nut growing is of necessity conservative. First of all, the men in the
department are trained in scientific methods and have a somewhat
critical attitude when it comes to statements regarding marked success
in any line. The tendency is in each case to try to find the data or the
experience upon which statements are based. Unfortunately, in nut
growing there are very little data upon which statements can be based.
Mr. Bixby's experiments with stocks are a very good start in the right
direction, and it is upon such experiments as he is carrying out that
real knowledge regarding nut growing will be gained.
We have heard enthusiastic statements as to the profits which may be
derived from the planting of nuts in the northern states, but I must
confess that I have looked in vain both for the facts upon which such
statements might be based and also for orchards which actually are
profitable. If such exist in New York state I have not been able to find
them even after considerable travel.
In order to be profitable, an orchard must pay all the expenses
involved, including interest on the initial cost of land; the cost of
labor and materials and depreciation on tools, etc. We have cost
accounts covering these items on many crops such as apples and wheat,
but not on nuts. It seems to me we must recognize that nut culture is in
its experimental stage only. This is in fact one thing that makes it
particularly attractive for the amateur.
Another reason for our conservatism is that we feel it our duty to the
growers to give out statements which are based upon facts only. If a man
in a northern state wants to plant ten acres of nuts what shall we tell
him? Shall we tell him to go ahead and assure him that if he takes care
of his trees a profitable plantation is certain? On the basis of what we
know I think surely not. A hundred and one unanswered questions come up.
What kinds of nuts will succeed under his climatic and soil conditions?
What stocks should be used? What varieties will succeed under his
conditions? Will the meats of the nuts fill out in the average season?
Are the seasons long enough, etc. The fact is in most cases we do not
know. In most parts of New York state we are extending a natural range
of many of the nut trees and they have not been grown long enough under
the new conditions to make it possible to answer these questions with
certainty. On the other hand, we can tell the prospective nut grower
that nut growing is in its experimental stages and under certain
conditions has great commercial promise. On the basis of our present
knowledge we cannot recommend large plantations but would encourage the
planting of nuts in an experimental way, especially for home use. It
should be borne in mind that in the early days of fruit growing in
America it was the amateur planting of varieties that laid the
foundations for the present industry. If shade trees are to be planted
let them be nut trees. Plant nut trees as a hobby but do not go into nut
culture on a large scale for profit unless you can afford to lose.
I have great hopes for the future of nut growing in the northern states
and also for this society. I am confident that new and better varieties
of nuts will be found and better methods of propagation and
transplanting originated so that in the future there may be a commercial
industry in the north. For the present, however, I believe that
conservatism is advisable, and that great harm may be done by
misrepresentation. Sound growth of a northern nut industry will be built
upon facts and honest experience and not on conjecture, hearsay, or even
on enthusiasm, however necessary this may be. I believe that we should
encourage people to plant nuts for pleasure, plant nuts as a hobby,
plant them for shade and for posterity, but under present conditions not
for financial profit.
* * * * *
THE SECRETARY: We must adjourn at once to the lecture room, that we may
hear Dr. J. Russell Smith's talk on "Nut Tree Crops as a Part of
Permanent Agriculture without Plowing." He will have some interesting
slides to show during his talk.
Dr. Britton has asked that we have lunch today at noon instead of one
o'clock. Everyone present is invited to take luncheon at that time as a
guest of the Botanical Society and of Dr. Britton, it makes no
difference whether they be members or guests.
MR. REED: May I make the motion to extend a rising vote of thanks to Dr.
Britton and his associates for the cordial and generous way in which
they have entertained us?
(Motion seconded, passed, and acknowledged by rising vote).
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Britton, you are officially notified.
DR. BRITTON: I would like to have that vote of thanks mentioned in the
official record of this convention, and in the record of the Botanical
Society.
THE SECRETARY: We will see to that.
DR. BRITTON: You will be interested in knowing that we have with us the
very distinguished Curator of the British Botanical Herbarium of the
Royal Society. Dr. Stapf has been traveling in Canada, attending the
meetings of the Royal Society there.
THE PRESIDENT: We shall very much appreciate the opportunity of meeting
him.
We will now adjourn to the lecture hall, to hear Dr. J. Russell Smith.
NUT TREE CROPS AS A PART OF PERMANENT AGRICULTURE WITHOUT PLOWING
_Dr. J. Russell Smith, Professor of Economic Geography, Columbia
University, New York_
My first experience with nut culture was gained on the farm of a man I
knew more than 30 years ago. It was a truck farm not far from
Philadelphia near a boarding school which I infested and the farmer
complained that I infested the farm. The farm had its fence rows and
driveways lined with grafted chestnut trees bearing abundantly of large
fine nuts of European origin. It was remarkable how quickly they filled
my pockets. I usually succeeded in gathering them on the hundred per
cent basis.
I am interested in this subject today because of an innate love of trees
and because the development of a tree crop agriculture offers a way to
stop soil erosion. To me the worst of all economic sins is the
destruction of resources, and the worst of all resource destructions is
the destruction of the soil, our one great and ultimate resource. "After
man the desert" has been truly said too often of many old lands.
Soil cover is after all about the only thing that man has as a basis for
the support of his life on earth. All of our food depends directly or
indirectly upon plants.
In hilly countries there is usually but a thin layer of earth and rotton
rock between the surface of the field and the bed rock. It is a very
difficult problem to maintain this cover of earth and it is very easy to
lose it. Sometimes it is lost through over-pasturing and destruction of
turf; but more largely through plowing.
The nut tree is particularly effective as a part of a plowless
agriculture which can use the soil permanently where annual crops ruin
it quickly because the plow prepares the land for erosion.
The speed of soil destruction, with its erosion after plowing, is
particularly noticeable with the great American crops, cotton, corn and
tobacco, which require clean cultivation. Many orchards are also
cultivated for the double purpose of keeping down rival plants and
preserving moisture, but we pay high in soil loss for the moisture that
we get by that means on hilly lands. The plow is one of the greatest
enemies of the future. As a matter of fact we have already destroyed
enough land in the United States to support many millions of people; and
therefore the tree is the more important because it permits an
agriculture that will keep the soil indefinitely, and in permanent
production, without plowing.
I have aecidently discovered a better way of conserving moisture than by
plowing, and I have found it going on in widely scattered places and in
widely different climates.
Primitive peoples in many parts of the world have long since obtained
the advantage of cultivation, mainly, increasing the available moisture
for the tree or plant, without cultivation of the soil and the loss
which follows the washing of cultivated soils. As an example I cite the
Indians of Arizona, who have grown corn crops for centuries in a country
with but from six to fifteen inches of rain. They do this by planting in
little patches at the mouth of a gully where at the time of rain the
flood water is led away into furrows and depressions so that it
thoroughly soaks the ground in which the corn is planted.
My attention was first called to this practice by observing a good patch
of barley in the edge of the Sahara in Southern Tunis, where the gulley
flow resulting from a winter rain had spread itself out fan-*like and
soaked the triangular alluvial area of sand, which bore a fine crop of
barley in the midst of the desert.
For centuries the olive growers of parts of Tunis have led gulley water
to the olive trees where it was retained, in areas that resembled a
tennis court, with a 12 inch bank of dirt around it and two or three
olive trees within this area thus watered by impounding.
A practice somewhat similar to this is shown in F. H. King's classic
book on Chinese agriculture, "Farmers of Forty Centuries;" but the most
extreme case that has come to my attention is furnished by the Berber
tribe of the Matmatas, of Tunis. These people live on the edge of a
hilly, limestone plateau, where the rainfall is less than 10 inches and
in some years as low as five.
An important part of the food supply of these people is furnished by
date and olive trees which they grow in the gulches of their limestone
plateau. They built a dry rock dam behind which earth-wash lodges. In
this the trees are planted and every rain sends more earth and soaks
that which has collected. The plan can certainly not be called an
experiment for the people have lived there for centuries. They have
olive trees that are several centuries old and I have never seen such
fine olive trees, not in California, or the plains of Spain, Portugal,
France, Italy, or in Algeria or Tunis, and I have seen a good many olive
trees in those countries. The olive tree is usually open, light and
feathery. These in the Matmatas gulches are thick and black and rank.
For automatic cultivation and fertilization the plan of these primitive
agriculturists is hard to beat. You put up your stone dam, and every
time the gulley runs with water your crop is irrigated and fertilized.
Can you beat it?
Three Americans of my acquaintance have independently experimented and
discovered along similar lines.
The late Freeman Thorpe of Hubert, Minnesota, did it with much
enthusiasm. So did the late Dr. Meyer, a friend of J. F. Jones, near
Lancaster. He discovered it accidentally. He put a brush dam across a
gully. Water stood behind it for days after every rain. The apple tree
near it grew much more than the others. That started the Doctor. He
began to dig small field reservoirs and collect water near trees and he
found that it paid even with the very expensive process of hoe and
shovel.
The idea has been modernized and brought to the machine stage which
characterizes our present-day agriculture, by Mr. Lawrence Lee, a civil
engineer-farmer of Leesburg, Va. Mr. Lee runs a level line across the
face of the clay hills, and then with a Martin ditcher scoops out a
terrace on this horizontal line. It makes the terrace so that the water
will hold and will not run away. Mr. Lee is sure that nine-tenths of the
heavy thunder shower runs off of the hills, in normal conditions of
non-plowing, and that if he plows, most of the water and much of the
soil go off together. He is also sure that the water pockets hold both
water and soil.
Rows of apple trees planted below these waterholding terraces thrive
without cultivation as well as do other trees across the row with
cultivation, but with this difference, ordinary cultivation impoverishes
the soil and this enriches it by keeping all mineral and organic matter
in the field.
The combination of principles worked out by many primitive peoples and
also by Messrs. Thorpe, Meyer and Lee makes it possible for the farmer
to arrange his rough land in tree crops so that every rain will water
his crops, even though the land may be rough and in sod. If he cannot
run horizontal terraces he can dig holes near the trees and lead the
water to these holes by two furrows with the turning plow. This is
really an automatic kind of irrigation. By this means a farmer can use
his odd time whenever he can work the ground, and thus do the
cultivation for a whole year or two and at the same time preserve the
soil and establish a permanent agriculture.
This gives the hill land the same chance as the level lands to grow fat
sods. It offers a very interesting combination of blue grass pasture
along with crops of black walnuts, Persian (English) walnuts, pecans,
grafted hickories, mulberries (for pigs and chickens), persimmons (for
pigs and sheep), oaks (which make more carbohydrate food than corn in
many situations), honey locust (which has a bean as rich as bran and
good for the same purpose) and many other crop trees that will be
available if good brains keep developing the idea.
In this connection it may be pointed out that France exports millions of
dollars worth of Persian walnuts and most of them are grown on isolated
trees scattered about the fields and along roadsides.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: We will now adjourn to Sormani's for luncheon and then we
will immediately start for Mr. Bixby's place on Long Island.
(Adjournment).
NOTES AT MR. BIXBY'S NUT ORCHARDS AND NURSERIES BALDWIN, NASSAU CO., N.
Y.
September 4, 1924
Japan walnuts (seedlings) on street set out in 1918 or 1919. All except
the tree on the south have borne, 1924 being the third year for one. One
of them is a heartnut.
Chinkapins raised from seed outdoors.
Black walnuts grown in pots and transplanted with a ball of earth and
the entire root. Set out without cutting back and sod and vines allowed
to grow around them. While they grew rapidly before transplanting they
have scarcely grown since.
Beaver Hickory seedlings. These illustrate well the information to be
obtained frequently as to parentage by raising seedlings. The history of
the Beaver tree was ascertained four or five years ago and from this and
the appearance of the tree and its nuts, it was decided to be a shagbark
x bitternut hybrid. The seedlings bear this out, for they vary from
seemingly pure shagbark to pure bitternut with several in between
looking somewhat like the parent tree. It may be that some of these will
bear nuts that will be found valuable.
Japan walnut tree killed with butternut blight.
Chestnut trees killed with chestnut blight.
Main experimental orchard. This comprises about four acres and is laid
out in rows running north and south, starting at an east and west road.
There are 29 trees in each row running north and south, the trees being
about 15 feet apart. A nut tree is put every 30 feet and a peach or
apple or some other tree that is intended to be taken out later, is put
in between.
Row 1 South--(1) Niblack Pecan (5) Warrick Pecan (7) Warrick Pecan (9)
Greenriver Pecan (11) Greenriver Pecan (13) Mahan Hickory (15) Marquardt
(?) Pecan (17) Siers Hickory (19) Wilkinson (?) Pecan (21) Kirtland
Hickory (23) Greenbay Pecan (25) Weiker Hickory (27) Burlington Pecan
(29) Kentucky Hickory. This Kentucky Hickory blossomed full and some two
dozen nuts set which grew to about 5/8 inches long then they dropped
off. Probably it will bear next year.
Row 2 South--(4) Moneymaker Pecan (10) Pleas Hickory (24) Dennis
bitternut, bearing (26) Hatch Bitternut (?).
Row 3 South--(3) Stanley Hickory (5) Ridenhauer Almond (9) Burkett Pecan
(11) Hales Hickory on shagbark (13) Hales Hickory on bitternut (21)
Cedarapids Hickory on shagbark (23) Cedarapids Hickory on bitternut (25)
Dennis Hickory (27) Fairbanks Hickory.
Row 3A South--Seedling Black Walnuts.
Row 3B South--Seedling Chinese Chestnuts.
Row 3C South--Seedling Chinese Chestnuts.
Row 4 South--(2) Rush Chinkapin (3) Miracle Chestnut (4) Chinkapin (7)
Chinkapin (8) Chinkapin (9) Champion Chestnut (10) Paragon Chestnut (13)
Riehl Chestnut (15) Paragon Chestnut (16) Paragon Chestnut (17) Miracle
Chestnut (22) Champion Chestnut (29) Boone Chestnut. The above trees are
all that remain of a row of 29 Chestnut and Chinkapin trees most of
which were bearing two years ago, from which a good many quarts of
Chestnuts were gathered. Some of them died in 1922 and more in 1923.
Row 5 South--(1) Beaver Hickory (2) Hacheye (?) Persimmon (3)
McCallister Pecan (4) Hayakuma Persimmon (5) McCallister Pecan (6)
Kawakami Persimmon (7) Busseron Pecan (9) Busseron Pecan (10) Lambert
Persimmon (11) Butterick Pecan (12) Josephine Persimmon (13) Butterick
Pecan (15) Kentucky Pecan (17) Kentucky Pecan (18) Golden Gem Persimmon
(bearing) (19) Indiana Pecan (20) Rush Chinkapin (21) Indiana Pecan (23)
Posey Pecan (25) Posey Pecan (27) Major Pecan (28) Parry Chestnut (29)
Major Pecan.
Row 5A South--Pecan seedlings.
Row 5B South--Shellbark seedlings.
Row 6 South--(1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6),-(7), (8), (9), (10), (11),
(12), (13), (14), (15), (17), (18), (19), (20), (21), (22), (23), (24)
Hales Hickory, transplanted some years ago, brought from Monticello,
Florida (25) Kentucky Hickory.
Row 6A North--Butternut seedlings.
Row 6B North--Butternut seedlings.
Row 7 South--Vest Hickory seedlings, Hales Hickory seedlings, Juglans
cathayensis seedlings, Chinese Persian walnut seedlings, Papershell
Chinese Persian walnut seedlings, Hybrid hazels (native Long Island x
Italian Red 1923).
Row 7A South--Mockernut seedlings.
Row 7B South--Mockernut seedlings.
Row 7C South--Close bark pignut carya glabra seedlings. Loose bark
pignut carya ovalis seedlings, Japan walnut seedlings, Adams Black
Walnut seedlings.
Row 7D South---Persian walnut seedlings, Stabler Black Walnut, perfect
form seedlings, Stabler Black Walnut, one lobe seedlings.
Row 7A North--Japan Walnut seedlings.
Row 7B North--Japan Walnut seedlings.
Row 7C North--Japan Walnut seedlings.
Row 8 South--8A South--8B South--8C South--Seedling Japan Walnut x
butternut hybrids.
Row 8A North--Japan Walnut seedlings.
Row 8B North--Japan Walnut seedlings.
Row 8C North---Persimmon seedlings.
Row 9 South--(1) Miller Black Walnut (3) Thomas Black Walnut (4) Purple
Hazel (5) Thomas Black Walnut (6) Fruhe Lange Hazel (7) Stabler Black
Walnut (9) Kinder Black Walnut (11) Allen Black Walnut (13) Wasson Black
Walnut (15) Peanut Black Walnut (17) Ten Eyck Black Walnut (19)
Mattingly Black Walnut (21) McCoy Black Walnut (bearing) (23) Paradox
Walnut (25) Ohio Black Walnut (bearing) (27) Herman Black Walnut (29)
Stabler Black Walnut.
Row 10 South---(2) Stranger Heartnut, bearing (4) California Black
Walnut (6) Seedling Allen Black Walnut (8) Seedling Allen Black Walnut
(10) Seedling Allen Black Walnut (12) Casper Hickory (14) Casper Hickory
(16) Reike Hickory (18) Vest Hickory (20) Swaim Hickory (22) Swaim
Hickory (23) Jordan Almond (24) Wampler Hickory (25) Jordan Almond (26)
Wampler Hickory (27) Texas Prolific Almond (29) Texas Prolific Almond.
Row 10C North--Hickory Seedlings. Here may be seen the melancholy
results of not planting hickory seedlings deep enough.
Row 11 South--(1) Aiken butternut, bearing (3) Stranger Heartnut,
bearing, (5) Ritchie Heartnut, bearing (7), (9), (11), (13), (15), (17),
(19), (21), (23), (25), (27), (29) Lancaster Heartnut bearing.
Row 11A South--Grafted and budded black walnuts.
Row 11B South--Grafted and budded black walnuts.
Row 11C--South--Grafted and budded butternuts and Japan Walnuts.
Row 11 North--(1), (2), (3), (4), Aiken butternut (6) Juglans
mandshurica (8), (10) Deming butternut.
Row 11A North--Seedling Japan walnut x butternut hybrids.
Row 11B North--Seedling Japan Walnut x butternut hybrids.
Row 11C North--Seedling Japan Walnut x butternut hybrids.
Row 12--(2) Faust heartnut, bearing (4) Deming butternut, bearing (8)
Burlington Pecan (10) Rockville Pecan (20) Snyder Hickory (27) Early
Golden Persimmon (28) Rockville Pecan (29) Ruby Persimmon.
Row 12A South--Grafted and budded Black Walnuts, Stabler, Ohio, Thomas &
Adams.
Row 12B South--Grafted and budded Black Walnuts, Wasson, McCoy, Ten
Eyck, O'Connor hybrid Witte Persian Walnut.
Row 12C South--Grafted and budded butternut & Japan Walnut, Aiken
butternut, Lancaster Heartnut.
Row 13 South--(1) Franquette Persian Walnut (3) Eureka Persian Walnut
(4) Early Golden Persimmon (5) Holden Persian Walnut (7) Eureka Persian
Walnut (8) Grosse Kugelnuss filbert, bearing (9) Holden Persian Walnut,
bearing (10) White Lambert hazel (11) Alpine Persian Walnut, bearing
(12) Italian Red Hazel (13) Lancaster Persian Walnut (14) McFarland
Chestnut (15) Meylan Black Persian Walnut (16) Hale Persimmon (17) Rush
Persian Walnut, bearing (18) Imperial Hazel (19) Cording Walnut, bearing
(J cordiformis x regia) (20) Early Golden Persimmon (21) Hall Persian
Walnut (22) Yemon Persimmon (23) Paradox walnut (24) Yemon Persimmon
(25) Mayette Persian Walnut (26) Floreams Almond (27) Holden Persian
Walnut (28) Floreams Almond (29) Mayette Persian Walnut.
Row 13 North--Chinese Almond so-called, 3 years old, really an apricot
with edible kernels. Has proved perfectly hardy so far.
Row 14--Grafted and budded black walnuts, Boston Persian Walnut.
O'Connor hybrid Walnut, Adams Black Walnut, Alley Black Walnut, Mosnat
butternut.
Row 15--Grafted and budded Black Walnuts, O'Connor hybrid, Thomas,
Stabler. Ohio Persian Walnut. Minnas Zeller Italian Red Hazel, bearing.
Row 16--American Hazels from West Virginia and Ohio.
Row 17--Landesberger Lange Zeller, Buettners Zeller, Hempels Zeller,
Barnes No. 6, Hazel bearing hybrid nuts, Barnes No. 5 Hazel bearing
hybrid nuts, Kentish Cob, Noce Lunghe filbert, Daviana Hazels, both
bearing.
Row 18--Merveille de Bollwiller filbert bearing, Medium long filbert.
Like Merveille de Bollwiller, Althaldestenbener Zeller.
Row 19---Corylus californica, White Lambert filbert, Vest hazel, Grosse
Kugelnuss, Hallersche Riesen filbert. Barcelona filbert, Italian Red
filbert, Du Chilly filbert.
Row 20---Long Island Hazel, bearing Blueberries. 8 plants of selected
varieties, Jujube, Tree hazel, corylus colurna, Vest hazel bearing
hybrid nuts, Daviana hazel bearing, White Aveline hazel, tree hazel,
corylus colurna. Long Island hazel bearing, Red Aveline hazel bearing.
Row 21--Corylus californica, tree hazel corylus colurna. On the southern
end of these rows will be found the grafted hickories.
Row 21--Grafted Shagbark hickories.
Row 22--Grafted Mockernut hickories.
Row 23--Grafted Mockernut hickories.
Row 24--Grafted Pignut hickories.
Row 25--Grafted Pignut hickories.
Row 27--Grafted Pecan hickories.
Row 28--Grafted Pecan hickories.
Row 30--Grafted Bitternut hickories.
Row 31---Grafted Bitternut hickories.
Row 32--Grafted Bitternut hickories.
Row 33--Grafted Bitternut hickories.
Row 31--Grafted Bitternut hickory.
_Additional Notes by Stenographer_
This is a Royal Burbank walnut brought from California, in 1911. It
stood in a yard in Brooklyn until 1917. It did not grow well there but
since we have brought it out here it is growing and bearing, as you see.
It is a hybrid of the California black and the Eastern black. The nut
itself has not much value. The leaves are rather smaller than others. It
would not compare with the propagated varieties. It is only considered
as a rapid growing tree.
Here is a row of Beaver seedlings. This one is a typical shagbark. This
one is like a bitternut. Every once in a while you will find a tall one
with buds like the old tree. They are all Beaver seedlings from nuts
gathered at the same time from the same tree.
Here are chinkapin seedlings grown out of doors. I simply threw them on
the ground and covered them with leaves.
Here is a dead Japanese walnut tree. It died of a fungus, melanconium.
You can see the fungus all the way down the trunk. It is a weak fungus
and sometimes if the tree is nourished properly it will disappear.
This is a Lancaster heartnut. And so is this. One is much more prolific
than the other. Both grafted on Japanese stock. It is bearing pretty
well. It was put out in 1918.
Here is a Kentucky hickory. It had about 24 nuts, but they have fallen
off.
This is a Moneymaker pecan. It is growing finely. I bought this tree
from J. B. Wight, of Cairo, Ga. I also have a Burkett from Texas.
There is a Paragon chestnut which has escaped the blight. Fungus is
beginning on the end of the branch, however.