interested in nut raising I wrote to the University of Illinois which
has really one of the great agricultural schools. It is especially famed
for its soil fertility studies and for engineering. I asked them what
they were doing in the way of spreading information in regard to nut
trees, and if they could give me a list of persons from whom I could
purchase reliable stock. To my amusement they said they had no list of
nurserymen who produced nut trees. I wrote back to them and said that it
seemed to me that in a country which is a nut country they ought to know
the products of their own state, and I sent them a list of the people
from whom they could get trees.
Now I think it would be good policy to send information to the various
agriculture schools, giving them what we know of their particular
territory based on our experiences, and also send this information to
the farm bureaus.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Olcott, what do you think about the suggestion to
send a delegate to the nurserymen's convention. You are familiar with
the nursery trade.
MR. OLCOTT: That's a good suggestion, Mr. President. I don't know--I had
thought of Mr. Jones, who is in the nursery business. It might mean
competition for him but I didn't think he would be able to supply all
the trees that might be needed. Mr. Jones, by the way, is a regular
attendant at the nurserymen's association.
THE PRESIDENT: He would be the man of all men to carry the message and I
am sure that he would be very glad to.
MR. CORSAN: Mr. Chairman, I have an idea that the best thing we can do
is carry on a magazine campaign this winter. Now my wife is a very good
magazine writer and can fix up anything in good shape. Send me along all
the photographs you can to the Brooklyn Central Y. M. C. A., where I
will be located this winter, and on cold, wet days and odd days I don't
work, why, we can get up some magazine articles on nut growing.
THE PRESIDENT: It affords me great pleasure to introduce Mr. Bixby.
THE EXPERIMENTAL NUT ORCHARD
WILLARD G. BIXBY, Baldwin, N. Y.
We have heard much about the desirability of the experimental nut
orchard and the association has repeatedly urged the planting of such by
each one of the agricultural experiment stations in the country. These
have been advocated in order that we might learn of the behavior of the
fine varieties of nuts that we now have under varying conditions of soil
and climate, and in this way accumulate the experience out of which to
make positive recommendations as to the species and varieties that might
be planted in any given section with reasonably assured prospects of
success.
The association has been criticised, sometimes a little harshly I have
thought, for the lack of specific planting recommendations, for, as a
general rule, that was what those interested have wanted. They did not
want to be experimenters; they wanted to plant varieties and get
reliable estimates of the returns that might be expected and information
as to the returns that similar plantings have shown. Indeed the
statement has been made that, unless the association could give this, it
could not hold its members and would largely fail in its mission.
That it has not until recently made any very specific recommendations of
this character is to my mind an evidence of wisdom. There is a legend
told of King Canute whose courtiers flattered him by telling of his
power, not differentiating between the immense power he did possess from
that which he did not, and who persuaded him to try it on the rising
tide. The King learned a lesson by the test that he never forgot. Had
the association attempted to make very definite recommendations before
it could point to specific instances where things had been done it would
almost certainly have failed as signally as did King Canute.
It is not because it did not realize the value that such recommendations
would have, but because it did realize that the experience necessary had
not been accumulated before it could safely make them. It is only
through experience that recommendations worth while can be made, and it
is because of the need of accumulating this for the various sections
that the association has advocated the planting of experimental
orchards.
It is encouraging to note that while these are not being planted as
rapidly as we would wish, the work is going on steadily and we are
continually learning of new plantings. Some of the older orchards are
now giving us their experience. The oldest plantings are those of Mr.
John G. Rush, West Willow, Pa., consisting largely of Persian walnuts,
and of Mr. E. A. Riehl, Alton, Ill., consisting of chestnuts and black
walnuts.
Mr. Rush's orchard has given us an American hazel, the Rush, the best
native variety that we have and which seemingly has commercial value. It
has also shown us that the nuts on a young grafted hickory tree, a
Weiker, are considerably larger and crack easier than the nuts from the
parent tree, and that the English walnut will grow and bear when grafted
on practically every species of walnut, black walnut, butternut, and
Japan walnut, and it seems likely that this orchard will be a source of
knowledge for us for many years to come.
A number of others have been started some of which are beginning to give
us evidence of value. Probably more problems have been solved,
particularly those relating to propagation on Dr. Morris's and Mr.
Jones's than any others so far. Dr. Deming is giving us evidence on
grafted hickories of a large number of varieties and Mr. Littlepage's
and Mr. Wilkinson's orchards are giving us evidence on pecans. There are
also a number of others still too young to give us much information. Mr.
Riehl's orchard of chestnuts and black walnuts has gotten beyond the
experimental stage and is now a commercial success.
I had a desire to establish an experimental orchard when living in
Brooklyn, before I owned any land on which to plant trees, and I bought
and set out trees on the land of three relatives before it was possible
to set any on my own land. The principal thing gained from these early
plantings was experience and the principal things learned were things
not to do, for none of the trees then planted are alive today. Buying my
present place in Baldwin, at the close of 1916 gave me about three acres
available land and since then I have been gathering grafted, budded or
otherwise asexually propagated trees of all the fine varieties that we
have. At present there are on my place some
14 varieties of black walnuts
2 " " butternuts
12 " " Persian walnuts
4 " " Japan walnuts
14 " " chestnuts
20 " " pecans
25 " " hickories
23 " " hazels
4 " " almonds
The only nut tree, native in the northeastern United States of which I
have no named variety is the Beech.
In addition there are seedling trees of four additional species of
walnuts, seedlings from several hybrid walnut and hickory trees, besides
some thousands of seedling nut trees of practically all species for use
as stocks.
I have for the past two years been gathering selected native hazels from
the various sections of the United States taking care to select bushes
that bore nuts that were relatively large, thin shelled and fine
flavored.
Inasmuch as the hazel is native all over the country, and just how to
get bushes that bear the best nuts is not generally known, I will tell
how I do it, hoping that many others will seek out the best hazels in
their section and get them into cultivation. I provide myself with a
cloth about as large as a large handkerchief, a number of wooden labels,
some paper bags, a hand vise, a pair of calipers, a scale and tools for
digging plants. A spade or round-nose shovel is about the best tool for
digging the plant and frequently a hatchet, axe, mattock, or bar is
required in addition in case the hazels have to be dug away from among
the roots of large trees or from among stones of considerable size.
When a plant is found where the nuts look promising the branch on which
nuts are to be examined is marked temporarily by throwing the cloth over
it. A nut is then carefully cracked in the hand vise, taking pains to
extract the kernel whole. This is then calipered with the calipers, set
at a minimum size desired. If it is undersize the bush is rejected and
another sought. In measuring the longest dimension is the one
considered. The minimum size depends on the section from which the
hazels are being taken, no kernel which is less than 3/8" in its longest
dimensions being considered. While sometimes it requires a good deal of
hunting to accomplish it, I have never had to take bushes where the
kernel was smaller than this and it is seldom that it is necessary to
take those where the kernel is as small as this. In many instances it
is very much larger. If the size is satisfactory the kernel is then
eaten, only those bushes having well flavored kernels being taken. If
all tests are satisfactory the cloth is removed and a wooden label put
on the bush which is then dug. The nuts are removed from the bush and
put in a paper bag labeled the same as the bush; the bush is cut back to
about 6" in height and then put in a sack or other convenient means for
keeping moist till it can be put into the ground.
The gathering of the above mentioned trees in a small compass and
closely observing them have enabled me to make a number of observations
which may be of interest.
_Fertility of Soil:_ The importance of this was shown strikingly in the
case of a lot of Japan walnuts received in the spring of 1918. They were
quite large and seemingly never had been transplanted and were dug with
small roots. For lack of a better place they were set in sod ground
which had not been cultivated or fertilized for many years. They eked
out a miserable existence during the years 1918 and 1919. During the
spring of 1920, I put chickens in that patch and an improvement was
noted that year but this year practically every tree has grown six feet
or more. The manure of the chickens and the thorough cultivation of the
soil caused by their scratching have certainly worked wonders. While I
do not minimize the effect of clean cultivation, I am inclined to
believe that abundant plant food is the really important thing, for a
goose watering pan under a tree pushes the tree along at a remarkable
rate, and geese never scratch. They do keep the grass closely cropped,
supply an abundance of manure, and the watering pan puts the plant food
where the trees can get it.
_Pruning:_ The importance of severely cutting back was strikingly shown
this spring. A butternut raised from a nut in a lot of "Virginia"
butternuts, bought in a nut store and which had outgrown every other
tree in that lot and which I believe to be a Japan walnut butternut
hybrid was transplanted this spring. Care was taken to get as much of
the roots as possible and practically all were obtained; good soil was
taken to fill in around the roots. Over the half of the branches were
removed but the five highest ones were not shortened. This tree has not
grown as well this year as some others not as vigorous and set in poorer
soil but where all branches were cut back severely. Were this the first
time I had noticed this, I might have considered it an isolated case,
but the need of severe pruning was emphasized even in this case where I
hardly expected it to show on account of the tremendous natural vigor of
the tree which was transplanted, and the ideal conditions under which
the transplanting was done.
_Varieties:_ I get frequent requests from persons who want to know the
best variety of this nut or that nut with the idea of planting only the
best. The thought behind the request is one with which I heartily
sympathize, but the method of accomplishing it that the enquirer has in
mind will not accomplish it. The failure of most plantings of European
hazels has, it has been thought, been due more to lack of proper
pollination than to any other one reason. This year several varieties
showed abundant pistillate flowers but there was but one European
variety where it was not evident that the staminate flowers had suffered
greater or less winter injury. This variety, Grosse Kugelnuss, shed an
abundance of pollen when pistillate flowers of several of the others
were receptive and there are nuts on three or four varieties for the
first time. I believe that the success of Messrs. McGlennon and
Vollertsen in fruiting the European hazels would have been but a
fraction of what it has been had they not set out the large number of
varieties that they did. In setting out nut trees at the present time as
large a number of varieties as practicable should be planted. Later we
will have the accurate observations that will enable us to select a few
and feel sure of getting good crops of nuts, but we cannot do this now.
_Chestnuts:_ While the blight is all around me and several of my trees
have been killed by it, there are enough left to produce nuts of nearly
every variety and I see no reason yet to change my belief that, by
watching, cutting out blight and occasionally setting out new trees,
chestnuts of nearly every variety can be grown and fruited in the blight
area.
_Age of Bearing:_ My experience would seem to show that grafted or
budded nut trees are as a class not slow in coming into bearing provided
they have had good care. I have had Lancaster heart nut trees set out in
the fall bear next spring and have had hand-pollinated English walnuts
bear the third year. Apparently a year or two longer will be required
before they bear staminate flowers. Walnut trees certainly appear to
bear fully as young as apple trees, in fact sooner, as a class, than
apple trees which I set out at the same time that I did walnut trees.
Pecan trees appear to take about two or three years longer than walnuts
and hickories several years longer than pecans. On the other hand
top-worked hickory trees bear about as soon as young transplanted
Persian walnuts. Hazels with me have taken about as long as Persian
walnuts but I think that they are more rapid in most instances. The soil
of most of my place is quite heavy, walnuts, pecans and hickories doing
finely. I am inclined to believe that a lighter soil would be fully as
good if not better for hazels.
_Stocks:_ The varying rapidity of growth of trees of the same variety
has been noticeable and has caused more than passing notice for one can
not help thinking that such varying rapidity of growth would be likely
to cause equal variations in bearing. It would seem as if this must be
caused by the variations in the stocks for the scions all come from the
same tree. Inspection of seedling trees has shown that some grow much
faster than others. If normal growth trees are considered, trees making
less than half this are numerous and those making double are rather
rare. Apparently we have in seedling stocks enough variations in vigor
of growth to account for the variations in growth noticed in grafted
trees of the same variety. Mr. Jones tells me that he expects to discard
nearly 50% of his seedlings because not vigorous enough to bud or graft.
Then there are some trees which seem incapable of taking grafts or buds.
It would seem very desirable to select rapid growing stocks that will
take buds and grafts readily and use those but this will mean working
out means of propagating them by cuttings, layers, or some asexual
method and these have not been well worked for nut trees, other than
hazels, although some work has been done on it.
The above conclusions are largely from the limited observations I have
made on my small place. None are very new for I believe I have heard all
of them advanced before, but observing them myself has fixed them in my
mind in a way that they could not have been otherwise. Many of them have
been corroborated by others. For example, Mr. Jones has shown me walnut
trees of the same size set out at the same time, some severely pruned
and others not, where the severely pruned ones in two or three years had
so far outstripped the others as to make it very noticeable and it
seemed as if the difference in vigor would continue. On the other hand
it is possible that there may be points where the experience of others
differs from mine.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: There is one more address this morning. That is by Doctor
Morris, the subject being, "Pioneer Experience and Outlook."
DOCTOR MORRIS: Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:
Lord Byron said that the reason why he did not commit suicide was
because he was so curious to know what was going to happen next. For any
one to do pioneer work in almost any department of human activity there
are two essentials: First, he must be more or less stupid and not read
the handwriting on the wall; and in the second place he must be very
obstinate and persistent. Given those qualities one may succeed in
pioneer work in almost any department of life.
Something over twenty years ago I had the idea of putting upon my
country place every kind of American tree that could be grown there. I
planned to occupy a little time away from professional work and attend
to this. As I began to acquire information the subject grew so rapidly
that I found it would be necessary to give up my profession wholly and
employ several assistants in order to carry out this idea. Consequently
I cut down my ambition to include only coniferous and nut trees. This
study in turn grew so rapidly that I found it necessary to cut out
everything except nut trees, and then I found that one might devote his
entire life to the subject of hickories alone to the exclusion of all
other occupation.
In the beginning of the development of my nut trees there were failures
continually and it became interesting. Lord Byron found it interesting
to live in order to see what was going to happen next. My failures were
so interesting that I was very curious to know what was going to happen
next. I started in with a very large lot of shagbark hickory trees. I
had them grafted for me in the South. I think I expended something like
$250 for that lot. I had it grafted upon the common hickory stock of the
South. They lived through the winter, the summer, and the next winter,
but in the spring, following a few warm days and a freeze, the bark of
every one of those common stocks exploded, fairly, and the entire lot
was lost, not one tree lived.
A great many trees that I brought from farther south, from California
and from the Pacific coast, all died. I learned then that the climate
there will allow trees from western Europe to grow because they have the
Japanese current furnishing similar conditions of climate; that trees
from that part of the country would be mostly failures here in the East;
and that trees for the East should come from northeast Asia where
climatic conditions are similar.
I learned also that trees from a distance, not accustomed to our soil
and climate, would not adapt themselves readily, and it would require
long selection and breeding to acclimatize or adapt to our soil trees
which were developed under differing conditions. Out of a large lot of
things that I got from Chili, hoping that their altitude would
correspond to our latitude, nothing grew. Consequently by elimination of
things that would not live I gradually arrived at the conclusion that it
is best for any locality to develop the species, or a like kind of tree,
which belong to that locality. Well, they say, how about the prairies
that are treeless? Of course we have there to deal with a question of
fire that from time immemorial has swept the prairies covered with grass
and has been halted only when it reached the regions of established
forests; so that on the prairies I have no doubt we may have great
groves of nut trees flourishing. In my locality the trees that are
indigenous are the ones which do the best, and that is the line for
perseverance.
Then I took up hybridization. I found there were many disappointments.
It was difficult to be sure of securing reliable pollen and of getting
it to the flowers at the right time and surely, so that we would have
good hybrids instead of parthenogens which sometimes develop as the
result of the female not making fusion with its mate.
On one occasion I remember I covered a lot of branches with large bags
for pollenization, and going out a few days later to add pollen I found
a wren's nest with two eggs in one of my bags. Now if a wren could lay
two eggs in one of those bags the cross-pollenization was not likely to
be a success. In this work, however, I find that we have a tremendous
field opened up and one which might yield particularly to the ladies. It
is very pretty work, it is nice work. It includes idealism, speculation,
the idea of developing new trees, or trees that one has never seen
before. After many failures in hybridizing I find now that by following
rules it is simplified very much. Almost any one who is persistent
enough may learn eventually to hybridize very easily.
The question of labeling trees and of keeping track of different
specimens was one that gave me many disappointments. I would lose the
labels, lose the records, so I was not able to tell truthfully about
trees when visitors came to ask me about them. I know in one lot where I
had a lot of hybrid trees, each one marked with a stake and number, the
cow of a neighbor got over the fence into the field and the boy who came
after that refractory cow found that to pull up those stakes gave him
very convenient objects for throwing at the cow, and my labels were all
hybridized.
This sort of thing was the kind of disappointments that I had in early
experiences in growing nut trees. It is very essential, however, to keep
good records and I find now that the best way is to use a galvanized
iron rod with a metallic tag stamped with a machine and fastened on in
such a way that it will not be injured by any sort of use. These
galvanized rods, galvanized spring wire, are very durable if one is
careful about placing them on the trees. That experience in keeping the
labels was one which was very disappointing at first, but the question
has now been finally settled.
The number of animals and birds that like a good thing is perfectly
surprising, and in trying to raise my seedling nuts I have had great
difficulty and have had to take up a new department of natural history
in order to study the habits of rodents and of the birds. The crows have
been, perhaps, the worst enemy, after the field mice, of the seedling
nuts that were planted out in the field. But the crows may be kept away
if we put up bean poles with a simple cotton string stretched between
them at a distance of twenty-five or thirty feet. One of my friends who
took my advice said that it didn't work, that he had not only put up the
string but had fastened a piece of tin onto the string. That is just
where he made a failure. The crows sized up the situation immediately.
They sat on the fence and looked it over and made up their minds that
those things were not meant for them, and then they went in and
destroyed his grain. But a simple string between the poles will keep the
crows guessing, and that alone will suffice to keep them out of the
grain, nuts, or anything else.
These are a few rambling remarks which come to my mind, but still they
belong to the experiences that we have in getting things under way in
our experimental work. As to the outlook, there is no doubt whatsoever
but that any man who is interested in the subject, who loves trees and
loves plants, can manage all the problems. We shall eventually have
horticulturists and amateur gardeners who will raise all of this great
new food supply without difficulty.