horticultural societies, women's institutes and other organizations. I
have always endeavored to comply with these requests and have
invariably found keen interest shown in the subject. American members of
this association will likely be interested to learn that the Ontario
Horticultural Society is the largest of its kind in the world, having a
membership of over 60,000 while the Women's Institute is an almost
equally large and influential organization.
These powerful and widespread organizations can be and are of great
assistance in carrying on the propaganda for the planting of nut trees.
The Ontario Horticultural Association, the Ontario Horticultural Council
and the Canadian Horticultural Council have each passed resolutions
expressing approval of our work in nut culture and asking the Dominion
Minister of Agriculture to appoint a man to fully investigate the nut
cultural possibilities of Canada. I regret to state that no action has
as yet been taken to meet the desires of these organizations. Because of
many other urgent duties and lack of departmental support, I have not
been able to devote as much of my time to nut culture as I would like,
and therefore have had to make the very best use of the little time I
have had at my disposal. I am looking forward to the time when those in
authority will have a greater appreciation of the value of nut trees and
will see their way clear to appoint someone to devote his whole time and
energy toward increasing the productiveness and adding to the beauty of
our country by means of more and better nut trees.
To sum up briefly, my objective is as follows:
1. To carry on the nut tree survey of Canada until we have located the
very best natural and exotic species.
2. To propagate these best strains, provided they are as good or better
than the best so far discovered.
3. To introduce the best hardy species from the northern United States
and northeastern Asia, on a more extensive scale for test purposes and
breeding work.
* * * * *
THE SECRETARY: Prof. Neilson has placed on the table in the hall, very
modestly, a very interesting collection of nuts from Canada and I hope
that you will all look at them.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there any present who would like to ask Prof. Neilson
questions?
DR. MORRIS: It seems to me that the Ontario walnut is the best in
quality of any I have tried. What did you think of them Mr. Jones?
MR. JONES: I do not think there is any better.
PROF. NEILSON: I am in favor of another one which I think you will
agree is still better. It is larger and betterlooking and the flavor is
just as good. (Displays walnut).
The interesting feature is that although the tree is a third generation
tree, now about 15 years old, it has produced more nuts than the older
trees.
DR. MORRIS: If I remember correctly the Ontario is a milder type.
PROF. NEILSON: I think that this is just as good as the Ontario. I have
several trees of this.
THE PRESIDENT: From what I gathered from your remarks, Prof. Neilson,
possibly some moral support would be of assistance to you in your work.
Would it be out of order?
PROF. NEILSON: I think it would be a very good idea. The trouble I am
having is perhaps very localized; it is with but one or two individuals.
I think that a resolution by this association would have some effect. It
would at least present to the authorities the fact that we were being
recognized. I hope so at least. Our present Minister of Agriculture has
openly expressed himself in sympathy with the idea of planting more nut
trees; also Mr. Martin, our specialist in poultry keeping and I think if
I can get them lined up it would be all right. The resolution might help
to do this.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Morris the Chair appoints you to that committee; also
Mr. Jones and Mr. Ellis. It wishes you to draw up a suitable resolution
for that work.
PROF. NEILSON: I may say that the public in Canada is behind our work.
About 97% of my time is spent on the road and I go long distances. The
rest of my time I am writing letters, about 1,200 of them, and about 450
of these are on nut culture.
DR. MORRIS: I have the following resolution to offer: That a letter be
written to the Dominion Department of Agriculture, along the following
lines: "The Dominion Department of Agriculture has officially stated
that the nut growing industry of British Columbia has become an
important one. The Dominion nevertheless is importing $5,000,000 worth
of nuts annually from other countries.
In view of these facts, the Northern Nut Growers' Association in
assembly at its 15th Annual Meeting, in New York, commends the work of
Prof. J. A. Neilson of the Horticultural Experiment Station at Vineland,
Ontario, and expresses the hope that the Canadian Government and private
support will further his work in such a way as to make it a matter of
large public service. Service of the sort relates not only to eastern
Canada but to the commerce of this entire continent."
(Signed) ROBERT T. MORRIS,
J. F. JONES
Z. H. ELLIS.
THE PRESIDENT: The secretary will accordingly transmit this message to
the Canadian Government.
NOTES BY PROFESSOR A. S. COLBY
_Purdue University, Illinois_
Friends: I believe an apology is due you. I was away on my vacation at
the time the invitation came to me to make an address at this meeting
and I have come here without one. But I shall be glad to give you some
sort of an idea of the past, present and future of nut culture in
Illinois.
I became actively interested in nut growing about a year ago. Our work
started partly in response to public demand. We have been receiving an
increasing number of letters of inquiry from people interested in the
subject but who know little about it. We are attempting to secure such
information as will be of value regarding the best species and varieties
of nuts to plant, where to plant them, and how to care for them. There
are a number of members of the N. N. G. A. in Illinois and they are very
kindly helping me in this work. The Illinois State Horticultural
Society, founded in 1856, has also been interested to some extent in nut
growing.
Illinois has had three grand old men in the nut industry, Mr. George W.
Endicott of Villa Ridge, Mr. E. A. Riehl of Alton, and Mr. Benjamin
Buckman of Farmingdale. Mr. Riehl is eighty-seven years young now and is
the only one of the three men living.
Mr. Endicott was interested, not only in the commercial side of
horticulture but was a pioneer in scientific work. He originated the
Endicott plum and other valuable fruits and, since he was interested in
plant improvement, naturally turned to hybridization of the chestnut, a
tree which grows readily in southern Illinois. In 1899 he crossed the
Japanese chestnut (Castanea japonica) with pollen from the American
Sweet (C. americana). He must have had some difficulty in crossing the
species because they did not bloom at exactly the same time. He was,
however, successful in securing five hybrid seeds, raising three trees
from them, naming them the Blair, the Boone and the Riehl. Naturally
there were differences in the characteristics of these trees though they
were all vigorous and produced nuts of commercial value. The Blair and
Riehl began to bear at four and five years respectively, while the Boone
bore its first crop at seventeen months of age. The Boone is the most
valuable since it matures fruit of good quality about two days earlier
than the Blair and two weeks before the Riehl. It also retains the burr
and drops the nuts free at the beginning of the season so that about
half the nuts can be picked up before the burrs fall.
Mr. Endicott was so pleased with the results of the cross that he raised
over 175 seedlings from the Boone tree. From these second generation
hybrids he secured trees very uneven in growth and size with a great
range in time of coming into bearing. The nuts differed widely in size,
quality, and season of ripening. The character of the burr showed all
gradations between the extremes of thickness, length, rigidity of
spines, etc. These striking variations in the second generation trees
show that many hereditary factors had been segregated and recombined and
offer a most interesting opportunity for scientific study. I have
visited the orchard several times.
Mr. Endicott died in 1914 but his son Robert has since cared for the
trees which have brought him considerable revenue. He tells me that he
secures about 160 pounds of nuts per year from each of the three
original trees. At an average price of thirty-five cents a pound
wholesale the crop from each tree is worth $56.05 per year. Since the
chestnut blooms late it is pretty certain to escape spring frosts. The
Blair, for example, has had a crop failure once only since beginning to
bear.
(Displays photographs of the Japanese and American chestnuts and the
Boone tree).
Mr. Endicott is top working some of the worthless second generation
trees with wood from the Boone tree.
(Displays photographs showing method of grafting).
I have had the good fortune to visit Mr. Riehl several times and have
secured many representative nuts from his collection. While he has grown
a large number of nut species and varieties he believes that the
chestnut pays the best in southern Illinois. He plants them on rough and
hilly land, difficult to cultivate, pasturing with sheep, and has had
very good success. He does not worry about the chestnut blight, since
the chestnut is not native here and there is such a great distance
between the blight ridden East and Illinois.
Mr. Buckman was an amateur horticulturist, in the work for the love of
it. On his land he had nearly two thousand varieties of apples and
hundreds of varieties of peaches, plums, pears, cherries, grapes, small
fruits, and nuts collected from all over the world. I was much
interested to study the fine pecan and chestnut trees growing and
producing good crops as well as the persimmon and papaw trees, of which
he had a number of rare varieties. I was able last spring to secure
cuttings of a number of rather rare papaw varieties which I sent to
Doctor Zimmerman for propagation at the request of Doctor Fairchild.
Mr. Buckman recently died and there is now a movement on foot to secure,
either through the University or the Horticultural Society, as far as
possible, all the valuable data which he had been collecting for years.
There are several other men interested in nuts as a commercial
proposition in Illinois, such as O. H. Casper of Anna and Judge W. O.
Potter of Marion. I recently visited these orchards. Mr. Casper has
mostly pecans and walnuts growing in sod. They are from six to eight
years old and would have borne this season if weather conditions had
been favorable.
Judge Potter has over twenty acres of pecans interplanted with chestnuts
and filberts. For part of the orchard this is the fifth growing season.
The trees are growing vigorously and make a very impressive showing. I
counted thirty-nine nuts on a representative Thomas black walnut tree.
The filberts look especially promising. Although the weather at blooming
time was unfavorable a fair crop of nearly a peck was gathered from four
or five bushes of a late blooming imported variety. Judge Potter is also
growing another orchard using apples as fillers between black walnut
trees. This experiment will be watched with great interest since it will
be of great value in showing future possibilities in nut growing in
Illinois.
Now as to some of the things we are trying to do at the experiment
station at Urbana. This will be necessarily a progress report. I am
making a survey of the state to find promising individuals of the
different species and varieties and marking them for future use. We
have our state fair at Springfield next week and as I speak to the boys
and girls attending the state fair school I hope to interest them to
tell me of any trees in their neighborhoods of particular value.
Some of the agricultural leaders in the various counties, that is the
farm advisers, are awake to the value of the nut industry and we have a
number of these men co-operating with us. From Gallatin County, in the
Wabash and Ohio river bottoms, around $100,000 worth of native pecans
are sold in some seasons. In the southern counties and over north of St.
Louis in the western part of Illinois there are also native pecan groves
which are quite profitable. We hope to find valuable northern pecans,
adaptable to our conditions. We, of course, know that the English walnut
is very difficult to grow in Illinois and we are not recommending it as
a commercial proposition. We believe that the black walnut, all things
considered, has the most promise and we hope to have something worth
while in a few years as propagating material. The Thomas, Stabler, and
Miller are especially to be recommended for Illinois at this time.
We hope soon to have a complete collection of hardy nut trees on our
experimental trial grounds. Here we shall study not only the varietal
characteristics but try out new methods of propagating, pruning,
fertilizing, etc. There is very likely some connection between winter
injury and hardening up of the wood in autumn and we hope to learn
something about that problem through the use of various cover crops, for
example. We have at the station a complete experimental cold storage
plant in operation where we may be able to learn more about the effects
of extremes of temperature on the roots and trunks of certain species.
In such new but important work we must make haste slowly. We have some
things to unlearn and many things to learn. We hope to be able in a few
years to make a worthwhile contribution to such an interesting and
important subject as nut growing in the middle west.
I shall be glad to have you ask me any questions which occur to you.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: DO you happen to know Mr. Spencer?
PROF. COLBY: No, I wrote Mr. Spencer but I did not get any reply from
him. I hope to visit him this fall.
MR. REED: DO you know anything about the top-working of black walnuts
from Missouri at the university?
PROF. COLBY: No, I do not know about them.
MR. GREEN: In regard to those Gallatin County nuts; has any survey ever
been made by the U. S. Department of Agriculture of the nut trees in
Illinois?
Prof. Colby: Not that I know of.
Question: At what age are they planting those walnuts in Williamson
County with apples and how far apart?
PROF. COLBY: The walnuts are from 50 to 80 feet apart interplanted with
apples. The walnut trees are about two years old; the apples four and
five.
A SPEAKER: I believe those apple trees will die.
PROF. COLBY: That's what I want to find out. There is a great difference
of opinion as to the compatibility of walnuts and other fruit trees.
MR. BIXBY: You will see at Baldwin, this afternoon, peach trees planted
between nut trees. It is too soon to say what will happen but so far, it
is all right.
DR. SMITH: As a matter of very great importance, how will you "round up"
the forces in Illinois?
PROF. COLBY: We have a number of interesting suggestions brought out in
Professor Neilson's paper. He would use every way possible, including
questionnaires sent out judiciously, as well as the boys' and girls'
clubs, and the Boy Scouts, of which Dr. Morris speaks. The horticultural
society can be of very great help. In Illinois where we have over one
hundred counties, almost all of which are very efficiently covered by
farm bureaus, the farm advisers are of considerable assistance. The
local horticultural societies, as for instance the one with which Mr.
Riehl has been so prominently connected in Alton, have helped very much
in the past. The Smith-Hughes teachers in charge of agricultural
teaching in the high schools can easily get in touch with promising
native trees through their students. I know most of these teachers and
know they will be glad to help me. I recently had a request from the
Associated Press representative in Springfield to write an article on
nut growing in Illinois. There is a wonderful field for development
along such lines as this.
THE PRESIDENT: It seems to me that if the agricultural colleges were
asked to hand in information that might bring results, and particularly
the students' work in isolated sections which would not be reached by
Boy Scouts.
PROF. NEILSON: For the benefit of those who did not hear my address in
1922, I may say that I have circularized the whole county and the
college stations; I have sent about 125 circular letters to the
horticultural society and to its officers, high school inspectors, and
to anyone I thought might be glad to get the information. I wanted to
carry this further but could not. I wanted to send letters to every
school teacher in the Province of Ontario and ask them to bring the
matter to the attention of the boys and girls, and to offer them a
substantial prize for the location of the best tree in their locality. I
will say, however, that I got a great deal of encouragement from the
horticultural society, the public school and the high schools.
THE SECRETARY: I will read again a sentence from Mr. Howard Spence's
letter:
"The Minister of Agriculture has agreed to instruct all their inspectors
over the country to make a collection of all walnuts of merit and to
forward them to me for classification and identification of varieties
which may be worth perpetuating."
If we could do something of that kind in the United States to enlist the
extension agents, we should get some valuable information.
MR. OLCOTT: I think that a very important thing would be to send that
message not only to the state experiment stations, but also to the
government authorities. Why should not the Department of Agriculture
make a systematic survey of that kind? Why should it be left to the
small societies like this one, when the federal Department of
Agriculture is so thoroughly equipped to get this? The department at
Washington has expressed interest; I wonder if it would not be
appropriate for this association to take some formal action, suggesting
federal government action in that matter, in co-operation with the
extension service, Boy Scouts, etc.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you put that in a resolution?
MR. OLCOTT: I submit the following resolution:
WHEREAS, The investigational and experimental work of the Northern Nut
Growers' Association during the last fourteen years has been signally
successful in improving native nuts of the northern United States, based
upon discovery and propagation of superior specimens; and
WHEREAS, This work could be greatly extended with the facilities at the
command of the United States Department of Agriculture, as compared with
the efforts of the small number of members of this association;
therefore be it
RESOLVED: That it is the sense of the Northern Nut Growers' Association,
in fifteenth annual convention in New York City this fourth day of
September, 1924, that the U. S. Department of Agriculture be asked to
take up systematically the work of discovery and investigation of
promising native nuts in the northern states and of testing selected
specimens at government stations in co-operation with the authorities of
the state experiment stations; such discovery to be brought about by
enlisting the aid of boy scouts, school children and others, in
connection with the activities of county farm agents, inspectors and
other attaches of the department.
THE PRESIDENT: Prof. MacDaniels, of Cornell University will now address
us.
_L. H. MacDaniels, Professor of Pomology, Cornell University_
It gives me great pleasure to bring you greetings from the Agricultural
College at Cornell University and to express my appreciation for your
invitation to address this convention concerning what the college is
doing along the line of nut growing. I have a very real interest in nut
growing and in this association. I like to think of it as comparable
with the American Pomological Society when it started more than one
hundred years ago. All of you men who are spending your time and energy
in finding new facts regarding the propagation and culture of nut trees
are doing pioneer work, and your names will go down in the history of
nut growing in the same way as those of Wilder, Downing, and Prince have
come to us linked with the early development of fruit growing in the
United States. I feel confident that the work of the association will
stand the test of time.
Interest in nut growing at Cornell, as you probably know, was started by
John Craig who died about a dozen years ago. He was greatly interested
in northern nut growing and also in southern pecans. As a result of his
work we are still receiving inquiries about southern pecans addressed to
Professor Craig. While at Cornell he established a course of study in
nut growing which was a part of the regular curriculum. At the time,
however, the actual known facts about the growth of nuts in the northern
states were so few, and reliable information so scarce, that after
Professor Craig's death, when there was a general consolidation of
courses in the department, nut growing was combined with another course
in economic fruits. Since that time, as our knowledge of nut growing has
increased, more and more attention has been given to the subject. Our
aim is, in fact, to give all of the up-to-date information that we have
regarding the propagation and culture of nut trees.
The nut tree plantings in the experimental orchards at Cornell have not
been particularly successful. About ten years ago Professor Chandler set
out about one-half acre of named varieties of pecans, Persian walnuts,
black walnuts, hickories, hazel nuts, chestnuts and Japanese walnuts.
These have received good care, both as to cultivation and fertilization
but to date the only trees which have borne are the Japanese walnuts and
these have not had good crops. Apple trees of the same age in adjacent
land have been bearing commercial crops for a number of years,
especially such varieties as the McIntosh, Wealthy and R. I. Greening.
The climate at Ithaca is apparently rather too rigorous for most of the
nut trees. Persian walnuts, hazel nuts and frequently Japanese walnuts
suffer from winter injury. In the case of the chestnut, blight has
practically killed all of the trees. The pecans are perfectly hardy but
as yet have not borne, probably because our seasons are not sufficiently
long or warm enough to grow this nut to advantage. Hickories have been
very slow to become established and in fact have never made really good
growth. This experience, of course, makes us feel that nut growing is
really not as easy as some enthusiasts would have us believe.
In addition to this variety planting there are four or five acres of
recently cleared woodland in which there are hundreds of hickory
seedlings which can be top-worked. We are aiming also in this area to
establish seedlings of all of the hardy nut trees to use as stocks and
eventually to get a collection of all named varieties of nut trees.
Grafting so far has not been particularly satisfactory due in some cases
to failure of the grafts to set; in other cases to the winter killing of
grafts which have made fairly good growth. Injury by bud moths and wind
storms have also been detrimental factors. Our own experience together
with observations upon the results of nut grafting elsewhere by experts
lead us to believe that grafting of nut trees is a very difficult
undertaking as compared with that of other fruit trees. It involves a
knack which must be acquired by very considerable experience. I realize,
of course, that new facts regarding nut grafting are being discovered
almost daily and in the future we may look for better results.