idea theoretically. I happen to see one of my neighbors in Connecticut
here in the audience. He remembers when I tried to be public-spirited
and set out a number of fruit trees around the borders of my place, in
order that the passerby might have some fruit. What happened was that
not only the passerby wanted fruit, but he wanted it early, and he
brought others from a distance who wanted fruit. They broke down the
trees, and also entered my premises and carried off my private supply
having been attracted by my roadside bait. I wanted to beautify the
highway for a mile and set out 3,000 pine trees. After they had grown to
look pretty, people came in automobiles and carried them off. These
people could not think of helping to set out roadside trees but when
someone else had done it they came and lugged off the trees.
So long as we are in a semi-civilized state, we cannot talk about
beautifying our roads, as does Germany. Germany has set an example of
efficiency for the entire world, no matter what your opinion may be as
to the present conflict. At the present time she is perhaps believing
that she is carrying on a utility crusade. One of the German methods is
to line the roadways with fruit-bearing trees, including nut trees, in
such a way that the income pays the taxes for some villages. But they
are under government control.
MR. POMEROY: Dr. Morris's suggestion is very good in regard to
marking seedlings. Of course his office is in New York City, though his
farm is in Connecticut and New York has a law which fills the bill. A
customer can get a complete history of the tree from his nurseryman. If
from a barren tree, he must so state. I think this state is about the
only state that has such a law.
One other thing. The first big battle fought between the Germans and the
Belgians was on a highway along ten miles of which stood Persian walnut
trees, and I have often wondered how much damage was done to the trees.
THE PRESIDENT: I will ask the secretary to read the motion Dr.
Morris incorporated in his talk.
THE SECRETARY: "No ungrafted nut tree of any sort shall be sent
out under a name for propagation purposes except with the statement that
it is a seedling."
MR. LITTLEPAGE: That is a matter which I imagine will come
before the executive committee, and I would suggest that it be left in
their hands and worked out by them. With Dr. Morris's consent I would
refer this to that committee.
MR. POMEROY: Just because a tree has been grafted, why is all
this necessary? The nurseryman is bound to tell from what it is taken.
That is covered by the law. He need not be even a buyer, merely a
prospective buyer. What I want to bring out is this. Suppose a
nurseryman here in this state sells a tree,--he must have a permit
before he can do it; he cannot send even a twig through the post office
otherwise. I don't see if a bud is taken from a tree and put on a black
walnut tree that it necessarily makes the bud that grows on the black
walnut tree any better than the parent.
DEAN BAKER: I told you I wanted to raise a discussion on this
subject. I really am a dyed-in-the-wool optimist. I am willing to
sacrifice some nut trees to laboratory purposes for the benefit of our
young men. We want the individuals to profit by the education. This
should be an educational society.
THE PRESIDENT: I will ask the vice-president to take the chair.
MR. REED: At the last meeting a committee was appointed to
report on the Persian walnut, of which committee the president was the
chairman, and will make his report at this time.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I think you
appreciate the chaos at the present moment in the status of
investigation of the Persian walnut. When Professor Fagan reports that
the number of trees in Pennsylvania exceeds 2,000, most of which he has
not seen, this chaos is evident.
The varieties propagated in the eastern United States are experiments. I
have done nothing that will compare with Mr. Fagan's work, but have
found certain interesting facts.
First: I found in Maryland a Persian walnut which does not come into
leaf until June. When the cherries are ripe, it is just coming into
leaf; and it has borne regularly for fifteen years.
While going through the orchards at Grenoble in France, I asked a man
"What is the matter with that tree?" This was on June 9th. "There is
nothing the matter," he told me, "it is only coming into leaf." I want
to call your attention to possibilities of a hybrid of that tree and the
Maryland tree. The Persian walnuts of the Grenoble tree were of good
quality, but low yield. The Maryland tree is a heavy yielder but of
third quality.
In this matter of variety, I want to emphasize Dr. Morris's point of the
great possibilities of the oriental walnut. Great results are likely to
be attained from the introduction of these species into Pennsylvania,
New York and elsewhere in this country.
Second: What is a good walnut? They may be divided into three qualities:
1. Positively sweet.
2. Neutral.
3. Those with a little bitterness in the skin of the kernel, which
develops as you masticate the kernel.
Most of those which distinguish themselves for good yield here in the
East are unfortunately of the third class. I have taken samples of these
to commercial dealers. One of the largest walnut buyers in Philadelphia
classifies the Grenobles as first class. The California crop he classes
second quality but pays more for it. Most of the California quality is
second class. Eastern nuts are mostly third class. I found one in New
Jersey which was almost first class.
First quality apples are not grown for the market. They are consumed by
the growers. They know the market would not pay for them. They sell
mostly the second and third class apples. The present market for nuts is
like the apple market. The nut dealer told me to send along nuts, like
several eastern samples, and he would sell them, even though they were
third quality. He has assured me that if he had the nuts he could sell
them.
Investigate every good nut tree you hear about. Very good results may
come from this. You don't know what you may learn by doing so. If you
will ask about it every time you hear of a good nut tree, good will be
accomplished. We are going to keep on finding these trees for the next
twenty-five years. Will you help the process along?
* * * * *
MR. POMEROY: In the smaller towns, where the grocery men buy of
the boys, if they will ask them about the trees from which they get good
nuts you will locate many good trees.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I understand in California they have been
planting walnut trees for thirty to forty years but have never yet
agreed on the matter of varieties. One of the very practical questions
before this association is the determination of the best varieties to
set. I would like to hear from some of the members on this question of
varieties.
MR. RUSH: I would like to say a word about this matter. We
cannot be too severe on quality. We might ask ourselves today what is
the matter with the peach crop. The physical changes and conditions are
responsible not only for the peach crop, but the nut crop as well. The
weather has unfortunate effects on certain varieties of the walnut. So
we must make allowance for weather conditions.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Excuse me for butting in so often. I should
like to ask Mr. Rush a question. I highly respect his judgment. If he
were planting a walnut orchard of 500 trees in the latitude between
Philadelphia and Washington, I should like to know what varieties he
would plant and in what proportion?
MR. RUSH: Well, that is a question that would require a little
consideration. Now we have some very good varieties. You have a very
good variety known as the Holden. I would like to know more of it. One I
would choose would be the Nebo, and another originating on my place, and
called the Rush, is productive and good quality and a most excellent
pollenizer. We have another fine walnut in Adams County, introduced by
John Garretson, from California. Then we have other types, the
Lancaster, and the Alpine. Hall, in Erie County is noted for its good
size, not strictly a commercial nut. Something like the Holden,
Garretson and Rush Parisienne are my favorite varieties.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I think we are getting some really valuable
information now. We must plant the best varieties we have. I think we
might start with Mr. Rush's list and have the varieties analyzed. I
think this will be of use when we are called upon to advise people.
THE SECRETARY: If I were going to make a choice of the
varieties of walnuts, I should name the Franquette, Mayette and
Parisienne. Mr. Rush says that his Rush variety is practically a
Parisienne. The Garretson walnuts seem to be of these varieties. These
have been producing good crops of nuts. It is my opinion that at this
time these are the most promising varieties for use in the East.
THE PRESIDENT: I wish to say that a tree of the Mayette variety
or one greatly resembling it has been living in Pennsylvania for fifteen
years and bearing crops. There is little doubt that the Mayette is the
best walnut on the market.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, is there anything really surprising, when
you consider the origin of these trees? These varieties originally came
from the Grenoble district in France. France lies north of the 42d
parallel. This is the northern boundary of Pennsylvania and runs through
Michigan. But France has a maritime climate.
THE PRESIDENT: If I may act as geographer for a moment, there
are two things in connection with the foreign climate. The maritime
climate is cooler in summer and milder in winter. Over here fungus
invasion does great harm but the climate there is detrimental to the
fungi and keeps them in subjection. I call attention again to that
Mayette in Pennsylvania for sixteen years, as a matter of fact, not
theory, an achievement on which we can act with some certainty.
The hour for adjournment has come. This afternoon at 1:30 we have been
invited to visit nut trees in the neighborhood in automobiles kindly
loaned for the occasion. Tonight at 8 we meet here again.
THE SECRETARY: I want to say a word in regard to Mr. Baker's
remarks. The purpose of this association is chiefly educational, but in
order that we may be educational, and in order that we may give the man
in the street some definite information, in response to his inquiries,
we ourselves must first investigate these matters, such as the question
of varieties. This is a point that appeals to me particularly. People
ask me what nuts to plant, and how to plant them. We must advise them.
One thing that we may tell them is that it is advisable to plant about
the grounds high priced, grafted nut trees. It is not advisable to plant
high class, grafted trees along fences or roads. They will usually do
badly or fail. Grafted trees require careful attention and proper
treatment. The proper thing to do along fences and roadsides is to graft
the native nut trees already established there, or to plant native nuts
abundantly in order that later we may have established nut trees to
graft.
Adjournment at 12:30 P.M.
WEDNESDAY EVENING SESSION
The evening session was called to order at 8:40 P.M. by
President Smith. The total attendance of the evening was approximately
one hundred.
The evening was devoted to two stereopticon lectures, the first being
slides by Professor Fagan, illustrating the lecture of the afternoon on
the "Nut Survey of Pennsylvania."
This was followed by an illustrated lecture by Dr. J. Russell Smith,
President of the Association.
NEW TREE CROPS AND A NEW AGRICULTURE
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
DR. J. RUSSELL SMITH, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
We have all heard of the scientist who made a discovery and exclaimed,
"Thank God! This can't be of any possible use to anybody!" This useless
aspect of science in a world with so many possibilities of service does
not appeal to me. I hope that science and service and utility may go
hand in hand.
The conservation of natural resources, the creation of new ones is a
topic which combines the qualities of science, service and utility.
Of all our resources the soil is the most vital. Most of the others have
some possibility of substitution, but for the soil there is no
substitute. The forest burned to destruction can rise again if the soil
remains. Some examination will show that the most vital part of the
whole conservation matter is the preservation of the soil, and that
soil conservation is 99 per cent the prevention of erosion. Soil robbery
by unscientific agriculture can go to its most extreme lengths and
reduce the soil to the depths of non-productivity; but scientific
agriculture can, by the addition of humus and some fertilizer, soon
restore such soil to high fertility. In these conditions of exhaustion
the loss to fertility by soil leaching is small, because of the
non-soluble character of the earth particles. Thus experiments at
Cornell have shown that in the average foot of top soil from rather
unproductive farms in a low state of production, there was plant food
sufficient for 6,000 crops of corn. We have all seen a single thunder
shower remove from a hillside corn field the fertility adequate for the
making of a hundred crops of corn.
American agriculture is peculiarly soil destructive. Three of our
greatest money crops--corn, cotton and tobacco--require that the earth
shall, throughout the summer, be loose and even furrowed with the
cultivator, which prepares the ground for washing away, and by its
furrow starts the gully. The second factor in this peculiarly
destructive agriculture is the fact of our emphasis of rainfall in
summer. Third in the list of factors of destruction is the rainfall
unit, the thunder shower, which dumps water, hundreds of tons per hour
on every hillside acre. A little examination of the facts and careful
inclusion of the time element will show that the old-world saying,
"After man the desert" is quite as true in the United States as in
Europe and Asia, where it has been so fearfully proven in the seats of
ancient empire.
This soil resource destruction from erosion leads to the destruction of
other valuable resources. We appear to be upon the eve of an epoch of
waterway construction and experiment. The greatest injury to waterways
is channel filling by down-washed mud. Pittsburgh has been praised
highly for the energetic action of her Chamber of Commerce and citizens
in appropriating money for the careful survey of drainage basins above
the river, with the idea of obtaining knowledge preparatory to the
building of reservoirs to check floods. They have forty-three reservoir
sites, and the early construction of nineteen of these reservoirs is
recommended.
A part of the reservoir plan, however, is that the land above it shall
not be cultivated; otherwise the erosion from the tilled fields will
promptly fill up the reservoirs, as the present condition of many
eastern mill dams so emphatically attests. The carrying out, therefore,
of the Pittsburgh reservoir plan necessitates the exodus of hundreds of
thousands of farmers and the restriction of many farming communities to
forest or a new type of agriculture.
We cannot spare all this land from tillage. But fortunately, there are
other ways of using it. Land east of the 100th meridian may be divided
into three classes: First, which in the absence of better estimate
covers one third of the area, is hopeless for agriculture because of
hills and rocks. This is mostly now in rather poor forests. The second
class, also covering one third--by the same estimate--has been cleared
for agriculture, but is so hilly and eroded as to be in a low state of
fertility and production. The third class, the remaining third of the
land, is suited to the plow and should be plowed and cultivated much
more intensively than it now is.
For the first and second classes of land we need a new type of
agriculture, the crop-yielding trees. Our agriculture, which depends so
largely now upon those members of the grass family which we call grains,
is the result of accident, not the result of science. At the dawn of
history man had practically all of these small grains, which have
probably resulted from the selection and seed saving of the primitive
woman, as the race came up from savagery into agriculture. This
primitive woman in selecting plants for her garden and little field, did
not pick out the best of nature, or the most productive, or the
ultimately most promising; she picked annuals because they gave the
quickest return. And man has left alone and practically unimproved for
all these thousands of years nearly all the great engines of nature, the
crop-yielding trees, such as the walnut, hickory, pecan, acorn yielding
oak, chestnut, beech, pinenut, hazel, honey locust, mesquite, screw
bean, carob, mulberry, persimmon, paw-paw, etc., because their slow
growth has deterred us from any attempts at improving them. We have
depended upon and greatly improved the quick growing grains, which spend
most of their short life in putting up a frame work which promptly
perishes; whereas the tree endures like a manufacturing plant. Further
than this, most of the grains have a period of crisis, during which they
must receive water or the harvest is almost a failure. Thus corn must
within a short period receive moisture, or it is too late to produce
even husks.
Yet trees are the great engines of nature. The mazzard cherry tree,
growing wild throughout the southeastern United States, often yields
twenty bushels of fruit. Fifty bushels and upwards are often obtained
from the mature apple trees. The walnut yields its bushels, the
persimmon breaks with fruit.
Europe shows us an agriculture making considerable use of crop-yielding
trees other than the ordinary fruits. Mr. C. F. Cook, of the Department
of Agriculture, is the authority for the statement that Mediterranean
agriculture began on the basis of tree crops, and there are now about
twenty-five such crops in the Mediterranean basin. The oak tree
furnishes five, cork bark, an ink producing gall which enters into the
manufacture of all our ink, the Valonia, or tannin-yielding acorn, which
is an important export from the Balkan states; the truffle worth several
million dollars to France; and lastly the acorn. In the Balaeric Isles,
I am informed, certain acorns are more prized than chestnuts and the
trees yielding them are grafted like apples, and the porker is turned
out to make his living picking up acorns where they fall, and enriching
his diet with a special kind of fig grown in the same way for his use.
We Americans are too industrious; we insist upon putting a pig in a pen
and then waiting upon him. The pistachio, the walnut, the filbert and
the chestnut are all important tree crops in parts of the Mediterranean
countries and many American travelers have probably seen the chestnut
orchards of France and Italy, which I have found by examination are able
to make the rough and unplowable mountain-side, bristling with rocks, as
valuable as the level black prairies of Illinois.
The natural objection may be raised that the utilization of so much
hilly land in fruit and nut-yielding trees will give such supplies of
new food that people will refuse to use them. The above objection is
well founded; but swine, sheep and poultry eat what is given them. I
have an example of a farmer of Louisiana, who planted a hillside to
mulberry trees. The mulberries held the ground in place by their roots
and dropped their black harvest to the ground through three months of
summer, and the hogs gathered them up and converted them into pork worth
$12 an acre, without any effort on the part of the owner. The mulberry
area in the United States is probably close to a million square miles.
Over most of the region south of Mason and Dixon's Line the persimmon is
a hated tree weed; yet it stands by the millions in fields and fence
rows, fairly bending down with a full crop of fruit every other year,
which is much sought after by the opossum and other wild animals, and
eaten when possible by the American porker from September, the end of
the mulberry season, until March, for the persimmon has a habit of
dropping its fruit through the long winter period. The oak whose acorns
probably made the pig what he is, is almost neglected in America; yet
for ages the Indians of the Pacific coast have made their bread from
acorns of two species of oak, one of which is now gathered by the
farmers of California, put into their barns and bought and sold as
stock food. The beechnut and the hickory nut are rich and much prized
swine food.
Legumes, of which there are many species, can be grown between
nut-yielding trees to maintain the fertility of the soil through the
nitrogen gathering nodules upon their roots.
As it often seems desirable to cultivate trees of this character where
possible, the tree crops agriculturist is above all others able to
adjust his crop and the one device that permits the tillage of hilly
land--terracing. Terraces interfere with machinery which is so
increasingly essential in the cultivation and harvesting of the present
crops. But terracing interferes least of all with the tree crop
agriculture, because the trees can stand in the terrace rows and make a
fortunate combination of the heavy yielding tree crops and the soil
preservation through terracing.
We have an interesting example of tree crop productivity in Hawaii,
where the agaroba was introduced from Peru in the last century. It has
now spread until it covers considerable area with forests, and
information from the Hawaiian Experiment Station is to the effect that
it is now the mainstay of the dairy industry of the island. The annual
crop of four tons of big beans to the acre can be and is ground into a
highly nutritious meal food selling at $25 a ton, an agriculture which,
for ease of operation and richness of return, puts Illinois to shame,
for, in addition to the $100 worth of animal food, there is a ton of
wood per acre every year.
The tree crop agriculture seems to hold the possibility of letting the
worst third of our soil (Class 1 as mentioned above) become as
productive as the best land (Class 3), while (Class 2) the hill land can
probably be doubled in productivity. This is a goal well worthy of much
endeavor on the part of the plant breeder.
Tree crops offer equal possibilities for the arid land. The grains with
their period of crisis are an uncertain dependence on land of such
uncertain rainfall as exists in the United States west of the 100th
meridian. This is attested by the fact that some of this land has been
settled three times and abandoned twice to the wreckage of hundreds of
thousands of private fortunes. Yet the tree with its far-reaching roots
and ability to store energy can survive in much of this area where
grains are so very uncertain. The mesquite, yet a tree weed over much of
this area, has one species which produces a nutritious seed that has
been used for bread stuff by unknown generations of Indians. The screw
bean, a legume, with a nutritious seed, grows from El Paso to the
Imperial Valley; while the broad leafed honey locust, with a seed
closely akin to that of the carob, or St. John's Bread, will also grow
over wide areas in the arid southwest. Five varieties of the small but
productive wild almond have been found by a Government botanist growing
upon the shores of Pyramid Lake; while Frank Myer, Plant Explorer of the
Department, brings back from Turkestan accounts of wild almonds
producing good fruit on mountain slopes with a rainfall of 8 inches a
year. These productive plants, several of them legumes, adjusted by
nature to this region, with allied species in other continents, seem to
hold before the plant breeder the possibilities of hundreds of thousands
of square miles of Western orchard ranges of high productivity, rather
than the present would-be grass-ranges of low and declining
productivity.