giving every promise of success, were selected out of a large number of
these varieties budded on northern stocks, and were transplanted in
orchard two years ago for experiment. The Moneymaker trees have made
little growth and the Stuart tree practically none. All have an
unhealthy appearance and are left standing only for further experiments.
The section of Virginia in which these experiments have been made
affords very severe climatic tests. The temperature in winter sometimes
goes below zero, the temperature in spring is variable, changing
suddenly from warm to freezing. Pecan trees seem able to endure almost
any degree of cold when they are in a thoroughly dormant condition. The
winter-killing from which they often suffer in the South, as well as in
the North, is due to the effect of sudden freezing temperatures
following warm periods in winter or spring.
Only well grown, vigorous pecan trees should be planted in the North. It
is a waste of time and money to plant indifferent pecan trees in any
locality, and especially in a locality where they have to contend with
severe climatic conditions. The size of the tree is less important than
its root system and vigor. The purchasers of trees grown on thin, sandy
soil, with the root systems consisting almost entirely of straight tap
roots, destitute of laterals, need not expect success. Most of these
trees will die early, and many of those that live will linger on for
several seasons without making much growth, tiring out the patience of
the planter.
The work of transplanting should be very carefully done and the trees
given proper care and culture.
It has been found that it costs more to grow pecan nursery trees in the
North than in the South, but it is believed that planters in the North
will find that these trees have a value which will far offset their
additional cost.
Some of the methods of propagation and care are slightly different in
the North from those that usually obtain in the South. But it is not
practicable to go into the details connected with this work. The facts
that have been mentioned are those that are believed to be of most
importance for consideration by persons planting pecan trees in the
North. Those who have gone thus far with the work upon which the
conclusions are based are continuing as earnestly as they began.
The outlook for the success of the pecan industry in northern territory
is exceedingly promising where hardy, early-maturing varieties are
properly grown in nursery on hardy stocks under climatic conditions that
will best fit them for the locality in which they are to be planted.
President Morris: We can give some time to the discussion of Mr. Roper's
paper. I want to ask if some of the hardy kinds which will stand the
winters well may not carry their ripening season so late that they do
not properly mature! Isn't this a line of observation we have got to
follow out in adapting pecans to northern fields? Who has had
experience?
Mr. Littlepage: That is a very important point, and it is one of the
things that everyone is going to discover who is engaged in northern
pecan planting on the extreme limits within the next few years. There
isn't much danger of the pecan getting frost-bitten in the spring as
some imagine, because the pecan tree seems to be a pretty good weather
prophet. They don't get ready, as a rule, till most of the danger is
past. A great majority of the Persian walnuts and pecans don't begin to
pollenate till the tenth of May, and it is very rare that a tree doesn't
ripen its nuts there. But once in a while we discover a tree that sets a
bountiful crop annually and never matures a nut, because it gets frost
bitten. It simply doesn't have the length of growing season.
Mr. Rush: I remember a pecan tree I received, and have had growing for
the last six years in Pennsylvania. It was never affected with the cold,
and made luxurious growth. But I haven't been so fortunate as to get it
to bear, although it throws out catkins in the spring.
President Morris: The pecan tree is known to be hardy as far north as
Boston. There are quite a good many near New York City, some of them
fine, trees, but not bearing much, and for the most part small nuts.
Mr. Rush: Mr. Jones of Jeanerette, Louisiana, has been at my place, and
he says that the growth of the pecan is just as luxuriant there as in
Louisiana.
President Morris: The point we want to bring out is this, and I think we
ought to emphasize it at this meeting--that pecans suitable for northern
planting must include the idea of an early ripening season, earlier than
the ripening season of southern pecans.
Mr. Rush: Sometimes there is a provision in nature for that. The tree
will adapt itself to the climate, and give a smaller nut.
President Morris: What has been your experience, Mr. Roper?
Mr. Roper: We have only fruited Stuart at Petersburg. All the nuts have
been well filled, but much smaller than the Stuart farther south.
Mr. Pomeroy: Mr. Littlepage made the remark yesterday that nature will
attend to this largely for us. He spoke of the wood beginning to ripen
the middle of August. With us in Niagara County, we expect that with all
trees the wood will begin ripening about the first of August, preparing
for the winter. Persian walnut doesn't come into blossom till about the
last of May or the first of June.
President Morris: It is not mainly a matter of ripening wood, but of
ripening nuts, in pecan growing in the North. A good many nuts will
remain green, even though the tree will grow well; and we must have
nurserymen draw our attention to this difference, when they are sending
trees out to us for northern planting. That is a thing that may not be
determined right now, but nurserymen must be able to report upon
comparative ripening times of various kinds of pecans to be sent north.
We will have the report of the Committee on Nominations.
[The report was accepted and the nominees elected.]
President Morris: We have with us Professor Herrick, who will present
his paper on the subject of the scolytus beetle. Professor Herrick has
prepared his paper at our request since we came here.
THE SCOLYTUS BEETLE.
PROF. A. W. HERRICK, ITHACA, N. Y.
With a residence of a little over a decade in the South, I became more
or less intimately connected with a good many of the nut growers of the
section, especially the pecan growers. I found them there an intelligent
body of men.
The President has asked me to talk just a little on the hickory bark
borer. While in Mississippi, I first came into contact with the hickory
bark borer by its work on the hickories on the lawn in front of my house
and on the Campus. It began killing the trees. I had ten or a dozen
trees on the lawn that were from six to eight inches through, and they
had made a fine growth but they began suddenly to die. First, I noticed
the leaves falling in the summer time, then later in the winter the
branches began to die at the top. On investigation, I found that it was
this little hickory bark borer. We carried out, as a result of that
investigation, a few experiments, and extended them over the Campus,
following the recommendations of Doctor Hopkins of the Department of
Agriculture, Washington. The results were pretty gratifying. I was able
to save those trees on the lawn, and during three or four years
succeeding the time we got these experiments into practice, no more had
died, and they had kept on making a good growth; and I believe the
ravages of the beetle had been checked.
The little beetle belongs to a family called the _Scolytidae_--very
small beetles that burrow through the bark of trees, and between the
bark and the wood, partly in the bark and partly in the wood. These
beetles are interesting in their life history. The female bores through
the bark, and then she builds a channel partly in the wood and partly in
the bark. She goes along and digs out little niches all along, and in
each one of these, deposits a tiny white egg. That soon hatches into the
small grub, and the grub begins to burrow out to get his food, and you
will find these little burrows running out from the main burrow of the
mother beetle. When these grubs reach their growth, each one of them
comes out and bores a little shot-hole-like round hole through the bark,
so that a tree that is pestered with it will finally have the bark full
of these little round holes. You have probably seen a similar thing in
peach, plum, and cherry trees.
The hickory bark borer is found all over the eastern United States, from
Canada to the Gulf, and as far west as Nebraska. It attacks hickory
trees and walnut trees, and as far as I can find, the authorities say
probably the pecan. I never found it on the pecan in the South. If it
does ever come to attack it in any numbers, it will be a serious pest
from the nut grower's point of view.
In this state, it was first noticed by its work on hickory trees in the
vicinity of New York City, and it is killing a good many of them. To
show its dangerousness--on the estate of Mr. Wadsworth at Geneseo in
1900 and 1901 over an area of two hundred acres, it destroyed ninety to
ninety-five per cent of the hickories. It really becomes a most
injurious pest. These little fellows running under the bark cut off the
cambium layer and girdle it, and kill the tree as effectually as if we
were to take an axe and girdle it. A few can girdle it very quickly.
An infested tree in the summer shows some characteristic effects. The
leaves begin to dry and wither, and finally drop. The adult beetles,
when they come out in June and July, attack the petioles, leaves, and
terminal buds for food, then go down to the larger branches and trunks,
and burrow to lay their eggs. The younger top branches begin to die. If
you look, you will very often find a little white sawdust in cracks in
the bark. That is an indication that they are present. If you take off
the bark, you will find such an appearance as I have shown you. Later,
you will find these holes all over, showing the work of the beetle.
I will give the life history of the insect very briefly. The insects
live over the winter under the bark, as grubs, and in the spring they
change to the pupa form, and come out along in June and July. Some may
be as late as August. Those beetles go to the branches and leaves, and
soon begin laying their eggs. There is only one brood a season, in this
locality at least. In a longer season, farther south, there might be
more than one, although my experience in Mississippi was that there was
only one brood.
A word regarding methods of control. You can readily see that there is
no way of getting at the beetle with insecticides after they have gotten
under the bark. Doctor Pelt mentions the value of spraying the trees in
summer to kill adults when they are feeding on the petioles and probably
the terminal buds and younger twigs. It is rather doubtful whether it
would pay to spray hickory trees at that time, although the expense of
spraying large trees is not so great as you might think. We have had
experiences here, because it fell to my lot to spray all the elm trees
on the Campus last year. I kept very careful account of this. We sprayed
between five and six hundred trees. About one hundred are scattered over
the hillsides west of the buildings, some a mile from the water supply.
We did the work for about eighty-eight cents apiece, each tree having a
thorough spray. The largest trees on each side of the street we gave two
sprayings for a little less than forty cents apiece.
The real method of getting at this hickory bark borer is for everybody
to cooperate and cut those trees out, or at least the affected parts of
the tree, before the first of May. I know of no other effective method
of getting them. Cut them out and burn them. Some say, peel off the bark
and destroy that; but if you do that, you have got to cut off the
smallest branches and burn those, and I am afraid you would not get all
of the grubs. But it is better, if you can, to actually dispose of the
whole tree in some way.
There were three trees on the lawn infested and dying. I cut those out
in February, and that evidently stopped the ravages of the beetle. That
was carried on over the whole Campus, and it must have stopped the
injuries, because during the three or four years I was there after that,
we had no dead hickories from that cause.
That is evidently the only method of getting at them. It has been
wondered if we might not go to the Commissioner of Agriculture, and ask
him to take this matter in hand and force people to cooperate, because
it has become a rather serious problem. It is evident from a perusal of
the law that he has power to do that, and perhaps if this Nut Growers'
Association wishes to pass resolutions to bring before Commissioner
Pearson, they might induce him to take some steps to control this
hickory bark borer.
President Morris: If we have evidence that the hickory bark borer can
destroy ninety per cent of the hickory trees on an estate so well cared
for as the Wadsworth estate, it indicates a menace to the whole hickory
forests of the North. In view of this fact, in view of the possibility
of ninety per cent of our hickory trees being destroyed by this beetle,
it seems to me that we should ask our Commissioner of Agriculture to
take charge of the matter, as he has taken charge of the chestnut bark
disease, requiring the cooperation of the people in disposing of a
question which is so vital among the economic problems of our state. Is
there any discussion on this paper?
Doctor Deming: I would like to read an extract from a letter addressed
to me by H. W. Merkel, Forester of the Bronx Zoological Park:
"Under Chapter 798 of the laws of the state of New York, passed on July
26th, 1911, the Commissioner of Agriculture is authorized and charged
with preventing the spread of just such pests as the Hickory bark-borer,
and if this matter be called to his attention promptly and in the right
way by such responsible and interested parties as the Northern Nut
Growers' Association, there is, undoubtedly, still time to check the
further spread of the pest. We have from now until June (the time when a
new generation of beetles will emerge) to take whatever action is
necessary, and I urge upon you to persuade the Nut Growers' Association
to take the necessary steps. I would be glad to have a conference with
you on this matter, and will be glad to help you in any way you wish."
I would suggest the appointment of a committee to draw up a strong set
of resolutions to be sent to the Commissioner of Agriculture of the
State of New York and perhaps of other states, and to the Department of
Agriculture. (Referred to Executive Committee for report.)
President Morris: We will have next in order the paper by Professor Lake
on the Persian walnut in California.
THE PERSIAN WALNUT IN CALIFORNIA.
ABSTRACT OF A LECTURE BY PROFESSOR E. R. LAKE, WASHINGTON, D. C.
The Persian walnut industry of the United States is confined,
practically, to four counties in Southern California, Santa Barbara,
Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange. The territory covered is, in a general
way, fifty by one hundred and fifty miles in extent, though, of course,
only a very small part of this area is planted, and that really the best
land in the territory. This industry which yields practically two and
one-half millions of dollars annually to the growers is about
thirty-five years old, and at present involves the consideration of one
variety, the Santa Barbara Softshell. While it is true that there are
about seventy-five named varieties now grown in the country, the Santa
Barbara constitutes the commercial crop and will for some time to come,
though effort is being made to find a more desirable variety.
During the past ten years a troublesome pest in the form of a fungous
disease which attacks the young twigs and young nuts has awakened an
interest in other varieties and at present much work is being done with
a view to finding one or more varieties that shall be fully resistant to
this foe. At present the University of California, which is the
directive factor in this investigation, is recommending the trial of
half a dozen of the more promising varieties or forms that have been
developed through selection, or chance, in the local orchards. As a
result of the effect of this trouble, the crop output has increased very
slightly during the past decade, though the area of planted trees has
increased very much, hence it is very apparent that some other varieties
must be found; for it has been quite conclusively proven that none of
the means so effectively used against the fungous troubles that affect
other orchard crops are of any avail in this case. When it is noted that
there has been practically no advance in the improvement of varieties
since the origin of the Franquette and Mayette about one hundred and
fifty years ago, except the accidental appearance of the Santa Barbara
which was produced presumably from a nut from Chili (!) in 1868 on the
grounds of Joseph Sexton, Goleta, California, it is evident that our
nuciculturists have been indifferent, especially as to the possibilities
of extending the area of production.
Speaking more particularly of California walnut growing, it may be said:
The best of soils are selected for this crop; the trees are being
planted from forty to fifty feet apart; the best and most common advice
is to plant budded or grafted trees, and so far as this advice has been
followed the Placentia, an improved Santa Barbara, has been used, though
in the newer districts where efforts are being made, with apparent
success, to develop this industry, several other varieties are being
used, such as the Wiltz, Franquette, Mayette, Eureka, Chase, Prolific,
Meylan, Concord, Treyve and Parisienne. Thus far this work is
experimental, and only time will determine the success and value of it.
The crop, as with all orchard crops on the Pacific Coast, is cultivated
intensively, clean tillage being given, followed by cover crops and in
some cases fertilizers accompanied with intercrops.
The trees require very little pruning, and though formerly the heads
were started high, they are now formed low and the primary branches
trained to ascend obliquely, thus facilitating tillage operations, and,
in this respect, even improving upon the high head with spreading or
even drooping main branches. While the more progressive planters favor
trees one year from the bud, which have been put upon two year old
stock, some still prefer two year old tops. Stocks are preferably
California black, northern form. This is a large and vigorous tree,
while the southern form is often or perhaps better, usually, a large
shrub or small tree.
The remarkable behavior of the Vrooman orchard at Santa Rosa, in which
there are sixty acres of grafted Franquettes, has been the chief means
of stimulating the very extensive plantings that have been made during
the past five or six years in the Pacific Northwest. This is the largest
orchard of grafted nuts of a single type variety in the United States
and is a most excellent example of what follows grafting. The nuts are
exceedingly uniform, and large size. They are marketed in the natural
color and are especially attractive, particularly when of a
reddish-golden tinge.
The trees begin to bear at five or six years, though many instances are
recorded where two year olds have borne a few nuts. Usually only a few
pounds per year are produced prior to twelve years, after that the yield
increases rapidly until at sixteen years the trees will average
approximately fifty pounds or more per tree under favorable soil,
tillage, and climatic conditions, providing the trees are of selected
varieties of good bearing qualities.
One tree, known as the Payne tree, top worked on to a native black, has
a record of yielding as much as seven hundred and twelve pounds in one
season, though it is not fair to use these figures in estimating the
yield per acre of seventeen trees.
While the walnut has received little attention in the Eastern United
States, there are sufficient data at hand now to warrant the statement
that several meritorious varieties may be successfully grown in
favorable localities. These nuts, though not rated as high as the best
imported nuts or the choice California product, would successfully
compete with the foreign nuts which are now rated as replacement nuts
by the dealers in California's best grade. It is not safe to endorse
the view that any waste or abandoned land may be converted into
successful walnut orchards, though such lands may in due time produce
trees that will bear nuts. A first-class walnut orchard can only be
produced upon first-class land, deep, fertile soil, a low water table,
an open subsoil, with choice varieties, grafted upon the most suitable
stock and then given first-class tree-care.
Professor Lake: I think a man now is making a tremendous mistake who
thinks for a moment of advising the planting of seedling walnuts. We are
bound to meet the problem of grafted fruit right away. The success in
grafting in Washington this year has been such as to make us feel
certain that we may safely advise budding yearling stocks and expecting
a return of from seventy to ninety per cent of successful sets. Stocks
giving best success in budding are California black. About two weeks
after the budding is done, the tops are cut off two inches above, and
allowed to bend over and protect the buds; and in the West, where they
have intense sunlight, they have found it necessary to cover the buds
with paper sacks. The budding which has given the largest success is
hinge budding, a kind that I haven't seen discussed generally in the
East. Instead of being a T at one end, it is a T at both ends. There is
a horizontal cut across, another below, and a split between. The buds
are taken preferably from the last year's wood. We attempt to take the
wood away from the bud, with the exception of that little spongy part
that runs up into the bud, and is the core.
Mr. Pomeroy: You speak of the hulling. Do they have to hull the Persian
walnuts?
Professor Lake: In many instances, especially in dry seasons, or in
those sections where water is not particularly abundant. Ordinarily,
hulling is avoided by irrigating just preceding the time of falling.
Frequently the growers of large acreages say that it is cheaper to run
them all through the huller.
Mr. Littlepage: What would you prophesy about the average seedling
Persian walnut tree as to success and quality of nut?
Professor Lake: I was led to think that all that was necessary to do was
to plant the walnuts, because most of our authorities of twenty years
ago said the walnut would come true to seed. I think out of several
hundred trees planted throughout the state, and many we planted
ourselves, not a seedling came true. I should think, normally, we should
be very much dissatisfied in ten years from planting seedlings. As soon
as anyone buds these with Franquette, Parisienne, Concord, Rush,
Pomeroy, and others, I am satisfied he will not want to chance it with
seedlings.
Mr. Littlepage: This dissatisfaction that may result from setting
seedling walnuts, such as Rush, Nebo, Pomeroy, and others, would be
just as great, perhaps, as the dissatisfaction resulting in the West,
would it not?
Professor Lake: I can't see any reason, but that if there are present
any of the native trees, they are bound to cross-fertilize. In
California we have the Royal hybrid produced at over a mile and a half
distance from any known American blacks. The Royal is a cross between
the American black and the California black.
Mr. Littlepage: I don't suppose it would be reasonable to expect that
there is a Persian walnut in the northern or eastern United States far
enough from some native black to render it safe.
Professor Lake: I should hardly think so. Even if it is, I question
whether a nut of real merit will come true to seed.
President Morris: Is it true that even from single type orchards the
nuts, while coming fairly true to seed, would give trees widely
different in bearing propensities?