blight which we had definitely established as occurring in the East.
Last March the National Nut Growers' Association got very busy and so
amended the agricultural appropriation bill that all the funds for
national nut investigation were spent for pecan investigation, so it
left us up in the air for work in the north. We have, however, been able
to continue our observations with the Persian walnut blight and there is
only one further point to be emphasized and brought out at this time.
Those of you who have informed yourselves on this matter know that the
serious period of infection on the Pacific Coast is in the spring. It is
a blossom blight. During the past two years the period of infection in
the East has been in the late summer and it has not been serious on that
account. It is well known that in certain dry springs on the Pacific
Coast this blight does not occur and those years the growers are assured
of good crops. I think that this investigation, and the bulletin which
will soon be forthcoming, will not act as a discouragement for those who
want to plant Persian walnuts. I think it should not but should rather
encourage planting of these nuts. In spite of the presence of this
disease on the Pacific Coast the walnut industry has grown to be very
profitable, and if it proves that late infection is the rule in the East
there is every reason to believe that the disease will not be so
serious. That is practically the only walnut disease worthy of attention
at present.
The filbert disease is a fungus disease and Dr. Morris and others are
authority for the statement that it can be readily controlled by cutting
out.
DR. MORRIS: I will show this afternoon that it can be
controlled in a way.
DR. MCMURREN: We in the department have not been in a position
to do any work on the hazel blight so far. The hazel blight is
interesting in that it illustrates a principle in plant diseases which
it is well to know, that most of our serious plant diseases fall in one
of two classes; either a native disease on imported plants or an
imported disease on native plants. This filbert blight is very slight
on native hazels but very serious on imported European hazels. I do not
think there is anything more on the filbert disease, but Dr. Morris will
have some interesting things to show you this afternoon.
I want to interject a remark here about the business of planting trees
for commercial crops along the road sides. There is more to be
considered than the mere matter of planting a tree. Insect pests and
diseases have to be taken into consideration. There is nothing that an
apple orchard planter more hates to see than a tree out of the orchard.
It doesn't receive proper attention and is apt to be a source of
disease. I believe that wherever the nut industry has been established
on an orchard scale it is a matter that should receive careful thought
before trees are planted on the road side. When you have an adequate
fertilizing department and can give it careful attention the same as
trees in the orchard, all right. But they do not as a rule receive it.
Roadside planting perhaps sounds very attractive on the surface and is
probably a very good plan in some cases, but I think it is open to grave
objections where an orchard industry is in the same section.
THE SECRETARY: I am sorry that Mr. C. A. Reed is not here to
take up the discussion of the walnut blight, because I think he takes a
little more serious view of it than Mr. McMurren.
MR. MCMURREN: I know he does.
THE SECRETARY: That is right that Mr. Reed does, and I am glad
he is here (Mr. Reed having just entered) to talk it over. Mr. Jones is
also here. Mr. Jones is a close observer and has followed it in the
field from the beginning. This matter of walnut bacteriosis is a very
important one. Here is the walnut industry just in its infancy. We want
to know whether this walnut bacteriosis is threatening such proposed
industry seriously or not. We know it is a very serious thing in
California. Can we safely begin planting English walnut trees or is the
question of the seriousness of bacteriosis so serious that we should not
plant extensively until we know more about it. Mr. McMurren has been
saying a few words about bacteriosis in which he has not given us an
impression of seriousness. I think Mr. Reed will give us some remarks on
that matter.
MR. REED: I do not like to go up against Mr. McMurren. He is
the disease man. He is the last word in the government. I am only a
second fiddle when it comes to diseases but I must say that I have not a
very optimistic feeling over the blight situation. I have been depending
very largely on him to give us information.
THE SECRETARY: Where did you find it, Mr. Reed?
MR. REED: Speaking for the East only, for the part of the
country that we are directly interested in, I have visited a number of
the walnut sections. I think I have tried to reach all of them and in
nearly every place that I have been to in the last year or two there has
been blight. Several of the orchards that have been most widely
advertised have blight, according to Mr. McMurren's identification. I
went all the way from Georgia to Northwestern Pennsylvania and Northern
New York State last year to be present when the crops were gathered from
orchards of those sections, and in one of those orchards, one at North
East, Pennsylvania, the crop was what I would call about 65 per cent
failure due to blight. The other orchard, one near Rochester, was not
badly blighted, but there was a very light crop, not over 10 per cent of
a crop, but still there was some blight there. Now, I do not know just
what Mr. McMurren has said. I do know that he does not feel very badly
alarmed over the blight situation in the East and I would rather hear
him talk and Mr. Rush, and Mr. Jones.
MR. BARTLETT: I would like to know what the chief
characteristics of the blight are.
MR. MCMURREN: The ordinary late infection in the East begins
with a little spot on the husk around the 1st of July, and that merely
spreads until just about the time they fall off the tree. When the
blight infection strikes it it stains the nut badly. The point I want to
make is that you get the nuts anyhow. Mr. Littlepage, do you recall the
trees in Georgetown? The blight there is a very late infection. It is
not a thing that I can say should be discouraging. Blights are all over,
the pear blight, the apple blight, the lettuce blight. If we can make
the crop in spite of it I don't see why we should be unduly alarmed. I
think there are a good many other factors to be taken into consideration
in planting on a large scale and to make the question hinge on the
blight is not right. Spraying is of no avail. I don't think the walnut
growers should be discouraged because even in California where it is
most serious the industry is still profitable.
MR. JONES: Some times the husk worm may spoil the husk and that
may be confused with the blight. So far Mr. Rush has had the blight ever
since I have known his trees. Last year the blight was more prevalent
than this year. This year I estimated the loss in the nuts about 10 per
cent. Last year I think it ran one-quarter.
THE SECRETARY: Would those nuts be ruined?
MR. JONES: Some of them would be and some of them not.
THE SECRETARY: One-quarter would be affected by blight and some
of those would be good but not all?
MR. JONES: I don't know what proportion. If the nut when taken
out of the husk is black, it would not be worth much. You can eat them
but they are not marketable.
NOTES ON THE NUT BEARING PINES AND ALLIED CONIFERS.
DR. ROBERT T. MORRIS, NEW YORK
Among the food trees of the world of the nut bearing group the palms
with their many species of cocoanuts probably stand first, the pines
next, and the chestnuts third in order, so far as food supply for
various peoples is concerned. Then come the almonds, walnuts, hazels,
hickories and other nut bearing trees, the nuts of which have been
somewhat carelessly looked upon as luxuries rather than as an important
pantry full of good substantial calories to be turned into human
kinetics.
The pines and allied conifers like _Araucaria_ and _Podocarpus_ will
take their respective places in furnishing food supply for us all when
the need comes. Such need is already close upon our new vista of war
supplies. The squirrels and mice this year will eat thousands of tons of
good food that our soldiers would be glad to have. The particular
advantage in planting nut bearing pines rests in the fondness of these
trees for waste places where little else will grow, and they need less
attention perhaps than any other trees of the nut bearing group. For
purposes of convenience in description I shall group all of the conifers
together under the head of pines in this paper, although in botany the
word "Pinus" is confined to generic nomenclature.
Up to the present time we have not even developed our resources to the
point of utilizing good grounds very largely for any sort of nut tree
plantations. In accordance with the canons of human nature men work
hardest, and by preference, with crops which give them small returns for
their labor. Riches from easily raised crops go chiefly to the lazy
folks who don't like work. On the way to this meeting some of you
perhaps noticed near Rye on the west side of the railroad track, a
chicken farm on a side hill and a rich bottom land which had been
ditched and set out to about three hundred willow trees along the ditch
banks. Now if the owner of this property had set out English walnuts in
the place of the willows, each tree at the present time, at a low
estimate, might be bearing five dollars worth of nuts per year per tree,
and I am, sure that would be a much larger income than the owner gets
from his chickens--an income obtained certainly with much less trouble,
because neighbors cannot break in at night and carry off walnut trees of
such size. Two or three weeks from the present time you will observe
people everywhere in this section of the country raking up leaves from
various willows, poplars and maples, when they might quite as well be
raking up bushels of nuts of various kinds instead of just leaves.
I presume that the extensive planting of pine trees for food purposes
will have to wait until we have advanced to the point of putting other
kinds of nut trees upon good ground first. Pines will be employed for
the more barren hillsides when the folks of three hundred years from now
begin to complain of the high cost of living.
Among some thirty or more species of pine trees which furnish important
food supply for various peoples I exhibit nuts from only sixteen species
today, because much of the crop comes from Europe and from Asia. I could
not obtain a larger variety of specimens on account of the present
interest of people in the game which military specialists play wherever
industrious nations have saved up enough money to be turned over to
their murder experts. In the pine trees we have opportunity for
combining beauty and utility. As a group they are mountain lovers
preferring localities where the air drainage is particularly good, but
many of them will grow thriftily and will fruit well on low grounds.
Fine nuts range in character from the rich, sugary, oily and highly
nitrogenous nut of the Mexican piñon to the more starchy _bunya bunya_
of Australia, as large as a small potato and not much better than a
potato, unless it is roasted or boiled. Yet this latter pine is valuable
for food purposes and the British Government has reserved one forest of
the species thirty miles long and twelve miles wide in which no one is
allowed to cut trees.
The nut of the _Araucaria imbricata_ has constituted a basis for
contention among Indian tribes in Chile for centuries, and perhaps more
blood has been shed over the forests of this pine than over any other
single source of food supply in the world. We do not know if the _Pinus
imbricata_ will fruit in the climate and at the latitude of New York,
but I know that at least one tree of the species has lived for twenty
years on the Palmer estate here in Stamford.
Some of the smaller pine nuts like those of the single-leaved pine, or
of the sugar pine, are delicious when cracked and eaten out of hand, but
the smaller pine nuts are pounded up by the Indians with a little water
and the thick, rich, creamy emulsion like hickory milk when pressed out,
is evaporated down to a point where the milk can be kept for a long time
without decomposition. In addition to the nuts of the sugar pine, the
Indians collect the sugar of dried juice which exudes at points where
cuts have been made in the tree for the purpose. Incidentally, the sugar
pine is one of our finest American trees anyway. Botanists tell us that
it grows to a height of two hundred and seventy-five feet, and
travellers say that it reaches three hundred feet. The latter people
having actually seen the trees we may know which estimate to accept.
Aside from the beauty of most pines and the majesty of some of them,
their utility is not confined to nuts alone. Timber and sap products are
very valuable. The sugar pine in the latitude of New York is hardy, but
does not grow as rapidly as it does in the West. The same may be said of
the Jeffrey bull pine, but I shall show you some thriftier trees of this
latter species tomorrow on my property. A very pretty striped nut is
that of the _Pinus pinea_. This is the Italian pignolia, and you may buy
them in the confectionery stores in this country. They are used as a
dessert nut chiefly, but form an important food supply in some parts of
Europe. The Swiss stone pine, _Pinus cembra_, is one of the hardy nut
pines, fruitful in this vicinity, and the _Pinus Armandi_, the Korean
pine and the Lace-bark pine from central China, are hardy and fruitful
in this vicinity, to our knowledge.
Two very handsome pine nuts are those of the Digger pine, _Pinus
Sabiniana_ and the Big-cone pine, _Pinus Coulteri_. Both trees are hardy
in this latitude, but I have not been able to locate any which are of
bearing age as yet. The nuts have a rich dark brown or nearly black and
tan shading. The nut of the Digger pine is very highly prized by the
Indians and is larger and better in quality than the nut of the Big-cone
pine which looks so much like it.
Nuts of the Torrey pine have been somewhat difficult to secure for
planting, because they are esteemed so highly for food purposes that
they have been collected rather closely by local people in the small
area in which this species is found, on our Pacific Coast. It is
improbable that the Torrey pine will be hardy much above our most
southern states.
We do not advertise dealers in our association as a rule, but Mr. Thomas
J. Lane, of Dresher, Pennsylvania, is not likely to make any great
fortune from his sale of pine nuts to us. Consequently, I am stating at
this point that Mr. Lane has offered to go to the trouble of securing
pine nuts from different parts of the world for our members who wish to
plant different species experimentally. I have given him a list of
species to be kept permanently on file, and the list is marked in such a
way that ones which are known to be hardy, semi-hardy, or fruitful in
the latitude of New York may be selected for experimental planting. I
hope that some of our southern planters will plant South American,
Asiatic, African and Australian species of nut pines for purposes of
observation. Mr. Lane will get the seed for them.
I have included among the specimens here today nuts of the ginkgo
because that tree belongs among the conifers in natural order. It is an
ancient tree which should not fit into this time and generation, but it
has gone on down past the day when it belonged on earth. Its prehistoric
enemies have died out, so the ginkgo tree has come rolling along down
the centuries without enemies and at the same time with many
peculiarities. Comparatively few of the trees are females, but the tree
grows heartily in this latitude and one may graft male ginkgos in any
quantity from some one female. The nut of this tree is rather too
resinous to suit the American palate, but the Chinese and Japanese
visitors to the Capitol grounds at Washington greedily collect the nuts
from a bearing female tree growing there.
Most of the pine nuts have a resinous flavor, but as a class they are so
rich and sweet that this is not disagreeable. The nuts of the
single-leaf pine and our common piñon, _Pinus edulis_, are delicious
when eaten out of hand and both of these trees are hardy in this
latitude, but they do not grow as rapidly here as they do upon the arid
mountains and under the conditions of their native habitat.
In Europe and Asia pine nuts for the market are cracked by machinery or
by cheap hand labor, and I presume that we may eventually hull some of
the smaller ones as buckwheat is hulled. If the contents of the smaller
nuts are extracted by the Indian method of grinding them up with a
little water and then subjecting them to pressure, the waste residue
will probably be valuable for stock food of the future, very much as we
now use oil cake.
When planting nuts of pine trees I would call the attention of
horticulturists to one very important point. The nuts must be planted in
ground that does not "heave" in the spring time when the frost goes
out. Many of the pine nuts send down a rather slender root at first
without many side rootlets, and when the frost opens the ground in the
spring the young trees are thrown out and lost. Here is another point of
practical importance. Do not plant pine seed where stock can get at the
young shoots in March. The little gems look so bright and green, so
fresh and attractive when the snow goes off that cows and sheep, deer,
squirrels and field mice will all try to collect them. Young pines
should be grown in half shade during their first two years. They will
require weeding and nice attention on the part of a lover who wishes to
be polite to them.
QUESTION: Is there any difficulty in harvesting the crops, do
the cones shed?
ANSWER: With some species the cones are shed before they are
fully opened. They are collected and stored until the nuts can be beaten
out. Other species retain the cones until the nuts have been shed. The
branches are shaken and the nuts collected from tree to tree by the
beaters and spread out upon the ground.
Sometimes coarse sheeting or matting is carried from tree to tree by the
beaters and spread out upon the ground.
QUESTION: At what age will they bear?
ANSWER: Pines bear rather late as a rule. I doubt if very many
of them will bear in less than 10 years from seed.
QUESTION: Would it be possible to produce grafted trees?
ANSWER: Yes, without much difficulty. Undoubtedly you could get
bearing wood from old trees and graft on young trees, or graft on other
species. They may be grafted back and forth like the ornamental firs and
spruces of the nurserymen.
QUESTION: They don't compass, do they. If you cut them off, do
shoots come out of the stumps?
ANSWER: Not as a rule. Adventitious buds belong to few pine
trees. They graft conifers when the stocks are young.
QUESTION: Of those that you suggest, what would be the best
here?
ANSWER: The Korean, the Bungeana or lace-bark, the Swiss stone
pine, and the Armandi. These can be counted on to bear in the vicinity
of New York. Several other species not yet tried out may bear well here,
but I have not gone over the trees on estates very extensively as yet
with that question in mind.
QUESTION: Are any of these specially good for the South?
ANSWER: Yes, most of the pine nuts that I have shown here will
grow south of Maryland and seven of the best pine nuts in the world
belong to our Southwest.
QUESTION: Is there any more trouble with the cows and squirrels
over nut pines than there is with ordinary pine trees?
ANSWER: No, excepting that you don't miss the ordinary kinds so
much. It is largely a matter of comparative interest.
NOTES TAKEN ON AN EXCURSION TO MERRIBROOKE, THE COUNTRY PLACE OF DR.
ROBERT T. MORRIS, AT STAMFORD, CONN., SEPTEMBER 5, 1917.
DR. MORRIS CONDUCTING THE PARTY.
(1) Taylor shagbark hickory tree, overhanging the entrance-gate. A tree
remarkable for annual bearing and for nuts of high quality, thin shell,
large size, and excellent cleavage. Among hundreds of hickories
examined, many of them in response to prize offers, this tree at the
entrance furnishes one of the very best nuts of the lot.
(2) Buckley hickory (_Hicoria Buckleyi_) from Texas. Supposed not to be
hardy in this latitude. Perfectly hardy, but not growing as rapidly as
it does at home. Very large roundish thick shelled nut with a kernel of
good quality if you can get it. Kernel has a peculiar but agreeable
fragrance.
(3) Another southern species, the North Carolina hickory (_Hicoria
Carolinae-septentrionalis_). Note the small, pointed, dark colored buds
and beautiful foliage. The tree is perfectly hardy in Connecticut. This
shagbark bears a small thin shelled nut of high-quality and it will be
particularly desirable for table purposes. The tree grows thriftly in
Connecticut.
(4) Carolina hickory. Grafted on native shagbark.
(5) A group of Korean nut pines (_Pinus Koraensis_). Raised from seed
and now six years of age. One of the valuable food supply pines of
northern Asia. Like most eastern Asiatic trees the species does well in
eastern North America.
(6) A central Asian prune (_Prunus Armeniaca_). Without value for the
fleshy part of the drupe, but with a nut like that of the apricot,
highly prized for its kernel. The tree is hardy and thrifty, but rather
vulnerable to a variety of blights belonging to Prunus.
(7) An ordinary black walnut grafted to the Lutz variety. A very large
nut with good cleavage, good color and good quality.
(8) Alder-leaved chestnut (_Castanea alnifolia_) from central Georgia.
One of the most beautiful of the American chestnuts, with more or less
of the trailing habit, running over the ground like the juniper, and
apparently not subject to blight. In Georgia it is an evergreen, but in
Connecticut it is deciduous, although sometimes a few green leaves are
found in the early spring if they have been covered by snow or by loose
dead leaves during the winter. The nut is of high quality and fair size.
There are a number of hybrids between this and other chestnuts at
Merribrooke, but not bearing as yet.
(9) A group of common papaws (_Asimina triloba_), two of them grafted.
The Journal of Heredity offered a prize of fifty dollars for the best
American papaw, and the prize was awarded to the Ketter variety, the
fruits of which weigh about one pound each. Seven little trees of this
species were secured and two larger papaw trees grafted from cuttings
when the seven were set out. Papaws grow well in this part of
Connecticut, and because of the high quality of the fruit should be more
largely planted.
(10) Mills persimmon. One of a group of several varieties that are being
cultivated in this country. Hardy and thrifty in Connecticut.
(11) A group of Jeffrey bull pines (_Pinus Jeffreyi_) from Colorado. One
of the nut pines. Supposed to do its best in the arid mountains of the
West. Perfectly hardy and thrifty with beautiful bluish-green foliage in
Connecticut.
(12) Himalayan white pine (_Pinus excelsa_). One of the nut pines and
with remarkably handsome foliage.
(13) A group of Chinese pistache nut trees (_Pistacia sinensis_). At
Merribrooke it has the habit of frequently growing twice in one year and
sometimes three times in one year. The shoots will grow a foot or more
and then make resting buts early in July. After about ten days of
resting the buds burst, new shoots grow again and rest for the second
time in the early part of September. If we have a warm moist fall the
buds burst for the third time and make a third growth. This third growth
winter-kills without injury to the tree, however. The significance of
the growth presumably relates to the tree being an inhabitant of an arid
country, where it has adapted itself to the rainfall of that country. I
do not know if the trunk adds a new ring of wood after each resting
period, but it likely enough does so.
(14) Moneymaker pecan. Perfectly hardy and thrifty. It has not borne as
yet and there may be a question of the season being long enough for
ripening the nut. At the left a Stuart pecan, that comes from the very
borders of the Gulf of Mexico. Sometimes the smaller branches
winter-kill badly and at other times they do not. It is remarkable that
a tree from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico should live here at all in
the winter.
(15) A field of six-year-old trees. Most of them the result of placing
bitternut hickory pollen on staminate butternut flowers. The trees have
not borne as yet and we can not tell if they are true hybrids or
parthenogens. Parthenogenesis occurs readily with many nut trees. Pollen
of an allied species which does not fuse with the female cell to make a
gamete may, nevertheless, excite a female cell into division and the
development of a tree. Such a tree would be expected to show intensified
characteristics belonging to the parent. This lot of trees notable for
the fact that some are very small for their age and some very large.