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 207.8, and next to them
the filbert, 207.5, and next the English walnut at 206.8, and next to
that the almond, at 191.1.
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.