What varieties were attacked and killed?
And was it genuine blight that killed them?
These questions should be well considered, particularly the last one, as
it is a well-known fact that in a general way the term blight is
frequently used for various injuries or diseases of plants causing the
whole or parts to wither and die, whether occasioned by insects, fungi,
or atmospheric influences.
We will, in the early summer, occasionally see on various shrubs or
trees numerous little twigs and branches dead and decaying and the
general saying then will most assuredly be, the shrub or tree is
blighted, where a close and thorough investigation will not reveal the
slightest sign of blight, merely injuries by frequent climatic changes
in the late winter or early spring months.
I also have observed the same thing where insects were the cause of all
the trouble. A little downy species of the aphis, or plant louse, had
completely overrun a Stump apple tree and really caused it to die. The
owner told me that tree was blighted. But here also no sign of blight
could be detected. Nothing but insects caused the tree to die, not
blight.
I merely mention these instances to show how thoroughly and readily a
disease or ailment of a tree or shrub is called blight where in reality
not the slightest sign of it can be discovered.
If our people had the understanding and would take the time to
investigate the cause of their diseased trees I am fairly satisfied the
complaining of trees or shrubs being killed by blight would not be heard
as freely as it is today.
Now under no circumstances should this be construed as meaning that I
dispute or doubt the existence of blight among our filbert plants. Not
at all. Quite the contrary. We have, as stated above, so far no
blight-proof filberts and no guarantee that blight will not eventually
attack our plants. We therefore will have to be more or less on the
alert, will have to watch our filbert plants as we do our pear or quince
orchards or other fruit trees more or less inclined to blight. By no
means let blight discourage the planting of filbert or hazel nuts, as I
am fully convinced should it eventually appear it will not kill our
plants. In fact it will not harm them as much as it will our pear trees,
our quinces or other varieties of fruit inclined to that disease, of
which we, in spite of blight, plant and maintain large orchards.
My advice would be to stop all talk on blight and wait until it appears.
Do not let us cross the bridge before we come to it but let us watch our
trees inclined to blight, particularly our hazel and filbert plants, as
they are not blight-proof, but eventually should blight make its
appearance let us be ready for it, fully prepared to receive it, not to
welcome but to eliminate it. That we can do, that we can accomplish very
thoroughly through the operation set forth in the beginning of this
paper.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: That is a subject that I feel we ought to have a little
discussion on and I would like to hear from Mr. Jones, Doctor Morris,
Mr. Bixby, Doctor Deming, for a brief discussion on the points just
touched on by Mr. Vollertsen.
THE SECRETARY: I have had very little experience with the blight. Two
years ago Mr. Bixby and I visited the very large hazels in Bethel,
Connecticut, seedlings raised from grocery store nuts, and we saw there
the blight on some of the largest trees, on the large limbs,
unquestionable blight with sunken areas covered with pustules. I didn't
see the trees last year, but on Wednesday, just before taking the train
to come here, I ran in to this place to get a bunch of hazels to bring
here, and I saw the tree on which Mr. Bixby and I had found the blight
looking as well as ever. In a hasty examination of the tree I saw one or
two stubs where large limbs had been cut off. I presume that the owner
had followed our advice and had cut off the blighted limb and,
apparently, the tree itself was none the worse for the blight.
I have had hazels planted and neglected for twelve or thirteen years and
this is the first year in which I have found the blight. I have found
before other causes of death of parts of the shrubs, girdling by insects
and apparent winter killing, but this year I found several of my trees
on which were undoubted patches of cryptosporella. That is the extent of
my experience with the blight.
MR. JONES: I have not had any actual experience with the blight but I
have seen it in Connecticut. I have not found it on any of the wild
hazels of Pennsylvania. Therefore we do not have it at Lancaster. I have
not regarded it as nearly as serious as pear blight and some other
blights that attack fruit trees.
THE PRESIDENT: What is that, Mr. Jones?
MR. JONES: I say I have not regarded the filbert blight as nearly as
deadly as some of the blights that attack the fruit trees, because of
the fact that it works very slowly, and it takes, I understand, about
two years to girdle a limb of any size; therefore, it is easily cut out
and controlled.
MR. CORSAN: Could it be that the blight would be very much more active
in a tree growing in the shade than on one growing out in the strong
sunlight and well nourished?
MR. VOLLERTSEN: I know of some trees that were for at least ten or
eleven years practically overgrown by butternut trees. I have known the
trees for more than thirty years. I visited the place about a week ago
and found a tree doing fairly well under the circumstances. That tree is
between thirty and forty years old and has grown steadily for the last
five or six years entirely in the shade and is bearing fruit fairly
well. There were quite a few nuts on it although there were more over
the top than on the lower branches; but I did not notice any dead limbs
or anything of that kind.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you refer to Doctor Mandel's plant?
MR. VOLLERTSEN: No.
DOCTOR MORRIS: Stamford is a natural home of the hazel. Wild hazels fill
the fields to such an extent that they destroy pastures very often.
Hazel blight, therefore, is to be found there as an indigenous organism
or parasite. Among the native hazels it apparently attacks only those
that have been injured or are weakened by age or otherwise. That is the
common history where a plant has existed along with a parasite for
centuries or ages, a certain amount of tolerance is established by the
resistance of a few individual plants and the elimination of the others.
By natural selection the best survives.
Now when I brought some European hazels to this place a little over
twenty years ago they made a good start. In two or three years all were
attacked with blight and at the end of four or five years all were dead.
I spoke to Mr. Henry Hicks about it. He has a place on Long Island. Mr.
Hicks said, "I have given up foreign hazels. They are no use. They all
die. I don't try them." Whenever anybody says that to me it starts me
right off doing it. When they said we couldn't graft hickories I said,
"Well, here is something to do," and I did it. They said, "Well, we
couldn't raise hazels; we might as well give up." I said, "Well, here is
the best thing for us to do then." So again I got a small lot and
observed them day by day. Very soon the blight began to attack them. I
found it grew slowly and gave me plenty of time to cut it out. I
neglected some purposely to see how long it would take the blight to
girdle a limb and some of the larger limbs took two years. In all of the
limbs that were affected, in the hazels which I wished to save, I simply
cut out the blight with a sharp jackknife, painted the spot with a
little paint, an antiseptic or something of the sort, and had complete
control. In fact I found that I needed to go over my hazel bushes not
more than once a year to look after the blight, and in one day, or part
of a day, with a sharp jackknife I had absolute control of the blight.
There are some large European hazels that I have neglected and have
allowed the blight to get under way. Some of them are so resistant that
they bear very good crops notwithstanding the fact that they are
neglected and have the blight. Others have died. Therefore it is a
relative question, a question of relative immunity to the blight. My
belief is that the blight will not be any more injurious to our hazels
than the San Jose scale has been to the peaches. We have complete
control of the San Jose scale because we know the habits of the scale
insect. I believe we have complete control of the hazel blight because
we know the habits of that particular sporella.
As to the question of growing in the shade or in the sunshine, on the
Palmer property not very far from me, there are some very large bushes
of red and white avellana and of the purple hazel that have been
overshadowed by other trees because they haven't been looked after.
Those are all very large bushes, in fact they have grown to be small
trees and they are completely overshadowed by other things. They have
some blight but continue year after year to bear heavy crops of nuts.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Bartlett, have you any remarks on the subject?
MR. BARTLETT: My experience has been very similar to that of Doctor
Morris. I have visited possibly a hundred places and have seen hazels
growing, some of which have probably been there seventy-five years. In
talking with the people connected with the place I have often heard
said, "Why, years ago we used to have hazels, a great many hazels here,
picked maybe a bushel at a time, but the best varieties have died, and
what we have left are worthless." Or perhaps, "There is only one bush
left and we don't get any hazels now." Apparently the purple hazel is
freer from blight than most of the other imported varieties. I have seen
the blight in these places. I have seen branches from three to four
inches in diameter that were attacked with blight and were still growing
but were not fruiting very much. I know a very few places where hazels
are grown within fifty miles of New York, and I know of some places
where they are getting some nuts. But the general impression is that the
European varieties will be attacked with blight and killed.
I have seen bushes that have been attacked by blight where the roots are
alive but sending up very weak shoots. That is probably through neglect
of stocks. Certain of those that I have raised, five or six years old,
are absolutely free from blight. Most of the older trees that I have
seen around have blight in some form or other.
MR. BIXBY: Doctor Morris' remark as to what Mr. Hicks says of giving up
attempting to grow hazels because the blight would take them, seemed to
me very appropriate in view of an observation I made on Mr. Hicks' place
last fall. I found there a large hazel which was probably twenty-five
feet high and bearing a fair crop of nuts. Mr. Hicks told me that he had
brought that tree from Germany many years ago--I think it was over
twenty years ago--and that that was the only one left out of a lot. Now
if other European hazels had been killed there with the blight and this
one was left there was apparently a blight-proof hazel in that lot.
I have seen a good many hazel bushes affected with blight, but I have
not seen any since I went with Doctor Deming up to Bethel. I have seen
no blight since then though I have looked for it whenever I have been
where there were European hazels. I examined that tree in Mr. Hicks'
nursery very carefully and found there was no evidence of blight. I feel
as the other speakers do who have expressed themselves, that we have
little to fear from the hazel blight; that if it does appear in the
nurseries we can control it by cutting out the blighted portions.
MR. PIERCE: In northern Utah I have a number of bushes of the foreign
and the American hazel and they are ten years old. So far I have not
seen any evidence of blight.
I would like to ask a question. What form does this blight take, and is
it deadly? In other words, will it kill the bush? Is it good to cut out
the affected parts?
DOCTOR MORRIS: You find a depression of the bark over a small area,
gradually increasing, and around the part that is depressed you will
find a little swelling of the healthy part that is trying to grow over
the blight area. This also contains the roots, if you can call them
that, of the blight. You can recognize it everywhere on the hazel by the
distinctly depressed area of bark, which should be cut out before it
gets to be the size of a quarter.
In other cases the blight will encircle a small branch and cause a
swelling instead of depression that looks very much like the swollen
area around the depressed bark. There may be depression in the branch
parts but the swelling blocks that so you can see only the swelling.
These branches may be very easily removed, with as much ease as a boy
would steal the nuts, so there is nothing to be feared on that score. If
the blight is left uncared for it will kill some of the plants and it
will not kill others. It will injure some also without killing them, so
that we have to consider the question of what we call relative immunity.
In the case quoted by Mr. Bixby we have a case of relative immunity of a
hazel which has grown to be twenty-five feet high and bearing crops in
the midst of the blight area on Long Island, while others have
disappeared from the vicinity.
MR. BIXBY: I would say in connection with that hazel that Dr. Deming and
I visited in Bethel that I took a blighted branch away with me and it
was such an excellent example of a blighted area that I had a photograph
made and it was printed in the Nut Journal.
THE PRESIDENT: This discussion on the blight of the filbert is of
intense interest to me. It is a considerable relief to us to hear these
encouraging statements, because during our experiments, covering the
past decade, the bugbear of all of our deliberations has been the
possibility of blight wiping us out, it having been suggested at the
time we imported plants that we would never get anywhere with them. I
think we have little cause to feel very much worried on the subject of
the blight.
It now gives me real pleasure to introduce to you our friend, Mr.
Pomeroy.
MR. POMEROY: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen: Josephus says that he
has set down various things according to his opinion and if anybody
holds to another opinion he will not object. That's my position in
regard to nut growing. I will tell you a few things that I believe and
if you hold another opinion you are entitled to keep it.
Professor John Craig once referred to a thing that surprised me very
much. We Americans believe we are a very energetic, smart people not to
be fooled much in a trade. Well, he had statistics which showed that
after we have shipped millions of dollars worth of wheat and cotton and
various other products to Europe we receive our pay in the form of great
quantities of nuts which we use for food, holiday nuts, all-year-round
nuts. Now I believe that those nuts can be raised right here and we can
pocket that money instead of leaving it in Europe.
I was a very small child when my father went to Philadelphia to visit
the Exposition in 1876. While he was there he picked up a few walnuts
which had dropped from a tree in front of his lodging house and brought
them home and planted them. A very few years after he amazed us all by
taking a load of nuts to Buffalo and obtaining more money for them than
the hired man and I did for a large load of fruit.
At one time I put out some English walnuts in a cemetery as a memorial
orchard and the trees are now doing fine. The other night my wife and I
strolled over and looked at them and when we were on our way back we
passed a neighbor's house where there were a number of maple trees on
the lawn. I said to my wife, "Those maple trees are fifty years old, and
there by the side of his lawn is a chestnut tree that is forty-four or
five years old." She made the remark, "Those English walnut trees over
there cast a much more beautiful shade than those maples," and it was
true. I think Mr. McGlennon saw them.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes; that's so. I thank you very much, Mr. Pomeroy.
Mr. G. H. Corsan, of Toronto, Canada, is known as the "Canadian Johnny
Appleseed." Mr. Corsan goes about the country and when he can find nuts
and seeds of what he thinks are good trees and plants he gathers them up
and arranges to distribute them. If Mr. Corsan will give us about ten or
fifteen minutes I should certainly appreciate it very much.
MR. CORSAN: Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Our friend here called
me Johnny Appleseed, I suppose because I went around among my friends
who had gardens and said, "Let me plant this," and I would plant a nut
tree. I said, "Why don't you plant something with a utility value as
well as a thing of beauty?" I said, "Why not plant something that will
not only grow rapidly and cast a splendid shade but that will also
return you something in the way of food?"
I first devoted twelve acres to the culture of nut trees. I afterwards
added four more. I just planted seedlings. In the year 1912 I joined the
Nut Growers' Association and I set out a hundred chestnut trees. When I
found the blight was in them and I cut them all down but two. I have
those two now and last year I gathered a peck of very large chestnuts
from them which caused the Ontario government to take notice of what I
was doing.
I bought a great many other trees, among them some of Mr. Pomeroy's. I
had a hard fight with Pomeroy's trees. They would die down one year and
grow a foot or a foot and a half the next and then die down again. But
each year they increased a little in size and now they are over my head
and are not dying down at all.
I tried a lot of others, among which were seedling English walnuts from
St. Catherine's. They did not freeze down at all, but whether they will
throw as good a nut as Mr. Pomeroy's I don't know. They are certainly a
different nut.
Then I got a Chinese walnut of Black's nursery, Hightstown, New Jersey,
and it is growing remarkably well. All three types of trees are doing
very well and are all over my head, sometimes growing three or four feet
a year, very rarely less than a yard from each terminal branch, and I
have had no winter killing.
It may be interesting to recount a few other things about my place. I
had an awful fight with mice. My land is in a valley and the spring
floods come down and I can't plow the land or it would all be washed
away. I put a tree in and protect it with a certain amount of space
around it. I found that the mice would chew down the trees almost as
fast as I could get them in, so I got some cats. The cats soon learned
to prefer birds to mice so I killed the cats. Then I bought a flock of
geese and the geese cropped the grass short and prevented it from
growing so powerfully as to smother out the trees. But the geese had
hard bills and when the trees were small they clipped off pieces of bark
with their bills, so I traded the geese for wild geese. I learned that
they are more discriminating in their choice of food and that though
their wings are more powerful their bills are not as strong. They have
kept the grass down for me and destroyed the homes of the mice. Then I
got pheasants in order to rid myself of the insect pests. I feel that in
another ten or twenty years we will have a very beautiful place.
I need not refer to the fact that nuts are very valuable for food.
Dentists would all go out of business if we ate nuts.
Pennsylvania is a state which should certainly take up with its
agricultural authorities the possibilities of nut growing because that
is a state that can be ruined utterly by trying to grow grain on the
hillsides. The water comes down and washes all the rich top soil off
into the creeks and it is lost to us and our children.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: Will the secretary please read Doctor Kellogg's paper?
THE SECRETARY: Mr. President, this is a very long paper and I have not
read it over. It seems to me that perhaps we have devoted so much time
to genealogy and reminiscences that the time is short for the papers
which are to be read by members present. Would it not be well to defer
the reading of this paper of Doctor Kellogg's to a later time, or,
possibly, merely print it in the proceedings?
DOCTOR MORRIS: I move it be laid upon the table and printed in the
proceedings.
The motion was duly seconded and carried.
(See Appendix for Dr. Kellogg's paper.)
THE PRESIDENT: One of our important visitors is Professor James A.
Neilson, Guelph, Canada. The title of Professor Neilson's paper is, "Nut
Culture in Canada." This is an especially interesting subject to me.
PROFESSOR NEILSON: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen: I want to
express my appreciation of your kind invitation to attend your
convention and for the opportunity of talking to you for a while on the
subject that is more interesting to me than any other branch of
horticulture. I had looked forward to coming to this convention but
wasn't just sure that I would be able to be here. Therefore when I got a
wire from your president I immediately got busy and pulled the wires at
the college and asked them to authorize me to come here at college
expense. I am very glad to be here. It has been most interesting to me,
and I am very pleased, indeed, to meet so many whom I knew already by
reputation.
NUT CULTURE IN CANADA
J. A. NEILSON, B. S. A.
_Lecturer in Horticulture, Ontario Agricultural College Guelph, Canada_
The conservation and improvement of our native nut trees and the
introduction of suitable species from foreign countries has not received
much attention by horticulturists in Canada, except in British Columbia
and in Ontario. In British Columbia, Persian walnuts, Japanese walnuts,
filberts, almonds and European varieties of chestnuts have been planted
to a limited extent in the fruit districts and small plantings have been
made at the Dominion Experimental Farms located at Aggaziz on the
mainland and at Sidney on Vancouver Island.
In Ontario very little had been done by the Provincial Experiment
Stations to test the different varieties of nut trees until about one
year ago when the Vineland Station undertook to establish experimental
plantings. A few enthusiasts like G. H. Corsan of Toronto, Dr. Sager of
Brantford, Dr. McWilliams of London and William Corcoran of Port
Dalhousie are about the only parties who have attempted anything along
the line of nut growing. These remarks of course do not apply to those
people who have planted a few black walnuts or Japanese walnuts on the
home grounds or along the roadsides. Of such plantings there are a few
here and there in the older settled parts of the province.
For some years the writer has felt that something should be done by the
Horticultural Department of the College to interest the people of Canada
in planting more and better nut trees and in conserving the remnant of
the many fine nut trees which formerly grew so abundantly in parts of
Ontario and elsewhere. Therefore an attempt was made during the spring
of 1921 to interest the public in the possibilities of nut culture. A
letter and questionnaire asking for information on nut trees were
prepared and sent to officers of horticultural and agricultural
societies, agricultural representatives, agricultural and horticultural
magazines, daily and weekly newspapers, school inspectors and other
interested parties.
The following is a copy of the letter and questionnaire which were sent
out:
"Dear Sir:
"We are investigating the possibilities of nut culture in Ontario and
would be pleased to have you assist us by reporting the occurrence and
distribution of the various species of native and introduced nut trees
growing in your locality. We are particularly anxious to learn of the
exact location of superior trees and if any such are found we plan to
have these propagated and distributed for test purposes. We would also
like to secure the names of people who are interested in nut culture.
Please fill out the enclosed questionnaire and return to the undersigned
at your earliest convenience.
"Thanking you in anticipation of receiving some interesting information
on nut trees, I am, yours sincerely, (signed) James A. Neilson, Lecturer
in Horticulture."
_Questionnaire:_
Q. 1. Are any of the following kinds of trees growing in your locality:
American Black Walnut European Chestnut
Japanese Walnut Japanese Chestnut
English Walnut Chinese Walnut
Butternut Beechnut
Hickory nut Hazel nut
Pecans Filbert
Sweet Chestnut