live and are not given much attention as they are of little value
anyway. The chestnut blight (_Endothia parasitica_) attacks the Japanese
chestnut about as freely as it does the American chestnut. The trees do
not die from it quite so quickly and may bear for some years before
dying.
(17) A group of Japanese persimmons in a protected corner of a
west-facing side hill. Most of the Japanese persimmons are not hardy in
Connecticut, but an occasional variety given a moderate degree of
protection will manage to live pretty well. They are uncertain trees,
however, as two of the trees grafted to Bennett Japaneses persimmons
from Newark, N. J., had two-year-old shoots winter-killed this year.
These were on low ground. I shall put my other Bennetts on hill sides.
(18) American sweet chestnut grafted upon Japanese stock. Ordinarily
Asiatic and American chestnuts do not make very satisfactory exchange
stocks. In this case the American chestnut happens to be doing very
well. The variety is known as the Merribrooke. Among the many thousands
of chestnut trees here when I bought the place this one bore the best
nut of all, very large and of high quality, and beautifully striped with
alternate longitudinal stripes of dark and light chestnut color. The
parent tree was one of the very first to go down with the blight ten
years ago, and the standing dead trunk was removed at the time when I
cut out five thousand dead or dying chestnut trees. Stump sprouts of the
Merribrooke variety survived for grafting purposes, and I have now kept
the variety going by patient grafting ever since, on new stocks, hoping
to carry the variety along until this epidemic of blight runs out of its
protoplasmic energy.
(19) Ordinary Japanese chestnut. With fairly good crop of large nuts,
but not of good quality, except for cooking purposes.
(20) A group of hybrids resulting from placing the pollen of the Siebold
Japanese walnut upon the pistillate flowers of our butternut. The young
trees have not borne as yet.
(21) Hybrids between the common American hazel and the European purple
hazel. There are a number of these hybrids, and none of them with nuts
better than those of either parent, consequently I give them little
attention. Some of the hybrids, not as yet bearing, may prove to be more
valuable. We have to make lots of hybrids in order to get a small
percentage of important ones. In this particular lot the hybrid has
taken on a habit of the mother parent, the common American hazel,
growing long stoloniferous roots, an undesirable feature.
(22) The Golden Gem persimmon, laden with fruit. Grafted upon the stock
of a staminate common persimmon.
(23) Early Golden persimmon. Bearing heavily, a variety grafted upon
common persimmon stock.
(24) A group of Chinese chestnut trees (_Castanea mollissima_). Very
beautiful trees, worthy of a position on almost any lawn, the foliage is
bright and shining, and the thrifty growth very attractive. The species
is practically immune to blight, sometimes at a point of injury bark
blight will appear, but it spreads very slowly, is easily cut out and
does not reappear at that point. It will be a success in Connecticut.
The nut is not quite up to our native chestnut in quality, but it is
larger in size and a first rate nut on the whole. The tree comes from
the original home of the blight, and the two plants having lived
together for ages the law of survival of the fittest has given us this
chestnut tree, which can largely take the place of our lost American
chestnut. The tree does not grow to be quite so large as our chestnut,
but I am making hybrids between this species and three species of
American chestnuts, and may find some remarkable ones eventually.
(25) Two young nut pines with lost labels. I shall probably not be able
to determine the species until they bear cones.
(26) A number of black walnut trees grafted with several varieties of
English walnut (_Juglans regia_). There is particular advantage in
grafting English walnut upon black walnut stock for the reason that mice
are extremely destructive to English walnut roots in winter time.
Furthermore black walnuts will grow in soil that is distinctly acid in
reaction, while the English walnut demands a neutral or alkaline soil.
The nearest tree of this group had new shoots of the Rush English walnut
nearly six feet long, which blew off last week in a wind storm because
they had not been braced sufficiently. It is very important when
grafting nut trees to fasten strong bracing sticks alongside of vigorous
shoots and tying them with sisal tarred cord, which holds good for two
years.
(27) Appomattox pecan, Busseron pecan, and Major pecan. All three trees
growing very thriftily and all set nuts this spring, but did not hold
them. This is the habit of young hickories and walnuts rather largely.
None of my pecan trees are old enough as yet to fruit well. I do not
know what varieties will find our season long enough for ripening
purposes. That particular feature of pecan raising is quite as important
as the mere question of hardiness in Connecticut.
(28) A little old butternut tree by my garden. This has been the mother
of practically all my hybrids between butternuts and other species of
walnuts. This little old tree bears flowers every year and is very
conveniently situated for hybridizing work.
(29) An English walnut tree near the garden gate is growing thriftily,
making sometimes four feet in a year, but as a seedling has not borne as
yet.
(30) Pecan seedling with buds of Busseron recently inserted. They are
fastened in place with waxed muslin and then painted with ordinary white
paint. I use that a great deal in place of grafting wax, but make the
paint thick and heavy so that little free oil runs in between the
cambium layers when grafting or budding. Paint seems to be harder and
better than liquid grafting wax if it has no free oil.
(31) A rapidly growing Chinese walnut (_Juglans sinensis_). Very much
like _Juglans regia_. The nuts have prominent sutures and the kernel is
rather more oily than that of the English walnut, but of very good
quality, nevertheless.
(32) A number of hickory trees of different species grafted by my
favorite method, unless we call it "budding." I call it "the slice
graft," and have not known any one else to try it. A slice of bark from
one inch to four inches in length is removed from the stock and this
area is fitted with a slice of about the same length and breadth,
carrying a bud or spur cut from the guest variety. On one of these young
hickories you observe I made three slice grafts and all of them have
taken with a very thrifty growth of the Taylor variety. One point of
importance, I believe, is to have the slice from the guest variety a
trifle smaller than the slice from the host stock. The guest slice is
bound firmly to the host with waxed muslin.
(33) Paragon chestnut heavily loaded with burs. This particular tree is
said to belong to a variety that is much advertised, but there is some
question if it is a peculiar variety of the Paragon, because Mr. Engel,
of Pennsylvania, is said to have furnished his own Paragon chestnut
scions when the other people were short of stock. If the nursery firm
that has put out this Paragon chestnut on the market with so much vigor
and at such expense had been a little more frank everybody would have
profited. They have made a point of advertising the Paragon chestnut as
blight resistant, which it is not; consequently, the country is full of
disappointed customers. The dealers should have said something more or
less as follows: "This chestnut blights freely, but it bears so well and
so abundantly and with such a good nut that people can afford to plant
it in large acreage and let it blight, carrying it along with about the
degree of attention that one would naturally give to good apple trees."
Had the dealers only said something like that, the members of our
Association who receive very many letters from all over the country
asking about this particular chestnut would have advised its purchase in
large quantities. Prospective customers are shy of nurserymen in
general. They write to members of our Association asking who is
reliable. People have learned what we stand for.
(34) A hybrid between a pecan and a bitternut hickory. A large handsome
thin shelled nut, but bitter. The great vigor of growth of the seedlings
of this hybrid, which comes from Mr. G. M. Brown, of Van Buren, Ark.,
would seem to make this hybrid variety of remarkable value as grafting
stock for other hickories. The nuts are exceptional in carrying the type
form of progeny.
(35) Two rows of many species of nut trees planted in thick glazed
earthenware pots. The pots are about four feet in depth and with round
perforations. I had these made to order. I sunk them in the ground to
the level of the rim and then planted these trees in the pots under the
impression that they would remain dwarfed on account of the confinement
of the roots, and that I would have a conveniently placed series for
experiments in hybridization. The experiment was not a success. I knew
that growing trees would move rocks, but had no idea that roots
protruding through these holes in heavy glazed earthenware would be able
to break the pots. The roots have done just that, and whenever a tree in
a pot becomes large enough the protruding roots break the pot to
pieces, and the tree marches straight along to its original destiny.
(36) One of a group of European chestnuts from seed brought me by Major
L. L. Seaman. The parent tree is famous in England for its enormous size
and heavy bearing; it is said to be centuries of age and is growing upon
the estate of Sir George B. Hingley, Droitwich, Worcestershire, England.
My young trees are growing very thriftily. They are showing some blight
spots, but this has been controlled by cutting out and painting.
(37) A group of vigorous young trees, the result of placing pecan pollen
on the pistillate trees of Siebold walnut. They show the Siebold
parentage so distinctly that I imagine them to be parthenogens, but we
cannot tell to a certainty until they bear fruit.
(38) A hillside set out with a large number of common bush chinkapins
from the East, tree chinkapins from Missouri and a number of hybrids.
The chinkapins and the alder-leaved chestnuts on this side hill have
been so blight resistant as to require almost no attention, and for that
reason I am making hybrids between the chinkapin and the alder-leaved
chestnut and the Chinese chestnut in the hope of making an excellent
combination of chinkapin quality and Chinese size. Up to the present
time none of my hybrids have been as valuable as either parent, with the
exception of two. Two of the hybrids bear nuts about the size of the
average American sweet chestnut and of first rate quality. These two
hybrid trees have shown no sign of blight as yet.
(40) A hybrid between an American chestnut and a chinkapin. It blights
freely like its American parent. Some of the hybrids do that while
others show the resistance of the chinkapin parent. This particular tree
grows lustily, and I have taken the trouble to cut out the blight every
year. The leaves and general appearance are very closely like the common
American chestnut. When it first began to bear, the nuts were of the
chinkapin type, a single nut to the bur and hardly to be distinguished
from other chinkapins. A year or two later the nuts changed in
appearance, becoming distinctly lighter in color and with peculiar
longitudinal corrugations of the shell. A year or so later still the
tree made another change, and it now bears two or three nuts to the bur
like the American chestnut, the nuts retain their light color and
peculiar corrugation.
(41) A group of European hazels (_Corylus avellana_). Several years ago
the Prince of Colloredo-Mannsfeld was visiting Merribrooke. His Highness
was much interested in the experimental work in nut trees and later sent
me a number of hazel nuts from one of his estates in Bohemia. Among the
hazel bushes which grew from these nuts there was one which bore large,
long, thin-shelled nuts of high quality. This bush, as you observe, has
rather small dark leaves and stout, crooked branches. At one of the
meetings of the Association I spoke of the bush as having a bony look,
and Prof. J. Russell Smith referred to it in discussion as the "Bony
Bush" hazel, and that name has been retained. I have grafted a number of
other American and European hazels from this bush and I have sent scions
to friends.
(42) A Cook shagbark hickory from Moscow, Ky., grafted upon bitternut
stock. This variety bears a very large thin-shelled, irregular nut, with
rather poor cleavage, but the quality of the kernel is of such distinct
value that I prize the variety.
(43) An example of the spur graft. A common T cut is made in the bark of
the stock and then a slice of guest bark carrying a small branch or spur
is inserted. In this particular case I put in a branch about ten inches
in length and you see that it is growing very well.
(44) My beautiful Merribrooke chestnut grafted upon an ordinary American
chestnut stock growing by the roadside. Five years ago I noticed this
little chestnut tree growing by the roadside with two stems. One of the
stems was blighted and I cut it off and stopped the blight for the time
being. The following year the other stem blighted and I trimmed out the
blight and sprayed the stem with pyrox. In the following year I grafted
the stock, but blight appeared at another point, the blight was cut out,
and the stem again sprayed. In the following year blight appeared again,
but at another point, and after cutting it out I put on tanglefoot,
simply because I happened to have some with me when passing the tree.
This year the stem has blighted again and I have cut out the blight and
sprayed it, and I shall now whitewash a large part of the stock with
whitewash containing a little carbolineum. The graft now in its third
year is bearing one big bur. The interesting point is that this tree has
blighted every year for five years, and I have kept it going along by
giving it attention. This means if we are willing to take the trouble we
can get the best of the blight, even with such a remarkably vulnerable
tree as this one proves to be.
(45) A barren hillside covered with very handsome red pines eleven years
of age, some of them grow nearly two feet per year. The soil is sandy
and gravelly glacial till which will raise little else beside feather
grass and sumac. The red pines are not nut pines, and attention is
called to them incidentally because of their value for growing upon this
sort of soil.
(46) A Korean chestnut filled with burs. The Korean chestnut does not
blight quite so readily as the American chestnut, and certain
individuals are fairly blight resistant. I raised several hundreds of
them, but almost all of them are dead. A fairly large number are growing
well and bearing without much attention. The nut is pretty good, but
coarser than that of the American chestnut.
(47) A group of Tamba chestnuts from Japan. This is the favorite
chestnut of the Japanese. I secured a number of the nuts, sprouted them
and planted them out here in rows, intending to transplant them to
permanent sites later. Finding that they were going to blight badly, I
have neglected them and have allowed them to stand. One little tree
among them bore a single bur at eighteen months of age and has borne
steadily ever since with a heavy crop this year. This particular tree
has not blighted, but its nut is coarse and of little value.
(48) When collecting walnuts I obtained a lot of nuts from a
correspondent from the Mogollon Mountains in Arizona. The nut resembles
that of _Juglans rupestris_, but is larger and thicker shelled. No one
knows whether it is an undescribed species or only a distinct variety of
_Juglans rupestris_. Several of the nuts sprouted, but various accidents
happened to them and this tree now, seven years old, is the only one of
the lot living. It looks very different from any American walnut I have
ever seen. In fact, it looks so much like a stunted heart nut that I
suspected that one of these nuts might have gotten into the lot by
accident. In digging down about the stem, however, I found only the
shells of a Mogollon walnut. We can not tell what the tree will bring
forth, as it is not bearing as yet.
(49) Two groups of chestnut trees of the McFarland variety, about
eighteen years of age. They grow and blight and bear, but have not
blighted to the point of killing altogether. They have been neglected
because the nut has not much value.
(50) A group of Merribrooke hazels. Some years ago I devoted several
weeks to examining hundreds of hazel bushes in this part of the country,
where they are a pest, and I also visited other hazel localities at a
distance. Among all the bushes examined the best nut was found on my own
property and I learned later that this particular bush had been known
among the boys of the locality for a century. The nut is of large size
for an American hazel, thin shelled, of high quality. This group
consists of transplants of root progeny from the parent bush.
(51) A Horn hazel (_Corylus cornuta_, commonly wrongly designated as
_Corylus rostrata_). A species fairly abundant in Connecticut, and I
transplanted these bushes because they happened to have a tremendously
long involucre. The nut of the horn hazel is not of such good quality as
that of the common American hazel, and I have not succeeded in making
hybrids between this and other hazels as yet. The hazels are very
ancient in descent and each species likes to retain particular identity.
(52) A number of stocks of red birch, white birch and scrub oak grafted
with European hazels and chinkapins, but the grafts all died. The
grafting was done as an experiment in the hope that we might possibly
utilize our waste lands which are covered with birch and scrub oak by
grafting these trees with hazels and chinkapins. Some of the grafts
lived for such a long time and put out such long shoots that the
experiment will be tried again next year. It would not seem worth while,
excepting for the fact that it was a bad spring for grafting anyway, and
hazels did not even catch on hazels, though they caught freely last
year. The Japanese do grafting on stocks widely different from the
scions, but we have not developed that particular feature in this
country as yet.
(53) Asiatic tree hazels (_Corylus colurna_). This species makes a tree
as large as the common oaks and bears heavily. The nut is about the size
of that of the common American hazel. The tree is very beautiful, and I
am using it for grafting stock and for hybridizing.
(54) Sprouting cages. A double row of galvanized wire cages sunk four
inches into the ground and about four inches free above ground, filled
with sandy loam and used for sprouting any nuts which are to be employed
in experimental work. Each cage is fitted with a cover of galvanized
wire, the purpose of which is to keep out rodents which are so
destructive to planted nuts. In these cages there are now a large number
of hybrid nut trees growing, and they will be transplanted to permanent
sites or to the garden for culture next spring.
(55) Japanese heart nut (_Juglans cordiformis_). The tree is supposed by
some botanists to be a form of the Siebold walnut, but it has quite a
different appearance. It has an open habit with large leaves and nuts
which are suggestive of the conventional heart. The quality of the nut
is very good, much like that of the Siebold, but the nut is larger and
compressed. The tree is very hardy and is almost tropical in appearance.
It has not been planted very largely in this county, but it undoubtedly
will be eventually.
(56) Siberian walnut. The tree looks much like the Siebold walnut in
general appearance, but with smaller leaflets, and the nut is very much
like our butternut, but smaller and with much rougher shell.
(57) Two pecan trees that I bought from a nursery about twelve years
ago. They have not borne as yet and being seedlings we cannot know if
they will be of value. I shall probably graft them next year and not
wait for them to bear their own nuts.
(58) Two large Siebold walnuts only twelve years of age, but growing in
rich ground and sometimes making five feet of growth in a single year.
They were well filled with nuts two weeks ago, but the red squirrels
have cut down all of the nuts including numbers which I hybridized with
English walnut pollen this spring. On one of the lower branches of one
of the Siebold walnuts is a long thrifty graft of the Lutz black walnut
that I put in this spring, simply because I happened to cut off the
lower branches of the Siebold that were shading the garden, and I
happened to have some of the black walnut scions with me at the time. It
will not be allowed to remain on this tree.
(59) A cross between our Siebold walnut and our butternut, now about
eight years old, but growing thriftily. It has not borne nuts as yet. I
have a number of these trees and they appear to be good hybrids.
(60) A group of Kaghazi Persian walnuts. A valuable variety and one of
the so-called English walnuts, a term that we use for convenience
because the name has become established in this country by the market
men, not by the botanists.
(61) A thrifty young Chinese seedling persimmon (_Diospyros lotus_).
(62) Little trees of one of the nut pines (_Pinus edulis_). They are at
their best in the arid mountains of Arizona, and the species is very
important as furnishing a food supply for the Indians. The little trees
are hardy here in dry soil among the rocks, but do not grow rapidly.
Mine have been in more than six years and are not more than six inches
in height, but are very pretty.
(63) The Chinese Tamopan persimmon. The tree is very handsome, with
large glossy leaves, but somewhat tender in Connecticut and requiring
protected exposure. The fruit of the Tamopan is as large as a very large
apple.
(64) Several trees five years of age, the result of English walnut
pollen on Siebold walnut pistillate flowers. The trees are growing very
thriftily, but they show the Siebold characteristic without much
evidence of the English walnut parentage.
(65) A field of Pomeroy English walnuts, notable for their beautiful
white bark. The trees have been in over eight years and set nuts for the
first time this year. As seedling trees we cannot tell what they will do
when in full bearing.
(66) Two species of nut bearing pines from which the marking labels have
become lost, and I shall not be able to determine the species until they
bear cones. One of them is very beautiful, with long leaves and pleasing
bluish green foliage.
A VISIT TO THE ESTATE OF THE LATE LOWELL M. PALMER, NOTABLE FOR ITS
COLLECTION OF TREES AND SHRUBS, DR. MORRIS CONDUCTING.
Here we see the Ginkgo trees, two of them bearing. The Ginkgo belongs by
descent to the coniferous tree group. A very fine tree with nuts that
are highly prized by the Asiatics, but somewhat too resinous for the
American palate. Most of the Ginkgo trees are males, but one may graft
any number of males with bearing female scions.
An _Araucaria imbricata_ grew for twenty years on this place, and we
have only just learned that it died last year. This pine is one of the
most important of the nut pines and furnishes a large food supply in
South America. The fact that one tree lived for twenty years in this
latitude means a great deal.
A number of European hazel bushes are growing on the property and
bearing heavily. A large heart nut tree, but bearing small nuts, is
growing well. Several of the Himalayan nut pines (_Pinus excelsa_)
beautify the property, and one of the trees, heavily laden with cones,
is at least fifty years of age. Another one of the nut-bearing pines
(_Pinus paviflora_, from Japan) is represented by several specimens on
the Palmer property, and one little tree apparently less than ten years
of age, is heavily loaded with cones. Incidentally we may examine here a
trifoliate orange filled with fruit. It is growing in a well protected
corner of the grounds. Mr. Webber sent some valuable trifoliate hybrids
to Merribrooke. One variety lived through the winter, but made a
crippled start in the spring. Some day we may have good trifoliate
orange hybrids in Connecticut if the Buckley hickory, Stuart pecan,
Arizona walnut and imbricated pine grow here.
* * * * *