However, the grafting of young hickory trees growing in a permanent

location is not difficult, and such grafts will grow much faster and

bear younger than will grafted hickory trees from a nursery.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: My experience with bitternut stock with only two

varieties, the Strever #1 and the Champigne, has not been good. The

grafts have been stunted, the stocks have tended to sprout and make

vigorous growth, and the fruiting has been sparse. Neither have I had

success with the pecan stock with only three varieties. The trees have

been very slow coming into bearing and have made rather stubby growth.

MR. MCDANIEL: I was about to remark that we have had similar experience

at Urbana with bitternut stock with pecan and shagbark varieties. It

warps the shagbark and very likely those trees won't live long. We have

already lost the Weschke hickory grafted on bitternut.

MR. CRAIG: Have you tried hickory on pecan? The pecan is O. K. there.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Tomorrow we are to have a round table on hickory

propagation and suggest that further discussion of stocks might be left

until then. Has anyone any comments on hickory varieties?

MR. KEPLINGER: (North Central Michigan) I was born and raised in Saginaw

County where the Saginaw River is fed by five or six different runs and

you have prairie farms. More hickories grow there than any place in the

United States--enormous size. We think we have better hickories than

anyone.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Why couldn't you send some in for testing? Mr.

Becker would be glad to take them. Any other discussion on hickory

varieties? How many are growing the Wilcox? (5 hands). How many find it

a good variety? (Two). How many have Davis? (Three). The shucks are

fairly thin, compared with the Wilcox.

Who else has a variety that is doing very well? We ought to have a

hickory show here sometime and see who has the best hickory.

DR. MCKAY: I'd like to ask if anyone has the variety Lingenfelter.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: We have it at Ithaca; doesn't mature.

DR. McKAY: We have two varieties at Beltsville that are outstanding as

far as bearing is concerned. One is Lingenfelter, which has been a

consistent bearer for us for a number of years, and the variety Shaul,

that was mentioned in Mr. Stokes' report and has been mentioned here

before, is a very good producer.

MR. MCDANIEL: What species is the Shaul, is it _ovata_ or _laciniosa_?

DR. MCKAY: It's _ovata_. It's a shagbark, as also is Lingenfelter. The

one characteristic that is outstanding with these two varieties with us

is the fact that they bear while they are young trees; from the time our

trees were as tall as one's head, they have been full of nuts.

MR. MCDANIEL: Have you fruited the Weschke at Beltsville?

DR. MCKAY: No.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: How about the Barnes?

MR. STOKE: I have been growing it on mockernut or white hickory. It

produces moderate crops and is the one that came into bearing about

first on mockernut. In fact, I have several varieties on mockernut that

haven't borne yet. It's been on there about 12 years.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: The Barnes, with us, has yielded more at a younger

age than any other variety, but it never filled. It began early and bore

heavy crops, but the season is not long enough or hot enough.

MR. STOKE: In Virginia they fill well, but they are not easily

extracted. The shell is rather thin and fills well.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: I don't want to prolong this discussion longer

than seems profitable.

DR. MCKAY: Did I understand you to mention the variety Schinnerling?

MR. GERARDI: I have got that at home. That's one that's bearing, but if

it's that variety I have there, I wouldn't give it yard room.

DR. MCKAY: It is also one of our best. We have three, the Shaul, the

Lingenfelter that I mentioned, and the third one is Schinnerling, all

three of which are extremely heavy bearers and the three hickory

varieties that we are interested in.

MR. GERARDI: How big is that Schinnerling?

DR. MCKAY: It's an average-sized nut.

MR, GERARDI: Big as your thumb?

DR. MCKAY: Oh, yes, about an inch long, I'd say.

MR. BECKER: I was wondering about the Stratford. That's not supposed to

be a pure shagbark, but it's the only one we've got, I think, that

bears.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: I have the Stratford. It grows very well, but it

doesn't quite fill. What does it do with you?

MR. SNYDER: It's not been doing well the last year or two. Of course,

none of them have for that matter. Used to bear tremendous crops and

filled well. I wouldn't say it's the best quality of any tree, but it's

easy to graft and bears young.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: That's been my experience, that it was a young

bearer and bears fairly consistently.

If there is no other discussion, on the hickories, we will close that

discussion. We stand adjourned until this evening at 7:20.

Adjournment at 4:30 o'clock, p.m.

MONDAY EVENING SESSION

Called to order at 7:20 p.m.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: We will call on Dr. McKay as chairman of the

Nominating Committee to present the slate of officers for the next year.

Dr. McKay.

DR. MCKAY: Mr. Chairman, the Nominating Committee, as you know, is

charged with the responsibility of selecting a slate of officers that

will be presented to the meeting.

The committee, composed of myself as chairman, Mr. Allaman, Mr. Silvis,

Mr. Ford Wilkinson and Mr. Gerardi, have the following slate of officers

for next year: For president, Mr. R. B. Best; for vice-president, Mr.

George Salzer of Rochester; for secretary, Mr. Spencer Chase; for

treasurer, Mr. Carl Prell.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: You have heard the report of the Nominating

Committee. At this time we will entertain further nominations from the

floor, if any.

The only action to be taken now is to accept the report of the

Nominating Committee. Do I hear such a motion?

The motion to accept the report was moved, seconded and carried.

Going on with the program of the evening, are you ready to show the

film?

MR. MCDANIEL: The film comes to us from the Northwest Nut Growers now

located in Portland, Oregon. They are an organization for marketing

filberts, and you will see, "The Filbert Valleys", the title. I haven't

seen it myself and don't know exactly what the contents are. We will

look at it now and judge for ourselves.

The film, "The Filbert Valleys", was shown.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: We appreciate very much your running it.

The next item will be our discussion of filbert varieties and their

culture. Mildred Jones, who was to be here, could not come. She

telephoned the last minute that she was ill and could not be with us. I

have asked George Slate to be the moderator in the discussion, with his

panel, D. C. Snyder, Raymond Silvis, A. M. Whitford, Louis Gerardi and

H. F. Stoke.

MR. SLATE: I just learned when I arrived here that I was to be on this

discussion group, and I learned a few minutes ago that I was to lead it,

so I can assure you that this is wholly unrehearsed, and I may have to

flounder around a bit before we get things running smoothly.

I thought I might review the variety situation rather briefly. We have

done quite a lot of variety testing of filberts at Geneva; in fact,

about the only nut cultural work we have done at Geneva has been the

filbert project. We started out with about 25 or 30 varieties that we

secured from American nurseries, many of them from a firm in Rochester

which imported them from Germany. Later we added varieties from England,

France and Germany. I picked up nearly all the varieties that I could

locate until we had about 120 varieties growing there at Geneva. These

were there for some years, and it became evident that many of them were

not of great value. Then we had a hard winter in 1933 and 1934, and

although it did not kill the trees, most of them were blackhearted and

began going back soon after that. However, I felt at that time that I

knew enough about the varieties to discard most of them. Many of them

were discarded because they had poor nuts, many of them were

unproductive, and many of them lacked hardiness of catkins. I laid a

great deal of emphasis on the hardiness of catkins in testing the

varieties.

Out of that variety test were three varieties which we considered to be

most satisfactory of the lot. These were Cosford, an English variety,

rather a small nut but very thin-shelled. The catkins were hardy and one

of the heavier croppers of the lot. Medium Long, a nut which I believe

originated as a seedling in Rochester, was another one, and Italian Red,

which later proved to be Gustav's Zellernuss, a German variety, was

another.

As a result of that variety test it became evident that varieties from

Germany, many of which originated in the colder portions of Germany and

Northern Germany, were distinctly more hardy than the varieties that we

got from French sources and English sources. In some of the proceedings

of the Association published during the '30's I have reported on the

different varieties and their hardiness and those varieties that I

thought were most valuable. I don't recall the names of many of those

German varieties. These three varieties which we consider the best of

the lot were turned over to the New York Fruit Testing Association to

propagate and distribute, because they were not available from American

nurseries. I am not sure how many of them were available from other

sources, but they are still available from the Fruit Testing

Association.

Then out of that variety test a grading project developed. We got our

start from about 500 seedlings that Clarence Reed sent us in the early

'30's. We made crosses there at Geneva, using the Rush variety of

_Corylus americana_ as the seed parent in many cases. We also made some

crosses between _Corylus avellana_ varieties, and with these seedlings

from Mr. Reed and seedlings of our own crossing, we have grown about

2,000 filbert seedlings there at Geneva. These have all been evaluated

and discarded, except possibly 30 or 35 selections still on hand, some

of them being propagated for a second test planting. Stock of one or two

has been turned over to the Fruit Testing Association for increase and

eventual naming and introduction.

The work of the United States Department of Agriculture was along

similar lines. Mr. Reed did not send us all of his seedlings. A number

of them were fruited at Beltsville, and from that work at Beltsville I

believe two varieties have been named, Reed and Potomac. I am not sure

whether they are available yet from commercial sources.

MR. MCDANIEL: Two of them are.

MR. SLATE: Mr. Graham of Ithaca, a long-time member of this Association

and very much interested in filberts, had also made some crosses and

raised several hundred seedlings. He used the Winkler variety as a seed

parent. I believe he raised some seedlings of the Jones hybrids, which

would make that material second generation stock from the original cross

between Rush and the _avellana_ varieties.

Mr. Graham's planting was in rather a cold area; he had considerable

winter killing. Eventually filbert blight got into his planting, and it

really cleaned house. There were a very few seedlings in his planting

which remained free of filbert blight. I think it is a fairly safe guess

to say that they were probably very resistant to blight. So far these

have not been propagated to any extent.

There are a few cultural problems. The ones that we have encountered at

Geneva have been winter injury, particularly of the catkins, and also

some of them have not been as hardy in wood as we would like. We have

had no trouble with filbert blight, presumably because we are isolated

from the wild hazel, which harbors this blight. Dr. MacDaniels has had

trouble with his planting at Ithaca with filbert mite.

With this introduction, which is mostly varieties and breeding, because

that seems to be my interest, I'd like to call on some members of the

panel to get their experiences. Mr. Snyder raises nut trees in Iowa

where winter injury is probably much more serious than we have at

Geneva. At Geneva we have a fairly respectable climate and can get a

crop of peaches about nine years out of ten. In Iowa they have a lot

more sunshine, and I think probably sharper drops of temperature than we

have at Geneva. I'd like to have Mr. Snyder tell us what his experiences

have been with filbert varieties.

MR. SNYDER: I really didn't know that I was to be on this panel until I

got here. I thought I was on the hickory panel. As Mr. Slate says, our

climate is more severe that that at Geneva. We can get the very hardiest

peaches to bear about two years out of three, and the trees are severely

injured in between. So that will give you a little idea as to the

climate in that respect.

We made quite a planting at one time, maybe 30 of the Jones hybrids, and

they did quite well for several years, and then between the

winter-killing and the blight most of them are dead now. The Winkler, of

course, is an Iowa nut and was introduced by our people and did very

well for a number of years but has backed out on us the last several

years, too, I believe due to this same mite trouble that Dr. MacDaniels

reports in New York. They just don't bear. The bushes are quite healthy,

and we get plenty of catkins, but we don't get any nuts to amount to

anything.

We have a little bush of the Mandchurian hazel. It isn't worth

mentioning as a nut producer, but it does have very attractive foliage

and seems to be entirely healthy, produces perhaps three to five nuts a

year on a bush as high as your head. You may be familiar with it. The

foliage is very distinct from anything I know. The leaves are truncate

at the end, cut off quite square, with just a little point in the

middle.

MR. SLATE: I don't have that.

MR. SNYDER: That is standing our conditions all right, and several years

ago Mr. Reed sent us what he said at the time were Chinese tree hazels,

but later he retracted and said that they were not Chinese tree hazels

but they were hybrids of the Chinese tree hazel. There were four of

those plants; one of them was a tremendous grower. It would grow six

feet or more a year and commence bearing in a year or two. But the

blight hit it and cleaned it out. There is only one left now, one of the

slower-growing ones, and while it promises to become a tree, it is a

very irregular-growing one. I think it had half a dozen nuts on this

year.

The Turkish tree hazel, of which I have two trees, were very badly

damaged by a very severe hailstorm 12 or 15 years ago, which completely

peeled off the bark on one side. That was in early July, and we were

afraid to cut them off and let them grow up new for fear it would kill

them. They have finally developed into quite beautiful upright trees.

Also they have more than one stem from the bottom. One of them produces

a great abundance of catkins, but neither of them has produced any nuts

yet, and they are 14 feet high or more, good-sized trees and very

attractive. The foliage is very beautiful, and it remains healthy. I

don't know that there are any other varieties that I can name.

MR. SLATE: We have had several of the Turkish tree hazels, _Corylus

colurna_, growing at Geneva for two or three years. They came from the

Rochester State Park. We have one tree which Mr. Bixby imported from

China, as _Corylus chinensis_, but recently I had it checked by Dr.

Lawrence of the Bailey Hortorium and he assured me that it was _Corylus

colurna_. I think these make a very handsome tree. I like that rough,

corky bark they have as they get older. The trees in Highland Park at

Rochester are the largest, perhaps, in the country, certainly the

largest that I know anything about. They are at least as large as a very

large apple tree. They have been fruiting for some years. The trees at

Geneva have not fruited very much. I don't think you can expect much in

the way of nuts until the tree is about 15 years old. This year one of

our trees has a number of nuts on it. The nuts are too small and too

thick-shelled to be of any great value for nuts.

Now, Mr. Whitford, you have had some experience with the filbert

varieties. Which one would you recommend?

MR. WHITFORD: I haven't had a whole lot of experience with the filberts,

but we had some of the old varieties, like Barcelona and DuChilly, and

they didn't bear many nuts, and eventually they went out with blight.

And we have some of the Potomac and Reed, about five years old, and they

don't bear well as yet. I don't know what the outcome is going to be on

the Potomac and Reed. They make a nice ornamental bush, anyway, and

that's about the sum and substance of my experience with filberts.

MR. SLATE: The Barcelona and DuChilly at Geneva have not been very

satisfactory. During the first two years Barcelona outyielded the other

varieties, but as the trees became older they experienced winter injury.

DuChilly or Kentish Cob makes a small tree, but the nut is about the

best of the nuts. There is a German variety not in circulation in this

country, Langsdorfer, which is much like DuChilly, but it seems to make

a much better tree. I think if they were put into circulation it might

be a good substitute here in the East for DuChilly variety.

Let's hear from you, Mr. Gerardi. I know you are testing filbert

varieties now.

MR. GERARDI: Yes, I have DuChilly and Kentish Cob. So far, at our place

we have no blight or mite damage to speak of. The original plantings

were the Bixby and Buchanan. We have them yet, and they are still as

healthy as the day we put them out. They show no damage; even the

Winkler hazel has had no damage or disease. It may be the soil, although

we have them on high ground and low ground both. Among the newer ones

this year the Reed has the most on. The Potomac, though it is the

strongest grower of the two, has less nuts. Although it appeared to me

that the catkins were all killed in February of this year, still we have

some nuts. The Jones hybrids, when the catkins are killed, have very

few, if any nuts. Some years we have a crop, if some of the catkins are

held back and bloom late. Winter killing in February before they have

had a chance to pollinate, has been our main trouble. If we could get a

variety that this wouldn't bother, we'd have what we are looking for.

MR. MCDANIEL: The Winkler will bloom for you almost every year. Doesn't

the Winkler hold its catkins most years?

MR. GERARDI: Yes, sir, I'd say at our place the Winkler has never failed

entirely. Even though the catkins are killed, they still bear quite

regularly.

MR. MCDANIEL: I can say that for it at Urbana.

MR. WHITFORD: The catkins might have been killed, but you might have had

some cross-pollination from other sources.

MR. GERARDI: There is a chance of that, of course. There is a wild hazel

within a quarter of a mile, but apparently the wild hazel bloomed first.

They were on a south slope and naturally came out first. I tried to keep

them on the north slope, or on the cool side of any particular planting,

because if you can hold them back more, you have got a better chance. If

you plant them on the south side, you rarely get anything.

MR. SLATE: The hybrids bloom later than the _avellana_ varieties, and

they mature nuts later. Is that your experience?

MR. GERARDI: That's true, I will admit your hybrids are a little later

blooming, because your American hazel nuts around our place bloom very

early, sometimes in January in full bloom.

MR. SLATE: _C. avellana_ starts blooming in March and blooms for about a

month. Some years when you have had considerable open weather, they have

bloomed as early as the middle of February. They will, of course, stand

considerable freezing when they are in bloom.

As regards the pollination, I believe about all the information we have

is the work that was done at the Oregon Experiment Station a number of

years ago. All of the varieties tried were self-unfruitful or

self-incompatible. The term, "self-sterile" is often used, but I think

it is a little more exact to say self-unfruitful or self-incompatible.

They are not sterile, because the pistillate flowers are normal and so

is the pollen produced by the staminate flowers. It's just a question of

inability of the pollen to fertilize the pistillate flowers on the same

variety.

We know nothing about the pollination requirements of any of these

_Corylus avellana_ or _Corylus americana_ hybrids. We do know that when

the cross is made that the _Corylus americana_ variety must be the

seed-parent. The cross doesn't work the other way around. That's about

all we know about the cross-pollination of these filberts.

MR. SAWYER: We have had them to bloom in April or the first week in May.

MR. SLATE: The seedlings?

MR. SAWYER: The seedlings.

MR. SLATE: What is the origin of the seedlings?

MR. SAWYER: They are the natives.

MR. SLATE: The native _C. rostrata_, or _C. cornuta_ to some botanists,

it seems to me has nothing that we want in the way of a nut, if we can

possibly grow these other varieties, the _americana_ selections or the

hybrids. It's a miserable little nut with that long, prickly husk. It's

very difficult to get the nut out of it. For that reason, I have never

been very much interested in it.

MR. SAWYER: How is the Ryan?

MR. MCDANIEL: Mr. Gellatly out in British Columbia has named several

hybrids between _avellana_ and the _Corylus cornuta_. Have you seen it?

MR. SLATE: No, I haven't seen it.

MR. MCDANIEL: They described them in their catalog.

MR. COLBY: I have preference for the Winkler hazel, as you know. I

bought and put them in the greenhouse several years ago and shook the

pollen on the pistils and got a full set. So I felt that was

self-fruitful.

MR. SLATE: That was pretty good evidence, then, that it was

self-fruitful.

Now, Mr. Silvis, you raise nut trees, and the climate is somewhat like

that in Western New York, perhaps a little milder in the winter. What

have you to say about the filbert varieties?

MR. SILVIS: It's Warmer, and in spite of all the statistics of previous

gentlemen, I find that _avellana_ types which I had growing in my back

yard three years ago produced pollen on January the 25th. It was

unseasonably warm. It was 70 degrees, and most of the pollen was

dispersed. And this year I found the wild hazel pollen much later than

the early types, due to the different situation. The wild ones which I

had seen were growing in semi shade under tall trees, and my bushes and

plants are growing in the back yard south of our house. And I think I

have the largest planting in the State of Ohio, about two dozen plants,

and I am in production.

Besides numerous seedlings, I have the following varieties: Italian Red,

Cosford, Medium Long, DuChilly. They are in bearing. Italian Red and

DuChilly planted together, I believe, are good for one another for the

production of nice filbert nuts. I have, from scion wood you sent me

several years ago, Cosford, and now on their own roots Neue Riesenuss,

and what I thought the tag said, not "Langsdorfer," but Langsberger.

MR. SLATE: There is a Langsdorfer, and I think there is another variety

which Langsberg is part of the name. I am not sure, I will have to look

that up.

MR. SILVIS: Well, I have it as Langsberger. I have shown last evening

the picture of Harry L. Pierce's orchard at Willamette in Oregon, or in

Salem, Oregon. I have one of his trees with staminate blooms only, no

pistillate blooms. But I also have what Fayette Etter in Pennsylvania

calls his Royal, and I just cannot get two fellows together with paper

and pencil to determine whether those two Royals are the same, but I am

hoping to find out whether the two Royals are identical. I had Fayette

Etter find me scion wood, and now I have it growing as a graft and

layered on its own roots.

I think you people do yourselves an injustice by not learning to graft

and learning to work with the filbert. You only have to have three

compatible plants. If you have more, you will have more nuts. I see no

reason why anyone who owns a city lot cannot grow filberts. They are

much easier to take care of, and you are not going to prejudice the

plant by having it associate with its wild cousin, and I think you will

find a lot of enjoyment in the filbert bush.

MR. SLATE: What variety do you think is best? What two or three would

you plant?

MR. SILVIS: For eating I like DuChilly, and the catkin is hardy with me,

and I am between the 40th and 41st parallel. I'd say anyone who lives

from Iowa to the East Coast within one hundred miles north or south of

the 40th parallel should have the same luck that I have. And as to a

group planting, I would suggest, as you recommended to me when we first

started out the Medium Long, Cosford and Italian Red. If you want only

two bushes, Italian Red and DuChilly will work well together.

MR. MCDANIEL: Do you have Medium Long?

MR. SILVIS: Yes, I do.

MR. MCDANIEL: Is that doing well?

MR. SILVIS: I don't think it fruits as well as Cosford or DuChilly.

That's been my experience. My DuChilly was plastered with nuts last year

and this year, and I believe it's due to the Italian Red which New York

Fruit Testing Laboratory sold me.

MR. SLATE: Thank you.

MR. WHITFORD: Do you fertilize those bushes?

MR. SILVIS: Due to the fact I have started to mulch with sawdust I have

been using nitrate and rock phosphate, so my teeth don't fall out when I

chew them.

MR. SLATE: I crack mine with a hand cracker, I don't crack them with my

teeth.

DR. COLBY: Mr. Chairman, we can grow filberts. How does the chairman

keep the squirrels from eating them?

MR. STOKE: I will tell you that.

MR. SLATE: Mr. Stoke raises his nut trees in the Sunny South, and he has

problems down there that we don't have up north. I think he has to worry

a lot more about winter killing than we do way up north where we are in

Central New York. What's been your experience with some of the varieties

and what are your principal cultural problems with the filberts?

MR. STOKE: I wish to answer Dr. Colby's query about squirrels. I find

that squirrels are very highly allergic to these BB caps or the CP caps

used in a 22 rifle. It works. In my back yard there is a Brixnut

filbert, which originated in Oregon. I guess it's been there 15 years.

There are four trunks to it, the largest about 16 inches in diameter.

One of those I grafted to Giant, as a pollinizer for Brixnut. It's

similar in shape, somewhat smaller in spite of its name, but it's pretty

effective. Then about ten years ago there was an old gentleman from

Halsey, Oregon. I don't know whether any of you have corresponded with

him or not. He bought the Breslau Persian walnut--I pretty nearly said

the English walnut, and I'd have been disgraced--and furnished me scions

and I got a start of it from him. Russ sent me some scions from a

filbert he called Jumbo. You will see it out on the table there. It's

rather a long nut, little larger than DuChilly and not quite so flat,

that I grafted in there. It absolutely is hopeless as a pollinizer for

anything, because it loses its staminate blossoms by Christmas. But the

Hall's Giant pollinizes them, and it's the best filbert I have, all

things considered. This year off that one scion--of course, it's four

inches in diameter--I got about 7 quarts of nuts, and they began

ripening at least three weeks ago, and the crop is all off now. And the

foliage is unusually heavy, almost in clusters, and it drops cleanly and

freely from the husks, and I think it is a very nice filbert. Whether

it's a recognized variety in the West I have no idea, and I haven't

corresponded with the old gentleman for some years, and he probably has

passed on by this time, because he was an elderly man and not in good

health at the time I had my correspondence with him. I consider that an

excellent filbert, and I think anyone wishing to plant filberts should

investigate with the Oregon nurseries or Washington nurseries and see if

that is a recognized variety. I tried to find out once and failed so

far. I do not have it on its own roots. I hope that I will have it

rooted in another year.

In my back yard also I have one that I bought in Oregon. That's as tall

as up to that beam, maybe almost to the ceiling, very vigorous growth,

larger nut than Longfellow, thicker nuts and also longer. But I think

the thing he sold me was a graft and the graft died and this came from

the root. It bears very sparingly, but it's a very large nut, and I

wondered why it was always so spare, and I caught it blooming in

December, staminate blossoms in December this year. So that's that.

Ten miles east of my home, east of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the

granitic, very heavy clay soil of what we call the Piedmont down there,

I have a planting that was made 15 years ago of filberts, some on their

own roots and some that I grew on the Turkish tree hazel stocks. Those

grew well, and the main advantage was they put up no suckers. You had a

nice clean trunk, and you didn't have that problem of getting rid of the

sprouts all the time. And it looked very good for a while.

I find where you graft that way, the stocks get old and do not renew

themselves, and eventually the life will be shorter than if you had a

shrub that might last for a century, when you are renewing your stalks

when they reach maturity and cease to grow enough to be productive.

Two years ago I had most of the standard varieties you mentioned here in

that planting, about three-quarters or perhaps an acre planted in

between chestnut trees. Planted the chestnut trees 40 feet apart and

then interplanted with the filberts at 20 feet. Two years ago we had an

unusually wet season, and the blight, of which I had had some before,

hit hard and virtually ruined the whole planting. And in addition to

that, we have leaf miner. It's an insect that lays a tiny egg in the

leaf and develops a little larva or worm that eats out the chlorophyll

between the two membranes of the leaf, just hollows it out and makes

unsightly spots in there and, of course, kills that portion of the leaf.

But the blight, known as the eastern filbert blight, according to Mr.

Gravatt, has just ruined that planting. Some of the trees have been

killed outright, and most of the tops are either dead or dying. This

year the blight wasn't apparently active on the living part, because it

was very dry up until the first of August, and since then it's been very

wet. That's what happened to my filberts there.

Now, in that same location I have some younger, second-generation or

third-generation plantings that I grew from scions from the Jones

hybrids and so far those have not been attacked by the blight and not

much by the leaf miner. I used them to replace some of the others that

had died several years ago, so they are right in there together. About

the best I have of those are also on exhibit out there and marked as the

Jones Hybrid.

At the same time I put out some seedling Colurna or the Turkish tree

hazel in that same plot. They were attacked somewhat but not badly by

the blight. Today you'd never know they had any blight. They look

healthy, and as has already been said, they make a beautiful tree. And

if you want an avenue of trees on a drive that don't spread too wide and

run up like Lombardi poplar, they'll beat Lombardi poplar all to pieces.

And if you crowd them a little, they will grow up like a spire and

retain their branches, so you really have a tree.

There was one in the J. F. Jones yard at Lancaster that I think was at

least 14 inches in trunk diameter 20 years ago when I saw it. Do you

know whether that is still there at the Jones place, that Turkish tree

hazel, Mrs. Weber?

MRS. WEBER: Where is it located?

MR. STOKE: It's right near the house, it seems to me between the house

and the side near the barn.

DR. MCKAY: Mr. Stoke, that tree is gone. We were there last fall.

MR. STOKE: But it was a very nice tree, and for shade it's very nice.

The Manchurian hazel has been spoken of, and I might mention that,

because I have dabbled in everything, I guess. I got seed from the

University of Nanking along with some other things, and those seedlings

were quite variable. The nuts compared rather favorably with the

American hazel. Some were thick-shelled, but they will average almost as

good as the American hazel, and they bore quite freely for me until I

let the bushes get right thick. They will send out suckers and make a

very spreading growth. If you dig them out and leave a piece of root in

the ground, it will come up just like sassafras or persimmon will on

that piece of root. But it is an attractive bush, and mine has a

reddish-brown little spot in the middle of the leaf in most cases. It

seems to be characteristic of that strain that I have. The nuts were

quite variable and, as I say, they bore right well until I let them get

too thick. I believe that's all.

MR. SLATE: I neglected to answer your question, Dr. Colby, but the

squirrels have not been much of a problem with our filberts at Geneva,

strange as it may seem. They have never taken a very high percentage of

the crop. We have a Lancaster heartnut, and they clean up every nut on

that tree every year before the end of August.

I'd like to comment on this matter of the name of Halle's Giant, I think

you called it. I think the name is Halle, the German town where the

variety originated. I prefer the name Halle, because calling it Hall's

Giant is more or less a sign its origin is a man named Hall.

MR. STOKE: In some catalogs it is one way and some the other.

MR. SLATE: We have other items on the program tonight, and as the Latin

student said, "Tempus is fugiting very fast," so I think we had better

turn the meeting back to Dr. MacDaniels.

PRESIDENT MACDANIELS: The next two talks have slides to be shown, and it

is suggested that you take about ten minutes, take a stretch and then

come back when the slide projector is set up.

My Experiences With Chinese Chestnuts

W. J. WILSON, _Fort Valley, Ga._

When I was asked to appear on this program to tell my experiences as a

grower of chestnuts, I felt like a child, appearing before a group of

grown-ups to tell them how to make marriage succeed. When I see the

sages of chestnut knowledge seated before me I realize that I can only

relate my experiences and ask your advice.

My father was a pioneer peach and pecan grower; he loved trees and has

told me time after time that if I ever made more than just a living,

farming, it would have to come from trees, not row crops. He was what I

would call a self-educated man. He had small chance of formal education,

being the sickly son, one of eight sons and three daughters, of a couple

who eked out an existence on the poor, unproductive, sandy, soils of

Crawford County, Georgia, growing the one and only cash crop of those

days, cotton. The combined wages of these boys often amounted to more

cash money than their own cotton crop returned because the supplier got

most of the money from their own crop. They helped neighbors pick out

their cotton crops after finishing their own. Grandfather must have

liked to experiment in his limited way. Each spring as Grandfather would

plant his small patch of Spanish peanuts and yellow corn, Grandmother

would tongue-lash him, saying, 'so long as you fool away your time with

Spanish peanuts and yellow corn you will remain a poor man. Time has

proven Grandfather right and Grandmother wrong. Spanish peanuts is a

huge industry; most of our hybrid corns, which have added millions of

bushels to our yields are yellow.

My father wasted his time back at the turn of the century planting a

peach orchard on his best cotton land. He planted pecans each winter,

beginning about 1912, often to the ribbing of friends who still

worshipped at the feet of King Cotton. One told him that he had a pecan

tree or two about his home and the damn flying squirrels ate all of the

nuts. Another told him that if he wanted a load of stove wood he would

just as soon cut down a pecan tree as any other kind. At his death in

1942, my father had planted six hundred acres of pecan orchards, each

acre having been interplanted with peaches, to produce income while the

pecans were reaching bearing age.

I give you this background so that you may better understand my attitude

toward chestnut growing. The scale on which I have set out on chestnut

growing I know to some of you will seem rather bold or foolhardy.

About ten years ago I found that the U. S. D. A. Pecan Experiment

Station at Albany, Georgia had a small chestnut orchard. Max Hardy, was

doing the chestnut work and was so much interested in them that I caught

fire and have been burning ever since. When I found that the harvest

came between the peach harvest and the pecan harvest it fitted right

into my kind of farming. The fact, that it was a possible tree crop made

chestnut growing still more attractive to me. Max suggested that I join

the N. N. G. A. when I complained that I couldn't find much information

on chestnuts. I attended my first convention at Norris. I have tried to

make most of them since that time. Of all the discussions at the Norris

meeting, the one that stuck in my mind was whether nurseries should

recommend seedlings or grafted trees. I thought then, and still think,

that for commercial production one must have varieties, because

seedlings are so variable. I believe, that when, chestnut growing comes

of age, the major part of the production will go through processing

plants. It will be a great advantage to have nuts of uniform quality and

size, which is and will be impossible with seedlings.

Of the fifteen trees that I planted in 1946, only one fruited in 1951.

It bore only 3-1/4 pounds of nuts. The other fourteen did not fruit.

This year there are a few scattering burs at seven years of age, on

those that I did not graft this spring. I am now too old to wait seven

or eight years for a chestnut tree to begin bearing. These trees came

from a Virginia nursery. The trees I planted in 1947, I started grafting

in 1950, to Nanking, Meiling, and Kuling, and finished this spring,

except for a few replants. I also grafted ten trees in 1950 to

Abundance. These tops bore the second year, several bearing good burs

the same year the scions were set. These grafted trees are anxious to go

to work, because they bloom in the spring and again in late July and

early August. I have used the in-lay bark, modified cleft, the cleft,

and what I call a saddle graft, bevelling two sides of the stock and

splitting the scion, thus slipping the split scion down over the

prepared stock. I have had equally good take on all types of grafts

used. In 1948 I planted two hundred seedlings bought from Max Hardy,

grown from seed from the Experiment Station orchard. I believe the

production record of this orchard has been given to this convention at

previous meetings. You will recall that the off-type trees were rogued,

leaving the parent trees of Nanking, Kuling and Meiling and others of

good bearing habits. In 1951 four trees out of this lot, were

outstanding in precocity. The earliest started dropping nuts the

fifteenth of August and bore 7-1/4 pounds. The next matured September

5th and produced 8-1/2 pounds. The third tree is unusual. I noticed it

the 4th of October. The ground was covered with nuts, but only an

occasional bur. All of the burs were wide open and still on the tree.

The crop weighed 6-1/2 pounds. The fourth tree I found on the 5th of

October with all of its nuts on the ground, the tree retaining the burs.

The yield of this tree was 4-1/2 pounds. Mind you, this was the fourth

summer after planting. These trees have repeated this year with another

good heavy crop. The other trees in this block bore from none to one or

two pounds of nuts in 1951. This year less than ten trees in the block

are not bearing. Next spring these ten will be growing new tops, because

their present tops are not satisfactory. I noticed that one tree in this

block bloomed long after the rest this spring, several weeks in fact. It

might have possibilities in northern areas because of its late blooming.

Of the eleven hundred trees planted in 1950, one bore nuts in 1951. I

didn't know it until this spring, when I was pruning the trees in this

block, and found nuts on the ground under this tree. It is bearing a

good crop this year for its size and age. There are a number of these

trees bearing this year. Dr. Crane in a hurried inspection of these

trees this summer thought those trees bearing were offspring of a

certain tree in the Philema orchard.

I do not give my chestnut trees special care. They are fertilized and

cultivated the same as young peach orchards. We try to bring in a peach

orchard the third summer, with enough fruit to make it worth spraying. I

see no reason to wait seven or eight years to get a chestnut orchard

into bearing. If you will keep down competition from weeds, cultivate

frequently, and give the tree plenty of nitrogen you will be surprised

at the growth it will make. I set the trees twenty-four feet each way,

with the idea of thinning later when they begin to crowd. In this way I

will get higher acre yields in the early years. When they reach maturity

I will have them thinned down to forty-eight feet each way. As they

reach heavy bearing the rate of growth will slow down and I will adjust

the nitrogen to keep them from becoming too vegetative.

So far the only insects that have bothered me are caterpillars that

ordinarily feed on wild maypops, or passion flowers. These caterpillars

will defoliate a tree. The only tree that I have lost from

winter-killing was one defoliated by the caterpillars early last fall.

It may become necessary for me to spray for these worms if they become

too plentiful.

I do not come before you as an authority on chestnut growing. I feel

that to force myself to do my best I should plant enough trees to make

me find out how to handle them. In the rush and bustle of peach and

pecan growing if I had only a few chestnut trees I might decide that not

much was involved, and neglect the chestnuts. I know that with two

thousand trees already planted and some of them bearing I am going to

make a great effort to make the project profitable. I have decided that

chestnut growing has possibilities as a tree crop in my section, and is

worth my time and effort. I know there are many problems ahead, but so

did my father when he planted peaches and pecans many years ago. I am

still meeting new problems with them each year. Problems go hand in hand

with the fruit and nut business. It is the fellow who is willing to try

to work them out who has a chance to profit. If I wait until all the

problems are solved I will never grow chestnuts. The day that I decide

that I know all the answers about growing peaches, pecans or chestnuts,

is the day I start going broke. I have been badly bent several times

while I was struggling to find an answer. Each year starts full of hope,

with visions of a nice fat bank balance when the jobs are all done. Then

the problems start and if I can lick enough of them, I come through with

the right to see if I can't do a still better job next year, despite the

risks of too much rain, not enough rain, hail, insects and diseases.

I have found that each year from 15 to 50 million pounds of chestnuts

are imported from Europe. The same blight that destroyed our native

chestnuts, is going full tilt in Italy and other European countries. If

the blight runs its course as it did in this country, it will not be

many years until we will not have chestnuts from Europe. I am going to

grow some to fill this gap. In 1950 Dr. McKay sent me eight trees, four

Meiling, two Nanking, two Kuling. Two Meiling and two Nanking to be

planted together, two Meiling and two Kuling together. Each combination

to be isolated so that the nuts produced would be of known crosses.

These trees bloomed this spring and two of them set a few burs. Next

year I hope to turn over to Dr. McKay nuts from these trees to be

planted, and grown to fruiting age. I now have about one hundred and

sixty grafted trees. I intend to fruit my seedlings with the hope that

among them I will find trees superior enough to be given variety status.

I will then top-work the rest to varieties. At present I intend to plant

more trees each winter until I have at least one hundred acres of

orchards. If and when the weevil moves in I will have the equipment on

hand to spray, using the same equipment on peaches or pecans.

I would like to see this Association ask that more research on chestnut

production be done by the U. S. D. A. It will not be done until we ask

for it. The men in the department are not in position to do much asking

for additional funds. It is the responsibility of groups like the N. N.

G. A. and the Southeastern Chestnut Grower's Association. We are in need

of more breeding and selection of new, and better adapted varieties. We

need processing research, marketing research, and research in the field

of production. We are not going to get it done until we insist on it

good and strong.

This spring, at Fort Valley, Georgia, the Southeastern Chestnut Grower's

Association was formed. We hold our convention in March and will be glad

to have everyone interested in chestnut growing, marketing, processing

or research, attend our convention. I think in time this organization

will want to become affiliated with the N. N. G. A., to the mutual

benefit of both. I will be glad to have any of you visit my orchards and

show me how to grow chestnuts, I am constantly searching for

information.

PRESIDENT MACDANIELS: We thank Mr. Wilson very much for his talk, and

we think it does take a lot of courage to embark on an experiment of

that kind.

In view of the lateness of the hour, unless somebody objects, we will

adjourn until tomorrow morning at 8:30.

At 9:40 o'clock, p.m., the meeting adjourned.

TUESDAY MORNING SESSION

(Called to order at 8:30 o'clock, a.m., President L. H. MacDaniels

presiding.)

Persian Walnuts in the Upper South

H. F. STOKE, _Roanoke, Va._

My experience with the Persian walnut has been acquired in the Roanoke

district of south-west Virginia. It is located 300 miles from the

Atlantic seaboard and my trees are at an approximate elevation of eleven

hundred feet. Roanoke is on the same parallel as Springfield, Missouri,

and about thirty miles south of Rockport, Indiana.

This experience covers a period of more than twenty years with named

varieties and seedlings of the species. I shall here attempt to present

some findings that may be of some value to others similarly located.

For the sake of brevity I shall put the cart before the horse, the

findings before the facts from which they are derived.

For the upper south and, in my opinion, for the middle west, late

vegetating and blossoming is of prime importance for success with the

Persian walnut. No matter how vigorous, prolific and precocious the tree

may be, nor how fine the nuts, the variety is worthless for anything

except shade if the crop is destroyed by normal spring frosts.

In the second place is winter hardiness. This is of two kinds;

resistance to extreme cold, and resistance to the wooing of warm winter

days that starts premature activity, followed by a destructive freeze.

My experience with the Payne variety is a case in point. Having read

some place of the vigor, precocity and heavy bearing of the new variety,

then called the Payne Seedling, I secured some scions of it from its

originator and worked it on a young black walnut. The variety was

already making a name for itself in Northern California and Oregon, not

only because of its bearing habits but for the superb quality of its

nuts.

During the first few years it did well despite its early starting in the

spring, and bore heavy crops; then disaster fell. One spring the tree

failed to leaf out at the usual time. On examination I found that it had

winter-killed back to five-year wood. The winter had been unusually

cold, and the tree could not take it. Pruned back, the belated new

growth did not fully mature before winter so in turn was damaged, a

phenomenon that recurred from year to year. Exit Payne as a Virginia

prospect.

An example of the other type of winter injury was that of my first Crath

Carpathian. I secured scions of this variety from Rev. P. C. Crath in

1929. The parent tree had been growing and bearing in the vicinity of

Toronto and was apparently fully hardy. The scions grew vigorously on

the young black walnut stock on which it was worked, and completed their

longitudinal growth early in July, giving ample time for the ripening of

the wood before winter.

After several years I noticed the bark on the south side of the trunks

dead from so-called sun-scald. Activity had been induced by the warmth

of the winter sun, followed by freezing. After some years the wood was

killed back to limbs the thickness of one's wrist, and this has been

again repeated. The tree was hardy in Ontario, but not in Virginia.

The nut of this variety, which to me is the Crath, is much superior to

the average Carpathian, and I think might be well worth while in the

north-east and along the Great Lakes, but not in the upper South nor the

Mid-West.

Besides their winter weaknesses, both the Payne and Crath start too

early in the spring for my conditions.

Broadview and Lancaster both blossom here in mid-season and, since both

have a rather long period of producing pistillate blossoms, they seldom

fail to produce a crop when properly pollenized.

Franquette and Mayette, both highly recommended as being late vegetating

and producing excellent nuts, have offered me some difficulties of

another order. With Franquette the chief trouble has been to get a

suitable pollenizer. Like the Mayette, its pistillate blossoms appear

ten days or more after the staminate blossoms and self-pollination is

not effected. I tried King, recommended as a pollenizer, but it was too

early to be reliably effective. When Franquette is properly pollenized

it, with Payne, is one of the heaviest bearers.

Mayette in Virginia produces a fine, healthy, vigorous tree, but it

refuses to produce pistillate blossoms. A dozen nuts is an average crop

for a tree that should produce a bushel. It, like Franquette, demands a

late pollenizer, but the pistillate blossoms are simply not there.

Neither of these two late varieties have ever suffered winter injury

with me, nor have been damaged by spring frosts.

I will not attempt to go into detail regarding all the varieties and

seedlings that I have tried through the years; Eureka, that ranks with

Mayette and Franquette for lateness, but refuses to bear, apparently for

want of pollination; Chambers that was recommended along with King for

pollenizing the late bloomers but not fully successful; Breslau, with

its huge nuts but slow growth, in addition to an assortment of

Carpathian seedlings. Of the latter my Caesar is one of the more

promising with its vigorous growth, large thin-shelled nuts and ability

to pollenize itself in some seasons. Gilbert Becker has reported it

passing through Michigan winters unhurt.

As matters now stand, I believe Bedford, Caesar and Lancaster have

proven the most satisfactory varieties to date under my conditions,

although some seedlings I have grown appear even more promising. Chief

of these are several that I grew from open-pollenized nuts of the

Lancaster, which I am here exhibiting.

You will note that the one I designate as L-2 is an extremely large nut,

considerably larger than its seed parent which it somewhat resembles.

L-8 is of somewhat similar type, but smaller. L-3 and L-6, on the other

hand, are of entirely different type. Much smaller, they are smooth,

thin-shelled and well filled, with kernels running 50% by weight and of

high quality. They resemble their seed parent, Lancaster, not at all but

in type are much nearer Bedford, their probable pollen parent.

Another one of these seedlings, L-7, resembles Caesar, its probable

pollen parent, far more than it does its seed parent.

Some years ago I hand-pollenized several blossoms of Broadview, using

pollen from my original Crath.

One of the seedlings from these hand-pollenized nuts resembles Crath

much more than Broadview, the seed parent. I have it here as C x B 2.

Aside from the apparent profound influence of the pollen parent on the

offspring, there is the unexplained fact at that with the exception of

L-8, all these seedlings are later vegetating than the seed parents and

any of the suspect pollen parents. Of the Lancaster seedlings L-2, L-3

and L-6 are fully as late as Franquette and Mayette, blooming well after

the first of May. Inasmuch as there were no Persians producing pollen

anywhere near that time I can only believe that these nuts were

pollenized by the black walnut on which they were top-worked. I intend

to plant some of these nuts, and expect to produce hybrids.

This brings up the enticing subject of breeding Persian walnuts adapted

to one's own conditions. I have no suggestions to offer scientists, but

offer the following for the benefit of amateurs like myself.

If your grounds are cluttered up with varieties, as are mine, ingratiate

yourself to some friend who has an isolated young black walnut tree by

volunteering to convert it to the production of Persian walnuts. Select

two varieties whose characteristics you desire to blend and that will

pollenize each other, and grow seedlings from the resulting nuts. You

can check results in as little as four years by taking buds from the

seedlings at two years and placing then on black walnut.

Creative work, this. You will get the thrill of your life--if you are

that kind of a person--and may produce something well worth while.

Persian walnuts are self-pollenizing if pistillate and staminate

blossoms occur at the same time, but such usually is not the case.

Crath, Breslau, Caesar and King produce their pistillate blossoms some

days before their staminate blossoms shed their pollen, while Payne,

Lancaster, Broadview, Franquette and Mayette produce their blossoms in

reverse order. Of all those I have tested only Bedford can be depended

to produce both types of bloom simultaneously and certainly and fully

pollenize itself.

It is enlightening to keep a record of the blossoming time of each

variety relative to others, but dates should all be recorded for the

same year. Warm, early spring induces early blooming; late, cool weather

delays blossoming. By my records, Payne pistillates were receptive May 3

in 1935, April 28 in 1937 and March 31, in 1945, a variation of over a

month. All varieties vary with the season, but the variation is greatest

with the early varieties.

There has been little disease among my Persian walnuts except that in

wet seasons leaves and nut shucks are sometimes attacked by a fungous

blight. In the city there has been no insect injury worthy of note. In

the country, adjacent to wooded areas, insect injury is sometimes

serious. Pests include spittle bugs, stink bugs and other insects that

attack young leaves and tender growth. These check the leaders and

cause late multiple growths that may fail to mature and hence

winterkill.

In such locations the butternut curculio also attacks and destroys the

young nuts. Avoid wooded areas if choosing a site for a Persian walnut

orchard.

The most destructive pest with which I have had to contend has been the

large black-bird or purple grackle. Oddly enough they are much worse in

the city than in the country. As soon as the young are grown, about the

middle of June, they appear in flocks and attack the nuts of the Persian

walnut. At first, before the shell has hardened, they penetrate the nut

apparently for the nectar which is the substance of the immature kernel.

When the shell can no longer be penetrated they continue to eat away the

husk, which is equally fatal to the nut. This continues until late in

July, when the squirrels take over. Fortunately squirrels are highly

allergic to a bullet from a 22 rifle.

In pointing out some of the hazards encountered in growing Persian

walnuts in the East the writer has not intended to be discouraging but

helpful. Persian walnuts of good quality can be grown in this section;

full understanding of the factors involved make it possible, I believe,

to grow them successfully on a commercial scale.

Varieties of Persian Walnuts in Eastern Iowa

Ira B. Kyhl, _Sabula, Iowa_

There are a great many varieties of Persian walnuts, many of which

originated in the region of the Carpathian mountains and other parts of

Europe and a few varieties in the United States and Canada.

I believe that some varieties now grown in the United States and Canada

which originated in Europe may have come from the same tree as they

appear to have the same shape, thickness of shell and flavor. I have as

many as four varieties that are identical.

The Persian walnut has always been my favorite nut. I started with 2 or

3 varieties and now have 35 or 40 varieties and 200 trees most of which

are doing well. Some are superior in hardiness and vigor.

In eastern Iowa at 42 degrees N. latitude minimum winter temperatures

vary from 25 to 32 degrees below zero. Usually the minimum is 12 to 15

degrees below zero, but last winter it was 25 degrees below zero for

several days. Only the hardier varieties will endure -25 degrees without

injury, but -12 to -15 does not injure any variety very much.

Schafer is my favorite variety and it was not injured at -25 degrees. I

have several of these trees, some from seeds, some top-worked on black

walnut and the others grafted trees from a nursery. It grafts easily,

grows rapidly and bears a fine nut.

A top-worked tree of Colby withstood -25 degrees without injury and is

one of the most vigorous trees I have.

Fifteen seedlings from Crath Mayette and Crath Franquette seeds from the

late G. H. Corsan, of Toronto, Canada, are developing into very fine

trees, but are not yet bearing.

One of the first varieties planted, Broadview, grew rapidly and

produced nuts after two mild winters, but the several trees of this

variety killed to the ground after the -25 degrees of last winter.

Crath No. 1, Crath No. 39, and Breslau grew well until last winter when

they were killed. Three Breslau seedlings did not winterkill.

Rumanian Giant, the first tree I grafted, killed back somewhat, but is

recovering. This variety produces the largest nut I have seen and it

fills well.

Top-worked trees of other varieties that were not injured last winter

are Crath No. 5, Crath No. 12, SG No. 5, Crath No. 29, Graham and Crath

Special.

Seedlings in the nursery row that stood severe temperature are

Carpathian D, NWF Nos. 1 and 3, FB O and FB OO, Fort Custer, Hansen,

Jacobs and others.

MR. STOKE: Does the black walnut bloom at the same time that the Persian

walnut blooms?

DR. MCKAY: It bloomed near the end of the receptive period.

MR. STOKE: That first experiment of yours was trying to pollinize the

black walnut with the Persian, but the reciprocal cross may be quite

different, as Jones proved with the filberts.

DR. McKAY: That could be. We have no large amount of data on the

reciprocal cross. These cases where it is said that the black walnut

pollinates the Persian regularly and is producing good crops of nuts, I

would consider doubtful until I see the seedlings, their growth and

characteristics. Yesterday Mr. Bolten asked the question whether or not

some walnuts that have large nuts could possibly be tetraploid or

polyploid. A number of years ago I examined the chromosomes of one of

these large fruited varieties, and it had the same chromosome number as

the others, namely sixteen pairs or thirty two.

The whole question of chromosome number in nut varieties and species is

as follows. So far as we know, all of the species have a constant number

within the genus except the hickories where we have tetraploid species

and diploid species. All of the species of _Castanea_, as far as we

know, have the same chromosome number, and all of the varieties within

each species have the same number. In the Oaks, which are related to

chestnuts, we have an extremely large genus in which there is a great

constancy of number. The pines, and all other cone-bearing trees make up

another very large group in which chromosome numbers are constant.

Exactly the opposite situation is found in the related family of alders

and willows where the chromosome number is very variable.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Unless there is some special question or comment

on this subject, we will go on to the next item.

MR. LEMKE: There was a panel discussion about four years ago, and they

were talking about what nuts to grow, and one of the men said, "Before

you offer a man a good nut, give him a good nut cracker." That's been on

my mind for some time.

Commercial Production and Processing of Black and Persian Walnuts

EDWIN W. LEMKE, _Washington, Mich._

Sometime ago a group of nut minded men associated with Spencer B. Chase

announced their findings on the quality of the wild black walnut growing

in the area of Norris, Tenn. Nuts were gathered from 151 wild walnut

trees. After judging, the group came to the conclusion that only one

tree had a flavor that was considered by their standards as good. It is

these good nuts that caused the formation of the N.N.G.A. When we speak

of the good nut it gives the word commercial an entirely different

meaning. It by necessity excludes most of wild black walnut kernels

processed by the large cracking plants of Kentucky and Tennessee. The

large crackers are willing to pay better prices for the improved black

walnut but were they to rely on this source of supply they could not

stay in business very long.

To produce and process, I chose the Thomas and Ohio variety and I have

met with some success. The black walnut can be made to bear in the first

and second year after grafting but this is but a novelty feature. Jones

from whom I purchased my trees, told me that the black walnut could be

classed with the Northern Spy Apple for coming into bearing. This has

proven true. Commercial production of the improved black walnut is by

its very nature small scale production. Because of this fact only small

scale machines to process these nuts are feasible.

Since 1916 I have had time to reflect on the problem of the three basic

machines needed. These are the huller, cracker and kernel picker.

Fortunately for me I learned the machinist trade and had a machine shop

at my disposal. I tried every way to hull the black walnut and finally

accepted the commercial potato peeler as the best principle. I built

several crackers and at last accepted the Wiley cracker as the best

commercial cracker. The third machine is the picker which has yet to be

assembled. This picker is copied after The Kenneth Dick machine with

some variations in the separation process.

Let me briefly explain these three basic machines. As the nuts are

gathered in the orchard they are brought to the huller in bushel crates.

The huller is located in a separate room. This room has the floor

depressed to catch the removed hulls that are flushed outdoors with the

aid of running water. The cylinder of this huller is 30 inches in

diameter and 14 inches high. It is made of 3/16ths boiler plate. Three

inches from the bottom of the cylinder is a revolving disc smaller than

the inside of the cylinder. The disc being small enough it allows a

5/8th opening around the inside of the cylinder. It is this opening that

permits the hulls to drop to the floor. The nuts are held captive

because there is no opening in the cylinder for them to leave until the

discharge door is opened on the side of the cylinder. The cover of the

cylinder has a 10 inch feed hole into which the nuts are fed. A 10 inch

furnace pipe elbow runs from the hole to the serving trough into which

the nuts are poured. A 10 inch pusher is used to shove the nuts into the

huller and serves to keep the feed hole closed while the nuts tumble

around. The disc runs at 250 RPM which is the proper speed to do a good

job. While the nuts tumble around a stream of water is used to wash the

hulls free from the nuts and force the removed hulls to the floor below.

The disc is supported by a 1-3/8 inch diameter shaft that runs through

the disc and is held central as it revolves in a flange containing a 3/4

ball bearing that fits into the end of the concave in the shaft. Up four

feet from the disc is a link self aligning bearing that allows the shaft

and disc to turn like a gyroscopic top. The shaft's pulley has 'V' belts

connected to a 3/4 h.p. motor. I have hulled up to 40 bushels of clean

nuts in 8 hours. The nuts after hulling are placed on drying trays

indoors where temperatures are better controlled. The principal of this

huller is that it separates the hull by centrifugal force. The hull

drops down through the opening between cylinder and disc while the nuts

riding on disc are discharged at right angles to the fall of hull. The

machine is a separator.

The next basic machine is the cracker. This cracker is the Wylie cracker

in principle and is made in Eugene, Oregon. Simply explained it could be

likened to two pages in a book. One page is perpendicular while the

other page is off the perpendicular about 7 degrees. The first page

which is the anvil is fixed save for adjustments for nuts of varying

size. The other page or hammer riding up and down through an inch and

one quarter of travel is fixed to a crank below. Both of these pages or

plates are heavy cast iron plates that are fluted and cause the nut to

be cracked against these saw toothed flutes and while being cracked are

revolved down through the plates. The plate moving at an angle forces

the nut finally through a 3/8 inch opening where they fall into a rotary

sieve. The sieve has three sizes of mesh. 5 mesh, 2 mesh and 3/4 mesh.

The larger pieces go on through and are returned to the cracker. This

cracker will crack up to 500 pounds per hour, and uses a 3/4 h.p. motor.

The last of the three basic machines is the picker. I have not yet built

the picker but a number of the parts have already been machined and

before long it will be a reality. The Kenneth Dick, picker, of Peebles,

Ohio is the best for small orchards. It is essentially a separator using

a conveyor belt which carries the cracked nuts to needles that pick up

the kernels and deposit them on trays that at the timed moment accept

the black walnut kernels. The discarded shells remain on conveyor and

travel to the end and fall into a receptacle. After this process,

further inspection becomes necessary but up to the present it is the

best we have.

The black walnut is a messy nut to fool with but with the proper

machines it soon becomes a pleasure to work with it. I can work all day

hulling nuts and finish with clean unstained hands.

Processing the Persian walnut is a simple matter as compared with the

black walnut. My Persian nuts are gathered and placed on drying trays.

Most of the nuts fall free from hull and the stick tights are discarded

as inferior. N.N.G.A. members need but write to the agricultural

colleges in California, Oregon and Washington and a list of publications

will be sent. One of the latest machines being offered is one that picks

the nut from the orchard floor with a speed with which no human can

compete. It has not only removed the back ache but the human back as

well. The Persian walnut industry in the Pacific Coast states is big

business.

There is only one organization that can and does disseminate the

necessary knowledge and experience that will give the northern grown nut

its proper place in the American diet. That is the Northern Nut Grower's

Assn. You newer members have become heirs to knowledge based on the

experiences of others which represents not only blood, sweat and tears

but a lot of good hearty belly laughs. When one becomes nut conscious

there is no turning back. It gives life a new approach and a finer

meaning.

Black Walnut Processing at Henderson, Kentucky

R. C. MANGELSDORF, _St. Louis, Mo._

MR. MANGELSDORF: Mr. Walker and Mr. McDonald are unable to be here

today, and I don't know if I can fill their shoes or not, because I am

not in the purchasing or processing end of the black walnut business.

We started this black walnut shelling operation a season ago at

Henderson, Kentucky, with the idea of processing the nuts there and

transporting the kernels to St. Louis for final processing and

marketing. At Henderson, Kentucky we are located outside the city limit,

and we have no fire protection, and as a result, the insurance rates on

our building, storage sheds, and black walnuts in storage have been so

high that we are looking around for possible plant location sites where

we can reduce that expense of operation.

Another factor in our operation there is the transportation of raw

material to our cracking site. If we have to transport black walnuts,

which give an approximate 10 per cent yield, any distance, the freight

adds materially to the cost per pound of the finished material. That is,

if we have to pay 10 cents per hundred additional freight cost in

transporting them from outlying districts to the cracking plant, that

adds a cent a pound to the cost of the finished kernels. All such

factors, have to be given weighty consideration, because our business is

primarily concerned with making money for the stockholders. If we don't

make money for the stockholders, they are not interested in seeing us

continue the operation.

Mr. Walker and Mr. McDonald at the present time are out on a crop

inspection trip and also making surveys of locations and availability of

buildings or sites that might be more advantageous than the one at

Henderson, Kentucky. It may be that we will continue the operation

there, making modifications in the building, which will result in lower

insurance rates. At the present time, with the new crop coming on, we

are in a chaotic state of affairs, because we just don't know exactly

what's the best path to follow in our operation at Henderson, Kentucky.

Are there any questions?

DR. MCKAY: Will you tell us something about how you handle the nuts in

your plant, how they are hulled and cracked, and so forth?

MR. MANGELSDORF: It's a similar operation to what Mr. Lemke described.

The nuts are brought in in burlap bags by the farmers and growers and

are put in storage in cribs. The plant at Henderson, Kentucky, was a

popcorn processing plant, with a large crib under roof where the nuts

are stored. After the moisture content is reduced somewhat, they pass

through a tumbling drum to remove any of the extraneous hulls and other

dirt that might be adhering.

After the nuts are completely freed of all this extraneous matter, they

are passed through a series of cracking rollers with screens. The nuts

are cracked, by passing between two rollers like a wringer then passed

over a shaker screen, the free nut meats passing through the screen. The

large material that comes off of the screen is then passed between more

closely spaced cracking rollers and then further sifted and screened.

Then the various materials that have passed through the screens are run

through a Smalley picker. This is nothing more than metal pins on a

series of fingers rotating on a roller that presses against a sponge

rubber roller. The nut meats adhere to the prongs or points. The shells,

not being penetrated by the points of the pins, are not picked up. Then

there is a comb that picks off the adhering kernels from the picker

prongs. That's the principle of most of the shelling operations of the

black walnuts. I don't believe any major changes have been made in the

processing of black walnuts in the last ten years.

DR. COLBY: How do you remove the hulls?

MR. MANGELSDORF: We try to buy only hulled walnuts, the farmer and the

grower removing the hulls in a tumbler and selling to us only the

dehulled walnuts.

The kernels are packed in cartons and shipped to St. Louis for final

picking of remaining shells and off-colored nut meats and graded for

color, size and quality. After this grading separation is made, they are

either packed in our 4-ounce vacuum-packed tins or 30-pound bulk cartons

which are then sold through the trade.

MR. WALLICK: What percentage of kernels do you get?

MR. MANGELSDORF: I think our operation at Henderson, Kentucky this past

season for all of the nuts that were grown and gathered in this locality

was about 9.48 per cent yield of black walnut kernels by weight.

MR. WHITFORD: Do you get any improved varieties, such as Thomas, Stabler

or Ohio?

MR. MANGELSDORF: No. With most of the nuts that we gather in our

marketing operation very little attention is paid to variety or source.

We don't try to differentiate and store them separately, but everything

is processed as it is brought together.

MR. MCDANIEL: Do you have any indication that you get a better quality

nut from one county or one area than you do from another?

MR. MANGELSDORF: That is a question that I can't answer, because I am in

the research and development end of the business, and have very little

to do with the purchasing and marketing of the nuts themselves.

MR. LEMKE: What do you do when you strike a day that is very humid and

the nuts start getting moldy?

MR. MANGELSDORF: That is a bugaboo. I always say you don't have to be

nuts to be in the nut business, but it sure helps a little bit. All the

nuts that I have ever had any dealing with seem to be very susceptible

to mold growth. If the moisture content of the nuts is above a critical

level, mold growth takes place in the shell at a very fast rate. The

only thing we can do in a case like that is to get the kernels in to St.

Louis and destroy the mold growth or spores on the surface before it can

grow so that the fungous mycelium is visible to the eye. The black

walnut and pecan, if you examine them under the microscope, all seem to

have mold growth on the surface of the kernels. I am inclined to believe

that the nut kernel is not completely sterile in the shell and that

through some manner or means the mold spores have been introduced onto

the kernel, because immediately after shelling examination of these nuts

under a microscope, will show some fungous mycelium on the surface of

the kernels.

DR. MCKAY: One comment is that the pellicle of a black walnut or a

pecan, is very hygroscopic. It tends to absorb moisture readily, whereas

the kernel itself, being high in oil, does not take up water readily.

That, apparently, is why there may be evidences of mold growth on the

kernel though it may not be actually penetrating. It is only

superficial, growing on the pellicle of the kernel, not on the kernel

itself.

MR. MANGELSDORF: Right.

DR. MCKAY: Black walnut kernels are outstanding in their resistance to

heat and will get rancid very slowly under conditions of high heat--not

humidity. For example, we had some nuts in our attic for two summers in

a place where it gets very hot, yet dry. Those nuts are in very good

eating condition today. I don't know about pecans.

MR. MANGELSDORF: That's very true of black walnuts. Pecans have to be

carried throughout the season in our cracking operations under

refrigeration, but the black walnuts we can store out in any shed with

tin roof. The temperature gets very hot, and it seems to have no effect

whatever on the edibility or rancidity of the nut kernel.

MR. STOKE: You spoke of storing the whole nuts in large bins. There you

may have an extreme amount of mold, too, if the nuts are damp.

MR. MANGELSDORF: We try to have storage conditions such that air has

free passage through the bulk of nuts. The mold and the yeast are there

and when they start to grow, their metabolism throws off quite a large

amount of heat. As a result the molding process is speeded up like a

chain reaction, and before long the nuts will be worthless for shelling.

MR. MANGELSDORF: We had nuts until just a few weeks ago from our last

season's gatherings. That's almost a whole year.

MR. SALZER: Can you tell me if the farmer is paid by the weight of the

nuts, or does he receive his pay after the kernels are shelled out? Does

he receive more money if it contains a higher percent of kernels?

MR. MANGELSDORF: He receives his pay on the basis of the whole nut that

he delivers to the plant, and we try to exercise some control over the

quality of the delivery. Samples are taken and cracked, and if most of

the nuts are rotten or the quality is very low, we may reject buying

that entire lot, or we may discount the lot of nuts a certain amount,

depending upon the percentage of the nut meats that are salvaged.

MR. MURPHY: Do you pay a premium for cultivated nuts?

MR. MANGELSDORF: That I can't answer, but I don't believe that they

have this past season. I wouldn't want to go on record as to that. There

is a tremendous difference in the flavor of what we call the "eastern"

black walnut in comparison with the California or western black walnut.

We think that the flavor of the California walnut is not at all

comparable to the eastern black walnut.

MR. MCDANIEL: You don't notice any difference, do you, between the

Missouri and the Kentucky nuts?

MR. MANGELSDORF: No, not in my experience, but there is a tremendous

difference in flavor between the eastern and western.

MR. ROHRBACHER: On what basis do you buy black walnuts?

MR. MANGELSDORF: I understand that each individual sale is an individual

"horse-trading" deal, the price paid, depending upon the quality of

nuts, moisture content, color and other factors. Of course, our aim is

to buy the nuts as cheaply as possible and the object of the fellow

selling the nuts is to get the greatest return that he can from what he

has to offer. So we try to reach a happy medium in our dealings, and a

lot of concessions might be made one way or the other with special lots

that are offered for sale.

MR. WHITFORD: What sizes and grades of kernels do you have?

MR. MANGELSDORF: We have the large, medium, small and granules. Granules

are very small pieces. Usually the prices paid for the nuts are not

determined, actually, until the crop starts to move. Everybody has an

idea what the market price will be for the nuts, but nothing is

crystallized or brought to a focus until the first nuts are actually on

the market. Then the nuts sold are examined as to quality, giving some

idea of the future quality of deliveries that might be made in that

section, and then prices can be established. As I say, it's a nutty

business. I haven't grown very many gray hairs yet, but I expect to have

many before I am through. And each new problem that arises in this nut

business, when you reach a solution for it, invariably there are two

other problems that are created, and if you are not wide awake, one of

these problems can be much greater than the one that you just had a

solution for.

MR. DAVIDSON: Do you know anything as to the bearing of black walnuts

this year as compared to previous years?

MR. MANGELSDORF: Mr. Walker and Mr. McDonald are out at the present time

making a crop inspection tour of the various localities, and I have had

no report as to what the condition of the crop will be this year.

MR. WHITFORD: Which grades bring the highest prices?

MR. MANGELSDORF: The large particles of kernel demand a premium over the

smaller sizes. That is one of the discrepancies in the shelling

operation, that the material that costs us the least money to produce

gives the largest returns. When you have small pieces, the operation of

removing the last remaining shells and off-colored particles is much

greater than with the large kernels. One large kernel amounts to

considerable weight and you may have to pick up many small particles to

represent the same weight.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: We appreciate very much your talk, Mr.

Mangelsdorf.

One thing that interested me was your statement that having large

pieces was an advantage. That question has been argued on the floor of

these conventions a number of times and there have been those who

claimed that the larger pieces were all ground up anyway and that the

varieties from which you can recover large pieces were of no particular

merit commercially.

The next paper is, "Nut Shells--Asset or Liability?", T. S. Clark of the

United States Department of Agriculture, Regional Laboratory, Peoria,

Illinois.

Nut Shells--Assets or Liabilities

T. S. CLARK, _Northern Regional Research Laboratory_,[1] _Peoria,

Illinois_

ABSTRACT. The value of nut shells as materials for agricultural and

industrial use is discussed. Problems of plant location, shell

collection, processing, and hazards are considered. Applications and

specifications are illustrated.

We are particularly pleased that the Northern Nut Growers Association is

presenting this opportunity for a discussion of nut shell utilization.

The Northern Regional Research Laboratory feels that it has played an

important role in what is now becoming a new industry of increasing

magnitude. For the benefit of those who are not already acquainted with

the Laboratory, permit me to digress momentarily to explain briefly its

organization and functions.

The Northern Regional Laboratory at Peoria, Illinois, is one of four

large research laboratories established by an act of Congress in 1938

and placed under the administration of the Bureau of Agricultural and

Industrial Chemistry. The function of these laboratories is to conduct

research and to develop new chemical and technical uses as well as new

and expanded markets for the farm commodities and byproducts of the

regions in which the laboratories are located. The commodities studied

at the Northern Regional Research Laboratory are the oilseeds, cereal

grains and agricultural residues which include corncobs, stalks, straws,

sugar cane bagasse, hulls and shells of nuts and fruit pits. Because of

the great similarity in chemical and physical characteristics of the

residues all research on these materials is conducted at the Northern

Laboratory.

During the time that the Northern Laboratory has been actively

investigating shell materials and other agricultural residues we have

been in direct communication with operators of shell grinding plants;

some of these have been visited. We have received numerous letters and

calls for information and assistance in solving grinding problems, or in

using the ground products. Through these contacts and our experiences we

have learned much about the factors that lead to success or failure in

this utilization. Ten plants are now producing a variety of ground shell

products useful in both agriculture and industry.

When the Northern Laboratory was organized, only one plant, established

originally by the California Walnut Growers Association, was grinding

nut shells. This plant, following a number of operational difficulties

and administrative changes, now processes 40 tons or more of shells per

day and produces a wide variety of ground products including exceedingly

fine flours for use in plastics and plywood adhesives. It has been said

that this plant processes all of the English walnut and apricot pit

shells and 80 percent of the peach pit shells available in California.

The Laboratory has attempted to determine the amount of shells and pits

available commercially in different areas. Data of this nature has been

obtained for the larger cracking plants but there are many small

operations for which we lack this information. "Agricultural Statistics"

compiled and published annually by the U. S. Department of Agriculture

provide an excellent source of information regarding production and, in

many cases, the disposition of farm commodities. For example, the

production of pecans in 1951, presented by states, totaled more than

73,000 tons for the 10 states reported. However, no data were available

regarding marketings in-shell, or the quantities remaining on the farms

or in the orchards. Thus, the quantity of pecan shells actually

available for processing can be determined only through surveys of

cracking plants. Only limited information is available concerning black

walnut shells and this has been obtained through the cooperation of

shellers or crackers.

In some areas fruit pits, such as apricot and peach pits, accumulate at

canneries or freezing plants. Similarity in character of the pit shells

to those of the nuts permits their use in plants grinding nut shells.

Thus, the supply of raw material in any area may be augmented by

inclusion of fruit pit shells.

Collection of nut shells for grinding operations is a relatively simple

procedure, particularly where grinding is done at a cracking plant.

Where shells must be collected over large areas both rail and truck

transportation are used. If fruit pits are considered, provisions should

be made for removal of residual flesh or pulp before the pits leave the

canneries. In the cases where the pits have been cut during processing

of the fruits, the released kernels should be removed before shipping

the shells. Pit kernels are valuable for their oil content.

Shell Use During World War II

The production and maintenance schedules set up during World War II

resulted in the development and expansion of uses for ground shell

materials. Fine flours from walnut shells were needed as extenders in

plywood adhesives. Soft grits from various shells were used by the Army

Air Forces in the air-blast method for cleaning airplane engines and

parts. Grits were required for deburring metal stampings and

flash-removal from molded plastics. These uses have expanded

considerably to meet civilian needs since the war.

Grinding Nut Shells and Fruit Pits

As uses for ground shell products were developed the Laboratory sought

advice of grinding equipment manufacturers for information on the design

and construction of suitable grinding plants. Only limited tests had

been made and data were not readily available in any published form.

Consequently the Laboratory undertook an extensive study on grinding nut

shells and fruit pits as part of its research on agricultural residues.

These studies were not limited to grinding only, but included methods of

separation and classification based on physical characteristics of the

raw materials; the relation of associated mechanical operations; a

consideration of the hazards; the problems of labor, management, and

merchandising.

A number of fires have occurred in plants grinding nut shells, corncobs,

stock feeds, and similar materials. In most cases the causes of fire

have been other than the grinding operation. From a consideration of the

causes of fires a number of safety precautions have been developed. Good

plant housekeeping is paramount. This is essential, not only because of

influence of dust and dirt on the maintenance of motors and equipment,

but because of the highly explosive nature of shell dusts. The U. S.

Bureau of Mines has cooperated closely with the Northern Laboratory in

evaluating the explosive hazards of the shell dusts.

Many of the present operators of shelling-grinding plants have benefited

from the information and assistance available from this Laboratory. The

cooperation of equipment manufacturers has aided considerably in

extending the scope of the Laboratory's studies.

The Northern Laboratory has published bulletin AIC-336, "Dry Grinding

Agricultural Residues, A New Industrial Enterprise" that summarizes the

research conducted to date. This is the first time that such data on

engineering and design has been assembled and published to cover this

field. Copies of the bulletin may be obtained by addressing requests to

the Northern Regional Research Laboratory, Peoria, Illinois.

Plants designed to produce at least 1-1/2 tons per hour of ground shell

products will cost upwards of $60,000. A well-engineered plant of such

size will require three to five men per shift. Among other factors, the

working capacity of a grinding plant depends upon the quantity of shells

available and the ability of the organization to merchandize its

products. The plant should be located in an area in which at least 5,000

tons of nut shells or fruit pits are annually available at low

transportation costs.

Uses of Shell Products

The more important uses for nut shell products, together with their

specifications for particle size, are shown in Table 1.

Table 1.--Uses for ground nut shells and fruit pits

+------------------------------------------------+--------------------+

| Applications | Size |

| | |

| Deburring, cleaning, burnishing and polishing | |

| in metal stamping, electroplating and | No. 10 to No. 50 |

| plastics industries | |

| Soft-grit blasting | No. 10 to No. 30 |

| Fillers for plastics and plywood adhesives | Finer than No. 100 |

| Insecticide diluents and carriers | Finer than No. 140 |

| Explosives | No. 10 to No. 100 |

| Fur cleaning | No. 10 to No. 100 |

| Poultry litter and mulch (almond and peanut) | 1/4 to 3/4 inch |

| Fillers for fertilizers (almond and peanut) | Finer than No. 20 |

+------------------------------------------------+--------------------+

Experience shows that no matter how nut shells or fruit pit shells are

ground both under- and oversize particles will be produced. The hard,

friable character of most of the nut shells makes their reduction to

fine size particles less difficult than for tough materials, such as

corncobs, or fibrous materials such as woods. Shells from almonds

because of their bulk and very fibrous nature are somewhat less

convenient to handle than other shells. Good business practice shows

that sales outlets should be found for each fraction so that grinding

expenses can be kept at a minimum.

Because there are some differences in physical characteristics of nut

shells and fruit pits all shell products do not necessarily meet the

same specifications, nor have the same uses.

Industrial Cleaning and Finishing

Oil, dirt, corrosion products, stain, paint, grease and the like can be

removed from metal surfaces by air-blasting with soft grits prepared

from shells of walnuts, pecans, peach pits, and similar residues. This

method was developed originally for the Navy to use grits from

corn-cobs for cleaning aircraft engines and parts. The method is

inexpensive and foolproof because surfaces are cleaned without change of

dimensions. No pitting or abrasion, such as produced by sand blasting,

occurs. The method is particularly useful with mild steel, nonferrous

metals, alloys, and parts that must be maintained at close tolerances.

Modifications of the blast method are used in finishing molded plastics,

metal die-castings, and machined parts. One manufacturer of precision

instruments states that his company saves $100,000 a year in finishing

parts with shell grits.

Many stamped metal articles and molded plastics are deburred, cleaned,

burnished, and polished by tumbling in drums containing shell grits.

Various grades of grits are required depending upon the nature of the

pieces being finished.

Fillers for Plastics and Plywood Glues

The Laboratory has studied the use of shell flours for use in plastics

and plywood glues. Many of these flours are now in regular commercial

use. Flours for these applications are prepared in various grades, all

finer than 100-mesh. Use of these flours not only improves the

properties of the final products but also reduces the cost of the

products. Molded plastics prepared with fine flour from English walnut

shells have exceptionally fine surface finish.

Insecticide Carriers

The insecticide field provides a good outlet for shell flours. Flour

from walnut shells was the first of this type of material to be used for

this purpose. Often the active ingredient in a finished insecticide is

present in quantities of less than 1 percent. Custom grinders should

plan to recover the flour as a co-product of their operations rather

than attempting to grind to flour alone.

Explosives

Large amounts of shell grits and meal are used as diluents in the

manufacture of dynamite. Material for this use ranges in size from No.

10 to No. 100, the requirements of the individual manufacturers falling

within much narrower limits as to size.

Fur Cleaning

Furriers have found that various ground shell products are very

effective agents for cleaning furs. Size requirements for this purpose

are broad, the limits being dependent upon the cleaning equipment

maintained by the furrier. The natural oils present in some shell

products are considered advantageous for this application.

Sundry Applications

Stock bedding, poultry litters, fillers in feeds and fertilizers,

mulches, charcoal, tannin and abrasives in hand soaps are some of the

other products that are prepared from nut shells. The shell products

cannot be used interchangeably but must be selected in accordance with

their chemical and physical properties.

I hope that the foregoing brief discussion has conveyed to you the

potential value that lies in the piles of shells accumulating at the

cracking plants, and that these accumulations can be converted from

expensive wastes to profitable products.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: One of the laboratories of the Bureau of Agricultural and

Industrial Chemistry, Agricultural Research Administration, United

States Department of Agriculture.]

The Propagation of the Hickories

(Panel Discussion led by F. L. O'Rourke, East Lansing, Mich.)

MR. O'ROURKE: I hope that we can have a rather stimulating session on

hickory propagation this morning. Last year we had a session which was

supposed to take in propagation of all nut tree species. However, we

never got away from Chinese chestnuts. It was Chinese chestnuts from the

start to the finish. The Program Committee this time thought that we

should limit it to one group, and they chose the hickories.

I have compiled a review of all the literature pertaining to the

hickories and passed it out yesterday afternoon. I hope that some of you

have had a chance to read it and will have some questions to ask us this

morning.

In order to really have some help, I am going to call upon Mr. Louis

Gerardi of Illinois, Mr. Ferguson of Iowa, Mr. Max Hardy of Georgia, Mr.

Ward of Indiana, and Mr. Wilkinson also of Indiana and Mr. Bernath of

Poughkeepsie, New York.

The subject matter of the panel will be limited to the propagation of

hickories, which includes the pecan.

Who has some questions that they'd like to bring up?

MR. SALZER: Which varieties will grow on fairly wet soil?

MR. O'ROURKE: That is a question pertaining to culture, rather than

propagation, but we can still allow it. Which varieties--I presume you

mean species, is that correct?--will grow on fairly wet soil? I think

Mr. Ward has a little bit of black soil in that good, old state of

Indiana.

MR. SALZER: I mean soil that doesn't dry well in the spring. I have one

spot that's too wet for chestnuts.

MR. WARD: I wouldn't put any hickory nuts on it. You are going to find

it is going to be very difficult for if the soil is the least bit heavy

or wet, the hickory nut does not do well at all. In the Wabash bottoms

there is a lot of this black soil that is overflowed every year, and

some of the finest hickory nuts and some of the finest pecans that you

can find in the country are there. Sometimes I have seen water marks on

those hickory trees several feet from the ground in the spring of the

year and sometimes in the summer, yet they come through with a good crop

of nuts. Underneath it is a strata of gravel so that the soil drains out

in a hurry.

MR. SALZER: This has subsoil drainage.

MR. WARD: The soil around Rochester is very heavy like what we call

slashland type of soil here in Indiana, and where this occurs we find

that the hickory nut does very, very poorly. I wouldn't advise putting

them on such soils. The black walnut will grow a lot better in places

like that.

MR. GERARDI: In Illinois we have that deep, black soil and we just call

it plain gumbo. It's all filled-in soil, and I never have reached the

bottom. It's at least 20 feet thick. And these swamp hickories--I think

Reed was the one that called them swamp hickories--thrive there. They

can be two months under water six foot deep, and still bear wonderful

crops. You can get a wagon load of them in that mucky soil.

MR. CALDWELL: The hickory in New York State which will stand the most

moist conditions is the bitternut hickory, and with that root stock you

may be able to get some of the others through. The shagbark will

withstand considerable moisture if it has deep soil. The bitternut does

well on shallow soil or the soil that is made shallow by high water.

MR. O'ROURKE: The bitternut, then, will survive wet conditions. This is

of interest as far as root stocks are concerned. I am wondering if

anyone would like to report on the ability of the pecan to take wet soil

conditions.

MR. WILKINSON: They will turn out all right if they have dry feet during

the summer months, but they will not stand wet feet all summer.

MR. O'ROURKE: Will the bitternut do better, or would the mockernut?

MR. WILKINSON: I am not well enough versed on that to say. But the

pecan, I have seen them stand under water for weeks at a time two or

three times during the winter, water 20 feet deep and not affect them at

all. But if they are around in a place where the water stands in July

and August, they won't take it.

MR. O'ROURKE: Any other discussion on stocks that will take wet soil

conditions? If not, let us take up Mr. Beckert's question: When do you

take scion wood of the shagbark hickory? Who would like to answer that?

Mr. Gerardi?

MR. GERARDI: The time I like best, the time it can be done in our

particular area is the latter part of February. Leave it on the tree as

long as you can before any sap rises.

MR. O'ROURKE: You would say probably 10 days to 2 weeks before the bud

scales would break?

MR. GERARDI: That's right, before any growth begins.

MR. O'ROURKE: Any other comment on that? Dr. McKay?

DR. MCKAY: I want to ask the question about which there is difference of

opinion. Do pecan seed have a rest period, and is there any difference

between pecans and hickory in that respect?

MR. HARDY: I am not sure that I can answer the question exactly. Most

pecans planted for seed have been allowed to dry before they are

harvested, and it is general practice to stratify them either in sand

for planting in the spring or planting them immediately in the fall. I

am inclined to think that there is very little rest period in pecans and

that if they were planted immediately from the tree that perhaps they

would begin to grow almost immediately.

DR. MCKAY: I think that's true. The seed will germinate quickly. But can

you plant dry seed any time during the winter?

MR. HARDY: Once they are dried I think they must go through

after-ripening conditions.

MR. O'ROURKE: Do I understand you correctly that you do feel that the

pecan must be after-ripened?

MR. HARDY: Yes, if permitted to dry.

MR. O'ROURKE: The work of Burdette in Texas a great many years ago has

indicated that the pecan seed does not have a rest period. Mr.

Wilkinson, what has been your experience in germinating pecan seeds?

MR. WILKINSON: I usually like to either plant or stratify soon after

gathering, although one time I had some off the shelf of a grocery store

in March and got excellent results. One thing more about time of cutting

graft wood. I never like to cut it for at least 48 hours after a

freezing temperature, regardless of time. I would rather cut it in April

with the buds green than to cut it in the first of March right after a

freeze. I have had excellent results just this spring cutting extra

graft wood with green buds on. But if you cut it within 48 hours after a

freezing temperature, you might just as well throw it away.

MR. O'ROURKE: I am very glad you brought that out. Irrespective of

whether it be pecan or hickory, I believe it would work the same, that

the scion wood should be cut when it is moist, and that is not the

condition after a freeze, when it is in very dry condition.

Let's get back to this seed propagation now. I am asking anyone here,

can you throw any light at all on the need for stratification of pecan

or hickory seed of any species.

MR. CALDWELL: I have read in several publications that hickories should

be stratified over the winter period before planting for spring

germination. I always find things a little bit different, so a year ago

at the greenhouse I took seven different sources of seed of shagbark

hickory, _Carya ovata_ and one source of _Carya ovalis_. Some of those

seeds germinated within three weeks from the time I put them in, and

after a month and a half I had a full stand in all cases. I don't think

that more than 2 per cent of the seeds failed to germinate. They were

planted in warm greenhouse, with a minimum of, about 68 degrees at

night and about 90 during the day. They were planted in a combination of

peat and garden soil; no special care other than water. I have had no

trouble since the seedlings have continued to grow, even though the

seeds were planted only two and a half inches deep. So it may be that

there is no need for stratifying hickories.

MR. O'ROURKE: Your experience is the exact duplication of Dr. Lelia

Barton's of the Boyce-Thompson Institute. She found that hickory seeds

germinated from three weeks, as you did, to a number of months, when put

in a warm greenhouse. Apparently the difference in time is related to

the thickness of the seed coat or possibly to an inhibitor in the

pellicle rather than to any need for after-ripening. I think that

Burdette in Texas also pointed out that thick-shelled pecans took longer

to germinate than thin-shelled pecans.

MR. PATAKY: If you take a nut of any kind and let it dry and plant it,

you will get quicker germination than if you plant it soon after

harvest. I don't see any difference in taking a nut and planting it and

stratifying it. If planted the rodents will get it, but if you put it in

something all winter, it will be there in the spring. I don't see any

reason for planting a nut in the fall, taking a chance of rodents

getting at them. If you plant them in the spring, they come up so much

quicker that the rodents don't have a chance to get at them. They got

nearly all of mine that I planted in the fall.

MR. HARDY: A good many nuts don't have any rest period requirements. I

think it probably is a matter of convenience as to the manner in which

they are handled. I have talked with nurserymen in the South. If they

get the nuts in the fall they may either plant them in the fall or

stratify them over winter and then plant them in the rows in the spring.

If they get them in the spring, they soak them for a day or two days in

water before planting. Perhaps the dry nut is slow in taking up moisture

direct from the soil, and they are primarily interested in getting a

uniform stand of trees so that they handle it in such a manner that all

the nuts will grow at the same time. And I believe many will agree that

a dry nut planted in the spring will show considerable variation as to

the time in which they appear above ground.

MR. O'ROURKE: The suggestion of soaking them in water a few days is well

taken, because a great many have recommended it. Most folks recommend

changing the water daily. By changing the water you replace the oxygen

which would be in the water, and you also eliminate any toxic substances

which may have leached out of the shells during the preceding 24 hours.

DR. MCKAY: I'd like to mention the reason for raising this question. Dr.

Crane has the idea that there is no definite rest period in the pecan

nut; if they are soaked in water they will sprout at any time.

I decided I would test that hypothesis, so I stratified one group of

nuts of about four pounds. Another lot of four pounds I kept in the

laboratory dry all winter long. Then I planted the two lots of nuts this

spring together, side by side, in the cold frame. Today there is not a

single seedling growing out of the dry lot, and there is a perfect stand

in the group that was stratified.

To me that means that there is a definite rest period in the pecan seed.

I don't see how you can get away from it.

MR. O'ROURKE: I am going to stick my neck out a little bit. I have

absolutely no basis to make this statement, but it does give us

something to think about. That is the greater the distance towards the

north that certain species of plants may have migrated or disseminated,

the greater the rest period requirement. That is a protective device for

a species to persist in northern climates, because if it were not for

this rest period, those seed would germinate in the fall of the year,

and the young seedlings would be frozen out immediately. But by having

the rest period requirement over winter, the seedlings do not germinate

until the following spring, and the plant can persist. I am speaking now

in general of northern plants. I am wondering if the pecan species in

itself may not be variable in that the southern pecan does not need a

rest period, and the northern pecan is beginning to develop the rest

period requirement.

MR. HARDY: Mr. Chairman, I am inclined to think there may be some other

factor entering into the picture there. A pecan carried through winter

in a dry condition at normal room temperatures would be liable to

develop quite a bit of rancidity by spring. Furthermore, nuts that have

been held over so long in a dry condition may still be good and may

germinate the second year. I'd hesitate to destroy that planting until

next spring, and to my notion that does not indicate dormancy so much as

it would possibly indicate the inhibition of growth by some other

products developed during that storage period.

MR. O'ROURKE: You have brought up a very important point and something

we should not neglect. It may be that drying to a certain degree will

induce dormancy, a grievously overworked word, but you know what I mean.

It may take two years for the seed to germinate, as Mr. Hardy has

suggested. If you can leave them in that cold frame over this winter,

maybe you can tell us next year just what happened.

MR. PATAKY: If we take nature's way, watch a squirrel plant a hickory or

black walnut. He will bury it about an inch deep, and it will stay moist

all winter long, the same as if it were stratified. But if you take a

nut and store in a hot place you are going to slow up or kill that germ.

You can do that very easily in a chestnut. Take a little advice from

nature itself in the locality where you are. If you are in the South,

that nut can start growing in the fall, and it probably won't hurt it,

but if you are in the North, you don't want to start a nut growing in

the winter, because it's going to get winter killed.

MR. O'ROURKE: In all probability the amount of oxygen about the

germinating seedling might be quite a factor. The shallow planted seed

will have more oxygen available than deep planted seed, everything else

being equal.

If we are finished with the discussion or germination of seeds, we can

go on to the next question, that of a suitable root stock for

hickory--and that could keep us here for two or three days. Have you had

some experience, Mr. Ferguson?

MR. FERGUSON: We use the pecan and the shagbark as root stock for the

hickory group. Formerly we have used some of the bitternut, but we do

not use it any more. Some of the hickories will grow well on pecan, and

some are not satisfactory at all. What they will do in old age is hard

to tell. We have a few in the orchard down in Mr. Snyder's farm. I think

we have Stratford on pecan, which is not satisfactory. Pecan grows too

fast for the Stratford, and some way or other it just doesn't work.

MR. O'ROURKE: Are you familiar with Mr. Lassiter's stock work?

MR. FERGUSON: He has used the Rockville as an intermediate stock on

pecan. The Rockville is a hybrid of the pecan and the shellbark.

MR. O'ROURKE: Mr. Lassiter sent us a letter in which he stated that he

had a good variety of shagbark that when grafted on the Rockville

intermediate stock produced much better nuts than on pecans alone. Is

that due to the exceptional vigor of Rockville which apparently is a

hybrid and may have hybrid vigor? Again, we can only guess. This

interstock problem is a big problem. We now have some evidence that

pecan is not always satisfactory for all varieties of hickory, although

Mr. Dunstan at Greensboro, North Carolina, states it's been satisfactory

for every variety he has worked upon it.

MR. HARDY: I am inclined to believe that root stocks and scion varieties

worked in the north and grown in the north or worked in the south and

grown in the south may not react the same.

MR. WILSON: I think you are right on that.

MR. O'ROURKE: Mr. Gilbert Smith's report of yesterday indicated a pecan

was not satisfactory with him in New York State, and that may bear out

the comment that Mr. Hardy has made.

MR. GERARDI: Well, I think that is true enough, myself. In southern

Illinois I find that the bitternut hickory root for shellbark or

shagbark don't seem to be satisfactory at all. With the shagbark on

pecan, the variety of shagbark makes a difference. Some varieties of

shagbark, and shellbark hickories seem to do all right, and then again

others don't. It's going to need further study to determine what

varieties will stand on pecans, what will stand on bitter hickories, or

what will stand on regular ovata stock. I think that the nurseryman's

wisest way is to use stocks of the same species as the scion and then he

is on the safe side. Because the bitter hickory grows faster, the

nurseryman may find it advantageous to grow the bitter hickory stock in

preference to the other two.

MR. O'ROURKE: The bitter stock makes a hickory big enough to graft in

two or three years.

MR. GERARDI: In two or three, and four or five for the shagbark.

Shagbark or shellbark varieties on bitternut may grow for three or four

years and then die.

The pecan does well on the bitter hickory and the bitter hickory on the

pecan, but I have no reason to grow any bitter hickory because I don't

like the nut. I think it's a waste of time to fool with it that way.

As far as the hybrid pecans are concerned, the pecan root is certainly

the right stock to use on all hybrids. They grow very satisfactorily and

bear well.

MR. WHITFORD: I have Gerardi and McAllister hybrids growing on pecan,

and the Downing overgrows the pecan.

MR. O'ROURKE: To summarize some of this information that we have

gathered this morning on root stocks, it seems that different clones

behave differently on the same stock. That is true, we know, with other

plants, such as apple. Instead of saying that shagbark is not compatible

with pecan, perhaps we should say that the Davis or the Wilcox variety

of shagbark is not compatible with a certain type of pecan. It's going

to take years of effort to find out the truth of the matter.

MR. WARD: Sometimes you will find that a two-year-old scion, if you can

get a dormant bud coming, is better than the matured wood from last

year. I'd just like to get an opinion from some of the growers what they

use for topworking stocks for grafting.

MR. FERGUSON: I think one thing quite important is to get scion wood

that has a good layer of wood around the pith, whether one-year wood or

two-year wood. At the base of the year's growth it will have a lot more

wood in it. At the tip the wood around the pith is thin.

MR. O'ROURKE: Some years ago Dr. MacDaniels stated that a good scion may

be made with the tip of the scion in the one-year wood and the base of

the scion in the two-year wood.

Mr. Bernath at Poughkeepsie, New York, has done some bench grafting of

hickory. Why other people have not done so, I do not know, and I'd like

Mr. Bernath to tell us briefly just why he likes to bench graft hickory.

MR. BERNATH: I like it because I do my work in the wintertime under

glass. I have no time in the spring to fuss with outside grafting. So if

you gentlemen would like to hear it, I will tell you all about it.

Many years ago when I learned my profession, we had difficulty in

finding a method to graft oaks. We finally did find a method that would

take and which I have found successful with hickories.

The stocks are dug in the fall and stored heeled in earth. When I am

ready to graft I put them on a table, along with the scion wood and

start grafting. I use the side graft at the crown leaving a short spur

above the graft. Leave them unwaxed and layer them in moss peat in a

glass covered frame in the greenhouse with some ventilation. In three or

four weeks' time, when the union has formed and just before the leaves

come out, take them out and plant them in a cold frame outside. Of

course you have to put glass on it to protect them from frost, as well

as intense sun. Here you can use part peat and part soil. Leave them

there for one year in those frames, with partial shade, until they get

fairly high so they shade each other. They can then be set in the

nursery row.

MR. O'ROURKE: Mr. Bernath, I know there are some folks here who are

nurserymen and who are interested in the cost of production of a

finished tree. Do you feel that you can produce a tree to transplant any

height you want to select, five, six feet, so on, as cheaply according

to this method of bench grafting in the greenhouse as if you bud it or

graft it in a nursery row?

MR. BERNATH: That's a question. I have never kept a record of that. It

is all right for a young man who is able to get down on his hands and

knees and graft, but for me that wouldn't do.

MR. FERGUSON: What temperature do you use in the frames?

MR. BERNATH: About 65. Sun heat naturally will raise it. Care must be

used to ventilate the frames in the greenhouse to prevent condensation

soaking the grafts.

MR. FERGUSON: Do you carry higher temperatures for walnuts?

MR. BERNATH: All of them about the same. You follow the method just the

same as nature. If you follow nature, you will never go wrong. But you

have to watch out for fungus in the case, because if you have excessive

temperature, the fungus disease will get in your case and ruin the whole

thing.

MR. WARD: I presume, Mr. Bernath, when you set out a tree and get a

hundred per cent stand it's going to reduce your cost.

MR. BERNATH: Yes, because you have a better take, because you have

everything under control, moisture, heat, ventilation, and so on.

MR. BECKERT: Are the hickory stocks potted before you graft, or are you

grafting bare roots?

MR. BERNATH: Hickory and oaks are bare rooted. They are too long to pot.

MR. SHESSLER: How many years are lost in this method of bench grafting

compared with field grafting trees in the nursery row?

MR. BERNATH: Quite a few. The gentleman is right, if you graft outside

where the tree remains, you get a big growth on it.

MR. SHESSLER: In other words, a tree grafted out in the field will have

nuts on it three years sooner?

MR. BERNATH: Yes if you leave it where it is. But if you transplant it,

look out for a large tree. It is likely to fail.

Bench grafted trees transplant easily. The roots are limited and little

of the root system is destroyed.

MR. WILKINSON: I have been propagating for about 39 years, and I have

grafted thousands of pecan trees in my nursery, and I have only a few

trees growing from grafts. Budding is much more successful with me.

Several times I have had up to a 90 per cent stand by budding.

MR. GERARDI: I have tried bench grafting but it sets you back three

years in the nursery to get a tree of equal size compared to grafting in

the nursery row. If you want a small tree, it's all right. And then

again, it's your help situation. If you have got to set them out, they

handle the grafts like brush, and I don't like that. Hickory is not hard

to graft in the field. I think if you set 10 you get 9 to grow. For

scions I go back on two-year wood and oftentimes on three-year wood

where there are buds. I don't have trouble at all. With pecans, you have

a little more difficulty, because the wood is more pithy inside and

doesn't grow so well.

MR. BERNATH: With any tree, I don't care what it is, give me one-year

growth, this year's growth, and I am going to have wonderful success.

When you take the old wood you have to be sure that you have buds.

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[2]

In late 1949 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 1951, 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 25 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 1850 since the oldest trees at Brookfield are

estimated to be about 100 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 100 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 1 to 5

and will be referred to by number. Duvall No. 1, 2 and 5 are the three

large trees situated more or less in a circle surrounding the old

mansion, each about 100 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 200 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 4

feet and all of them have a branch spread of more than 150 feet. They

are 75 to 100 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. 1 are promptly harvested and dried in the fall, the kernels are

almost white. Nuts that stayed on the ground 6 months during the winter

of 1951-52 were harvested in late March 1952 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. 5 produces the largest nuts of

all the seedlings but they are so small that more than 100 are required

to weigh a pound. Duvall No. 1 produces the smallest nuts and almost 200

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 1951 but have observed two crops and Mr. Duvall has

observed their performance for many years. In the fall of 1951 Duvall

No. 2 yielded an estimated 8 to 10 bushels of nuts. Mr. Duvall harvested

3 bushels and he knew that 3 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 1951. The tree had a heavy set of nuts in August 1952 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 1 or 2 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 200 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 1952 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 2: 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 1952, lists seven distinct types of hickory

in the state and nine sub species. As Deam is approaching his 87th year

(August 30), 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:

1. _Carya pecan_--Pecan.

2. _C. cordiformis_--Bitternut.

3. _C. ovata_--Shagbark and 2 sub species--_fraxinifolia_ and _nuttali_.

4. _C. laciniosa_--Bigleaf Shagbark (Shellbark).

5. _C. tomentosa (alba)_--Mockernut--one sub species.

6. _C. glabra_--Pignut and sub species--Black Hickory.

7. _C. ovalis_--Small-Fruited Hickory and 5 sub species.

8. _C. pallida_ }

9. _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