the seed which was selected because of the timber growth of the parent tree was concerned, i am well satisfied. but nut quality was only fair; far below the quality of our named varieties. then, through the fine missionary work of harry weber, i was introduced to the nnga. all my replanting since then has been from seed bought from the member's plantations. next year i expect some of them to come into bearing. most of you are chiefly interested in grafted or budded trees, and this is as it should be. where sure results and the best possible nuts are the aim, one would be utterly foolish to plant a seedling. upon the other hand, where plantings are made in great quantities, as is the case with foresters, state or federal agencies, colleges and other institutions--and with occasional individuals like myself who find their greatest interest in this particular exciting gamble, i think it is fairly well demonstrated that the percentage of success can be turned in favor of the planter by intelligent selection. but where can the best seed be found? the answer is as plain as the nose on your face. the best possible source is in existing plantations of named, proven varieties. as a farmer, i should not use a cross-roads maverick when i can use a registered jersey, hereford or angus. as a planter of black walnuts, or any other nuts, either for timber or wood, i should not pick up my seed haphazardly from cross-roads trees. every nut produced by planters of orchards of the best named varieties should be in active demand by state and national agencies for their own plantings, and the seedlings from them should be available for the widest distribution to the public. this urgent demand for better seed will make existing plantations of proved varieties more profitable and will fill our forests and farms with far better trees. nut trees in wildlife conservation by floyd b. chapman ohio division of conservation & natural resources attesting to our great faith in the value of the nut trees for wildlife conservation and restoration, the ohio division of conservation and natural resources has distributed free of charge, to cooperating landowners: , american hazelnut, european and american hazel hybrids, pecans, butternut, over one thousand shagbark hickory, asiatic chestnut, black walnut trees, and more than bushels of black walnut nuts for seed spotting. this program has only been in operation since , and i think a great deal has been accomplished in spite of the war and difficulties in growing and shipping of nursery stock. this record would not be so impressive had we not been able to take advantage of a vast amount of surplus stock made available when the u. s. soil conservation service closed out a large nursery in this region. to show how dependent are certain wildlife species on an adequate supply of nut mast, i need only mention one group, the squirrels. much information concerning the abundance of squirrels in the original forests is on record. it is also well known that nuts of several kinds were always plentiful: native chestnuts, walnuts, butternuts, hazelnuts, hickorynuts, and beechnuts. the supply was so large that an occasional crop failure was unimportant; much of the production from the preceding year was still available. numerous wild animals, including squirrels, deer, rabbits, raccoons, and others fed on the native chestnut. it was such an important staple in the diet of many animals that its passing is one of the most devastating blows to befall the wildlife of this continent. in order to compensate for the loss of the chestnut, and at the same time restore some of the food and cover destroyed through pasturing of woodlots, and the removal of fencerow cover in clean farming, the division of conservation instituted its popular tree and shrub unit planting project four years ago. in this program, units of or pine trees and shrubs for food and cover are distributed free of charge to farmers who will plant them as suggested and protect them from fire, grazing, and cultivation. american hazelnut was extensively used in this project during the first two years. since then we have been unable to obtain seedling plants in the large quantities that are needed. the division also has several other wildlife restoration projects in which the nut trees are utilized. these are a farm pond project, a small wildlife refuge program, and a fencerow cover restoration proposition. in the pond development program, a farmer is assisted in impounding a small body of water, from which livestock is fenced, if he will agree to permit hunting on a portion of his farm. the pond margins are seeded to a grass mixture to prevent soil erosion and silting, and several hundred trees and shrubs having value as wildlife food and cover are planted in the area. the land immediately surrounding the pond becomes a wildlife refuge where no hunting is permitted. many asiatic chestnuts have been planted on these sites, in addition to american hazelnuts, and considerable seed spotting with black walnuts has been accomplished. in the small refuge plan, areas are selected, developed for wildlife by planting and other management measures, and are then closed to hunting for a period of years. many hazelnuts, butternuts, some hickorynuts, walnuts and asiatic chestnuts have been used in this work. our own field men plant the seedlings or assist the landowner in planting them, then give advice on the culture of the plants. in the third undertaking, which is research to determine the best methods of restoring or developing fencerow food and cover strips; nearly a thousand hazelnut hybrids have been planted. among these hybrids are: barcelona x european globe, avellana x italian red, barcelona x purple aveline, barcelona x cosford, barcelona x italian red, rush x kentish cob, and barcelona x various other types. the better sorts of hazelnuts have been used in this project to familiarize the farmers with them so that they will have an incentive to grow something valuable in fencerows. we have found that most farmers will not listen to the argument of growing anything in fencerows purely for the benefit of wildlife. by using a more subtle, convincing, and practical approach, we are convinced that success will be attained and that wildlife will be benefitted in the end. in addition to these projects which are of a statewide nature, the division of conservation owns some , acres of game lands on which experimental plantings of nut trees have been made. from plantings of chinese chestnuts established in , we are now beginning to realize definite returns. on the zaleski state forest game area, one of these trees, now about feet high, is bearing burs this year. in connection with a squirrel research problem, one of our field men, robert butterfield, is carrying on some experiments in fertilizing nut and other trees which should yield some very valuable information. i recently saw a plot of castanea mollissima which had been treated with a - / % nitrogen fertilizer. planted on poor, acid, eroded soils in the hill country, these have barely survived. after treatment, the yellow, stunted foliage changed miraculously to a striking dark green, the leaves grew larger, and the entire plants showed every evidence of healthy growth. it has been suggested that interplanting chestnuts with black locust might have the same beneficial effect and we intend to try it. none of us has ceased to hope that some day the blight which has stricken our native chestnuts can be conquered. we can be assured that whenever a resistant variety of chestnut does originate in the wild, squirrels will find it and give it widespread distribution. in ohio, squirrels are still proficient in locating the few sprouts that are fruiting, burying the nuts and forgetting them in the woods each year, with the result that we always have a few seedling trees coming on. last spring, i found several bushels of chestnut burs cached in a sandstone cave in southern ohio by woodrats. the states which are most interested in the nut trees from the standpoint of wildlife are usually those in which squirrels or wild turkeys are important game species. if those who are growing nut trees commercially would concentrate their efforts in these states which extend from pennsylvania to missouri and throughout the south, i think they would be helping themselves and contributing in an important measure to wildlife conservation and recreation. i think many states, and i know this is true of ohio, would like to introduce some of the better named varieties of walnuts, hazelnuts, filberts, and other nut trees to the landowners of the state through conservation projects which i have described, but the cost is thus far too prohibitive for stock which is distributed by us free of charge. i am personally interested in the fine program of nut tree research which is being initiated in ohio and elsewhere. the hill culture experiments are especially interesting and valuable. however, i believe every grower should give increasing attention to the possibilities of nut trees in conservation, to the end that better and more prolific varieties can be made available for this purpose. states which can use good nut tree stock in their conservation work should be solicited, their interest aroused in plantings for the dual purpose of home use and wildlife, and a few select varieties sold or given to them each year for experimental use. some growers are already generous in releasing a few new and promising nut tree varieties for trial growing in various sections of the country. most conservation departments are financed on an annual basis with funds from hunting and fishing licenses. this prevents our knowing from year to year exactly what our requirements are going to be in the line of planting material. such stock cannot be contracted for even one year prior to purchase. we have no division-owned nursery for propagating game food and cover plants, and nearly all hardwood stocks are purchased from commercial nurseries. most states prefer to purchase nursery stock that is grown locally, and if nut growers could succeed in lining up their own state conservation departments, i am sure that they could expand their production to furnish the stock needed, both at a profit to themselves and at a price we could afford to pay. commercial aspects of nut crops as far north as st. paul, minnesota by carl weschcke, st. paul, minnesota for the benefit of those new members who are not familiar with my nut tree plantation at river falls, wisconsin, i wish to explain its geographical conditions. situated in the th parallel, longitude - / °, about feet above sea level, this is a very severe climate for growing most species of nut trees. fortunately, i did not realize that fact years ago, and i learned a great deal about the hardiness of many species and varieties and the difficulties of growing them before i was convinced of it. my optimism in those years so ruled me that i was influenced by it to try out such tender species as almonds, english walnuts, filberts, pecans and chestnuts, along with hardier types such as butternuts, black walnuts, hicans, hickories and hazels. to give you a rough idea of the testing i did, i will mention some of my work among hickories. i was fortunate enough to have a forest of bitternut trees on my land. it is a well-known fact that, at least temporarily, these bitternut hickories lend themselves well as grafting stock for many superior varieties of hickories, hicans and pecans, although the last species seldom is considered permanently compatible with bitternut. the number of varieties i tested on bitternut stock is roughly about . during the years since i started such grafting, most of these have been lost by natural elimination, lack of hardiness or incompatibility. those varieties which on my place have proved hardy and compatible with bitternut stock for at least ten years are: bridgewater, cedar rapids, deveaux, glover, kirtland, and weschcke. those which have endured well on this stock for from to years are: barnes, davis, fox, leonard, milford, netking, platman, and taylor. among hybrids which have stood for years or more, there are: beaver, burlington, laney, pleas, and rockville. of pecan, there are hope and norton. there are a few other survivors of whose identity i am not certain, as they have not yet fruited. this does not mean that all of those listed have borne, but only that the identity of some of the survivors can not be established without such verification. preeminent among the hickories which have produced nuts, stands the weschcke variety, which has borne the greatest quantity with the most regularity. this variety, grafted on bitternut in , produced one nut that year. its bearing record has been unbroken from then to , when, on may , the temperature dropped to °f and on may , a similar, low temperature was accompanied by four inches of snowfall. pictures i have on display verify these statements. the frost at that time destroyed the whole crop in a nearby -acre orchard of apples, pears, plums, and nuts. although the first growth of weschcke was totally destroyed along with the crop, the second growth contained a fair distribution of pistillate flowers which probably would have produced nuts, had they been pollinated. the weschcke produces no pollen, being one of those curious freaks of nature which aborts its staminate flowers before they reach maturity. other hickory hybrids and shagbarks which have borne satisfactory crops on my farm, with fair regularity, are the beaver, fairbanks, bridgewater, cedar rapids, kirtland, siers and laney, in the order of their worth. the remaining varieties that i mentioned have not yet fruited, although i hope they will do so. the facts i have given are my reasons for recommending the weschcke hickory as a tree suitable for commercial use in the north. i realize, of course, that farther south, where hardiness is not so essential a quality, other trees may be just as satisfactory. i might also mention that the size and cracking qualities of the weschcke variety are also commendable. the quality of the kernel, which is practically % of the total weight of the nut, is praised by all who have tasted it. it is with great regret that i admit that i have no black walnut varieties which i can recommend for commercial use this far north. however, i would place ohio ahead of thomas, because of its greater hardiness. the ease of hulling, the size and appearance of thomas, plus its productivity, would certainly place it first were it not for the frequent winter-killing it suffers, to which ohio, of course, is not completely invulnerable. other varieties which have been fairly satisfactory but which are not as well-known, include patterson and rohwer. the fact remains, however, that not one black walnut i have tested has produced a regular and satisfactory crop, although they have been more productive than native butternuts. at present, i would rule out both species as apparently having no commercial value in the northern climate where my plantation lies, although they may be satisfactory for home orchards. before leaving the hickories, i do want to mention that i feel there is a good chance for growing pecans in this climate. i have seedling trees, now more than years old, which are in bearing but do not mature their fruit. it is possible that some of these may become acclimated to an extent that their cycle of dormancy will reduce itself, bringing their period of flowering early enough in the spring to allow sufficient time and heat units for maturing the nuts. early in my experimental work, i tested chestnuts and chinkapins but met with poor results. only in the last few years have experiments with them been successful enough to warrant their being mentioned as commercial possibilities in the north. at present, i have several chinese and two american varieties, as well as one chinkapin, which have proved hardy and fruitful. further testing is necessary before i can report anything definite about them. i have grafted on native plum stock most of the almonds which have been considered hardy, including the hard-shelled varieties from michigan and the northland from the pacific coast. some have flowered but none have set nuts. all proved too tender for our climate. i feel more hopeful for success with some of the many seedling hybrid plums i am growing. a number of these have edible kernels and the trees could be considered for their fruit as well as for the kernels of their seeds. among other species of walnut i have tested is the heartnut, which is a sport of the japanese walnut. this is a worthy nut and has done well when grafted on black walnut stock. only two varieties have proved hardy and only one of these, gellatly, has produced good crops for a long time. were it not for the insect pests which attack it and, worse still, the sapsucker, this tree might be considered for semi-commercial use in the north. the sapsucker is a woodpecker. it chips out bark right down to the wood, girdling large limbs and killing whole sections of a tree. this results in an excessive amount of succulent, tender growth which is subsequently winter-killed. insects attack the new shoots, laying their eggs in the bud and stem portions, causing immature growth which stunts the tree and prevents its bearing. i have also found the heartnut difficult to graft, even on black walnut, which is a favorable combination. i began testing persian walnuts years ago by grafting them on wild butternut stock. although many grafts were successful, not one even lived through a winter. it was not until , when i grafted hundreds of trees with thousands of grafts of the many varieties of crath importations from the carpathian mountains, that i succeeded in getting any to survive our winters. a few eventually bore nuts, but the severity of our winters and the inroads of new insects during the war years finally proved fatal to them. i made strenuous attempts to save the varieties by regrafting, but i was wholly unsuccessful. right now, i am not at all hopeful that persian walnuts of any kind can ever survive very long this far north. we now come to the last group of species mentioned at the beginning of this report, namely, filberts and their hybrids. in my opinion, these have potentialities of commercial value in the north. even the frosts of may th and th this year ( ) did not wipe out the crops which had been set. with proper pollinization, i am certain that their production will become as reliable as the corn crop in this part of the country. at the banquet, i shall give each of you a sample of a new product made from these nuts. the combination of qualities of the cultivated filbert from europe and our wild wisconsin filbert results in an extremely hardy plant, with characteristics sometimes like the former, sometimes like the latter. many times, the hybrid combines the best of each. i am testing these for field culture, to be cared for much as corn is. i expect to have three experimental farms before very long, demonstrating the success of commercial orchards of these hybrids which i call "hazilberts." "hazilberts" is a word i coined by borrowing from the names of its parents. it has been readily accepted by the lay public and is easily understood to refer to hybrids between hazels and filberts. furthermore, i was able to obtain a u. s. trademark on this for application to these plants. hazilberts are all subject to the native hazel blight, ~cryptosporella anomala~, a fungus infection. they are also susceptible to another blight similar to the bacteriosis of the persian walnut. more serious than these, though, is the damage caused by a curculio, which cuts down heavily the production of nuts if measures are not taken to combat them. breeding has demonstrated that some hybrids are so resistant to the inroads of this pest that they may almost be considered immune, especially when they are interplanted with other hazilberts which do attract curculios and so act as trap-plants. in this way, the insects are encouraged to concentrate in one place where they may be poisoned, thus protecting the main-crop plants. since pollinators are required for filberts anyhow, the pollinators may be the trap-plants. this is actually the case in the initial plantings. clean cultivation will also do away with many of the curculios, since they depend on unbroken soil in the fall for their metamorphosis. the presence of blight makes it unwise to depend on a single-trunked tree and i find that great productivity can be maintained when the plant is allowed to grow in stools having from three to five trunks. the management of such plants is like that of raspberry bushes, except that instead of thousands of plants per acre to be cared for, with hazilberts there are only , x feet apart. judging by the number of nuts on small plants, one may reasonably expect crops to average one-half ton of nuts per acre. the hybrids i have grown so far have been self-husking. the size of their nuts is good, some measuring an inch in diameter. for commercial purposes, however, the large size is not particularly desirable nor necessary. in conclusion, i want to say that there is a very promising situation developing for these nuts commercially. not only are these hazel-filbert hybrids easily planted, but they are easy to propagate, since they are one of very few species of nut trees which are easily propagated by layers and root sprouts. out of more than hazilberts which i planted in the fall of , only about a dozen were dead in june of , which gives you a practical idea of the ease and safety of transplanting them. the status of chinese chestnut growing in the eastern united states by clarence a. reed u. s. plant industry station, beltsville, maryland introduction the chinese chestnut, castanea mollissima, now dominates interest among well-informed chestnut planters of the eastern united states almost to the exclusion of other species. since its introduction in , it has had but one important competitor, the japanese chestnut, c. crenata. among the world's most important producers of tree chestnuts, only these two species are effectively resistant to blight. however, the japanese chestnut lacks the palatability to which americans are accustomed and for all practical purposes it has been rejected in this country. many small plantings still survive; but this species serves better for shade and ornamentation than for food production. description of the chinese chestnut the nut of this species is usually of good size, roundish in form, not pointed at the apex, and with the basal scar smaller than the lower end of the nut. a certain amount of gray down is on the surface. this down may be confined to a small area about the apex or it may cover much of the upper end of the nut, and it may be thick, thin, or scant. the nut may have good cleaning quality, meaning that the kernel and its pellicle are easily separated. cleaning quality may be good from the time the nut falls from the tree or it may become so only after curing for a time. once it develops it may remain good as long as the kernel is usable or it may last for a short while only. in texture and in palatability, the kernel of the chinese chestnut is not excelled by any other true chestnut. individual nuts are sometimes sweet from the first but the great majority become so only after being cured for a week or days. very few nuts of the pure species fail to be sweet when fully cured. in the open the chinese chestnut tree attains much the same size and general proportions as does the apple but it may become somewhat larger, more upright and considerably taller. young seedlings vary greatly in form and are often ungainly and unsymmetrical; but others are all that could be desired with respect to symmetry. early lack of symmetry tends to become less objectionable as the tree grows older and is seldom conspicuous after the first decade or so. in fruitfulness, many of the seedling trees of bearing age are definitely disappointing. also in many cases the nuts are small. to judge the species by the past fruiting performance of a majority of its representatives in this country would leave little justification for commercial hope. however, there are a good many individual trees about the country whose performance record is excellent and a large number of these are under careful observation as potential varieties. the species has gained rapidly in popularity since the middle 'thirties when enough good-performing trees began bearing for a fair appraisal of the species to be possible. it was also at about that time that trees for planting began to be available from the nurseries. before then trees could only be had in limited numbers from the department of agriculture. today, they are listed in nursery catalogues of one or more firms in each of a half dozen or more states. the total number of trees yet planted is comparatively small and both nurserymen and planters up to this time have proceeded cautiously because of the newness of the industry and its uncertainties. environmental requirements the chinese chestnut requires much the same conditions of climate soil, and soil moisture as does the peach, but there are indications that it will succeed somewhat farther both north and south. as with the peach air drainage must be good and frost pockets must be avoided, for while at the latitude of the district of columbia, the flowering period is from late may until toward the end of june, growth begins early and may be badly damaged in april. this is especially true during such seasons as those of and in the middle atlantic states when summer temperatures prevailed during a great part of march, and new shoot growth up to two inches had developed when sub-freezing temperatures killed all new growth and so injured the buds that at beltsville, maryland, and general vicinity there were no crops in either year. in some cases young trees were killed out-right as were occasional older trees that had become devitalized in some way. young trees are so sensitive to lack of soil moisture that sometimes whole plantings are killed by drought. spring growth is rapid as long as the soil is moist but root development is shallow during the first few years and, unless watered, trees are likely to fare badly in case of prolonged drought. another serious type of injury, especially to newly planted trees, is sunscald on the exposed sides of the trunks. probably the best means of prevention is to head the trees low enough to provide for shading by the tops. it is said[ ] that at the altitude of feet in west virginia, snow and ice frequently cause much injury to young trees. it is a notable characteristic of the species for young trees to retain their leaves during much of the winter. unless these are removed soon after turning brown, they are apt to become heavily weighted with wet snow and to cause severe breakage. hail and spring freezes also cause much damage in that locality. the last, however, is not peculiar to high altitude alone as frost injury is frequent at much lower elevations. it was generally in evidence in central maryland during the springs of and as has already been mentioned. this type of injury is easily overlooked, but the cambium will be found dark if a cut is made through the outer bark. recovery usually takes place rapidly if the injured trees are left undisturbed, but healing will be slow if they are dug up for transplanting or the tops are severely cut back in preparation of the stock for grafting. [footnote : verbal statement by mr. authur gold, of cowen, w. va., made during april, .] bearing ages young trees may bear a few nuts three or four years after being transplanted, but it usually takes from to years for tops to become large enough to produce profitable crops. while there are occasional trees that become profitable at these ages, there are many that do not. the only significant record of yields yet made public is one reported by hemming.[ ] his statement shows that seedling trees planted in bore an average of . pound (green weight) during six of the eight years from to , inclusive, when crops were large enough to be separately recorded for each tree. the range in total production per tree for the six years was from to pounds. at an arbitrary price of cents a pound, the average gross return per tree would have been $ . for each of the six crops. the crop was a practical failure. that of , amounted to about pounds, or an average of about pounds per tree. [footnote : e. sam hemming, easton, md., "chinese chestnuts in maryland," ann. rep't., nor. nut growers association, incorporated, vol. , pp. - . .] the seedling tree the original planting stock of the chinese chestnut as grown in the united states consisted wholly of seed nuts imported direct from the orient. it was therefore, inevitable that a period of seedling development should follow. the great majority of the earliest trees grown proved unfit for use as potential varieties, although with some exceptions, they produced nuts that were sweet and palatable. since the middle 'thirties, superior strains have been introduced, cultural and environmental requirements have become better understood, and the outlook for commercial orchards is much improved. to a great extent the seedling has served as well as would a grafted tree for the pioneer experimental work that had to be done. it has been far better than no tree at all and even now it has its advantages. with it there is no expense for grafting, no problems of congeniality between stock and scion and those of cross pollination are held at a minimum. moreover, it must not be forgotten that it is only from seedling trees that superior varieties are possible. in , the year in which this paper is being written, very few grafted trees are available from any source. the grafted tree the first varietal selections were made in . quite unavoidably they were chosen solely by what could be judged from the nuts with no knowledge of the bearing habits of the parent trees. these were first grafted in and first catalogued in . already by , some had been supplanted by others of greater promise. few grafted trees have been brought into bearing and with minor exceptions, it has not been possible to obtain bearing records. it is, however, mainly with the grafted tree that the future of the industry is expected to be built up. individual varieties--abundance this variety was first catalogued in by carroll d. bush, then a nurseryman at eagle creek, oregon. of the very few trees of this variety sold by him, one went to mr. fayette etter, lemasters, penna., with whom it early became a favorite among or he had under test. during , he sent a quantity of abundance chestnuts to dr. j. russell smith, swarthmore, penna., who in turn forwarded specimens to the plant industry station. these arrived october and were immediately placed in a refrigerator. on october , they averaged to the pound and ranged from to . the appearance was very attractive as the color was a rich brown and there was very little down over the surface. the cleaning quality was also very good and the flavor excellent. the abundance has attracted considerable attention and, while it does not appear to be listed in any nursery catalogue, a number of leading growers are using it in top working seedling trees and it may soon be available through regular nursery channels. carr the carr chestnut originated as one of two seedlings sent by the department of agriculture in to the late r. d. carr, magnolia, n. c. sixty-two nuts from mr. carr were received by the department in . these were not especially attractive as the surface was thickly coated with gray down. the lot averaged per pound and the nuts were considered large. cleaning quality was very good and the flavor was sweet and pleasing. the variety was immediately named in honor of mr. carr although propagation did not begin until . it is believed to have been the first variety of the species ever grafted in this country. the work was performed by h. f. stoke, roanoke, va. later the carr became available for several years from a number of nurseries. it was a strong grower but often failed to make good unions with its stock and is not now in general favor. hobson this also originated as one of two seedling trees sent to a private grower by the department. he was mr. james hobson, jasper, ga., in whose honor it was named in . it was later taken up by commercial nurserymen and widely distributed for several years. it has much in its favor as it is easy to graft, precocious, prolific, annual in bearing, and the nuts are very sweet. also, the cleaning quality is very good, but the nuts are too small to meet market requirements of this country to best advantage. furthermore, being small, they are expensive and time consuming of labor at time of harvest. the average per pound for a lot of nuts received in was . others received during later years were even smaller. the variety rapidly lost favor with most nurserymen and its propagation was largely if not entirely discontinued. however, for home use, it is much to good to be abandoned at this time. reliable reliable was an introduction of h. f. stoke, roanoke, va., by whom it was propagated for a short time only, beginning in . it is not known to have been catalogued by any other nurseryman. ten fresh nuts in averaged at the rate of to the pound. six days later, after further curing had taken place, the number became to the pound. aside from having a good bearing record, there appears to be little reason for continuing this variety. stoke this variety appears to be the result of a natural chinese-japanese cross. the original tree was grown by h. f. stoke, roanoke, va., whose attention was attracted to it because of its habit of maturing early. he reports that in southwestern virginia, burs often begin opening during the third week of august. in appearance, the nuts greatly resemble pure japanese. the parent tree bears well but the nuts are lacking in good quality. insofar as known propagation has been discontinued. yankee (syn. connecticut yankee) the yankee originated as a chance seedling on property of e. e. hunt, riverside, conn. it was first propagated by dr. j. russell smith, swarthmore, penna., in northern virginia by whom it was first catalogued in . the writer has seen no specimens but according to dr. smith, the size and other features are very good. the parent tree is said to bear well and to be hardy where it is located, which is not far from long island sound in the extreme southwestern corner of connecticut. zimmerman this originated as a selection made by the late dr. g. a. zimmerman, linglestown, penna. very few sound nuts of zimmerman have ever been produced, for soon after the first crop the identity of the tree became lost and eventually it was destroyed together with others in an overgrown nursery row where it stood. in one known case where there are grafted trees of bearing age, the nuts are regularly destroyed by weevils. such nuts as have been seen by the writer have been of a dull brown color and have had surface down only about the apex. the zimmerman was first catalogued in - by dr. smith. it is probable that as many trees of this variety have been sold and planted as of any one variety but performance records are difficult to obtain. potential varieties other varietal selection are being made, mainly by the bureau of plant industry, soils, and agricultural engineering from trees at its various field stations. some of these are already under test as grafted stock in various parts of the country. the most promising will be released to commercial nurserymen as soon as their superiority over existing varieties is established. pollination there is much evidence that chestnut pollen is largely carried by insects although this has not been fully established. the chinese chestnut is largely, although apparently not wholly, self sterile; more than a single seedling or grafted variety should be included in any planting. several seedlings or several varieties would be better. in seedling plantings, all trees that produce inferior nuts should be removed in order to avoid danger of undesirable pollen influence, either on nut characters, or on the genetic makeup of the embryos if the nuts are to be used as seed. harvesting and curing chestnuts should be harvested daily as soon as some begin to ripen and drop to the ground. they should be placed at once on shelves or in curing containers with wooden or metal bottoms through which the larvae of any weevils with which the nuts may be infested cannot penetrate and reach the ground. in areas of infestation, these grubs soon begin to bore their way out of the nuts and leave conspicuous holes in the shells. all infested nuts should be promptly burned. in order to cure chestnuts to best advantage, they should be spread thinly on floors, or on shelves, or in shallow containers as just described, and held in a well-ventilated room. they should be stirred frequently and held for from to days depending both upon the condition of the nuts and the atmospheric conditions at the time of harvest: during the period of curing, the nuts will shrink rapidly in weight and the color will change materially. both luster and brightness will largely disappear and, although still attractive, the nuts will quickly become dull brown. three weeks is about as long as chinese chestnuts usually remain edible without special treatment. chestnuts should be marketed as promptly as possible both to minimize deterioration and to take advantage of good prices which are usually highest early in the season. storing chestnuts in sound condition when stored may be kept fit for eating or planting for several months by any one of several methods. when available, cold storage with temperatures somewhat above freezing is the simplest and generally the most satisfactory method. stratifying method. stratifying in a wire-mesh container buried deeply in moist but well-drained sand is very satisfactory and successful. another method is to hold the nuts in a tightly closed tin container either in a refrigerator or in cold storage at ° f. burying under a porch or in the shade of a house or even in a bin of grain, preferably wheat or rye, is also a good method. regardless, however, of temperature or other conditions, germination is likely to begin in early march and nuts intended for planting should be hastened into the ground as promptly as possible after that time. insect pests the two chestnut weevils are the principal insects attacking the nuts. these are exceedingly well-known in certain large areas where the chestnut is grown and in these areas both are often extremely abundant. unless checked in some way they often render whole crops unfit for use. one of most effective means of control is to plant trees only in well populated poultry yards; however, in large developments, this is impracticable and other methods must be employed. in preliminary work carried on by the bureau of entomology and plant quarantine at beltsville, ddt has given very encouraging results in the control of the weevil. the weevils have sometimes been called curculios, under which name they were well discussed by brooks and cotton.[ ] the japanese beetle is also a serious pest as chestnut leaves are among its favorite foods. control methods have been given by hadley.[ ] another insect pest which feeds on the leaves is the june bug or may beetle. it works mainly at night and feeds on the newest leaves. it is seldom seen and usually disappears about the time when the operator becomes aware of its presence. [footnote : fred b. brooks and richard t. cotton, "chestnut curculios." u. s. dept. agr. tech. bul. . .] [footnote : c. h. hadley, "the japanese beetle and its control." u. s. dept. agr. farmers' bul. . .] diseases blight is the disease attacking the chestnut tree with which the public is most familiar. the chinese chestnut is strongly resistant although not immune as few old trees entirely escape attack in areas where blight is prevalent. in most cases healthy vigorous trees of this species overcome the disease within a few years after being attacked. the ones that die are usually those that have been devitalized in some way. the nuts are subject to attack by any of several diseases either before or after the harvest. a preliminary report on these has been made by gravatt and fowler.[ ] [footnote : g. f. gravatt and marvin fowler. nor. nut growers ass'n. proc. : - . .] present extent of planting with few exceptions the known plantings consist of small numbers of trees about residences. occasionally there are one or two hundred trees in orchard arrangement. production is not large and in most cases all sound nuts are either consumed locally or used by nurserymen and others for planting. the quantity that has reached the wholesale market is known to be small although a beginning in that field has been made. future outlook extensive expansion has not appeared possible in the near future until the crop was harvested. this was unexpectedly large and a number of tons are known either to have been planted immediately or set aside for planting in the spring of . it is conceivable that annual production of nuts available for seed purposes will increase rapidly. in this case, the extent of planting within the next few years will be entirely a matter of guesswork. extensive planting in the early future cannot be considered economically safe for in addition to the usual number of problems that must be solved in establishing any new horticultural enterprise, chestnut growers must expect keen competition with imports from both europe and asia. at the outbreak of world war ii, an average of more than million pounds of chestnuts were yearly being imported into this country.[ ] these imports will doubtless again appear with the return of normal international relations. [footnote : computed from table , p. , agricultural statistics . u. s. dept. agr. ] furthermore almost an exact half-century ago, the chestnut outlook was regarded as being so bright that it could hardly go wrong. during the middle and late 'nineties extensive chestnut developments were established in certain eastern districts mainly by use of paragon and other varieties of european parentage. thousands of small plantings were developed about home grounds and occasionally there were large orchards. the greatest developments were conducted by top working suckers that sprung up from stumps of native chestnut trees on cutover mountain land. hundreds of acres were handled in this manner. without exception, all ended in financial disaster. summary the nut of the chinese chestnut is an excellent product. it is unexcelled in sweetness and general palatability by any other known chestnut. the tree bears well and is about equally as hardy as the peach. it appears to require much the same conditions of cultural environment as does that fruit. it is practically the only species of chestnut now being planted by informed growers in the eastern part of the united states. it is thus far grown in this country almost entirely as seedling trees. variation is about what was to be expected, with the majority of bearing trees proving to be poor producers and, in most cases, with nuts too small to sell well. varietal selections of much promise are being made; the first appeared in and were first catalogued in . some of the earliest have already been dropped as their defects came to be known, and others of greater apparent promise have originated. the process of selection is constantly going on and further introductions should shortly appear. by taking certain simple steps chestnuts in sound condition may be kept in usable condition for many weeks. the chinese chestnut is subject to attack by certain serious natural enemies. these include both insects and diseases and the tree as well as the nuts are affected. however, all that are now known appear controllable. past planting has been largely limited to small numbers of trees mainly about residence grounds. the total number of trees available for planting has never been large, due chiefly to the scarcity of seed nuts needed for nursery use. production, however, rose sharply with the harvest of the crop which was unexpectedly large. annual production may continue to increase since the number of trees of bearing age is likely to become appreciably greater each year. nursery planting is likely to be proportionately greater. the extent of future planting will doubtless be correspondingly influenced. present enthusiasm over the chinese chestnut is very great and it is possible extensive planting may soon take place. it is believed, however, that this would be unwise from an economic point of view. there are many uncertainties in connection with the industry in its present state of development, and, not improbably there will be keen competition in the market with imported chestnuts from both europe and asia as soon as international relations become normal. bearing record of the hemming chinese chestnut orchard by e. sam hemming, easton, maryland our chinese chestnut trees have aroused such interest that we are sure the readers of the proceedings will wish to hear of the large crop harvested in . a year ago an unseasonal spring brought a frost that killed back the six inches of soft new growth. as a result, the crop amounted to less than pounds. this year the trees produced pounds, by actual weighing and estimated. this is an average of pounds per tree, with the largest crop of pounds on no. , and the smallest on no. of pounds. these trees are now years old and were unfortunately planted too close. but using a spacing of feet � feet, they would have borne pounds per acre and if planted feet � feet would have borne pounds per acre. figure this crop at ¢ a pound and you would get a really high return. this year the price was much better than that, but we planted the crop. the tree record was as follows: number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; number -- ; total of + (estimated) = . it is also worthy of note, that no. is spaced feet from no. and no. is the same distance from no. , while all the other trees are spaced feet apart. an acre of trees like no's. , and , spaced feet apart, would average pounds per tree or pounds per acre, a really tremendous crop. we had one disappointment this year, in that our method of controlling the weevil was not completely effective. to our chagrin we found that, while we were diligently picking the nuts up each day, some of the larvae were escaping through the cotton bags to reinfest the ground. next year, we will use metal containers and we are sure that will stop them. we will fumigate if necessary. we do not particularly fear the weevil as we are sure that spraying, and fumigation will clean them up; after that proper harvesting should control them. we have heard that the u. s. d. a. has found the use of ddt to be effective. in another county a raiser of hybrid corn seed dusted his corn with ddt by plane, to kill the japanese beetle, for $ . per acre. surely that method would be adaptable to chestnut orchards to control the weevil. at the present time we are using our entire crop for seed purposes and this year we sowed to thousand nuts. we carefully grade the seed, not only discarding any infested nuts, but all moldy, split or undersized nuts, so that we get trees grown only from the choicest. by doing this we feel that although the trees are seedling raised, they come from parent trees that are bearing well, and from which all extraneous pollen is excluded so that the customer has a good chance of getting a tree that will bear well. the seed is sown in the fall, because it keeps better that way and germinates better too, although we have some trouble from a mole-mice combination. the seeds are sown in shallow trenches inches apart and inches deep and back--filled either with sawdust or light soil. on top is mounded a further to inches of soil which is removed in the spring. this reduces damage from freezing and thawing. we do not doubt for a moment that the chinese chestnut is here to stay as an important food crop for the united states. walnut notes g. h. corsan, islington, ontario i find the ohio, ten eyck, stabler, allen and wiard black walnuts inferior and unsuitable. the stabler has only a small crop every five years. very excellent varieties, i find, come from thomas seedlings. the black walnut makes an excellent stock for the persian walnut in low and slightly damp ground. i bud the persian on the black during august. the japanese heartnut and the butternut x heartnut hybrid can be grafted on black walnut. the persian walnut when grafted on the black decidedly outgrows the latter. the reverse is the case when japanese heartnut, japanese butternut, or hybrids of either are grafted on the black. so far i have not found one good butternut worthy of naming, but there is one japanese butternut that grows in clusters of or even more that has a very thin shell; it is the helmick. i have, however, very many named as well as unnamed black walnut seedlings that are very excellent nuts. this has been a very cold summer and i cannot state yet as to the maturing of the larger black walnuts, as they require a long season to mature properly. pecan and hican trees grow well at echo valley and the small twigs harden up so that there is never any winter killing but the nuts do not fill well; in consequence i am using the trees as stocks for grafting with good shagbarks. the weiker hickory ripens nicely with me and i consider it one of the best varieties in every way. self-fruitfulness in the winkler hazel by dr. a. s. colby university of illinois, urbana, illinois to insure fruitfulness in nut plants it is generally recommended that more than one variety of each kind be planted in reasonably close proximity to help in bringing about cross-pollination. then, with other conditions being favorable, the grower would be more certain of good yields of well-filled nuts. with specific reference to the filbert, the literature contains references to the effect that provision for cross-pollination is essential. however, one exception is listed. in the report of the proceedings of the th ( ) annual meeting of the northern nut growers' association, d. c. snyder of iowa says on page , "the catkins of winkler always come through the winter bright and the variety can be depended upon to bear without other varieties near for cross-pollination." the writer has been interested in this subject for several years. the question arises; how near were mr. snyder's winklers to other varieties and in what direction with reference to the prevailing winds? it is not known just how far filbert pollen may be carried and still function. a planting of winkler filberts consisting of about bushes was set on the university farm at urbana in . crops have been borne annually since that time. the planting was isolated from other filberts to the southwest by about one-fourth of a mile. in an effort to determine whether the variety was self-fruitful, plants were dug in the early winter of after the rest period was over and reset in the greenhouse. the plants leaved out in january, , and both male and female flowers appeared soon after. the pollen was applied to the pistils both by shaking the branches and by means of a camels hair brush. nearly all the blossoms set and the nuts carried through to maturity. the experiment was repeated in - with the same results. it is therefore concluded that the winkler filbert is self-fruitful and may safely be planted alone where climatic conditions are favorable for filbert production. hickories and other nuts in northwestern illinois by a. b. anthony, sterling, illinois i have something like grafted hickories of my no. (anthony) variety. the largest tree now has a trunk of - / inches in diameter; has nuts on it this year; and while it has had but few nuts each year, has missed bearing but one season in the past seven years. other no. trees run from - / inches, in diameter down to about inch. one - / inch tree is offering its second bearing with five nuts this season. all these trees were grafted in cutover woodland tracts and moved here except the largest one which was moved in and grafted in , inches high and never trimmed for a higher head. heavy annual catkin bloomer, few pistillates so far. of my no. variety, one tree transplanted in now has something like nuts on it. the no. hickories, five of them, have never borne either pistillate or staminate blooms. no. is a hican from the parent tree of which i have had but three good nuts. the weevil moth works so well in dense woods that rarely are the nuts good there. the nuts are attractive and should not discolor like the lighter hickories, should their opening husks get rained upon when maturing. men of the future must decide on the merits of these trees. of the two hagen trees grafted in , one now has its first nuts, eight in number. i have been told that some one will cut these trees down some day. one of our county or state officials said a short time back that "if hog troubles keep coming on as of late, in years we will not be able to raise hogs." with corn being the main hog food and the corn borer coming, this may come to be quite true, and then perhaps more men will get new vision as to where their meat is coming from. the past three years have offered almost no hickories at all. hickories do not like shade, but they have to grow where the squirrels have planted them. carrying a nut yards to bury it would doubtless be about a squirrel's limit. i have noticed in timber of sizeable growth a north slope showed no young hickories, while a south slope showed a scattering few. oak trees in this section predominate when it comes to groves of one species. cottonwood trees come up here and there, probably because their seed is wind-carried. willow sticks get carried down stream and get lodged, and grow. i have known a few young oaks to come up on my place all of a mile and a half of such woods. how come? it is probably the combination of the blue jay and squirrel, this time. no trouble for the blue jay to travel some distance and put his acorn in a bark crevice of cottonwood or willow tree. along comes a wandering squirrel, finds the acorn, and if not hungry enough puts in the ground where it has a chance to grow. i have seen blue jays start off with chestnuts and the nearest trees they could reach were willows one-fourth mile or further away. for some reason there seems to be a tendency for the hickories to bear in seasons when the black walnut does not and the walnut to bear when the hickory fails. last year, except for filling, walnuts did reasonably well and this year, at least with my rohwer variety, the yield is still better except that the nuts are unusually small, doubtless because all of july and up to the th of august it was very dry. throughout my years there have always been walnut trees on the place, first started by a pioneer land owner, then squirrels took it up, so i have a choice of stocks i did not have in hickories. two of my rohwer trees have trunks inches in diameter; one is inches and the other inches in diameter. for years these trees, grafted in , have been very profuse with catkins, but with few nuts. i have heard other complaints of it not bearing. my complaint with all walnuts grown in northwest illinois is that so many kernels turn out black and immature. i am inclined to blame it, in part, to the walnut shuck, which takes in so much moisture. the hickory shuck is much dryer and never has so many immature kernels. late summer is generally the dryer part of our growing season, which can well be the cause. in the year , we had an excess of moisture in that it rained day after day all through august, and that is the only season i can say we had good walnuts with practically all good, light-colored kernels. i have a few thomas walnuts planted on the edges of the lowest flat ground i possess, hoping that they may there get more moisture and produce completely matured nuts. we had on august th about one inch of rain and since that - / inches more. so far, throughout this month, i have been carrying about gallons of water daily to two rohwer trees and hope for some better filled walnuts, though they are unusually small. i am writing this august th. nut trees for ohio pastures by dr. oliver d. diller, wooster, ohio today i would like to discuss for a few minutes the possibilities of nut trees for shade and nut production in permanent pastures on ohio farms. one of the most important developments in ohio agriculture during the past decade has been improvement of pasture land through fertilization, new varieties, and combinations of grasses and clovers, and better methods of management. as one drives over the state it is evident that many farmers practice "clean" agriculture which means clean fence rows and treeless fields. shade on a hot summer day is an important item to contented cows, so today i am going to plead the case for a cow out on pasture on a sweltering day. i believe that nut trees, particularly black walnuts, can be of real service in the fence rows and the interior of hundreds of permanent pastures in ohio. in , l. r. neel,[ ] of the tennessee agricultural experiment station, published an interesting article on the effect of shade on pasture. the results indicated distinct improvement in the carrying capacity of the pastures which had black locust and black walnuts spaced regularly throughout the fields. improvement was evident both in the amount of kentucky bluegrass and the pounds of beef produced. so far as i know, no evaluation has ever been made of the direct effect of shade on the contentment and consequent increase in efficiency of cattle for either beef or milk production. i believe this is an important factor and is frequently used as an excuse for woodland grazing. [footnote : neel, l. r., . the effect of shade on pasture. tenn. agr. exp. sta. cir. .] another study similar to the one in tennessee was conducted by r. m. smith in southeastern ohio during the period to .[ ] dr. smith made an intensive study of the effects of black locust and black walnuts upon ground covers and he found that in poor pastures black walnut trees improved both the species composition and chemical content of the plants growing under the trees. he rated walnut high as an ideal pasture tree because of its period of leaf activity; its light crown canopy; its small, fragile leaves which decompose rapidly, and are high in mineral matter and nitrogen; its deep tap root which competes very little with the surface rooted grasses for moisture and nutrients; its hardiness; and finally its high commercial value. [footnote : smith, r. m., . some effects of black locust and black walnut on southeastern ohio pastures. soil science, vol. , no. .] it seems apparent, therefore, that the introduction of improved black walnut trees into permanent pastures would be practical from the agronomic angle to say nothing about the beneficial effect of shade to livestock and possible income from occasional crops of high quality nuts. one stumbling block to the adoption of this idea is the protection of the trees during the period of their establishment. the conventional cattle guard with three or four long posts supporting a wire fence is expensive in both labor and materials. during the spring of in connection with my forestry instruction at ohio state university, i had as one class project the planting of black walnut seedlings of selected parentage in the cattle and poultry ranges on the university farm. thirty of these trees were planted along a fence row at foot intervals and were protected by a single electric wire connected to a battery charger. the set-up is illustrated in figure which shows the charger at one end of the line and the wire supported by the line posts and a short single post opposite each tree. the one year old seedlings were planted feet from the fence at alternate posts and the wire zig-zagged along the line to create the guards around the trees. within a few days after planting and completion of the electric guards the trees were mulched to control weeds and conserve soil moisture. while this experiment has been in effect for only one growing season, the results, to date, indicate that this method is effective in providing protection from livestock. growth and survival of the trees has been very satisfactory thus far. the advantages of this method appear to be the rather low cost of labor and materials and ease of installation. within the next decade, we should be able to determine how the nuts from these seedling trees compare with the parent tree and there should be adequate shade for all classes of livestock on either side of the fence. how hardy are oriental chestnuts and hybrids? by russell b. clapper and g. f. gravatt plant industry station, beltsville, maryland one of the questions most frequently asked in regard to the oriental chestnuts is, will they thrive in a given locality? broadly speaking, with respect to temperature requirements these chestnuts have been found about equally hardy with the peach. some strains of the chinese chestnut appear to be superior to the japanese chestnut in hardiness. the chinese chestnut is more widely planted in this country than the japanese chestnut and more information has been collected on the hardiness of the former species than of the latter. the chinese chestnut is growing satisfactorily in certain plantings as far south as orlando, fla. and the other gulf states, northward to the southern tip of maine, and westward as far as iowa. but many areas within this large zone are unsuitable for growing chinese chestnuts because of more severe climatic conditions. specific data have been obtained relating to several types of winter injury of oriental chestnuts and hybrids. this information is limited to the performance of mostly young trees and to a comparatively small number of locations. the fall freeze that occurred in mid-november, , was studied in detail by bowen s. crandall,[ ] formerly of this division. widespread damage occurred to oriental chestnuts in the central parts of south carolina, georgia, and alabama. temperatures before the freeze had been mild, and heavy rains in early november had broken a drought. on the nights of november and , temperatures of ° and ° f. were reported by various farmers, and a drop to ° f. was general on the night of the th. the damage to chestnuts by this freeze was increased because of the mild temperatures and heavy rains that preceded the freeze. the chestnut trees were not able to attain complete dormancy. those trees, however, that were growing on uplands or on sites that were well air-drained suffered much less damage. apparently equal damage was inflicted to chinese and japanese chestnuts. [footnote : crandall, bowen s. freezing injury to asiatic chestnut trees in the south in november, . plant disease reporter : - . october , .] on one farm near columbus, ga., four plantings were located at different elevations. the planting at the lowest elevation, maintained as a well cultivated orchard, suffered almost per cent loss from this fall freeze. the trees at the highest elevation, in a forest planting, were practically uninjured. the damage from this freeze varied from killing of buds and shoots to killing of complete trees. many owners of chestnut plantings did not notice the damage until the following spring. fortunately fall freezes of this magnitude occur only infrequently. in the winter of , this division lost per cent of its hybrids at glenn dale, md., from freezing following abnormally high temperatures. the hybrids had been fertilized in october of the preceding year, but the effect on the extent of freezing damage is not known. the months of november, , through march, , were characterized by extremely variable temperatures. for example, in november a minimum of ° f. occurred on the th, a maximum of ° on the th; in december a maximum of ° on the rd, a minimum of ° on the th; in january a minimum of ° on the th, a maximum of ° on the th; in february a minimum of ° on the nd, a maximum of ° on the th; in march a minimum of ° on the th, a maximum of ° on the th. the extremes of temperatures in any one of these months may have been sufficient to cause damage to chestnut, although the extent of damage is influenced by the physiological conditions within the tree. the usual type of injury to the hybrids was a killing of the cambial cells extending from the base of the trunk up to varying heights. the cambial region was grayish-black and the inner bark was sappy and greenish-brown. more trees were injured and killed on the lower portions of the plot than on the higher portions. this catastrophe afforded opportunity to study resistance of the hybrids to freezing. in the lower part of the plot there were several -year-old american chestnut seedlings that were not damaged. sixteen per cent of first generation hybrids of chinese and american chestnut were killed. chinese by american backcrossed with chinese were killed to the extent of per cent. chinese by japanese chestnut of the second generation were killed to the extent of per cent. despite this extensive killing of hybrids by extreme variations of winter temperatures, older chinese and japanese chestnuts on slightly higher ground in the same plot suffered no visible injury. these old trees have rough bark, which may serve as an effective insulator against extremes of temperature. in , there was no damaging late spring frost, and these old trees produced the largest nut crop in their history. winter temperatures of - ° f. or lower are usually injurious to oriental chestnuts. a few reports of chestnuts surviving temperatures of - ° f. have been recorded, but usually oriental chestnuts do not thrive in those northern states or regions where such temperatures occur. many of our cooperators report that late spring frosts frequently cause failure of chestnut crops. damaging frosts in late spring occur more frequently and over greater areas than early fall frosts or extreme winter temperature variations. a late spring frost in reduced the chestnut crop at glenn dale, md., from bushels expected to bushels actual. a freeze of °f. on the nights of april and was sufficient to inflict this damage after two weeks of abnormally warm weather. many of the trees were visibly injured, with wilted or dried unfolding buds. other trees on higher ground were not visibly affected, yet they produced no crops. again it was noted that the american chestnut, followed by american chestnut hybrids, sustained none to little damage. the american chestnut, besides its inherent resistance to freezing, leafs late in the spring. most of the crop of nuts obtained in was produced by the american chestnut hybrids. late spring frosts in were very extensive, reaching throughout the eastern and northeastern states, and there were practically no chestnut crops. there were also numerous reports of late spring frost injury to chestnut in the central states. in order to reduce freezing injury to oriental chestnuts, it is essential that they be grown on sites that have excellent cold air drainage. as an approximate rule, these chestnuts should be planted on sites similar to those that are best for peaches. the orchard planting is not the only type that is subject to winter injury; forest plantings, ornamental plantings, and plantings for wildlife are also subject to winter injury especially if they are not on the most favorable sites. growing chestnuts for timber by jesse d. diller plant industry station, beltsville, maryland before the turn of the century, and even before chestnut blight had swept through our eastern forests, destroying one of our most valuable commercial timber trees, european and asiatic chestnuts had been introduced. they made variable growth in the gulf states, along the eastern seaboard from florida to southern maine, the southern half of pennsylvania, southwestern michigan, southeastern iowa, down the mississippi river valley and on the pacific coast. these trees were grown for horticultural purposes, and for the most part, represented large-fruited varieties of japanese chestnuts. they were not regarded as having forest-tree possibilities for in the open situations in which they were usually planted to insure early fruiting, the trees developed low-spreading crowns, resembling orchard trees. however, after the blight became fully established and it became apparent that our american chestnut was doomed, and that these scattered asiatic chestnut trees had a natural resistance to this disease, a new interest developed in the asiatic chestnuts as a possible substitute for the american chestnut. the interest in and need for resistant, forest-type chestnuts became so great that the u. s. department of agriculture imported from the orient seed of strains that might be suitable for the production of timber, poles and posts, with tannin and nuts as valuable by-products--qualities inherent in our native chestnut. the division of forest pathology, bureau of plant industry, soils, and agricultural engineering has been carrying on the project of testing asiatic chestnuts as timber trees. professor r. kent beattie of this division was in china, korea, and japan from to , and collected over bushels of seed for shipment to this division. the seeds represented four species: castanea mollissima--the chinese chestnut; c. henryi--the henry chinkapin; c. seguinii--the seguin chestnut; and c. crenata--the japanese chestnut. direct seeding studies at the very beginning of these investigations in growing asiatic chestnuts as timber trees, it was believed that greater success in establishment could be obtained by planting seedlings, rather than by direct seeding. in direct seeding trials during the early thirties the planted nuts were promptly devoured by rodents. sixteen years of field experience has proven the soundness of this belief. the imported nuts were planted in the division's nursery at glenn dale, md., and the resulting seedlings distributed as - and -year-old trees to cooperators throughout the eastern united states. in order to thoroughly test the possibilities of direct seeding as an economical method of establishment, this division during seven years ( to , and to ) planted over , nuts by direct seeding in locations in eastern states. it was suspected that the greatest hazard to direct seeding in or near forests would be rodents. accordingly, in the spring of and , nuts and nuts, respectively, were coated with a strychnine-alkaloid rodent repellent, and a comparable number of seeds, for both years, were left untreated to serve as checks. the checks were held in sphagnum moss at beltsville, md., and the nuts to be treated were packed in sphagnum moss and expressed to denver for treatment by the division of wildlife research, the fish and wildlife service, department of the interior. only . and . per cent of the treated seeds developed into seedlings, whereas . and . per cent of the untreated seeds produced seedlings. not only did more of the treated seeds fail to germinate than of the untreated seeds, but the seedlings from the treated nuts were less vigorous. because of the results obtained, the rodent-repellent study was discontinued at the end of the second year. in and , over , untreated chestnut seeds, representing strains, were planted in locations in eight eastern states. the seed source was entirely from american-grown, asiatic chestnut trees growing in locations in eastern states. they represented chinese, japanese, hybrids, and also a limited quantity of american chestnut seed. seed of the american species was included primarily to determine whether or not it differs from the asiatic species with reference to establishment by direct seeding. the results for the two years confirmed our earlier beliefs: only . per cent in , and . per cent in , developed into seedlings, of which only a remnant have survived. no species or strain differences were apparent. "tin can" method in , the tin-can method was employed in planting nuts in four eastern states. by this method . per cent of the planted nuts developed into seedlings, representing a fourfold increase over results obtained for the three previous years. one end of a no. can is removed, and a cross is cut in the other end with a heavy-bladed knife. the open end of the can is then forced into the ground, over the planted nut, so that the top lies flush with the ground level. the four corners at the center of the cut top then are turned slightly upward, to allow a small opening through which the hypocotyl of the developing seedling can emerge. the can completely disintegrates by rusting within two or three years, and does not interfere with the seedling's development. an examination made of the various burrows about the tin cans, and also of the teeth marks on fragments of chestnut seedcoats lying about, indicated that not only squirrels, but other rodents, such as chipmunks, field mice, moles, and even woodchucks were probably involved in the direct seeding failures. in and , the tin-can method was tested widely on farms, to determine its possibilities in securing establishment of blight-resistant chestnuts without a great outlay of cash to farmers. in , five seeds were distributed to each of cooperators residing in the piedmont and southern appalachian regions, and in the lower mississippi and ohio river valleys; and in , to cooperators residing in the middle atlantic states. preliminary results indicate that . and . per cent of the nuts planted by the farmers developed into seedlings. it should be pointed out that these results are not strictly comparable with those of previous years, because most of the farmers preferred to plant the chestnuts in their gardens, and under these conditions the nuts were not exposed to the severe competition and the extreme rodent hazards that occur in the forests. further proof of the superiority of planting seedling stock over direct seeding as a method of establishment is indicated in the results of an experiment initiated in . one hundred and fifty -year-old seedlings and nuts, all of the same chinese strain, were planted on cleared forest lands in the coastal plains, the piedmont, and the southern appalachian regions, and in the middle west. at the end of the eighth year, at each location, establishment and development of those originating from the -year-old transplants were better than those originating from seed, and their average survival was six times greater. distribution of planting stock during the period to , the division of forest pathology distributed thousands of asiatic chestnut seedlings to federal, state, and private agencies for experimental forest plantings in eastern states. the ten states receiving the most planting stock, in the order named were: north carolina, tennessee, new york, pennsylvania, west virginia, virginia, ohio, georgia, south carolina, and maryland. the purpose of this seedling distribution was to obtain information concerning the little-known characteristics of the asiatic chestnuts--their soil and climatic requirements, and their range adaptability. selection of planting sites at first the selection of the planting sites was left entirely to the judgment of the cooperators, and most of them assumed that the asiatic chestnuts have site requirements similar to those of the native american chestnut. because the american chestnut often occurs on dry ridges and upper slopes, especially where soil is thin and rock outcrops are frequent, the cooperators proceeded to plant the asiatic chestnuts on similar "tough" sites. they believed that the planting of forest-tree species is justified only on defrosted areas that have reverted to grassland, or worn-out, unproductive agricultural land, or on wastelands--sites that we now know are better suited to the growing of conifers rather than hardwoods. as a result of this unfortunate choice of site selection, together with the several severe drought periods recurring in the early thirties, the cooperators lost most of their trees during the first and second years after planting. inspections of some of these planted areas after a lapse of from to years indicated that the sites still support only a scant herbaceous cover, with broomsedge and povertygrass predominating, and with no evidence of native woody species encroaching on the areas. the few surviving asiatic chestnut seedlings were sickly looking, multi-stemmed, misshapen trees, heavily infected with twig blight and chestnut blight, and severely damaged by winter injury. but despite these heavy losses, a few plantations succeeded at least in part, and from these limited areas, together with an appraisal of the situations where some of the earlier planted chestnuts grew well, valuable information as to the site requirements of the asiatic chestnut species was obtained. site requirements these field studies clearly showed that the site requirements of the asiatic chestnuts, particularly with reference to soil moisture, are more nearly like these of yellow poplar, northern red oak, and white ash, than like the american chestnut or the native chinkapin species. on fertile, fresh soils that support the more mesophytic native species, asiatic chestnuts remained relatively disease-free, developed straight boles, made satisfactory growth, and were able to maintain themselves in the stands in competition with the other rapid-growing associated hardwood species. the indicator plants that suggest good sites for asiatic chestnuts are: (a) tree species--yellowpoplar, northern red oak, white ash, sugar maple, and yellow birch; (b) shrub species--spicebush; (c) herbaceous species--maiden hair fern, bloodroot, jack-in-the-pulpit, squirrelcorn and/or dutchman's breeches. plants that indicate sites too dry for forest-tree growth of asiatic chestnuts are: (a) tree species--the "hard" pines, black oak and scrub oak; (b) shrub species--dwarf sumac, and low blueberry; and (c) herbaceous species--broomsedge, wild strawberry, and povertygrass. plants that indicate sites too wet are: (a) tree species--black ash, red maple, and willows; (b) shrub species--alder; (c) herbaceous species--sedges and skunkcabbage. climatic test plots on the basis of the experience gained from the earlier, extensive distribution of asiatic chestnut planting stock, the division of forest pathology, during the years of , , and , established asiatic chestnut climatic test plots on cleared forest lands in eight eastern states on the most favorable sites obtainable. these plots, with their isolation borders, aggregating slightly less than acres, and accommodating nearly , trees spaced by feet, occur from northern massachusetts, along the alleghenies southward to the southern appalachians in southwestern north carolina, and from the atlantic seaboard, in southeastern south carolina through the middle west to southeastern iowa. more than strains are being tested at each place, including chinese, japanese, seguin, and henry species, as well as hybrids, and progeny of some of the oldest introduced chestnuts. most of the plots are fenced against livestock and deer. although the results from these plots are as yet entirely preliminary, during the - to -year period of testing, valuable information has already been obtained: ( ) the range of the asiatic chestnuts tested does not coincide entirely with the range of the american chestnut or the native chinkapins. all asiatic chestnut species that have been tested have failed at orange, massachusetts, where the american chestnut grew in abundance. in southeastern south carolina, where the several species of native chinkapin thrive, some of them attaining a height of feet, the asiatic species have largely failed. on the other hand in northern indiana and southeastern iowa, entirely outside the botanical range of the american chestnut, a few chinese strains have done remarkably well. ( ) the chinese chestnuts have a much wider range adaptability to site than the japanese chestnuts; the latter are more restricted to mild climate and appear to require somewhat better site conditions. of ten chinese strains tested, only four can thus far be recommended for future planting in the middle west. one chinese strain that has thus far proven far superior to the others, in all the climatic plots, was introduced by the department of agriculture as seed from nanking, china in . ( ) poorly aerated soil is an important limiting factor in all regions where the chestnuts were tested. establishment by underplanting and girdling on the basis of the field experience gained from the wide distribution of asiatic chestnut planting stock and the information thus far obtained from the climatic test plots, a new method of establishing asiatic chestnut under forest conditions was initiated in the spring of , and is now being tried on a limited scale. it consists of underplanting, with chestnut seedlings, a fully stocked stand of hardwoods ranging from to inches in diameter breast height in which the predominant species are yellow poplar, northern red oak, white ash, and sugar maples. all overstory growth feet and over in height is then girdled. as the girdled overstory trees die, they gradually yield the site to the planted chestnuts in transition that does not greatly disturb the ecological conditions, particularly of the forest floor. rapid disintegration of the mantle of leafmold is prevented by the partial shading, which the dead or dying overstory, girdled trees cast. at the same time, the partial shading hinders the encroachment of the sprout hardwoods and the other plant invaders (which would normally become established if the planted area had been clear cut) until the chestnuts have become fully established. not only does this system provide the best site conditions conducive to the development of forest-tree form in the asiatic chestnuts, in limited areas, but also under establishment conditions that require a minimum amount of maintenance. summary in general, asiatic chestnuts, when grown for timber purposes, are best adapted to northern slopes, above frost pockets on cool protected sites, on deep, fertile soils having a covering of leaf litter and humus in the top soil, a soil that is permeable to both roots and water, and that has a good water-holding capacity. the plant association, above mentioned as indicating ideal sites for asiatic chestnuts for best timber development, occur in rich soils of slight hollows in moist hilly woods and on the mountains in cove sites. improved methods of storing chestnuts by h. l. crane and j. w. mckay plant industry station, beltsville, maryland trees of the chinese chestnut, castanea mollissima, are quite resistant to the chestnut bark or blight disease. the heavy bearing of the trees together with the good quality of the nuts produced has stimulated planting of trees to replace those of the american species largely killed by that disease. although a few horticultural varieties of chinese chestnuts have been introduced and propagated, the great majority of the bearing trees are seedlings. in seedling plantings seldom do two trees produce nuts of the same size, color, and shape. all of these nuts when properly harvested, treated, and stored are sweet and edible and nourishing as food either raw, boiled, roasted, or combined with other foods in poultry dressing, salads, or pancakes. then too, there is a big demand for chinese chestnuts as seed for the purpose of growing seedling trees to be planted in orchards or to be used as rootstocks in propagating horticultural varieties. in either case, it is often desirable to store the nuts for several months before using them. chestnuts are not like the oily nuts, such as pecans, walnuts, almonds, filberts, or peanuts, that must be dried to a moisture content of to per cent to store well. chestnuts are starchy nuts, containing about % moisture when first harvested, and on drying they become very hard. in experiments conducted at the u. s. horticultural field station, meridian, miss., it was found that the loss in weight of chestnuts ranged from . to . % when stored for months in open containers at °f., and % relative humidity. in an experiment in which chestnuts were stored - / months at °f., they lost . % in weight when stored in burlap sacks, . % when stored in waxed paper cartons with tight-fitting lids, and . % when stored in friction-top cans. furthermore, chestnuts on drying lose their viability and become worthless. chestnuts lose moisture rapidly and become subject to spoilage due to molds and other fungi and therefore must be considered as highly perishable and handled accordingly. there is a great difference in the keeping quality of the nuts produced by different trees in that some are very susceptible to infection by molds and bacteria and spoil quickly while others keep quite well. at meridian, miss., nuts from different seedling trees ranged from to % mold infection at harvest. studies made by john r. large at u. s. pecan field station, albany, ga., showed that much of the infection of the nuts by molds occurred after they had fallen from the burs and while the nuts were in contact with the soil. it is, therefore, essential that the nuts be harvested promptly after they are mature. as a general practice the nuts should be gathered every other day during the ripening season. burs that have split open and exposed the brown nuts should be knocked from the trees, and all of the nuts on the ground should be gathered up cleanly. it would be difficult to emphasize too strongly the importance of harvesting the nuts promptly as soon as they are mature. prompt and careful attention must then be given to the conditions under which they are stored if they are to remain for long in an edible and viable condition. after the nuts have been gathered[ ] they should be held in a layer not exceeding or inches deep for or days. it is important that they be kept in a well-ventilated building and that the sun does not strike the nuts during curing. after the preliminary curing, the nuts should be placed in friction-top metal cans (slip-top cans) and the lids should not be tight for the first month of storage. the nuts contain enough moisture after the short curing process that the lids will "sweat", or surplus moisture will accumulate on the under side. this will disappear slowly by evaporation during the first month or weeks of storage and the lids may then be pushed firmly into place, making the can nearly airtight. the containers of nuts should be held in cold storage at temperatures of ° to °f. while some nuts have kept quite well at temperatures as high as °f., the tests indicate that the nearer the storage temperature is to °f., the less is the mold development. placing the cans in an ordinary home refrigerator should prove fairly satisfactory with nuts that have good keeping quality. [footnote : if the nuts are infected with weevils, they should immediately be treated after harvesting with the hot water or methyl bromide treatment as recommended by the united states department of agriculture, bureau of entomology and plant quarantine.] it is essential that the nuts be placed in storage immediately after they have had the preliminary curing. any delay may increase the possibility of mold development. in the winter of - , nuts from seedling chinese chestnut trees were stored separately in five-gallon friction-top cans at the plant industry station, beltsville, md., at °f. for approximately months. the results are given in table . it will be noted that there was some variation in the percentage of spoiled nuts in the different lots, but the loss was small when compared with results obtained by other methods. all of the sound nuts in these lots were planted in a rodent-proof coldframe immediately after they were removed from storage, and from to % germination of the seed was obtained throughout. it is almost impossible to keep some varieties satisfactorily with even the best of care. because of the great difference in keeping quality of the nuts of different varieties and from different seedling trees, each chestnut grower should study the keeping performance of the nuts from the different trees in his own orchard. he should save for permanent trees those producing nuts that keep well. the method of storing chestnuts that perhaps has been more widely used than any other is to pack the nuts in slightly moist sphagnum moss or fresh hardwood sawdust in boxes and place them in cold storage at °f. to °f. a little less volume of packing material than of nuts is customarily used. the correct amount of moisture may be attained by adding fluid ounces of water to pound of dry sphagnum moss. there is great danger of getting too much moisture, which will tend to cause spoilage. if the cold storage compartment is one that has a tendency to dry the stored material, it may be necessary at some time during the year to open up the boxes and add a little moisture to the sphagnum, but in most storage houses this is not necessary. based upon results obtained during the last or years, it seems probable that the method of storing chestnuts in friction-top cans will prove to be more efficient than other methods now in use. tests are under way to determine the most desirable moisture content of nuts at the time of storage. if this can be determined the present period of preliminary curing will become a matter of reducing the moisture content of the nuts to a known amount before they are stored. it is likely that other refinements of the method will be made in the near future, but the procedure here described has given results that merit further trial by those concerned with chestnut storage problems. table i--record of keeping quality of nuts from seedling chinese chestnut trees stored in friction-top cans at °f. for approximately months at beltsville, winter-- - [ ] ====================================================================== total weight weight of weight of tree number of nuts sound nuts spoiled nuts percent spoiled - - --lbs. lbs. lbs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ====================================================================== all lots . . . . [footnote : weighed and examined / / .] essential elements in tree nutrition (paper presented before the northern nut growers association convention, september - , , wooster, ohio.) by j. f. wischhusen manganese research & development foundation, cleveland , ohio mankind has harbored an age-old grudge against insects and fungi, so that under the heading of crop protection from these pests there has developed a large insecticide and fungicide industry. relatively little attention has been paid to the effects of a nutritional character that can be obtained from simultaneous applications of essential elements. insects will probably always constitute a problem of destruction, either of them or by them. but fungi, bacteriae, viruses, can be made to combat, control and balance each other; depending on the conditions under which their propagation is either facilitated or inhibited. there is evidence that so-called essential nutrients, also variously referred to as "minor", "trace", "rare", or "micro" elements play a direct as well as indirect role of considerable importance in this matter, and that trees can be fertilized, sprayed, injected or treated with them in other ways to insure their growth, health, crop bearing ability, longevity, disease--frost--and drought--resistance. there still exists a paucity of scientific explanations on these subjects, but there is already a good deal of scattered information, which it is my purpose to draw to your attention. people do not care about scientific facts if they can obtain results without them, and then scientific concepts too may undergo changes. the manner in which trees obtain their nutrients from soil, air and water, however, will forever remain unchanged, whether we understand it or not, and it behooves every grower to observe effects from causes, and to reflect upon them, and report his observations to his association for the benefit of all. physical soil characteristics that the primary requisites for tree growing are the physical characteristics of all soils favorable for that purpose requires no discussion. the successful nut tree planting starts with the soil, whether it be on the scale of an orchard, grove, or just a few trees around the farm or garden. the better soils for general crop production are on limestone, basalt, dolemite, dolerite, diorite and gabbro formations, whereas sandstones, aplites, granites, pierre shale, cretacious rocks and volcanic formations weather into inferior soils. gneiss can be sometimes good, sometimes unfavorable for building of fertile soil. it is well to bear in mind that geology and botany are our two fundamental sciences, and that all our other sciences are in reality departments of these. chemistry can be either a branch of botany if it deals with organic chemistry, or else a branch of geology, if it deals with inorganic chemistry, and it would appear that the modern scientific grower of nut trees or any other crops is wittingly or unwittingly concerned with both. biology and zoology both are branches of botany. the essential elements in the past, economics have governed any crop production, whether of trees, grains, fruits or vegetables; not nutrition and health. the future in all likelihood will demand improved crops from the standpoint of nutritional purposes as foods. it is gradually being realized that the production of better crops can be brought about by greater application of essential nutrients to soils or as nutritional sprays direct to trees, and that such practices also reflect true economics. the same principle should govern wood production. according to our today's knowledge, there are at least nineteen elements invariably essential to life, viz: primary: hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus. secondary: calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, iron, sulphur, chlorine. micro: manganese, copper, boron, silicon, aluminum, fluorine, iodine. then there are another eighteen elements at least variably necessary to life, viz: ( ) variable secondary elements: zinc, titanium, vanadium and bromine. ( ) variable micro-elements: lithium, rubidium, caesium, silver, beryllium, strontium, cadmium, germanium, tin, lead, arsenic, chromium, cobalt and nickel. elements in soils essential for plant growth it is furthermore safe to state at the present time that fertile soils should contain at least the following twenty elements: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulphur, hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, iron, sodium, chlorine, aluminum, silicon, manganese, copper, zinc, boron, iodine, and fluorine. until quite recently many scientists believed that only the first ten elements were necessary for growth and maturing of crops; that only the first three should be considered as fertilizer ingredients, and that the others were supplied by soil, air and water, or were present as natural fillers in manures and fertilizer raw materials. the modern agronomist, however, takes all these twenty essential elements into consideration, and many so-called "complete" fertilizers contain at least sixteen to eighteen, if not all of the elements mentioned above. cobalt, essential to animal nutrition, can also most economically be supplied through the soil, even though crops grow without it. as long as we have sufficient experimental research data that at least nineteen elements are invariably essential to all life, it stands to reason, that they at least must also be present in one way or another for the normal, or better the optimum growth of nut trees, and a crop of more nutritious nuts. therefore, every time one of them is considered, all the others must also be borne in mind. it will neither prove difficult nor costly to experiment with them. it is a matter of finding the proper balance of everything essential for optimum nut tree growing. indeed, to ascertain the true balance of all elements that are invariably essential to life, and their relationship to the elements which are variably essential, would quite naturally appear to constitute the quintessence of research still to be performed. we cannot control such essential factors as climate, weather, sunshine, but man can control the supply and adjustment of nutrients to trees, and it rests entirely with him to do so. there is one advantage a nut crop has over some other crops; it does not have to be harvested before fully mature. nut crops obtain the benefit from elements that may be slowly assimilated during the season. the following experimental and historical evidence and opinions have come to my attention, and i record them for what interest they may have. past experience is often discarded as too old, but many a time an experimenter was ahead of his time, and his work remained unrecognized, so that now some old references can be revived and presented as novelties. what the past ignored may indeed be due to the ignorance of those who did the ignoring. ) the chestnut blight the chestnut blight, for instance, of a generation ago, may be re-examined in the light of the proceedings before a chestnut blight conference, held at harrisburg, penna., february - , . a chestnut extract manufacturer, a mr. w. m. benson[ ], stated at the time that in his experience the best extracts were made from trees high in lime. "a blighted tree," he stated, "is simply a tree in the process of starving to death for lack of lime." maps showed that the blight was worst where there was least lime, and that the chestnut trees died last in tennessee, where soils are high in lime. analysis showed that chestnuts contained % lime, an unheard of amount. that this high test may reflect a faulty condition is pointed out later. all i can add to this is that there is an english walnut tree, alpine variety, on the farm of mr. deknatel, on route , chalfont, penna., which is remarkable for its virility and crops of large nuts. this tree grows in a place protected by house and barn near a well, in limestone soil. it resisted the severe winters of and , when many other english walnuts in the vicinity died. my opinion is that any tree in that location would be an outstanding tree; and vice versa, had that particular tree been planted in another location, it would have done no better than any trees there located. nuts from that tree might well be tested and compared with nuts from other trees. ) the banana blight the banana blight in central america threatened for a while to be as destructive as the chestnut blight in this country. it was due admittedly to an attack by soil fungi, but no fungicide to foliage or to the soil served its purpose. however, the proper restoration of bacterial life in soils to keep the soil fungi in check proved effective. this was a matter not of the presence or absence of any one inorganic nutrient, but of restoring to soils the balance of fertility, an abundance of organic matter as food for bacteriae. dr. george d. scarseth, west lafayette, ind.[ ], is one of those largely responsible for correcting this epidemic. his experience may prove useful to nut growers, so that they may not live in constant fear of another blight epidemic such as the one that exterminated our chestnuts only a generation ago. ) tree nutrition, microbial from england comes interesting information about "tree nutrition"[ ]. evidence shows that the healthy growth of trees such as pines and spruces is intimately bound up with an association between their roots and fungi present in woodland soil. poverty in mineral nutrients is no longer regarded as a necessarily critical factor in the failure of growth of trees of this kind, since the associated fungi have at their disposal sources of supply inaccessible to the roots of higher plants. experiments carried out during the past ten years at wareham in england fully confirm the opinion expressed long ago by professor elias melin, upsala, sweden, that the growth of trees and other plants on poor soils of the raw humus type is greatly influenced by the root-fungus association. by fostering the appropriate combination it has been possible to carry out successful afforestation of heathland so poor that ordinary cultural methods prove inadequate for the least exacting tree species. satisfying the mineral requirements of the trees by direct application of fertilizers is not in itself sufficient treatment to ensure continued healthy growth; biological factors also play an essential role in promoting soil fertility. the experiments have shown that failure of the trees to establish a satisfactory biological equilibrium with the necessary fungi is due in this case, not to the absence of these fungi in the soil, but to their inactivation by toxic products of biological origin. the factors inhibiting the activity of the fungi can be removed by the application of comparatively small amounts of organic composts which produce dramatic and lasting effects on the growth of roots and shoots. the special composts used are prepared from organic materials such as straw, hop waste and sawdust. the mechanism by which they stimulate growth is still obscure. all of them contain small amounts of directly available plant foods such as phosphates and potash, but careful investigation both in laboratory pot cultures and in the field, has shown that these can account for only a relatively temporary effect on growth. it is suggested that the composts act mainly by modifying the course of humus decomposition, thus bringing about drastic changes in the biological activities of the organic substrate of the soil. this demonstration of the profound influence of biological factors on the nutrition of trees challenges the attention of foresters and has important practical applications. by making use of suitable composts, it will be possible to carry out the successful afforestation of land formerly regarded as wholly unproductive. for further information see "problems of tree nutrition"[ ]. from the two foregoing examples it is seen that in the case of banana blight, fungi had to be suppressed by bacteriae, but that for pine trees on poor english soils fungi had to be activated for proper tree nutrition. ) inorganic tree nutrients other information also from england concerns the use of so-called "minerals" which i prefer to call "essential inorganic nutrients," and name by the element or the compound in which the element is contained. "minerals", strictly speaking, refers to compounds formed by nature as rocks, ores, brines, salt deposits, etc. professor wallace, director of britain's long ashton research station[ ], has laid the foundation for diagnosing mineral deficiencies by leaf symptoms. these are reliable indicators of what nutrients to furnish plants when they are distinct and easily recognized. but for subacute deficiencies, plant analysis and injections are resorted to. injections of manganese sulphate as pellets into holes drilled in trunks of cherry trees caused orchards that had been barren, to bear heavy crops a few months later. manganese, boron, zinc, copper, iron, magnesium also lend themselves quite readily for applications as nutritional sprays, when applied as suitable compounds such as the sulphates. both spray applications and tree injections have great diagnostic values, because a response to them, if needed is relatively quick. when trees are deficient their foliage will show marked improvement from a spray application within a few days, so that a test can be made on a few trees before an entire orchard is treated. trunk injections should of course be made during the dormant season for results to show the following summer. ) nutritional sprays florida and california lead in the application of nutritional sprays on citrus and other fruit[ ]. vegetables, too, respond remarkably thereto[ ]. i see no reason why nut trees likewise should not benefit from them, especially when other spray materials are used. copper sulphate, zinc sulphate, manganese sulphate, magnesium sulphate, iron sulphate, cobalt sulphate and borax are all compatible with each other and with most other spray materials. combination sprays seem to perform better, anyway, than single sprays, and the only objection would seem to be that some element is applied that is not deficient. it can be taken for granted, however, that nothing is wasted, even though the benefits may be invisible. soils benefit in the long run from sprays. one element, even though not noticeably needed, may make another available or it may antidote toxicity of some element present to excess. indirect results in all likelihood are always obtained. in florida, recommendations for spray applications to citrus are made annually[ ]. they can be obtained from the florida citrus commission, lakeland, fla. a typical formulae is as follows: _ - lbs. zinc sulphate | - lbs. manganese sulphate | per gallons of water or - lbs. copper sulphate with | other spray material equal amounts of lime. _| gallon of lime sulphur or - / lbs. of lime is used for every lbs. of sulphate of manganese or zinc. cherries, apples, plums are quite responsive to such applications, and i have seen the defoliation of prune trees in new york state corrected with a mixture containing: _ manganese % | all as metallic, in the form of hydrated oxides, copper % | and applied at the rate of lbs, for the combination zinc % | material per gallons. boron % _| the addition of lbs. lime is optional. in california a manganese deficiency has been observed on english walnuts[ ], and - lbs. commercial manganese sulphate was used per gallons of water during late may, through june, to correct this. sprays should be applied at ten day intervals until the deficiency symptoms no longer persist. plausible reasons for the somewhat quicker action of sprays than fertilizers may be furnished by two prominent authorities: mccollum[ ], one of our foremost nutritionists, first noted the discovery that the leaf of the plant is a complete food, and that none of the storage organs of plants, seeds, tubers, roots, fruits enjoy that distinction. in the leaf, biological processes are most active. it is the site of synthesis of proteins, carbohydrates and fats. the leaf is rich in actively functioning cells which contain everything necessary for the metabolic processes, and they supply all the nutrients which an animal requires. ("all flesh is grass"). hoagland[ ], another authority, writes on this subject thus: "it is now certain that soils are not invariably capable of supplying enough boron, zinc, copper and manganese to maintain healthy growth of plants. this knowledge has come mainly during the past ten years. within this period thousands of cases from many parts of the world have been reported of crop failure, of plant disease, resulting from deficiencies of micro nutrient elements.... the statements do not imply that most soils are deficient in any of these elements, but the areas involved are large and important enough to warrant the view that the recognition of micro nutrient deficiencies constitutes a development in applied plant nutrition of major significance. "when i refer to deficiencies of boron, copper, manganese, or zinc, it is not a question of absolute deficiency in total quantity of the element present in the soil, but rather a physiological deficiency arising from the insufficient availability of the element in the plant; in other words, not enough of the element can be absorbed and distributed in the plant for its physiological needs at each successive phase of growth." nutritional sprays under such circumstances may prove the remedy, and we have experimental evidence to support this. nut trees as is shown by the above mentioned experiment, may respond to spray applications equally as well as citrus, other fruit and vegetables, and effects, too may possess special diagnostic values, showing the need of trees, and therefore also the need of soils on which they are grown. investigators are constantly confronted with determining whether foliage shows symptoms of disease or starvation, and whether this is due to a deficiency or an excess of any particular nutrient; whether fungicides inhibit the generation of fungi from the spore state, or whether the plant is fortified from sprays or dusts to become disease resistant, or repellent. fungicides are valueless where plant disease is caused by bacteriae which invade the water conducting tubes, (roughly corresponding to the blood vessels of mammals), of plants, tree trunks, etc. and prevent the flow of water and nutrient solutions from roots to leaves. deprived of water and nourishment, the plants or trees will wilt and die. where, however, soils furnish these plants with protective inorganic nutrients, such as manganese, copper, iron, zinc, borax, etc. these bacterial diseases are prevented. similar actions may take place in leaves. deficiency symptoms. kodachrome slides. many acute deficiency symptoms have been identified by authorities and photographed, and i am able to show kodachrome slides of the following: manganese starvation on swiss chard, spinach (five illustrations), courtesy of dr. robert e. young, waltham, massachusetts. apricot, sweet cherry, lemon, onions, peanut, soybean (two illustrations), tobacco ( illustrations), sugarbeets, walnuts, wheat, all by different authors. manganese deficiencies in indiana on soyabeans, hemp, corn, by courtesy of george h. enfield, purdue university. manganese on beets (mangels), ( illustrations), and romaine lettuce, nassau county, long island. courtesy of dr. h. c. thompson, cornell university. many more are published in "hunger signs of crops," an illustrated reference book popular with scientific farmers and growers[ ]. other deficiencies that have been observed on nut trees are the so-called "little leaf" or "rosette" of pecans and black walnuts[ ], which is due to a lack of zinc. strangely enough, healthy orchards in this case contained a preponderance of fungi, whereas in affected orchards the soil microflora was predominantly bacterial[ ]. we now have definite experimental evidence that lime, manganese and zinc are required in appreciable quantities for the growth, health and bearing quality of nut trees. it is well to make sure of these elements in the soils devoted to nut tree planting, but it cannot be emphasized too often that all essential elements and factors should be taken care of; anyone of them may be the limiting factor in crop failure; the one that is absent is always the most important. in regard to inorganic nutrients, more attention has probably been devoted to citrus trees than to any other tree species, largely because the soils of florida and california require additions thereof. it would be unfair to say that such main fruit crops as apples, cherries, peaches, plums have been neglected; we merely possess more information on the nutrients of citrus trees than on other tree crops, as far as the micro essential nutrients are concerned. most orchards and groves are fertilized only with nitrogen, phosphorus and potash, and limed when necessary. nitrogen can stimulate size of fruit at the expense of quality. a paper by p. w. rohrbaugh[ ], plant physiologist of the california fruit growers exchange, ontario, california, deals with eleven mineral nutrient deficiencies and their causes, viz: calcium, magnesium, potash, phosphorus, sulphur, nitrogen, iron, boron, zinc, manganese, copper, and this might well be used as a guide for nut trees. ) miscellaneous a few oddities may also be mentioned for anyone inclined to experiment: from holland it is reported that an avenue of large handsome shade trees close to a century old, all died in one year, except where a junk dealer had stacked a pile of old metals. the trees had exhausted the inorganic nutrients within reach of their roots in the soil, but the junkpile had replenished them sufficiently, so that those within reach of it kept alive to this day, twenty years later. a rock mulch is reported to have improved the growth of lime and lemon trees considerably[ ], and it would seem that similar experiments should be made on young nut trees, just before bearing age in a comparative test with a check planting. stones can be selected for the nutrients they contain, and a geologist can easily point out those containing the greatest number of elements. no one could go wrong in placing a few rocks of limestone or dolomite near the base of a tree, and let rain and sunshine, heat and frost attend to the fertilizing in a slow but perpetual manner. maple sugar contains manganese[ ], showing this as a distinct quality over cane sugar. manganese and other essential nutrients are known to facilitate the production of proteins[ ], and the question of better quality nut production may well be examined from the viewpoint of the indirect effect from activities of soil microbiology by manganese, copper, cobalt and zinc. some of these elements have also been classed as inorganic plant hormones[ ]. "chlorosis," the yellowing of leaves, may not only be a deficiency symptom of manganese, but also one of iron, copper and magnesium. lack of manganese can cause a decrease in photosynthesis[ ], so much so that in manganese deficient leaves the co assimilation may be reduced to half of normal. herein, too, may lie the cause of low yields, smaller roots and lowered resistance of those roots to invading detrimental organism. contemporary work on soil microbiology may show that manganese and other essential nutrients are perhaps most important in their functions for the preservation and balancing of microbial life and actions in soils. there is where tree nutrition must begin; whatever is neglected in soils can at best only temporarily be adjusted afterwards. after all, deficiency symptoms on foliage show lack of soil fertility, and while we should welcome them for their diagnostic value, our corrective measures to be most economical must be taken on soils. transmission of inorganic nutrients from soils to plants to animals soil analysis and plant tissue tests both have their value, but also their limitations. many laboratories and experiment stations are equipped to make rapid soil tests, and some engage in leaf analysis. it is important that they be correctly interpreted. for instance, at the citrus experiment station, riverside, california[ ], bark and leaves were collected from healthy and diseased persian walnuts. they were analyzed for calcium, magnesium, inorganic phosphate, manganese and iron. a higher percentage of ash was found in the diseased than in the healthy bark, and calcium, magnesium, manganese and inorganic phosphates were also generally higher. it would be a fallacy i think to conclude therefrom that these elements were not necessary, or were present to excess. they were probably present because they had failed to function properly, due to changes in weather, excessive rains or droughts, and could not eliminate themselves. we must consider the results from the functions of the essential elements, and discard the popular belief that inorganic nutrients in soils are transmitted from soils to plants, and therein contained for the express purpose of satisfying the need of animals and humans[ ]. the plant has only one purpose to perform which is to grow and to reproduce itself, and such is the case with all other forms of life. plants contain very often inorganic elements in a form in which they cannot be utilized. it is therefore quite easy to mistake their presence either as a toxicity symptom or as a high requirement, when as a matter of fact these elements are present due to conditions unfavorable to metabolism, and they remained in bark and leaves as end products, in an inert form. rather than being transmitted from soils to plant, their functions may consist of the formation of enzymes, proteins, hormones, chlorophyll, antibodies, vitamins, in carbon assimilation. when they have served such purposes they are not likely to be present in plants in anything like the amounts or forms as present in soils. they may come into question as catalysts or bio-catalysts, as sources of energy for microorganism, from which their optimum effects have been secured when they are not transmitted at all, causing changes, but remaining themselves unchanged. they are essential in the sense that the elements composing soils, sea, atmosphere are constantly energized, changed and used over and over again to create plant, animal and human life. in this cycle nothing is lost, only changed from old to new generations. summary soil factors for tree growth are physical, chemical and biological. to control the organisms of soils and plants is probably the most difficult problem in microbiology. it is not wise to alternate neglect with feverish attention when blights or other pests become epidemic or threatening. they may be of a nutritional, preventable rather than curable nature. pathology and tree nutrition may as well become a constant part of your activities. references to the literature . beeson, k. c. the mineral composition of crops u.s.d.a. bulletin no. . march, . fearon, w. r. a classification of the biological elements sci. proc. royal dublin soc. vol. no. . february, . wischhusen, j. f. minerals in agricultural and in animal husbandry manganese research & development foundation cleveland , ohio . rodale, j. i. the organic forest--editorial organic gardening, emmaus, pa. april, , pp. - . scarseth, george d. growing bananas on acid soilsagriculture in the americas, vol. iv. october, , no. . rayner, m. c. and neilson-jones, w. problems of tree nutrition faber and faber, lt. london . roach, w. a. soil fertility and trace elements soil conservation, washington. october, condensed in farmer's digest, ambler, pa. january, . camp, a. f. the minor elements in citrus fertilization commercial fertilizer, atlanta, ga. january, . chapman, h. d.; brown, s. m.; and rayner, d. s. nutrient deficiencies in citrus california citrograph, may, . mclean, f. t. feeding plants manganese through the stomata science ( ). exp. sta. rec no. . spray and dust schedules, published annually florida citrus commission, lakeland, fla. . braucher, o. l. and southwick, b. w. correction of manganese deficiency symptoms of walnut trees proc. horticultural science . -- . . mccollum, e. v. orent-keiles the newer knowledge of nutrition. fifth edition the macmillan company, pp. - . hoagland, d. r. inorganic nutrition of plants chronic botanica, , pp. - . hunger signs of crops--a symposium national fertilizer assn. washington, d. c. judd & detwiler, baltimore, md. . blackmon, g. h. variety and stock tests of pecan and walnut trees florida agr. exp. sta. annual report , ( ) . blackmon, g. h. pecan variety response to different soil types, localities: zinc treatments florida agr. exp. sta. ann. rep. , - , ( ) . ark, p. a. little leaf or rosette of fruit trees vii. soil microflora and little leaf or rosette disease proc. amer. soc. of horticultural sci. , - . . rohrbaugh, p. w. mineral nutrient deficiencies in california citrus trees and their causes california citrograph, april-may, . white, clarence decorative rock mulches organic gardening, november, --emmaus, pa. . riou, paul and delorme, joachim manganese in maple and cane sugars comptes rendues - ( ) c.a. . delorme, joachim manganese in maple and cane sugars contrib. lab. del'ecole hautes etûdes comm. montreal no. , page . baudisch, oskar biological functions of minor elements soil sci. vol. no. august, . ellis, carleton; swaney, miller. w. soilless growth of plants reinhold publishing co. . willis, l. g. and piland, j. r. minor elements and major soil problems jour. amer. soc. agronomy. -- -- ( ) . haas, a. r. c. walnut yellow in relation to ash composition, manganese, iron and ash constituents bot. gazette ( ) e.s.r. , . wischhusen, j. f. recommendations for feeding manganese manganese research & development foundation, cleveland , ohio nut tree propagation as a hobby for a chemist by dr. e. m. shelton, cleveland, ohio not so long ago we saw a movie by the title of "cluny brown." the heroine was possessed with a passion for repairing plumbing, but was continually inhibited by well-meaning relatives who told her that she "didn't know her place." a scene early in the story shows cluny on the floor under a stopped-up kitchen sink explaining her problem to a sympathetic professor who states a philosophy something like this. "to be happy, one should not have to be bound by what is appropriate. if it is customary to throw nuts to the squirrels and you prefer to throw squirrels to the nuts, it should be all right to throw squirrels to the nuts." it is obviously not always advisable to be so unconventional, but it seems to me that in matters pertaining to one's hobby it should be permissable to throw "squirrels to the nuts." a hobby, like a shadow, is necessarily a very personal thing. without the person with which it is associated it could not exist. therefore, i feel that it is appropriate to present throughout this paper a liberal use of the pronoun in the first person. years ago, as a boy on an ohio farm, i tried repeatedly, without success, to graft on small hickory trees along the river bank scions from one especially good tree that stood out in a cultivated field. time that followed was too crowded for further attempts at nut tree propagation until about fifteen years ago, when, living in connecticut, i bought a grafted walnut, a thomas, and set out to produce more like it. before we left connecticut, i had been able to present grafted walnut trees to many of my neighbors who had persisted, hitherto, in calling hickory-nuts "walnuts." they would listen with some show of interest while i expounded on my enthusiasm for black walnuts, but sooner or later would inevitably ask, "do you mean the shagbark kind?" last summer we drove back to connecticut for a brief visit, and, on calling at the home of one of these friends, we found that the first nut borne on their thomas tree had been carefully saved. forthwith there was a solemn nut-cracking ceremony, and all present tasted the meat and pronounced it good. we hope that that tree and many others will thrive for years to come to add to the bonds of friendship with these neighbors we have known. lately i have arranged my work so that we may once again live in ohio not too far from my boyhood home. last year i tried once again to graft along the hillside scions from that prized hickory, and this time six out of seven grafts have grown. my field of work has been that of a chemist, engaged in industrial problems related to animal and plant products. hence, my hobby and my day's work are productive of mutually helpful ideas. the literature which i review frequently contains suggestions applicable to the various phases of tree propagation. though a few references are quoted in the bibliography at the end of this paper, these are for illustration only and comprise a very small number of those which have appeared. my experiments in nut tree propagation have been reported from time to time in the yearbooks of the n.n.g.a. and i intend in the remainder of this paper only to outline problems under a number of general headings in which i am particularly interested, and give some indication of procedures which seem worth while investigating. an important phase of nut growing to which i have given little attention is the search for new varieties. i find my interest in this aspect growing as i associate with the group of nut growers in ohio, who through prize contests and active personal work are trying to discover superior nut trees in nature, yet i do not find in this the opportunity i seek for experimentation unless it may be in the matter of hybridization. rootstock propagation rootstocks for walnuts and hickories are very easily grown from seed. chestnuts are grown with variable success, and it would seem that particular care in drainage of the seed bed, and possibly the use of one of the seed fungicides, should improve chestnut germination. the present trend in the propagation of fruit trees is toward selection of particularly suitable rootstocks. do some nut tree seedlings accept grafts more readily than others? we do not know. numerous writers have discussed the idea of varying degrees of compatibility of rootstocks with scions and jones[ ] has brought together considerable evidence to relate incompatibility among plants with something parallel to allergy in animals. initial growth of the scion leads to a flow of foreign bodies into the stock. the theory is advanced that the stock develops antitoxins to these foreign bodies which succeed in killing the scion a few weeks later. if a particular strain of nut tree stock is some day found to be of particular value for grafting, or for propagation of a disease resistant type, as in the chestnut, the propagation of such stock vegetatively would be essential. a present illustration is the series of malling apple rootstocks which are grown from cuttings. i have tried many times to grow chestnuts from cuttings with no success. a few experiments now in progress are limited to malling ix apple stocks which i assume are not especially difficult to root. i am trying several modifications of a principle of making the cuttings at some time after girdling the stem. the hope is that in this way there will be accumulated at the base of the cutting more than the usual reserve of nutritive elements together with whatever plant wound hormones and plant growth substances the twig is capable of synthesizing. scion storage in earlier papers i described the use of sodium sulfate crystals (glauber's salt) for controlling the humidity in scion storage. this season i have adapted the practice to the shipping of fresh walnut bud sticks. a sack of glauber's salt in the bottom of the mailing tube keeps the cuttings moist, and if, in addition, the container is kept in a refrigerator when not actually in transit, the buds have been kept in condition for use up to twenty-five days. a low temperature is essential in storage of any scions. variations in this factor may have been the cause of some of the objections which have been raised to the practice of coating scions with wax when they go into storage. if wax is to be applied over a scion, it can be done more uniformly and in a thinner coating by immersion of the scion in melted wax. the scion so coated seems to be in better condition than an uncoated scion when it comes out of storage provided the storage temperature has been low. however, if the wood has not been kept dormant by low temperature, gases are evolved which form blisters under the wax and injure the scion. it is quite probable that a wax coating then aggravates this damage. grafting and budding until this year i had not tried budding, and have gotten into it first of all to learn whether an ordinary laboratory cork borer is not a usable substitute for a patch bud cutter. it seems to do very well. the patches are small, but as an aid in tieing them in i prepared short strips of painter's masking tape with a thin coat of a plastic grafting wax on one side. in the center of each piece of tape is a hole just large enough for the bud to show through. the tape is pressed on over the bud patch, after which the usual binding with rubber strips is applied. the whole technic of budding is fascinating and i plan to experiment as extensively next season as time and stock permit. wax and tape in , shear[ ] published a report on a number of wound dressings for trees in which he observed that lanolin exerts a marked action in stimulating cambial growth. this led me to try various wax combinations in which lanolin was incorporated, and a mixture of equal parts of lanolin and beeswax has become the base for most of my experimental grafting wax mixtures. i have commented already on the importance of incorporating an opaque ingredient to exclude light. experiments in progress this season have had to do with introduction of green vs. red dye and with the incorporation of a wax soluble pyrridyl mercuric stearate[ ] as a fungicide. i have recommended painter's masking tape for tying in scions in all cases in which moderate tension is sufficient. a winding of such a tape of course excludes the grafting wax from contact with the line of cambial contact, so any favorable action which any ingredient in the wax might have must be largely interfered with. if a tape is prepared with a thin coating of plastic grafting wax on one side to serve as the adhesive, it should be possible to bring the wax into contact with the cut cambial surface without, however, introducing such a mass of wax as would make its way between stock and scion and interfere with contact. nutrition my own field of work has recently changed to nutrition, infant feeding, and i shall undoubtedly come to have more of an understanding of plant nutrition as well as of babies as i study longer on this subject. our recollections of the "good old days" are often mistaken, but i think there is no doubt that the nut trees bore more and better nuts when i was a boy than we can find now. can it be a matter of nutritional failure? the first consideration in plant nutrition seems to be the water supply, and perhaps in many localities the water table has fallen sufficiently to threaten our trees with malnutrition. the supply of the common mineral elements may or may not be adequate. these elements should not be difficult to supply. the matter of the trace elements and their significance catches our fancy at present and many of us will undoubtedly begin to explore the effect of this or that panacea for restoring a favorite old tree to a second youth. medication it is only a step from the consideration of nutrition of a plant or animal to that of medication. remedial agents are readily introduced into plants, either through the roots, or by spray on the foliage, or by direct injection into the trees. going a little further, such methods become means of killing trees. a few years ago, i became interested in killing trees in a way which would prevent sprouting and also protect the wood to some extent from insect attack and decay organisms. more recently my interest has turned toward the use of hygroscopic chemicals injected in the living tree for the purpose, not only of killing the tree, but of preventing the wood from cracking radially or drying. a number of government publications[ - ] have contributed information along this line. to inject enough chemical to accomplish this purpose it seems necessary to introduce the chemical solution through a cut the depth of the sap wood and extending entirely around the tree. a collar of water-proof paper cemented to the tree provides a means of supplying the chemical solution to the cut. all this is described in the literature cited. the only contribution i have made is the use of urea in the solutions. many salts are more soluble in a water solution of urea than in water alone, and many such mixtures are very hygroscopic. moreover, it seems that in the presence of urea higher concentrations of salt may be introduced into the sap stream of trees, though i do not as yet have experimental data to confirm this statement quantitatively. an example of a solution injected into a small ash tree is as follows: grams urea grams copper sulfate crystals cubic centimeters water i hope in another year to cure a number of varieties of woods on the stump and later to compare their qualities in the shop with lumber cured in the usual way. by-products any object as juicy and colorful as a black walnut hull may well become a subject for search in recovery of by-products. the thermally active carbon made from the shells has actuated laboratory thermostats for me for several years. but more real and immediate by-products have been the personal associations which have arisen from this hobby. physicians, engineers, teachers, farmers, persons from every calling are among those whom i have met through a common interest in nut tree propagation. i can recommend this hobby to anyone mature enough to take an interest in the future, and to chemists in particular. bibliography . w. neilson jones plant chimaeras and graft hybrids methuen and company, london . shear-lanolin as a wound dressing for trees proc. am. soc. hort. sci. , - ( ) . horner, koppa and herbst--mercurial fungicide wax problems ind. eng. chem, - ( ) . u. s. bureau of entomology and plant quarantine--e- --june . a method for preventing insect injury to material used for posts, poles, and rustic construction. . e- --may , an efficient method for introducing liquid chemicals into living trees. . e- --february , chemicals and methods used in treatments of trees by injections, with annotated bibliography. . conn. agr. expt. sta.--cir. no. --july, the use of water soluble preservatives in preventing decay in fence posts and similar materials. . u. s. d. a.--cir. no. --june, the internal application of chemicals to kill elm trees and prevent bark-beetle attack. . forest products laboratory--november, a primer on the chemical seasoning of douglas fir. . reprint from journal of forestry--vol. --march, (procured from forest products laboratory) seasoning transverse tree sections without checking. notes on propagation and transplanting in western tennessee by joseph c. mcdaniel, state horticulturist tennessee department of agriculture nashville , tennessee these observations are presented as a preliminary report of the results obtained by three enterprising amateurs of nut growing in the western counties of tennessee, whose work points the way toward overcoming some of the weaknesses previously encountered in nut culture in the northern part of the cotton belt states. these growers are the "three r's" of our association in west tennessee: dr. aubrey richards of whiteville, mr. george rhodes of covington, and mr. w. f. roark of malesus. i am giving this brief account of some of their experiences, with the hope that it will stimulate others to try their methods under various conditions, and to report their results at later n.n.g.a. meetings. we do not expect these methods to work equally well in all parts of the united states and canada represented here today, but they are giving promising results in the mid-south territory, and perhaps will have value in a wider area. as mr. davidson has so ably done at this meeting in the case of his ohio plantings, we expect to give you a follow-up report on this work in west tennessee at the toronto meeting or later. "twin-t" budding in chestnut propagation of the nut trees grown in this area, the chestnut has been the most difficult to propagate by budding. nurseries in the upper south have propagated their pecan and walnut trees mostly by patch-budding or the similar ring-budding method, with very good success. when applied to chestnuts, patch-buds have seldom grown. the common t-bud, likewise, has been a general failure on chestnuts in america, though reported successful in japan. chip-buds have not been much-better. several years ago, dr. max b. hardy told me that the inlay bark-graft had been used successfully with chinese chestnuts at the u.s.d.a, laboratory in albany, ga., following dr. b. g. sitton's use of this method with pecans in louisiana. (it is described in a bulletin from michigan state college, east lansing, mich.) i tried it in a small way, and had some success using it on chestnuts in july and august. this spring i suggested it to mr. roark and dr. richards, both of whom tried it out, using castanea mollissima stocks and various scion varieties. mr. roark used the inlay bark-graft in the spring, topworking a c. mollissima seedling with scions of the colossal, a hybrid variety from california. about per cent of these have grown this year. dr. richards tried it during july, on c. mollissima seedlings from a different source. none of the colossal would grow on his trees, but he was partially successful with scions of the c. mollissima varieties, hobson, carr and zimmerman. he then devised a variation in the method which was highly successful with c. mollissima varieties. this i shall call the richards "twin-t" bud. in "twin-t" budding, a vertical slit is made in the bark of the stock. then horizontal cuts are made through the bark at both top and bottom of the vertical cut. the bud piece is cut from the well matured part of a current season's twig, leaving a rather thick slice of wood beneath the bud. (it may be as thick as half the diameter of the twig.) the bud is inserted in the stock as in ordinary t-budding, then wrapped with a large sized rubber budding strip. (westinghouse electrician's tape and curity adhesive tape have also been used. some other brands poisoned the buds.) the "take" of chinese chestnut buds by this method has run from to per cent on dr. richards' trees of various sizes this year. in a short nursery row, buds were placed under first or second year bark, while larger trees were topworked by placing the buds mostly under the bark of second year limbs. the colossal failed again on dr. richards' trees when budded by the "twin-t" method, but carr and other chinese varieties were budded successfully. the graft-compatibility problem in chestnuts is one of considerable complexity. thus carr, which has presented incompatibility with certain stocks of c. mollissima at other places, grew on these trees, and colossal, compatible on another c. mollissima tree, failed on trees which are apparently compatible with carr. the chinese chestnut species varies in its graft-compatibilities possibly as much as in other characteristics (growth, productivity, size and quality of nuts, etc.) so that nut nurserymen should begin to select their seed for chestnut understocks with a view toward getting strains with a greater degree of compatibility to the leading scion varieties. mr. roark has been able to propagate the colossal upon its own roots by layering a small tree in his orchard. two limbs pegged into the ground in the spring of had produced roots a year later, and were then detached from the parent tree. this is a slow but sure method of propagating nut tree varieties that are not congenial with the stocks available for grafting or budding. he has also layered sweet cherries and prune trees by this method which is described in u.s.d.a. farmers bulletin with reference to filberts. a heartnut variety compatible with black walnut stocks seedling black walnuts are common on farms of west tennessee. dr. richards and mr. rhodes have been most active in showing that these can be topworked readily to improved black walnut varieties under the conditions prevailing there. mr. rhodes has also fruited such older persian walnut varieties as lancaster, mayette, and franquette on black walnut stocks, but finds them generally unproductive in his climate. newer varieties, including some selections of the carpathian strains are now being tried and should be of fruiting age soon. mr. rhodes has also found, at covington, a heartnut that is vigorous and productive under west tennessee conditions. he finds that it buds readily on the native black walnut. some budded trees of it are over a dozen years old. they have medium sized nuts, smooth shelled (with fairly thick shells for a heartnut) and kernels of good flavor, coming out whole when the nuts are cracked carefully. i am giving this variety the name rhodes, and suggesting it for use in west tennessee because of its adaptability and the fact that it can be budded upon black walnut. others have reported japanese walnut (including heartnut) varieties incompatible with black walnut at other locations. dr. richards has propagated some other heartnut varieties on black walnut, but finds them more variable than the rhodes, in obtaining a good union. paper wrap gives summer-long protection to transplanted trees too commonly, transplanted nut trees suffer from sunscald injury on their southwest sides during the first summer in the orchard. this injury is particularly common on pecans, which suffer a severe shock from transplanting and are slow in re-establishing vigorous growth. in west tennessee, as one grower puts it, "a pecan is doing well if it holds one green leaf its first year." pecans have been known to remain dormant in their tops until the second spring after planting, and then start growth. during this initial period of establishment in the orchard, it is beneficial to give some kind of shade to the tree trunk, to keep the bark from "cooking" and dying on part of the most exposed side. waxing of the trunks before planting helps reduce drying out of the tops before the roots are partially regenerated and top growth begins, but waxing alone, under our conditions, is not sufficient to prevent the frequent occurrence of a dead area starting on the southwest side of the trunk during the summer following tree setting. dr. richards has found that a heavy wallpaper of a cheap grade, cut in strips and wrapped spirally to cover the tree trunk from the ground up, lasts through the season and eliminates nearly all of the sunscald injury on pecans which he has moved from his farm nursery row to the orchard. with trees that are shipped long distances, and allowed to dry out too much before resetting, the results are not so uniform. we are still in favor of the use of wax coatings on trees that must be shipped, but would recommend that they be given additional protection by some means, to shade the trunks throughout the first growing season. this paper wrap of dr. richards seems as efficient as any method, and is the most economical i have observed. it should be beneficial on most species of nut trees under summer conditions in the mid-south region. propagating nut trees under glass by stephen bernath, poughkeepsie, new york about ten years ago i decided to try a few nut grafts in my small propagating house. the results were so satisfactory that since that time i have grafted from a few hundred to several thousand each year. i found by experiment that i could not graft nut trees exactly as i did ornamental trees and shrubs, due to their extra sap content. nut trees bleed excessively and i had to overcome this or my losses were heavy. i use no wax on grafts. my method is as follows: i take a strong light string and wax it with beeswax and parafin mixed fifty-fifty. i use a modified side graft, tying with this waxed string. late in december or early in january, i pot the understock, using black walnut seedlings for four varieties (persian walnut, butternut, black walnut and heartnut). i make sure the understock has had its rest period by not digging and storing them until they have been really hit by frost and left for a period, to be sure the wood has matured for the season. the mature understock is then stored in moist sand in a cool cellar. in late-december, as i have stated, i place the understock in benches using - / to inch pots, wetting them thoroughly after imbedding them in peat moss. keep the moss damp and at a temperature of degrees at night. after two or three weeks examine the roots by knocking several loose from the pots. if root action has started, the roots will show white thread-like fibers and are ready for grafting. this is important, because if grafting is done too soon the loss is heavy. if delayed too long the top starts growing. so i caution, do grafting when the understock is ready. place newly made grafts on their side, imbedded in moss, and refrain from watering until the union has formed. open grafting case after third day and daily thereafter, until union is complete. each day wipe glass off with cloth to prevent moisture from dripping on grafts. increase bottom heat after grafts are laid in benches from to degrees. in about three to four weeks, if union has formed, place grafts in up right position, then watering is resumed and heat is reduced to around degrees at night. when graft shows two inches or more growth, cut understock off close above the union, and then give house plenty of ventilation to avoid soft growth. i find nut trees very tender subjects and delay planting these under-glass grown grafts out in nursery rows until every vestige of frost has passed. also be sure to sever the waxed string as this is tougher than the green graft. if this method sounds like a great deal of work and trouble generally, remember the reward will be heavy rooted, easy to transplant, healthy, named varieties of nut trees. who can say that, at the present, there is an abundance of such trees in this country. the economic, ecological and horticultural aspects of intercropping nut plantings by f. l. o'rourke michigan state college, east lansing, michigan mature nut trees are usually large trees, and large trees demand space. young nut trees, therefore, must be planted relatively far apart from each other and for the first few years, at least, there is an abundance of unused land between the trees, which may be used for intercropping. the choice of just what crop or plants to use is often perplexing and should be considered for several aspects. the economic factors are of prime importance. the cost of growing the crop, the specialized farm machinery and equipment needed, the availability of labor, the distribution of the seasonal labor demand, the time of the critical cultural practices or of harvesting, the potential market, and the expected price of the saleable product must all be considered. the staple farm crops of the region are often preferable to specialty crops, particularly from the labor standpoint. corn, wheat, oats, potatoes, and legumes can all be grown with a minimum of labor and the use of power machinery. there is less risk involved with farm crops than with specialities, both in securing an adequate crop and in the price received for the product. fruit, vegetables and ornamentals often have very critical requirements. they must be sprayed, harvested, and shipped at exactly the right time or all the proceeds will be lost. staple crops are not so demanding in either culture or harvesting. the labor distribution throughout the season or even throughout the year must be considered and well planned in advance. no two crops should require exact and demanding attention at the same time. they should be chosen and planted so that a regular, even distribution of labor can be maintained with as little of a rush period as possible and yet with a minimum of idle time. the general agricultural pattern of the region must be considered. in a sparsely settled grain and livestock region it would be quite inadvisable to grow strawberries or other crops which require a maximum of hand labor during a very brief period. berries, however, may be perfectly well suited to sections where either transient workers or city children can be secured with little effort. the crop should suit from the ecological viewpoint. it must not compete with the young, growing trees for mineral food and water, particularly during spring and early summer when the trees make most of their annual growth. on the other hand, if planted too close to the trees, some intercrops may be shaded too severely to produce a normal yield. success in intercropping is usually found between plants which are quite dissimilar in form and habit. black walnuts and pasture grasses furnish a typical example. the long taproots of the walnuts penetrate deeply into the soil, while the grass roots are shallow and fibrous and feed in the soil surface layer. the aerial portions of these plants are likewise quite different, the walnuts tower high in the air, while the grasses form their crowns on the very surface of the ground. the light shade cast by the walnuts does not interfere with the photosynthetic activity of the grasses, but it is sufficient to discourage growth of broad-leaved weeds which have a higher light requirement than that of grass. this light shade also tends to provide a greater supply of available moisture for the grass, in that it reduces temperature and, consequently, water loss from the grass and soil by keeping down both transpiration and evaporation. experiments in both tennessee and ohio have shown that the quantity of grass produced from beneath walnut trees is greater than on equal areas in the open and that the quality, as represented by a larger protein content, is also higher. for this reason, one may well consider livestock as the income-producing portion of a walnut-pasture planting. over one fourth of the agricultural land of the united states is devoted to pasture and much of the land is suitable for interplanting to walnuts, butternuts, and other pasture trees, as honey locusts and black locusts, all of which are known to improve the pasture grasses to some extent. the potential income which may be derived from such plantings over this vast acreage is enormous and is the more striking in that these pasture trees occupy a plane that is now idle and unproductive, that is, the area lying above the grass tops. the nuts produced on this "upper story" will represent almost all "clear profit" in that very little care need be given these walnut trees after they have been properly planted. livestock guards will need to be placed about the trees at planting time and kept there until the trees have grown to the point where they may no longer be harmed by straddling and browsing. pastures are excellent sites from another angle. the closely grazed sod furnishes an ideal place to rake the nuts together at harvest time. anyone who has hunted for nuts in a dense ground cover will appreciate this factor. while the walnut responds best to the deep, fertile soil of the river bottoms and flood plains, it will grow well on the lower portions of slopes if water is available and the site is not too exposed to the force of drying winds. contour strips should be prepared by plowing several furrows downhill, each a little less in depth than the preceding, and the walnuts planted thereon. the walnut is a spreading tree and plenty of space should be allowed. perhaps it may be wise to plant the walnuts at extended intervals and fill up the contour row with black locusts, for post wood, and honey locusts to produce succulent pods for cattle feed. in any event, it is better to allow too much, rather than too little space, as walnuts are long-lived trees and will thrive best where there is least competition. in iowa, black walnuts are responding well to "basin culture" in sites which were prepared by "scalping" the sod from the upper portion of a slope and depositing it on a lower portion in order to catch and retain more water. nut trees are like all other trees in that they react favorably to good horticultural practice. fertilizer, particularly nitrogen, is usually always helpful. the addition of lime when the soil is acid and of organic matter when humus becomes depleted will aid in better soil aeration and an increased moisture supply. this, in turn, will be reflected in more vigorous tree growth and greater nut production. occasional spraying may be necessary to control the datana caterpillar in the summer. chinese chestnuts seem to be admirably adapted for interplanting with mulberries, cherries, pears, and the like in poultry runs and hog lots where the pigs and chickens will control the weevils by gleaning the prematurely dropped and overlooked chestnuts which contain the grubs of the weevil. the fruit portion of the integrated planting will maintain a high carbohydrate ration during the season for the use of the livestock. here, again, plenty of space should be allowed between trees to allow each its full measure of water, food, air and sunlight. careful and thorough research is needed to determine the full requirements of nut trees and to work out the interplanting relationships. in view of the vast potentialities for their use, investigational programs may soon be under way and much more definite information be made available to the farmer and landowner. references aikman, j. m.--a basin method of nut tree culture. proc. iowa. acad. sci. : - . neel, l. r.--the effect of shade on pasture. tenn. exp. sta. cir. , smith, r. m.--some effects of black locusts and black walnuts on southeastern ohio pastures soil sci. : - , nut work at the mahoning county experiment farm, canfield, ohio by l. walter sherman, superintendent my interest in nuts dates back to the turn of the century when, as a boy in high school, i delighted in gathering wild nuts for my own use. i knew of several black walnut trees bearing very fine nuts and also one excellent hickory. these were near my home in northern ohio. after my school days were over, i married and went to oklahoma, where i found the most miserable wild nuts imaginable. however, i stayed but a short time and returned to my native state where the wild nuts were reasonably good. in , i made a trip to california and visited the persian walnut orchards at harvest time. as if that were not enough to convince me that it would be worth my while to do what i could in behalf of the nut industry, the agricultural press of the time published several intriguing accounts of persian walnuts growing in and near toronto, ontario which had been brought there by rev. paul c. crath from the carpathian mountains of poland. my constant talk about hardy strains of persian walnut prompted friends to tell me of several plantings already growing in northern ohio with more or less success. i promptly obtained scions and undertook to graft a number of these, but i had the usual ill-success of a beginner. i failed in attempts to top work trees and had no better results with bench grafting although i began early in the season and continued my efforts till the time arrived for planting the trees. i stored the grafted material in a cool apple storage house from the time they were grafted until they were planted. then somehow i learned that walnut wounds would not callous over except at relatively high temperatures. accordingly, i placed my next bench-grafted trees in a warm greenhouse, where growth started at once. this marked my first successful grafting of black walnut. later, mr. w. r. fickes of wooster, explained to me his technique of "boxing off" or "bleeding." by following his instructions, i was able successfully to top work some of the seedlings i had grown for the purpose. my next steps were to procure some of the nuts from rev. crath which he had brought from poland and to make a personal importation of seed from an experiment station in russia. with these two lots i started out to raise persian walnut seedlings. the first grafted trees set out at the farm were obtained from homer c. jacobs of kent, ohio, in . that year we began planting a three-acre tract. the trees were grown with scions cut from prize winning seedlings brought out as a result of the ohio nut contest held in . the trees were set feet each way in order to conserve room. this distance allowed for but trees to the acre and available space was quickly occupied. by , it became necessary to add two more acres. the new land was from an abandoned berry ground. it was plowed, limed heavily and fertilized. the alternate rows were used for peach trees as fillers. the main rows were mostly filled with new varieties of persian walnut from northern ohio which had been grafted on black walnut stocks. some of the room was used for growing black walnut seedlings for use in grafting with scions of prize winners in the next ohio contest, plans for which were already under way. in , four plantings of persian walnut trees located some distance from each other in northern ohio, all had good crops and all produced superior nuts. a half bushel of the nuts were planted at the farm during the following spring. all lots grew remarkably well. the resulting seedlings, together with grafted trees, which by then were growing in the farm nursery, made it necessary to further add to the orchard room. the increase this time was eight acres, of which five were planted to trees during the spring of . in all plantings, the distance between trees has remained the same as at first, not that feet is enough for bearing trees but because it is expected to do a large amount of thinning out as bearing begins and many trees prove their inferiority. the problem of propagating desirable varieties has been our greatest difficulty. the kinds we wanted were not to be had from nursery sources as they were entirely new. commercial nurserymen would not even undertake the task of grafting. we were forced to rely upon our own ingenuity. not only did we have to master the art of grafting but we had to drive hundreds of miles in order to obtain scions of the various kinds. we still know too little about grafting. we often raise the question as to how it happens that surgeons can do almost anything they wish in the way of cutting and splicing parts of the human body, yet with nut trees, per cent of success is rarely attained. last spring i began a rather elaborate comparison of paraffin with beeswax--lanolin for use in grafting. dr. shelton had demonstrated that the latter was a good dressing for wounds and i assumed that in grafting, it would promote callousing. my experiment was partially frustrated by the loss of my melting pot which burned at about the time the work was half done. the grafting had to be finished without wax of any kind. out of grafts so set, only five grew. the five survivors had been merely "boxed off" or "bled," none grew which had been treated with hot wax of any kind. research with nuts has but barely begun at the farm. we feel, however, much encouraged and that the worst is over. we have a total of trees in the planting, many of which have already borne a few nuts. production should increase rapidly and we will soon have considerable quantities of nuts and other material with which to work. we have the following genera, species, varieties, and hybrid forms: butternut--craxezy and vincamp; chestnut--carr, hobson, yankee (syn., connecticut yankee), and zimmerman; hickory, including hybrids--bixby, bogne, boor nos. and , bowen, cranz nos. and , fairbanks, frank, haskell, leach, lozsdon, mcconkey, nething, reynolds, ridiker, russell, stratford, weschcke, and wright; pecan--busseron, greenriver, and posey; black walnut--barnhart, brown, cowle, fulton (syn. miller of ohio), hare, havice, horton, jansen, krause, lisbon, mintle, mohican, murphey, ohio, rohwer, snyder, sparrow, stabler, stambaugh, thomas, tritten, twin lakes, and wanda; persian walnut--alliance, baxter, blosser, broadview, diller, elmore, gligor nos. and , graber, hall, lieber, lopeman, oehn, and schafer; heartnut--bellevue, canoka, fish, and keck. in addition there are black walnut seedlings of brown and lisbon varieties; seedling black walnuts of unknown parentage; persian walnut seedlings of known percentage; heartnut seedlings; chinese chestnut seedlings; and seedling filberts. the ohio black walnut contest of the contest was sponsored by the ohio chapter of the n.n.g.a., inc., and was publicised through the cooperation of the ohio forestry association and the ohio farmer magazine. there were separate black walnut entries, showing the great interest aroused. the nuts that won first place were grown by mr. duke hughes, of coal run, noble county, o. he states the tree is about years old and stands in well-limed permanent pasture near the crest of a ridge, in muskingum silt loam. the system of judging was that set up by the tva at norris, tenn. the judges were oliver d. diller, secretary of the ohio forestry association; l. walter sherman, superintendent of the mahoning county experiment farm; and c. w. ellenwood, associate horticulturist at the wooster experiment station. they were assisted by william h. cummings, spencer b. chase and thomas g. zarger, all of t.v.a., and several members of the ohio chapter of nnga. the prize winners are listed in order of awards. [illustration: mr. duke hughes, coal run, washington county, ohio, and the tree producing the first prize--duke black walnut.] name weight, first final percent applied grams pick, pick, of grams grams kernel . duke hughes, coal run, duke . . . . washington county, ohio . j. c. burson, rt. , athens, burson . . . . athens county, ohio . mrs. c. e. campbell, lowellsville, kuhn . . . . mahoning county ohio . ed. smith, rt. , athens, athens . . . . athens county, ohio . mrs. o. shaffer, lucasville, oliver . . . . scioto county, ohio . wm. j. davidson, xenia, davidson . . . . green county, ohio . a. c. orth, rt. , dayton, orth montgomery county, ohio . h. c. williamson, southside, williamson mason county, west virginia . herbert penn, otway, penn scioto county, ohio . mrs. a. l. jackson, little jackson hocking, washington county, ohio [illustration: the judges at work] iowa black walnut contest by c. c. lounsberry, secretary i.n.g.a. the black walnut contest sponsored by the iowa nut growers' association was held at the hoyt sherman place, des moines, iowa, on november and , . the judges were prof. h. e. nichols, dr. h. h. plagge, and dr. j. m. aikman. following the policy set in the contest, the iowa state horticultural society put up cash and ribbons with special reference to standard and previously shown varieties, while the iowa nut growers' association was interested in new varieties. the following are the premiums awarded: standard varieties: prize name variety schlagenbusch bros., ft. madison thomas russell krouse, toddville krouse schlagenbusch bros., ft. madison stambaugh e. f. huen, eldora thomas seward berhow, huxley ohio seward berhow, huxley myers r. s. herrick, prole thomas schlagenbusch bros., ft. madison hepler e. f. huen, eldora ohio e. f. huen, eldora rohwer new varieties: prize name variety schlagenbusch bros., ft. madison schlagenbusch f. j. wagner, danville wagner tom bandfield, shell rock shepard roy a. wood, castana wood mrs. minnie waldo, grand junction waldo e. f. huen, eldora huen ira m. kyhl, sabula tinker schlagenbusch bros., ft. madison kramer sam moncrief, center junction acme c. e. brockway, grundy center birchwood there were only entries in standard varieties and entries in new varieties so we did not make much of a showing as compared with the ohio contest. however, very good walnuts came in. they were all sampled with a mechanical cracker. an interesting development to me was the fact that machine cracking left the center of several of the best varieties of walnuts looking much like the core of an apple, instead of being broken in two as in hand cracking. grafting methods adapted to nut trees by h. f. stoke, virginia (the notes i contributed to the report under the title "experiences with nut grafting" were so fragmentary as to be of little value. in an effort to correct the error i am offering the following supplementary notes in the hope that amateurs like myself may find them of some practical use.) my best success with the propagation of nut trees has been with the following methods. for budding, i use the plate bud exclusively. for grafting on stocks up to one inch i use either the splice graft or the modified cleft graft. for larger stocks i use either the simple bark graft or the slot bark graft. each will be discussed in order. in making the plate bud, it is cut from the scion or bud stick the same as for the familiar t bud. usually a bit of wood is cut away with the bud, which should not be removed. a bud, or a bit of bark, should similarly be cut from the stock at the desired point, and discarded. the area of exposed cambium on the stock should correspond as closely as possible with the cambium area exposed on the bud. the bud is then laid on the exposed cambium of the stock, and bound in place, preferably with rubber budding strips. the point of the bud should be left exposed. [illustration: simple bark graft useful with thin-barked species.] choice of time when conditions are right is quite as necessary for success as the proper procedure. there are two separate periods when the plate bud may be used on walnut with the greatest success. the first period, in virginia, is the latter half of may, when the black walnut stock is in almost full leaf. if done earlier the bud is likely to be drowned by the excessive bleeding of this species. dormant buds cut the previous winter are used. the follow-up care is vitally important. the stock should be cut off above the bud within five to seven days after budding. if successful, the bud will start into growth within another week or ten days, and may be a foot long within days. [illustration: . slot bark graft; useful in top-working. . splice graft; unexcelled when scion and stock are of equal diameter. . modified cleft graft; for all general purposes. . plate bud; for small and medium stocks.] the tying material should be cut and removed within a few days after the bud starts, to prevent strangulation of the tender shoot. be sure to keep native growth of the stock trimmed off until midsummer to force growth of the bud. the second period for successful plate budding of the walnut centers around august first, varying somewhat with the weather conditions. buds of the current season's growth are used. the time must be late enough for these buds to be well matured, and early enough so that the stock is still growing and the bark slipping. if the buds are immature, or the bark tight, the operation will be a failure. the buds remain dormant during the following winter, and are forced into growth by cutting off the stock above the bud early in the spring. the tying material, if durable, should be removed about days after budding. if conditions are right and the work is properly done, a high percentage of "takes" may be expected. in summer i preferably place the bud on the shady side of the stock, or shade it with a little skirt of white paper tied just above the bud. chestnuts can be budded by the same method, but the spring budding should be done earlier, while the stocks are in bud, and the summer budding should be done two or three weeks later than with the walnut. i have not tried the plate bud on hickory or pecan, but it is the only budding method i use on walnut and chestnut, and i have tried them all. when it comes to grafting, the simple splice graft, as illustrated, is very successful, but it should only be used when scion and stock are of the same size. it works splendidly on chestnut, filbert and hickory, and can also be used on walnut; however, i prefer the modified cleft graft for the latter, because of the bleeding problem. in making the splice graft, the diagonal cut should be about four times as long as the diameter of the scion, to prevent slippage in tying. for the modified cleft graft i cut the stock off at the selected point at an angle of from to degrees. this greatly facilitates the healing of the entire wound. the cleft is made not by splitting, but by making a cut with a sharp knife, beginning at the apex of the stock and cutting diagonally downward and inward toward the center of the stock. before making the cut, the scion should be selected, and the wedge cut, with one face slightly longer than the other. this enables one to properly judge the depth and angle of the cleft, thus securing a fit on all four cambial lines. the longer face goes toward the main body of the stock, and is left slightly above the top of the stock. the apex of the stock is squared off slightly before the cleft is cut, and the knife is set very slightly on the wood at the starting point, rather than between the bark and the wood. care at this point guarantees very rapid healing, with no dead tissues or "heel" on the stock, sometimes called "dieback." remember to watch all ties in grafting to prevent strangulation of the tender new growth. this, with removal of sprouts or suckers from the stock below the graft are two very important features of after-care, and neglect can nullify the most expert work in the grafting operation. in grafting the black walnut i prefer to use the side graft because of the bleeding problem. this is precisely the same as the modified cleft graft except that the cleft is made about three-fourths of an inch below the apex of the stock. by making the graft a little below the top of the stock one can tie and wax it, without waxing the top of the stock, which is permitted to bleed at will. this freedom to bleed relieves the pressure of the sap at the graft, where healing takes place without flooding. for stocks under an inch in diameter, i use the splice and modified cleft grafts exclusively. for larger stocks, such as are encountered in top working, other methods are preferred. one can cut the main stock off just above a small limb, and graft one or more of the limbs. again, one may cut the large stock off a year in advance, and bud or graft one or more of the suckers that are thrown out. if neither of the above methods are applicable, one can use either the simple bark graft, or the slot bark graft. in making the simple bark graft, i cut the stock off at a degree angle as for the modified cleft graft. the scion is prepared by making one long wedge face, and on the other side make two short faces so that the point is triangular. to insert the scion make a cut through the bark downward from the apex of the stock. insert the scion between the bark and the stock, with the long face next to the wood, and force gently down until just a little of the face of the wedge shows above the top of the scion. it is well, in case the stock is large, to place three or four scions around the stock, removing all but the strongest after a year of two. this graft is satisfactory for thin-barked species, but for the hickory, the slot bark graft is preferable. for this graft, the scion should be trimmed as a wedge, with one face about twice as long as the other. two parallel cuts are made through the bark at the top of the stock a distance apart equal to the width of the scion wedge. this strip of bark, or "tongue" is loosened at the top, and the wedge is forced between it and the wood, with the long face next to the stock, as in the simple bark graft. secure tying and waxing should be practiced in all grafting. small nails or tacks driven into the top of the stock will help in anchoring the tying material to the sloping surface. inexperienced propagators should get it clearly in mind that union takes place only in the new growth. this new growth builds up from the cambium layer, which is the outside layer of wood cells that lies just beneath and in contact with the bark. this is why it is so vitally necessary that the lines between the bark and cambium be placed in parallel contact as closely as possible, in the splice and cleft grafts. never mind if the outside of the bark of scion and do not match perfectly, due to differences in the thickness of the bark. it is the inside line of the bark that must match. actual union takes place along this cambial line. the old wood of the wedge and cleft cannot, and never does, unite. a word about scions. i seldom use a scion with more than two buds. the best scion wood is of the previous season's growth, if it is of good diameter and well ripened. thin, slender twigs give poor results. on old, slow-growing, bearing trees it is sometimes not possible to get good scion wood one year old. in this case it is best to take some of the older wood in cutting the scion. when used, the wedge should be cut from the two-year wood, just below the one-year wood, with the top of the scion carrying two or three buds on the new wood. the tip of the scion should be waxed, if cut. scions should be cut when perfectly dormant and kept in cold storage until used. if kept too warm and wet the buds may swell, making the scions worthless. it is quite possible to cut the scions about three weeks before the buds begin to swell and get good results by grafting immediately. the chief danger from this practice is that late frosts may nip the buds after starting, which is fatal to the new scion. waxing all cut surfaces, including the tip of the scion, should be practiced except as explained when the side graft is used for walnuts. some advocate waxing the entire scion, also. if this is done i think it better to leave the buds unwaxed. have your knife very sharp. a broad blade is desirable in a grafting knife, as it helps in making smooth, flat surfaces in wedges and clefts. for budding, use a knife with a narrow blade, but also very sharp. develop skill in making the scion wedge, and in cutting the cleft just the right depth and width for the scion selected. experiment on worthless material until you get the knack. if you are a good, natural-born whittler you will find it a greater asset than a college degree. beginnings in walnut grafting by c. c. lounsberry, iowa anyone who has studied propagation manuals from ancient to modern times cannot help but see how methods are carried down from older books to modern ones. however, in walnut grafting one suspects there were trade secrets not permitted publication. how different this was from friendly and helpful cultural and propagation directions given by mr. j. f. jones, dr. w. c. deming, dr. robert t. morris, and others of the northern nut growers' association. beginning with ancient times greeks: theophrastus mentions hazel nuts but nothing about walnuts. romans: pliny, cato, etc. have little to say about walnuts. pliny refers to planting seeds of walnuts but no other method of propagation. however, he states oaks and walnuts are poisonous to soil, and walnuts are only used in a few cases for human remedies. english: loudon, evelyn, knight, etc. loudon sticks to propagation of walnuts by seed. knight[ ] followed the french practice of grafting walnuts by approach up to the time of his discoveries in , which were similar to dr. morris's "immediate" grafting. french: the french used grafting by approach (inarching) early in the th century. mortillet[ ], , states only one-third to one-half of walnut grafts are successful. these were probably persian walnuts. we are not sure what other methods the french used. mr. c. e. parsons of the felix gillet co. in , sent us a picture showing felix gillet in his greenhouse at barren hill nursery, nevada city, california. this picture he states was taken in - . it shows one year grafted walnut trees, and bench grafted walnut trees covered by tumblers six inches high, grafted by the "treyve" process. beginnings in the united states the first grafting of black walnuts thus comes down to the beginning of the th century. william p. corsa[ ] with the usda gave much information from replies to a questionnaire sent out in , on nut culture and grafting, including bench grafting, in . mr. g. w. oliver[ ] in , describes a method followed by corsa in bench grafting walnuts and hickories. he used an incubator. mr. jackson dawson[ ] previously, working with hickories, had success in the greenhouse. andrew s. fuller[ ] in his nut culturist, published in , advises that the south had not yet perfected pecan grafting. this seems to have been a challenge to mr. j. f. jones[ & ], for we find he moved from missouri to monticello, fla., about , and specialized in pecan grafting. he developed the slanting cut he later advocated in walnut grafting. however, again showing "there is nothing new under the sun" the author's uncle, owen albright, is credited by corsa[ ] with suggesting it in , and it is also suggested by mortillet[ ] in . grafting wax the necessity to protect graft unions by excluding air and moisture from cut plant tissue led to the use of balls of mud in ancient times. later, various kinds of waxes were used. in , prof. j. l. budd[ ], head of the horticultural department at iowa state college, using resin and linseed oil, side grafted varieties of russian apples received from the interior of russia in the winter of . a boy swabbed hot wax on the grafts, using a lantern heater not too different from those used nowadays. mr. f. o. harrington and mr. s. w. snyder, iowa nurserymen were teaching grafting to members of the iowa horticultural society in , and , at their annual meetings. mr. j. b. mclaughlin[ ], college springs, iowa, speaks of successfully grafting walnuts in in a discussion of the horticultural society led by van houton, edwards, etc. in , mr. e. a. riehl[ ] gave a talk before the iowa state horticultural society in which he advocated covering the whole walnut scion, buds and all, with liquid wax. his first thomas grafted tree is in a ravine back at his barn at godfrey, illinois. it was planted about [ ]. in , the northern nut growers' association was organized by prof. john craig of cornell university, dr. robert t. morris, dr. w. c. deming, mr. t. p. littlepage and others. craig had previously been at iowa state college where he and budd had shown much interest in nut trees. in , mr. j. f. jones [ ][ ], came up from the south where he had been successful in pecan grafting and started a black walnut nursery at lancaster, penna. he had been in florida up to . while in florida he became acquainted with mr. john g. rush, of willow run, penna., and did some walnut grafting for him. it was mr. rush who advised him to go to lancaster and start a nursery for northern black walnuts. jones patented his patch budder in , and using the hot wax method developed by mr. e. a. riehl was very successful in walnut grafting. in , dr. w. c. deming and president t. p. littlepage of the n.n.g.a. and messrs. c. a. reed and c. p. close of the usda had a conference in washington which resulted in the publication of the american nut journal. paraffin in grafting dr. robert t. morris[ ], writing in the american nut journal in , advocates the use of paraffin to cover walnut grafts instead of wax. both he and dr. j. russell smith[ ] credit mr. j. ford wilkinson with first using paraffin instead of wax on walnut grafts. mr. wilkinson wrote that he got the idea from seeing a careless workman splash paraffin on the buds as well as on the union in fruit tree grafting at the mccoy nursery about . the author bought apple and plum grafts about from the gurney nursery which were all covered with paraffin. it was at conventions of the northern nut growers' association that new methods like this were passed along to members. bench grafting in , on account of the difficulties in outdoor grafting of the walnut, the author became interested in bench grafting of walnuts in the greenhouse as a means of supplementing outdoor grafting. however, like many other so-called new methods, it was discovered when we looked up the literature in that william p. corsa[ ] had used methods that were similar about . he cut off the seedling above the crown instead of below the crown as we did. the completed graft was packed in layers of sphagnum and placed in an incubator instead of using a greenhouse. notwithstanding all that has been done in black walnut grafting, the straight grained and brittle wood, the heavy sap flow, the almost instant oxidation of cut tissues, the liability to frost injury in the north in short seasons lowering vitality of scions, all combine to make walnut grafting with best methods available, a seasonal gamble. literature cited . american nut journal life of j. f. jones. am. nut jour. : , . budd, j. l. hot waxing of apple grafts. trans. iowa hort. soc. : . . corsa, william p. usda, div. of pom., nut culture of the united states. pp. - , . . fuller, andrew s. nut culturist. . hershey, john w. life of j. f. jones. the nut grower. : , . institut fur obstbau, berlin die walnusz verediung. (vegetative propagation of walnuts.) merkbl. inst. obstb. berlin , pp. , . jones, j. f. propagation of nut trees. about . knight, thomas andrew new methods of grafting walnuts. trans. hort. soc. of london. nd series. vol. i, - . pp - . mclaughlin, j. b. grafting black walnuts. trans. iowa hort. soc. : , . morris, dr. robert t. paraffin coating solves difficult grafting. am. nut jour. : , . . mortillet, paul d. le noyer sa culture ses varieties. (propagation of the walnut.) rev. hort. : . . nnga convention, st. louis trip to riehl nut orchard. am. nut journ. : , . oliver, g. w. grafting walnuts and hickories. amer. gard. : - . . riehl, e. a. nut growing for pleasure and profit. trans. iowa state hort. soc. : , . smith, j. russell tree crops. . standard cyc. of hort. hickory propagation, p. , . witt, a. w. and howard spence vegetative propagation of walnuts. ann. rep. east malling res. sta. - , supl. a , , pp. - forest background by john davidson, xenia, ohio (read at the ohio nut growers annual meeting, ohio agricultural experiment station, august , .) where did the persian, or so-called "english" walnut come from? why is it a good commercial nut? the pecan? how far can it be carried north beyond its natural, or original, environment? the pawpaw? why is it not a good commercial fruit? why don't most people like it? what is the matter with the mulberry in america? in china and japan it has a score of uses and great popularity. these questions need an answer, and the answer almost invariably is that the poorer varieties and species have had but little attention and development by human beings while the better ones, persian walnuts, grapes, melons, apples, dates, figs--all have had much attention and painstaking selection--in some cases for centuries. upon the other hand, to cite a contrasting case the black walnut has no such history. it is the baby among nuts--a pure american baby--waiting for some nursemaid--for many nursemaids--to tend and develop it as a prince among trees should be developed. let us look back into the story behind a few--a very few--of our better known fruits and nuts and see, if we can, how they happened. in america once lived a man nicknamed "johnny appleseed." his neighbors called him a "crackpate." he had a mania for planting tree seeds wherever he went. as a rule they were haphazardly selected seeds, but usually appleseeds. what started him upon this crazy journey through the wilderness? whatever it was, it would be worth while to isolate the germ and with it inoculate our present-day soil wasters. but he was not the first one of his kind. hundreds of pre-historic planters had gone before him. for years, now, explorers have been searching out and sending back to america certain valuable discoveries. tremendously interesting, all of them. as one reads, it becomes increasingly evident that a considerable amount of scientific plant and animal breeding, selection, perhaps even grafting and artificial cross fertilization, budding and slip propagating may have been practiced by pre-historic, intelligent, forgotten men long before our modern times. we usually find, today, that the best plants and animals have had their start in some center of old civilization. china, manchuria, japan, indo-china, india, persia, asia minor, central america, oceania--these places, the nurseries of all existing races of men are today the bonanza spots for these explorers. such a coincidence could hardly have been due to chance. it must surely occur to the mind of anyone who cares to put two and two together that, in each of these centers, other ancient gatherers and planters had been busy in their day, just as our own explorers and experiment station scientists are carrying on today--our modern, scientific johnny appleseeds. it is hardly possible, here, to follow to the ends of the earth all of the trails of the tribe of johnny appleseed. one little section will do well enough for purposes of illustration. let us consider iran, or, as our fathers knew it, persia. here is a field that, possibly because of previous plunderings, is not now the most fruitful of our sources of plant and animal discovery, yet it is an eye-opener, and will do very well as a type of similar test-plots throughout the world. here is a short list of only a few of the plants which have been developed for centuries, and were reported in the last century as growing in persia--many, no doubt, descended from stocks which once grew in the famous hanging gardens of babylon: apples, pears, filberts muskmelons, watermelons, grapes, peaches, plums, nectarines. and of flowers, these: marigold, chrysanthemum, hollyhock, narcissus, tulip, tuberose, aster, wallflower, dalia, white lily, hyacinth, violet, larkspur, pink and finally, the famous rose of persia, from whence comes the attar of roses for which persia is still famous. it would seem that someone must have possessed a knowledge of plant propagation in persia centuries ago. several of these products have had their influence upon the history and poetry of the world. it will be remembered by most high school students that when the caesars and big shots of rome and greece wished to create a big splash in the social ponds of their day, they sent, at enormous expense, for melons and dates from persia. melons, in particular, seemed to be the high spot in those lucullan feasts, and, in this connection it is well to remember that lucullus, himself, as commanding general of a roman legion, had long lived in persia and had, no doubt, acquired a taste for persian delicacies. his princely estates near rome, no doubt, grew rare plants from asia minor and were very likely tended by the skilled aryan, early accadian or semitic gardeners of persia. these slaves were probably descended from and were heir to the trade secrets of some of the very builders of that seventh wonder of the world, the hanging gardens of babylon. except for those forgotten workers from persia, one may well wonder whether, today, our rocky ford, ohio sugar, or hearts-of-gold muskmelon delicacies would exist at all. an interesting side-light may be found in the history of the peach. originally this fruit was in all probability a poisonous variety of almond. what wizard, or succession of wizards, was it who created a peach from a pest--an asset from a liability? persian, probably. whoever did it, it constitutes one of the outstanding miracles of plant breeding, whether natural or artificial. the poison was sealed within the seed (where it remains to this day) and the nectar of the gods was bred into the pulp around it. consider also the persian walnut, now, for some strange reason, popularly called "english" walnut. this delicacy, too, was unlikely to have happened merely by chance. it was, no doubt, bred by a race of men trained in observation and experiment such as the persians preeminently were. having first been nomads, domesticators and breeders of animals; they eventually became husbandmen, breeders of trees and plants, and they undoubtedly found that the principles which were so usefully employed in producing animal variations could also be used in producing and fixing plant varieties. the pollen or germ of an outstanding good male individual, when brought into contact with the pistil or ovum of an outstanding female individual of the same species will produce a scion that is more likely than any other to have good qualities. here was the secret of most of the progress which has been made in both animal and plant breeding, a secret of immense value--so valuable, in fact, that it was guarded for generation after generation by a close-mouthed priesthood. just as, in the middle ages, the monasteries of europe and asia kept alive the tiny flame of greek and roman culture throughout the foggy ignorance of the dark ages, so did the priests of baal, of ashtoreth, of marduk and of ormuzd pass on the torch of their day to their successors who were greeks and romans. the eleusinian mysteries, which at a later time were associated with a considerable amount of sensual, closely guarded ritual, were, in the greek period, celebrated in the temple of ceres in eleusis. the origin of these sacred mysteries is lost in the shadow of profound antiquity. we know, only, that they were in the safekeeping of many generations of priests who jealously guarded them from thieving and ignorant conquerors. these mysteries were probably, at bottom, a body of scientific truths. they undoubtedly had to do with a store of information, painfully gleaned for generations, about those facts of reproduction, selection and beneficient fertility which are so close to the holy of holies of creation itself. probably these precious mysteries could be simmered down to a few fundamentals and such as are now generally practiced by all plant and animal breeders. and they are not fully understood today, any more than they were fully understood three thousand years ago. by the practice of these simple arts, hedged in with taboos and religious inhibitions, persia, assyria, and all mesopotamia became the garden spot of the world where things seemed to grow as they grew no place else. here, in fact, was said to have been located the only genuine and original garden of eden, pointed out to this day by the faithful as the veritable spot where the father and mother of the race lived in a laborless, exhaustless paradise. mention has been made of the probability that the persians, who originally were nomadic and therefore were chiefly interested in the domestication of animals--which means, really, selective breeding--used this knowledge in plant breeding when they finally settled down. the big leap from nomadic to settled life must have caused the old timers of that day plenty of headaches. it was a new deal to top all new deals. was it, perhaps, some johnny appleseed who engineered the new deal of that day? let us guess at the method he used. as the nomad tribe passed from place to place with its goats, its sheep, its camels, johnny with his sons and grandsons would take to prettying up the camp sites a bit. he particularly like the dates from one palm that grew upon an oasis far down the desert. he carried the seeds from this tree and planted them at various stopping places. he did the same thing with some especially sweet nuts from a walnut tree which he had found, let us say, in the caucasus mountains. he set out many bright-blossomed desert weeds in order to attract the wild honey bees. bees! wherever there were bees, he had found flowers that reproduced themselves, trees that bore fruit. some of these bees he found to be good workers and others he found lazy, quarrelsome and inefficient. he killed out the quarrelsome colonies and built hiding places for the better ones. in short, he did so much to make the camping places cozy, comfortable and in every way desirable that finally it became more and more difficult for the tribe to tear itself away on moving day. by reason of the small irrigation arrangements which johnny had found desirable for his plantings and his bees, grass became more abundant and the flocks did not need to be moved so often. in time, the whole tribe wakened to the fact that a revolution had taken place. they did not need to move at all, ever! there was plenty of grumbling from the die-hards, but here the tribe stuck. it refused to budge. in time, a certain phrase, current throughout that part of the world, was used to describe this pleasant country: "a land flowing with milk and honey!" unfortunately, it was a land, also, which could not fail, in the flower of its wealth and luxury, to attract the attention of those savage northerners who lived beyond this favored land. they came, they saw, and eventually they conquered. when rome had definitely destroyed the flower of asia minor's civilization, the roman proconsuls and merchants "rescued" and carried back to italy many of the rarest of mesopotamia's possessions. among these, perhaps, were those indispensable wonder-workers among the flowers, the better bees of persia. and this may be the reason why, these many centuries later, our bee experts still recommend that, if we wish to increase the strength and productivity of a backward hive of bees, we buy and introduce into the hive an italian queen. her ancient and still prepotent virility can almost invariable be relied upon to transfuse the colony with new and fruitful vigor. an "italian" queen, is it? we wonder, as we think of that venerable land of eden which once flowed with milk and honey, whether this so-called italian queen might not more correctly be named persian. you see, in this story we are traveling backwards into history like ally oop in his time machine. but beyond persia one can go only in imagination. for the persians, too, were a conquering nation and, no doubt, gathered their booty of gold and sheep and camels, of flowers and bees, from all the then known world which was subject to them. so perhaps persia, too, has no more right to label her treasures persian than has italy with her presumably mislabeled italian bees, nor england with her undoubtedly mislabeled english walnuts. however, the work of johnny appleseed has always belonged, not to his tribe nor to his locality, but to the world. these same persian walnuts take rank among the better clues by which migrations of the aryans may be traced over the face of the earth. for instance, not only do they take root easily in the mild, friendly climate of california, but much hardier strains are found to have climbed the carpathians and the steppes of russia almost to the very doors of moscow. scions of these hardier strains have very recently been made to grow and yield their nuts in america as far north as toronto and are being set out in numbers in the northern part of the united states. how well they will prosper in this new, more variable and chilly climate remains to be seen, but the start is made. no doubt it will be by johnny's old method of patient and repeated selection, first for hardiness then for quality, that the planned result will be accomplished. the contributions of persia and the plantings of its forgotten scientists have here merely been touched on. nothing, for instance, has been said about her great groves of mulberry trees, which led to silk-worms, which led to silk, which led to the production of jewel-bright vegetable dyes, which led to the development of a decorative art in fabrics that is rivaled by china, alone, in all the world. and of course, aryan persia is only one of the many treasure centers of ancient civilization. in scores of racial settlements elsewhere our lives today are being changed and enriched in innumerable ways by the hands of those old miracle-workers whose names were writ in water and whose works are immortal. the accomplishments of china are of such magnitude that even now we are only beginning to discover our debt to her. india, indo-china, mongolia, manchuria, japan--all have similar backgrounds. even in the united states, young as it is, the migrations of pre-historic races have left their trails in the gardens and forests around us. pecans from the south, for example, have been carried north and are gradually developing hardy strains that survived in indiana and illinois groves. enough has been said to blaze the way to the end at which i have been driving. it may begin to look as though modern plant explorers have now followed the plant-spoor of human migrations to their final limits. it may look, too, as though the ends of these converging trails will find civilization at last firmly established. or will they? the future race, let us admit, may eventually be able, by means of an almost unthinkable development of food, clothing, building and medical supplies of a synthetic or semi-synthetic nature, to dispense with some of the agriculture we know. this is the prediction of some scientists. let it stand. what then is to be done with the land upon which our food crops had formerly been raised? manifestly, it must again be covered with hurricane-control, flood-control, and erosion-control vegetation, chiefly trees, perhaps. trees for safety's sake, trees for beauty's sake, for recreation's sake, trees for food's--yes, food's sake, for flavor and health, trees and vegetation as sources for the very synthetic that are supposed to supplant them; and last but not least, trees and vegetation for the protection and perpetuation of animal life, of bird life, and insect life. all these are inseparably bound up with human life. come what may at the hands of a short-sighted human race, no matter what surface changes may come about in human eating habits, housing styles, farming or factory practice, still the winds will sweep the earth in hurricanes where there is nothing to impede them; the waters and ice of the heavens will still tear apart and level the hills, will gash the valleys and will carry off the earth and dump it into the sea. following this, the sun will burn the unprotected earth into a cinder. nothing can change these facts. from the beginning of life upon the earth, trees and vegetation have been the chief means by which a balance has been maintained between the antagonistically destructive and creative natures of the elements. do we realize fully, i wonder, how important is the work of this group and the parent nnga? the interest of its members is chiefly in "wild" trees that produce food crops--mainly, but not exclusively, nut crops. and they are interested not merely in planting and testing names and known varieties, but in finding and testing the best individuals among the wild trees, planting selected seed, enjoying the exciting gamble which is always sealed up in the magic, unknown potentialities of a hybrid. as, centuries ago, the persian walnut was rescued from the forest and developed into the splendid nut we know today, so the american black walnut can be rescued; its nut can be improved and developed by selection and cross-breeding. it is a grand mahogany-like timber tree which is becoming far too scarce. each war takes its toll for gun stocks. its nuts are the only nuts within my knowledge, not even excepting our lost american chestnuts, that retain their full distinctive flavor through cooking. nothing can replace its flavor in candy or cake making. the tree is indigenous to america and, in contrast to the persian, has only decades, rather than centuries of selective breeding behind it. no one can tell what even one short century of intelligent selection may make of this great tree. we americans, in fact, have barely started on the appleseed trail, a trail which tends toward the development of a permanent perennial, rather than annual, type of agriculture, with trees, shrubs, vines and perennial grasses its chief interest. for, no matter what chemistry has in store for us in the way of plastics for construction and of synthetics for foods and drugs, the good earth is still our sole source of supply. the chestnut, the mulberry, persimmon, pawpaw, pecan, hickory, wild cherry, the grape, the elderberry in fact the whole tribe of fruits and nuts with flavors found nowhere else on earth--all are growing along this ancient trail. they offer an infinite variety of opportunity for exploration and discovery. to work with them gives one a sense of sharing in the work of creation. graft the persian walnut high in michigan by gilbert becker, climax, michigan the rule to plant the persian walnut where peaches and sweet cherries do well is a good one; but not infallible and certainly can't be too closely relied upon here in southwestern michigan. since , i have placed several hundred grafts of the persian walnut upon black stocks. many of these are top worked trees, but there were grafted seedlings in nursery rows, grafted in . these were planted out two years later. some are now about ten feet tall with a well branched head. of this lot i have only harvested one ripe nut and that was four years ago. two of these same trees were planted near some buildings and shrubbery at a neighbor's home, and they are now bearing well. before going further i must say that persian walnut trees and peach trees are quite different. first, the persian walnut cannot stand having its female flowers frosted when they are out or nearly so. second, the peach can stand frost at, or shortly after, full bloom, and they will set a bumper crop of peaches. we have had two years of late spring frosts at the time nut trees were in bloom, and we have had bumper crops of peaches each year. apples were badly hit, so many have failed to bear. lilac blossoms failed to come out and be showy because of these severe frosts. however, i know of a peach tree heavily loaded right now growing between two persian walnuts that haven't had a single nut either year, though they have borne nuts previously. thus, peaches will bear in frosty springs when persian walnuts are damaged. further, good-air drainage, such as a high hill, with a deep valley below will save the persian nut crop in a frosty spring. i have a small persian walnut grafted in such a location, and it is the heaviest loaded nut tree i have. it has so many large nuts on its limbs that its lower limbs are actually resting upon the ground. this was grafted upon an established black seedling four years ago. what i have so far told would lead one to think that there is no nut crop on my persian grafts this year. this is not so, for i have one of the largest crops in the years i have had grafted persian walnuts. these are on top-worked trees high above the ground! most of the top-worked trees are over feet at the graft, or higher, and it is best to have them this high, because almost all lower limbs are simply minus nuts, due to our unfavorable spring. as for proof, i noticed that the lower limbs had blackened leaves, while the entire tops were undamaged a few days after the frosty weather. the lower branches leaved out the second time in late may. it seems as if the persian walnut produces two nuts to every one that a grafted black walnut will on a top of equal size. we are troubled with walnut curculio as well as considerably by squirrels, and by a leaf disorder that often blackens the leaves and causes them to fall in early september, followed by premature dropping of the nuts. even then, there should be a good crop this year. now, comes the question, should we graft the persian walnut high, here in michigan? it certainly saves time, because a middle-aged walnut tree produces, in terms of pecks and bushels, in eight to years. being well established it saves patience and disappointment. and i know it is far more profitable. this writing of my experience is not intended to hurt the established nut tree nurseryman in any way. any of you who may live in michigan are certainly devoted to your hobby and have doubtless learned the skills and pleasures of top-working a good sized seedling black walnut. you will surely find it profitable. first, purchase the grafted persian tree from your nurseryman, and later, from this, work your established seedling blacks at your convenience. graft them at least feet up and see if what i say isn't quite true. pecan growing in western illinois by r. b. best, eldred, illinois we need a consistent philosophy in this troubled world of ours. working with nature and especially with nut trees helps us to develop this philosophy and to realize that there are no panaceas for our present day problems except as we work them out ourselves. after all our wishful thinking with panaceas and doctrines, we come back to the same conclusion. those people with the best foundations built on reason and truth are those who are nearest the soil and growing things. those who work with trees and other living things in nature possess the philosophy which acts as a breastwork against the forces which would destroy our society. we started our propagation of nut trees in under the guiding hand of mr. wilkinson, mr. sawyer and professor ray marsh of the university of illinois, and later have had help from dr. colby of the university. we have at present about grafted pecan trees, a few varieties of hickories, black walnuts, chestnuts, filberts, persimmons, butternuts, heartnuts, pawpaws, etc. when people ask me what we expect from our trees, i tell them that the trees have already paid me in satisfaction if not in filling my purse. i do expect our nut tree project to give us a good financial return. the pecan is our leader in western illinois as a popular nut. much of our illinois river bottom land, if deserted by man, would immediately pass back to nature and exist as pecan groves. i have been working with pecan trees since and today find myself with more questions than answers. we are growing at present about varieties of pecans. we are reaching certain notions which we hope are right. the hybrids are fine and make wonderful trees but i doubt if they are the answer to our problem. with these remarks i dispose of further discussion of the burlington, rockville, mccallister and gerardi varieties. the major and greenriver are excellent performers but are a little late maturing for us. the posey nut is slightly earlier and makes an excellent quality but is not to be compared with major and greenriver for bearing. our butterick trees are excellent growers but bear few nuts. this variety is the poorest bearer that we have. our earliest pecans of the better known varieties are indiana and busseron, of the newer varieties, stephens and gildig no. . the giles pecan which mr. wilkinson discovered in kansas is our outstanding nut for yield, size and early bearing but it should also be earlier maturing. although the giles has been late when grafted on some of our native trees, it has been early on others. in , which will always be known by the illinois weather man as the year without a summer, we found a great difference in our major, greenriver, and giles nuts from tree to tree as to size and maturity. this question of compatibility between stock and scion is of the utmost importance and it impedes investigational work, complicating comparisons we are trying to make. some of our new varieties which we are trying out might be checked immediately if we knew the effect of the under stocks of our trees. our farms are about miles north of st. louis, mo. our first problem with pecans is maturity. the old named varieties are a little late for us. i personally feel that we should get grafts from no farther north than new haven, ill., or rockport, ind. i am interested in mr. gerardi's varieties at o'fallon, ill., because they should be early. dr. colby has brought to light three new ones from cass county, ill. which should make excellent maturity in central illinois. we are blessed in our community with large numbers of native pecan seedlings. the behavior of different nuts on different stocks is not the same. before any nut should be condemned we feel it should have an opportunity to perform on different stocks over a period of years. for this reason we always try to graft a number of trees to each variety. most things taken from nature are subject to improvement and can be better adapted to the use of man. i would like to see some new varieties of pecans developed for our northern zone. i would like to see large plantings of nuts from all our leading varieties of pecans. from these seedling studies, great good would come and possibly a good variety. i would like to see major, greenriver, giles, posey, busseron, indiana, the gildigs crossed with some early prolific nuts. i would like to see every nut that had any good quality crossed with every other good nut in a mass planting so that genetics could operate and have these trees planted where they might be permitted to reach maturity and the "get" of each union studied. we might get an early heavy bearer which would revolutionize the pecan industry. i would like to see some of our good southern varieties like stuart crossed with early northern varieties. this search for new nuts should be accelerated. let us rededicate ourselves to the problem of getting the "super-nut." let us explore these new fields of nut germ plasm which lie all about us, pull these old nuts apart genetically and recombine their good with the good of other nuts into new varieties. if we should fail , times and succeed once, success would be cheap. random notes from eastern new york by gilbert l. smith, wassaic, new york during the past few years i have found it increasingly difficult to keep up my nut tree work. however, three years hence, i expect to retire from my job as farm manager at wassaic state school and then to devote much of my time to nut work. mr. benton now has even less time than i do for the nut work. our work of previous years is now beginning to show results, especially our variety tests which should become more significant each year as more varieties come into bearing and repeat crops bear out or disprove our earlier opinions. following are some of our findings on such varieties as have borne enough for us to form an opinion. black walnuts thomas, no doubt, is still entitled to first place. we made a poor start with thomas as our first graft was placed on a stock growing at the edge of low swampy ground and the nuts of this graft have never matured properly, while those from two younger grafts, on higher ground, have matured their nuts well. this shows that black walnuts should not be planted in low wet ground, that is, land that is actually swampy; low ground which is well-drained is all right. we have found thomas to be a fast growing and very good type tree. the nut is large, thin-shelled and cracks excellently, giving light-colored fine appearing kernels, largely in whole quarters. we do not consider the flavor of thomas to be one of the best. i have tested this many times by cracking nuts of benton, snyder, sparrow and thomas, and then, without revealing which is which, have had various people try them and pick out the ones they like best; benton and sparrow in all cases were liked best, snyder second and thomas always least in favor. thomas is a consistent bearer here. sparrow is a little known variety which has a good many good points in its favor. in my opinion, it surpasses thomas in everything except size of nut and cracking quality. in cracking quality i consider them to be about equal. sparrow originated near lomax, ill. wood of it was sent to us by c. a. reed in the spring of . it has never been entered in any contest so is little known. the tree may not be quite as fast growing as thomas, but it retains its foliage in the fall until cut by hard frost, long after its nuts have ripened, while thomas will be nearly bare of leaves for some time before frost or its nuts are ripe. sparrow ripens its nuts a full two weeks ahead of thomas. the nuts of sparrow are medium in size, being about to the pound while thomas will run about or to the pound. the nuts of sparrow look small while on the tree because it has a thin husk. yet it husks easily, coming out of the husk cleaner than any other black walnut i know of. also i have never seen a husk maggot in this variety while some varieties with thick husks were badly infested. as the nut ripens, the husk turns yellow. the nut yields practically % kernel ( . %) with % unbroken quarters. color of kernel is bright and the flavor is excellent. sparrow has borne consistently. snyder is a fairly well-known variety, having won first prize in the new york and new england contest of . the tree is a little slower in growing than most varieties, yet it bears young and consistently like sparrow, it retains its foliage well until cut by frost. the nut is large, being about per pound, with a very thick husk, on which account it should be husked as soon as gathered, as the husk will turn dark and stain the kernel. it ripens at the same time as sparrow, last of september here. the nut cracks well, yielding about % kernel of good quality, about % in unbroken quarters. the color of the kernel tends to be a little dark. certainly snyder should prove to be a valuable variety for short season locations and possibly as a pollinizer for sparrow. also the retention of foliage in fall, until cut by frost, make this and sparrow of considerable ornamental value. early dropping of the foliage in the fall is a serious fault of some varieties as an ornamental. benton originated with us, the original tree growing in mr. benton's dooryard. it won second prize in the new york and new england contest of . the nut is rather small, running about to the pound. however, it yields about % kernel of excellent quality, light in color and about % quarters. it ripens about a week later than snyder and sparrow. it is a consistent bearer, a fairly fast growing tree, but only fair as to retention of foliage in the fall. stambaugh is a well known variety, but we are a little too far north for it, ° ' n. lat. it matures well here only in our most favorable seasons. it appears to be an excellent nut, large, good cracking quality and good flavor. it appears to be a little capricious as to bearing, two years ago our one graft was heavily loaded, but there was no crop last year and a light one only this year. in spite of the lateness in maturing the nut, the tree sheds its foliage early. hickories wilcox is the outstanding variety of hickory of those which have borne in our test orchard, so far. this originated near geneva, ohio. it. won second prize in the ohio contest of . it appears to be a consistent, alternate bearer. the nut is only medium in size for a shagbark, about to the pound. it cracks almost perfectly, yielding about % kernel, mostly in whole halves. color of kernel bright and of very good flavor. minnie has also appeared very good. it is a trifle larger than wilcox, being to the pound. it cracks excellently and is of good quality. but so far it has not yielded as well as has wilcox. davis has shown up quite well. our oldest graft is on a bitternut stock; it has borne well but the nuts have not cracked as well as those from the original tree or the ones grown at cornell. in size the nut is between minnie and wilcox, kernel bright, plump and of good quality. fox has been rather disappointing as produced on grafts so far. not that it is a poor nut, in fact it is a good nut, but because it has fallen so far short of what was expected of it. fox is the mystery variety of the hickories. how it could unanimously win first prize in the northern nut growers association contest of , with a sample of nuts so excellent in every way and then for the grafts to bear only fair nuts, is a mystery. some have advanced the idea of bud variation in the parent tree. to prove or disprove this, i made a trip to the original tree in the spring of and gathered grafting wood from various parts of the tree. this wood was grafted on various stocks in our test orchard, so that we now have living grafts from different parts of the original tree. if there is a bud variation, we should certainly have some of the good ones and are anxiously waiting the time when these grafts begin to bear. to lend a little credence to the bud variation theory, i found that at some time in the past the fox tree had been broken off in a storm and had since formed a new top, largely from a single leader. mr. fox stated that he had naturally taken wood from the lower portions of the tree as it was much easier to do so. (the late dr. zimmerman made a similar study of this tree and its nuts from different branches. he was firmly convinced that there were differences.--ed.) heartnuts we have really tested only two varieties so far, these are the fodermaier and wright. both are very good, but we now consider wright to be by far the better of the two. it is somewhat hardier than fodermaier, nuts ripen earlier, and bears better with us. fodermaier is also more severely affected by the butternut curculio than is the wright, some years nearly all of the fodermaier nuts have been destroyed by the curculio. gellatly has borne only one year with us, so we cannot form much of an opinion on it. it appears to be a very good nut. crath carpathian persian walnuts several of our seedling crath trees have nuts this year. in all cases, there are only a few nuts on each as our trees are still quite small. i had to hand-pollinate the blossoms this spring; this resulted in a rather small percentage of sets; then the curculio took a rather severe toll, so we will have only a few of each variety. in one of our seedlings bore nuts. these were so good that we have named the variety "littlepage" in honor of the late thomas littlepage, and are having it patented. we have published a little booklet on this variety, and upon request, we will be glad to mail a copy to anyone interested. this is about all we have to offer at this time in regard to our variety tests. we have a problem which i wish to bring before the members of the association. it is that of controlling the butternut curculio. this insect is very bad on butternut, heartnut and persian walnuts, with us it does not attack black walnuts or hickories. i fear that it is going to prove hard to control, as the larva is of the boring type, being found inside the green nuts, inside the new growth of the terminals and in the fleshy part of the leaf stems. in these places it cannot be reached by poisons. it appears that we will have to work entirely on the adult beetles. these eat very little and seem to make puncture-like holes, eating little outside tissue but mostly deeper tissues, thus poison will probably have to be applied heavily in order for it to get enough to kill it. d.d.t. is not effective against the apple and plum curculio so probably will not be so against the butternut curculio. it might be effective to apply a heavy coating of d.d.t. bearing dust under the trees so that as the larva drop to the ground to pupate, they will be killed while the adult beetle may be immune to d.d.t., it is not likely that the pupa could survive in heavily impregnated soil. the adult beetles are present from the time the first leaves appear until late summer. a spray of to pounds of arsenate of lead and to pounds of hydrated lime to gallons of water, applied once a week throughout the early part of the season might prove effective but it will certainly prove expensive. planting of the affected varieties at some distance from woodlands and wild butternut trees is helpful in avoiding this insect, but as the trees grow older the pests may build up a population of their own. some sections of the county may not be affected; i hope so. maybe we can get some of our entomologists to work on this insect. let's put a little pressure on our state experiment stations and the u. s. department of agriculture. maybe mr. reed can help us. another subject i wish to mention is that of hardiness in nut trees. in reading the nnga reports and in some of the letters i have received, i have found that many people confuse killing of the young leaves in the spring by late frosts, with winter hardiness. in my opinion there is no connection at all. i have seen many trees that were not hurt at all by - °f. in mid-winter yet had all of their leaves killed by a late frost in the spring. in fact all species and varieties of hickory and walnut will have their leaves killed by a hard frost if the leaves have opened out of the buds; this includes our native wild trees as well as the grafted varieties. the only hardiness against late spring frosts is the characteristic of leafing out late, thus escaping most of such frosts. of the different species, the black walnuts seem to be best protected in this way, with the hickories next and the heartnuts and persian walnuts least protected. of course there is a considerable varietal variation within each species. then the protection we can provide, is to plant nut trees on side hills or other high ground where there is good air drainage, thus avoiding the frost pockets. of course many want to plant nut trees and have no place except in low frosty sites. to these i say that they can expect to lose an occasional nut crop by these late spring frosts, but that only in exceptional cases will the trees suffer permanent injury. in years when the crops are lost the trees will still be good ornamentals and shade trees. my door yard is quite a frost pocket, yet i have lost only one crop of heartnuts out of four or five crops, no permanent injury to the tree. yield and nut quality of the common black walnut in the tennessee valley[ ] by thomas g. zarger, tennessee valley authority black walnut occurs on open, non-crop land in the tennessee valley region. trees grow around the farmstead, along fence rows, and in pastures on most farms. in recent years harvesting of walnuts for market from these trees has increased significantly. looking forward to a fuller utilization of the wild black walnut crop, knowledge on the bearing habits of these open-grown black walnut trees was required. to supply this information a study of tree growth, nut yield, and nut quality was undertaken in . results on nut yield available from this study after six years are summarized in this report. [footnote : contribution from tva forestry relations department, forestry investigations division on a project conducted in the forest products section.] this study was initiated with the selection of representative open-grown walnut trees throughout the tennessee valley. in , sample trees were selected and trees were added to the study in . these trees are located in counties and afford a good representation of age, size, and growth quality of open-grown black walnut. each sample tree has been visited annually. entire crops were collected, carefully weighed and sampled: tree diameters and other measurements were taken for the tree growth phase of the study. when convenient, nuts were hulled in the field with a corn sheller, but more often they were brought to norris and run through a hulling machine. after hulling, the nuts were dried until cured, then a sample for each tree was tested for percentage of filled nuts, nut weight, and cracking quality. yield results on nut yield and nut quality for the sample trees have been condensed to the presentation in table . for the six-year period the average tree in this study had a diameter of . inches and yielded pounds of hulled, dry nuts a year. the yield of common black walnut trees in the tennessee valley is characterized by extreme variation. tree size, of course, influences nut yield. one-half of the yields from a -inch diameter tree ranged from no crop to pounds of hulled, dry nuts; whereas half the yields from a -inch tree ranged from to pounds. a yield of less than one-half pound of hulled, dry walnuts was considered "no crop". some individual trees had unusually high or low yields. the outstanding bearer was tree . it had the highest average yield for the six-year period, and the heaviest crop of hulled, dry nuts for any single year. during the six years this tree yielded pounds of dry, hulled nuts and pounds of kernels--truly outstanding production for a common black walnut tree. another notable bearer, tree , yielded pounds of nuts and pounds of kernels. however, this tree was almost inches larger in diameter than tree . the exceptional bearers in each diameter class also had the highest single nut crops. the other extreme is characterized by low yields. crops were lacking or insignificant for trees , , , and . tree , with a . -inch diameter, bore only one crop of pounds during the entire six-year period. this tree has no value for nut production but would yield a good sawlog. variation of yield by seasons and locality was examined by grouping the sample trees into six localities of trees each. greater variation in averages by crop years existed than averages by tree location groups. however, some variation was found between the eastern and western portions of the tennessee valley. indications on bearing habits were obtained for a six-year period on trees, nos. through (table ). crop records for each of these trees were examined for relatively high and low yield by seasons. convincing evidence on the alternation of bearing has accumulated during this six-year period with percent of the trees having lighter crops every other year. of these, trees bore lighter crops in the odd years and trees bore lighter crops in the even years. tree , previously mentioned as outstanding in regard to yield, produced lighter crops in , , and . this tree is located in west tennessee. walnut trees bearing lighter crops in , , and are more abundant in the eastern than in the western portion of the tennessee valley. this occurrence undoubtedly accounts for much of the variation found between the eastern and western portions. four other yield patterns were recognized in per cent of the trees. these indicate the existence of uniform annual crops and three-year cyclic bearing of black walnut. the bearing habits of the remaining per cent of the trees is considered merely irregular, since definite patterns cannot be recognized until bearing records cover a longer period of years. nut quality the cracking quality of the nuts from the trees in this study was tested on a random sample of nuts from each crop that was collected and brought back to norris. the nuts of each sample were weighed and the average nut weight computed. the nuts were then cracked in a hand-cracking machine, and kernels that could be extracted with the fingers were removed and weighed.[ ] from this weight was computed the first-crack marketable kernel percentage. the nuts that still contained kernels were recracked and the remaining kernel removed. all kernels, including crumbs, were then weighed in order to compute the total kernel weight and kernel percentage. finally, all of the quarters extracted were counted, and the average number of quarters was computed. kernels recovered at first crack and the average number of quarters extracted indicate the relative ease of extraction of kernels. cracking quality of walnuts for individual sample trees averaged by crop years are presented in table . nuts of all crops collected from four trees, , , , and , were shriveled or abnormal, and afforded no test of nut quality during the six-year period. thus, nut quality data, based on nut crop samples, are complete for of the sample trees. from this study, the average common black walnut in the tennessee valley has a nut weight of grams, a kernel weight of . grams, a total kernel content of per cent, a marketable kernel recovery at first crack of per cent, and a quarter recovery of unbroken quarters averaging . . [footnote : the kernels were extracted over a -mesh wire screen. in commercial cracking, kernel pieces passing through this type of screen are not marketable as kernels.] table i--yield of nuts and kernels, and cracking quality of nuts from sample trees of common black walnut in the tennessee valley _________________________________________________________________________ tree _____________________ diameter at - / ______________________________________________________ sample ft. number av. yr. av. yr. _________________________________________________________________________ inches pounds pounds pounds pounds pounds pounds pounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ______________________________________________________________________________ av. filled nuts complete crack kernel _________________ ________________________ yield first- bearing in terms crack crops yrs. of total average marketable kernel tested number only weight weight kernel weight kernel quarters basis ______________________________________________________________________________ pounds percent grams percent grams percent number number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . table i----yield of nuts and kernels, and cracking quality of nuts from sample trees of common black walnut in the tennessee valley (continued) _________________________________________________________________________ tree _____________________ diameter at - / ______________________________________________________ sample ft. number av. yr. av. yr. _________________________________________________________________________ inches pounds pounds pounds pounds pounds pounds pounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ______________________________________________________________________________ av. filled nuts complete crack kernel _________________ ________________________ yield first- bearing in terms crack crops yrs. of total average marketable kernel tested number only weight weight kernel weight kernel quarters basis ______________________________________________________________________________ pounds percent grams percent grams percent number number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . results of cracking tests show that, in general, cracking quality of nut samples from the trees in this study is poor. when cracked, the kernels crumble badly, making extraction difficult and quarter recovery low. variation in cracking quality can be seen by studying the values in table . nuts from trees and were extremely small, averaging and grams, respectively. nuts from trees and had generally poor characteristics. trees bearing walnuts of better-than-average quality are trees and with high total kernel per cent, and trees , , and with high nut weight and an unusually high kernel weight. other trees, of interest as exceptional bearers, include tree with large nut weight, and tree with both exceptional nut and kernel weight. the outstanding tree in the study from the standpoint of cracking quality of the nuts is tree , which has exhibited those characteristics of thinness of shell and high kernel content sought for in improved varieties. this black walnut selection is being propagated at the norris nursery under the appropriate name of norris.[ ] [footnote : kline, l. v. a method of evaluating the nuts of black walnut varieties. proc. amer. soc. hort. sci. : - . .] results from this study on the common black walnut have application in the evaluation of the relative yield and nut quality of improved selections suitable for use in the tennessee valley. this summary should also prove of value to other workers dealing with black walnut in other regions. it provides a basis for comparison, brings out the possibilities for making selections, and emphasizes the importance of nut production from improved varieties. the field tour by c. a. reed attending the indoor sessions of the meeting for two days in wooster, visiting the station orchards and plantings near town and contacting personally some of the big men of the staff together with the wives of some, called for intensive attention on the part of everybody. it was time exceedingly well spent and created a feeling in everybody that they would like soon to return for another convention of the same kind. but the good things that had been planned were not over when the delegates left on the morning of the third day in the general direction of their homes. no matter in what direction they went, hardly a route could be found which did not lead near or through the home town of some nut man. a few took opportunity to visit the planting near wooster of the late w. r. fickes. a letter is before my eyes as these lines are being written which was directed to dr. w. c. deming by mr. fickes on january , , in which he asked for information regarding certain kinds of nut trees which he did not have. he mentioned having beaver, fairbanks, and siers hickory hybrids and asked about weiker. he wanted to know about barcelona and white aveline filberts. he said he had procured seven varieties of filbert of european origin which were then being featured by conrad vollertsen of rochester, n. y. he was concerned over the chestnut weevil as he had about trees of the reihl varieties from illinois and already weevils were troublesome. those who had the privilege of keeping in touch with mr. fickes during his later years know that he assembled together a good many varieties of other kinds of nuts. his was an excellent collection of black walnut varieties. persons who knew him well still mourn his passing. he was the type of man who made others feel better to be in his presence. it was years ago last february that the american nut journal, then edited and published by r. t. olcott of rochester, n. y., told of "x x the -acre farm of o. f. witte near amherst (in northern ohio), on which mr. witte, who was then years old, had been growing nuts for years." the dispatch went on to say that the "x x farm was devoted exclusively" to nut trees. what a pity such men can't live on indefinitely! however, the spirits of fickes and witte live on. no one need go far in ohio to see the evidence. going east from wooster on the morning of the third day, a group of or more persons stopped first at kidron where they were shown the nut plantings of mr. e. p. gerber and his family of that small hamlet. a half mile north of town, mr. gerber led the party through his largest planting of nut trees mostly of bearing age. of black walnuts he showed such varieties as deming (purple foliage, especially in early spring), lamb (the original tree had a figured grain), ohio, stabler, ten eyck, and thomas. of pecan, there were five varieties, busseron, butterick, greenriver, indiana and posey. in the group of heartnuts, there were two named varieties, bates and faust, and one of which mr. gerber appeared not to have the name. he simply called it a "sport." there were filberts of various kinds, barcelona, duchilly and jones hybrids, being the ones bearing variety designations. also there were persian (english) walnut trees, principally broadview and crath. mr. gerber had more chinese chestnut seedlings than trees of any other one kind. there was but one butternut and that appeared to have been unnamed. altogether black walnut trees, pecan, filbert, persian walnut, one butternut, and chinese chestnut trees were seen. upon finishing with the first block of trees, the party was taken into town where a large business house of gerber and sons was passed and a short visit paid to a second planting in the rear of various gerber buildings, including the residence of mr. gerber. here were some two or three dozen fine appearing trees of various species and hybrid forms. lastly at kidron, the party, was piloted a half mile west to a small park which mr. gerber had developed as a public picnic ground and a source of water for the village. it was well planted with nut trees and it was here that the gerber family had provided tables and various food delicacies, including fresh milk, peaches and ice cream for everybody. a great part of the work of preparation had been taken care of by mrs. gerber and her two youngest children. the next stop on the tour was at the mahoning county experiment farm, a half-mile south of canfield, some odd miles east and north of wooster. here transportation was provided and the entire group was taken in charge by l. walter sherman, superintendent. the first impression one gained here was that of good buildings, excellent land, able management, and a lot of things under way. all is comparatively new. from a mimeographed list of species, varieties, hybrids, and strains which was prepared in june for another occasion, one gathered that there were perhaps more seedling nut trees here than grafted kinds. mr. sherman has reported fully elsewhere in these proceedings regarding the nut work that is under way at this station. report of the resolutions committee the northern nut growers association in its annual meeting assembled at wooster, ohio, september rd to th, , adopted the following resolutions: that our sincere thanks be extended to dr. edmund secrest, director of the ohio agricultural experiment station and other members of his staff for the courtesies extended, and for the facilities provided in the use of the auditorium and exhibit room of the station. that we extend thanks to the speakers who unitedly made a successful meeting. that we appreciate the fine work of our secretary, miss mildred m. jones, in formulating the program and that we are mindful of the valuable assistance rendered by dr. oliver diller, mr. clarence a. reed, and mr. a. a. bungart. that we acknowledge appreciation to the estate of the late zenas h. ellis for providing in his will a gift of one thousand dollars to a special fund of the association and that we thank mr. sargent h. wellman for his legal efforts therewith. that the members of the northern nut growers association fully appreciate and extend sincere thanks to our officers for their hard work and enthusiastic efforts in maintaining the association during the past five years when war conditions precluded annual meetings. resolutions committee c. f. walker, chairman j. l. smith albert b. ferguson obituaries dr. j. h. gourley members of this association who attended the wooster meeting in will not soon forget the cheery, witty and resourceful toastmaster who presided at their annual banquet, dr. joseph gourley. soon after this meeting, on october th, to be exact, dr. gourley was stricken with coronary thrombosis, and the field of horticulture lost a nationally known leader. dr. gourley's passing came at a time of high tide in his work. "less than an hour before he was stricken," said an associate, "he was engaged in planning a project that he knew would continue long after his active career must end. this is the spirit of the true research man." he was a graduate of ohio state university, had served as head of the department of horticulture in the university of new hampshire and later in a like position with the university of west virginia. in , he was appointed chief of the department of horticulture at the ohio experiment station and, from , he concurrently held the position of chairman of the department of horticulture at ohio state university. he served both of these offices until the day of his death. he was the author of many bulletins and technical articles as well as of some better known text books which have had wide use in american universities. he had acted as president of the american society for horticultural science, president of the american promological society, and as president and member of numerous similar organizations to which he gave continued and enthusiastic service. it is as a good teacher, companion and warm friend, however, that dr. gourley will best be remembered by those who knew him well. his life and fire have sparked many another teacher, research worker and common man to greater effort and better achievement. a close associate closed a press notice of dr. gourley's passing with these words: "his consideration for his associates, both those equal and below in rank, marked his every contact through his long years of service. he was indeed, a truly great chief. his family and close associates in the two departments he headed for so many years will miss him most of all, but life for them and for countless others who called him friend has been made richer, fuller and deeper because he passed this way. teacher, scientist, christian gentleman, friend and chief, we salute you." * * * * * mrs. i. e. bixby mrs. ida elise bixby, wife of the late willard g. bixby, died at her home at baldwin, new york, april , . mrs. bixby was a life member of the northern nut growers association, of which her late husband was a past president. following mr. bixby's death in august, , mrs. bixby interested the united states department of agriculture in taking over much of their large experimental planting of nut trees. many specimens were moved to experiment stations under government control, while other institutions as well as individuals benefitted by their collection. mrs. bixby is survived by three children: willard f., of cleveland, ohio; and katherine elise and ida tielke, of baldwin. letters to the secretary; notes; extracts excerpt from letter to secretary from g. s. jones july , . from g. s. jones, r , box , phenix city, lee county, alabama. my trees (chinese chestnuts) appear to be healthy and grow vigorously. (they were given me by the bureau of plant industry in .) they began bearing in or years and have now been bearing quite large crops for or years. there are trees in the orchard, and the approximate yields have been: -- pounds; -- pounds, and -- pounds. the enormous increase in was due partly, i am quite sure, to mineralized fertilizer (es min. el.) which i began using in . as my trees are seedlings they vary considerably in productivity and in size of nuts. most of the nuts are of good size and quality when first gathered. this is where the trouble begins. the keeping quality is very poor, sometimes half of them spoil during the first month after being harvested. since this is the case, you can see that germination may be very poor, unless they are handled in a special way. refrigeration helps for a short while only. during the last two years, i have had good results in germination by stratifying the nuts under the trees, just as soon as they fall. in this way, the nuts are not allowed to become too dry as they are not exposed to the hot sun but are kept in the shade. our falls are usually dry and our soil is sandy so there is little danger of the nuts becoming too wet during the winter. the danger of spoilage does not seem to be so great by the time winter rains set in. by this plan, i have had from to per cent germination during the last two years. i dig the nuts just as soon as they begin to sprout in late winter and line them out in nursery rows where they are to grow during the first year. sometimes the sprouts become from to inches in length before i get to do the moving, but they transplant easily. i believe the micorrhiza from the soil of the old trees helps the young ones to grow better. december , --my chestnut trees this fall produced slightly over , pounds. the nuts seemed to keep better than usual which i attribute to the cool rainy weather which we had during the ripening period. hot, dry weather causes the nuts to begin spoiling quickly. my records show august th as the beginning of the ripening period and october rd as the ending. so one can see that this is often a hot and dry period in our section. * * * * * excerpt from letter to secretary from mrs. w. d. pounden dairy department--ohio agric. expt. sta. wooster, ohio october , i am glad to give you the method i used in canning pecan kernels. spread the shelled pecans in a shallow pan and place in a warm oven just long enough to heat the kernels through. have clean jars--preferably pints so that the heat will penetrate more easily in processing--which have been warmed in the oven to be sure they are thoroughly dry inside before adding the pecans. fill the jars with the pecans (do not add any liquid), place the lid on the jar (i prefer the kerr self-sealing type), and process the nut-filled jars in a ° oven for minutes. i have kept pecan meats for over a year using this method and they are as crisp and good as when they came out of the shell. hybrids at an informal meeting at dr. diller's cabin the evening before the convention, mr. slate was asked to say something about hybrids. mr. g. l. slate: hybrids between black and persian walnuts were made at geneva about by professor w. h. alderman, now of the minnesota experiment station. after these trees had fruited all but five were removed to permit the remaining trees to attain full size. the trees have produced very few nuts and have been absolutely no good. various persons have attempted to raise second-generation seedlings from these trees, but from my observation no one has succeeded. from what i know of these hybrids and what reed has published about those with which he is familiar i am convinced it a waste of time and effort to attempt to produce hybrids between black and persian walnuts with the hope of getting desirable nuts. the trees themselves are very rapid growing, handsome and well worth while as shade trees. but the walnut breeder will have more to show for his efforts if he confines his labor for the time being to improving the black and persian walnuts by crossing among themselves the many clones within each species. however, the unsatisfactory hybrids between black and persian walnuts, of between butternuts and persian walnuts should not blind us to the fact that there are many species-hybrids of great pomological value. the hybrids between the rush variety of corylus americana and various varieties of c. avellana produced by the late j. f. jones are very much worth while. some of our finest red raspberry varieties are hybrids of the european and american species. the purple raspberry resulted from crossing the red and black raspberries. all our cultivated strawberries are descended from crosses between the native virginia strawberry and the chilean strawberry. the valuable new plums from the minnesota experiment station resulted from crossing the native american plum, prunus americana with the japanese plum, p. salicina. many of our best grapes, the boysenberry, the kieffer pear, and various citrus varieties are species hybrids. we must not generalize too much as to the merit or lack of merit of species-hybrids. some are very good and of great economic importance. many others of which we never hear are without merit, often being discarded, leaving only a few lines in a notebook to record their characteristics. * * * * * mr. stoke: would you consider chestnut hybrids worth while? mr. slate: if you can get everything you need from the chinese chestnut i see no reason for hybrids with any other. mr. stoke: dr. arthur s. colby has made a number of hybrids between fuller and chinese. i consider his hybrid no. as promising; the nut is large, beautiful and of good quality. so far i have found no weevils in this hybrid. the bur is very thick and fleshy, with close-set spines. possibly the curculio is not able to penetrate the thick husk in laying its eggs. colby no. is the most rapid grower of all my chestnuts. pecans with companion evergreens[ ] twenty years of experimenting with pecan trees at the iowa park station have revealed that pecans in the wichita irrigated valley of texas do very poorly in buffalo grass or bermuda sod, much better when given clean cultivation, but best of all when planted with or near evergreens, particularly conifers. [footnote : forty-eighth annual report, texas agricultural experiment station. p. . .] in some pecan trees were set along the west line of the farmstead. most of these died soon after setting and the few that survived did not grow satisfactorily. later, a general farmstead improvement program called for arizona cypress along this line. in , when these pecan trees were seven years old, they had made little growth and were in such poor condition that it was decided to ignore them and set the cypress on equal spacings. some of the cypress trees were placed very near pecan trees while others were farther away. none of the pecans were removed, however. as the cypress trees grew, the pecan trees near them began to take on new life, while the isolated pecan trees continued in their unthrifty state. as the years passed the pecans with companion cypress trees continued to increase in health and vigor until there was no doubt about the favorable influence of this companionship. at the time the cypress trees were set close to the older pecans, other pecan trees were being set in various locations on the farmstead; some in open sod and others with or near evergreens of various types. the behavior of these trees also confirms the value of companion evergreens for pecans in the wichita irrigated valley. at the age of seven years the pecan trees were about the same size and in equally poor condition. the treatment as far as cultivation and irrigation is concerned has been the same. hence, the great contrast in size of the pecan trees is attributed to the favorable influence of the companion conifers. [note by editor--heavy shade can reduce soil temperature, on summer afternoons, more than °f six inches underground. this may largely explain the benefits of companion trees.] * * * * * sawdust makes good fruit tree mulch many kinds of material ranging from paper to glass wool have been used as mulches for fruit trees, discloses j. h. gourley, of the department of horticulture at the ohio agricultural experiment station. straw, hay, and orchard mowings have been most commonly used. in some areas, sawdust and shavings are available in quantity and have been used to some extent for mulches which raises the questions of whether they make the soil acid. the experiment station has used both hardwood and pine sawdust and also shavings for a number of years in contrast with wheat straw, alfalfa, timothy, and others. no difference in appearance or behavior of the trees can be noted. sawdust packs and gives poorer aeration than straw and it requires a large amount to mulch a tree. this mass also absorbs a large amount of rainfall before passing through to the soil but no injurious effects have been noted. the chief question has been about soil acidity and it may be stated that after years of treatment the soil is little or no more acid than it is under bluegrass sod. the soil under the latter has a ph of . , the hardwood sawdust . , the softwood sawdust . , hardwood shavings . , and wheat straw . . contrary to the common conception, no objection to sawdust from the standpoint of soil acidity is justified from station experience. * * * * * two famous trees (taken from "bruce every month," december, , page . published by e. l. bruce company, memphis, tennessee.) living monuments to a great governor of texas are two nut bearing trees, a pecan and an old fashioned walnut. the last wish of governor james s. hogg was that "no monument of stone or marble" be placed at his grave, but instead there should be planted--"at my head a pecan tree and at my feet an old fashioned walnut; and when these trees shall bear, let the pecans and walnuts be given out among the plains people of texas so that they may plant them and make texas a land of trees." his wish has been fulfilled in its entirety, many trees from these two parent ones adorning the lawns of schools and court houses throughout the state of texas. * * * * * ohio trees series no. .--black walnut (juglans nigra):--black walnut is one of the most valuable of the forest trees native to the united states. it is regarded as the country's premier tree for high grade cabinet wood; it produces valuable nut crops; and under certain conditions is highly effective as an ornamental shade and pasture tree. ~lumber~--as lumber, black walnut is used principally for furniture, radio cabinets, caskets, interior finish, sewing machines, and gun stocks. it is used either in the form of solid wood cut from lumber or in the form of plywood made by gluing sheets of plain or figured veneer to both sides of a core. black walnut veneer is made by the slicing method and to a limited extent by the rotary-cut method. ~nuts~--in recent years the black walnut has gained an important position in the kernel industry. there has never been a market surplus of black walnut kernels. the demand, mostly from confectioners and ice cream manufacturers, has steadily increased while the supply has been limited largely by the labor of cracking and extracting the kernels. the process of cracking the nuts and separating the kernels from the shells has been mechanized by a farmer in adams county, ohio, to the extent that he uses over , bushels of walnuts per year. he sends the kernels to markets in new york, baltimore, pittsburgh, columbus, and chicago. the facts all emphasize the economic importance of the black walnut in a market that is still far from saturated. ~ornamental value~--there are few trees whose utility is as great as the black walnut, that can rival it in beauty as a lawn tree. its long graceful leaves provide a light dappled shade and grass will grow luxuriantly up to the very base of the tree. in its pleasing form and majestic size the black walnut can be a great addition to any landscape. any tree yielding such fine timber and nuts, yet possessing beauty and utility for yard and pasture, can be nothing but a sound investment. ~soil requirements~--black walnut grows best in valleys and bottom lands where there is a rich, moist soil but well drained. it does not generally grow on the higher elevations nor on wet bottom lands. it usually occurs as a scattered tree in hardwood stands and along roadsides, fence rows, and fence corners. ~distribution and growth~--the botanical range of this tree covers most of the eastern half of the united states. it is among the more rapid growing hardwoods. on good sites trees years old will be about feet high and in years will reach feet in height and inches in diameter at breast height. according to forest survey figures, the estimated merchantable stand of walnut in ohio in was , , board feet while the cut during the same year was slightly over million board feet. ~pests~--the most serious pest is the walnut datana whose larvae eat the leaves. other leaf-eating insects include the fall web worm and the hickory-horned devil. several leaf spot diseases have attacked the leaves, also causing early defoliation. leaf eating insects and leaf spot disease can be controlled by the application of one spray in june. this is composed of three pounds of arsenate of lead, ten pounds of powered bordeaux mixture, and a good sticker in one hundred gallons of water. ~selected varieties~--walnut trees vary greatly in the type of nut they produce. the most popular strains have been selected for propagation. the varieties which have been propagated by nurserymen are the thomas, ohio, stabler, ten eyck, and elmer myers. since the cost of grafted nut trees is rather high, many people are interested in planting the nuts of the better varieties for large scale planting. seedling trees may be raised easily by anyone, whereas much skill and practice are required to produce grafted and budded trees. the degree to which the desirable characteristics of selected varieties are transmitted through seed is now being studied by the ohio agricultural experiment station. a list of commercial nut nurseries may be obtained by writing to miss mildred jones, secretary, northern nut growers association, lancaster, pennsylvania. ~references~--a few of the most outstanding publications on black walnut are listed below. . black walnut for timber and nuts. farmers' bulletin no. , u. s. dept. of agriculture, washington, d. c. . nut growing in new york. bulletin , college of agriculture, ithaca, new york. . top-working and bench grafting of walnut trees. special circular , ohio agricultural experiment station, wooster, ohio. . growing walnut for profit. the american walnut manufacturers association, south michigan avenue, chicago , illinois. exhibits gilbert becker, climax, michigan. crath strains of j. regia, hickory, black walnut kernels. hebden h. corsan, hillsdale, michigan. cases of nuts, folders on nut planting for success. h. f. stoke, roanoke, virginia. chinese chestnuts, hybrid chestnuts, tree hazel hybrid, jones hybrid filberts, hazelberts, black walnuts, e. golden persimmons, j. regia, hickories, nut ornaments. edwin w. lemke, washington, michigan. heartnuts, black walnuts, filberts, tree hazels, black walnut wood, a vacuum nut cracker. jay l. smith, chester, new york. books, black walnuts, hickories, chestnuts, hacksaws, grafts. e. j. korn, kalamazoo, michigan. j. nigra, hickories, filberts. s. h. burton, indiana. petrified nuts, wild hazels. harry r. weber, cincinnati, ohio. breslau persian walnuts, filberts. e. p. gerber, kidron, ohio. photos, hickories, chestnuts, hicans, black walnuts. u. s. d. a., beltsville, maryland. green hickory nuts of several varieties. a. g. hirschi, oklahoma city, oklahoma. heartnuts, j. regia, persimmons, chestnuts. u. s. d. a., beltsville, maryland. large pictures of famous nut and other trees fully described; many other smaller photos of famous trees remarkable for clearness. john davidson, xenia, ohio. cross-sections of seedling black walnut. a very remarkable exhibit of thin-shelled black walnuts. dr. a. s. colby, university of illinois, urbana, illinois. a very desirable crath (seedling i believe) persian walnut. fayette etter, lemasters, pennsylvania. large number of filbert varieties. attendance dr. and mrs. truman a. jones, farkesburg, penna. geoffrey a. gray, cincinnati, o. john w. hershey, downingtown, penna. mr. and mrs. c. a. reed and miss betty reed, washington, d. c. mrs. g. a. zimmerman, linglestown, r. i, penna. s. b. chase, norris, tenn. thomas g. zarger, norris, tenn. w. a. cummings, norris, tenn. mr. and mrs. john davidson, xenia, o. h. c. cook, leetonia, o. mr. and mrs. h. f. stoke, roanoke, va. mr. and mrs. raymond e. silvis, massillon, o. victor brook, rochester, n. y. d. ed. seas, orrville, o. l. h. macdaniels, ithaca, n. y. c. f. walker, cleveland, o. mr. and mrs. j. f. wischhusen, cleveland, o. mr. and mrs. s. h. graham, ithaca, n. y. dr. r. h. waite, perrysburg, n. y. kenneth w. hunt, yellow springs, o. j. f. wilkinson, rockport, ind. william s. clarke, jr., state college, penna. ira m. kyhl, sabula, io. edwin w. lemke, detroit, mich. william c. hodgson, white hall, md. j. h. gourley, wooster, o. h. r. gibbs, mclean, va. mr. and mrs. s. bernath, poughkeepsie, n. y. mr. and mrs. carl weschcke, st. paul, minn. joseph m. masters, wooster, o. george l. slate, geneva, n. y. george h. corsan, toronto, ont. mrs. katherine cinadr, coath ave., cleveland , o. o. d. diller, wooster, o. emmet yoder, smithville, o. f. l. o'rourke, e. lansing, mich. r. e. mcalpin, e. lansing, mich. g. j. korn, kalamazoo, mich. l. w. sherman, canfield, o. h. h. corsan, hillsdale, mich. j. l. smith, and daughter, chester, n. y. a. j. metzger, toledo, o. a. w. weaver, toledo, o. s. shessler, genoa, o. a. a. bungart, avon, o. sterling a. smith, vermilion, o. c. p. stocker, lorain, o. dr. and mrs. john e. cannaday, charleston, w. va. andres cross mr. and mrs. r. b. best, eldred, ill. g. m. brand, lincoln, nebr. wm. m. rohrbacher, iowa city, io. d. c. snyder, center point, io. wm. n. neff, martel, o. e. p. gerber, kidron, o. geo. kratzer, dalton, o. a. g. hirschi, oklahoma city, okla. mr. and mrs. harry r. weber, cincinnati, o. mr. ford wallick, peru, ind. carl prell, s. bend, ind. albert b. ferguson, center point, io. e. f. huen, eldora, io. john b. longnecker, orrville, o. percy schaible, upper black eddy, penna. ruth schaible, upper black eddy, penna. mr. and mrs. blaine mccollum, white hall, md. mrs. h. negus, mt. ranier, md. dr. elbert m. shelton, lakewood, o. h. m. oesterling, harrisburg, penna. frank m. kintzel, cincinnati, o. dr. j. w. mckay, plant industry station, beltsville, md. dr. a. s. colby, university of illinois, urbana, ill. e. c. soliday, lancaster, o. l. e. gauly, cleveland, o. mrs. reuben bixler, apple creek, o. none none none none +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |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. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ northern nut growers association incorporated affiliated with the american horticultural society th annual report [illustration] convention at guelph, ontario september , , table of contents officers and committees state vice presidents list of members constitution by-laws proceedings of the thirty-eighth annual convention address of welcome--dr. j. s. shoemaker response--dr. l. h. macdaniels report of secretary--mildred m. jones report on the ohio contest--sterling smith report of treasurer--d. c. snyder other business of the association factors influencing the hardiness of woody plants--h. l. crane nut culture in ontario--i. c. marritt nut growing at the hort. sta., vineland station, ont.--w. j. strong soil management for nut plantations in ontario--j. r. van haarlem report from southern ontario--alex troup nut trees hardy at aldershot, ontario, canada--o. filman report from echo valley, --george hebden corsan report from beamsville, ontario--levi housser nut growing in new hampshire--l. p. latimer nut notes from new hampshire--matthew lahti a simplified schedule for judging black walnut varieties--l. h. macdaniels and s. s. atwood test plantings of thomas black walnut in the tennessee valley--spencer b. chase west tennessee variety, breeding and propagation tests, --aubrey richards, m. d. notes on some kansas and kentucky pecans in central texas--o. s. gray experiences of a nut tree nurseryman--j. f. wilkinson morphology and structure of the walnut--c. c. lounsberry a method of budding walnuts--h. lynn tuttle questions asked mr. stoke after his demonstration of grafting and budding importance of bud selection in the grafting of nut trees--g. j. korn the hemming chinese chestnuts--e. sam hemming results of a chinese chestnut rootstock experiment--j. w. mckay breeding chestnut trees: report for and --arthur harmount graves chinese chestnuts in the chattahoochie valley--g. s. jones some results with filbert breeding at geneva, n. y.--george l. slate nut news from wisconsin--carl weschcke home preparation of filbert butter and other products--mrs. jeanne m. altman notes from central new york--s. h. graham experience with the crath carpathian walnuts--gilbert l. smith observations on hardiness of the carpathian walnuts at poughkeepsie, new york--stephen bernath discussion after graham, smith, and bernath persian walnut papers nuts about trees--r. e. hodgson report on nut trees at massillon--raymond e. silvis planting of nut trees on highways undesirable--r. p. allaman nut growing for the farm owner--h. gleason mattoon tree crop and nut notes from southern pennsylvania--john w. hershey notes from the new jersey section of the northern nut growers association--mrs. alan r. buckwalter report of resolutions committee report of the necrology committee--gerardi, ferris exhibitors attendance pictures made on tour , , announcements officers of the association _president_--john davidson, e. second st., xenia, ohio _vice president_--dr. l. h. macdaniels, cornell university, ithaca, n. y. _treasurer_--d. c. snyder, center point, iowa _secretary_--j. c. mcdaniel, tennessee dept. of agr., state office bldg., nashville , tenn. _director_--clarence a. reed, piney branch rd., n. w., washington, d. c. _director_--carl weschcke, s. wabasha st., saint paul, minn. _dean_--dr. w. c. deming, s. highland, w. hartford , conn. _constitution committee_--l. h. macdaniels, george l. slate, miss mildred jones executive appointments _press and publication_---editorial section: dr. l. h. macdaniels, dr. w. c. deming, miss mildred jones, dr. j. russell smith, dr. a. s. colby, george l. slate, h. f. stoke publicity section: dr. j. russell smith, h. f. stoke, c. a. reed, a. a. bungart, j. c. mcdaniel printing section: j. c. mcdaniel, h. f. stoke _program_--spencer b. chase, j. c. mcdaniel, c. a. reed, dr. o. d. diller, dr. l. h. macdaniels, miss mildred jones _place of meeting_--george l. slate, d. c. snyder, royal oakes, dr. a. h. graves _varieties and contests_--t. g. zarger, l. walter sherman, sterling smith, j. f. wilkinson, gilbert becker, gilbert l. smith, a. g. hirschi, seward berhow. standards and judging section of this committee: dr. l. h. macdaniels, spencer chase, c. a. reed, h. f. stoke _survey and research_--r. e. silvis, s. h. graham, g. a. gray, e. f. huen, dr. kenneth w. hunt, dr. c. h. skinner, h. s. wise, dr. g. f. gravatt, john t. bregger, dr. a. h. graves _membership_--mrs. s. h. graham, mrs. herbert negus, mrs. harry weber _exhibits_--h. f. stoke, jay l. smith, l. walter sherman, j. f. wilkinson, g. l. smith, h. h. corsan, g. h. corsan, carl weschcke, royal oakes, h. g. mattoon, george brand, seward berhow _necrology_--mrs. william rohrbacher, mrs. john hershey, mrs. j. f. johns _audit_--dr. william rohrbacher, e. p. gerber, r. p. allaman _finance_--carl weschcke, harry weber, carl f. walker, d. c. snyder _legal advisers_--harry weber, sargent wellman _official journal_--american fruit grower, ontario st., cleveland , ohio state vice-presidents alabama lovic orr alberta, canada a. l. young arkansas a. c. hale british columbia, canada j. u. gellatly california dr. thomas r. haig colorado w. a. colt connecticut william g. canfield delaware edward s. lake florida c. a. avant georgia g. clyde eidson idaho fred baisch illinois louis gerardi indiana carl f. prell iowa ira m. kyhl kansas frank e. borst kentucky dr. c. a. moss louisiana j. hill fullilove manitoba, canada a. h. young maryland wilmer p. hoopes massachusetts dr. r. a. van meter mexico frederico compean michigan gilbert becker minnesota r. e. hodgson mississippi james r. meyer missouri adolph giesson nebraska george brand new hampshire matthew lahti new jersey mrs. a. r. buckwalter new york clarence lewis north carolina dr. r. t. dunstan ohio a. a. bungart oklahoma a. g. hirschi ontario, canada g. h. corsan oregon s. m. dohanian pennsylvania h. gleason mattoon rhode island philip allen south carolina john t. bregger south dakota homer l. bradley tennessee thomas g. zarger texas kaufman florida utah granville oleson vermont a. w. aldrich virginia dr. v. a. pertzoff washington f. d. linkletter west virginia wendell w. hoover wisconsin w. s. bassett wyoming w. d. greene northern nut growers association membership list as of december , alabama orr, lovic, penn-orr-mcdaniel orchards, rt. , danville arkansas hale, a. c., rt. , box , camden harris, lt. col. oscar b., rt. , fayetteville stanley, julian g., rt. , box , camden winn, j. b., westfork california armstrong nurseries, n. euclid ave., ontario gaston, eugene t., rt. , box , turlock haig, dr. thomas r., h. st., sacramento kemple, w. h., west ralston st., ontario logan, george f., hoover street, gardena parsons, chas. e., felix gillet nursery, nevada city pozzi, p. h., s. dutton ave., santa rosa. walter, e. d., alameda, berkeley welby, harry s., buchanan st., taft canada brown, alger, rt. , harley, ontario cahoon, dr. e. b., o'connor dr., toronto , ontario casanave, john a., patterson rd., lulu island, vancouver, b. c. corsan, george h., echo valley, islington, ontario crath, rev. paul c., rt. , connington, ontario eddie & sons, ltd., pacific coast nurseries, sardis, b. c. elgood, h., trans canada highway west, chilliwack, b. c. english, h. a., box , duncan, b. c. filman, o., aldershot, ontario gellatly, j. u., box , westbank, b. c. giegerich, h. c., con-mine, trail, b. c. goodwin, geoffrey l., rt. , st. catherines, ontario harrhy, ivor h., rt. , burgessville, ontario housser, levi, beamsville, ontario lawes, e. h., westmoreland ave., toronto , ontario little, wm. j., rt. , st. george, ontario maillene, george, rt. , fulford harbor, b. c. manten, jacob, rt. , white rock, b. c. *neilson, mrs. ellen, mcdonald ave., guelph, ontario papple, elton e., rt. , cainsville, ontario porter, gordon, y. m. c. a., windsor, ontario stephenson, mrs. j. h., bellevue ave., west vancouver, b. c. trayling, e. j., richards st., vancouver, b. c. wagner, a. s., delhi, ontario willis, a. r., rt. , royal oak, vancouver island, b. c. wharton, h. w., rt. , guelph, ontario wood, c. f., hobbs glass, ltd., dale ave., toronto, ontario yates, j., e. th ave., vancouver, b. c. young, a. h., portage la prairie, manitoba young, a. l., brooks, alta. colorado colt, w. a., lyons hyde, arthur, p. o. box , dolores connecticut canfield, william g., west main st., new britain **deming, dr. w. c., s. highland, west hartford gresecke, paul, weed ave., stamford graham, mrs. cooper, darien graves, dr. a. h., so. main st., wallingford huntington, a. m., stranerigg farms, bethel kydd, dr. d. m., westwood rd., new haven mcsweet, arthur, clapboard hill rd., guilford milde, karl f., town farm rd., litchfield newmaker, adolph, rt. , rockville page, donald t., box , rt. , danielson pratt, george d., jr., bridgewater rodgers, raymond, rt. , westport rozanshi, joseph, la salle st., new britain scazlia, jos. a., matson hill rd., so. glastonbury senior, sam p., rt. , bridgeport white, george e., rt. , andover delaware brugmann, elmer w., washington st., wilmington lake, edward s., sharpless road, hockessin wilkins, lewis, rt. , newark district of columbia borchers, perry e., quincy st., n. w., washington , d. c. graff, geo. u., peabody st., n. w., washington, d. c. kaan, dr. helen w., national research council, constitution ave., washington , d. c. librarian, american potash institute, inc., - th st., n. w., washington, d. c. reed, c. a., piney branch rd., n. w., washington , d. c. florida avant, c. a., n. w. th ave., miami georgia eidson, g. clyde, westwood ave., s. w., atlanta hammar, dr. harold e., u. s. pecan field sta., box , albany hunter, h. reid, lake shore dr., n. e., atlanta neal, homer a., neal's nursery, rt. , carnesville skyland farms, s. c. noland & c. h. crawford, spring st., n. w., atlanta wilson, wm. j., north anderson ave., ft. valley idaho baisch, fred, e. main st., emmett dryden, lynn, peck falin, mrs. john, riggins hazelbaker, calvin, lewiston kudlac, joe t., box , buhl mcgoran, j. e., box , spirit lake, idaho swayne, samuel f., orofino illinois albrecht, h. w., delaven allen, theodore r., delevan anthony, a. b., rt. , sterling baber, adin, kansas best, r. b., eldred bolle, dr. a. c., e. state st., jacksonville bradley, james w., n. mckinley ave., champaign bronson, earle a., simpson st., evanston churchill, woodford m., oakenwold, chicago colby, dr. arthur s., university of illinois, urbana dietrich, ernest, rt. , dundas dintelman, l. f., belleville frey, mrs. frank h., west th place, chicago frey, frank h., west th place, chicago frierdich, fred, w. main st., belleville gerardi, louis, rt. , caseyville haeseler, l. m., w. madison st., chicago heberlein, edw. w., rt. , box a, roscoe helmle, herman c., n. walnut st., springfield hockenyoo, g. l., e. jefferson st., springfield holland, dr. w. w., n. randolf st., macomb johnson, hjalmar w., dorchester ave., chicago jungk, adolph, washington ave., alton kilner, f. r., american nurseryman, s. dearborn st., chicago klein, a. f., harrison st., galesburg knobloch, miss margaret, arthur kreider, ralph, jr., hammond langdoe, wesley w., erie community high school, erie leighton, l. c., arthur mandrell, c. wayne, box , tolono oakes, royal, bluffs pray, a. lee, north main st., leroy sonnemann, w. f., experimental gardens, vandalia seaton, earl d., th, peru terril, mark, greenleaf ave., wilmette urush, r. a., n. dearborn, chicago whitford, a. m., farina williams, jerry f., walnut st., shelbyville youngberg, harry w., port clinton rd., prairie view indiana behr, j. e., laconia boyer, clyde c, nabb cole, chas. jr., west la salle ave., south bend garber, h. g., indiana state farm, greencastle gentry, herbert m., rt. , noblesville glaser, peter, rt. , box , evansville hite, charles dean, rt. , bluffton pritchett, emery, park ave., fort wayne prell, carl f., west colfax ave., south bend ramsey, arthur, muncie tree surgery co., muncie simpson, paul f., indianola, indianapolis skinner, dr. charles h., rt. , thornton sly, miss barbara, rt. , rockport sly, donald r., rt. , rockport stephenson, walter, delta electric co., marion stierwalt, g. w., rt. , greencastle wallick, ford, rt. , peru warren, e. l., new richmond wilkinson, j. f., indiana nut nursery, rockport iowa berhow, s., berhow nurseries, huxley boice, r. h., rt. , nashua cole, edward p., chestnut st., atlantic ferguson, albert b., center point ferguson, roy, center point ferris, wayne, hampton gardner, clark, gardner nurseries, osage harrison, l. e., nashua huen, e. f., eldora inter-state nurseries, hamburg iowa fruit growers' association, state house, des moines kaser, j. d., winterset kivell, ivan e., rt. , greene kyhl, ira m., box , sabula lanman, harry, hamburg last, herman, steamboat rock lounsberry, c. c., howard ave., ames martazahn, frank a., rt. , davenport mcleran, harold f., mt. pleasant meints, a. rock, dixon rodenberg, henry, guttenberg rohrbacher, dr. wm., east college st., iowa city schlagenbusch bros., rt. , ft. madison snyder, d. c., center point steffen, r. f., box , sioux city swartzendruber, d. b., kalona wade, ida may, rt. , laporte city widmer, h. r., bloomfield welch, h. s., mt. arbor nurseries, shenandoah wood, roy a., castana kansas baker, f. c., troy borst, frank e., shawnee st., leavenworth boyd, elmer, rt. , box , oskaloosa burrichter, george w., c/o mrs. james stone, n. th st., kansas city fisher, richard w., n. th st., leavenworth funk, m. d., n. tyler st., topeka gray, dr. clyde, central avenue, horton hofman, rayburn, rt. , manhattan leavenworth nurseries, rt. , leavenworth mendere, john, lansing threlenhaus, w. f., rt. , buffalo kentucky alves, robert h., nehi bottling co., henderson baughn, cullie, rt. , box , franklin cornett, chas. l., box , lynch moss, dr. c. a., williamsburg palmeter, clarence, rt , mt. sterling tatum, w. g., rt. , lebanon whittinghill, lonnie m., box , love louisiana fullilove, j. hill, box , shreveport maryland crane, dr. h. l., bureau of plant industry sta., beltsville eastern shore nurseries, inc., dover rd., easton fletcher, c. hicks, lulley's hillside farm, bowie gravatt, dr. g. f., forest pathology, plant industry sta., beltsville harris, walter b., worton hodgson, wm. c, rt. , white hall hoopes, wilmer p., forest hill kemp, homer s., bountiful ridge nurseries, princess anne mannakee, n. h., ashton mccollum, blaine, white hall mckay, dr. j. w., plant industry station, beltsville negus, mrs. herbert, - nd st., mt. rainier porter, john j., the terrace, hagerstown purnell, j. edgar, spring hill road, salisbury shamer, dr. maurice e., w. north ave., baltimore thomas, kenneth d., rosalie ave., baltimore massachusetts babbitt, howard s., dawes ave., pittsfield brown, daniel l., esq., state st., boston fitts, walter h., baker st., foxboro fritze, e., osterville garlock, mott a., arlington rd., longmeadow gauthier, louis r., wood hill rd., monson hanchett, james l., rt. , east longmeadow kendall, henry p., moose hill farm, sharon la beau, henry a., north hoosic rd., williamstown pinkerton, e. g., lowden st., dedham rice, horace j., elm st., springfield *russell, mrs. newton h., burnett ave., south hadley short, i. w., washington st., taunton stewart, o. w., milton ave., hyde park swartz, h. p., chicopee st., chicopee van meter, dr. r. a., french hall, m.s.c., amherst wellman, sargent h., esq., windridge, topsfield westcott, samuel k., richview ave., north adams weston nurseries, inc., brown & winters sts., weston weymouth, paul w., plymouth st., holbrook mexico compean, senor federico, gerente, granjas "cordelia" apartado , san luis potosi, mexico michigan achenbach, w. n., petoskey andersen, charles, andersen evergreen nurseries, scottsville barlow, alfred l., flanders ave., detroit becker, gilbert, climax blackman, orrin c., box , jackson bogart, geo. c., rt. , three oaks boylan, p. b., cloverdale bradley, l. j., rt. , springport bumler, malcolm r., lakeview, detroit burgart, harry, michigan nut nursery, rt. , union city burgess, e. h., burgess seed & plant co., galesburg burr, redmond m., s. th ave., ann arbor buskey, james, marlborough, detroit cook, e. a., m. d., director, county health dept., corunna corsan, h. h., rt. , hillsdale emerson, ralph, cortland ave., highland park germer, c. f., rt. , burr oak hackett, john c, diamond ave., s. e., grand rapids hagelshaw, w. j., box , galesburg hay, francis h., ivanhoe place, lawrence healey, scott, rt. , otsego *kellogg, w. k., battle creek king, harold j., sodus korn, g. j., n. rose st., kalamazoo lee, michael, lapeer lemke, edwin w., townsend ave., detroit mann, charles w., box saugatuck miller, louis, n. o'keefe, cassopolis o'rourke, dr. f. l., hort'l dept., michigan state college, e. lansing otto, arnold g., three mile drive, detroit pickles, arthur w., elmwood ave., jackson prushek, e., rt. , niles scofield, carl, box , woodland stahelin, c. a., bridgeman stocking, frederick n., harrisville tate, d. l., westchester st., birmingham wiard, everett w., s. huron st., ypsilanti witbeck, mrs. v. h., rt. , woodland whallon, archer p., rt. , stockbridge zeket, arnold, catalpa ct., ferndale minnesota andrews, miss frances e., park view terrace, minneapolis hodgson, r. e., dept, of agriculture, s. e. exp. sta., waseca mayo forestry & horticultural institute, box , rochester skrukrud, baldwin, sacred heart weschcke, carl, s. wabasha st., st. paul mississippi meyer, james r., delta branch exper. station, stoneville missouri bauch, g. d., box , farmington blake, r. e., c/o international shoe co., washingtin ave., st. louis campbell, a. t., robinson pike, rt. , grandview fisher, j. b., r. r. h. , pacific giesson, adolph, river aux vases hay, leander, gilliam howe, john, rt. i, box , pacific huber, frank j., weingarten hudson, perry h., smithton johns, mrs. jeannette f., rt. , festus nicholson, john w., ash grove ochs, c. t., box , salem richterkessing, ralph, rt. , st. charles schmidt, victor h., virginia, kansas city stanage, john l., so. rock hill rd., webster groves stark brothers nurs. & orchard co., louisiana tainter, nat a., n. fifth st., saint charles thompson, j. d., west rd st., kansas city weil, a. e., c/o dow chemical co., olive st., st. louis nebraska brand, george, rt. , box , lincoln caha, william, wahoo ginn, a. m., box , bayard hess, harvey w., the arrowhead gardens, box , hebron hoyer, l. b., maple st., omaha lenz, clifford q., maple st., omaha marshall's nurseries, arlington van arsdale, d. n., n. fifth st., beatrice white, bertha g., leighton ave., lincoln white, warren e., binney st., omaha new hampshire lahti, matthew, locust lane farm, wolfeboro latimer, prof. l. p., dept of horticulture, durham malcolm, herbert l., the waumbek farm, jefferson messier, frank, rt. , nashua new jersey bangs, ralph e., allamuchy beck, stanley, south monroe ave., wenonah blake, dr. harold, box , saddle river bottom, r. j., robertson rd., west orange brewer, j. l., allen place, fair lawn buch, philip o., rockaway ave., rockaway buckwalter, mrs. alan r., flemington buckwalter, geoffrey r., route , box , flemington canfield, roger i., fairview ave., cedar grove cumberland nursery, rt. , millville donnelly, john h., mountain ice co., newark st., hoboken dougherty, wm. m., broadacres-on-bedens, box , princeton franek, michael, rutherford ave., franklin gardenier, dr. harold c., westwood hostetter, amos b., so. beechcroft rd., short hills *jaques, lee w., waverly place, jersey city jewett, edmund gale, rt. , port murray lovett's nursery, inc., little silver mcculloch, j. d., george st., freehold mcdowell, fred, ocean ave., belmar mueller, r., rt. , box , westwood ritchie, walter m., rt. , box r, rohway rocker, louis p., the rocker farm, andover sorg, henry, chicago ave., egg harbor city sutton, ross j., jr., rt. , lebanon szalay, dr. s., garrisin ave., teaneck van doren, durand h., redmond rd., south orange yorks, a. s., lamatonk nurseries, neshanic station new york barber, geo. h., rt. , stockton barton, irving titus, montour falls bassett, charles k., main st., buffalo beck, paul e., beck's guernsey dairy, transit rd., e. amherst benton, william a., wassaic bernath's nursery, rt. , poughkeepsie bixby, henry d., east drive, halesite, l. i. blauner, sidney h., west end ave., new york bradbury, captain h. g., fifth ave., new york brinckeroff, john h., - jamaica ave., jamaica brook, victor, rockingham st., rochester brooks, william g., monroe bundick, c. u., anderson ave., scarsdale carter, george, avenue a, rochester cowan, harold, southern bldg., the bronx, new york . dasey, mrs. eva b., high bridge st., fayetteville dutton, walter, terrace park, rochester ellwanger, mrs. william d., east ave., rochester elsbree, george jr., stanfordville, dutchess co., new york engle, mrs. charle, rt. , port crane feil, harry, hilton-spencerport rd., hilton flanigen, charles f., greenfield st., buffalo freer, h. j., midvale rd., fairport fribance, a. e., elmdorf ave., rochester fruch, alfred, perry st., new york garcia, m., c/o garcia & diaz, beaver st., new york graham, s. h., rt. , ithaca graham, mrs. s. h., bostwick road, ithaca gressel, henry, rt. , mohawk haas, dr. sidney v., west th st., new york city hasbrouck, walter, jr., new platz hubbell, james f., mayro bldg., utica iddings, william, ludlow st., new york irish, g. whitney, valatie kelly, mortimer b., battery place, new york knorr, mrs. arthur, central park, west, apt. , new york kraai, dr. john, fairport larkin, harry h., van rensselaer st., buffalo *lewis, clarence, park ave., new york little, george, ripley lowerre, james d., bedford ave., brooklyn *macdaniels, dr. l. h., cornell university, ithaca maloney brothers nursery co., inc., dansville miller, j. e., canandaigua mitchell, rudolph, riverside drive, new york *montgomery, robert h., e. th st., new york mossman, dr. james k., black oaks, ramapo muenscher, prof. w. c., highland road, ithaca newell, p. f., lake road, rt. , westfield oeder, dr. lambert r., fifth ave., new york overton, willis w., lathrop st., carthage page, charles e., rt. , oneida rauch, basil, barnard college columbia u., new york rebillard, frederick, lark st., albany rightmyer, harold, rt. , ithaca salzer, george, garford rd., rochester sameth, sigmund, e th st., new york schlegel, charles b., south ave., rochester schlick, frank, munnsville schmidt, carl w., linwood ave., buffalo shank, w., parkway road, room , bronxville shannon, j. w., box , ithaca sheffield, lewis j., c/o mrs. edna c. jones, townline rd., orangeburg slate, prof. george l., experiment station, geneva smith, gilbert l., state school, wassaic smith, jay l., chester steiger, harwood, red hook stern-montagny, hubert, erbonia farm, gardiner szego, alfred, - a th ave., jackson heights, new york timmerman, karl g., chapel st., fayetteville todd, e. murray, liberty st., new york waite, dr. r. h., willowwaite moor, perrysburg wichlac, thaddeus, genesee st., cheektowaga (buffalo) windisch, richard p., c/o w. e. burnet & co., wall st., new york *wissman, mrs. f. de r., g. w. th st., new york north carolina brooks, j. r., box , enka dunstan, dr. r. t., greensboro college, greensboro finch, jack r., bailey parks, c. h., rt. , asheville rice, clyde h., rt. , box , mars hill, n. c. ohio barden, c. a., morgan st., oberlin bitler, w. a., mcpheron ave., lima bungart, a. a., avon bush, david g., rt. , warren chapman, floyd b., denune ave., columbus cinadr, mrs. katherine, coath ave., cleveland clark, r. l., melbourne rd., east cleveland cook, h. c., rt. , box , leetonia cranz, eugene f., mount tom farm, ira davidson, john, e. nd st., xenia davidson, mrs. john, e. nd st., xenia de leon, donald, box , sta. g., columbus diller, dr. oliver d., dept. of forestry, experiment sta., wooster dubois, miss frances m., glenshade ave., cincinnati elliott, donald w., rogers emch, f. e., genoa evans, maurice g., s. main st., akron fickes, mrs. w. r., rt. , wooster foraker, maj. c. merle, elmwood ave., barberton foss, h. d., hamlin st., akron franks, m. l., rt. , montpelier frederick, geo. f., w. th, cleveland garden center of greater cleveland, east blvd., cleveland gauly, dr. edward, euclid ave., cleveland gerber, e. p., kidron gerstenmaier, john a., pond s. w., massilon goss, c. e., dover ave., akron gray, g. a., jefferson ave., cincinnati grad, dr. edw. a., chase st., cincinnati haydeck, carl, west rd st., cleveland hill, dr. albert a., pearl rd., cleveland hoch, gordon f., glade ave., cincinnati hunt, kenneth w., yellow springs irish, charles f., e. th st., cleveland jacobs, homer l., davey tree expert co., kent jacobs, mason, jacobs rd., youngstown kappel, owen, bolivar kintzel, frank m., briarcliffe ave., cincinnati kirby, r. l., rt. , blanchester kratzer, george, rt. , dalton krok, walter p., w. th st., lorain laditka, nicholas g., stickney ave., cleveland lashley, charles v., s. main, wellington lehmann, carl, union trust bldg., cincinnati lorenz, r. c., n. arch st., fremont madson, arthur e., th ave., e. cleveland mcbride, william b., brandon rd., columbus metzger, a. j., euclid ave., toledo neff, william, martel nicolay, chas., hess ave., cincinnati oches, norman m., rt. , brunswick osborn, frank c, w. th st., cleveland pomerene, w. h., coshocton poston, e. m., jr., e. main, columbus ranke, william, rt. , amelia rowe, stanley m., rt. , box , cincinnati rummel, e. t., laverne ave., cleveland scarff's sons, w. n., new carlisle schaufelberger, hugo, rt. , sandusky seas, d. edw., south main st., orrville shelton, dr. e. m., w. clifton blvd., lakewood sherman, l. walter, mahoning co., exp. farm, canfield shessler, sylvester m., genoa silvis, raymond e., lindbergh ave., n. e., massillon smith, l. a., rt. , uniontown smith, sterling a., w. south st., vermilion spring hill nurseries co., tipp city strauss, jos., epworth ave., cincinnati stocker, c. p., lorain products corp., f. st., lorain sylvarium gardens, l. e. crawford, columbia rd., north olmsted thomas, w. f., s. main st., findlay toops, herbert a., cambridge blvd., columbus urban, george, ardendale rd., south euclid van voorhis, j. f., hudson ave., apt. b- , newark walker, carl f., e. overlook rd., cleveland weaver, arthur w., oliver st., toledo *weber, harry r., esq., e. th st., cincinnati weber, mrs. martha r., rt. , morgan rd., cleves whitney, charles e., west mansfield willett, dr. g. p., elmore william, harry m., grandon rd., dayton , ohio wischhusen, j. f., shore acres dr., n. e., cleveland yoder, emmet, smithville oklahoma butler, roy, rt. , hydro cross, prof. frank b., dept, of hort., stillwater hirschi's nursery, n. robinson, oklahoma city hubbard, orie b., kingston hughes, c. v., rt. , box , oklahoma city jarrett, c. f., w. th, tulsa meek, e. b., rt. , wynnewood pulliam, gordon, osage ave., bartlesville ruhlen, dr. chas. a., w. steele, cushing swan, oscar e., jr., e. th st., tulsa oregon borland, robert e., mill st., silverton butler, joe c., sherwood carlton nursery co., forest grove dohanian, s. m., p. o. box , eugene miller, john e., rt. , box -a, oswego pearcy, harry l., h. l. pearcy nursery co., rt. , box , salem schuster, c. e., horticulturist, corvallis sheppard, chas. m., tucker road, hood river pennsylvania allaman, r. p., rt. , harrisburg anundson, lester, chestnut st., erie banks, h. c., rt. , hellertown beard, h. k., rt. , sheridan berst, chas. b., brown ave., erie bowen, john c., rt. , macungie breneiser, amos p., n. th st., reading buckman, c. m., schwenkville catterall, karl p., frank st., pittsburgh clarke, wm. s., jr., box , state college colwell, f. a., r.f.d., collegeville creasy, luther p., catawissa damask, henry, doyle st., wilkinsburg dewey, richard, box , peckville dible, samuel e., rt. , shelocta eckhart, pierce, haddington st., philadelphia etter, fayette, p. o. box , lemasters gardner, ralph d., box , colonial park gibson, ralph, center st., williamsport good, orren s., n. fairview st., lock haven gorton, f. b., rt. , east lake road, harbor creek, erie co. heasley, george s., rt. , beaver falls heckler, george snyder, hatfield hershey, john w., nut tree nurseries, downingtown hostetter, c. f., bird-in-hand hostetter, l. k., rt. , lancaster hughes, douglas, east st st., erie johnson, robert f., rt. , box , crafton jones, mildred m., n. west end ave., lancaster jones, dr. truman w., coatesville kaufman, m. m., clarion kirk, denard b., forest grove knouse, chas. w., colonial park laboski, george t., rt. , harbor creek leach, hon. will, court house, scranton long, carleton c., college ave., beaver mattoon, h. gleason, narbeth mccartney, j. lupton, rm. , horticultural bldg., state college mercer, robert a., rt. , perkesmenville, new hanover miller, elwood b., c/o the hazleton bleaching & dyeing works, hazleton miller, elwood b., c/o the hazleton bleaching & dyeing works, moyer, philip s., u. s. f. & g. bldg., harrisburg niederriter, leonard, state st., erie parloff, robert, n. broad st., philadelphia, pa. ranson, flavel, monroe ave., scranton reece, w. s., clearfield reidler, paul g., ashland rial, john, harrison ave., greensburg *rick, john, pennsylvania sq., reading rupp, edward e., jr., w. pomfret st., carlisle schaible, percy, upper black eddy smith, dr. j. russell, elm ave., swarthmore stewart, e. l., pine hill farms nursery, rt. , homer city stewart, john h., yule tree farm, akeley stinson, george, box , bedminster theiss, dr. lewis e., bucknell university, lewisburg twist, frank s., northumberland washick, dr. frank a., s. w. welsh & veree rds., philadelphia weinrich, whitney, s. lansdowne ave., lansdowne *wister, john c., scott foundation, swarthmore college, swarthmore wood, wayne, rt. , newville wright, ross pier, west th st., erie zimmerman, mrs. g. a., piketown, r. d., linglestown rhode island *allen, philip, dorance st., providence r. i. state college, library dept., green hall, kingston south carolina bregger, john t., clemson gordon, g. henry, union, union co. poole, m. c., cross anchor south dakota bradley, homer l., sand lake refuge, columbia tennessee chase, s. b., norris garrett, dr. sam young, dixon springs holdeman, j. e., shrine bldg., memphis howell nurseries, sweetwater lowe, dr. jere., thayer vet. hospital, nashville mcdaniel, j. c., tenn. dept. of agriculture, state office bldg., nashville rhodes, g. b., rt. , covington richards, dr. a., whiteville shadow, willis a., county agt., decatur roark, w. f., malesus zarger, thomas g., norris texas arford, charles a., box , dalhart bailey, l. b., box , phillips buser, c. j., rt. , arp florida, kaufman, box , rotan gray, o. s., p. o. box , arlington kidd, clark, arp nursery co., tyler price, w. s., jr., gustine winkler, andrew, moody utah jeppeson, chris, wildwood hollow farm nursery, provo city oleson, granville, laird ave., salt lake city peterson, harlan d., jefferson ave., ogden vermont aldrich, a. w., rt. , springfield collins, jos. n., rt. , pultney ellis, zenas h., fair haven, perpetual membership "in memoriam" farrington, robert a., vermont forest service, montpelier foster, forest k., west topsham ladd, paul, hilltop farm, jamaica virginia acker, e. d., co., broadway burton, george l., college st., bedford case, lynn b., rt. , fredericksburg dickerson, t. c., - th st., newport news gibbs, h. r., mclean gunther, eric f., rt. , box , onancock nelson, c. l., avenel ave., lee hy. ct., roanoke nix, robert w., jr., lucketts pertzoff, dr. v. a., carter's bridge pinner, h. mcr., p. o. box , suffolk stoke, h. f., watts ave., n. w., roanoke stoke, mrs. h. f., watts ave., n. w., roanoke stoke, dr. john h., - boxley bldg., roanoke thompson, b. h., harrisonburg variety products co., middlebrook ave., staunton webb, john, hillsville zimmerman, ruth, bridgewater west virginia cannaday, dr. john e., charleston general hospital, charleston cross, andrew, ripley frye, wilbert m., pleasant dale glenmount nurseries, arthur m. reed, moundsville gold chestnut nursery, arthur a. gold, cowen hoover, wendell w., webster springs white, roscoe r., mulberry ave., clarksburg white, wayne g., glendale ave., so. charleston washington altman, mrs. h. e., king st., bellingham barth, j. h., box , rt. , spokane bartleson, c. j., box , chattaroy biddle, miss gertrude w., w. gordon ave., spokane brown, h. b., greenacres bush, carroll d., grapeview clark, r. w., phinney ave., seattle denman, george l., east nina ave., spokane garvin, mrs. mildred s., w. nd ave., spokane harrison, geo. c., greenacres hyatt, l. w., west la crosse, spokane jessup, j. m., cook kling, william l., rt. , box , clarkston latterell, ethel, greenacres linkletter, f. d., - th ave., n. e., seattle lynn tuttle nursery, the heights, clarkston naderman, g. w., rt. , box , olympia rodgers, w. r., n. mamer, opportunity shane bros., vashon watt, mrs. l. j., w. th ave., spokane wisconsin bassett, w. s., main st., la crosse brust, john j., w. wells st., milwaukee dopkins, marvin, rt. , river falls heberlein, edw. w., box , milwaukee johnson, albert g., rt. , box , waukesha koelsch, norman, jackson ladwig, c. f., st. lawrence, beloit mortensen, m. c., stanson ave., racine reische, frank c., rt. , plymouth zinn, walter g., p. o. box , milwaukee wyoming greene, w. d., box , greybull =* life member ** honorary member= constitution article i--name this society shall be known as the =northern nut growers association, incorporated=. article ii--object its object shall be the promotion of interest in nut-bearing plants, their products and their culture. article iii--membership membership in this society shall be open to all persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to place of residence or nationality, subject to the rules and regulations of the committee on membership. article iv--officers there shall be a president, a vice-president, a secretary and a treasurer, who shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting; and a board of directors consisting of six persons, of which the president, the two last retiring presidents, the vice-president, the secretary and the treasurer shall be members. there shall be a state vice-president from each state, dependency, or country represented in the membership of the association, who shall be appointed by the president. article v--election of officers a committee of five members shall be elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating officers for the following year. article vi--meetings 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. article vii--quorum ten members of the association shall constitute a quorum but must include two of the four officers. article viii--amendments 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 amendment having been mailed by any member to each member thirty days before the date of the annual meeting. by-laws article i--committees the association shall appoint standing committees as follows: on membership, on finance, on programme, on press and publication, on exhibits, on varieties and contests, on survey, and an auditing committee. the committee on membership may make recommendations to the association as to the discipline or expulsion of any member. article ii--fees annual members shall pay two dollars annually. contributing members shall pay ten dollars annually. life members shall make one payment of fifty dollars and shall be exempt from further dues and shall be entitled to the same benefits as annual members. honorary members shall be exempt from dues. "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 or the donation. article iii--membership all annual memberships shall begin september st. annual dues received from new members shall entitle the new member to full membership until the next august st, including a copy of the annual report published for the fiscal year in which he joins the association. article iv--amendments by-laws may be amended by a two-thirds vote of members present at any meeting. article v members shall be sent a notification of annual dues at the time they are due and, if not paid within two months, they shall be sent a second notice, telling them that they are not in good standing on account of non-payment of dues and are not entitled to receive the annual report. at the end of thirty days from the sending of the second notice, a third notice shall be sent notifying such members that, unless dues are paid within ten days from the receipt of this notice, their names will be dropped from the rolls for non-payment of dues. proceedings of the thirty-eighth annual convention of the northern nut growers association, inc. meeting at ontario agricultural college guelph, ontario, canada september - , [illustration: northern nut growers association, inc. convention ontario agricultural college september - , ] the meeting was called to order by dr. l. h. macdaniels in the absence of clarence a. reed, our president, who was ill and could not attend the meeting. telegram from the rev. paul c. crath: "let the lord bless you and keep you. i am sorry i am unable to attend the present meetings." address of welcome dr. j. s. shoemaker, head of horticulture department, ontario agricultural college. our president, mr. w. r. reek, had hoped to be here in person to extend this welcome to you but he has found it necessary to go to toronto today. he regrets that he cannot meet with you at this time, and has asked me to welcome you. mr. reek has shown a great deal of interest in this convention and i am sure you will find definite evidence of this in our hospitality while you are here. in looking through your th annual report i noticed that the address of welcome at your meeting in wooster, ohio, last year was given by dr. l. h. gourley. i held the position of associate horticulturist at wooster and columbus for some years, and so knew dr. gourley intimately. his sudden death was a great shock to myself and his many other friends, and a great loss to horticulture. my years with dr. gourley was a very pleasant, helpful, and exceedingly important part of my career. i am very happy that you have come to the ontario agricultural college for your convention this year. as a simple matter of fact, the o. a. c. is one of the oldest and largest colleges of agriculture in the british empire. it is the second oldest agriculture college in north america, michigan state being the only older one. we are an affiliated college of the university of toronto and function as the faculty of agriculture of the university of toronto. i believe the enrollment at the university of toronto is in the neighborhood of , students. there will be about , students on this campus in a few weeks. most of these will be in the four-year course which leads to the b.s.a. degree. some will be in the two-year course. the ontario veterinary college is also located on this campus, as is the macdonald institute which provides courses for girls. the o. a. c, like the horticultural experiment station at vineland, comes under the minister of agriculture, the honourable t. l. kennedy. the vineland station and we ourselves co-operate closely in horticultural work. no doubt many of you have visited vineland and met director e. f. palmer. you will hear from two members of the vineland staff, mr. strong and mr. van haarlem on tomorrow's programme. i spent some years in the united states--at ames, iowa; east lansing, michigan; st. paul, minnesota; and wooster and columbus, ohio. there are in this audience some good friends of long standing whom i first met in the united states. they are probably surprised to hear that i graduated from this institution, but as an irishman would say "that i did," some years ago. i expect that all of you are familiar with the contributions made by james a. neilson in the field of nut growing. mr. neilson was a member of the staff here some years ago. he left his mark throughout ontario, and in the field of nut growing in general. we are happy that mrs. neilson, who is a life member of the association, is attending this convention. i am sure you will agree that the campus here is a very beautiful one. the dining hall and the residence may surpass what you expected to find. it is a real privilege to have you in our horticulture building. we made certain plans for your entertainment at the mixer and banquet. in brief, we are delighted that you have come, we know from the programme that the meetings will be good ones, and we hope that our hospitality will meet with your full approval. we indeed welcome you here. response dr. l. h. macdaniels: "in reply to dr. shoemaker's address of welcome we are certainly happy to be here and appreciate the excellent arrangements which have been made for our entertainment. dr. shoemaker spoke about the work done on nut trees several years ago by mr. neilson in canada. i am familiar with the work of mr. neilson and hope that at some time someone on the staff in canada will give more time to the culture of nut trees. that goes for the united states as well. nut trees, if you have the facilities and good varieties, are something that will make living more enjoyable and worthwhile. i do appreciate very heartily the trouble you have gone to in making facilities so acceptable and useful." =presidential address=--mr. reed was unable to be present and preside at the meeting because of illness. this telegram was sent to him: telegram to clarence a. reed, garfield hospital, washington, d. c. "the northern nut growers association last night received the news of your illness with deepest regret. we appreciate your long and earnest work in our field. you have been one of the 'spark plugs' of our organization and we all miss your presence. secretary." committees appointed resolutions committee--w. rohrbacher, sterling smith, j. russell smith, wm. hodgson. auditing committee--royal oakes, r. p. allaman, gilbert smith. secretary's report, sept. , miss mildred m. jones the duties of the secretary during the year were of the usual routine nature. three separate mailings of information to all members were made. the report is now exhausted, partly because of the long season in which it was current, and partly because there were several articles in it which were of vital interest to a number of people who were not members of the association. in march of this year an article appeared in organic gardening magazine which referred to our report and the hemming chestnut trees which were described in the report. as a result of this one article i was obliged to return more than $ . which had been sent to me, a dollar from each person, for this report. i returned the money with a letter to each person telling them mr. hemming would bring his report up to date at our meeting this year, telling them about the work of our association, and inviting them to join our group so they could keep up with progress being made in nut tree culture as the information became available. the sale of reports other than membership this past year amounted to $ . . this amount includes sets of reports which sell for $ . per set. about $ . of this amount was for single copies at $ . per copy to non-members. since our printing costs have increased considerably, and since we are handling the mailing and printing of these reports at $ . per copy at almost a loss, it would seem advisable to raise the price to non-members. every member can help us increase our membership. we have a number of members who are equipped with writing ability and by writing articles about interesting nut trees and mentioning our association and the secretary many, many inquiries are received. to these inquiries we can send our four page information folder or answer questions and thus we can increase our membership by letting people who are interested in nut trees know about our association. on february , , mr. george l. denman wrote me that at different times he had two articles about nuts and nut trees in the spokesman-review of spokane. he said the result was rather surprising and he requested fifty copies of our folder to assist him and make it easier to answer inquiries. if our association can be mentioned in the article, many inquiries will come direct to the secretary and thus save the author the work of answering questions if he does not have time to do so. the article written by mr. davidson in december, , american fruit grower brought in over inquiries to the secretary's office. the secretary's office has a number of calls for information regarding sources of nuts and nut kernels for private consumption or planting. chestnuts seem to head the list the past year--mostly for planting. requests are also received regarding information for market outlets, nut cracking equipment, nut shelling plants, trees, budwood and graftwood. anything you may do to supply this and other kinds of information about nut trees will be appreciated. the secretary of the american horticultural society, inc., with whom we are affiliated, has expressed the desire of that society for ideas as to how we may both profit more from this affiliation. their need, like ours, is for more members, more and better articles for the national horticultural magazine. mr. reed has contributed several worthwhile articles to this magazine. the editor would like to have more articles about nut trees from our members. the national horticultural magazine is nicely printed and bound, issued four times a year, and is well illustrated with pictures of the horticultural subjects described in each issue. dues in this society are $ . per year if you are a member of our society, $ . if you are not. you can ask our treasurer to bill you for membership at the same time membership in our association is billed, or membership may be sent direct to the american horticultural society, washington loan and trust building, washington , d. c. our membership at present is according to my present mailing list which has been corrected to paid-up members. during the war all members who were thought to be in the armed forces were carried along without the payment of dues according to our treasurer's report of last year. for this reason we can use only our income as an indication of our growth during those years. the question of a seal for the association came up at the time of the ellis legacy. our member, sargent h. wellman, boston, mass., represented the association, and payment was made finally without our seal being shown. it may be well to consider whether we may need a seal in the future and if so to take the necessary steps to have one made. the american fruit grower magazine has printed quite regularly the column "nut growers news". they also refer nut tree inquiries to us and have indicated their interest and further cooperation. they devoted an entire issue to nuts last december. a number of our members during the year do much work for the association and it is here that i wish to acknowledge all of the help and assistance the secretary has had from the various committees and members. the printing of the report for and the responsibility of getting it mailed was due mostly to the work and effort of mr. stoke, and mr. reed. it was a real pleasure to work with the members of the staff at ontario agricultural college with whom i had considerable correspondence during the year in arranging for our meeting this year. it has been a real pleasure to serve in the capacity of secretary to this organization and i regret that lack of time to do this work as it should be done makes me feel it is necessary to relinquish this post. i shall always continue my interest in the association. dr. macdaniels: "more articles should be written for magazines as one way in which to increase membership." telegram from dr. w. c. deming was read: "infirmities of age detain me. congratulations on membership and on accomplishments. everything depends on good officers. present officers are ideal but young members should now take over. don't wear out the old ones. w. c. deming, dean." this telegram was sent to dr. w. c. deming: sept. , . "we had hoped you would be with us. your telegram evoked many warm appreciations of your great and long service to our organization and the cause of nut growers in the north. warmest greetings from n.n.g.a. secretary." j. russell smith: "dr. deming was one of the five founders of the association. he did an excellent job on the reports and in compiling the cumulative index. he is dean of the association." report of committee on time and place: prof. slate reported three invitations, the most attractive at the present time being the invitation to meet at norris, tenn. prof. slate: "in order to bring the matter to a head, i move we hold our meeting at norris, tenn., or wherever arrangements can be made convenient to that point." stoke: "second." passed with unanimous approval. report on the ohio contest--sterling smith: "the ohio contest had entries. mr. chase helped with the judging. a number of good walnuts were brought out. the data for the first ten is given in the annual report. we are trying to find out what the parent trees are doing--what they were bearing in the past and also this year. this is to be done for years. ohio has members which puts them in the lead--ahead of new york." j. russell smith: "i greatly appreciate the report given. i approve of the year plan. it would bring in members." sterling smith: "couldn't we offer $ . or more for a really outstanding black walnut that would meet certain specifications? our good walnuts now run about grams and % kernel." dr. macdaniels: "is there anyone present who helped with the judging of this contest?" mr. chase: "it required over weeks with to persons to crack and cull out the ones we knew were not worth further consideration. one-tenth passed the screening test. the nut selected is one in ten-thousand expectancy. this contest brought out some outstanding nuts. the judges didn't have much trouble selecting no. . the next four were harder to place. the third prize went to pennsylvania and the eighth prize to west virginia." report of treasurer for period from september , to august , . income: annual memberships $ , . philip allen life membership . sale of reports . ellis legacy . miscellaneous . --------- total income $ , . disbursements: fruit grower subscriptions $ . president's expense . secretary's expense . treasurer's expense . supplies . banquet meeting . reporter meeting . ellis legacy bond & addition , . treasurer's bond . report for . report for . postage & envelopes . miscellaneous . --------- total disbursements $ , . balance on hand september , $ , . receipts for the year , . --------- total $ , . disbursements for year , . balance august , $ , . --------- in walker savings bank $ . in peoples savings bank , . cash and checks on hand . --------- subtotal $ , . secretary has on hand . --------- balance $ , . d. c. snyder, _treasurer_ * * * * * member: "the charge of $ . to non-members for the current report--shouldn't the price of the reports be increased to cover the increased costs of printing?" mr. snyder: "i think the amount should be increased as the cost of the report is almost $ . now, and with handling and mailing we are doing this at a loss if we continue to sell the report for $ . ." mccollum: "shouldn't the price of a full set of reports be raised? they are sold at the same price now as they were a number of years ago. several volumes have been added. i believe the price should be increased." prof. slate: "some years go out of print about as soon as new ones come along." dr. rohrbacher: "i move we sell our current and last year's report at $ . per copy." second by mr. silvis. mr. corsan: "nut enthusiasts and nut groups haven't the slightest hesitancy in parting with $ . ." member: "a non-member paying $ . for the annual report would automatically become a member." j. russell smith: "i would like to recommend that if at all possible an index be included in each volume of our report as it is published. a volume like this has or different articles but no mention in the title reveals the content of the article which makes it a job to try to refer back to or use these reports for reference. an index would make them much more valuable. this is not a job for the secretary, it is a technical job. i would like to make a motion, if the executive committee finds it feasible, that this be done." second by mr. silvis. dr. colby: "don't you think that index should begin with the volume dr. deming finished? i suggest that the executive committee arrange for compiling of the index subsequent to and including ." mr. corsan: "i would like to suggest that the nut exhibit be left at o.a.c. permanently because of the large number of visitors who come here and who would see it. this would help to increase our membership." * * * * * report from the constitution and by-laws committee--dr. macdaniels. * * * * * dr. crane: "i move we accept the report of the committee and suggested changes be voted on item by item." mr. silvis: "second." the question of whether the entire constitution and by-laws should be read at this meeting or mimeographed and mailed to each member was considered. prof. slate: "i move the constitution be taken up now." dr. colby: "second." the motion was carried. dr. macdaniels read the constitution and by-laws and they will be voted on at the meeting. j. russell smith: "i move that ' days' notice for change in the constitution be changed to ' days'." seconded by mr. silvis. motion carried. on fiscal year--dr. rohrbacher: "i suggest the fiscal year be changed to january through to the end of december." mr. snyder: "i can see no improvement in changing the fiscal year. if we are to hold our meetings the first part of september each year it would be better to have our fiscal year ended august ." dr. macdaniels: "i move that our fiscal year be from september st to august st and i move that the annual dues include a report for only the year you join." motion carried. factors influencing the hardiness of woody plants h. l. crane, principal horticulturist[ ] there is hardly any soil or climatic condition found in the world where it is not possible for at least one or more kinds of plants to be grown. this is possible because the plants that can be grown under the most adverse conditions have special structures and adaptations with regard to periods of growth and rest or dormancy. one of the most important adaptations of nearly all trees and shrubs that shed their leaves in autumn and survive freezing weather without injury for a part of the year, is that of rest. this rest in plants is somewhat similar to sleep in animals in that it is a period in which the life process activities take place slowly. in other words, the plant physiologist defines rest in living plants as that period in which their buds will not open and grow even though the temperature, moisture, and other external environmental conditions are highly suitable for growth. [footnote : division of fruit and vegetable crops and disease, bureau of plant industry, soils, and agricultural engineering, agricultural research administration, u. s. department of agriculture.] different kinds of deciduous plants have or require rest periods of different lengths, just as some people require more sleep than do others. two or three weeks may be enough for soft-shelled almonds but three or four months may be required for butternuts, to cite extremes. the eastern black walnut requires more rest than most persian walnut clones, and they more than the southern california black walnut. even within a species there is considerable difference in the rest period of individual seedling trees and certain clones. for example, it has been found that the varieties of persian walnut grown in northern california and in oregon, such as franquette and mayette, have the longest rest period; and those grown in southern california, such as placentia, ehrhardt, chase, and others, have the shortest rest period. it is quite possible that the clones and seedlings of the persian walnut brought to this country a few years ago by the rev. paul crath from the carpathian mountains of poland may require the longest rest period of all. the question may be asked what causes or brings on this rest period in plants and what breaks it? the scientific answers to these questions are not known at this time, but we do know some of the factors which cause the initiation of rest and how it is broken. tree growth is initiated in the spring with coming of warm weather and other suitable conditions. at first the rate of growth is slow; but the rate increases and goes through a maximum and then slows up again and finally ceases. on the cessation of growth in length, a terminal bud is formed and the tree begins to go into rest. this period of growth is determined by the age of the tree, the suitability of moisture and nutrient supply. young trees grow longer during the spring and summer than do old ones. deficiencies of soil moisture or nutrients or both cause the cessation of growth and the beginning of rest. in some trees, such as tung, cessation of growth and the initiation of rest is caused by the change from long to short day-lengths. after rest has begun, the longer it continues the more profound or deeper it becomes until a maximum is reached, i.e., it becomes increasingly difficult, up to a certain time, to make the trees start growth again even though optimum conditions are provided. some trees such as persian walnuts and pecans, for example, are slow to go into deep or profound rest in late summer or fall. for this reason, there may be several cycles or periods of growth during the summer and early fall, depending on weather conditions and whether the leaves on the trees have remained in a healthy condition. under conditions of dry weather growth stops on the persian walnut and pecan and when this is followed by a rainy period and warm weather growth begins again. in fact in early summer a walnut or pecan tree may form terminal buds on all the shoots and remain without growth long enough for an apple or pear tree to go into complete or profound rest; then later, new shoot growth may be made from all or nearly all of the walnut or pecan shoots. not only is this an important factor in promoting susceptibility to cold injury but in the case of bearing trees more often than not this late growth prevents the proper development of the kernels in the nuts and they are poorly filled or shriveled at harvest. should the leaves of these trees in midsummer or later be so seriously damaged by disease or insects as to result in partial or complete defoliation, new growth is generally sure to follow even in late fall if growing conditions are suitable. this habit permits such trees to grow so late that there is much greater danger of severe injury from late fall or early winter than is the case with most other deciduous fruit trees. furthermore, it explains why we see so much cold injury in the shoots and limbs of trees; they had grown late and had no chance to develop hardiness before killing temperatures occurred. after the rest in trees has become deep or profound a certain amount of chilling temperature must prevail before the rest period is broken so as to permit the buds to open and grow normally on the approach of warm weather. this is often spoken of as the chilling requirement. if the rest period is not broken by a suitable amount of chilling, tree growth is very slow to start in the spring, and then only certain of the longer and stronger twigs may force into growth; water sprouts may develop on the trunks and main limbs; flower buds may not open but fall off; and even though the trees may flower the flowering period is long and few or no fruits or nuts may be set. the most effective chilling temperature is not known but we can be reasonably certain that temperatures of °f. to °f. are just as effective in breaking the winter rest period as are those well below freezing, if not more so. this chilling requirement is essentially the same as the rest period. almonds have a short rest period and require to weeks of chilling, while butternuts, with a long rest period, may require or months. when the tree has been subjected to adequate chilling the rest period is broken and with the oncoming of warm weather growth, blossoming and fruit setting is normal. a distinction of great importance from a physiological and a practical point of view is made between rest and dormancy in plants. this difference can be simply stated: plants, trees, or seeds that will not grow when external environmental conditions are favorable for growth are in rest, but after the rest period has been broken and they do not grow because of unfavorable conditions they are said to be dormant. the difference between rest period and dormancy is of great importance in the united states in determining the amount of cold injury that may be sustained by woody plants. furthermore, it explains why certain plants may be successfully grown in much colder parts of the world and yet fail here. our winter weather conditions are not uniform, in that it is quite common for us to have quite long periods of alternating warm and cold weather. too often during mid-or late winter the weather may be quite warm for several days, with above-freezing temperatures even at night, only to be quickly followed by a sudden and extreme drop in temperature. such conditions are almost certain to result in cold injury to at least certain kinds of woody plants in which the rest period had been broken prior to the occurrence of warm weather, especially so if conditions are favorable for initiation of growth. the plants that were still in the rest period at the time of the warm weather or those with high heat requirement to start growth (as for example, the pecan) would be the only ones that would escape injury. to illustrate with an example: the chinese chestnut tree has a shorter rest period or less chilling requirement than does the average persian walnut tree. now suppose that during the months of november and december a sufficient number of hours of chilling temperatures were experienced to break the rest period or to satisfy the chilling requirement of the chinese chestnut but not that of the persian walnut. then suppose there was a period of two weeks or more of warm weather in january and it was ended by a very sudden drop to below freezing temperatures. later we would expect to find that some parts or tissues of the chinese chestnut trees had been injured while the persian walnut trees had survived without injury. similar differences would be expected with other crops, such as peaches and apples, that have a difference in rest period or chilling requirement. under the conditions just described the parts or tissues of the tree that are most likely to be injured are those that first become active with the coming of warm weather, such as the pith in the wood, the lower buds, and later the cambium or the leaf buds. this explains why peach fruit buds and the catkins of the european filbert are often killed in the east during the winter. some kinds of woody plants are very much hardier than are other kinds. for example, the butternut is hardier than the eastern black walnut and the almond is hardier than the tung tree. hardiness is only a relative term and can be determined only when the different kinds of plants are in the same physiological condition as regards growth or activity. just what it is that makes a difference in the hardiness or ability to withstand low temperatures without injury is not known. however, over the years, experience and research have taught us that there are a number of factors that affect the hardiness of woody plants. there is a very great difference between the temperature that will cause injury to a tree tissue when it is in active growth and most tender in the spring and that required when it is most resistant in midwinter. with some trees this difference in temperature is as much as ° to °f. or even more. with woody plants, the tissues are least hardy in spring when they are growing rapidly, and as the season progresses hardiness normally increases provided that second or late growth does not occur. there are many changes that take place in the tissues of a tree as hardiness is developed: the moisture content is reduced; cell walls are thickened; the concentration of sugars, starches, and other carbohydrates becomes greater; there is the formation of pentosans, gums, and waxes; and the respiration and other life processes become slower. however, none of these offer a full and satisfactory explanation of why the plant becomes as resistant to cold as it does. all of these changes and probably many others play a part in developing hardiness in woody plants. maximum hardiness is developed only by trees that support a large area of normal leaves continuously from the time of foliation in the spring until late fall when they are killed by frost. attacks by insects or diseases that injure the leave or cause partial or complete defoliation at any time during the spring, summer, or before the occurrence of frost in the fall, not only prevent the development of maximum hardiness of the trees, but such defoliation results in reduced growth of the trees and in poor filling of the nuts. the importance of maintaining a large area of healthy leaves on the trees during the entire growing season can hardly be too strongly stressed. this is because trees that hold their leaves are strong, vigorous trees and are the ones best able to withstand cold, as well as other adversities, without injury. this, however, does not mean that fertilizer applications should be made in late summer or that cultivation should be practiced at that time, which would tend under suitable conditions to stimulate late growth of the trees. this is because some trees like the persian walnut are slow to go into rest at best and practices that stimulate late growth of the trees cause them to be susceptible to cold injury especially in late fall or early winter. i have seen very severe injury and killing of pecan trees in south georgia as a result of spring fertilizer applications which, because of drouth, did not become available to the trees until late august and early september and then caused second growth of the trees. in the case of walnuts and pecans, especially, but also others than are not sprayed for the control of diseases and insects, it is not uncommon for the trees to become defoliated in late summer and while bearing a crop of nuts. very often this premature defoliation results in the production of a new crop of leaves and some shoot growth. this is one of the worst conditions one can have in an orchard, for the nuts are certain to be very poorly filled and the trees especially susceptible to cold injury. in such a case as this, the nuts withdraw carbohydrates, proteins and minerals from the leaves and wood of the tree for their development and the production of new leaves and shoots has a like effect. this all results in such a severe removal or using up of the materials involved in the development? of hardiness that such trees are very susceptible to cold injury. woody plants to be resistant to cold injury must be well nourished. unbalanced mineral nutrition of trees is a very important factor in determining the amount of injury they may sustain from cold weather. in the various parts of the united states the soils on which fruit and nut trees are grown generally do not supply in adequate amounts some one or more of the essential elements required in their nutrition. this condition results in unbalanced nutrition, in that too much of certain elements is absorbed by the trees and too little of certain other elements. under severe conditions this causes the leaves to be abnormal in size or in form, for them to be chlorotic or to scorch or burn, or for them to drop prematurely. such leaves do not function properly, they are not able to carry on photosynthesis at a normal rate and hence do not make sufficient plant foods of the proper kinds to properly nourish the trees. this results in disorders of various kinds said to be due to mineral deficiencies. among these deficiencies that have been found to reduce tree growth and yield and to increase susceptibility to cold injury are ( ) boron, ( ) copper, ( ) iron, ( ) magnesium, ( ) manganese, ( ) nitrogen, ( ) phosphorus, ( ) potassium, ( ) zinc, and others. in all cases the corrective treatment to be given consists in supplying the trees with the element or elements in which they are deficient. these must be supplied in an available form and by such methods that they can be absorbed by the trees. the size of the crop of fruit or nuts borne by a tree and the length of time between harvest and a killing freeze are important factors in determining the cold resistance of fruit or nut trees. in test winters many cases have been observed in which trees that matured heavy crops during the previous summer were severely injured. cases have been observed in which the degree of cold injury sustained has been largely in proportion to the size of crop matured the previous growing season. trees that mature the crop of fruits or nuts late in the season may be less hardy than those that mature the crop early. it seems not only that some material or materials are made in the leaves during late summer or early fall which move out of them into the wood and cause it become resistant to low temperatures, but that when a tree is maturing a crop so much of this material goes into the fruits or nuts that if the season is not a favorable one the wood may not attain its maximum hardiness. we have learned that a high percentage of certain of the minerals, carbohydrates, and oil that go to make up the kernels of the oily nuts are transported into them during a period comprising a month to six weeks before they are mature. in the production of a heavy crop the amount of minerals and elaborated food materials such as proteins, carbohydrates, and fats removed from a tree is very large. if the trees do not carry a large healthy leaf area at the time of harvest or if there is a killing frost at that time, the leaves have no opportunity to elaborate more carbohydrates and other materials to replace those removed in the crop, and as a result the trees do not develop maximum hardiness. to cite an outstanding example of this effect of the crop on hardiness, i want to describe some observations i made several years ago. the late j. b. wight of cairo, ga., had a few hundred satsuma orange trees that bore a very heavy crop of fruit. the fruit had all been harvested from certain of these trees for two weeks or more before the occurrence of a freeze the last of november. from other trees the fruit crop had only been partially harvested and none had been harvested from most of them. the day and night temperatures had been warm but there was a rather sudden drop into the low 's during one night with the result that all of the trees from which no fruit had been harvested were killed to the ground. the trees from which a part of the fruit had been removed were defoliated and all but the large limbs were killed. the trees from which all the fruit had been removed two weeks or more before the freeze were defoliated, but little or no injury to the woods occurred. the severe injury was probably because the materials making for hardiness in the wood had been transported to the maturing fruits and the temperature dropped quickly before the trees had time to develop cold resistance. it is a well-known fact that many kinds of non-woody as well as many woody plants develop hardiness or cold resistance on exposure to very gradually falling temperatures. this change, in the case of non-woody plants such as cabbage or wheat, is spoken of as "hardening off." it is not known how important this is in developing cold resistance in flower and leaf buds of woody plants. it is quite possible that buds that have become extremely tender as a result of rapid growth might, if held for some time at temperatures too low for further growth, become quite resistant to low temperatures just as do wheat or cabbage. generally speaking, the greatest amount of cold injury to the buds or above-ground portions of a tree occurs on a single night. the length of the cold period is of only indirect importance as influencing the rate of temperature fall or the acquiring of cold resistance by the trees. trees that are subjected to low temperatures over a considerable period of time are not nearly so likely to be injured as are those that are subjected to a low temperature suddenly. that is really why there is so much severe cold injury to woody plants in the south. in the deep south freezing weather may be uncommon but when freezes do occur usually they follow a period of comparatively warm weather and the temperature falls quickly. it is this sudden change in temperature that causes the severe injury. two different places may have had the same mean monthly temperature yet at one place severe injury may have occurred and no injury at the other place with plants normally having equal hardiness. a careful analysis of the situation, however, would probably show that at the place where the injury occurred a period of warm weather had existed which was followed by a rapid drop in temperature to a killing low on a single night, whereas the trees at the place where no injury occurred were not subjected to such changes in temperature. on the other hand, injury to the roots usually occurs only after prolonged periods of cold weather. this is largely because the soil cools slowly and it requires a long period of cold weather to reduce the soil temperature sufficiently and to such depths as to cause injury to the roots. under northern conditions where low temperatures for a rather long period are sometimes experienced, injury to the portion of the trees above ground may occur as a result of drying out of the wood. it is well known that a cake of ice will gradually evaporate and disappear when in the open and exposed continuously to below-freezing temperatures. we all know that the family wetwash when hung on a line and frozen will soon dry, especially if the wind blows. the principles operating in these cases may cause severe injury to trees. in the wintertime the root systems of trees take up water from the soil that is not frozen and this water moves in the tree to replace that lost by evaporation. under conditions where the soil is frozen to such an extent that the water absorbed by the roots is continually less than that lost by the top of the trees by evaporation, drying out of the top occurs. if this is continued over a period of time a dryness of the wood and other tissues occurs that causes death of the dried-out portions. this type of injury does not show the typical symptoms of cold injury but rather those of drying out. the conditions that are most likely to cause such injury are a soil frozen to the effective rooting depths, a dry atmosphere, and a moderately high wind velocity. injury of a similar nature to that just described very often affects trees transplanted in late fall or early winter, especially those that did not have their tops cut back to balance the loss of roots sustained in transplanting. during even very mild winters the tops of such trees dry out to such an extent that the small branches and even the leader may die. in extreme cases the entire top may die back to the root. in planting bare-root trees regardless of the time of the year they should be rather severely cut back immediately after transplanting to prevent such drying out and dying back of the wood. cut-back trees generally will make more growth the first season following transplanting than will similar trees not cut back. one of the most common types of injury to young nut trees as well as others is that known as "sun scald" or "winter injury". this occurs generally on the south or southwest sides of the trunk and for some distance between the ground and the head of the tree. usually the injury is not evident until a year or so after it occurred and then it may be observed as a narrow strip of discolored and sunken bark which may crack where it meets the live tissue. this dead or injured area is usually invaded by borers of one or more kinds. this so-called sun scald injury is thought to be caused by the alternate freezing and thawing of the tissues on the south and southwest sides of the tree. on a bright, sunshiny day, even though cold, the sun's rays striking the bark of the tree quickly raise the temperature of the bark and wood. when the sun is obscured by clouds or at nightfall the temperature of the tissues drops rapidly and they may freeze again. it is thought that the rapid and rather great change in temperature of the bark and wood is the primary cause of sun scald. whatever the cause, we know that it can be prevented by shading the tree trunk. this can be done by heading the trees low so that the branches shade the trunk, or by shading the south side of the trunk with a board or inches wide, or by wrapping the trunk with burlap or similar material. much of the injury to chinese chestnut, pecan, and hickory trees, especially, is caused by inexperienced growers who cut off the low branches in an effort to raise the head of young trees. the chinese chestnut generally forms a very low-headed or bush-type tree. most of the cold or winter injury i have seen on chinese chestnut trees has been on the trunks and has resulted from removing the lower limbs so that they were not shaded. hardiness in woody plants is only a relative term and is determined by the condition of the plant at the time the low temperature occurs. woody plants are most tender when they are most actively growing and most resistant to cold injury when they are in deep or profound rest. strong, vigorous, well-nourished trees are much more resistant to cold injury than weak, poorly-nourished trees. hence, the successful grower makes an effort through disease and insect control and proper fertilization and cultivation to keep his trees strong. these practices should be so carried out that the trees will make a strong, vigorous growth in the spring and early summer and then go into rest without a second or third flush of growth. the trees should carry their leaves until frost as there are some things made in them that cause the trees to develop resistance to cold injury. winter or cold injury can destroy in a single night the hopes and expectations of several years' work but, in the main, if one grows well only those trees that are suited to the environment such losses are only rarely experienced. nut culture in ontario i. c. marritt, district forester, ontario department of lands and forests it was suggested to me that a paper be prepared on nut culture in ontario. the department of land and forests of ontario has not done specialized work on nut culture. the reason for this neglect is not that various members did not realize the importance of nut culture, but that there was always more work on general reforestation and woodlot extension than could be done. the work with nut trees has been along with their general work. we have not, as yet, had a member of the staff who has gone "nutty" over nuts. it is hoped that your meeting here will stir up interest in this worthy subject. we are very proud in ontario of the work that has been done on general reforestation and woodlot management. this is a subject that all nut enthusiasts are interested in, and we would like you to know what is being done in ontario. the province of ontario has been distributing trees free to landowners since . there are three well-equipped tree nurseries, and a fourth is being developed in the eastern part of the province. a fifth nursery has been started in the northwest at fort william on lake superior. the number of trees distributed varies considerably from year to year. the high distribution years were and , when approximately seventeen million trees were planted each year. during the war years, on account of the labour situation and war activities, the distribution declined to between ten and eleven million trees. this past season, the demand was much larger than the supply. all the nurseries are expanding, as it is anticipated there will be a heavy demand by private planters, and also most of the counties are enlarging the area of their county forests. the application form for forest trees includes seven evergreens and nineteen deciduous trees. walnut and butternut are the only nut trees on the application form. shagbark hickory has also been grown, but not in large enough quantity to include it in the list of available trees. the st. williams tree nursery near lake erie has grown named varieties of walnuts and hickories. these have been given out to interested parties, and, in future years, will further the growing of the more desirable nut trees. about ten years ago, the citizens of st. thomas planted nut trees two or three feet in height for seventy miles along no. highway which crosses elgin county. a large number of these trees have survived. a large acreage of forest trees has also been planted under the counties reforestation act. under this act the county purchases the land and the province plants and looks after the plantations for thirty years. the county then has three options _re_ paying back the cost of planting and supervision. all the options are without interest charges. the county forests are largely on light sandy soils that, in most cases, are a liability to the municipalities if they are not growing trees. the ontario government passed an act in that gave the counties the right to pass a by-law to regulate cutting on privately-owned woodlots. you will be interested to know that eleven counties have passed by-laws to regulate cutting. they are all based on a diameter limit. we realize that a diameter limit is a poor substitute for good forestry practice, but it is better than unrestricted cutting. the diameter limits range from ten to sixteen inches for most trees, and five to six inches for cedars. considerable extension work was done on nut growing in the period from to . mr. james a. neilson, an extension horticulturist stationed at vineland, became very interested and located many individual trees and gave numerous lectures on nut culture. a bulletin by mr. neilson on nut culture was published in , and reprinted in , by the ontario department of agriculture. mr. neilson went to michigan and did extension work on this subject until his untimely death. mr. g. h. corsan has also done considerable work to keep nut culture before the public by writing letters to the different newspapers. there has always been a large demand for black walnut. the reason for this is the high value placed on this wood and the planting of these trees for shade and nut production, although the consumption of native nuts is comparatively low. the black walnut grew, originally, south of a line from toronto to sarnia. it has been planted as far north as ottawa, and is distributed quite widely in old ontario now--being planted largely as shade trees. these shade trees are producing nuts, and with the aid of squirrels, the walnuts are seeding up along fence rows, around farm homes, and in woodlots. walnut has been observed coming up in a woodlot, and the only possible source is a shade tree half a mile away. the walnut caterpillar defoliates the trees but seldom kills them, although it does lower their value as shade trees. walnut has been a favorite species for forest tree planting. it is planted in pure stands and in mixtures. the largest and best known walnut plantation was put out by sir william mullock in on the highway north of toronto. there are numerous small plantations throughout the province. foresters in ontario generally recommend mixing walnut with other hardwoods and evergreens rather than planting in pure stands. it has been advocated to plant walnuts with white spruce. the idea is that spruce will shade the ground, kill the side branches of the walnut, and help to force the walnuts to grow long slender poles. it is understood, and expected, that the spruce will be ruined, as their leaders would grow into the branches of the walnut. as far as we know, this experiment has not been undertaken. the butternut tree is found growing naturally farther north than the walnut tree. its northern boundary is roughly a line drawn from midland on georgian bay to ottawa. it is widely distributed, but is not in large enough quantity to have commercial value for lumber. an expert wood carver, who is employed by the department of lands and forests, uses butternut largely in his work. the shagbark and bitternut hickories make up the large percentage of the hickories growing in ontario. the northern limit of the bitternut is approximately the same as the butternut--that is, midland on georgian bay and ottawa on the east; while the northern limit of the shagbark is thirty to forty miles south of the bitternut. the pignut and the mockernut hickories are found in the southern hardwood belt along lake erie. the american chestnut was quite plentiful in different sections of the southern hardwood belt. it was valued quite highly for the nuts. it has been killed out by the chestnut blight and it is very rarely that live suckers are seen. the beech was widely distributed in the woodland of southern ontario. it has rarely been planted as a shade tree and it is not seeding up extensively in woodlots. there are many stories of hogs being fattened on beechnuts in pioneer days. the japanese heartnut has been planted in various parts of the province. a heartnut tree in bruce county lived through a hard winter that killed many sugar maples and beech in the same area. nut trees are seeding up in many pastured woodlots in southwestern ontario. the reason for this is that stock do not relish their foliage as they do the maple, beech and basswood, etc., and because of this, it is likely that nut trees will make up a larger percentage of trees in ontario woodlots than originally, as it is a sad fact that at least seventy-five percent on the farm woodlots in ontario are still being pastured. it is hoped that more interest will be shown in planting nut trees by farmers and home owners. the department of lands and forests is enlarging its staff of extension foresters, and no doubt they will include the propagation of nut trees in their extension work. nut growing at the horticultural experiment station, vineland station, ontario w. j. strong there was very little interest in nut growing in the early days of the horticultural experiment station although back in a few filberts and persian (english) walnuts were planted. the first nut orchard at the station was set out in and since then several lots of nut trees have been added from time to time, principally filberts and persian walnuts. also a few black walnuts, japanese heartnuts, chinese chestnuts, hickories, pecan and several hybrids were planted. in twenty varieties of filberts were obtained from a nursery near rochester, n. y. these were reputed to be some of the better sorts imported from germany but when they came into bearing only one was true to name, this being italian red. another un-named variety in this lot (field number r a t , , ), proved to be hardy and very vigorous. the nuts were only of medium size but very well filled and of good quality. the rest of these were a nondescript lot of worthless varieties or seedlings and so after a few years nearly all were uprooted and discarded. at this time ( ) four varieties of persian walnuts were planted, franquette, mayette, hall and rush. the franquette and mayette have not grown very well here and have given very poor yields. both hall and rush made good growth the first or years from planting but latterly, growth has been poor and yields have fallen off considerably, although this year ( ) there is a very fair crop showing, but with rather much dropping. the nut of the hall variety is quite large but the husk is thick and the shell is thick and coarse, also in some seasons the kernel has not filled out very well. the rush has given good crops of medium-size nuts. it seems to be rather susceptible to bacterial blight. five named varieties of black walnuts also were planted at this time ( ), thomas, ohio, stabler, ten eyck and mccoy. the thomas has proven to be the best of these and the value of the others was pretty much in the order named. the last two were quite inferior as to nut, while the stabler lacked vigour and did not yield very well, although it is a nice nut and the kernel comparatively easy to extract. eight persian walnut seedlings in the same plantation, set out in , have made poor to fair growth. they have given very few nuts until this year ( ) when two of them are showing a very fair crop. about twenty japanese walnuts and hybrids with the butternut, and about the same number of persian walnut seedlings, which have been brought in by the late professor jas. a. neilson, were transplanted to the permanent fruiting positions. the japanese walnuts and hybrids were worthless and so were discarded. the persian walnuts, however, seemed to be of more value, several are quite nice nuts and one, at least, looks to be worthy of increase for further trial or limited distribution. this seedling (field number r t ) has made very fair growth and has shown only slight winter injury. for the last five or six years it has given moderately good yields of very nice looking nuts. the nuts are large, rather long and oval, resembling somewhat the franquette. the shell is smooth and moderately thick, well sealed but easy to crack. usually they are quite well filled and the kernel is mild in flavour and of nice quality. another persian walnut, set out about the same time, is the mcdermid. the original tree was found on the property of a mr. mcdermid at st. catharines, out. one grafted tree and four seedlings were planted on the station grounds. they grew well and showed very little killing back and for several years gave quite nice crops of nuts, but of recent years the yield has been rather small. the nut is blunt-oval in shape and of good size with a fairly hard shell which is well sealed but not any too easy to open. the quality is fairly good but the pellicle is rather strong flavoured. the year may be considered the high water mark in nut planting at the station. a variety block of filberts was set out that year and fifty one-year-old persian walnut seedlings (carpathian strain) were planted in a nursery row, and in permanent location in . the filbert planting consisted of from three to nine bushes each of twelve varieties, including aveline (white), barcelona, bixby, bolwyller, buchanan, cosford, daviana, du chilly, medium long, red lambert (?) and jones hybrid. these were planted in a compact block, feet apart each way on the square. a lesser distance no doubt would be sufficient for upright growing sorts like du chilly but some of the more spreading kinds can use the greater distance. most of these filberts started to yield a few nuts at five to seven years from planting and at nine or ten years were giving good crops. yields have fluctuated considerably from year to year, and also between varieties and different bushes of the same variety. yields obtained from individual ten-year-old bushes and size of nut are given in the following table. quarts[ ] pints, nuts size of nut name (with husks) (without husks) no. per pint barcelona bixby ( ) bixby ( ) daviana ( ) daviana ( ) du chilly ( ) du chilly ( ) medium long [footnote : canadian measure.] higher yields have undoubtedly been obtained from other plantations and from other individual bushes and certainly lower yields, also, may be expected. those given above are for from the best ten-year-old bushes in a plantation of forty plants. yield and size of nut while of major importance are not the only criteria for appraising the value of a nut variety. in filberts, such points as ease of husking, amount of fibre and, of course, quality must be considered. also, as in other nuts, thickness of shell and proportions of kernel to shell are quite important. vigour and hardiness of bush and hardiness of flower, male and female, are assumed, as without these high yields are not to be expected. most of the filbert varieties in bearing at the horticultural experiment station with a few of their outstanding qualities are noted below. barcelona has a rather thick shell and too much fibre. it matures early, first week of september, and the nuts drop out of the husk fairly readily. the plant is strong and vigorous and somewhat spreading in habit of growth. it appears to be hardy. du chilly is not always hardy and it is difficult to husk. some bushes of this variety have given quite low yields. medium long is a useful nut. it is not as large as the former two, but it fills well and there is very little fibre; also the shell is thin. it ripens somewhat later than barcelona and is easy to husk. bixby is of medium size, somewhat pointed with a medium thick shell but almost no fibre. it is late in maturing, first week of october, and does not husk readily. daviana is a large, attractive nut with a moderately thin shell and has very little fibre. the quality is good. the nuts are mostly borne singly but with some pairs and they are apt to cling to the husk. cosford is a very nice nut. it is similar to medium long, somewhat smaller and of good appearance. it has a thin shell and is of good quality. it ripens early and separates readily from the husk. perhaps not always hardy. bolwyller is hardy, yields moderately well and has nice quality. buchanan, much like bixby, but a more vigorous grower. rather difficult to pick. the nut has good quality and very little fibre. italian red, one of the best but not hardy. the filbert plantings have been added to from time to time. in , open-pollinated seedlings of the hardy seedling ( r at , , -- planting) were set out and are now ( ) beginning to bear a few nuts. the main purpose of growing these seedlings is to find a larger nut of good quality with the vigour and hardiness of the female parent. in a bush each of beethe, buchanan, luisen and volkugel varieties were set out, also bushes of the following hybrids: rush x white aveline no. rush x kentish cob no. and rush x barcelona no. and rush x bolwyller no. rush x red lambert no. and rush x du chilly no. and rush x daviana no. and this material was supplied by the new york state agricultural experiment station for test purposes. so far none of these has come into bearing. the seedling carpathian walnuts ( planting) are nearly all bearing a few nuts. some began in while other bore nothing until several years later. one tree in gave six pints of nuts, without the husks, another four pints and several two pints, but most of them much less. as in other seedling trees there is much variation in this lot of walnuts. they vary considerably in habit of growth and vigour, also in nut characteristics. they have shown little or no winter injury. it is too early yet to pass judgment on these seedlings. undoubtedly many of them are worthless, others are on the border line, and a few may be better than seedlings already growing in the niagara fruit belt. it is possible that some may have sufficient hardiness for planting in the less favoured sections of ontario. other types of nuts growing at the horticultural experiment station are of general interest. the chestnuts and most of the pecans are very young and so are not bearing. several hickories, =carya ovata= and =c. laciniosa=, and japanese walnuts bear some nuts occasionally. the persian walnut x black walnut hybrids bear a few nuts sometimes but are worthless; the trees however, are nice as ornamentals. the japanese walnut x butternut hybrids usually have a nice crop but the nuts are of questionable value. the trees are nice ornamentals although subject to wind injury. several seedling chinese chestnuts were topworked to selected chinese chestnuts, grafts of which were obtained from the division of forest pathology of the u. s. department of agriculture. unfortunately these were all destroyed at the result of construction work. in addition to plantings made at this station, nuts and nut seedlings have been distributed to people who wished to grow a few nut trees on their own places. cultural practices have been very simple at the station. after planting, the trees were cultivated for a year or two, then the space between sown to grass and clover and the space just around the trees was mulched with manure, hay, etc. the grass is cut several times a year and placed around the trees as additional mulch. small quantities of a good commercial fertilizer such as - - have been applied occasionally and some nitrogen also has been used. pruning has been reduced to a minimum, a light thinning out of branches being given as required. very little attempt has been made to keep filberts to a single stem, but the walnuts have been kept to a single low-headed trunk. there has been a marked increase in interest in the planting of nut trees in ontario since the first plantings were made at the station. these station plantings serve to demonstrate in a small way that nut trees can be grown in the niagara fruit belt of ontario. the feasibilty, however, of growing nut crops in a commercial way, even in this district, is still open to question, although it is felt that farmers and others should be encouraged to plant a few nut trees on their property both for the sake of the nuts and because of the ornamental nature of the trees. soil management for nut plantations in ontario j. r. van haarlem, horticultural experiment station, vineland station, ontario fruitgrowers with high priced land, such as we have in the niagara peninsula, are not much interested in using such land for a crop not yet proven commercially sound. plantings, whether large or small, are likely to be made on low-priced marginal land needing good care. it is doubtful if these locations are best suited to proper nut culture since most nut trees are deep rooted with extensive root systems requiring the best soils. at the vineland station we have three plantations made up of walnuts, filberts, chestnuts and pecans. these comprise named varieties and seedlings of black, carpathian, and other persian walnuts, filberts, chestnuts and pecans. during the first years of the life of these plantations we maintained a clean cultivation program during the spring and early summer followed by the planting of a green-manure crop about july st each year. such crops as buckwheat, millet, rye, and weeds, have been used on occasion. we soon found that the treatment was not good enough for the trees and we then changed to a grass sod with mulch around each tree within the spread of the branches. since this sod-mulch treatment was applied the trees have done very much better, making fine growth and maintaining a large leaf area of good color. this treatment is fairly representative of the many trees planted in dooryards under sod conditions, where the grass is cut and left on top. most of our ontario soils are deficient in organic matter and, depending on location, deficient in phosphate or potash, or both together. the mineral deficiency should first be corrected by liberal applications of the required fertilizer before placing the plantations in sod, in fact it would pay to do this several years before setting out the trees, growing alfalfa on this land and returning all the hay back into the soil. for plantations already set out these minerals could be placed in a furrow cut just under the outer spread of the branches. our soils have a high fixation factor for phosphate and potash and we have found that the best practice is to place the fertilizer under the surface either with a deep-placement machine or as outlined above. after the plantation is in sod an application of to , lbs. of a - - fertilizer every fifth year should take care of the mineral requirements. however, our experience with fruit in general where planted in sod is that not sufficient care is taken to keep the trees well supplied with nitrogen, many growers laboring under the mistaken idea that just the sod is sufficient. liberal applications of either manure or nitrate in the spring is necessary to make sure that the tree gets its required nitrogen and not just the sod alone. mineral fertilizers should be applied in the late fall, for under our conditions fixation of phosphate and potash is considerably less at that time. the plantation may be seeded down in the early spring but mulch should not be added until late fall. applying the mulch in late fall will allow the material to fill up with water from the fall rains and winter snows, and so prevent the serious withholding of water from the trees during dry spells in the summer, because the light summer rains are seldom sufficient to soak through the dry mulch material. we have had several instances where a summer-applied mulch has seriously robbed the tree of needed moisture during dry weather. do not look for immediate improvement from sod-mulch, it will take at least two years to become well established. improvement should begin to show up the second year after applying. we sometimes see a chlorotic condition of the foliage, different from the pale yellow foliage due to nitrogen deficiency, which occurs on marginal or shallow soil and often where the soil remains too moist, as along a water course or low spot. we frequently see this same trouble on grape foliage in such locations. this is probably due to a lack of sufficient iron intake caused by a deficiency of manganese. it can be cured by either spraying with a % solution of magananese sulphate or applying the dry salt under the spread of the branches. the spraying method seems to give better and faster results. it has been reported from british columbia that some die-back is due to deficiency of boron. perhaps some of the die-back we see on nut trees during the summer is due to this cause and not all to winter injury. the very erratic results from ground application of borax would indicate that borax should be incorporated with one of the regular sprays as a % mixture. our conclusions therefore are that nut plantations should be placed in sod as soon as possible and a mulch established the fall of the year the grass is sown. each year cut the grass and draw in around the tree to supplement the mulch. if not enough material is gathered in this way it can be supplemented by straw or old hay. manure or nitrate should be applied each spring and trace elements where needed can be incorporated in the regular spray program. * * * * * discussion after j. r. van haarlem's paper. dr. macdaniels: "i realize that there are more trees which are starving to death than are being overfed." silvis: "do you recommend that freshly cut hay be used as mulch?" van haarlem: "any crop refuse can be used as mulch. anything that will rot down. the ph of the soil should be . to . ." o'rourke: "would you use clean cultivation for the first year?" van haarlem: "there is nothing against it. we use sod mulch at vineland. the reason that our growers are not growing nut plantations is that good land, that is good soil, sells for $ , per acre. nut trees grown on poor land, cheap land, do not produce." mccollum: "i am surprised that rain would not go through loose straw and will go through old straw. where does the rain go when it falls on the loose straw?" van haarlem: "it is absorbed before it gets through the straw. dry mulch should be inches deep." member: "how would you prevent erosion on rolling land?" van haarlem: "plant on the contour." dr. crane: "how often do you renew mulch under trees?" van haarlem: "after first application additional may be needed but after that enough is grown under trees which when cut and raked will suffice." report from southern ontario alex troup, jordan station, ontario here in southern ontario we find that most of the northern nuts do well in most seasons. among black walnuts the thomas, ohio, and many others do well. the thomas does not always fill. the ohio seems to be the favorite among persian (english) walnuts. franquette, broadview and a few others are satisfactory but sometimes do not fill well. of japanese heartnut walnuts nearly all do well. the mitchell, stranger, bates and others are satisfactory. all the shagbarks and shellbarks are doing well, although only the young shagbarks are bearing, and then only lightly. chestnuts have done well at times but some trees have been killed by the blight. we have japanese, chinese and some other seedlings. they are sometimes winter injured. filberts are satisfactory and usually bear well. we have barcelona, du chilly, troup, white aveline, italian red, kentish cob, daviana, mosier, guy smith, nonpariel and brixnut. the barcelona drops nearly free of the husk and is a fine nut. most are of this variety. we do not have hazels. pecans will grow and bear but do not fill. nut trees hardy at aldershot, ontario, canada o. filman, aldershot during the past nine or ten years i have planted a few trees of some of the better known varieties of northern nut species, some of them chosen from the lists of promising selections in the annual reports of the northern nut growers association, some on the recommendation of reliable nut nurserymen. these trees have been planted here and there in various locations where space permitted on a small fruit and vegetable farm, not in orchard form nor in a solid nut tree planting. editor's note: anyone reading this paper should remember that it applies to an area of intensive growth of peaches, pears, and other fruits in a bit of canadian land west of niagara falls and protected spring and fall from extremes of temperatures by lake ontario on the north and lake erie on the south. the paper by h. l. crane in this report should be read in connection with it. aldershot is a fruit and vegetable growing district, about six miles from hamilton, below the escarpment, on the toronto-hamilton lake shore highway. this district is almost at the western tip of lake ontario and is more or less a continuation of the niagara fruit belt which borders the lake. consequently the climate is not so severe as that of localities situated a few miles farther from the lake and above the niagara escarpment at higher altitudes. winter temperatures seldom go much below zero, although, in occasional seasons, temperatures of- degrees f., and sometimes even somewhat lower, are experienced. the soil is a deep, well-drained, light sandy loam, known as fox sandy loam, considered a good fruit and vegetable soil, if organic matter and fertility are maintained with manure, fertilizers and green manure crops. nut trees, which i have planted, include chinese chestnut, heart nut, filbert, hickories, butternut, persian walnut, a few black walnut seedlings and two seedling pecans. =chestnuts.= the native chestnut grew in the woods of this locality before the blight reached it. i have tried eight varieties of oriental chestnuts, and i have trees surviving of five: abundance, hobson, carr, zimmerman, and one of mr. carroll d. bush's called chinese sweet no. . they all came through a temperature of about- degrees, early in (with the exception of zimmerman which was planted later) without showing any sign of killing back or other visible injury. unfortunately, i have kept no records of crops but expect to do so. =abundance.= one bearing tree, purchased from mr. bush of oregon, and planted in the spring of . bore a few burs in . bore a crop in , missed , a good crop in . it is bearing what appears to me to be quite a heavy crop this year, . blossoms in july. bears a good-size, attractive nut, which falls free from the bur, ripening in early october. abundance has made the best growth of any of the varieties and appears the most promising. =hobson.= two trees, one, planted in , bore its first crop in ; the other, planted in , not yet bearing. has been a little disappointing, in view of the very favourable reports of its performance in more southern locations in the united states. probably it is a little too far north of its natural environment. in some seasons it has made rather good growth, but not as vigorous as that of abundance. it bore a fair crop in , however, of attractive nuts of about the same size as abundance. it ripened in late october about two weeks later than abundance. these nuts germinated well this spring when planted in pots in the greenhouse. =carr.= one tree surviving, planted in . two others, planted in , have died, but i do not believe that winter injury was the cause of their death. has grown slowly, bearing in and . the nut is much smaller than that produced by the same variety at more southern latitudes, judging from descriptions of it which i have read. the nut is much smaller than that of hobson, as grown here. this small tree bore a tremendous crop in , more than i thought any tree of its size could support. the tree was literally covered with burs. the nuts were very small, not larger than a small native chestnut. they ripened early, beginning to drop from the burs by september th. i stratified most of the nuts in pots of soil and planted nuts from this little tree, which is only about seven feet high and not at all spreading. germination was good. =zimmerman.= one small tree planted spring of . not bearing yet. is not growing fast but appears healthy with good foliage. =chinese sweet no. .= purchased from mr. bush in . planted at the same time as abundance, which mr. bush at that time called chinese sweet no. . he later named no. abundance, but did not consider no. worthy of naming. has grown well, but has borne very few nuts. mr. bush discarded it for the same fault. [see comment following.--ed.] i have also tried and lost the following varieties: connecticut yankee, austin japanese and stoke hybrid. i have quite a number of young seedlings of abundance, carr and a few of hobson, from seed produced on my own trees, some of which i hope to allow to bear in order to see if anything promising shows up among them. the abundance seedlings seem to inherit the superior vigour of their female parent. =heartnuts.= the japanese walnut grows vigorously. i have planted a few of mr. j. u. gellatly's varieties, as well as the wright heartnut. all of the ones planted seem perfectly hardy and at home. i have only one tree of each variety. =o.k.= from j. u. gellatly, planted in . transplanted . bore its first nuts, one cluster, in . cracking and extraction of kernel were excellent. the flavour was fine. size of nut about medium. =okanda.= from j. u. gellatly, . said by mr. gellatly to be a hybrid between heartnut and native butternut. tree vigorous. nut has a smooth shell like a heartnut. cracking and extraction good. flavour excellent. nut about size and shape of a medium-sized heartnut. bore its first crop in and is repeating this year with a fair crop. =crofter.= from j. u. gellatly, . also said by mr. gellatly to be a hybrid between heartnut and butternut. tree vigorous. bore its first crop in and has a few nuts this year. the nut has a comparatively smooth shell like a heartnut, is somewhat larger than that of okanda but does not crack as well, or rather the kernel does not come out of the cavity nearly so well as that of okanda. flavour fine. =canoka.= from j. u. gellatly, . a pure heartnut. tree very vigorous. bearing its first crop this year, several clusters. =slioka.= a new heartnut from mr. gellatly, planted in . tree growth is vigorous. is bearing one nut, its first, this year. =wright.= from benton and smith nurseries . seems to be hardy. tree growth has not been very strong but appears healthy. =new, un-named heartnut.= from j. u. gellatly, planted in the spring of . a new selection which mr. gellatly has not named. the tree has grown vigorously and it is bearing its first crop of several clusters of nuts. =butternuts.= i have only one grafted butternut tree, a crax-ezy, from the michigan nut nurseries in , transplanted in . the tree has been hardy and healthy but has not grown very vigorously. it is bearing its first crop this year. i had one tree of the sherwood butternut, planted in , which died last winter as a result, i believe, of a heavy infestation of oyster shell scale which i did not control soon enough. sherwood bore early and heavily. the nut was extremely large but did not crack at all well. =persian walnut.= only one grafted tree, a broadview, from mr. gellatly, planted in , transplanted in . has been hardy, but has just begun to make really good growth, this year. has not borne. =filberts.= i have planted four of mr. gellatly's varieties, namely craig, brag, comet and holder, as well as barcelona, cosford, medium long and buchanan. craig and brag are the only ones which have borne. trees of those varieties planted in bore their first crop in . they have very few nuts on them this year. all varieties seem to be winter-hardy in the wood. craig, brag and comet, the only ones which have borne staminate flowers do not seem too hardy in the catkins however. nearly all were killed, last winter, although the temperature scarcely went as low as zero. mr. gellatly states that their catkins survive much lower temperatures than that in the west. some other factor than low temperature probably is accountable. (see paper by h. l. crane in this report.--ed.) cosford, medium long and buchanan were planted in the fall of , and hence it is too early to have any information on their hardiness. they survived their first winter in good condition and have grown vigorously this summer. =hickories.= only three grafted trees surviving. =pleas hybrid.= one tree, planted in , has been perfectly hardy, having come through several severe winters without any sign of injury. it has made good growth and has developed into a fine shade tree for the lawn but has not borne. it has had many staminate catkins for several years. =barnes.= one small tree, planted in the spring of , has made slow but healthy growth and appears to be hardy thus far. =miller.= one tree, planted in , is still living but very weak. in addition to these named varieties i have a number of seedling black walnuts, butternuts and heartnuts, which i hope to topwork to named varieties; also two seedling pecans which are making surprisingly good, thrifty growth. the pecan seedlings have been quite hardy. * * * * * =discussion after mr. filman's paper.= stoke: "hobson is not as large as abundance. abundance is always larger than hobson. carr always produced better nuts than hobson. mr. filman finds that carr has very small nuts. i am surprised to see a reversal of performance between ontario and virginia." mcdaniel: "mr. bush now reports that his no. chestnut has borne better crops recently. abundance has not survived in tva tests at norris." report from echo valley, george hebden corsan, islington, ontario the northern nut growers association visited echo valley, islington, ontario, september th on the field trip following their annual convention at guelph. some species of nuts and nearly varieties are growing there. the filberts drew a lot of attention, as the most of them were seedlings and quite large, some larger than the largest oregon varieties. the seeds planted were: italian red. du chilly, giant de halle, brixnut, bollwyller, cosford, daviana, and jones no. hybrid. the policy followed has been not to discard a plant because it bears small nuts or no nuts at all, because such trees may bear hardy catkins that live through the winter. the female blossoms of filberts are very hardy but many male blossoms may be killed during cold winters. years ago the dominion department of agriculture declared that filberts, chestnuts and persian (english) walnuts could not be grown north of lake ontario. i would grant that they grow better south of the lake. however, the filbert crop this fall south of the lake was very poor and scanty, whereas mine was large and in fact the largest i ever had. my winkler and rush hazelnuts are crowded on the branches. and the same with the english walnuts. my crop on the larger trees could not be better. the thomas black walnut, as well as other black walnuts, jap heartnuts, hybrid butternut x japanese heartnut cross, chestnuts and hickories are very large. hicans and northern pecans do not develop north of lake ontario. down in the very southwest corner of ontario, north of lake erie, some small pecans have cropped well on trees. as a curiosity pecan trees are quite hardy here, but we lack length of season to mature the nuts properly. no weiker hickory hybrid crops and ripens well here. this nut is one of the very few crosses between shellbark and shagbark hickories, (=carya laciniosa=) western and (=carya ovata=) eastern, hickories. i have some crosses between the chinese and japanese chestnuts that i am watching. i have one european x american cross chestnut, the gibbons, and one native (=castanea dentata=) that have escaped the blight. so far this year i have found only one blighted chestnut limb and i promptly cut it off and tarred the cut well. at least i have persimmons hardy enough to stand the winters north of lake ontario, but i am not sure about the pawpaw. this fruit seems to require shade from the winter's sun. many but not all of the crath importations of persian walnuts from the carpathians are hardy and much more so than the pomeroy varieties. even the broadview is not hardy as many of the crath varieties. rev. crath did an immense service to us by his importations which far exceeded our highest expectations. i have here nearly half a hundred varieties of =juglans regia= that are doing well, especially the three rumanian giants that ripen so well here. list of some of the larger and more important trees at echo valley, islington, ontario =black walnut= stambaugh -- st prize. thomas from j. f. jones, late ripener. troup, cracks out whole in spring. hepler, from miss riehl, a long nut. elmer myers, excellent flavor, the thinest shell. snyder, medium size, large kernel. tasterite, a small nut, origin new york state. clark, origin iowa, very large nut. gifford, bears very heavy crop every second year, ripens before thomas. =persian (english) walnut= david fairchild, seedling rumanian giant. senator pepper, seedling rumanian giant. paul de kruif, seedling rumanian giant. chinese, very hardy, medium size. broadview, from british columbia but originally from russia. =hickory= neilson, a true shagbark, nut large flat and very thin shell, flavor is wonderful. a big tree on highway not far south of where alexander graham bell perfected the telephone. hagen, a true shagbark, a fast grower. hand, a shagbark. weiker, a shellbark and shagbark cross, a large, heavy bearing nut that ripens here north of lake ontario. excellent flavor, grafted on pecan. papple, a small good shagbark, cracks out whole. anthony no. shagbark. glover, from miss riehl. =heartnut= wright, a good bearer and excellent cracker. stranger, very heavy bearer, excellent cracker. gellatly. =filbert= italian red, medium long with wide base. bollwyller, large round. du chilly, long smooth. many seedlings of named varieties. =chestnut= gibbons, miss riehl, hybrid european american. chinese, test not completed. =jap butternut= helmick, from miss riehl, cluster, regular bearer, very thin shell, grafted on black walnut. report from beamsville, ontario levi housser about twenty years ago i started to plant nut trees, as i decided nuts were the solution to good health, which i later found was correct. most of my first trees died. i started gathering nuts all over the country until at last, near my own home, i found a neighbor who had ten trees and two out of the ten were bearing large size nuts of an excellent flavor. i also added filberts to my collection. about this time i learned of prof. neilson, so i went to see him in guelph. he told me about the northern nut growers association. i also learned about mr. corsan and his work at islington so i went to see him. he also told me about the association so i went to the next meeting and joined up. i began to add more varieties to my plantings. my first four acre planting was seeded with oats the second year. all my tress had a nice start. i spent some three hundred dollars that year for grafted nut trees. that second fall i hired a man to watch and stand by each tree as the binder passed. it was impossible for me to be there. the man who cut the oats in his own stubborn way went alone and cut everything as he went, trees and all. my heart was nearly broken! i started again. i bought nuts of good varieties from all over. i decided to make a little nursery this time then plant out after the trees got bigger. just as i got this started nicely the war came. i also had a fruit farm where i now live besides also planting some grafted stock here. my nursery, seventy-eight miles away on my fifty acres, i had to leave as gas was rationed and i was forced to sell, so remaining there are about one hundred trees which i shall watch. my best trees died but i kept going on planting every year. today, after all the calamities i had, i have around two hundred trees living. this year i expect two bushels of heartnuts; about two bushels of filberts; some extra nice ones that ripened early, large and well filled; about two bushels of black walnuts, some very promising. besides these i have about fifty trees of the carpathian walnuts from which i have gathered about two quarts of nuts. my oldest tree is ten years old. one i grafted on black walnut stock and it is a very large nut. i gathered five nuts from this. the graft is now five years old. hundreds of nuts started; nearly all dropped off. possibly as the tree gets older it will do better as i have planted several other nut trees not far away to help with cross pollination. i have some good sized butternuts and i gathered about quarts of these so i expect to have enough nuts to supply my daily needs from now on from my own plantings. after twenty years of hard work and with an outlay of at least $ , , my trees, as they grow up around me, are like children to me. they supply me with food. my nervousness was cured by them and my health has returned. my worst enemy here with filberts is they start to grow too early, then a frost comes and they are done after a week or two of nice weather. even though we have this trouble we gathered nearly two bushels from trees which are eight years old. our lowest temperature here was below zero a few years ago. my carpathians did not seem to mind that nor did the heartnuts. from now on i am planning my own little nursery and do my own grafting as well. i top work my young trees that show poor nuts. nut growing in new hampshire l. p. latimer, assistant horticulturist, university of new hampshire, durham, new hampshire at the present time there are no nuts grown commercially in new hampshire. those gathered by the residents of this state for home use or local consumption are comprised almost entirely of butternuts from wild seedling trees and nuts of the native hickory. the butternut is the most highly prized among our native nuts. it grows wild over a large portion of the state. the hickory nuts take second place, probably because of their smaller size and the greater difficulty involved in removing the meat from the shells. black walnuts are occasionally found but do not seem generally as popular. dr. a. f. yeager of the horticultural department of the university of new hampshire, durham, new hampshire, has several times called for specimens of superior butternuts grown in the state. these have been tested for their cracking ability, and size of kernel and ease of removal from the shell in halves or as whole meats. several very fine specimens have been collected, but progress in the development of these better types has been impeded by the difficulty involved in trying to propagate them vegetatively. the new hampshire horticultural department would gladly welcome any information concerning the propagation of the butternut that would make grafting or budding successful. the best possibility in developing commercial nut crops in new hampshire apparently lies first in the use of the hazel or filbert. although the european filbert has not been very successful, such varieties of the american hazel as winkler and rush look promising. the winkler has borne heavy crops but in a short summer season the nuts do not always mature fully in the fall. although we have had much less experience with the rush variety, this does mature earlier in the fall and seems promising. some of the jones hybrids have been tested at the experiment station in durham, a few of which have done quite well. of these jones hybrids no. , , and have made quite vigorous growth. seedling no. has been outstanding, producing good sized nuts which mature well and shell out easily from the husks. in type and flavor of nut it resembles the european hazel quite strongly under our conditions. so far, none of the chestnuts, including the chinese species, have shown great enough resistance to chestnut blight to warrant their recommendation. we still hope that we may discover a good chestnut for this section. the hardy persian or english walnuts have not been tested long enough to warrant any conclusion as to their promise for new hampshire; one difficulty will probably lie in the fact that the nuts of some do not ripen properly under our cool, short summer conditions. mr. matthew lahti of wolfeboro, new hampshire, has been experimenting with various species and varieties of nuts for that section. his location on the shore of lake winnipesaukee undoubtedly presents a more favorable site for growing certain types of nut plants than exists here in durham, or most other parts of new hampshire. at the present moment i have on my desk a parcel received from mr. lahti containing some fine specimens of one of the hardy persian walnuts which he is growing in wolfeboro. the unusually warm and dry late summer and fall of this year have favored the maturity of this walnut. (for a detailed description of mr. lahti's experience with nut varieties, please refer to his paper printed below.) nut notes from new hampshire matthew lahti not being able to attend the annual convention i thought possibly some of the members might be interested in the following random notes of an amateur nut grower. my place is in wolfeboro, n. h., which is situated in the eastern end of lake winnepesaukee, degrees, minutes north latitude; elevation above sea level, '. the elevation of the lake is '. wolfeboro is just about at the northern fringe of the climate where peaches will ripen, that is during favorable years in favored locations. improved varieties of field corn will ripen during favorable seasons. it also happens to be the northern fringe of the american chestnut, in favored location. i have discovered a number of saplings that are still alive. as a matter of fact, three or four years ago i was fortunate in finding some ripened nuts, but the trees that bore those nuts have since died of the blight. while a certain variety of old fashioned sweet cherry will live and bear fruit, some of the recent improved varieties will not live. every one that i have planted was winter-killed. the montmorency cherry, however, does well. it is also the northern limit of the pignut. butternuts do very well. ddt dust versus butternut curculio i was prompted to write this note by reading mr. s. h. graham's article entitled "an experiment with ddt" appearing on page of the annual report, in which he states that the butternut curculio did not survive ddt powder. in the past four or five years the butternut curculio (identified as such by prof. conklin of the university of n. h.) has all but ruined my crath persian walnuts and heartnuts, so, acting on the basis of mr. graham's experiment, i had my trees dusted early in the morning when the dew was on the leaves, using a % ddt powder, the first time about may and again two weeks later, and i am happy to say that this dusting has been very effective. i have been unable to find any sign of curculio injury this year, although i have seen it nearby on some native butternut trees. my gellatly heartnut was riddled by the curculio last year. this year, when the dusting was done, this tree was overlooked, so i undertook to dust it myself, and not realizing that the niagara duster which i used was set in the closed position, i dusted the tree with considerable effort. in spite of the small amount of dust that came out, it proved sufficient to keep the curculios away or else to kill them so that there is no sign of any damage at this writing. persian walnuts in the spring of i planted a number of crath persian walnut seedlings. out of possibly eight or ten, only two survive. (i gave each one about three years, and if it showed serious winter injury, i pulled it up.) i was pleasantly surprised the other day to discover that one of them has borne a single nut this year. this particular tree is at least ' from any other persian walnut, so it looks as if it were self-fertile. it now remains to be seen whether or not the nut will ripen. in the spring of , i planted a broadview persian walnut graft on black walnut stock, and this tree is bearing for the first time with eighteen nuts showing. three or four years ago this broadview suffered some winter damage by a split trunk and split lower branch. i painted over the cracks with gasket cement, and they are now healed. the broadview has also shown some winter-kill of terminal twigs, but not enough to affect its bearing this year. there has been no splitting of the trunks or branches of the two surviving crath persian walnut trees and no winter injury to terminal twigs. the crath walnut trees are now " in circumference a foot from the ground and about to ' tall. the broadview on the black walnut stock has a circumference of " above the graft and - / " below the graft, tending to show that the broadview grows faster than the black walnut. it is interesting to note that the broadview blooms a week or ten days later than the crath persian walnut, and at the same time as the native butternut. black walnuts i have planted a few thomas black walnut seedlings, two grafts, and a tasterite black walnut graft. a thomas black walnut graft has borne nuts in three different years, including this year. the graft was sent out in the spring of , and the seedlings were set out in the spring of . the seedlings have not yet borne. the thomas black walnut graft last bore three years ago, when the nuts on the whole ripened and were well filled. we had a very cold spring in , so much so that apples were almost a total failure. i also planted a tasterite black walnut in the spring of , and this is the first year that it has borne any nuts. it remains to be seen whether they will be filled out or not. there is, however, an important difference between the thomas and the tasterite, which are growing only ' apart, namely that the thomas suffers from winter injury to the terminal twigs each year, whereas there has not been any sign of such injury to the tasterite. hickories i have planted possibly two dozen of a number of varieties of hickories, of which only nine survive to date, the cause being not winter injury but what appears to me to have been improper circulation through the graft union. they would struggle along for three or four years (producing suckers from the root stock which i broke off), and then die. none of these has borne any nuts yet except the weschcke, which was planted in the fall of , and which is now bearing one nut. this nut is a mystery to me because the tree bore no catkins. there are no hickory trees within thirty miles of the vicinity to my knowledge, and the nearest pignut tree is perhaps three-quarters of a mile distant, in a direction against the prevailing winds, the intervening space being forest. could it be possible that the weschcke hickory was pollinated by a butternut or the broadview persian walnut? a big butternut tree stands within ' and the broadview is situated about ' distant. heartnuts i have tried a number of heartnuts, including the gellatly and the wright. only a single gellatly survives. here again the cause was not winter injury so much as either the butternut curculio or other causes. the gellatly, while suffering some terminal twig winter injury and deer damage by rubbing of horns, has borne and ripened nuts. filberts and hazelnuts i planted a number of winkler hazels in the fall of , and this is the second year of bearing. the nuts hardly have time to ripen in our climate and a good many of the catkins get winter-killed. in the spring of i planted a number of filbert seeds received from mr. slate such as no. rush barcelona; medium long; and red lambert. these are bearing for the first time this year, and judging from the size of the nuts now, it looks as if they will mature. many of the catkins were winter-killed. bixby and buchanan planted in the spring of : while the plants did very well, most of the catkins invariably were winter-killed, so i was obliged to pull them up. i have a feeling that filberts would do better here if it were not for the very cold winds that blow off the lake in winter, killing most of the catkins. i discovered a wild hazel in lexington, mass., (which town is located in a so-called cold air pocket) the nuts of which are almost equal to the winkler. i have transplanted some of these to wolfeboro and shall know more about them later. i also discovered some wild hazels in northeastern maine, between lincoln and vanceboro on the border of new brunswick, canada, which two weeks ago had good sized, well filled nuts on them. i have also transplanted some of these to wolfeboro. in closing i should like to thank all officers, committee members, and others who are responsible for the annual report. to those of us who do not get to the conventions very often, the report is the northern nut growers association, and a source of very valuable and interesting information, especially to an amateur like myself. a simplified schedule for judging black walnut varieties l. h. macdaniels and s. s. atwood, cornell university all its members would agree that the northern nut growers association should have an officially accepted schedule for judging black walnuts and the other kinds of nuts with which it is concerned. some yardstick is needed to serve as a basis for the comparison of varieties which the members of the association will use. persons familiar with nut varieties are freqeuntly asked to answer questions about the best varieties to plant. of course there is no simple answer to such a question as many factors besides the nuts themselves determine the value of a variety. the quality and value of the nuts are, however, the most important initial consideration in selecting a variety on its merit and there should be some objective test adopted to aid in evaluating nut samples. during the many years that the northern nut growers association has been operating more than a hundred and fifty varieties of black walnuts have been named. yet at the present time we are not certain which are the better varieties except in a very general way. there is no widely accepted judging schedule being used as is evident in the tables published by seward berhow in his paper in the proceedings ( ). in these tables scores are given but these come from several sources and are not comparable and hence are of little value in making comparisons. there have been many schedules for judging black walnuts presented in the past. one of the first was proposed by the late willard g. bixby ( , ). this was complicated and never came into general use although the testing done by mr. bixby was a valuable contribution to our knowledge of varieties. the late n. f. drake tested many varieties through the years according to a schedule of his own devising ( , ). professor drake's schedule was related to his concept of a perfect walnut and the various values were related to this on a percentage basis. this schedule never had wider acceptance, chiefly because it was too complicated and required too much figuring. mr. c. a. reed has probably tested more varieties of nuts and is more familiar with varieties than any other person but he does not have a definite scoring schedule. kline and chase ( ) summarized results of the testing work that had been done and kline ( ) compared varieties according to a system which he devised in which they were rated in terms of return per hour of labor spent in cracking and extracting the kernels. mr. c. c. lounsberry has proposed a method of scoring which was related to kernel cavity measurement ( ). in , a committee on varieties and standards endeavored to formulate a working schedule that would be adopted as official. this committee set up a score that represented the best thinking of the group at that time ( ). twenty-five nut samples were used. the score was the sum of the weight of an individual nut in grams plus twice the per cent kernel of the weight of the nuts recovered in the first crack plus the total percentage of kernel plus / of a point for each quarter kernel recovered. penalties were proposed for shrunken kernels and empty nuts. through the years a large number of samples have been tested according to this scoring schedule ( ). in , macdaniels and wilde ( ) summarized the previous work done, added many tests and evaluated the scoring system. this was not considered to be altogether satisfactory. in the first place, it was somewhat cumbersome and had never been adopted by the association nor had it been used much by others. the figuring of percentages and penalties made a score too involved for wide aceptance. a very serious difficulty was the problem of shrunken kernels and empty nuts. obviously, with a score related to the weight of the sample before cracking, the inclusion of a number of empty nuts made it impossible to make any accurate correction in the percentages that were used in the score. penalties did not solve the problem. also the initial weight of the sample varied with the amount of husk clinging to the shells. from this work it was evident that an acceptable score would have to be formulated on some other basis. the next approach was to analyze data of this type statistically in an attempt to devise a better scoring system ( ). the results from such a study proved valuable in answering such questions as ) the size of sample necessary to obtain significant differences between samples; ) the significance of small differences in measurements or in scores and ) the amount of variation that is normal and without significance in comparing varieties. the following qualifications were considered essential to a workable schedule: ) the schedule must be easy to use. ) the schedule must concern itself with objective qualities or characters which can be weighed or measured. it cannot be concerned with flavor and other characters upon which there may be disagreement and which depend upon personal preference. ) characters must be avoided which vary with the treatment of the samples themselves such as color of kernels. ) it must give a score that will separate samples on small differences. considering the problem from these angles and scrutinizing the older schedules, a number of ideas came out. first of all, why include the shells? if shells are discarded a number of problems would be solved, such as the cleaning of the nuts and adjustments for shrivelled and empty nuts. also, why reduce any of the weights or measures to percentages which only add to the complexity of the score? the actual amount of kernels recovered reflects both the size of nuts and the yield of kernels. plumpness of the kernels is reflected in the total weight of kernels and does not need to be considered separately. the important elements in a score were considered to be: ) the crackability of the nuts of the variety. this is measured by the weight of kernels obtained in the first crack. ) the yield of the variety. this is measured in the total weight of kernels. ) the marketability of the product. this can be measured by the number of pieces in the sample. in general, the smaller the number and the larger the size of the pieces the better the marketability. with this general background in mind, many samples were tested and the results published in the report[ ]. in order to secure the data needed the kernels of the individual nuts in the samples were weighed separately. note: all samples were cracked with the (john w.) hershey nut cracker. some of the conclusions drawn from these tests were as follows: ) using kernel weights only gives a rapid and accurate test of differences between varieties. ) ten nuts are adequate for a single sample. ) the location of the tree with reference to climate and soil is probably the most important single factor influencing kernel yield. no evidence was obtained, however, to indicate that the varieties ranked significantly different at different locations. ) if reasonable care is used in cracking the differences due to different operators tend to be non-significant. the statistical proof that a ten-nut sample is adequate and that differences between operators are not significant are two findings that are important in setting up a schedule. during the past year further testing has been done, in which scores were computed from ten-nut samples.[a] the samples had preliminary cool, dry storage to assure comparable moisture content. enough nuts were cracked in each sample to secure ten that were well filled. empty nuts were recorded. the following data were kept for each sample: ) the weight of the kernels recovered in first crack in grams. ) the total weight of the kernels in grams. ) the number of quarters and number of halves recovered. scores were computed as ) the weight of the first crack in grams plus ) half of the total weight of the kernels recovered in grams plus ) the number of quarters divided by four and, ) the number of halves divided by two. in this score, it was considered that the crackability of the sample was measured by the weight of the first crack; the yield, by the total weight of kernels secured from the sample; the marketability by the number of quarters and halves. from the use of this schedule scores were secured ranging from . for the variety thomas grown in maryland to . for the variety huen, which is a small nut giving relatively small kernel yield. analyses of the data to determine the percentage of the score that was derived from each component showed that crackability as measured by the weight of the kernels recovered in first crack gave an average of % of the score with a range of to for the different samples; yield, as measured by total weight of kernels divided by two, % with range of to %; marketability measured by number of quarters divided by four % with range of to % and number of halves divided by two %. the percentage of the score derived from the number of halves was so small as to be negligible. it seemed better, therefore, to base the score on only three elements, namely, the weight of the first crack, the total yield of kernels and the number of quarters recovered from the sample. on this basis the problem becomes that of deciding the weights that should be given to these three components. the score as set up emphasizes the crackability of the variety much more than its marketability. this seems logical because the value of a variety is in large part dependent upon the ease of recovery of the kernels on first cracking. several different combinations of the weighting of these three components were considered and it was decided that the most logical was to weight the elements as follows: ) the weight of first crack in grams. ) the total weight of the kernels divided by two and ) the number of quarters recovered divided by . if there are halves, each half would count as two quarters. table i. average scores from black walnut samples cracked by three operators and computed by two scoring systems. scoring systems[ ] -------------------- variety source year i ii points points thomas maryland ' . . snyder ithaca, n. y. (a) ' . . ohio maryland ' . . thomas ithaca, n. y. (a) ' . . norris tennessee ' . . stambaugh ithaca, n. y. (a) ' . . stambaugh ithaca, n. y. (a) ' . . thomas tennessee ' . . thomas ithaca, n. y. (b) ' . . cornell ithaca, n. y. (c) ' . . stabler maryland ' . . cresco ithaca, n. y. (a) ' . . seedling no. geneva, n. y. ' . . seedling no. geneva, n. y. ' . . brown ohio ' . . stabler tennessee ' . . seedling no. geneva, n. y. ' . . huen iowa ' . . least significant difference ( %) . . [footnote : score i=weight (grams) st crack + total weight (grams) + -------------------- number quarters + number halves --------------- ------------- score ii=weight (grams) st crack + total weight (grams) + -------------------- number quarters --------------- ] calculating the percentage of each component in the total score on this basis gives crackability %, yield %, marketability %. this schedule gives relatively more weight to marketability as against the other two components. the average scores of samples cracked by three operators and calculated on both the above described schedules are given in table i. the table shows that the rank of the different samples was not changed materially by using only the three components, except in a few cases in which there were an appreciable number of halves. the stabler has many one-lobed nuts which increase the number of halves recovered. it is to be noted that with both schedules the least significant difference at the % level is about score points. table ii gives the score calculated by schedule ii for five samples, each cracked by six operators. the difference between operators is not significant but the difference between varieties is highly significant. table ii. scores from five samples of black walnuts each cracked by six operators according to scoring schedule ii. operators ---------------------------------- variety location year average snyder ithaca, n. y. ' . . . . . . . thomas ithaca, n. y. (a) ' . . . . . . . thomas ithaca, n. y. (b) ' . . . . . . . cresco ithaca, n. y. ' . . . . . . . brown ohio ' . . . . . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------- average . . . . . . . least significant difference ( %) for variety averages . a third scoring system, involving ) weight of kernels in grams for the first crack, plus ) total weight of kernels, ) all divided by the number of marketable pieces (as counted following sifting on a / " round hole screen) was tried, and the resulting ranking of the varieties was very similar to that obtained with systems i and ii. the results from this system appeared to be the most precise, but it was not considered as generally acceptable as system ii, since the latter would be easier to record and calculate. it is the opinion of the authors that schedule ii gives a score that estimates very well the relative merit of the samples tested as to crackability, yield and marketability. it is simple to use and the only equipment required is a scale accurate to / gram. calculations are reduced to a minimum and the characters used are not dependent on judgment of the individual making the test. it should be pointed out, however, that differences in score of less than six points are not significant on the basis of testing done to date. as more tests are made this value may be reduced. the schedule should serve as a measure to establish differences between varieties, particularly when a considerable number of tests are made. it can also be relied upon to measure differences due to the location of trees of the same variety, variation of the same variety from year to year in the same and in different locations and differences of a similar nature. in ranking varieties which have scores within the limits of variability, it will be necessary to use judgment as to small differences of appearance. no scoring schedule can be expected to entirely eliminate the judgment of experts. also it must be realized that characters other than the nuts, such as bearing habit, hardiness, yield of trees, disease resistance and the like must be considered in finally establishing the value of a variety. references cited . atwood. s. s. and l. h. macdaniels. tests of black walnut varieties for differences in kernel yields. n.n.g.a rept. : - , . . berhow, seward. black walnut variety tabulations. n.n.g.a rept. : - , . . bixby, w. g. judging nuts. n.n.g.a. rept. : - , . . ----. the contests and the method of testing used. n.n.g.a. rept. : - , . . drake, n. f. judging black walnuts. n.n.g.a. rept. : - , . . ----. black walnut varieties. n.n.g.a. rept. : - , . . kline, l. v., and s. b. chase. compilation of data on nut weight and kernel percentage of black walnut selections. am. soc. hort. sci. proc. : - , . . kline, l. v. a method of evaluating the nuts of black walnut varieties. am. soc. hort. sci. proc. : - , . . lounsberry, c. c. measurements of walnuts of united states. n.n.g.a. rept. : - , . macdaniels, l. h. report of committee on varieties and judging standards. n.n.g.a. rept. : - , . . ----. is it possible to devise a satisfactory judging schedule for black walnuts? n.n.g.a. rept. : - , . . ----, and j. e. wilde. further tests with black walnut varieties. n.n.g.a. rept. : - , . test plantings of thomas black walnut in the tennessee valley spencer b. chase, tennessee valley authority native black walnut occurs abundantly throughout most of the tennessee valley. practically every farmer has at least one "favorite tree" and each fall he collects nuts from that tree and stores them for cracking during the winter. in some sections of the valley walnut cracking in the home is of considerable importance. each year, some million and a quarter pounds of kernels are cracked out at the five modern cracking plants located in or adjacent to the valley. utilization of the crop is becoming more and more complete. in early studies of native nut trees, tva recognized the possibilities of black walnut, especially the improved varieties. here was a tree that produced not only valuable nut crops but also cabinet wood without equal; in addition, it was a desirable pasture shade tree. black walnut has long been a favorite among farmers, but few of them had ever heard of =improved= black walnuts. along with tva, the state agricultural extension services saw the advantages of the improved varieties and were eager to test them under valley conditions. and so it was that a cooperative testing project was developed. tva produced the trees and the seven valley state extension services distributed them to farmers for test planting. the test the thomas walnut was used in these test plantings for several reasons. in the first place, it produces large, rather thin-shelled nuts with good cracking qualities. few varieties are more easily cracked with a hammer or a hand-operated cracking machine. in addition, fast growth is characteristic of the variety and it should produce merchantable sawlogs earlier than the common walnut. despite its northern origin, -year-old plantings at norris, tennessee, seemed well adapted to valley conditions. no other variety at the time offered as many advantages. test planting was begun in tennessee in and then it was extended to the other valley states as more trees were propagated. for the most part, planting sites were selected by extension foresters and county agents. if the tests were successful they would automatically become demonstrations, so special attention was given those areas where walnut cracking in the home was an important enterprise. many of the test plantings were located in communities that had been organized for the study and application of improved farming methods. in general, farmers planted the trees in low, fertile spots not suitable for other uses, along fences, or in pastures if they could be protected from livestock. through , , trees were planted in , test plantings. they were scattered all over the valley, in of its counties. the number of trees per planting varied with the availability of good walnut sites. generally, there were to trees in each planting. the results getting survival and performance data on these widely scattered experimental plantings presented quite a problem. examination of a few plantings showed that trees given reasonable care had survived and were beginning to bear nuts. so in , the farmers who had planted the trees were polled by mail for an overall evaluation of the plantings. questionnaires asking for information on survival, growth, and bearing were sent by the state extension foresters to , farmers. the return of questionnaires was excellent. forty-two percent came back and three-fourths of them were filled out completely. =survival and mortality causes.= eighty-one percent of the , plantings reported on were still active in ; that is, they still had at least one living tree. survival reports received on , trees planted showed that , or percent of the trees were living in . survival was best in the portion of the valley north and east of chattanooga; percent in virginia, percent in north carolina, and percent in eastern tennessee. south and west of chattanooga survival percent was lower: in georgia, in western tennessee, in kentucky, in alabama, and in mississippi (table ). causes of mortality, as reported, were classified in five categories; losses prior to establishment, livestock and destruction, drought, insects and disease, and unknown (table ). cause of mortality was listed as unknown for percent of all trees reported dead. field experience leads us to believe that most of the trees in this category probably succumbed to improper planting or complete neglect following planting. many persons do not follow planting instructions; they often substitute their own methods with disastrous results. among the reported known causes, drought killed most of the trees-- percent. we know black walnut is very susceptible to dry weather after transplanting. weather records for the area show that the early growing season of was exceptionally dry; was also drier that average; in and near drought and drought conditions prevailed throughout most of the tennessee valley. weather is usually blamed when a tree dies without apparent cause, but in this case the reported mortality due to drought appears reasonable. livestock, mowing, fire, and intentional removal were reported to have caused percent of total mortality. cows are curious animals and newly set trees seem to arouse all the curiosity in their make-up. horses and cows apparently do not relish the foliage of walnut trees but they do bite at it, and in so doing usually break down the branches to such an extent that the tree dies. some trees were accidentally destroyed simply because they had been forgotten. the next highest mortality cause reported was pre-establishment loss; this was blamed for percent of the deaths. losses resulting from delayed planting were placed in this category, also those where the report was "trees failed to leaf out." insects and diseases were reported as causing percent of the mortality. =growth and bearing.= those who plant improved black walnut trees naturally want to know how soon they will begin bearing. this survey shows that bearing begins much earlier than most people thought. trees in percent of the plantings established between and were bearing by . of these , began bearing to years after planting; bore their first crop after years; began bearing after to years (table ). according to the reports, the earlier plantings were slower to come into bearing than the later plantings. this probably is not a true picture. we suspect that after six or eight years the actual date of first bearing had been forgotten in many cases. growth was reported in terms of total height for each tree. these heights were then converted to annual growth rates for trees to years old and placed in arbitrary classes are follows: low (less than foot) medium ( to feet), and high (over feet). test plantings in north carolina had the highest growth rate; those in mississippi, the lowest. in other states, growth rates fell between these two and were quite similar for the most part (table ). average for all trees was . feet per year. trees averaging less than one foot of height growth per year were slow to come into bearing. only percent of the trees in the low growth rate class were bearing. on the other hand, percent of the trees with a high growth rate had come into bearing. growth of black walnut, following recovery from transplanting shock, depends on site conditions and tree care. trees set in fertile soil with an adequate moisture supply and kept free of livestock and other damage make rapid growth. trees set in poor, thin or droughty soil do not make much growth if they survive at all. black walnut is very sensitive to any wounds and, if subject to mechanical or livestock damage, growth is retarded. cases of exceptional growth and bearing were reported. one in eastern tennessee is worthy of brief description. there were two trees in this planting set approximately feet apart. one was on the edge of a garden; the other, in a chicken run. in seven years the first tree grew to a height of feet--an average growth of . feet a year. it began bearing in and produced a crop of nuts each year up to the time of the survey. the crop, reported as a light one, yielded . pounds of kernels. the other tree, shown in figure , was feet tall, having averaged . feet a year. it also began bearing annual crops in , and in it had a very heavy crop for its size, yielding . pounds of kernels. here are two thomas trees of the same age planted practically side by side; one is almost twice the size of the other, but they both began bearing annual crops three years after planting. =field survey in sample area.= to check on the adequacy of the questionnaire survey, test plantings in eastern tennessee were visited and inspected. forty of these had been reported on by mail; had not. in general, the trees had been planted on the best sites available. some were set out in farm orchards (figure ); a large number were planted in yards as combination nut and shade trees (figure ). field examination of the plantings which had returned questionnaires revealed conditions very similar to those reported (table ). survival was found to be percent compared with a reported percent. average tree height was reported as feet; actual height averaged feet. there was some hesitancy in reporting tree deaths caused by livestock; percent was reported while percent was found. such mortality was usually listed as unknown on questionnaires. information collected by field examination of plantings which had not returned questionnaires and the plantings which had returned questionnaires is shown in table . trees were found to be feet taller in the plantings but these trees averaged one year older than trees in the plantings. trees in the plantings averaged feet in height compared with feet. average age at first bearing was very similar. and here is a revealing discovery; livestock, mowing, and fire were responsible for percent of the tree mortality in the -planting group, compared with percent in the plantings. this is perhaps one reason why the persons involved in these plantings did not return questionnaires; it also explains most of the poorer survival. a large number of trees were planted in pastures and elsewhere without adequate protection from livestock. even when cattle guards were used they were generally too small or weak for tree protection. severe livestock damage resulting in poor growth and eventual death of trees was encountered frequently. we are inclined to believe that livestock accounted for a much higher percent of tree mortality than that reported in this survey. the high percent return of questionnaires in this survey, followed by a field check in a sample area, provides a good picture of valley-wide plantings. since survival was found to be lower in plantings which did not return questionnaires, an actual overall survival of percent may be slightly high. other spot checks in the field will give more information on this point. discussion interest in improved black walnut is mounting in the valley. as the test plantings came into bearing farmers were quick to see the superiority of these nuts over the wild ones to which they had been accustomed. word spread from farm to farm, and as a result there has been an increasingly large number of inquiries about sources of improved varieties and cultural treatments. the interest was reflected in the questionnaire survey. nineteen percent of the questionnaires returned contained unsolicited comments of one kind or another. a large percentage of them showed evidence of interest such as: "the nuts are large and easy to crack," "where can i get more grafted trees?" only percent implied disinterest: "the trees are slow growing," "the nuts are faulty." this test-planting project will be completed in . the plantings have already yielded much valuable information on the thomas variety; they will yield much more as the trees become older. further studies are planned on nut yield, nut quality, and tree growth in relation to the varying conditions existing in the tennessee valley. summary farmers in the seven tennessee valley states established , test plantings of thomas black walnut in cooperation with state extension services and tva during the period - . a questionnaire survey in showed per cent of the plantings still active and percent of the trees living. tree growth averaged . feet per year. age at first bearing varied from to years, with years most frequently reported. [illustration: figure . the thomas variety appears well adapted to tennessee conditions. this -year-old tree began bearing annual crops years after planting. in it was feet tall and heavily laden with nuts yielding - / pounds of cracked-out kernels. (hancock county, tenn.)] [illustration: figure . black walnut makes an ideal combination nut and ornamental tree. this -year-old thomas has been producing nut crops for years. in addition, it has enhanced the beauty of the lawn and provided welcome shade. (anderson county, tenn.)] table .--number of questionnaires sent and returned, reported tree survival and cause of tree mortality by state. questionnaires trees reported state sent returned planted living no. pct. no. pct. alabama georgia kentucky mississippi north carolina tennessee, east , , tennessee, west virginia all , , [illustration: figure . thomas tree planted in the farm orchard. this young tree has received excellent care and began bearing at years of age. (hancock county, tenn.)] reported cause of tree mortality pre-estab livestock, insects, total planted -lishment destruction drought diseases unknown trees lost pct. pct. pct. pct. pct. no. ala. ga. ky. miss. n. c. tenn. (e.) tenn. (w.) va. all , table . number of bearing thomas plantings established - , by age of first bearing and growth class. plantings age in years at first bearing growth rate year number low medium high all table . tree survival, growth, and percent bearing by state and year of planting plantings trees, growth, bearing state reported survival annual trees number number feet percent alabama . georgia . kentucky . mississippi . north carolina . tennessee, east , . tennessee, west . virginia . year of planting , . , . , . , . all , , . table . data obtained from returned questionnaires and actual field examination of plantings and field data only on plantings. data on plantings data on plantings questionnaire field field tree survival, percent average height, feet cause of tree mortality, percent pre-establishment livestock and other destruction drought insects and diseases unknown west tennessee variety, breeding and propagation tests, aubrey richards, m.d., whiteville, tennessee i surely wish i could have made the trip to the northern nut growers association meeting, but i simply had "too many hens setting" at that time. i've been waiting for you [the secretary] to show up down here for the big news--at least it is to me--if it holds up. if you have ever tried to propagate heartnuts on japanese walnut you know what it means. here it is: rhodes, wright and fodermaier heartnuts patch-budded on japanese understocks (all i had) took %. the same varieties as a control on black walnut gave a take of only %. these trees give me a chance to check on the performance of black versus japanese stocks for these varieties. from last year's propagation, rhodes on black is beating rhodes on japanese and bates (which was not used this year) seems fully as good on black walnut stocks. an isolated tree of bates did not set a nut. its pollen all shed before the pistils were receptive. an isolated tree of rhodes bore a full crop. incidentally, a weak chlorine bleach (clorox) after these heartnuts are hulled does for them what peroxide does for the ladies and makes them look very inviting. stambaugh again led in topworked black walnuts, bearing its second consecutive full crop on a -year graft. it seems to be immune to whatever it is that causes the other nuts to turn black, shrivel and drop off from the time they set until near maturity. thomas was second. snyder, sparrow and myers had no crop. i budded more trees of stambaugh this year. the carpathian persian walnut that we pollinated this spring with wright heartnuts [no other walnuts were shedding at the time] matured a nice, large, rather pointed, heavy nut. it also matured another nut higher on the tree than we could reach with the catkins, but i'm sure it's a blank. it is still more pointed than the well-filled nut. the good nut is stored for planting. rush hazel that set fruit last year with the help of a bouquet of native [west tennessee] catkins set only nuts this year "on its own." these i have also stored to plant. i didn't have enough stocks to utilize all the pollen-sterile japanese chestnut buds you sent me [in early september]. i put in most of them, even in some cases several to the stock to see what percentage of takes we would get with the twin t. [see report of n. n. g. a., pp. - , for a description of the twin t budding method.--ed.] here are the percentage takes for chestnut propagation this year. of course i don't know how many of these buds will later drop off. . pollen-sterile japanese on japanese stock. late summer buds % . austin japanese on japanese stock. late summer buds % . hobson chinese on chinese. late summer buds % . zimmerman chinese on chinese. late summer buds % . colossal hybrid on japanese stock. spring grafts % i had a nice crop of chinese chestnuts on my young hobson and zimmerman trees. the nuts were exceptionally large. one -year seedling bore bur with nuts fully as large. connecticut yankee bore for the first time, nuts to a bur, but very small, scarcely / " in diameter. (you will notice i budded none of this variety!) (perhaps mislabeled seedling.--ed.) i have about nuts from isolated trees that were hand pollinated, as follows: austin x hobson, austin x zimmerman, hobson x austin and hobson x zimmerman. i have altogether quarts of select nuts stored in the refrigerator. so far they are keeping nicely. (i dusted them with fermate, hope it doesn't affect germination.) notes on some kansas and kentucky pecans in central texas a letter to the secretary from o. s. gray, nurseryman at arlington, texas, october , , has some interesting notes on two standard northern pecans, three new varieties from kansas, and the moore variety, one of the earliest maturing among southern pecans: we are propagating major and greenriver from kentucky; coy, tissue paper and johnson from southeastern kansas; and brake from eastern north carolina. several years ago we used quite a few pecan trees of the moore variety in planting around tulsa. we though it would be a dandy because of its early maturity in the fall. i find that early fall maturity is only one important factor. the other is the date of starting growth in the spring. moore seems to start out a little early in the spring and that disadvantage seems to limit it in the tulsa, oklahoma area. i also believe this might be a factor in using this variety in northern locations. [moore originated in north florida from texas seed--ed.] i have been considerably impressed with the johnson variety. it matures two or three weeks ahead of moore in the fall. the only data that i have was made in when moore buds began to put out on march , stuart and success--april , johnson--april , coy and major--april , greenriver and tissue paper--april . the johnson matures on our place several weeks ahead of major and greenriver although i don't have the exact date on maturity. experiences of a nut tree nurseryman j. f. wilkinson, rockport, indiana in pioneering a nursery as we did in the early days of propagation of northern nut trees, especially the pecan, it was necessary to first locate parent trees in this section that were worthy of propagation, in order that the nursery stock produced from them would be hardy in this and more northern territory. along the ohio and wabash rivers and their tributaries many thousands of large seedling pecan trees grew naturally, and to locate some of the most worthy ones for propagation took the combined efforts of all of us in this section who were interested, as well as the aid of the tree owners and nut gatherers. in the year three nut nurseries were established here in southern indiana, two of which have long since been discontinued. before that time a very few propagated pecan trees had been produced in an experimental way by some fruit tree nurserymen. little did i realize at that time the trials and headaches that lay in the path i was to travel in this venture, such as locating the parent trees, securing the graft and budwood from them, learning to keep this wood from time of cutting until used, methods of propagation, trying to educate the prospective tree buyer as to the value of these trees, and to believe that pecan trees could be transplanted, and that they would bear if the taproot had been cut, and many other things. production of nut trees in nurseries in this northern territory is so different, and more difficult than in the gulf coast country, where i spent a part of two seasons hoping to get information that would be of value here. what i learned there was of little or no value here, so it was up to us to solve our own problems in this section by experience, as there was very little in print at that time on northern nut tree propagation. one of our first problems was to learn to keep cions from time of cutting until time of use, not knowing when that time was. we tried all times from march until may, having little success at any time. at first we kept the scions in a cold storage plant in evansville, and at a temperature of around degrees, and in wet moss. later we found it much better to keep scions at home in a cellar at a higher temperature, and in only slightly dampened sphagnum moss. in the beginning our efforts were mostly in grafting, then after a year or two of failure, probably largely due to the way we kept our scions, we had some results at the mccoy nursery, with scions kept at home. the mccoy nursery was about four miles from my place, and located in a sandy soil with a near quicksand sub-soil. at that location they were later reasonably successful in grafting, using the modified cleft graft. my nursery is in clay soil with a hard stratum of soil three or four feet below the surface, and because of this i have been unable to graft pecans in the nursery, though i have tried every known method, and under all conditions. i could successfully graft at the mccoy nursery, then use the same scion wood and the same method at home, but have a complete failure; therefore, i turned to budding entirely on pecans in the nursery. it is somewhat different with walnut--i can get fair results with walnut grafting at times, though i do very little of this, as more than % of my walnut trees are produced by budding. i do a lot of topworking on native seedling nut trees for others. mr. sly, who is with me, and i make one or more of these trips each spring. for this work i use only the slip-bark method, shaping the scion a little differently from any other i have ever seen used. this has given splendid results everywhere i have used it, which has been over the territory from ohio to oklahoma. a certain amount of allowance is made in this work as to safe drainage of the stock, depending on weather and soil conditions, which vary as, to season and location. i do practically all of my nursery propagating by budding, and one of the most essential things is to have favorable sap conditions in budwood as well as in stocks. on walnut i use only the current season's growth of wood for budwood, and it must be reasonably well matured. very often sap in the stock may show signs of leaving before budwood is matured enough for use, and only the riper buds near the base of the bud stick can be used, in which case the rest of the buds on the bud stick are lost. sometimes sap in the stocks can be held a few days longer by cutting a ring around the stock above the place where the bud is to be placed, which checks the flow of sap to the upper part of the stock. sap in the stock must be in a favorable condition to hope for good results. in budding pecan it is different. either the current or the past season's growth may be used with about equal results, though the current season's buds must be well matured. very often in a dry season when there is evidence of sap leaving the pecan stocks earlier than usual and the current season's buds are not well matured, i use the past season's growth until the new growth is mature. a nut tree nurseryman has experiences that are both pleasant and unpleasant in selling trees as well as producing them. this is probably well known to all of you who have produced and sold nut trees. it is astonishing how many questions (some of which are amusing) the public can ask, and very often those that ask the most questions, leading one to believe they are a good prospect for a large order, may order only one or two trees, or none at all. then there are those who have never bought a nut tree before, and when they see their first one are dissatisfied because it does not have a root system like a fruit tree; and there are a few who will try to get replacements whether they are entitled to them or not, and usually they are not; for, regardless of the instructions given for the planting and after-care, they will neglect them, then complain if they have a loss, and certain experiences have led me to believe they claim loss before having it. many seem to think that a nurseryman should guarantee his trees to live when planted by the purchaser. to do this would be assuming the responsibility of the handling, planting and after-care of the planter, which would make it necessary for the nurseryman to put a price on his trees that would take care of a lot of replacements to the more careless ones who would have losses, and be very unfair to those who take good care of their trees, and have little or no loss, as they would be standing part of the loss of the careless ones. the most a nurseryman can do is to produce the best trees possible, dig them carefully, pack them in first class condition and ship them immediately. discussion after mr. wilkinson's paper. dr. crane: "minor elements are important in plant nutrition the problem of deficiencies is going to become very important. we do not keep the livestock we did and we are not returning to the land the manure and other fertilizers that contain the elements the trees need. nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash, also magnesium are needed. we are taking more from the soil than we are putting back." corsan: "in cuba there are hundreds of sharks. these make fine manure, wonderful for nut trees." prof. slate: "how many sharks would you need for an acre of land?" morphology and structure of the walnut c. c. lounsberry, iowa state college this subject, the structure of the walnut, is discussed in its relation to propagation. catkin bearing nut trees, such as the walnut, have a refined structure that makes grafting difficult. structure, rather than form of walnuts, suggests treatment under the headings, bark, cambium, wood, roots, pith and buds, as well as the sap that permeates them. =bark:= when the bark of the walnut is cut, as in budding, it is difficult to tie down so it will not curl and yet not strangle the bud. the wax-like covering of the bark is thin. however, the bark itself will stay green two months or more if weather is cool. =cambium:= the cambium dries quickly when exposed to air, and must be kept covered. grafted walnuts show callus growth from the cambium, and also from the pith of stems and the endodermis of the root. =wood:= the wood of the walnut is diffuse porous, brittle, straight grained, and easily split. the wood must be cut diagonally to get sufficient tension to hold the scion in grafting. the branch grows rapidly in a short season, may th to july st in central iowa. the upper two-thirds of the one year growth is usually light weight with pith of large diameter. the base of the one-year growth is the best for scions. some varieties of walnut as for example the thomas, have relatively large one-year growth and more scions can be cut from its branches than from the wood of ohio which is small and willow-like. measurements taken in on common black walnut seedlings planted in showed / " average diameter of seedling at crown, / " average diameter of pith at crown; / " average diameter of seedling at top; and / " average diameter of pith at top; . inches average length of solid pith above crown; . inches average length of solid pith in root below crown. =pith:= pith in the black walnut is chambered (lamellate) in the older wood, but solid in the younger, growing wood. the plates are a light brown color, getting larger in diameter toward the top of the year's growth. the leaf traces from the leaf rachis to the pith show heavier from the bottom buds of the branch than at the tip, and the pith is usually solid at the bottom of the branch. =roots:= when the nut of the black walnut germinates in the soil the lobes or cotyledons do not rise above the ground like the cotyledons of the bean but remain in the nut shell under ground, and are broken off in the growth of the seedling, the root going down and the stem rising above the ground. where the cotyledons are broken off, the so-called crown of the walnut, two rough places appear, nearly opposite on the stem. in these rough places, two groups of buds are formed, rarely three groups. cytological studies at iowa state college have not shown why there are not stem initials in the tap roots of the walnut. when the root is cut off a foot underground, root initials develop but no stem initials. the sensitivity of walnut leaf buds to water may have something to do with it. =buds:= buds of the walnut are in vertical groups of two or three in the axils of the leaves. they have few scales. they appear on seedlings and current year branches. some have short stalks. if broken off they do not usually grow back again. the second year, these buds usually drop off in mid-season. in cutting off buds, unless the group of buds is taken out as a chip, some may grow out again. =leaf arrangement:= there is a three rank arrangement of leaves in the walnut, the ninth leaf coming in the same position as the first. according to the work of caesalpino, the buds should then rise in three places at the crown. only in rare cases does this occur in the black walnut, although it is usual with the persian walnut. if the nut is planted deep this causes much suckering and a tendency to etiolate the buds so they will stand water. =buds are sensitive:= buds are sensitive to water, and storage material must be fairly dry and cool. in two large boxes of scions received last year from germany, some varieties of persian walnut, all had dead buds when received. they were packed in german peat. when buds are covered with wax the wax must not be too hot or it will kill the buds. in placing grafted walnuts in sphagnum or sand they should not stay wet or the buds will die. either unions must be above damp sand or sphagnum, or the buds be protected by wax or adhesive. =sap:= in spring grafting there is an enormous flow of sap which will sometimes tear the plates out of the pith. grafts may be protected by girdling the stock a few inches below the place where the graft is set, or both above and below it. in walnuts three years old were cut off six inches above the ground and girdled two inches above the ground. crown buds came up, started above the girdling. trees were cut off three feet above the ground, and the trunk girdled six inches above the ground. started above the crown, and started above the girdle. the same year ( ) trees three years old were cut off four feet above the ground, and all buds above ground were cut flush with the surface of the bark. this was repeated twice, finally taking buds out as a chip, except the top bud; died; grew from the top but. trees three years old were cut off five feet above ground and all buds cut off except upper one; died; grew from top bud. trees three years old were cut off six feet above ground, and all buds kept rubbed off except top one; died, and grew from top bud. =vitality and sap:= black walnut sap changes color from oxidation almost instantly. bench grafts must be made quickly and put in place at once or the unions will dry out. if the root does not stain hands in grafting the graft usually fails. in outdoor grafting if the sap stands in pockets the sugar will ferment, killing the graft. there is a new jersey ( ) bulletin which shows black walnut sap as unstable, quickly forming sugar when exposed to warm weather. =vegetative propagation of greenwood cuttings:= witt and spence ( ) in england working with greenwood cuttings attained per cent success with persian walnut and royal walnut in july and august. they had no success with black walnut at that time ( ). the germans in ( ) working on greenwood cuttings had most success with the persian walnut, but used greenwood taken in september. =vegetative propagation or hardwood cuttings:= in the author ( ) using growth substance on saddle grafts of various walnuts found asiatic and western walnuts went on their own roots. at this time the tasterite black walnut went on its own root. in and using about varieties of black walnut, persian, western and asiatic walnuts, eight inch hardwood cuttings were used beginning in december and repeated in the spring of . nearly all the cuttings of the larger size (about / ") started in about a month and grew about two months. then all died. there were balls of callus on many of them. one on thomas was an inch in diameter. the bottom heat was held at degrees f. this may have been too high, as on raising the cuttings it was found the callus had rotted. this procedure has possibilities. literature cited . institut fur obstbau, berlin. die walnusz veredlung. (vegetative propagation of walnuts). merkbl. inst. obstb. berlin , pp. , . . lounsberry, c. c. use of growth substance in bench grafting walnuts and hickories. northern nut growers association report, p. . . nelson, julius. fermentation and germ life. n. j. ag. exp. sta. bul. , . . witt, a. w. and howard spence. vegetative propagation of walnuts. ann. rep. east malling res. station - . a method of budding walnuts h. lynn tuttle, clarkston, wash. it took man some thirty thousand years to learn to build a fire--conveniently. i thought it was going to take me that long to learn how to bud walnuts, but fortunately the period has been somewhat shortened. when i first began to propagate, or try to propagate, walnuts, i naturally looked to the approved and accepted methods. for me, they did not work. before i was through i think i tried them all. i patch-budded with variations and improvisations. i shield-budded and bark-grafted. i coated the wounds with grafting-wax, latex, cellophane, asphalt and paraffine. i trimmed off the bud shoulders to make a smoother tie and trimmed around the edges to make more contact. i wrapped with raffia, strings, rags and rubber strips and tacked with small nails. whatever i did or however i did it results were all about the same--the sap soured. in fact over a period of years i tried every way i could think up or read about to bring the bud and the cambium layer together and make them stick. results were surprisingly uniform--the sap soured. but we must not dwell too long on the shots that missed. as with a refractory engine that will suddenly sputter, there came some elements of success. the point to learn was, why? concentrating on the shield bud entirely we determined to find these whys. so we tried taking big slabs of bark along with the bud, peeling out the wood, breaking off the leaf stem entirely and waxing the scar and making an unnecessarily long cut for the bud. the bark stuck fairly well but the buds died. this was some encouragement and i knew that with enough time, reason and a little luck we would eventually hit the mark. now dame fortune had decreed that i be raised on a grain and stock ranch where the only trees we could see were in the distant mountains, or, if we rode in the canyons, cottonwoods and choke-cherries. my experience and training was with animals, and animals, especially horses, seem quite susceptible to accident. the first principle of treating almost any wound is to give it drainage, otherwise, both literally and figuratively, the "sap" soured. thus it dawned on me that a tree-wound, even if only skin deep should have the same treatment as a flesh wound. and drainage, being desirable, should be ample. it was quite late in the season but i went out and set a dozen schafer walnut buds on eastern black stocks. these buds had drainage. the vertical cut of the t extended at least two inches below the bud. success ensued, they grew. the following spring we budded as soon as the bark would slip and continued at intervals all summer. results were good. some of the steps we now use are probably not essential and perhaps not even the best, but there are two points that cannot be over-emphasized, namely, drainage and contact. the complete method is as follows: . trim bud sticks to leave an inch of petiole on the bud. . make the t cut with a long vertical slash that will extend at least an inch below the bottom of the bud. . cut the bud long and deep and peel it from the wood by pinching the sides. be carefull not to injure the bark just below the bud. . insert the bud either flush with or below the cross-cut. . wrap with large sized rubber budding strips just firmly enough to make good contact. too tight wrappings curtail circulation. do not cover the cut below the bud. the wound must have =drainage=. . be sure that the center of the bud-cut is firm against the cambium layer. if it humps of bows and won't stay down insert a tooth-pick or bit of leaf stem or something along the center line to hold it down. we usually do this during the wrapping process. we use no wax. we throw a wrap over the bud, shoulders even though it may press the petiole forward against the bud. if the center of the bud pulls out it will not grow although an adventitious bud may eventually start. budding seems about equally successful any time that the bark slips freely. on walnuts this is all summer if not too dry. early-placed buds may make several feet growth before fall if sufficient moisture is available. on walnuts there are always dormant buds. we have used storage wood but now just cut it fresh. we have not tried draining patch-bud or grafts. although we have not tried it we think cherries and other trees inclined to drown the buds might be better handled in this manner. climate is a factor in the type of propagation advisable. one very fine grower using buds in california could propagate only by grafts when he moved to western oregon. the kernel of my walnut budding experience may well be summarized in one word--drainage. * * * * * questions asked mr. stoke after his demonstration of grafting and budding. [see his paper in report, pp. - .--ed.] member: "how do you keep your scions?" stoke: "i prefer 'orange' cold storage for scionwood. this is just above freezing. walnuts should be in full leaf before spring budding." mcdaniel: "what percentage of chestnuts did well with the 'plate' method of budding?" stoke: "i don't use it with chestnuts for spring budding, but sometimes for summer budding. it will work well on any variety of persian walnut, heartnut and black walnut. place buds on the north and northeast side of tree to prevent sun injury." question: "do you find any difference in using buds from an eight or ten year old tree as against a younger tree?" stoke: "no, not so long as it is healthy. for spring budding i don't care to have any trees too vigorous. cut tops off young trees three to five days after budding, and force the buds into growth. if you delay too long the bud will die. i wouldn't try to bud trees unless bark is slipping." member: "i have used parapin wax and covered it with old bread paper." stoke: "that may work because the wax was shaded. southern sun may melt parapin and paraffin waxes." mr. corsan: "dentists, surgeons and wood carvers make the best grafters." question: "can the scions be cut with a small plane?" stoke: "anything you have to cut with a plane is too big. i never use a plane." question: "what do you use a splice graft for?" stoke: "anything except walnut. in walnut i use a modified cleft graft, and i take care of the sap flow by placing the graft down about " or - / " below the cut (where the tree is cut off). wax the scion but do not wax the cut. let it bleed." question: "what is the value of cut leaf black walnut?" stoke: "purely ornamental. weschcke reports that it is very hardy with him." rick: "what about the lamb walnut?" stoke: "we don't know whether the wood of grafted trees is curly or not. i sent mr. reed a limb from lamb and he gave it to the forest laboratory and they found no evidence of curly grain." rick: "shouldn't it be propagated until we are sure?" stoke: "we had mr. lamb himself talk before us at roanoke and he told us about the parent tree. he doesn't know what makes one tree curly and another not." korn: "is that uncommon?" stoke: "not so very. trees are most curly at the base and in the outer wood." question: "do you always leave that stub on black walnut?" stoke: "yes, but it should be removed later in the first summer." question: "where do you use your splice graft." stoke: "on anything other than walnut, if scion and stock are the same size. where stock is larger than scion i use the modified cleft graft up to sizes approaching one inch in the stock. for topworking larger stocks i use one of the forms of bark graft. for the large hickory stock dr. morris' bark slot graft is preferred. for large, thin-barked stocks the simple bark graft may be used. my original grafts of the carr and hobson chinese chestnuts, made with scions received from messrs. carr and hobson in the winter of , are still perfect unions. "i believe that grafted chestnuts growing in frost pockets are most likely to develop faulty unions; possibly frost injury to immature cells at the junction point may occur. dr. crane mentions a similar failure of unions between persian and black walnuts on the pacific coast." dr. crane: "what cut did you use in grafting those chestnuts?" stoke: "modified cleft. in using dr. morris' bark slot graft i find it best to leave just a little of the cut face of the scion wedge above the top of the stock. this, with top of the stock cut sloping away from the scion, as illustrated, promotes quick healing with no 'die-back.'" dr. smith: "is that top slanting?" stoke: "yes, i cut it slanting." dr. macdaniels: "that is a good graft for walnuts, too." note: mr. stoke showed the group a picture of a mockernut tree in one of his fields which he had girdled to kill it. the tree lived four years and during those years the moisture had to go up through the inner wood. the substance of mr. stoke's talk, together with illustrations, may be found on page of the report. importance of bud selection in the grafting of nut trees g. j. korn, kalamazoo, michigan for many years the fruit growers have been improving the qualities of their fruits in several ways. the early pioneers of our country selected the best fruits from seedling trees. chance seedlings that were found in pastures, by roadsides, or possibly in some out-of-the-way place, selected because of some special quality or group of qualities, still dominate our commercial plantings of fruits and nuts. several of the apple varieties to be found in the market today are from these chance seedlings. in more recent years some of our agricultural colleges have been breeding fruits. such breeding has given us several of our more promising named varieties. in this way a great improvement has been brought about in our fruits. environment too appears to have played an important part in making changes in fruits and nuts. nuts that are extremely hardy in the more northern latitudes, appear to have developed this hardiness gradually throughout many generations. because of this quality we are now able to select varieties that are most likely to succeed in any particular locality. more rapid and satisfactory methods of improving our fruits and nuts have been brought about through breeding. this development of the science of plant breeding has made it possible to blend the good qualities of two seedlings into a new variety. man does not have to follow nature's slow hit-and-miss method of developing more desirable qualities in her products. controlled breeding, as brought about by man, produces faster and more satisfactory results. man's improvement over nature has come about through his choice of the qualities to be blended, and his ability to bring together two parents from widely separated parts of the earth, if necessary. besides breeding, we are able also to use some of the mutations or bud sports to improve our nuts as well as fruits. although our progress in improving nuts may not yet be as spectacular as cross-breeding with apples, bud selection has already modified the list of our commercial varieties. one of the first requisites in bud selection is so thorough a knowledge of the variety that any departure from the type will be detected. then it will be necessary to start propagation to determine whether the variation was caused by some environmental factor, or is really a sport which can be perpetuated by vegetative propagation. you may wonder if many of our nut growers know nut varieties well enough to detect any but the most obvious sports. nut improvement through bud selection within the variety lies ahead of us. among fruit growers the search seems to have been for fruits of different or more pleasing color. as nut growers we are more likely to be interested in nut sports having better size, kernel, cracking qualities, etc. trees that are able to ripen their nuts in short or cool seasons are especially desirable in some of our more northern states. my attention was especially called to the importance of bud selection several years ago while buying my winter's supply of apples. i was examining the splendid crop of jonathan apples in a neighbor's large commercial orchard. on most of the jonathan trees the apples were large and well colored and the crop was heavy. however, a few trees bore apples of inferior size and color. upon questioning the fruit grower as to the difference in the performance of the two types of jonathan apple trees, he explained that the better apples came from trees supplied by a nurseryman who was very particular in selecting a good bud strain. the other trees were just the ordinary strain of jonathan. it was while working in a commercial orchard of the grafted varieties of black walnuts that i noticed one especially promising thomas tree. during the few years that i have observed this tree, its nuts have been of splendid size and very uniform. the kernels from the nuts from this tree were somewhat better than those from most of the other trees. i now have some grafts growing from this promising tree. there appears to be much promise for nut improvement by cross-breeding to regroup desired qualities. although many of us enjoy the nut contests that are conducted from time to time, it appears that our nut improvement program might move along faster if more attention were given to nut breeding and searching out desirable bud sports. discussion after g. j. korn's paper. corsan: "farmers should be encouraged to plant nut trees along boundary lines. enormous amounts of fertilizer there." j. r. smith: "one tree in ten thousand seedlings is worth while." dr. lounsberry: "we have two trees planted close together--one bears small nuts and the other large nuts. they are from the same grafting. it would seem that the trouble is in the stock. the stock makes a vast difference." the hemming chinese chestnuts e. sam hemming, easton, maryland the bearing record of our row of chinese chestnuts has attracted so much attention that i thought the association would be interested in seeing some slides of these trees, also of our experimental orchard, as well as the large quantity of small trees we grow in our nursery and the manner in which we raise them. you will see a number of slides of chestnut trees and hear a lot about the bearing qualities, but you won't see a single nut, for unfortunately all these slides were taken between december and july . you will just have to let the numerous little trees attest to the fact that these trees bear. we have , trees in our nursery. these trees are now nineteen years old and have borne rather remarkably since . they are spaced too close--an accident--but i believe that helps thorough pollination. they are now and more inches in diameter, some are ' high and the spread is at least ' where they have the room. all but no. are spreading in character; spreading character and good bearing seemed to be connected. the bearing record of these trees has been given before but i will summarize them by years again: -- pounds; (no records); - pounds; -- pounds; -- pounds; -- pounds; -- pounds; -- pounds; -- pounds; -- , pounds; this year's crop will probably run to pounds. the trees seem to bear much the same, with no. the poorest and no. the best and, like many other tree crops, they tend to alternate good and poor crops on each tree. the nuts are of good size, averaging to per pound (green) with no. and no. bearing the smallest nuts. they ripen in september with the exception of no. which is a month later. mr. reed likes no. which has a wrinkled shell. all the nuts are medium sweet to sweet and all of them fall free of the bur. i think the most significant thing is that at least of the trees have nut characteristics so near alike that they are about indistinguishable, which certainly makes them a good source of seed. the similarity of the nuts brings up the controversial subject of the seedling raised tree, and i will make some remarks in defense of this method. . all our parent trees are good bearers. . there is no extraneous pollen in the vicinity. . i will present as a question: has the chinese chestnut, like the rose and the apple been hybridized out of all semblance of the wild form? . the seedling tree should bring chestnuts to the average householder's table years sooner than grafting will. . we now produce a '- ' tree for a very reasonable figure. . all varietal forms at present are as yet unstabilized (most varieties of years ago have been discarded). there will probably be some duds in seedling trees, but we've had no local complaints and i wonder if they will exceed the "troubles" found in the grafted tree. we have had customers brag about what their or or trees bore. to prove our faith in this method we planted a test orchard. when the trees were years old from year transplants they bore pounds. next year, , they bore pounds or an average of pound per tree. right then and there we thought that we would have a real story to tell, but we had misfortune in another direction. three years in a row we have had frosts when inches of new growth were on these trees (the orchard is not as well situated as the parent trees in this respect). so we had no crops worth mentioning but neither did we have strawberries or similar fruits. this year the orchard was frosted / the way to the top so we will get quite a few nuts, maybe pounds. incidentally, we have been here years and we've not had frosts like these before. we use all of our good nuts for seed purposes, grading out all small or damaged nuts. in raising these trees, even from seed, we've had our troubles. we let them cure several weeks then plant them in well fed soil in a narrow trench about inches deep. we place the nuts or inches apart; we fill the trench with sawdust level with the surface. we mound the soil over this about inches until spring. then it is removed. this method lets the shoots through, otherwise they tend to send or stems. the nut sends down the root very early in the spring. we have some trouble with the mole-mice combination; for this reason heavy soil and sawdust is better than sandy soil. as you know neither the nut nor the tree likes wet soil. in raising the young tree the principal difficulty is in getting a trunked upright tree. a seedling, especially when transplanted the first year, flops all over like a flowering shrub. to get them up we plant them fairly close, prune them, and feed them. our year trees are usually two feet high and year trees are to feet high. we wholesale our trees mostly to mail order nurseries and the largest had a % request for replacements. there are troubles in growing chinese chestnuts just as there are in most fruits and nut crops and, in a way, i am glad there are because i am of the opinion there is no such thing as harvesting without cultivation. for instance, if you plant them and let nature take its course--it will. it will on an apple, too. we have found a few small lesions of chestnut blight which were removed by pruning and then painted with pine tar. they usually occurred at a previous point of pruning. some of the transplanted seedlings have developed a twig canker at a bud, but i've never seen them kill one and even when we don't prune it out, the tree overcomes it by new growth. the japanese beetle attacks the chestnut but, although they were bad this year, one spraying of ddt was effective. the weevil (curculio) was bad enough last year so we are spraying this year. small growers should put the nuts in metal containers and thus destroy the larvae, if any. i would like to remark here that we are a nursery growing many ornamentals, and the chinese chestnut, although low branched, is a very ornamental tree. i know of no tree that has a handsomer dark, shiny green leaf or one whose green color holds so well until frost. now i think you will agree i have reported the behavior of our trees fairly, the difficulties of raising the trees, and have emphasized that i doubt if you will get success with the chinese chestnut without effort; yet in conclusion i would like to step into "fantasy". our no. tree bore pounds; suppose you had trees per acre bearing that quantity. you would get , pounds per acre. the european chestnut, which is not as good, brought c on the baltimore market last year. that would mean $ , . per acre. imagine having acres! crop pounds of chestnuts from original trees at eastern shore nurseries, inc. no. , ; no. , ; no. , - / ; no. , - / ; no. , ; no. , ; no. , ; no. , - / ; no. , ; no. , - / ; no. , - / ; no. , - / ; no. , ; no. , - / ; no. , ; no. , ; no. , ; no. , - / --total, - / pounds. =young orchard:= - / pounds. discussion after e. sam hemming's paper corsan: "do you recommend the use of lime?" hemming: "we do not use lime. we use vigoro at the rate of to - / lbs. to inch of diameter per tree." corsan: "why do you use vigoro?" hemming: "no particular reason, just that it is available." member: "what time of year do you fertilize your trees?" hemming: "we fertilize during the winter--usually during december." crane: "last year we used a method of storing chinese chestnuts which proved very satisfactory. two thousand pounds of nuts were stored last year. fall planting is good where one can use it but in a lot of areas it can not be used because of rats robbing the plantings. we have to store the nuts. the procedure we follow is to harvest every other day. nuts are placed in tin cans with friction top lids. the lids should have one to three holes of / " diameter in them to provide air. cans are placed in storage at a temperature of to degrees f." stoke: "i keep chestnuts in the cellar in a can with an open top in what we call limestone sand. keep wonderfully well. chestnuts must have air." gravatt: "down south we have a lot of trouble with decay. we take nuts right from the bur and put them in the soil. they give much better germination." crane: "the chinese harvest their chestnuts just as soon as the bur cracks. they do not wait for the nuts to drop from the trees but harvest the nuts from the trees and store in covered pottery jars. they plant in the fall of the year. they do not hold nuts for any length of time." corsan: "how about charcoal?" g. smith: "charcoal is good to store nuts in. they are shipped from china that way." smith: "would chestnuts stand carbon bisulphide for getting the weevil out, or is the hot water treatment better?" crane: "carbon bisulphide treatment is dangerous, it will kill weevils but it will also kill the nuts so they will not germinate. unless precautions are used it may cause an explosion and fire. methyl bromide treatment is better." stoke: "the hot water treatment is the best. it consists of immersing the nuts in water at degrees f. for forty minutes." hemming: "i have raised about , seedlings and have never seen blight on any of my seedlings." dr. smith: "a tree needs usually to be as big as the small end of a baseball bat before the bark opens enough to let in the blight spores." stoke: "blight begins where there is rough bark which provides lodgment for the spores. rough bark and moisture result in blight, hence the disease usually starts near the ground." crane: "the blight problem in the growing of chestnuts has often been stressed. i think you will have more loss from sunscald and root rot than you will from blight. blight is a minor trouble with us. the chinese chestnut naturally grows with a low head. it is a mistake to cut off the low branches on the trees until they attain some size, they can then be cut off." stoke: "regarding the protection of nut trees against winter sun scald, i find that if you take ordinary aluminum paint and paint the south and southwest side of nut trees it will last for two years." dr. smith: "chestnut trees have blighted for me where the water table was too high and trees of same origin or better drained ground nearby did not blight. blight is often a sign that the tree wants something it lacks--much like disease in humans." results of a chinese chestnut rootstock experiment j. w. mckay[ ] introduction the propagation of chestnut species by budding or grafting has been performed by different workers with varying degrees of success. many have found that grafted trees could be produced and grown successfully but that graft union troubles developed in a certain percentage of the trees either soon after grafting or a few years later. the variety "carr" is known to graft with difficulty in certain localities and to give a high percentage of poor unions both at the time of grafting and after a few years of growth. the question of relationship of scion and stock has been considered by many workers to have an important bearing on the success of grafting operations but no critical work has been done to determine this point. some investigators hold that scions of one species may be grafted upon stock of another species without harmful effects. the results of the budding experiment with chinese chestnut reported in this paper are the first of a series of tests designed to contribute needed information about stock-scion relationship in chestnuts. [footnote : associate cytologist, division of fruit and vegetable crops and diseases, bureau of plant industry, soils, and agricultural engineering, agricultural research administration, u. s. department of agriculture.] description and results the five seedling chinese chestnut trees used in the experiment were selected because of their heavy-bearing tendency and because of the excellent keeping quality of the nuts. two of the trees bear nuts of large size while the other three bear nuts of medium to small size. seeds from the five trees were planted before the use of the seedlings as stocks in the budding experiment was planned, and since the seedlings from each tree were planted together replication of the experiment was not possible. however, the stock was grown in thoroughly mixed soil in a coldframe and differences in performance of seedlings could hardly be attributed to soil heterogeneity. buds from the five parent trees were placed on the five lots of their own seedlings in all combinations of budwood and stock. the work was done during the first week of september when the bark of both budwood and stock was slipping yet growth had slowed down to some extent. buds were placed about two inches below soil level on the one-year-old seedlings and the soil pulled back to cover the buds. budding was done by means of the familiar shield or t-bud method and rubber budding strips were used as a wrap. budwood was shipped from albany, ga., to beltsville, md., and was damaged somewhat by high temperature in transit, a factor which may be partially responsible for the overall low percentage of buds that grew. in referring to the results presented in table i, it will be noted that considerable variation occurred in the performance of the five lots of seedlings as stock, as well as in the take of buds from the five parent trees. the totals in the last column on the right are all equivalent to percentage since buds were placed on each lot of seedlings. in like manner, the totals in the bottom line are all equivalent to percentages since buds of each parent tree were used. seedlings of stock d were decidedly inferior to seedlings of stock c in take of buds, and both of these lots of seedlings originated from large nuts. also, scion e gave a significantly lower take of buds on all lots of seedlings than scions c or d. the scion e tree produces small nuts whereas the scion c and d trees produce large nuts. scions a and b are intermediate in take of buds, and the source trees both produce small nuts. discussion at least one significant interpretation may be made from the results of this experiment, that may partially explain the difficulties encountered heretofore in propagating chestnuts. using the take of buds as a criterion it can be stated that in this experiment the five lots of seedlings from known parents differed in their performance as stocks. moreover, the five parent trees used as a source of budwood differed among themselves in the capacity of their buds to grow when placed on comparable lots of stocks. if these results are correctly interpreted it is clear that both the stock and the scion may influence the success or failure of propagation technique. doubtless both of these variables have operated together in the propagation of existing varieties and, as would be expected, the results have been unpredictable. it seems likely that the grafting and budding of chestnut varieties should be worked out in the future on the basis of using understocks derived from the seed of special trees or clones found to be suitable sources by tests for grafting performance. it should be pointed out that the five trees used in this work originated from two lots of seed imported from neighboring localities in china and probably are closely related. the fact that significant differences were obtained in this material furnishes basis for the belief that great variability in the budding performance of the chinese chestnut is to be encountered in the many introductions that have been made into this country. table i. results of budding each of five chinese chestnut clones on its own seedlings and on the seedlings of four other clones. the figure for each combination represents the number of buds that grew out of buds placed. scion a b c d e totals s a t b o c c d k e totals discussion after dr. mckay's paper dr. macdaniels: "a good scion on chestnut is one problem which we have not solved." dr. smith: "i find both carr and hobson difficult to graft and have discontinued them." dr. crane: "in california and oregon they are having quite a lot of difficulty with graft union failure with persian walnuts. they have used the northern california black or hinds walnut as root stocks. now they find that in some cases the union fails and results in what is known as the black line disease. at the present time this trouble is the most important cause of the loss of their trees." dr. smith: "zimmerman is a good bearing variety with a good nut. i find that soil makes some difference with this variety." breeding chestnut trees: report for and arthur harmount graves[ ] the chief aim of this breeding work is the development of a chestnut tree of timber type to replace the now practically defunct american species, _castanea dentata_. for the principal economic value of the chestnut was not in its edible nuts but its valuable timber, the loss of which means at present many millions of dollars subtracted from the assets of the american people; and when we consider the loss for all time in the future the figures become astronomical. [footnote : consulting pathologist, conn. agric. expt. station; special agent, conn. geological and natural history survey; and collaborator, division of forest pathology, u. s. dept. agriculture.] _the chestnut blight in italy._ early in we received a visit from captain john b. woodruff, of wilton, connecticut, who told us that while serving as chairman of the department of agriculture and forestry, and instructor in forestry at the army university study center in florence, italy, he visited chestnut stands infected with the blight. _endothia parasitica_ was first discovered by professor guido paoli in on a private estate in busalla, about twenty miles north of the seaport city of genoa. since then the blight has been detected throughout the province of genoa in the legion of liguria; and other widely separated infections have been found. the fungus has been cultured and identified by professor biraghi of the royal pathological station in rome, as _endothia parasitica_. it is believed to have been present in this region for from five to eight years previous to its discovery. the manner of its introduction into italy is not known, but since japan and the u. s. have carried on considerable commerce with italy, either or both countries are possible sources. the disease is spreading in italy at a rapid rate. "by one half of the , acres of chestnut in the province of genoa had been infected and spot infections had been discovered in the adjoining coastal province of la spezia, also in the region of liguria." i am devoting some space to this situation because it means so much to the italian people. in italy fifteen percent of the forest is composed of chestnut. not only does the country use the nuts as a source of food and income, approximately sixty million pounds being exported annually in former years, but the young coppice shoots are used for the weaving of baskets, older ones for poles for vineyards, still older for staves of wine casks, and the oldest for telephone and telegraph poles. "before the war, chestnut flour was the principal food in many localities, but during the war a serious food shortage forced the people in many other areas to rely solely upon chestnut flour for weeks at a time." professor aldo pavari, director of the _stazione sperimentale di selvicoltura_ at florence, visited this country in the summer and fall of , under the sponsorship of the unrra, and spent four days with me at our plantations, learning our methods and getting acquainted with the blight resistant hybrids we have been developing by the breeding together of oriental and native chestnuts. prof. pavari visited also the plantation of the division of forest pathology at beltsville and elsewhere, and other plantations in the west. in december we shipped to florence, italy, nuts of our best hybrids, and in march, scions for grafting--also this summer ( ) pollen of some of our best trees. on october of this year ( ) we sent another shipment of nuts. thus we may be able to give italy the advantage of the progress we have made to date. regarding the susceptibility to the blight of the european or spanish chestnut (_c. sativa_) we have had the following experience. our winter temperatures appear to be too severe for this species. dying back is sure to occur, at least at our hamden, connecticut plantations, marked more or less according to the degree of cold; and on the dead parts _endothia_ then appears, to later invade the parts still living. in i received nuts of _c. sativa_ from france from professor hochreutiner of the geneva botanic garden, from professor uldrich of the berlin botanic garden, and also from france from dr. guillaumin of the jardin de plantes at paris. although i have given the resulting plants much attention they continually die back each year so that we have only two or three individuals that are more than six feet high. but professor pavari says in recent correspondence (july , ) "referring to spanish chestnuts, after we have been assured that the fungus we have found and observed on _castanea crenata_ in spain is really _endothia parasitica_, we must admit that our hypothesis may be exact that _castanea vesca_ [_sativa_] presents in spain races or types resistant to the disease." he goes on to say that the fact that the chestnut blight is so widespread at naples and avellino is at variance with my theory that cold winters are the predisposing cause, for in the regions mentioned the winters are mild and "very warm in comparison with those of connecticut." the essential fact seems to be that the european or spanish chestnut is very susceptible to the blight, perhaps as much so as is our native species, but that evidently certain individuals or races exist that are more or less resistant. during the early part of we had a visit from professor cristos moulopoulos of the university of salonika, greece. although the disease had not then appeared in greece, the pathologists there would like to be ready for it when it does come. _pollinations in and ._ without going into details, the general purpose of the pollinations during these last two years has been to incorporate more and more of the resistant chinese stock into our hybrids. beginning in , we crossed our best japanese-american hybrids with chinese, and we now have a considerable number of young saplings of flowering age, which have the pedigree: chinese x japanese-american. unfortunately, in this cross the chinese is usually dominant as regards habit, but not always. we have some tall, straight-growing individuals of this combination which may well be the forerunners of a blight-resistant forest stock for america. therefore, during and we have been crossing these fine chinese x (japanese-americans) with the following: . our best chinese . american-chinese and chinese-american . american (c. dentata) . our best japanese-americans . among themselves for it is the ultimate aim of this work to develop a race of tall, hardy, blight resistant individuals which will breed true and thus of themselves re-establish the chestnut tree in the forests of eastern north america. as everyone knows, the re-establishment of the chestnut as a forest tree can not be done in a few years or even a score of years, but by continued breeding and patience and perseverance it can be done. the materials are at hand, i.e. tall, erect growth, and blight resistance; and with persistent effort the desired combination can be made. for ( ) above we were fortunate in in receiving a supply of pollen from tall-growing chinese trees, through the kindness of mr. michael evans of greenville, delaware and professor maurice a. blake of the new jersey agricultural experiment station. as a result of our pollinations in , in which combinations were made, we harvested and planted in our cold frames in october hybrid nuts, a large proportion of which germinated, so that this summer ( ) we have set out in our nurseries about hybrid seedlings. in we have made combinations in which branches were bagged; october - we gathered hybrid nuts resulting from these cross pollinations. the large yield of is doubtless the result in part of a good growing season, for there was plenty of rain--at times almost too much--in southern connecticut. one drawback was the cold period during the latter part of june. from the fifteenth to the twenty-sixth the minimum temperatures were or below--on three days as low as . this set back the flowering period four days to a week later than usual, depending upon the species or hybrid. _cooperation in diller's underplanting and girdling method for the establishment of chestnut forest stands._ in the th annual report of our association for is printed a paper by dr. jesse d. diller of the division of forest pathology, u.s.d.a. entitled "growing chestnuts for timber" pp. - . many people seem to think that all you need to do when planting a tree is to stick it in the ground--just _any_ ground. this may be true of some kinds, but is certainly not true of the chestnut. for best growth and development the chestnut requires a fairly deep, well-drained soil, rich in mineral elements and humus, with a fair degree of moisture and plenty of sunlight. two things chestnuts will _not_ endure are shallow soil and drought, the latter often depending on the former. as tree indicators of the kind of site required for the establishment of a chestnut forest dr. diller has chosen yellow poplar, northern red oak, white ash, sugar maple, and yellow birch, with spice bush as a shrub indicator and maiden hair fern, bloodroot and other herbs as herbaceous indicators. using a small area of about one eighth of an acre, dr. diller's plan is to girdle all the trees and then underplant with chestnut seedlings. he says: "as the girdled overstory trees die they gradually yield the site to the planted chestnuts in a transition that does not greatly disturb the ecological conditions, particularly of the forest floor. rapid disintegration of the mantle of leaf mold is prevented by the partial shading which the dead or dying overstory, girdled trees cast." this may seem to some a rather drastic method, but when so much is at stake, namely the re-establishment of the chestnut in our forests, it would seem a justifiable experiment on a small area. in march, , we supplied dr. diller with one hundred seedlings, one or two years old, of our best stock, for underplanting in two of these selected sites, fifty seedlings each, namely on the estate of mr. e. c. childs at norfolk, connecticut, and on lands of the t. v. a. at norris, tennessee. our best wishes for a successful blight-resistant future go with these little trees. _grafting work._ we are continuing with our method of "inarching" young "suckers" from below a blighted area into the trunk above the lesion, the diseased tissue of the lesion being first cut out. this method (see brooklyn botanic garden chestnut breeding project. th annual report of northern nut growers association for . pp. - -- ) is entirely successful in case we desire to preserve partly resistant hybrids of good parentage for future breeding and for scions. (figs. and ) but inarching of the native chestnut is for the most part unsuccessful because the fungus grows too rapidly and girdles the stem, killing the parts above before the inarched tips of the suckers can take hold. there seems to be a certain relation between the amount of disease resistance in the tree and the possibility of restoring it to health by the inarching method. by the common ordinary cleft-graft method, using japanese, or better, chinese stock we are adding to the supply of our most desirable hybrids. _insect pests._ the spring canker worm, _paleacrita vernata_, has not been destructive either in or and no special preventive measures have been taken. japanese beetles have done a little damage. this year the first one appeared july . we find the best method with these is to pick them off at dusk after they have settled themselves for a night's sleep, dropping them into kerosene oil. under these conditions they will usually slip readily off the leaf into the oil. one thing i should like to emphasize (which probably others also have noticed) is that new beetles keep coming, day after day. apparently the adults are issuing from the ground all summer. last year i found a few japanese beetles in november. so one must keep continually on the job all through the season. this summer ( ) we have had a spray program of three sprayings, august , , and september , with "deenate" (fifty percent ddt) to destroy the chestnut weevils which appeared for the first time rather extensively in our hamden plantations last year. (see e. r. leeuwen; ddt for chestnut weevils, american fruit grower : . ) this spray, which we have used on the ground as well as on the young burs, kills japanese beetles as well as the weevils. this fall i have seen very few weevils in our whole crop of nuts. the louse, _callaphis castaneae_, appeared on july , , at least the leaves became so much curled that its presence was then noticed. two spraying on successive days with nicotine sulphate ("black leaf ") were sufficient to control it. with us this insect attacks leaves of american stock only. japanese-american hybrids are also susceptible, but not chinese-american or american-chinese. the lice, of an orange color, congregate in great numbers along the midrib of the leaf, sucking out its juices. this summer, perhaps on account of the unusual almost tropical weather conditions--hot and humid with continually recurring showers--we have been harassed by a new pest which has appeared in one of our plantations only sparingly for five or six years--a mite, which connecticut agricultural experiment station authorities say is _paratetranychus bicolor_. affected leaves have a whitish or grayish color chiefly along midrib and principal veins, due partly to the deposit of the creature's shells on molting, and partly to injury to the tissues of the leaf. hexa-ethyl tetraphosphate, known in the trade as "killex ," was used effectually twice as a spray. unfortunately this chemical has no ovicidal properties, so that a second spraying was necessary to kill the mites newly hatched out from thousands of eggs. we are informed that dn will kill the eggs as well as the mites and will kill aphids at the same time. the mites seem to prefer chinese chestnut leaves, but this summer they didn't seem particular and spread from one badly infested tree as a center. [illustration: fig. --japanese-american hybrid chestnut (hammond - ) - / feet in height, years old. this is the same tree three years later as that shown in figures and , in th ann. rept. of northern nut growers assoc. for . note healthy development, as shown by foliage and long yearly growth. hamden, conn. photo. sept. , by louis buhle.] _chinese chestnuts._ i am enthusiastic about chinese chestnuts as a nut substitute for our old native chestnuts. the chinese are quite blight resistant. they are attacked by the blight fungus--at least most individuals suffer at some time in their lives, and yet the fungus doesn't thrive and the trees are able to overcome its attacks, in many cases forming a healing wound callus around the lesions; in others the lesion becomes simply a granular mass in which the fungus appears to be living only in the outer bark. cultivation, fertilization, and judicious pruning certainly help these trees to withstand these fungus attacks. we harvested a bumper crop last year and this from trees given us in by the division of forest pathology, u.s.d.a. [illustration: fig. .--close-up of lower part of tree in fig. , showing inarched basal shoots which at the beginning were as slender as the leafless shoot now showing on right side, below, coming from base of trunk. note exposed dead part of trunk showing old canker disease. photo sept. , , by louis buhle.] _public interest in the problem._ last fall, september , in an article in the yankee magazine, i asked for nuts and pollen of the american chestnut. as a result the following persons from many different parts of the country sent in nuts: mr. henry hartung, methuen, mass.; mrs. marie garlichs, brooklyn, from lake minnewaska, n. y.; mr. charles ericson, brooklyn, nuts from staten island, n. y.; mrs. jay b. nash, n. y. city, from lake sebago, sloatsburg, n. y.; mr. h. w. donnelly, tacoma, wash.; mr. george m. hindmarsh, kent county, r. i.; mrs. steiner, niota, tenn.; miss marjorie bacon, new haven, conn. from litchfield, conn. through dr. edgar heermance; mr. harold e. willmott, bethel, conn.; mr. w. f. jacobs, tallahassee, fla. (_castanea crenata_); mr. p. p. pirone, new brunswick, n. j. (_c. crenata_); mr. morton f. sweet, seattle, wash. (_c. sativa_), nuts, and scions in march ' ; mr. john i. shafer, sparta, tenn. this lists shows not only the widespread interest in the subject but also that the chestnut sprouts are still bearing nuts. in some cases the nuts were "blind," i.e. sterile, containing no kernel or embryo. in order to develop a good nut there must be two chestnut trees within a reasonable distance of each other so that cross fertilization may take place. isolated trees will usually not bear nuts. in other words, the chestnut is usually self sterile. we are still planting all nuts received, labeled with the name and address of the sender. the resulting trees are being set out in the yale forest in tolland and windham counties, conn. under the direction of mr. basil plusnin, forester in charge. thus the possibility is being explored of the existence of blight resistant strains of the american chestnut. when nuts are sent they should be mailed within a few days after harvesting and wrapped in moist cotton, peat moss or something similar. drying of the nut kills the embryo so that it will no longer germinate. nuts should be mailed to me at chestnut plantations, wallingford, conn. pollen of the american chestnut is getting scarce. after scouring the vicinity of hamden, conn. this summer, we found a good supply at bethany, conn. from native shoots. the following persons also sent us american pollen, for which we are indeed grateful: mr. george gilmer, charlottesville, va.; mrs. m. e. garlichs, lake minnewaska, n. y.; mr. alfred szego, pine plains, n. y.; mr. seward pauley, sumerco, w. va.; and mr. charles w. mann, fennville, mich. to ship the pollen it is necessary only to wrap small branches bearing the catkins in oiled paper and mail to me, preferably by air mail. the catkins should be ripe, i.e. shedding the pollen. _acknowledgments._ it is a pleasure to have this opportunity to express our appreciation of the cooperation of the above mentioned persons. the interest of these and many other persons and institutions is encouraging. during and this project has been sponsored by the connecticut geological and natural history survey, and we have as usual enjoyed the cordial cooperation of the division of forest pathology, u.s.d.a. dept. of agriculture. beginning as of october , , the work is also being sponsored by the connecticut agricultural experiment station, new haven, conn. on july i retired from my position as curator of public instructor at the brooklyn botanic garden and shall now be able to devote my entire time to the chestnut work. my permanent address will be: chestnut plantations, wallingford, conn. chinese chestnuts in the chattahoochee valley g. s. jones, route , box , phenix city, alabama (excerpts from letter to secretary, oct. , .) growing trees is a work dear to my heart for i have been interested in it since childhood. dr. j. russell smith's book on "tree crops" is one of the best i have ever read along the lines of growing trees to produce food for man and beast as well as producing many other useful products, and much of the work of your association seems to be along the same line. i am sure we can live easier and better on this earth when we learn to use the trees in their proper place. man often acts in a shortsighted way by depending largely on annual crops for the main source of food for himself and his animals and neglects the long lived trees which may not have to be planted but once in a lifetime and which, if given a little intelligent management, will improve instead of deplete his land and at the same time make a far more beautiful landscape. i only have a few trees (maybe or ) in my nursery which i usually dispose of at the farm or use to set on my place. i have not attempted to grow many seedlings as i don't wish to get into this phase of work. it would take too much time from other work which i like to do. this fall i have sold over pounds of nuts to various nurseries for planting so i would prefer that they grow and sell trees from my orchard. i gather planting nuts from the trees which show the best qualities, consistently, and sell the nuts from the other trees for eating purposes. the trees from which i sell eating nuts have some bad qualities such as some of the nuts being retained in burs, irregular or poor production, and nuts that seem to be too dry at ripening so i would not offer these for sale although the pollen from these trees does mix with the others causing some of the nuts to carry these bad features, a thing which will hardly be avoided in open-pollinated seedlings. your letter made me more proud of my orchard than ever when you made the statement that my last year's production of , pounds for trees so young as mine may have set a record for production. [see nnga report, p. --ed.] i had little idea how my trees compared with other orchards, for mr. gravatt had not told me anything about this. in fact i have never seen him nor did i take the trouble to write and ask this question. i knew my trees were producing much better than an orchard of the soil conservation service at auburn but i attributed that to the better type of soil (for chestnuts) in which my trees are set, and better air drainage. i had also heard about an orchard near blue springs above columbus, ga., which was not doing so well because the soil was maybe too heavy or damp. i can say one thing and that is that my chinese chestnuts have surely surpassed my fondest hopes and dreams, for that small area has certainly made me lots of money and has given me much joy in tending it and watching it grow. you asked me to give some information about my crop. this has not been quite as large as last year as i have harvested only a little over , pounds (i say a little over for it is hard to get all the nuts) of weighed nuts. this includes some that were beginning to spoil. i include these since it is sometimes due to my failure to gather promptly and i think can be fairly included in production records. i might state here in fairness to last year's report of a yield of , pounds of nuts that i recorded , as being sold which leaves a difference of pounds, which were either discarded as spoiling or were unaccounted for. this gives me a loss of approximately % for last year. although my total production was lower than last year i had one tree (ml no. ) which produced pounds of weighed nuts and a few pounds more (maybe or ) which were not included. this tree has been a consistent heavy bearer for several years but i had not checked its yield separately before. since it is so early it was easy to keep the nuts separate (as i was keeping these to sell for seed nuts). in about weeks time it had produced about pounds so i made a special effort to check the remainder since i was astonished at so large a yield. when most of the nuts had fallen i had the above figure, to my surprise. the tree in size is not my largest but about average being - / " in diameter ' above the ground with a limb spread of ' and a height of '. it has a very symmetrical shape with enough rigidity in the limbs to hold them off the ground so the tree does not appear very large. i just had to laugh when i got a letter yesterday from mr. ralph d. gardner, whom i had written previously about the yield of this tree and sent pounds of nuts from it, asking me if the tree produced two crops in one year. he said mr. james hobson had told him that he gets two crops from his tree each year. mr. gardner had a good reason to ask this question since knowing about the hobson chestnut, but i reckon he might have thought about what i would have thought under similar circumstances, i.e., surely a tree so young ( - / years from setting) couldn't produce that many nuts at one time, so must have two ripening periods to contain the fruit. i will have to say that all these were produced in one crop. most of these ripened in just a little over two weeks. i might say that i do have one tree (ml no. ) which has on a few occasions bloomed the second time and had burs which remained green until near frost but these did not amount to anything and i consider it undesirable. i have never seen no. tree produce late blooms and burs. i might tell a few things as to how i handle my nuts. as is well said by mr. reed in his article about chestnuts they should be gathered daily (although i sometimes don't carry this out). after weighing i dump the nuts in a tub of water. the nuts which are beginning to spoil will practically all float and the sound nuts will sink. this is where the largest percentage of my culls is eliminated. some good nuts will float but very few if the nuts are gathered daily. i then put to pounds of nuts in a coarse mesh burlap bag. i use chicken scratch feed bags mostly as these are a nice size, and ties a string near the top of the bag. then i place these on a lath frame which is about " above the ground under a large pecan tree which furnishes shade about / of the day. i arrange the nuts in the bag so it will be flat, which does not allow more than or nuts to be on top of each other. on days of moderate temperature i wet these bags thoroughly with water once a day but on very hot or windy days i often wet them twice. this keeps the nuts moist most of the time and lowers the temperature considerably from the evaporation. in this way i can keep the nuts days and days and even weeks with very little change except a slight drying. if any spoiled nuts were missed by the water these too will show up in about days with specks of white mold and can be eliminated. the other nuts seem to be as good as the day they were gathered. i only use this to keep them temperarily (as it is some trouble to wet them) and mostly for the eating nuts until i can take them to market or put them on cold storage ( ° to °f.) if i attempt to hold seed nuts about a week or more i pack in damp sphagnum in crates and keep these under the shade tree with excellent results. this year i used green sphagnum with all its water and the nuts seemed to keep well in it. some nuts have been in damp sphagnum for over weeks now and are in excellent shape except for a few that spoiled at first (which i am quite sure were bad to begin with). if too much water is used some nuts will begin sprouting but it is surprising how much they can stand and show no tendency to sour. i am of the opinion that the chestnuts in my section get ripe prematurely and that at a time when we often have our hottest and dryest weather. these nuts seem to need a period to continue their ripening under cool moist conditions which the wet sack treatment gives (or the damp sphagnum.) even if this is not the case i have had splendid results with it whereas before i began using this method with lots of water i often became so discouraged that i thought i would have to abandon trying to put my chestnuts on the market. now if i can get them gathered promptly i have little trouble holding them until i am ready to dispose of them. i failed to tell you that the bad feature about my ml no. tree which produced the pounds of nuts is its early ripening period (the latter part of august and first part of september) which causes some of the nuts to be spoiled almost when they fall. a few hours of too hot sun seems to start the spoiling process. the tree has no other objectionable features except the nuts are only small to medium in size but nearly every one falls freely from the burs. [nuts about to the pound.--ed.] some results with filbert breeding at geneva, n.y.[ ] george l. slate new york (geneva) agricultural experiment station this paper reports the results of attempts to improve filberts by hybridization at the experiment station at geneva, n. y. the filbert project was started at geneva in the spring of when a collection of varieties from american sources was established. in later years additional varieties from european and other sources were added until about were under test. as soon as the varieties had fruited for several years it became evident that many of them were inferior and not adapted to new york conditions. a few exhibited considerable merit and the range of characteristics in the different varieties indicated that it might be worth while to start a filbert breeding project with the object of combining the desirable characteristics of the better sorts. [footnote : journal paper no. , new york state agricultural experiment station, geneva, n. y.] it was decided first to cross rush, a selected form of _corylus americana_, with the best varieties of _corylus avellana_, rush contributing the hardiness of the native hazel, possible resistance to filbert blight, and the hybrid vigor that sometimes results from the crossing of two species. the european filberts were expected to furnish large-sized nuts as well as dessert and cracking quality. the first crosses were made in when two trees of the rush variety growing on dr. macdaniels' place in ithaca were pollinated with pollen of several varieties of _corylus avellana_ that was brought from geneva. additional crosses were made at ithaca in and . in the pollinations were made at geneva, using a barcelona tree covered with a tightly woven cloth. no pollinations have been made since . in the spring of , seedlings were received from willard g. bixby, of baldwin, long island, n. y., which had resulted from crosses made by c. a. reed of the united states department of agriculture, at baldwin. including these u.s.d.a. seedlings and those resulting from the breeding work at geneva, , seedlings have fruited. the nuts from these crosses were stratified in sand in a cold frame, dug up, and planted in the greenhouse in early march. after one transplanting they were moved to the nursery to grow for two years, when they were moved to the seedling orchard. the nuts from one year's crosses were planted directly in the nursery but germination was low due to drought. the seedlings were spaced x feet in the orchard. this spacing was satisfactory if the trees came into bearing the fourth year, but if unfavorable weather eliminated the first or second crops the trees became too crowded to permit satisfactory fruiting. usually, however, the trees fruited sufficiently to make it possible to evaluate them and remove the inferior trees so that the better seedlings would have enough room to remain for several additional crops. during the first few years the orchard was clean cultivated until cover crops were sown in august. in later years the orchards were not cultivated but nitrogen fertilization was substituted. satisfactory growth was maintained, but the grass and weeds made harvesting more difficult. no pruning was done except at planting time as the seedlings were all evaluated before pruning was needed. suckers were removed around the young trees, but as they became older this was not done and some of the plants now have several stems. evaluating the seedlings the nuts were harvested in the fall after they had dropped, or, with the later maturing seedlings and those which tended to cling to the tree, they were harvested by picking or shaking them from the tree. as soon as practicable the nuts were husked and the crop of each tree weighed and recorded. samples of nuts of every seedling fruiting were placed on paper plates, each population being by itself, and eight or ten nuts of each sample were cracked and left on the plate. the seedlings were then divided into three classes, those that were obviously good, those that were poor, and an intermediate class that received further attention. the poor seedlings were marked for discard and if so marked for two or three years they were pulled out. the good seedlings were then examined more carefully and sorted into three groups, as follows: . those that were outstanding in both nut and tree characters. . those that were good enough to propagate for a second test, but not equal to the best. . seedlings good enough to keep for further observation. these were usually good in one or more characteristics but deficient or doubtful in one important feature. if upon further testing these third group plants proved to be outstandingly productive or hardy they were given a higher rating. in examining the nuts, emphasis was placed on size and color of the nut, the large, bright brown nuts being considered more desirable than the smaller, duller colored, pubescent nuts. the amount of space between the shell and the kernel was important. if the kernel fitted tightly it was easily broken or chipped in cracking the nut. thickness of shell was of minor importance as only a few were thick enough to make cracking difficult. the kernel characters were of most importance since the kernel is the reason for producing the nut. the kernel must be plump, smooth, light brown in color, and free of the superfluous pellicle, or fibrous material that is characteristic of the barcelona kernels. generally, seedlings with rush as one parent had very little of this superfluous fibrous material and the best of them were much superior to barcelona in appearance and dessert quality. flavor received less consideration since most of the seedlings were reasonably good in that respect. given a good kernel, and there were many of them, it became necessary to rely upon other characteristics to eliminate the less desirable of these seedlings. it was here that the records of yields and catkin hardiness were valuable. after several years it became evident that certain seedlings were consistently high yielding while others were low yielding. hardiness of catkin also varied greatly and rather consistently from year to year. weather conditions influenced catkin killing greatly. catkin hardiness is important since the pollen is necessary for nut production and must be present in abundance as its movement in the orchard is subject to the vagaries of the wind, and only a small percentage of that in the air ever comes in contact with the stigmas of the other varieties. it is the purpose of this paper to indicate the value, insofar as it may be estimated from the available data, of the different varietal crosses in obtaining desirable filbert hybrids. table contains a list of crosses made, the number of seedlings raised, and the percentage of these which were of sufficient merit to be retained for further study. the percentage of seedlings propagated indicates even more definitely which crosses are of the greatest value in producing superior seedlings as only the outstanding seedlings were propagated for a second test. selections included in table are there by virtue of their all-around merit. crosses between rush and littlepage and rush and winkler produced nothing of value. the populations were small, but other equally small populations from other crosses produced seedlings of value. the inter-crossing of selections of _corylus americana_ does not appear to be a promising line of attack in filbert breeding where hybrids with _c. avellana_ will thrive. rush and barcelona were each used as seed parents in crosses with the same eight varieties. in the crosses involving rush , seedlings were produced and of these , or . %, were good enough to propagate. of the seedlings raised from the same varieties combined with barcelona only , or . % were worth propagating. none of these barcelona seedlings are among the best. under the conditions of the experiment it would seem that rush is much superior to barcelona as a parent in crosses with varieties of _corylus avellana_. the cross between kentish cob and cosford failed to produce any seedlings of outstanding merit. in considering the productiveness and hardiness of the catkins of the seedlings resulting from the different crosses the data have been assembled in tables to , each table containing the summarized records for different plantings. these plantings were started at different times and the records are not directly comparable as they are for different years and varying lengths of time. in table the total number of seedlings is given, but in table to only the data for the selections are used. records for the selections are available for several years, whereas the inferior seedlings were discarded and limited data only are available. furthermore, the filbert breeder is interested primarily in the worthwhile material that may be taken from populations of known parentage. assuming that we have a fairly good nut productiveness is the most important characteristic in a filbert. if the plant is productive it must of necessity be reasonably vigorous and hardy. for that reason much emphasis has been placed on productiveness in the final evaluation of the selections. the selections in table are from the u.s.d.a. bixby plants which were the first to fruit at geneva. considerable variation in productiveness is evident in the different populations. rush x kentish cob and rush x white aveline selections were only about half as productive on the average as rush x barcelona, bollwiller, red lambert, and daviana. rush x italian red also failed to produce high-yielding selections. in a later planting in the same orchard, as shown in table , the rush x kentish cob selections performed no better, the rush x red lambert selections outyielding them by a substantial margin. the barcelona x italian red selections were very low yielding. in orchard , as shown in table , where rush and barcelona are crossed with the same varieties, the resulting selections from the rush crosses are about one third more productive if mean yields are considered, or one-half more productive if only highest yielding selections are considered than with the barcelona crosses. cosford has been outstanding in transmitting productiveness in crosses with rush, italian red, and nottingham. rush x kentish cob selections in this orchard as in the other planting, were only about one half as productive on the average. in the crosses with barcelona the combination with medium long, red lambert, and italian red were considerably more productive than crosses with purple aveline, halle, daviana, and bollwiller. the kentish cob x cosford cross was less productive than most of the other combinations made. kentish cob definitely appears to transmit unproductiveness when crossed with rush, barcelona, and cosford. in orchard as shown in table , the trees soon became very crowded as the discards were not removed and the yield records were less reliable than in the other plantings. winterkilling of catkins were recorded on the selections for several years. in early april the percentage of winter-killed catkins was recorded by estimate. tables to contain the mean of these estimates and a considerable variation in catkin hardiness in the different populations is evident. red lambert, which had the hardiest catkins of any variety of _c. avellana_ tried at geneva, produced a higher proportion of catkin-hardy seedlings than any other variety. cosford was fairly good in this respect and in orchard bollwiller, italian red, and barcelona when crossed with rush produced selections with moderately hardy catkins. winter injury of catkins was nearly always very high in crosses between varieties of _corylus avellana_. of the , seedlings included in table , or %, were retained for further observation and of these, , or . %, were considered good enough to propagate for a more extensive test. of these a few thus far have been outstanding when compared with the others. possibly the best and most productive selection is no. , rush x purple aveline, that is the heaviest yielding of all and the nuts are also among the best, being of medium size, plump, and free from fiber. this seedling is far superior to any others from the same cross. nos. and , both selected from a rush x cosford population, are close seconds to no. . in the rush x cosford population are several others nearly as good, the general level of merit in this combination being fairly high. farther down the list, but still among the best, are no. rush x kentish cob, and no. , rush x barcelona. filbert breeders working under similar conditions would probably find it worthwhile to make these crosses and also to produce more seedlings from rush x red lambert than were raised at geneva. no crosses have been made at geneva in recent years, but all of the nuts from the selections, sometimes several hundred pounds a year, have been planted by the soil conservation service and the resulting seedlings planted in various parts of the country. undoubtedly, if these could be examined when in fruit, some worthwhile selections could be made. those in new york state will probably be worked over during the next few years. table . results from filbert crosses. number of num- percent- number percent- seedlings ber re- age re- prop- age prop- cross fruited tained tained agated agated rush x kentish cob (du chilly rush x cosford rush x bollwiller rush x italian red rush x red lambert rush x daviana rush x purple aveline rush x white lambert rush x barcelona rush x white aveline rush x imperial detrebizond rush x nottingham rush x brixnut rush x littlepage rush x winkler barcelona x kentish cob (du- chilly) barcelona x cosford barcelona x bollwiller barcelona x italian red barcelona x red lambert barcelona x daviana barcelona x purple aveline barcelona x white lambert barcelona x medium long barcelona x early globe barcelona x halle barcelona x red aveline kentish cob (du chilly) x cosford total . table . yields and winterkilling of filbert catkins, orchard , , and . yields are year total. catkin injury is year mean no. of mean highest mean lowest selec- yield yield percent- percent- tions per se- per se- age cat- age of lection lection kins catkins in in winter- winter- cross ounces ounces killed killed per se- lection rush x bollwiller bush x kentish cob (du chilly) rush x white aveline rush x barcelona rush x imperial de trebizond rush x italian red rush x red lambert rush x daviana rush x purple maxima table . yields and winter injury of filbert catkins, orchard , - inclusive. mean highest mean lowest yield yield percent- percent- per se- per se- age cat- age of no. of lection lection kins catkins selec- in in winter- winter- cross tions ounces ounces killed killed per se- lection rush x kentish cob (du chilly) rush x barcelona rush x red lambert barcelona x italian red table . filbert selections. orchard . yields , , , , , and . catkin injury records - , inclusive. mean highest mean lowest yield yield percent- percent- per se- per se- age cat- age of no. of lection lection kins catkins selec- in in winter- winter- cross tions ounces ounces killed killed per se- lection rush x cosford rush x kentish cob (du chilly) rush x nottingham rush x italian red rush x purple aveline rush x red lambert rush x brixnut barcelona x cosford barcelona x kentish cob (du chilly) barcelona x medium long barcelona x red lambert barcelona x purple aveline barcelona x italian red barcelona x halle barcelona x daviana barcelona x bollwiller barcelona x red aveline barcelona x white lambert kentish cob (du chilly) x cosford table . filbert selections. orchard . yields , , and . catkin injury records , and . mean highest mean lowest yield yield percent- percent- per se- per se- age cat- age of no. of lection lection kins catkins selec- in in winter- winter- cross tions ounces ounces killed killed per se- lection rush x cosford rush x italian red * * * * * discussion after mr. slate's paper-- _macdaniels: "of the seedlings tested at geneva, are being carried on for further observations. prof. slate is doing a fine work."_ _j. r. smith: "i want to express my appreciation of the work prof. slate is doing. to care for seedlings and keep the performance records is a big job and just the kind of thing on which progress depends."_ nut news from wisconsin carl weschcke this year at river falls, wisconsin, which is only miles southeast of st. paul, minnesota, the season started off with much rain and a delayed cold spring. all the grafting had to be postponed from two to four weeks later than normal. the stored scion wood suffered some because of this long storage period, and some of it was quite dry when taken out. this was particularly true of the weschcke butternut and these scions looked so dry that i was tempted to throw them all away, but instead i gave them to two young horticulture students to practice with. none of them grew, however, so we had a % failure on butternut grafting. about a dozen years ago i had much success grafting butternut on black walnuts and was unimpressed, therefore i did not make any notes as to the process i used. this was a mistake for apparently i have lost the art. the last five years has probably produced only about five or six plants successfully grafted on black walnut. hickories respond much better and i usually get about % successful grafts on my native butternut stocks. although the insect pests, such as the butternut curculio, were delayed in their attacks, they eventually caught up and destroyed most of the big butternut crop and did their usual damage to heartnut and persian walnut growth. i noticed in the american fruit grower that plum curculio was controlled in the peach orchards through the use of hexaethyl tetraphosphate. if this chemical poison controls plum curculio, it ought to control any of the curculio family, such as the hazel curculio, chestnut curculio and butternut curculio. the butternut and hazel curculio appear to me to be the same insect. i am not troubled with the chestnut curculio yet, but if this chemical gives control over the curculio insect family we will certainly be able to raise large crops of all of the nuts mentioned. quite a few of my grafted test trees, both in the forest and in the orchard, which in some cases were grafted on bitternut hickory stocks fifteen years ago, are beginning to bear. these varieties are the woods, fox, taylor, platman and davis. others which have borne a few times previously also have good crops set. these are bridgewater, glover, beaver, kirtland, deveaux and fairbanks. the trees setting the largest crops of hickory nuts are the weschcke, and they are the only ones that i can really count on maturing early enough to escape our usual early fall frosts. i derive great pleasure in observing new seedling plants of filberts, hazels and their hybrids coming into bearing for the first time this year. there are about two hundred of these new varieties. of course most of them will be worthless commercially. the ideal hybrid hazilbert has not yet appeared, but when it does we will propagate it for sale as rapidly as possible. at this date, august , we have suffered from an extremely dry august and will apparently lose many trees that we cannot reach by irrigation or some other means of watering. we have been busy at the farm and nursery erecting a small pilot plant for grinding filbert butter which we expect to be able to put on the market between october and november . there is about a one-fourth crop of black walnuts in my orchard trees, with the thomas leading. many of the ohio trees are barren. usually the ohio bears freely. it is my observation here that the wild hazels and some of their hybrids will drop their crop of nuts when it becomes too dry. this probably is an excellent feature from the standpoint of the plant as it no doubt saves the plant from being killed by drouth. there is no doubt in my mind but that the hazel-filbert hybrids (hazilberts) will make a large agricultural crop in the corn belt. when these crops are shelled in local plants and ground into butter the industry will fall into much the same category as country creameries. however, we have not reached the point where we have the right commercial plants for this purpose and for the time being will have to use the pacific coast filberts until such large crops of the ideal hybrids appear. home preparation of filbert butter and other products mrs. jeanne m. altman, bellingham, washington filberts may be prepared in different ways at home to make a delicious food. to make filbert butter first shell a roasting pan two-thirds full of kernels and put it in a ° oven. stir the kernels thoroughly and often to get an even tan. cut a few in half to determine when they are brown enough. cook about thirty minutes. do not leave in oven any longer than necessary because the kernels begin to brown rapidly upon further cooking. cool and stir when not too hot. most of the brown pellicle can be removed by rubbing kernels between one's hands. run the kernels through a food chopper or meat grinder to make a crunchy butter. to make a more delicious product, however, first run the kernels through a coarse knife, salt them and then run through a fine knife. this results in a butter with enough oil of its own to make a delicious dish. it takes lots of nuts to make much filbert butter. in preparing salted filberts in quantity i cook them in a strainer in a kettle of deep fat. check the temperature with a thermometer and do not let them get too hot. cool them quickly by putting them into a cold dish and stirring. when salting the whole kernels put only enough fat with them to coat the pellicle. after they are sufficiently brown take them out and salt them as they are cooling. stir just enough to coat the kernels with salt. eat pellicle and all; it holds the salt. stirring too much tends to remove the salt. you can treat a pound of nuts at a time in a heavy iron skillet on top of the stove stirring constantly. when we follow that practice we eat them salted just as they were instead of grinding them. i think they are better than salted peanuts. i sent a recipe to one of our west coast papers and they added a note to drain them on a paper towel. that is wasteful and unnecessary. a bellingham dentist put whole nuts into his false-teeth baking oven in the evening. i do not know what temperature was maintained but it must have been low because he left the nuts there all night and the next morning he found them all roasted and ready to eat. filberts, even the green ones just as they come from the tree, may be boiled and then salted and buttered. they may be used to advantage in many cooking and baking recipes. notes from central new york s. h. graham, ithaca, n. y. this summer has been a difficult one for black walnuts. a late spring delayed starting and three freezes during the week beginning sept. prematurely checked development so that poor filling seems to be the rule. the persian walnuts again demonstrated their ability to ripen their nuts in a short season. some of our persian walnut trees are growing in the partial shade of larger black walnut trees. we prefer to keep these larger trees as they may be valuable stocks to be grafted to the superior varieties that one is always hoping will appear later on. this condition gives a good opportunity to observe the effect of shade. there seems to be no doubt that even light shade is detrimental in our latitude to the persian walnut and results not only in more spindling and unsymmetrical growth but also interferes with proper ripening of the wood making it more subject to winter injury. one difficulty with the persian walnuts in the east is premature falling of the nuts. the female flowers on the young persian trees that we have seen are usually more numerous than with black walnuts of the same size and age, but even hand pollinating often fails to give a good set of nuts. last spring we took pollen from eight of our persian trees to the pomology department of our state college of agriculture for germinating. the best sample showed % viable pollen; the next best % and the rest from o to %. this had been collected and stored for several weeks according to the methods given by dr. cox in the annual report for , page . it is possible that this lack of viability may be due to some soil deficiency such as insufficient lime or boron. prof. schuster of the oregon station writes that they find that persian walnuts readily accept good persian pollen but not black walnut or butternut pollen. if the viability of the pollen falls below % they consider it unsatisfactory. on some of the oregon soils an application of boron in the form of ordinary borax under the trees in the spring has greatly helped in getting a crop of nuts. this should be well worth trying in the eastern states. the filbert crop this year is better than usual. out of over a thousand crosses between rush and winkler with european and pacific coast varieties, in our estimation, only one has proven worthy of propagation considering size, flavor, abundance of bearing and resistance to filbert blight. some growers think lightly of blight but our experience in fighting it through the years in cutting out cankered wood has convinced us of the futility of this means of control in infested areas. control measures may apparently succeed for a time but when conditions of moisture, heat and air movement are just right it can spread like wildfire. therefore, to us, resistance to this disease (cryptosporella anomala) seems of paramount importance. the prevalence of blight has been almost universal in the scattered plantings which we have visited in central new york, usually without the owner knowing why his trees were dying. all our european and coast varieties, as well as most of the hybrids, take blight readily but there is an occasional hybrid that is clearly resistant. bixby is one of these. we have always used a knapsack sprayer equipped with a mist nozzle for our trees but this is inadequate as the trees grow taller. this summer a much more satisfactory nozzle was found that may be quickly adjusted to throw a mist for low trees or a far reaching one for the taller trees. this is made by the d. b. smith co. of utica, n. y. from time to time articles appear on insects injurious to nut trees. frequently mentioned are the web worms and the walnut caterpillars. with us, the damage they do is as nothing compared to that caused by the curculios, the strawberry root worm beetles and the leaf hoppers. we are getting the upper hand of the curculios by the use of cryolite spray but the root-worm beetle problem is still unsolved. until rev. crath wrote of leaf hopper damage (annual report p. ) we had not regarded them as at all serious. subsequent observation has convinced us that he was right and that they are often the cause of the blackening and dying of the tender young leaves of persian walnuts and the curling up of older leaves. we were especially impressed during the wooster, ohio, field trip last year and, later on, in seeing how mr. sherman had overcome this trouble on the mahoning co. farm simply by adding ddt to his spray mixture. in closing, we would like to call the attention of new members to the wealth of information that is to be found in the old association annual reports. experience with the crath carpathian walnuts gilbert l. smith, wassaic, new york in the spring of we purchased from the wisconsin horticultural society two pounds of the nuts which rev. paul crath had imported from poland. we planted these nuts in the nursery row. sixty-two seedlings resulted. we assigned a number of each of these seedlings and transplanted them when they were two years old. here we made our first mistake. we selected what proved to be a very poor site for them, adjacent to and nearly surrounded by woodland, in which were a goodly supply of butternut curculios which we have found to be by far the worst insect enemy of the persian walnut. it attacks the terminal growth doing some damage by feeding but principally by laying eggs in the terminals and the fleshy base of the leaf stems. from these eggs grub-like larvae hatch which bore into the terminal and the leaf bases, greatly dwarfing the terminal growth. we have found as many as six larvae in a single terminal. of course they also like to lay their eggs in the young nuts which then drop from the tree in mid-summer. in the spring of we started to graft from these seedlings on black walnut stocks, giving each the same number as that of the seedling from which the wood was taken. it is too bad that we did not start this work sooner as we lost a few of the seedlings, largely through the ravages of the curculio, but possibly some of them were just not rugged enough to stand our climate. we still have of these varieties living, either as grafts or the original trees. to this collection we have added a few varieties, securing wood from seedlings being grown by others. we have had living grafts of some of the named crath varieties which we suppose developed from some of the wood imported from poland by rev. crath. all of these have failed with us except one, carpathian d. apparently they were not hardy enough for our climate. so far we have had only one severe test of our crath seedlings, as to hardiness. this was on february th, , when the temperature at mr. benton's farm was thirty-four degrees below zero. this was not official but was registered by two thermometers which mr. benton knew to be very accurate. many of our crath seedlings showed no injury at all on this occasion while others showed varying degrees of injury. our grafts of broadview were damaged quite severely, carpathian d to just about the same extent. one other named crath variety, crath no. , was killed outright. only one of our seedling varieties showed as severe injury as did broadview. this was s . this tree has now fully recovered but we will not grow any trees from it except for more southern latitudes and then only if it shows exceptional merit when it begins to bear. therefore, according to our experience so far, there is quite definite evidence that these crath seedlings are hardier than broadview. mcdermid was killed outright. we have found that practically all persian walnut trees, when young, will bear pistillate blossoms for several years before they bear staminate blossoms (catkins). this fact has delayed us in securing nuts from these seedling varieties and has compelled us to resort to hand pollination. however, they are now beginning to produce both kinds of blossoms. the first one to bear was in , when one tree bore twelve nuts which had resulted from hand pollination with pollen sent us by mr. reed. this variety appears to be the most promising one that has borne so far. we have named it littlepage and have had a booklet printed which describes it fully. we will be glad to mail a copy to anyone who wishes. we have now found a good pollinizer for littlepage, our no. s seedling. this variety produces pollen at just the right time, some of which i used this spring to hand pollenize the littlepage tree. a fine crop of nuts is now on this tree as the result of this pollination. last year ( ) we had a few nuts from each of five other seedling varieties. while we did not consider any of them equal to littlepage, they were all worth growing and compare quite favorably with english walnuts as found in our markets. this year we have nuts on each of eleven varieties, five of them and the same ones that bore last year and six new ones. now that these seedlings are beginning to bear we are able to cull out any that prove to be very inferior. as our facilities are far too limited to thoroughly test the promising varieties, we have started to propagate them and offer them in many parts of the country and subject them to many different conditions. thus it should be only a matter of time until the truly worthy varieties will prove themselves. if we were wealthy we could propagate them and distribute them free of charge but i doubt if it would prove as satisfactory as it is to charge for them, as it seems to be a trait of human nature to take better care of that which costs us something. we will not name these new varieties at present but will put them out under their test numbers. later the ones that prove best can be named. to facilitate the distribution of these new varieties we are getting out a folder showing natural size pictures of the nuts of the six varieties which were produced last year, with a brief description of each. i am very sorry that i was unable to get these folders from the printer before coming to this convention. however we will have them very soon and will be glad to mail a copy to anyone who requests it. as stated before we have found that the butternut curculio is a very bad pest with the persian walnuts, also heartnuts and butternuts. it does not injure the black walnut at all. there are also several other insects which feed on the persian walnut, most of these chewing insects that simply injure the foliage more or less severely. last winter i was advised by dr. dean of our experiment station staff, to try benzene hexachloride (hexachlorocyclohexane) for control of the curculio. he stated that in california they have found out that the persian walnut is quite susceptible to arsenical injury when a spray containing arsenate of lead is used on it. also tests so far indicate that d.d.t. is not very effective against the apple and plum curculio, therefore not likely to be effective against the butternut curculio. so last spring we secured a supply of benzene hexachloride. just as we were about to spray the trees i discovered a swarm of orange colored insects with black wing covers, feeding on them. so i checked the compatibility chart in the february issue of the american fruit grower and found that benzene hexachloride and d.d.t. were compatible when used together in the spray mixture. i thought it would be well to use a double barreled dose. so we made up a spray of four pounds of benzene hexachloride, four pounds of d.d.t., % wettable powder, and pounds of wettable sulfur to gallons of water. this first spray showed a slight burning of the leaves, which i suspected was due to the sulfur. we omitted sulfur from the later sprays and did not note any more burning. we put on three sprays at about two week intervals and a fourth spray about the middle of july. the result of these sprays appears to be excellent. i have found only one nut showing any insect injury and this one was only slightly injured, whereas last summer we lost a considerable percentage of the nuts from curculio injury. a day or two after applying the first spray, i wanted to secure a specimen of the orange-colored insects with black wing covers, but i could not find a single specimen. we did not apply our first spray quite soon enough and curculio larvae had already invaded a few of the terminals. the first spray should be applied about as soon as the leaf buds separate and quite likely should be followed by the second spray in about a week, as new growth is very rapid at this time and the scant foliage at the time of the first spray would hardly hold enough of the chemicals to give control for more than a few days. observations on hardiness of the carpathian walnuts at poughkeepsie, new york stephen bernath in our section we have very good persian walnut varieties of carpathian and other european sources. i have planted some of all strains and varieties. my place faces northwest on a good elevation. my experience with trees there is that we have no winter injury. we can grow trees there that cannot be grown on some place which is situated low, and therefore does not have enough air circulation. damage is done after heavy frosts when the sun comes out suddenly. that is what damages the trees--not the cold. if you take trees and put them in a temperature of to degrees below zero and bring them out to thaw gradually no harm is done. most people buy trees and plant them in low places; that is the error. we have planted trees where the wind is very heavy throughout the winter and in the spring i found that these trees stood up wonderfully well; whereas, we have european walnut trees with a trunk diameter of about to inches that in one year froze two to six feet--about three to four years growth. if you plant your trees on a fairly good elevation you can be assured of a good nut crop. in planting nut trees i do not know what kind of fertilizer you use, but i always use well decayed cow manure and put a little right around the root system. i never use fresh manure and never use poultry, sheep, or horse manure. they are bad for trees as they are very high in ammonia and this does damage to the trees. discussion after graham, smith, and bernath persian walnut papers. corsan: "is using lime a good idea? i always use a lot of wood ashes." stoke: "use ground agricultural limestone. burned lime may cause injury." j. r. smith: "barnyard manure is the best." stoke: "with the carpathian walnuts there is no uniformity in winter injury. i have had the crath variety kill back to two inch wood. most others have never shown winter injury." corsan: "when is it practical to take mulch away?" macdaniels: "if you take mulch away too late you will get more injury than if you don't take it away at all." member: "why does my young walnut tree not bear?" bernath: "english walnut trees may produce pistillate blooms for a number of years before they produce pollen so that if you have only one tree it may be due to lack of pollination." member: "with english walnut is more than one tree necessary for pollination? the male blossom appears a week or days before the female." crane: "persian walnuts should be used to pollinate persian walnuts--do not depend on black walnuts. in growing persian walnuts it is best to have trees of two or more varieties in a planting so as to provide cross pollination." stoke: "persian walnuts may not pollinate black walnut, but black walnut has pollinated the persian walnut in known instances." macdaniels: "control or uncontrol of pollination is very complex." crane: "we find that we can not readily produce persian x eastern black hybrids under conditions of controlled pollination. we have found a number of natural hybrid trees but they bear very few nuts." nuts about trees r. e. hodgson, superintendent, southeast experiment station, university of minnesota. when hiking with a boy scout troop, they often asked me, "what tree is that?" in summer i could usually tell an oak from a box elder but had never had much reason to go further into the subject until the boys exposed my ignorance. in self defense i began to hunt up the names and found it a most interesting hobby. the university of minnesota has a branch experiment station some miles south of the twin cities and it is here that a few acres have been roped off as a testing site for whatever trees of interest we can persuade to grow. my job is with field crops and livestock but my golf, fishing, hunting and bridge are mostly played with a spade and pruning shears or wandering around in the brush somewhere looking for something new. our soil is a heavy clay loam of clarion type containing plenty of lime but often poorly drained. it is very rich and productive being at one time part of minnesota's big woods. native trees are basswood, oak, elm, ash, walnut and their associates. my ignorance concerning trees is still profound and becomes more apparent as acquaintance matures, but it has been a lot of fun to start about varieties of trees and shrubs and watch their development. the latin names are mostly a mystery to me, but their habits, methods and rate of growth along with soil preferences and winter survival have furnished more entertainment for me than picking shot out of a dead bird or furrowing the turf on a putting green. it has been a real thrill to see cypress, sycamore and even a few yellow poplars, survive our rugged winters. the project began with an attempt to collect native trees and expanded to make room for some exotics, just to see what would happen to them. detours and by-paths included attempts to grow various conifers from seed and persuade cuttings to root. somewhere along the line nut trees began to enter the picture and now these have an alcove all to themselves. perhaps it started when a neighbor offered me $ . if i could tell whether a young sprout in his yard was butternut or walnut. he died before i found the answer which was probably common knowledge to most people. the color of the pith did not seem reliable, but at last a book pointed out the little moustache a butternut wears just above each leaf scar. it worked, and the thrill was equal to catching a pound wall eye! i was raised on the prairie part of southwestern minnesota and it was a delightful surprise when i moved miles east to find that one could gather almost any desired quantity of black walnuts from remnants of the old forest. after a few years these trips to the woods became less glamourous and the pickeruppers more critical. many of the wild nuts were small and hard to crack. perhaps a friend's thomas tree in full bearing with its heavy crop of huge, tasty nuts inspired a wish to grow bigger and better producing trees near at home. it looked easy to transplant vigorous, foot black walnut whips which could be had for the digging. it took years to learn that nuts properly planted would make larger trees in a decade than transplants. digging deep holes to move one tree seemed a waste of labor when one planted nut would better serve the purpose. of course nut planting led to a contest of wits with the squirrels. it was a funny sight to watch a helper carefully placing nuts at regular intervals in an open furrow and a big fox squirrel following feet behind him, removing the prizes as fast as he could scamper up and down a nearby hollow oak. our ideas concerning appropriate locations for walnut trees did not coincide with those of mr. bushytail. we learned that the simple way to plant walnuts in the woods was to pile a half a bushel here and there. the tree climbers took their toll, but did a good job of planting. survival seemed better than when we placed individual nuts and "stepped them in." the desire for bigger, better and more useful nuts led to the planting of a couple of acres to seed from various trees of known value. these will not come true of course but it is hoped that some day they may serve as material for a small nut breeding project in which an attempt will be made to combine some of the more desirable chromosomes into a single tree that retains the best of what we have in present selections, and adds a little more hardiness between growing seasons. who can tell? we might find a tree that the walnut worms didn't like! the squirrels didn't fancy our plans to grow trees in rows according to parentage, so they tried to improve our technique. we almost called in the f. b. i. to circumvent their machinations. jamming an open tin can over the planted nut seemed to help. when the sprout came up we turned up the edges of the split can bottom just enough to let the tree through, but the sharp jagged edges seemed to discourage marauders. a lot of other methods were also tried. from the wisconsin horticultural society we obtained a pound of english or persian walnuts in . so far we have some seedlings struggling to keep alive. they range in height from inches to feet and are definitely out of their range. some years they grow feet of new wood and some winters it all kills back. there seem to be differences in hardiness and--who can tell?--they might even bear a nut some day. bark injury, which may be winter sun scald, has damaged some of the trees. one tree of the broadview selection is alive after four years and may make a go of it. hickories grow wild in certain parts of minnesota, but this doesn't happen to be one of those parts. they seem to do best where soil is acid in reaction and here we are amply supplied with lime. that may account for the slow growth of a grafted hales hickory tree. it was years old when set out in . for the first years it had just leaves per year. now approaching , the tree is to feet high and going up at the rate of to inches a year. nuts from wisconsin, michigan, and minnesota wild hickories, have done better. at years the trees are from to feet high, with a couple of shakespeares, (geniuses) towering a foot above them. this may not be hickory country, but, by gum, they're growing! a couple of years ago, dr. brierley from the central station, division of horticulture, who has nut propagation as one of his minor projects, gave us seedlings of shellbark hickory, (carya laciniosa), from a tree planted many years ago by peter gideon of wealthy apple fame. after winters, these seedlings are still with us and seem to grow faster than the shagbarks (ovata). other attempts to vary our diet (if we live long enough) are a few chinese chestnut seedlings. a couple secured from the nut tree nurseries, downington, pa., in are now and feet high and apparently in a good state of health. they are leisurely growing, which may be a good thing. trees like the manchurian walnut which grow to feet of new wood in a year, seem to freeze back and start over more frequently than the trees which poke along but harden their wood before cold weather. in , a few more seedlings from d. c. snyder, center point, iowa, were set out and most of them have survived the first winter. carl weschcke reports that chestnuts do best for him at river falls, wisconsin, in sandy soil with an acid reaction. if i ever raise a chestnut, i'd like to send him one. fooling with nuts has led to another activity which has been pleasant though not very practical so far. each spring, dr. brierley spends a couple of days with me trying to graft some of the named varieties to our available wild trees. we have raised nuts on some of the hickory scions grafted to the plentiful native bitternuts, but in general our grafts have failed. we have had good advice from many sources and have tried most everything but our successes have not been numerous enough to cause any inflation of the ego. we're inclined to think that the sudden wide variations of temperature which are common here in may, can be the controlling factor. we've made a few walnuts, hickories, and hicans grow, but still have too many zeroes for any complacency. this year may be our bonanza. most of the grafts on some trees are shooting buds. perhaps it's the grafting tape we tried this spring. in we'll be able to write it all down in the book--and try again. nuts are not the only food crops growing on trees. we have read the glowing reports of sweet pods of honey locust grown on such varieties as millwood and calhoun, as told by john hershey and j. russell smith. our millwoods all killed the second winter and this year we're trying calhoun. meanwhile, we're hunting for a hardy, northern grown sweet tree. miss jones asked nut growers to tell me what they had and several interesting replies and samples were received. the quality of the pods varied all the way from the sweet millwood to our native honey locusts, most of which are so bitter and astringent that they remind us of a combination of green persimmons and red pepper. no sensible animal will touch them. cions were received from a tree in omaha, nebraska, through the courtesy of f. j. adams. these were grafted on local trees this spring and perhaps they will answer all of our needs. our attempts to grow better nuts in southern minnesota have not caused even a ripple in the local economic situation, but it has been a lot of fun. perhaps the greatest return so far is the interesting correspondence with like minded people in many localities. amos workman of hurricane, utah, sent seed of his best black and persian walnuts, pecans and figs. the figs didn't even start (probably my ignorance), but we have trees coming from all the rest. j. russell smith has been most helpful with suggestions and the "minnesota horse thief" as he calls me, has enjoyed his letters immensely. john hershey has passed along some of his enthusiasm for trees and many others have contributed to the pleasure of a fascinating hobby. it's fun to grow trees even though some of the unusual things provide only exercise and entertainment. our persimmons grew from seed, were transplanted and came through the first winter! one pawpaw is still trying to get ahead of the winter set-backs, and a macedonian white pine (said to produce edible nuts) is doing fine. perhaps i'm the biggest nut of all, but i'm happy about it! report on nut trees at massillon raymond e. silvis, massillon, ohio i will first give an account of plantings observed recently in or near massillon, and, secondly, a condensation of my own introduction to nut growing. louis bromfield in his richly descriptive book "the farm" writes, "on the way one passed the big orchard which was jamie's pride, and beyond one came to the field where the big hickory stood. it was a memorable tree, famous in the countryside for bearing enormous nuts with shells so soft that the faintest tap of a rock or a hammer would lay open the bisque-colored kernels." he also writes a reference to the ingredients of candy making at christmas time in which a good many recipes called for hickory nuts and walnuts. in massillon mr. alvin schott, when he drove by the farm of mr. lester hawk and read his sign, "chinese chestnut trees for sale," thought of the chestnuts he used to eat. since he, like the rest of us, cannot go out along the road in the fall and pick up chestnuts as of old, he declared to plant some nut trees on city park land so that the younger generation could in a small measure recapture that which now is only a memory. after making numerous talks and speeches to all the lodges, civic clubs and p. t. a.'s, he received donations and publicity to help him in his project. he enlisted the help of other civic nut-minded personnel to help him select the trees and locations for planting. boy scouts and school children dug some of the holes. when it rained (it seems to rain every time a shipment came in) mr. schott would call us away from our work and have us dig holes. we have planted in city parks: hawk chestnuts, thomas black walnuts, hazel, mulberries, broadview persians, josephine persimmons, pecan seedlings, hican, large seedling black walnuts and several hickories. we have additional money for another spring planting. thus massillon has joined the list of cities that own trees that will produce something else besides leaves. on august th mr. gerstenmaier and i drove to ira, ohio, to visit mr. cranz and take advantage of his invitation to inspect his nut planting. at this moment i believe that his invitation was made with the subtle purpose of bragging about his excellent crop of thomas black walnuts and filberts. the trees were originally planted by squirrels and later grafted by mr. cranz. they grow at the bottom of a huge hill or escarpment feet high at the top of which is his planting of _mollissima_ chestnuts. it's a long climb through his neatly scythed pathways on a hot day. afterwards i felt like i needed the can which he usually carries. recently i found a young black walnut which i hope may be a good selection for further work. it is too early to make any predictions, but i can assure you that a careful check on the tree's performance will be interesting. thin shell, good kernel cavity, etc. near bolivar, ohio, stands a young shagbark hickory which bears a nut about the size of a pleas hican with a very smooth kernel cavity and a thin shell. even though small this is another nut which will bear watching. i believe the greatest interest in nut trees will develop when a definite program of controlled crossing is instituted. when i became a member of this organization in i was managing almost , acres of farm land. my own acre farm was being farmed up and down the hill because the fences were built that way. my plan was to change over to a contour operation. after reading "nut growing" and "tree crops" i decided to plant nut trees at ' intervals along the edges of the contour strips. i had a twofold purpose, to produce more revenue and preserve the contour method of farming. i ordered grafted nut trees from jones nurseries, crath seedlings from graham and northern pecan nuts from wilkinson. homer jacobs, really "sold me" on the nut growers association and then sent me scions of the wilcox hickory. i was successful in getting two to grow about ' apart. miss jones sent me pleas hican wood and one graft grew between the two wilcox. all were grafted on shagbark stock, breast high using the late mr. fickes' method. the pecan nuts were stratified and given the usual nursery care and at three years of age were transplanted to the farm along with seedling black walnuts and chestnuts. these seedlings were to be used as stocks for grafting the newer and superior productive varieties. this was . the farmer became dissatisfied with my soil conservation tendencies and moved away. the war developed in earnest and i matriculated at a defense plant. the farm just grew up. i was not dissatisfied. i was just tired. i couldn't find enough time to manage , acres of farm land miles south; work at a defense plant miles north and operate my insurance and real estate business. so i sold all the farms including mine with the nut trees. now it is . it was only two years ago that i made a decision to relinquish the acre farm. a short time ago i found all the grafted trees bearing fruit except the hickories and hican. the grafted zimmerman, stoke and hobson chestnuts have died and most of the pecan, walnut and chestnut seedlings planted on the contour strips have succumbed to the mower, etc. i could find none of the grafted hickories purchased through the years except one fairbanks. the present owners are enthusiastic over the early bearing chestnuts and are taking care of all the remaining survivor trees. i have reached the conclusion that any farm in this section of the u. s. with enough hope to warrant contour farming is usually marginal land. this is land which barely pays the cost of working or using; land whereon the costs of labor, coordination and capital approximately equal the gross income. i believe that a planting of grafted nut trees on the edges of contour strips will increase the value of that farm and should have the attention of every county agent and farm owner. i am no doubt the worst "grafter" in the business. when i get one out of sets to grow i am startled, not so much with the statistical percentages but because a small stick of wood from kentucky can make its home on the roots of an ohio cousin. i believe that scion storage is important and i wish to report that the method which dr. shelton explained in the report is very satisfactory. the next best is john gerstenmaier's apple storage cellar, which he and i have used ever since my interest in nut bearing trees brought us together. it is still . i'm still in the real estate business. i recently purchased acres of land in an adjoining county and placed title in my son's name. he is six years old. i should be free of any inclination to sell this for fifteen years. since there are no buildings i won't have a tenant problem. this spring i purchased and planted grafted hickories and grafted black walnuts and set them in supposedly favorable locations where i hope they will maintain themselves. in addition i planted about hawk seedling chestnuts spaced about to feet apart. these were planted in three different locations. one group was planted under the canopy of a locust grove, another on an exposed hilltop which faces the prevailing westerly winds. the third is on a broad hilltop field which does not have the best drainage since the top soil is clay underlaid with sandstone shale. all of these groups grow on land abandoned some years ago. the soil fertility is generally low. volunteer native growth of cheery, ash, dogwood and hawthorn prevails. if i can continue to plant for the next fifteen years i should have quite an orchard, or else my son will have a good hardwood forest. i hope that all of us here can meet there then. discussion after r. e. silvis' paper. mr. macdaniels: "it is a good idea to have nut trees established in the parks. in your home town there is usually a park in which nut trees can be used. very often it just takes initiative to get these things started. boy scout organization is very good at starting projects like this. chestnuts are more difficult to establish than other trees." dr. gravatt: "nut trees should not be grown along the curbs because people will gather the nuts that fall on the road. this is very dangerous where there is much traffic." stoke: "walnuts are much more satisfactory as park trees than chinese chestnuts. people are so prone to break off branches bearing immature chestnuts." dr. macdaniels: "wire guards are excellent to keep mice, rabbits, etc., away from your nut trees." planting of nut trees on highways undesirable r. p. allaman, harrisburg, pa. having always opposed this practice when it was under discussion, i have been asked to prepare an article on the subject. this paper was prepared in collaboration with mr. wilbur h. simonson, senior landscape architect, u. s. bureau of public roads, washington, d. c. since the beginning of the roadside improvement demonstration program in the policy of the public roads administration has never favored planting of the showy, garden type of fruit and nut trees on highway roadsides for several reasons: . =traffic hazards=--dropping of fruits and nuts on pavements tends to make surface conditions slippery and dangerous to traffic. . =police problems=--ripening of fruits and nuts tends to invite passing motorists to stop on side of highway pavements to gather the fruits, adding to traffic hazard. also such trees tend to invite vandalism by boys together with clubbing the trees to get down the fruits with the possible results of not only injury and damage to the trees themselves, but throwing sticks, stones and clubs into the tree branches is likely to result in hitting or striking passing motorists and otherwise cause loss of control of vehicles by drivers, a very dangerous road condition especially because it is an unexpected situation to have clubs or fruit come down on the highway when driving through. this all means more intensive policing of the highway by the responsible authorities with added costs in maintenance budgets. . =maintenance problems=--not only do dropping of fruits, and the results of vandalism, cause extra cleanup of pavements and drainageways, (clogging of pipes and gutters with debris from the trees) all hazardous to traffic; but also the questions of insects and disease problems are added. this all complicates public maintenance problems and especially the proper pruning and spraying of the trees. it is not considered a proper function of public authorities to carry on operations that compete with private property developments. administrative policy and procedures shall encourage the planting of shade tree types along public highways, and avoid the above described difficulties that are =bound= to occur if nut-bearing types of trees are placed on highway areas. references: bennett's book on roadside development, , pages and , also page of the proceedings for the twentieth annual meeting of the highway research board in , regarding the selection and use of trees on highway areas, as recommended by the committee on roadside development. i quote from these the following extracts: "profusely flowering fruit or nut-bearing trees are not desirable, as a rule; very showy garden types of flowering, fruit or nut-bearing trees should be avoided in roadside planting. experience indicates than vandalism is encouraged by planting any species of tree commonly used in garden, commercial fruit, or nut orchard planting." "trees which drop heavy masses of petals, fruit or nuts on highway surfaces are not desirable. horticultural varieties of flowering trees (particularly those of exotic origin such as the japanese cherries) should be avoided in roadside planting because a too garden-like appearance of planted roadsides will usually indicate excessive annual maintenance costs, and probably heavy future losses of planted material because of competition with superior and more rugged native tree species." _re:_ vandalism, parents are responsible for acts of their children and public plantings should not encourage children towards acts of a vandalistic nature, with trouble not only for the tree but also for the parents in keeping the children in order. nut growing for the farm owner h. gleason mattoon it is with trepidation that i present a paper on nut growing before a group so much more learned in the subject than i. but two things impel me to do so. first, the firm conviction that nut trees, carefully chosen, properly planted and intelligently cared for, have a place on many farms as a cash crop for the market and a food crop for the farm family and, second, the poor results from many nut tree plantings on farms. as may be imagined, my conviction is not based upon results seen but upon the possibilities i know are inherent in nut trees. when the first wave of publicity for soil conservation was at its zenith back in the late s, i listened to a talk, the substance of which was that there are no such things as submarginal land, and problem areas. there are only submarginal people and problem people. land does not destroy itself nor is squalor self-created. human qualities create both conditions. therefore the problem to be tackled is the ignorance, cupidity or stupidity of those who create such conditions. this made a profound impression on me. it has influenced my thinking in all things connected with our renewable resources. our success in growing anything, whether it be cotton, corn or nut trees, depends largely upon ourselves. if we mix three parts of intelligence with one part of effort, the yield will be manifold. much of this intelligence should be of the "green thumb" variety, a mixture of common sense and keen observation. the one using this kind of intelligence would plant black walnuts in a deep, rich, well-drained loam, because he has observed that this species grows best and yields more heavily in that type of soil. he would plant the trees with top roots not more than one inch under the surface of the soil because he has noted that is the way they grow naturally. he would strive to keep foliage on the tree as long as possible because he knows that the leaves are the manufacturing part of the tree. without them the tree could not grow and would not produce filled nuts. he would do many other things essential for proper tree growth and yield. but unfortunately several of the farm nut tree plantings i have seen show a woeful lack of "green thumb" intelligence. i recall one in particular because of the condition of both the trees and the owner. the planting originally consisted of twenty chinese chestnuts, fifteen named black walnuts, four hicans and four persian walnuts. the owner originally was an enthusiastic convert to nut growing. today the planting is a failure, while the owner is an irate backslider who would not plant another nut tree even though it bore ten dollar bills. four years after planting, nineteen of the twenty chestnuts, all hican, three persian walnuts and ten black walnuts were dead. of the remaining seven trees only one could be called healthy. examination soon focused the picture. most of the trees had been planted on an eroded hillside deficient in humus. in addition, many of them were planted from three to ten inches too deep. the only thriving walnut was planted at the proper depth and in a pocket of top soil at the base of the slope. under questioning, the owner said that he had purposely planted them deep to "keep their roots cool." that is a widely held horticultural fallacy which is unconsciously fostered by many nurseryman. in their instructions they say to plant the tree one inch deeper than it was in the nursery. too many laymen reason that, if planting the tree one inch deeper will help, then the tree should do even better if planted six inches deeper. after eighteen years of trying to learn why transplanted trees do not thrive, i am convinced there are four main causes. i list them in the order of their prevalence. first and foremost, too deep planting. second, fibrous roots allowed to become dry. this may occur in transit, in the hands of the purchaser or because of air space around the roots after planting. third, deficiency of moisture due to low humus content of the soil or drought. four, rodent damage. while some nut trees are possibly more difficult to re-establish than a few other species, if care is used to see that none of these four conditions occurs, there is no reason why a well-rooted tree should not grow and remain healthy. up to this point i have been dwelling on the negative side. though it must be confessed that the preponderance of such planting has not fulfilled the owner's expectations, we must remember that the fault does not lie in the trees but in the human element. if the purchaser of nut trees has received proper instructions and carries them out faithfully, the trees will grow. not all of the fault, however, can be placed upon the purchaser. the nurserymen should remember that there is a place for gilded pictures and glowing generalities but that place is not in the directions for planting and care. these directions should be practical, precise and detailed, with no implications of midas returns from a half acre grove. every grower of nut trees knows that problems and troubles continue to arise which tax his knowledge and experience. how much more baffling such difficulties are to the layman who is just embarking on the venture of growing trees. i have planted nut trees and have seen them grow to maturity and yield bountifully. i have seen a few farm tree plantings which have more than repaid the time and effort. though the varieties now grown by nurserymen are inferior to those that i am confident will be produced at some future time, they still have sufficient merit to warrant planting. you who are interested in nut trees which thrive in the northern states, must recognize that two factors contribute to the development of superior strains. one is hybridizing and the other sport development. the former is a long term project which should have institutional backing. the opportunity for the latter, that is, chance development of a superior or unique variation, is in direct ratio to the number of nut trees growing in the area. successful farm nut growers, dotted over the region, will, therefore, increase the chance that finer strains will appear. but whether the farm nut grove ever abets science and produces the long sought superior nut, is of little importance compared to its value to the farm. it is incumbent, therefore, upon every nut enthusiast, who has a hand in bringing to the attention of farm owners the value of nut trees, to be meticulous in giving instructions for their planting and care. tree crop and nut notes from southern pennsylvania john w. hershey _broadview english walnut_--this hardy variety seemed so good it took a lot of effort to keep from recommending it commercially. the oldest tree in our section, owned by my brother, bore lightly for several years. with its fine flavor, tree beauty and hardiness it edges closer and closer to where we can recommend it commercially. in its seventh year it bore a half bushel; the th, this year, it's really loaded. i have planted trees. _a southern persian walnut_ the northern man in the south loves the cool climate, persian walnut. i have found chance seedlings here and there, even down to northern alabama. one tree, northeast of knoxville, tennessee, had a good quality nut and was seemingly resistant to sun scald. starting late in the spring it avoids the late frosts so damaging to horticulture in the south. _cornell black walnut_--this new variety, a thomas seedling, named cornell by its originator at ithaca, new york, bore one nut for us in . the boys at cornell like it because it fills even in an abnormally cool season of the finger lakes region when natives fail. you can't decide an issue with one nut, but our specimen was as large and full of high-flavored, white meat as the thomas, and as thin-shelled as the stabler. so attractive does this variety appear that i am reserving it this fall in order to plant several in orchard form to produce scion wood. _honey locusts_--the latest report on their performance comes from j. c. moore, soil conservation service at auburn, alabama, on february , . their laboratory tests of millwood show a sugar content of . %, and calhoun . %. the animal husbandry department of the alabama experiment station at auburn has found the pods equal to oats, pound for pound, in a dairy ration. a team of mules fed for days on pods showed satisfactory results. cows and hogs showed equal success. at years of age, millwood averages pounds and calhoun pounds per year. at eight years, millwood bore pounds, and calhoun . the pods fall from october th to december th. lespedeza sericea planted between the trees yields - / tons per acre annually. this gives us courage to continue emphasizing their great value for pasture and rough land planting. the trees we planted in our swampy, worn-out meadow are doing fine. _mulberries_--this great chicken, bird and hog feed will some day fill a definite place in the sun of the american farmer, just as it does in asia. the drawbacks are lack of hardiness and short bearing season in the north. the hicks variety bears for six to eight weeks but is not hardy north of the mason-dixon line. this year we have grafted eight varieties of which seven are new. one from southern indiana, an american seedling selected by a mulberry enthusiast, bears for six to eight weeks. will it be hardy farther north? we shall know soon. six are from select seedlings of l. k. hostetter, of lancaster, pa., the mulberry king of america. the other is a fine white, a chance seedling from miles north of pittsburgh. it has not borne yet but was far hardier than downing last winter. i have a few of these to sell this fall. mulberries need sweet soil to prevent winter killing. on worn out soils we have discovered that they do well until established, by applying a few handfuls of lime around the tree at planting time. not only are they excellent for the above mentioned uses but the right varieties are better than raisins when dried. in we set a leaky corner of sandy meadow to honey locusts. i saw them growing in semi-swamp land in alabama, but here all but two of the trees died. when replanted in also they died. i found the two that were living were carelessly planted too shallow, with the top roots sticking out of the ground. we replanted more trees in the spring of with the top roots above the ground level, mounded soil over them about to inches, then mulched. they are all growing fine. _starting a tree crop farm. what is it?_--it consists of a blended, balanced program of cattle, hogs, poultry and sheep pasturing under mulberries, honey locust, persimmons, oaks, etc., plus the hog feed from the refuse chestnuts, walnuts and chinese dates. the great secret of nature is that your security lies in a balanced land use between animal and plant production with crops for animals, and animal manure for the crops, with a margin of each for the profit book. i bought this abandoned swampy, rocky, sandy soil farm of acres, to show how it can be done on land too rough for the plow. the first requirement was to work out a program with permanent crops to bring in a continuous return, while planting and developing the slower bearing nuts and crop trees. i have found you must live on the farm a year to learn which soils and sites are best for a species. for instance, the field that fitted my plan to plant walnuts is too wet, so there we shall plant the hickories, pecans and hicans with persimmons as fillers. the place where i wanted walnuts was too sandy, so we shall plant chestnuts and filberts, and where i wanted chestnuts the soil is good for walnuts. _starting a profit cycle_--to create a return as quickly as possible on such a cycle we started a small flock of chickens, ducks and geese. the next step was to decide what to plant of a permanent nature to make a succession of crop income from spring until the nut crop comes in autumn. in the spring of we planted an acre of asparagus and one of raspberries. in both started bringing in returns. in they will be in full production. in and we set an acre or more of blueberries. half of the blueberries were planted in a semi-swamp, useless to farm or pasture, but the home of blueberries after we drained it. these will start bearing in and increase in production for ten years. we have cows for family milk as i nearly live on it. the surplus we use in vealing calves as well as to start a herd. the first year we took in about $ , the second $ ; to date we've taken in $ , plus an inventory increase of nine months old bulls and year old heifers. no soil can live without manure and, due to the results of over years of organic soil management, we use no chemical fertilizers. hence, we need lots of manure. i can not afford to buy straw so we use shavings and sawdust for bedding. we apply to the manure in the stables about pounds per animal of raw phosphate rock a week, which sweetens the dust and helps feed the soil. we also buy straw for seven riding horses for the manure, as this is great fox hunting country. while this young stock is supplying manure for the soil it is increasing in value. our program is expensive because time needed in the nursery and orchard prevents us from growing grain, but when you start you can grow grain. we shall soon be having stock to sell each year which will add to our income. while these crops are contributing to our keep, our time is used in developing the slower-bearing, permanent tree crops, mulberries for hogs and cattle, honey locusts, nearly a persimmons, oaks, chinese jujubes and filberts, all going well. to this we added in the spring of acres of persian and black walnuts with chestnuts interplanted in the row. these are our future feeds for a bigger and cheaper hog, cattle, sheep and poultry feeding program, as well as providing food and cover for wild life. we have yet to plant acres of mixed hickory, hicans and pecans interplanted with over seedling persimmons and a six acre boulder field of black walnuts interplanted with chestnuts and a acre sandy field of chestnuts interplanted with filberts. the rest of the farm will be in nursery, hay and cereals. now hold in mind these vital factors. to get rich just planting a farm of nuts or any other one crop is a delusion, with the bankers eventually holding the bag, the soil and owner taking a licking. nature is a balanced force, soil undisturbed is a delicately balanced flour barrel of never ending life. learn of nature how to protect this soil, that shallow insulation board between man and disaster. after feeling our way over years this is what we found best in handling trees. in the meadow where we planted honey locust, and on a rocky knoll with oaks, the first year we applied a shovelful of night soil and a light mulch of leaf compost. the second summer we mowed, raked, and forked the hay to the tree in a wide circle. it was amazing the life activity that was created under this mulch by the next spring. mice were controlled by pulling the mulch inches from the tree in early fall and with poisoned wheat under the mulch. in the spring of we mulched a to ft. circle around each tree with manure two or three inches thick. you should see the trees growing. one-half was mowed for hay and on the other half electric fences were put up along the tree rows and the field was pastured. we planted the walnuts and chestnuts in a sod of natural white clover and timothy. walnuts were planted in ft. rows with a chestnut tree every ft. here, three rounds were made with the plow and disk and the ground was manured before the trees were planted. after planting one shovelful of night soil, or two or three shovelfuls of cured slaughter house tankage, were applied to each tree. the rows were kept clean until june and then sowed to soy beans. sufficient manure was available to make it possible to complete a manure mulch around these trees. the field where the hickory and pecans are to go has the tree rows plowed, manured and soy beaned ready for planting. we plan to use the same method in future plantings. notes from the new jersey section of the northern nut growers association mrs. alan r. buckwalter (as a suggestion to some other state vice-presidents the editors print parts of a letter from mrs. buckwalter whose husband was long a valued and active member of the n. n. g. a. "after receiving the annual report i sent reply post cards to each of the members in new jersey. i received answers from about one-third of them and have assembled some of their reports and questions to send you, along with a few notes about our orchard.") wm. m. daugherty of princeton reports that his three hundred ten-year-old black walnut trees had a fine set of nuts this spring. however, a hail storm in midsummer stripped the trees of both leaves and nuts. from saddle river, dr. harold blake reports that his black walnuts are doing well, but a late spring frost killed the catkins on the cosford, medium long and italian red filberts. mr. blake suggests a theory of bark rot and asks the opinion of other nut growers. he noticed that in several instances of bark rot on thomas and stambaugh black walnuts the diameter of the scion was larger than that of the stock. he concludes that the scion was taken from a faster growing tree than the one that was used for the stock and that the so-called bark rot is cambium rot due to the fact that the smaller stock does not completely feed the cells of the naturally faster growing section. dr. blake therefore suggests more study of the compatibility of scion to stock, especially in regard to growth and bearing. he notes that in fruit trees the root stock is of importance in this regard and it may be that the variance in reports from different localities on black walnuts and other nut trees may be due to the difference in root stock as well as climate and soil conditions. edward fuhlbruegge of scotch plains has long tried to grow pawpaw seedlings with no success. he wants to know if any other new jersey members have been able to raise pawpaws from seed. (ed.--he should keep the seedbed moist through the summer. these seeds germinate slowly and the seedlings cannot emerge through a hard soil surface.) the observation of gilbert v. p. terhune of newfoundland is that the native chestnuts continue to sprout and occasionally produce nuts. he predicts that in years to come we will again have our native chestnuts. [ed.--someone should carefully save his nuts and grow trees from them.] john h. donnelly of hoboken asks other nut growers for their opinion of using cut grass as a mulch for nut trees. [ed.--excellent.] from fairlawn j. l. brewer states that his black walnuts do not seem to have any bad effects on raspberries and strawberries, thus adding another note to the long controversy as to the deleterious effects of black walnuts on the soil. his texas pecan and indiana hickory seedlings, although planted in favorable location, have not made a good growth. [ed.--did he feed them?] louis p. rocker of andover reports his thomas and stabler walnuts had a good crop in but this year have few nuts. this planting (buckwalter) consists of _castanea mollissima_, _mollissima_ hybrids and _japonica_ (crenata). due to circumstances during the war years, we have not been able to do much with this orchard; however, we hope gradually to build it up. in the part of the chestnut crop that was harvested was infested with the chestnut curculios. about fifty per cent of the nuts were affected. no infestation had been noted in previous years, although in the crop was not harvested at all. [ed.--that gave the worms their chance to propagate.] we will not be able to spray our entire chestnut orchard this year; however, a few of the trees will be sprayed to determine the effectiveness of ddt as a control. in the december, issue of "the american fruit grower" it was stated that ddt as a wettable power (four pounds of fifty per cent ddt to one hundred gallons of water) should be used. three applications gave best results, and this will be tried on our trees. this year we have a good crop of nuts and hope to select the best of our trees, which will be included in next year's report. report of resolutions committee the northern nut growers association, inc., is bringing to a close the th annual convention with deep appreciation of the complete and satisfying hospitality which we have enjoyed at the hands of our hosts, the ontario agricultural college. we have enjoyed the beautiful, well kept, and spacious grounds, the substantial and well planned buildings, the thoughtful and pleasant help of all of the personnel with whom we have come in contact, especially dr. j. s. shoemaker, head of the department of horticulture in whose building we have had satisfactory meeting place, display room, use of lantern and operator, and the esthetic satisfaction of looking at beautiful flowers harmoniously arranged. we have been well nourished with good food, well prepared and expeditiously served. we especially appreciate the courteous entertainment that the faculty ladies have so kindly arranged for the ladies who accompany us. for many years clarence reed has been one of the "war horses" of the n. n. g. a. we were expecting to see him cap this long service by presiding over this session, and it was with great sorrow that we learned of his inability to be with us. your resolutions committee wishes to call attention to the excellent manner in which dr. l. h. macdaniels has conducted the sessions of this convention. it is with great regret that the members of this association learned of the resignation of miss mildred jones as secretary. her work in that office has been of an unusually high order of efficiency and devotion. it was the kind of work which shows the enthusiasm that arises from deep personal interest. her services will be greatly missed. dr. w. rohrbacher, dr. j. russell smith, sterling smith, wm. hodgson. report of the necrology committee joseph gerardi mr. joseph gerardi, year old nurseryman, died at his home in o'fallon, ill., on april rd, . mr. gerardi was an enthusiastic and especially well informed student of nut culture. he was always looking for new and better seedlings, some of which were named as they were found worthy. his gerardi hican is probably one of the best in that group. he also introduced the gildig pecans (gildig nos. and ) and the fisher pecan. mr. gerardi was quite successful as a propagator and always tried to have nursery stock of the best varieties. his loss will be keenly felt. his son, louis gerardi, will continue the propagation of nut trees at caseyville, ill. (the following notes are supplied by louis gerardi.--ed.) joseph gerardi was born in the year on the old hagamann farm, five and one-half miles northwest of lebanon, ill., in o'fallon township. he was the fourth child of john and catherine (haas) gerardi. when he reached the age of five years, his parents moved on a farm three and one-half miles southeast of trenton, illinois, in clinton county. his early schooling was obtained in the mckee school near his home and in st. mary's school in the town of trenton, illinois. after graduating from the eighth grade, he helped his father through the spring and summer months with the farm work, but in the winter attended mckee school. in the year at the age of years he left the home farm in clinton county, and moved to a farm two and one-half miles southeast of jerseyville, illinois, in jersey county. here he began the study of fruit growing, and became an agent for the stark bros. nursery. in he married eleanor collignon of trenton, illinois. to this union six children were born: eleanor barbara, sharlotte catherine, eugenia ruth, louis joseph, bernice marie, and gertrude beatrice. in the spring of he sold this farm and moved to trenton, ill., where he worked with his father-in-law, john martin collignon, doing construction work. during this year he searched for a farm with soil suitable for fruit growing. in he purchased a acre farm situated two and one-half miles west of o'fallon, illinois. the next year he set out twenty acres of stark bros. trees. while living on this farm in the fall of the little family had its first great loss. here the oldest girl, eleanor barbara, died from a railroad accident. julius rohr, watching him work with his trees, encouraged him to start his own nursery because he knew so much about trees. with this encouragement, he started his own nursery in . as demand increased he added a general line of nursery stock. being interested in better varieties of fruit trees, he also became interested in better varieties of nuts. having some native nut trees on his farm, he began to buy the better varieties of nut trees grown by other nurseries. when these came into bearing, not being satisfied with the known varieties of nuts on the market, he began his search for better nuts. in the fall of while searching in the river bottoms of clinton county, illinois, he discovered the gerardi hican, and began its propagation and distributed it among other nurseries. it is now known the country over. a few years later while hunting in the same river bottoms with a friend named frank gildig, he was shown a very fine pecan which now bears the name of the gildig pecan. and also the queens lake pecan originated in the same locality. these were introduced in the year . his health failed and in he discontinued growing general nursery stock and grew only nut trees, until his death, which was caused by cancer in the spring of . major hiram b. ferris our major hiram b. ferris, of spokane, washington, died may th, . he was a valued member, and his loss is keenly felt. he has been a source of inspiration, and a highly esteemed bank of information and instruction. his passing is very much regretted. (submitted by george l. denman, spokane, washington.) mrs. william rohrbacher, mrs. john hershey, mrs. j. f. johns. (_committee members_) exhibitors at the annual meeting of the northern nut growers association, guelph, ontario, sept. , , , a. b. anthony, sterling, ill. black walnuts, anthony shagbark hickory. mrs. f. l. baum, yellow house, pa. black walnut kernels. g. h. corsan, "echo valley", islington, ont. black walnuts, persian walnuts, japanese walnuts, heartnuts, filberts, shellbark and shagbark hickories. h. h. corsan, hillsdale, mich. black walnuts, persian walnuts, japanese heartnuts and walnuts, pecans, hicans, butternuts, butternut hybrids, shagbark and shellbark hickories. dr. r. t. dunstan, greensboro college, greensboro, n. c. black walnuts, filberts, shagbark hickories, pecans. fayette etter, lemasters, pa. black walnuts, persian walnuts, chinese chestnuts, filberts, shagbark and shellbark hickories. j. u. gellatly, westbank, b. c. hybrid filberts, hybrid butternuts, photographs. a. g. hirschi, oklahoma city, okla. pecan clusters, various varieties. e. f. huen, eldora, iowa. black walnuts. g. j. korn, kalamazoo, mich. black walnut kernels, black walnuts, persian walnuts, persian walnut hybrids, shagbark hickories. dr. l. h. macdaniels, ithaca, n. y. black walnuts, japanese heartnuts, turkish filbert, shagbark and shellbark hickories. j. c. mcdaniel, nashville , tenn. shagbark hickories, heartnut, texas walnut. papple brothers, brantford, ont. black walnuts, japanese heartnuts, filberts. jay l. smith, chester, n. y. filberts, japanese chestnuts. h. f. stoke, roanoke, va. black and persian walnuts, heartnuts, filberts, shagbark and shellbark hickories, chinese, japanese, american and hybrid chestnuts, papaws, chestnut grafts. kenneth thomas, baltimore, md. black walnuts. lynn tuttle, clarkston, wash. persian walnut nuts and shield buds, filberts. u. s. department of agriculture, plant industry station, beltsville, md. persian walnuts, heartnuts, pecans, chinese and japanese chestnuts, allegheny chinkapin. vineland experiment station, vineland, ont. persian walnuts, filberts, almonds. j. f. wilkinson, rockport, ind. black walnuts, hicans. [illustration: pictures made on the _ _ tour] the photograph on this page was taken by sterling smith, those on pp. - are by dorothy milne. groups of nnga members are shown examining nut trees and other items of interest on g. h. corsan's place, "echo valley," islington, ontario. attendance mr. and mrs. royal oakes, bluffs, ill. mr. and mrs. henry gressel, mohawk, n. y. mr. and mrs. f. l. o'rourke, east lansing, mich. mr. ford wallick, peru, ind. mr. carl prell, south bend, ind. dr. arthur s. colby, u. of ill., urbana, ill. rosamond h. waite, m.d., perrysburg, n. y. mr. and mrs. raymond e. silvis, massillon, o. mrs. herbert negus, mt. rainier, md. mr. and mrs. g. f. gravatt, u. s. plant industry sta., beltsville, md. w. m. churchill, chicago, ill. edwin w. lemke, detroit, mich. wm. c. hodgson, white hall, md. ivor h. harrhy, burgessville, ont. gordon porter, windsor, ont. dr. and mrs. wm. rohrbacher, iowa city, ia. betty rohrbacher, iowa city, ia. anne clarke, columbus, ohio. g. l. slate, geneva, n. y. mr. and mrs. john h. connelly, milford, n. j. j. f. wilkinson, rockport, ind. dr. l. h. macdaniels, ithaca, n. y. sterling a. smith, vermilion, ohio d. c. snyder, center point, iowa dr. j. russell smith, swarthmore, pa. mr. and mrs. h. f. stoke, roanoke, va. eugene f. cranz, ira, ohio victor brook, rochester, n. y. george salzer, rochester, n. y. dr. and mrs. h. l. crane, hyattsville, md. spencer b. chase, norris, tenn. ira m. kyhl, sabula, iowa mr. and mrs. r. p. allaman, harrisburg, pa. h. a. english, duncan, b. c. wm. j. little, st. george w. j. strong, vineland, ont. harry r. weber, cincinnati, ohio g. j. korn, kalamazoo, mich. roy e. ferguson, center point, iowa elton e. papple, cainsville, ont. merle h. papple, cainsville, ont. e. f. huen, eldora, iowa c. c. lounsberry, ames, iowa ralph emerson, highland park, mich. joseph c. mcdaniel, nashville , tenn. mr. and mrs. blaine mccollum, white hall, md. h. w. guengerich, louisiana, mo. j. s. shoemaker, guelph, ont. mr. and mrs. stephen bernath, poughkeepsie, n. y. william s. clarke, jr., state college, pa. e. sam hemming, easton, md. john rick, reading, pa. lewis e. theiss, lewisburg, pa. ralph gibson, williamsport , pa. gilbert l. smith, wassaic, n. y. levi housser, beamsville, ont. mr. and mrs. philip s. moyer, harrisburg, pa. ernest chitton, norwich, ont. h. lynn tuttle, clarkston, wash. mrs. j. a. neilson, guelph, ont. mildred jones, lancaster, pa. j. r. vanhaarlem, vineland station, ontario [illustration] [illustration] [illustration] announcements publications fall, and winter, - numbers of "the nutshell", news bulletin of the nnga, have been issued by the secretary's office. it is intended to have this bulletin distributed to members four times a year. it will carry news of the association's activities, supplementing the "nut growers news" column in the american fruit grower magazine, as well as reprints of items from other sources that concern nut growers in the northern two-thirds of the united states plus southern canada. beginning with the winter, - issue, advertising is being accepted in "the nutshell." members who have not received the first two issues, and others who want additional copies, may obtain them by writing to the secretary. this report is a few pages short of its anticipated size, because of the withdrawal for additional entries of a "bibliography of references on nuts of special interest in the north." we hope to have this brought up to date for publication in the next annual report. publicity all members can contribute to the strength of the northern nut growers association, inc., by showing its publications to their neighbors, and by calling them to the attention of local farm paper and newspaper editors. several of our members have helped swell the nnga membership by mentioning it in nut tree articles for local and regional publications. as an example, mr. h. f. stoke wrote a short article on chinese chestnuts for the "southern agriculturist", february, issue. at the end he stated that a list of nurseries selling chinese chestnut and other nut trees could be obtained from the nnga secretary's office. to date (january , ) more than requests have been received and each day brings more. along with the nursery list, these correspondents receive information about the northern nut growers association, so any sudden increase in our membership in the states from north carolina to texas can be ascribed to this bit of publicity. style manual mr. clarence a. reed, our retiring president ( - ), has a suggestion for writers for publication: "an authoritative guide for writers is the _style manual_ issued by the u. s. government printing office (washington , d. c.) its use by association writers would go far toward standardizing their papers and in simplifying the work of editing. the edition contains pages. cloth bound $ . . paper cover c. there is no charge for postage." meeting the dates selected by the directors for the th annual meeting of the northern nut growers association, inc. are september , , and . the place is norris, tennessee. norris is about miles from knoxville. j. c. mcdaniel, secretary, c/o tennessee department of agriculture, nashville , tennessee. hybrid walnut scions offered for nut breeding (the following note seems to me to belong in the nnga report, even though it wasn't on the program. it is an invitation to the experimenters to get something they might want.--j. russell smith.) thomas r. haig, m.d., h. st., sacramento, california, reports a promising cross of northern california black x persian walnut: "the nuts are fertile. this hybrid produces =pistillate flowers only=, lending itself easily to pollination with the various varieties of persian. should any experimenter wish scions he is welcome. such scions could save considerable time. "the tree is now - years old. i obtained nuts in , by back-crossing the hybrid to persian walnut. one seedling obtained previously by this hybridization is not yet bearing." other members who have available scions of promising hybrids or other new varieties of nut trees are invited to communicate promptly with the secretary. a list of these will be published in =the nutshell= for spring, . hybrid oak information mr. thomas q. mitchell, east th street, new york , new york, calls our attention to his article on "hybrid oak crop trees," in harper's magazine for february, . he adds: "a much longer article is in preparation (in collaboration with mr. charles morrow wilson) for scientific monthly. can you report any hybrid or exotic oaks there, or put me in touch with any dendrophiles interested in oak hybrids as crop trees?" none none none none