ARTICLE I. These by-laws may be amended at any Annual Meeting by a
two-thirds vote of the members present provided such amendments shall
have been submitted to the membership in writing at least thirty days
prior to that meeting.
Proceedings
44th Annual Meeting
Northern Nut Growers Association
Rochester, New York
August 31--September 1, 1953
MONDAY MORNING SESSION
PRESIDENT BEST: We are opening this 44th Annual Meeting of the Northern
Nut Growers Association with this historic gavel which was made from
wood grown in the Thomas Littlepage pecan grove near Washington, D. C.
Opening each session with this gavel has been a custom of this
organization for many, many years.
We are very anxious to have you folks meet some of the men who have made
our meeting possible here at Rochester. I would first like to introduce
Mr. W. Stephen Thomas, Director of the Rochester Museum of Arts and
Sciences. Mr. Thomas.
MR. THOMAS: Thank you, Mr. Best.
We are always glad to welcome groups such as yours. You represent a
unique organization to us with interests not in our field. We are a
public institution, and are glad to have you here.
I feel there are many things of interest in this museum and in our
program to interest you, because you are horticulturists and people
interested in the out-of-doors.
This museum is owned by the City of Rochester. By the way, there are
only about 12 museums throughout the country that are supported as we
are. We get 98 per cent of our funds from the City of Rochester. It is
not endowed. It is the people's museum. In the exhibit upstairs are
three dimensional models showing the evolution of the Genesee Valley in
New York from early times to the present. Here you will see a beautiful
panorama of what it looked like two hundred million years ago right
where we are sitting and standing now when the seas overlay the area
during the Devonian and Silurian times. We have reconstructed the little
sea creatures that lived in the rocks in their natural colors.
Another exhibit is the Indian story, primitive man, not just before the
white man came, but going back 1500 years. On the top floor you may see
how the pioneer man worked here as a woodcutter and running flour mills
and how the city came about. The whole story of our region is in the
museum.
But more important than these exhibits is what we do through the
educational system; adult lectures, and so forth. That is just a little
background of our work. I know you have your important business at hand,
but I hope you will have a little time to view the exhibits. We want to
help you in any way we can. If there is anything we can do, don't fail
to ask.
PRESIDENT BEST: Thank you, Mr. Thomas. Most of you met Mr. Wilbur Wright
last night out at the park. He is going to make an address of welcome
from the City of Rochester and from the parks. Mr. Wright.
MR. WRIGHT: Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the City of Rochester and
the Park Department, we want to welcome you to The Friendly City. We
want you to feel that Rochester has its hand out for a wide open welcome
for anything we can do to make you happy while you are here.
The parks are particularly interested in the fact that you have chosen
Rochester as your conference city for 1953. The parks, as you know, are
a good deal like the museum. They are botanical collections in the heart
of the city, the money coming from the city; the taxpayers pay the bill.
We have a tremendous botanical collection here, and are known the
country over for our lilac and other collections.
We have, in the past two years, appointed Bernard Harkness to take
charge of our plant collections, with the title of taxonomist. It took
quite a bit of backing to get Civil Service to break down and make such
a title. There wasn't such a title in the State of New York, and they
couldn't understand why they should give it.
Mr. Grant is another good Cornellian coming along as Assistant
Superintendent of Parks, and he is, again, looking after the maintenance
and upkeep of the various plant materials that we have.
We have a very large organization here, the Parks Division includes the
cemeteries, 90,000 street trees, 56 playgrounds, and about 2,000 acres
of parks. Our peak employment is 756 people. All-in-all we have a
tremendous amount of interest in our parks, and they are increasing. We
are exchanging plants with about 25 foreign countries right now, and we
expect to expand that now with the various facilities we are setting up
at our new herbarium, which you visited last night.
We are proud of Rochester, and the park system. We are doing our best to
continue the excellent work of Dunbar, Laney, and Slavin who built up
the park collections. Our aim is to increase the collections, and make
the park system better for the people to enjoy. We hope you have a fine
time while you are here. Thank you.
PRESIDENT BEST: Dr. MacDaniels, ex-president of our Association will
give our organization's response.
DR. MACDANIELS: Chairman Best, Director Thomas and Director Wright, I
don't know whether I am particularly well qualified for this particular
assignment, but I am certainly very happy to express the thanks of the
Northern Nut Growers Association for the excellent cooperation in
arranging the facilities which we have found here in Rochester. Few of
us can recall any situation in which the Association has been helped all
along the way, as they have been here, and we feel most welcome in this
truly friendly city.
Before the meeting I thought I was going to be able to claim a sort of
paternal interest in the training of Director Wright in that he studied
just prior to the war in the Department of Floriculture and Ornamental
Horticulture at Cornell University where I am stationed. Although we saw
a good deal of him after the war, he came directly here, so I can't say
that I knew him "way back when" he was an undergraduate student. Still
we do have a proprietary interest in all Cornellians, and we like to see
the home team make good as has certainly been the case here.
Fortunately, Ithaca is close enough to Rochester, so that our classes
can come to the Rochester parks on field trips where we have always
received the most friendly cooperation and help just as the Northern Nut
Growers is receiving today. I assure you that we are most grateful.
PRESIDENT BEST: We will proceed with the business of the organization.
On the Resolutions Committee which will give us resolutions for adoption
at our final night session, I appoint Mr. Davidson, Mr. Allaman, Mr.
Oakes and Mr. Snyder.
The next item of business is the election of a Nominating Committee.
This committee is to nominate the officers which will be elected at our
next annual meeting. Nominations are now in order.
DR. MCKAY: I nominate Mr. Machovina.
MR. DAVIDSON: Mr. Silvis.
DR. CRANE: I'd like to nominate Mr. Salzer.
MR. DAVIDSON: I think Dr. Crane ought to be nominated.
MR. STOKE: I nominate Mr. Kyle from Iowa.
DR. DOWELL: I move nominations be closed.
PRESIDENT BEST: Is there a second to Dr. Dowell's motion that
nominations be closed? (Motion seconded and passed.)
PRESIDENT BEST: Nominations are closed. Those in favor of this list, Mr.
Kyle, Dr. Crane, Mr. George Salzer, Mr. Silvis, Mr. Machovina, for
Nominating Committee for next year make it known by saying "Aye."
(Chorus of "ayes") Opposed? (None.)
PRESIDENT BEST: May we have the report of the Program Committee. They
have been at work, we can see that. The evidence is on every hand. Dr.
McKay?
DR. MCKAY: The program you have in your hands represents the work of the
Program Committee. The work of the Program Committee is done prior to
the meeting and I want to say that this year I really did have fine
cooperation from the members and from the members of the committee in
responding to requests for numbers on the program. That always makes the
work of a committee easy. Because of this fine cooperation I can say
truthfully that the effort on my part was relatively small.
As all of you know, we now have a larger group of people to draw from
for our programs than formerly. We always go back, of course, to our
tried and true members who, year after year, give us numbers for the
program, but we also like to give the new members a chance and recruit
from new sources whenever possible. I haven't analyzed the program
enough to know exactly how many new members are listed on the program
this year, but I think you will find a few, and as the organization
continues to grow, it will be desirable to use these new sources of
information for items on the program as much as we can.
PRESIDENT BEST: That's fine. I don't think we can emphasize that too
much, this new-member proposition.
We are ready now for the report of the Secretary, Mr. Chase.
MR. CHASE: About the only report that I have to make is one that was
prepared by Mr. Carl Prell, and I don't see why in the world he didn't
give it, since it's such a fine job of getting together the information
on membership. I am going to try to sum this up for you, in order that
you will know the progress we made in the membership drive to which so
many of you contributed.
On the books as of today we have 1013 paid up members. (Applause.) In
addition to that, we have 15 more who will begin membership the
beginning of our fiscal year, and in addition to that, there are ten
more too new to be acknowledged yet. So we are in pretty good shape on
membership.
New members total is 455, which is, I think, just about double from last
year, if my memory serves me correctly. Leader in the members by state
is our good, old friend Ohio with 126. They produced 42 new members this
year. Second on the list is Illinois, with 102, and they came up with 38
new members.
DR. MACDANIEL: I think this is the first year we have had a hundred
members from any state.
MR. CHASE: Pennsylvania has 83, with 26 new members. New York 78, with
27 new members. Indiana 70 with 31 new members. Michigan 58 with 28 new
members. That covers the top six states.
During the year we lost 71 members. That breaks down to five deceased,
12 resigned and 54 that we haven't heard from. Out of the 12 that
resigned, seven were one-year old and only 5 older members. Now, of the
54 not heard from, 40 were one-year members and 14 were older members.
Total loss is 71, actually. We had 14 reinstatements this year.
Does anyone have a question on membership? There are quite a few folks
in the Association who are really working hard to get new members, and a
great number have come up with at least one. But, actually, I believe,
Carl, it's a very small percentage of the membership that's really
working, is that correct?
MR. PRELL: I am afraid so.
MR. CHASE: And the 71 lost, you considered about normal, didn't you? We
have to figure on losing about 10 per cent. Well, we can't afford to
lose a hundred.
I don't have too much to report as Secretary, except we might briefly
review this hectic year since the little sub-zero walnut story appeared
in the Farm Journal. In June a year ago I received a request for an
article on the hardy English walnut. I handled it as a routine request
and sent it to the Farm Journal. Of course, Joe McDaniel was secretary,
and I referred all the interested readers to him for further
information. The first batch of mail hit Joe right after our meeting in
Rockport, and he had 1500 inquiries within two weeks. I forgot to warn
him that this might be coming up, and he went ahead and handled about
1500 of these inquiries, and then I don't know what happened to him, he
started sending them down to me. Between myself, my secretary, my wife,
and my boy we handled the other 4,000, and they are still, as Joe says,
actually coming in.
To handle that, took some of our funds as you see under "promotion
business", in the treasurer's report. The mimeographing was gratis, also
the assembling and mailing, but the postage we had to pay for.
So all we have to show for that is about how many members, Carl?
MR. PRELL: I will say 200.
MR. CHASE: That's about right. As these inquiries came in we compiled
lists of names and sent them to Mr. Best. Then Mr. Best mimeographed a
letter and some other material, along with an application folder and
followed up these inquiries except the last 500. So we hit them once
with a three-page information sheet from the Secretary's office, then
Mr. Best at least once again with a follow-up letter, and out of almost
5,000 we get about 200 members, which is pretty good. And there are a
lot of other folks I know would join if somebody would contact them.
MR. CHASE: So ever since last October I don't know what side is up so
far as N.N.G.A. is concerned. I don't pretend it hasn't taken a good
deal of effort and a lot of time from some things that I should have
done, but I enjoyed doing it for the Association, and I have no regrets.
The only thing I am sorry about is that we didn't get 500 instead of
just 200 members.
PRESIDENT BEST: Thank you. Spencer. (Applause.) That's a fine report.
May we hear from our Auditing Committee, Mr. Silvis.
MR. SILVIS: The report of the Treasurer, which I have just had an
opportunity of inspecting, is the most professional document I have ever
had the pleasure of examining as a member of this Auditing Committee on
which I have been several times. And I think a testimonial is due our
Treasurer, Mr. Carl Prell, who has combined the rare talents of
bookkeeping and comparative reporting.
The Auditing Committee, composed of Sterling Smith, who was not able to
be here, Mr. Pape of Indiana, and myself, accept this report of Carl
Prell on behalf of this Northern Nut Growers Association,
PRESIDENT BEST: Let's have the Treasurer's report. Mr. Prell
Report of the Treasurer
CARL PRELL, _South Bend, Indiana_
At the beginning of this fiscal year it seemed likely to your Board of
Directors that the Association's investment in government bonds would
have to be converted into cash to meet the year's expenses. There was
barely enough money in the treasury to pay for the 42nd Annual Report,
which should have been billed the preceding year.
Normally, the treasurer collects only enough money to pay for one
report, plus the year's operating expenses. The problem this year was to
pay operating expenses and to discharge our obligation on two reports.
Anticipating this problem, and in an effort to correct recurring
deficits, your Board made plans back in 1951 for a drive to increase
membership. Some momentum was gained by the end of last year, which
carried into this year with increasing force. The result was the
substantial gain in membership reported upon by your Secretary--with a
substantial increase in revenue.
Membership drives, of course, are a mixed blessing. They may produce
more dues; but they certainly cost money. Our promotion expenditure
jumped from practically nothing in 1951 to $115 in 1952 to $620 in 1953.
However, our dues collection from new members thus gained, were more
than $1200 in 1953 alone--twice as much as was spent. And it is
important to note that an expenditure to gain a member is made only
_once_, whereas the member's dues continue year after year.
In any event, increased membership was a factor in keeping us from
cashing our reserves.
Another important factor was the very generous response of the
membership to a plea for Sustaining and Contributing dues. Thirty
percent of our old members responded with $10.00 payments for
Contributing Memberships or $5.00 payments for Sustaining Memberships.
This help was needed. It is deserving of special mention in this report.
One other factor contributed to successful operation this year, as it
has in other years. This factor does not show up in figures in a
financial statement for the simple reason that the figures are modestly
withheld from the treasurer. I refer to the out-of-pocket and unreported
expenditures of officers and committeemen, which expenditures sometimes
are sizeable. Certainly they were this year. The fact that such
contributions were made should be noted.
The sum total of all this is a financial showing for the year that may
be considered satisfactory. Our debts are all paid. No bonds were
cashed. Nothing was borrowed. And we have money in the bank.
At this time last year we had a cash balance of $1313.78. Today our
balance is $303.70. We spent $1,000 more than we took in. But we paid
for two Annual Reports. The lesser report cost $1200. If this were
subtracted from this year's business, where it does not belong, our cash
balance would be $1500.00. In short, on this year's business--even with
all its unusual expenses for promotion--our income was more than our
disbursements--by $200.00. This reverses the deficit trend of recent
years.
_RECEIPTS_
Membership Dues $3,638.05
Sale of Annual Reports 394.00
Advertising in Nutshell 110.00
Contributions 39.00
Interest on Government Bonds 37.50
_________
TOTAL $4,218.55
_DISBURSEMENTS_
42nd Annual Report (Urbana) $1,205.53
Printing (1000 copies) $1,050.00
Reporting (addi. billing) 97.05
Postage & Addressing 58.48
43rd Annual Report (Rockport) $1,760.72
Printing (1200 copies) $1,477.42
Envelopes, 800 19.60
Reporting 100.00
Postage & Addressing 163.70
The Nutshell
Printing, 4 issues 353.11
American Fruit Grower 39.00
73 Subscriptions at 50c 36.50
2 Subscriptions at 75c 1.50
1 Subscription at 1.00 1.00
Association Promotion 620.47
Application folder, printing 11,200 164.28
Stationery for Sub-Zero and V. P. campaigns 337.24
Mimeo Sub-Zero and follow-up, 1500 59.00
Postage, Things of Science 59.95
Secretary's Fee, 50c per member 517.50
1952-53 Fee to date 506.50
Balance of 1951-52 11.00
Stationery and Supplies 268.22
Secretary's Expense 315.87
Treasurer's Expense 143.21
Dues, American Horticultural Society 5.00
_________
TOTAL $5,228.63
Cash on deposit, First Bank, South Bend $ 303.70
Disbursements 5,228.63
_________
$5,532.33
On hand, August 18, 1952 $1,313.78
Receipts 4,218.55
_________
$5,532.33
U. S. Bonds in Safety Deposit Box $3,000.00
MR. PRELL: I am going to close right now with this information which the
Association, I think, should have. The membership promotion consisted of
a campaign called the "Vice-president's Campaign" sparkplugged by Mr.
Best. Thousands of letters were sent out through the vice-president's
and from the president's office to the membership. You may have received
some of them. In addition to that, thousands of other letters were sent
out to people who had responded to a story that appeared in Farm Journal
wanting to know about the Association. I can't calculate how many went
out, I have never been told, but I would guess about 5,000 of them. And
those all went out from Mr. Best's office. In addition, our
addressograph plate system was not in very good shape, due to the fact
the organization was too poor to keep it up. Mr. Best supplied
addressograph plates for the whole list.
I wrote to Mr. Best on April 27th, as I wanted all the bad news, and I
wrote to some other people. I said, "You have not yet rendered a bill
for postage on your mailing. Will you please make your request?" And he
answered,
"I was surprised you asked about the postage charge from here. It has
been my intent from the beginning of the campaign to carry the postage
charge myself."
Thank you very much.
PRESIDENT BEST: Carl, I know you have done a lot of hard work, and I'd
like to say for the organization that we do appreciate what you have
done for us.
I see Mr. Slate has come in back here. Mr. Slate have you a word from
the Publications Committee?
MR. SLATE: I have no formal report. The part of the Publications
Committee with which I am concerned is the proceedings. The speed with
which that job was done depends upon how fast the papers come in and the
transcript of the proceedings finished. The transcript is rather
complicated and a lot of things are said that shouldn't go into the
report. It takes a lot of work with the blue pencil to boil the material
down to something that's useful and worth paying a printing bill for.
One other thing that I should mention is the cost of mailing. I don't
know whether that has been mentioned previously or not. We had a little
difficulty with the Post Office Department. Carl Prell can tell you
about that.
PRESIDENT BEST: Yes, he did. I have heard only good reports of your fine
job. I think we all agree that it was a scholarly production.
Do we have anything from the Survey Committee?
Blossoming Habits of the Persian Walnut
H. F. STOKE, _Roanoke, Va._
The Survey Committee, as its project for the current year, has
undertaken a study of the blossoming habits of the Persian walnut. The
prime object of this study is to solve the problem of pollination, so
that the planter may be reasonably sure of a satisfactory crop, whether
his planting be a single tree or an orchard.
While this study has dealt exclusively with the Persian species,
_Juglans regia_, the habits and principles involved apply equally to all
walnut species.
In most plants the reproductive function inheres in a single bisexual
flower, consisting of both male and female elements. In walnuts, as well
as most other nuts, the male and female functions are performed by
unisexual flowers of very different type and appearance.
Both the male or staminate flower and the female or pistillate flower
spring from buds that are formed in the axils at the base of leaves of
the previous season's growth. In the Persian walnut they may be detected
as early as July. The staminate bud that forms the pollen-producing
catkin of the next season, can be distinguished by its checkered
appearance, something like a tiny pine cone. They occur in the axils of
the lower leaves of the shoot of the current season.
The pistillate bud, which produces the nut, occurs at or near the tip of
the growth of the current season. It can usually be distinguished from
leaf buds by its larger size and plumpness.
When these blossom buds develop the following season, the male or
staminate blossom assumes the form of a catkin, which elongates rapidly
a few days before maturity. As the pollen is shed, beginning at the
stem end, the pale yellow-green of the bursted pollen capsule turns dark
or black, proceeding to the tip of the catkin. This change readily shows
that pollen is shedding, which may be confirmed by touching such a
catkin with the tip of the finger, and noting the yellow pollen that
adheres, or rises in a tiny cloud.
Making note of the date when a given variety begins shedding pollen, and
the date when all catkins on the tree have opened, gives the period
during which that variety is effective as a pollinizer.
The female, or pistillate flower, does not, like the catkin, spring
directly from the wood of last season's growth, but occurs at the end of
the new growth of the current year, being preceded by a number of leaves
which nourish the young nut to maturity.
The pistillate blossom assumes the form of one or more tiny nutlets with
little sharp-pointed tips. When the blossom has become receptive to
pollen, each tip has separated into two separate pistils which spread
apart and present fresh, slightly sticky surfaces, which are known as
stigmas. This is the time that pollination can take place, which period
continues until the stigmas have lost their freshness and stickiness.
This period marks the time during which pollination can occur.
In many cases Persian walnut trees remain barren when planted alone, not
because of incompatibility between the pollen and the pistillate flower,
but because pollen shedding and receptivity do not occur at the same
time. Sometimes pollen shedding is over before pistils are receptive.
Such blooming is termed protandrous by botanists. In about an equal
number of cases the pistils lose their receptivity before pollen is
shed. Such blooming is termed protogynous. There are quite a number of
varieties, however, that mature both types of blossoms simultaneously,
in which the variety is self-fertile and will produce crops, even if
isolated from other trees of the species. Of these Hanson and Bedford
are representative. On some other trees there is some overlapping of the
shedding and receptive periods, enough to produce partial, but not full
crops.
Warm weather hastens blooming; cool cloudy weather retards it. A warm
spell may start blossoming early, but if broken by a cool wave the
period of bloom may be greatly extended.
A southern exposure with a light soil will cause a variety to blossom
earlier by some days than in the same locality in heavy soil. The
blossoming period is generally shorter in the North than in the South.
Climax, Michigan reports blooming beginning May 10 and ending May 31, a
period of 21 days. Millerton, N. Y., and Massillon, Ohio, report the
same.
Urbana, Ill., reports blooming beginning May 5 and ending June 1, a
period of 27 days.
At Roanoke, Va., the period begins April 9 and ends May 10, running 31
days.
At Greensboro, North Carolina, the season began April 2 and ended May 5,
a total of 33 days.
The report of Mr. Royal Oakes of Bluffs, Ill., is unique in the
shortness of the blossoming period, both of individual varieties and as
a whole. Blossoming began April 29 and ended (estimated) May 13, a
period of only 14 days. The reason may partly lie in the weather and
partly because the planting is on high bluffs overlooking the broad
Illinois River valley, affording excellent air drainage.
One major difficulty the Committee encountered in tabulating the reports
was the fact that so few of the same varieties were being grown by the
various reporters, making it difficult and sometimes impossible to
synchronize the blossoming period of the various varieties from
different places with sufficient accuracy. Because of this, two tables
have been prepared.
Table Number 1 shows named varieties, for the most part.
Table Number 2 shows varieties that are being propagated asexually, but
have not yet been given variety names. Seedlings not propagated by
budding or grafting, if recognized have been omitted because of
individual variability.
Each table consists of five vertical columns, earliest to the right,
successively later towards the left.
Varieties above the dividing line are shedding pollen at the time
varieties in the same column below the line are receptive. A variety
like Hanson, appearing in the same column both above and below the line,
is self-pollinizing. Varieties appearing in more than one column
indicate a long blooming period.
MR. BECKER: The Crath No. 1 I have been able to propagate is what Mr.
Neilson gave to me as Crath No. 1--I guess he called it Crath.
MR. STOKE: We may have to discard a number of other Crath No. 1's,
because the variation between them indicates a mixture of several clones
with the same name.
PRESIDENT BEST: The next thing to consider is this resolution which is
given word for word on page 26 of our 1952 annual report.
TABLE 1.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Broadview Bijur Carpathian D Beckman Parnell
Lancaster Cutleaf S Bayer Bedford Watt
McDermid Fort Custer Beckman Caesar
[symbol: male] Hanson Breslau Etter
Hilltop Caesar Eureka
Ill. No. 23 Eureka Lake
Mundt Grande S-24
Metcalfe James
Lancaster
Littlepage
McKinster
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Caesar Beckman Bijur Bayer Burtner
McKinster Bijur Cutleaf Bedford Dewey
Breslau Colby Broadview Etter
Fort Custer Fickes No. 22 Etter Eureka
Carpathian D Hanson Fort Custer Franquette
Colby Hilltop Grande Mayette
Cutleaf S Jacobs Ill. No. 23 L-2
[symbol: female] Fickes No. 22 James Lake
Hansen Lake Lancaster
Jacobs Lancaster Mundt
Keener S-24 S-24
McDermid Metcalfe Metcalfe
----------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE 2.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Early Medium early Midseason Medium late Late
S-6 S-6 S-12 S-22 S-17
[symbol: male] S-12 S-12 S-22 S-24 S-57
S-33 S-66 S-24 S-25
Littlepage S-XD S-25 S-29
S-29 S-32
S-33 S-41
S-35 S-45
S-66 S-66
S-XD
----------------------------------------------------------------------
S-5 S-5 S-6 S-6 S-7
[symbol: female] S-25 S-17 S-17 S-12 S-12
S-29 S-22 S-22 S-17 S-33
S-32 S-24 S-32 S-35
S-35 S-25 S-38 S-46
S-66 S-29 S-41 S-57
S-35 S-45 Littlepage
S-38 S-46
S-41 S-48
S-45 S-XD
S-48 Littlepage
S-XD
Littlepage
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It was made by Mr. Dowell of the Ohio group, although it is of interest
to every state that has an affiliated group or a chapter. Last year the
matter was referred to the Board for their consideration. The Board
carefully considered the resolution of the Ohio group, and the spirit of
the Dowell resolution, was approved.
The matter was finally left with a committee made up of J. C. McDaniel,
Mr. Carl Prell and Mr. Machovina. It is now in order to hear from these
men the changes necessary in our by-laws to create the right atmosphere
for the formation and operation of our state organizations, because we
do want to encourage them. After hearing the proposals, a motion will be
in order that they be approved. If approved, a year from now we will
vote on the amendments to the by-laws. Mr. McDaniel will give the report
of the committee.
DR. MACDANIEL: Your committee agreed on the suggested revision of Section
IX, which covers chapters and affiliations. If this meets with the
approval of the members here, final action must be deferred until the
45th annual meeting. Proposed amended Section IX of the by-laws reads as
follows:
"Section IX.--Chapters and Affiliations.
"Article 1. The Association shall encourage the formation of
regional groups of its members into chapters, which may elect their
own officers and organize local field days and other programs. Such
chapters need not limit their membership to members of the parent
organization. They may publish their proceedings and selected
papers in the proceedings of the parent society subject to review
of the Association's Committee on Publications.
"Article 2. Any independent association or society interested in
nut tree culture may affiliate with the Northern Nut Growers
Association by payment of an annual affiliation fee of $5.00.
Selected papers presented at the meetings of such an affiliated
society may be published in the proceedings of this society subject
to review of the Association's Committee on Publications."
It is the thought of this special committee that the new wording
simplifies and clarifies these two articles in regard to organization of
chapters or sections, and second, affiliation of independent
organizations. We thought we shouldn't limit it to affiliation of nut
growers associations as such but to extend affiliation possibility to
any society from garden club on up which is interested in nut growing.
And under Article 1, whether we call this state group a chapter or a
section doesn't seem to matter materially. I believe the Michigan group
prefers to be called a chapter. The Ohio group, I think, will take it
either way. At the present I think we have called that the Ohio Section
of the Northern Nut Growers Association.
Any discussion? I submit this proposed amendment, Mr. President, to be
printed in the 44th annual report for action at next year's meeting, the
45th annual meeting of this Association.
PRESIDENT BEST: Do we have a motion to accept the report? (The motion to
accept was made by Dr. Crane, seconded and passed without dissent.)
PRESIDENT BEST: I was in hopes that we wouldn't have time for the next
feature, but since some of the committees haven't reported yet, I am
afraid that we have. That is the address by the president.
President's Address
RICHARD B. BEST, _Eldred, Ill._
The task of setting down ideas for the reflection of the NNGA fills me
with consternation. My scanty rills of thinking are inadequate.
You remember the old Arabian tale of the poor student who was shut up in
an enchanted room in the bosom of the earth. You remember how the earth
opened only once each year. The student was waited upon by demons and
spirits who furnished deep and dark knowledge. When the door opened, the
student emerged, loaded with great lore and pertinent facts. Like this
Arabian student, by delving into antiquity and our old annual reports of
the NNGA, I have put together some thoughts from men living and dead.
Irving says: this pilfering disposition which some of us have may be
implanted in us for a good reason. Maybe through us pilferers or
borrowers, Heaven takes care of the seeds of knowledge and wisdom from
age to age. The worthwhile thoughts which some of our early members gave
us may be purloined by me and made to sparkle again in today's light,
even though the early members' general idea is obsolete.
So, just as nature has provided for the distribution of her plant
varieties through the maws of birds and animals, so it may be that
Heaven has provided for the fine thoughts of our old members to be
caught by us predatory individuals and made to bear fruit again in this
new day. Really this is one way we exist and go forward in our
organization.
A crop of "tares" which we read about in the scripture enriches the soil
for the next crop. As a forest dies, a new crop of trees spring up. Even
a dead tree gives rise to a whole creation of countless bacteria and
fungi.
So on "ad infinitum." Members who have talked and studied our problems
in the past have made possible our work here today. So, likewise, our
words will sleep with the others from whom we have borrowed. So, to
escape with a good conscience, to avoid having fingers pointed at me, of
hearing cries of--"you stole this from me," I will try to give credit
where credit is due.
Otherwise, I might be, figuratively speaking, stripped of my material
here piece by piece, and I would finally stand before you with hardly a
loin cloth of an idea which I could call my own.
There is a popular appeal to the nut business which most of us are
susceptible to,--like wanting to produce large nuts,--and of seeing the
first nut,--and to again gather nuts like we did as children. Ask a man
how large a nut he found and he will lie as he will about a fish he has
just caught.
Then, there is the romantic visionary who would transform the whole
universe into a sort of fairyland nut grove--where there are no insects,
diseases, or squirrels,--and where the nuts fall polished into open
bags.
Then, there are those of us--and I am one--who reasoning that the
"groves were God's first temples," flee to a twilight hill top or to a
forest shade, and, as Mr. Stokes said, "Sit humbly at the feet of the
great mother of us all. There is wisdom and healing in the shadow of her
wings."
We need this philosophical attitude to generate encouragement and
inspiration to withstand the hard knocks that we have had--and will have
coming. But, the NNGA must be more realistic and really do some
grappling.
Read the experiences which all our reports are filled with. Mr. G. A.
Miller on page 99 of the 1940 report handles this matter of success and
failure very well. We live on our successes and not on our failures. Nut
culture is pioneering, and it is well to be fully aware of the
possibility of failure so that we may be steeled for it when it comes.
Failure makes our successes sweeter.
Abraham Lincoln's life was a series of failures. Thomas Edison usually
failed. Plant breeders at our stations nearly always fail. But, once in
a while they succeed. In the nut business, if we succeed 1 in 10,000
times, success may be cheap at that.
Dr. MacDaniels stated so many important aspects of the NNGA that I want
to list his outline here and then simply hang some thoughts on the
skeleton of his report. For your own enjoyment and understanding, please
read again Dr. MacDaniels's address "The Forward Look," which is found
on page 27 of our 1952 report. I just mention his subjects and comment
on them for emphasis.
1. _Variety Evaluation_
The Ohio Nut Growers did a fine job of getting this job of evaluation in
the groove. Read about it on page 29 of the 1946 report. How many of us
here have wasted years on varieties that good evaluation might have
discarded, before we started to plant the nut.
2. _Judging Standards_
Which covers such things as--
(a) Sealing of nuts
(b) Recovery of halves
(c) Size, quality, etc.
Evaluation and judging include all those fine things we look for in a
nut.
3. _The Naming of Varieties_
Many of us have the same tree growing but calling it a different name.
4. _Securing New Varieties_
And getting them into as many channels. Mr. Wilkinson started several
"Chief" pecan trees last year and gave them all away. Chief is a fine
new variety of pecan. If we had a few more Ford Wilkinsons in this
organization, "God bless him," we wouldn't have so many problems.
5. _The Work of Individuals_
There is always the possibility of finding the "perfect nut," so we need
to continue our search through the earth for better varieties.
Scientific techniques must be applied before we breed better nuts.
We simply cannot have nuts put in our coffins expecting to continue our
work in the next world; so we need to do the next best thing to
this--that is of instructing our sons in the little we have found and
where our different varieties are planted. Then, some of our sons will
start where we left off.
Private research is playing a more important part in the world today.
Private research, using the large amount of basic research available,
could accomplish wonders in the nut world.
I am deeply grieved when I see vast estates which have had a fortune
spent in plantings that had little practical value. The men who spent
this money would gladly have furnished the land, labor, capital and
management for a nut breeding program had we been there to have sold
them on nut trees.
As Mr. Churchill said--"Too little and too late."
But members of the NNGA forget "what might have been." New estates are
developing and younger men are wondering how they can immortalize their
lives and work. Men pass away; their names perish from record and
recollection; their history is only a tale and their tombstone becomes a
ruin, but a good nut tree bearing a man's name, gives that name
immortality.
6. _Work of the Experiment Stations._
In the most practical vein, our basic research and most of our actual
breeding must still be done by our Experiment Stations.
Any nut project is a long-time program and it lends itself best to an
Experiment Station which is not set up on "a three score and ten" basis
like we as individuals are. Stations also have trained workers and
information at hand.
7. _The Real Aim of the NNGA_
Is better living on the farm and the improvement of the garden and
farmstead. Almost every farm and home, especially in the great corn
belt, needs shelter, shade trees, and the beautifying effect of trees.
Psalm 19:1-4 says: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the
firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth
speech and night unto night showeth knowledge. Their voice goes out
through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world."
8. _Nut Growing as a Hobby._
For people who like to see things growing, there are few projects that
yield more genuine satisfaction than hardy-adapted varieties of nut
trees.
Few people know what a heart nut or chestnuts are, and most have never
cracked a butternut. Most of us have never tasted a good persimmon, and
the paw-paw is practically unknown. We of the NNGA have something to
offer our members.
9. _Keep our Organization Solvent and Functioning._
All costs have increased. Our strength lies in our letters, reports and
information which we send to our membership. To keep this information
coming through letters and our annual report takes money.
10. _How to Finance the NNGA._ Dr. MacDaniels makes the following
suggestions after stating that we have reached the point where
increasing the dues will not give us more income, because of loss of
membership.
(a) Increase our number of members.
(b) Provide different types of membership to encourage contributions.
(c) Gifts.
(d) Special fund raising projects.
Increasing the membership seems to have the most promise in the future.
We are now at the cross roads. Do we want a strong, hard-hitting
organization, capable of doing these things which we know NNGA can do,
or do we want to ease down the other road to a whimpering senile
existence, in the plant society world?
We have increased our membership 40% the past year, and after hurriedly
congratulating ourselves, let us hurry on to this problem of setting
ourselves another goal for 1954.
What shall our new goal be? 30%, 50%, 100%--let us think "high." It is
easier to come down than to go higher.
I'd like to have someone's idea in the audience here. Does anybody have
some figure we should hit at? 10%, 20%, 25%?
MR. KINTZEL: I think since we have a thousand members, for each of the
thousand to bring in one more member and make it a hundred per cent.
PRESIDENT BEST: Now, the high man is going to win here, you know. Is
there anyone that can raise this man, that can say that we increase our
membership more than a hundred per cent? If not shall we take that as a
goal?
We have now reached the point in this discussion of goals where we can
make the following profound deduction--"Nothing is worth two cents until
it is sold."
Our church bells ring to tell the world that something good is being
offered and that the church has something to sell. Everything in this
world must be sold. The NNGA is competing not only with the resistance
people offer it, but also against every other human activity. People buy
what they think will give them the most satisfaction.
We are living in a cold-blooded society and people are not going to
choke with emotion when we mention the old hollow tree where the possums
hatched, or the wide spreading chestnut. People may not even want to
join our NNGA. This is a free country and people can just sit in the sun
on the bare ground if they want to. They may not want trees and can eat
grape nuts if they want. We know they need the hobby--the shade--the
beauty--the protection or even nuts which nut trees will bring them.
Because we know people need these fine things, then we must ask them to
join the NNGA. If everybody knew what you know about the NNGA, we would
have a membership of 100,000 members. But they do not.
This is what we mean by selling our organization. Indirectly as we sell
our memberships to help other people, we help our organization.
Finally, let me suggest that we build up a backlog of ideas here at
Rochester to add to what we have on increasing our membership.
Give your ideas to our Vice President, Mr. George Salzer and his
publicity committee and you will be helping to solve our NNGA problems.
MR. DAVIDSON: It seems to me the most successful thing that was done
during the past year, as far as the raising of membership was concerned,
was done by Mr. Chase, when he wrote that article on Persian walnuts
that survived sub-zero temperatures. That had a tremendous impact on the
public imagination, and it got a tremendous number of inquiries. I think
it had more effect than even the work of individual members, so I would
suggest that anybody who has an idea that can be sent to a magazine that
would have a public appeal should do that thing.
MR. MACHOVINA: The thought strikes me that in addition to the goal for
new members, we should also work to keep these members we have picked up
this year. That means the older members should contact the newer
members, help them, give them trees. Otherwise, a lot can be lost
quickly.
PRESIDENT BEST: In this world no matter whether we are selling seed
corn--if you will pardon that little plug--or you are running a
restaurant or any form of human activity, you can figure each year about
a 10 per cent loss in your clientelle or your customers, whatever you
want to call them, and we of N.N.G.A. are no exception to that rule. We
do have to keep working for that replacement; otherwise, in 10 or 12
years we are going to be out of business entirely.
MR. KERR: I am a Spanish War veteran. At the national convention in
Portland, Oregon, in 1938, one of my comrades showed me a walnut tree
that he planted before he went to the Philippines during that war. It
was on the banks of the Willamette River where he had planted three
nuts. Two were so near the river that a log boom had torn them out, but
one was left. It was 80 feet high, four feet in diameter, and on one
occasion had produced almost a ton of very good nuts.
I told that to the science editor of the Associated Press, and he put a
little article in the local paper, but no picture. If he had a picture
with that article, everybody would have read it. I think we need more
publicity on these old trees that are bearing nuts. I live in Plymouth,
Mass., where the Pilgrims settled. In their settlement papers they
mentioned the groves of walnuts and other wild nuts in the territory. We
found a low-branched walnut 5 feet in diameter and over 450 years old.
MR. BROOK: Let me suggest Mr. Kerr write such an article for such a
magazine, because he is just the person.
MR. KERR: I have already written a few articles for several men's clubs,
and I am writing another article.
MR. BROOK: When are you releasing it?
MR. KERR: Pretty soon. The Northern Nut Growers will get a copy.
PRESIDENT BEST: The report of the Place of Meeting Committee, Mr.
Allaman?
MR. ALLAMAN: A year ago this summer I went to Lancaster to visit the
Franklin Marshall College to see if we could hold our convention there
next year. They considered it quite an honor to have us there, feeling
that it is an educational feature. They can furnish us a nice auditorium
with a cafeteria nearby. Sleeping quarters would be scattered throughout
the grounds. They can furnish our meals and a banquet. About ten days
ago I checked to see if things were still all right, and they said,
"Come ahead," so I am suggesting that the Association hold its next
annual convention at Lancaster, Pa. at Franklin Marshall College.
Our field trip at Lancaster would be to Mr. W. W. Posey's orchard. He
has by far the biggest planting in the state with trees of various ages
and many different varieties. He entertained the Pennsylvania group a
year ago. He has a nice pavilion up on the hill, where we can have our
lunch. We had a most enjoyable time, and he is delighted to have us. Mr.
Posey is owner of the Posey Iron Works in Lancaster.
For 1955 we were thinking about Michigan, probably Michigan State
College. For the following year we were wondering about Connecticut.
Just the place in Connecticut has not been given any thought.
Session adjourned.
MONDAY AFTERNOON SESSION
PRESIDENT BEST: In the morning session Mr. Allaman proposed that we hold
our next convention in Lancaster, Pa. Is there a motion to that effect?
MR. RICK: I move that our next meeting, 1954, be held in Lancaster
County, Pennsylvania. That is supposed to be one of the garden counties
in the country. It has stood first and second in production. I don't
know what it stands now, but it wouldn't be far from the top. It would
be most interesting to all our members, I am sure, to pay Lancaster
County a visit. Motion seconded by Mr. Ellis and passed.
PRESIDENT BEST: According to the by-laws, we get a report of the
Nominating Committee at this time. We have our election at the last
business session.
MR. SLATE: The Nominating Committee, consisting of Max Hardy as chairman
and some others, including myself, presents the following candidates:
For President, R. B. Best. For vice-president, Gilbert Becker; for
Treasurer, W. S. Clark; and for Secretary Spencer Chase.
PRESIDENT BEST: Are there other nominations? (No response.) You will
have a chance for further nominations at our last business session.
PRESIDENT BEST: Now, then, we have an opportunity to hear from a group
of what we might call authorities in their various fields. We have quite
an assortment. The only way I know of to express it is to say we have
the wise men out of the east and the wild men out of the west. I think
we first might hear from Mr. Kyhl of Sabula, Iowa. Mr. Kyhl, you come up
and give us your version of the nut business.
About Nuts
IRA M. KYHL, _Sabula, Iowa_
What we all have in mind at this time is nuts and more nuts. One way to
get them is to plant more nut trees. Why not start a campaign in this
direction? Where I live in the midwest the black walnut is at home and
likewise the hickory, hazel, etc. Farmers may be reluctant to set aside
acreage for this purpose but they could be planted along fence rows
around the entire farm and would produce shade for livestock, an
abundance of marketable nuts, and later a fortune in saw logs. The
average size farm of 160 acres could support a great many black walnuts
if planted along fence rows which ordinarily grow up to brush and weeds.
Seedlings are cheap or one could buy 2 or 3 bushels of Thomas nuts and
raise their own. One could also plant hickories, heartnuts, filberts and
chestnuts if variety is desired along fence rows, but the main thing is
to get this work started. We could no doubt get cooperation from County
Agents and Conservation Departments because of wind breaks and erosion
control. Farmers who could be induced to do this work would no doubt
become nut enthusiasts in due time.
I feel that at this time it may be in line to pay a slight tribute to
our friend the squirrel. I wonder how many of us gave a thought as to
who was responsible for all of our wild trees, such as black walnuts,
butternuts, hickories, hazels and so forth, and how they came about.
The answer is simple, the squirrels, of course. They have been planting
nuts for centuries and without their good work in the past, there would
be very few wild nut trees.
The squirrel has been wrongfully condemned for his apparently good work
and has even been cussed a little for living on the efforts of his own
labor, and due to my appreciation of his good work, I have grafted or
rather topworked some of the trees he planted to Persian walnuts,
pecans, etc., so that he may have more of a variety of nuts. Someday I
expect to have some of the largest and fattest squirrels in America. I
cover some of the choice varieties with stove pipe. They seem to take
the hint and don't bother the nuts. One more thing, there does
not seem to be enough nuts to go around, that is, enough for both the
squirrels and ourselves. So let's plant more trees so that the squirrels
can't possibly eat them all and when we have done that, then let's plant
a lot more.
We now have many species of nuts and many varieties of each species,
many of which have proven hardy in cold climates. It is very encouraging
to note the good work that is being done to produce better and more
varieties. One very fine nut that doesn't seem to have had much work
done on it is the hard shell almond. It does very well for me, is
self-pollinating, bears very heavily, and can be grafted on peach stocks
with good results. I have also had very good success with Persian
walnuts, heartnuts, filberts, chestnuts, hickories, pecans, hazels and
black walnuts.
Natural Variation Observed in Shagbark Hickory, _Carya ovata_ (Mill.) K.
Koch. in Central New York
DAVID H. CALDWELL, _N. Y. State College of Forestry, Syracuse, N. Y._
The shagbark hickory has been extremely important in the economy of the
United States during its period of early development. The handles of the
axes which leveled extensive forested areas in Colonial days were
frequently made from sturdy hickory wood. The nuts furnished food for
man in the form of oil or nutmeats and often hogs were fattened on
hickory nuts, beechnuts and chestnuts. As settlement progressed, the
demand on hickory as wood for wagon parts increased while the use of the
thick-shelled nuts for food decreased except by the country boy or girl
who wandered from tree to tree in the fall collecting nuts for cracking
by the fireside in the wintertime.
The author remembers bounding out of bed as a child in the fall before
dawn on the nights when there had been a frost or a heavy wind, in an
effort to beat the squirrels in the race to obtain the rich harvest of
hickory nuts to be found lying beneath the fine old trees near Herkimer,
N. Y. By some coincidence, both the boys and the squirrels knew of the
same trees which were most sought after for their crops of nuts. It was
at this time that the variability of hickory nuts was first observed.
Thus it was that the nuts of certain trees were never gathered, while
the grass beneath other favorite trees was gleaned carefully for all
fallen nuts.
The present investigation of the shagbark began in the fall of 1949 and
continued through the summer of 1953. It was initiated with the previous
knowledge of the extreme variability to be observed between the nuts of
individual shagbark hickory trees and was conducted for the purpose of
determining whether or not that variability was also expressed through
other features of the tree such as buds, leaves, bark or form.
Consequently, a systematic study was begun of individual trees totaling
158 found mostly in Onondaga County, New York plus the edges of
surrounding counties. The trees were observed throughout the growing
season so that the various tree parts could be observed for comparison.
It was a preconceived idea by the author that there might be several or
more distinct subdivisions into which individuals of shagbark might be
placed through the use of macroscopic characters.
Observations were made over a period of three growing seasons on the
following characters of each tree:
(1) bark
(2) buds and twigs
(3) leaves
(4) flowers
(5) fruit
Each character was observed more than once for each tree as a check on
possible yearly variation for specific characteristics in the trees from
which data was collected.
The generalized description for shagbark hickory is as follows:
SIZE--a tree ranging at maturity from 50 to 100+ feet in height,
generally 2 to 3 feet in diameter and very occasionally reaching 4
feet in diameter.
BARK--usually under 3/4 of an inch in thickness, occasionally up to
1 inch thick with a characteristic light or smoky-gray color when
dry and breaking up into long plates or strips loosely attached to
the trunk near the middle of the plate.
BUDS--terminal buds usually 3/8 to 3/4 of an inch long, subglobose
to narrowly ovate, with 8-10 imbricate scales, the outermost of
which are a blackish brown with dark brown tomentum, and a short
mucronate or attenuate apex, inner scales light brown with longer
lanate pubescence and apex acute to obtuse; lateral buds smaller,
about 1/4 of an inch with tightly appressed scales.
TWIGS--angled or rounded, reddish brown to yellowish brown, or gray,
turning more or less gray with age; pubescent the first year.
LEAVES--compound--ranging from 3-7 ovate to oblong lanceolate
leaflets, usually 5, terminal leaflet as large or larger than the
first two laterals, usually 4-8" long, generally glabrous on both
surfaces but with a finely serrate, ciliate margin; total leaf size
ranging from 8-15" for mature leaves.
FLOWERS--(a) _female_--occurring in 2 to several flowered spikes,
with a one-celled ovary, about 1/4 to 1/3 inch long covered with
tomentum; flowers rusty to yellowish green in color; stigma with two
stigmatic lobes; bracts much longer than the lateral bractlets. (b)
_male_--in three parted or branched aments, each flower usually
containing 4 stamens with a 2 or a 3 lobed calyx; aments 3-4" long
with glandular hairs.
FRUIT--oval, globose or pear shaped, consisting of a woody husk 1/4
to 1/2" thick breaking usually along 4 lines of suture exposing a
flattened nut generally 4 ridged, smooth or slightly roughened;
usually white or cream in color, seed sweet with 2 cotyledons.
RESULTS OF FIELD OBSERVATIONS
BARK--Most of the shagbark hickory trees observed were found to have
a smoke-gray, shaggy bark from 20 years of age to maturity. However,
among the 158 individual hickory trees observed, there were found 7
trees which had a bark much more blackish than the normal shagbark
type and with closely furrowed bark consisting of inter-lacing scaly
ridges more similar in character to that of _Carya ovalis_
(Wangenh.) Sarg.
The trees found growing under timberland conditions rather than as
open field or hedgerow trees did not have the characteristic shaggy
bark except for the upper trunk which had been exposed to the
weather conditions of the forest canopy. Where the trunks of the
trees were somewhat protected from direct rays of the sun and force
of the wind, the bark was smooth, gray and but slightly plated with
none of the shagginess typical of open field grown shagbark.
BUDS AND TWIGS--The buds of shagbark were observed to divide
themselves into two general groups based upon terminal bud shapes
and two more groups based upon the sizes of the attenuated apex of
the outermost bud scales. In all cases the bud scales were observed
to be pubescent though the degree of pubescence varied considerably
in the outer scales only.
The two general bud shapes were globose-ovate and narrowly
elliptical. The broadly oval (Fig. 1a) type of buds were smaller,
generally under 1/2 inch in length while the elliptical (Fig. 1b)
type of buds were usually over 1/2 inch in length.
[Illustration: Fig. 1a Fig. 1b
Shagbark Hickory Terminal Buds (1-X)]
The long attenuated apex on the outer bud scales of the elliptical type
of buds is evident in Figs. 1b and 2b.
[Illustration: Fig. 2a Fig. 2b
Shagbark Hickory Terminal Bud Scales (1-X)]
The number of lateral buds at one position varied considerably with the
usual number being one (Fig. 3a) bud located just above the lobed leaf
scar. On exceedingly vigorous sprout growth, or on very vigorous
terminal growth twigs, it was found that 2, 3, 4 and occasionally 5
superposed buds might occur (Fig. 3b).
Twigs of shagbark varied considerably both in the rapidity of growth and
in color. Frequently the color seemed to be associated with the incident
rays of the sun and orientation of the twig on the branch seemed to
largely control color.
Twigs upon the same tree would vary from gray to reddish brown to
yellowish brown or tan. The majority of observed trees had a reddish
brown as the predominant color. Terminal shoot growth of as much as 40
inches was observed and as little as 2-3 inches in very slowly growing
mature trees.
[Illustration: Fig. 3a Fig. 3b
Shagbark Hickory Lateral Buds (1-X)]
[Illustration: Fig. 4a Fig. 4b
Shagbark Hickory Leaves (1/3X)]
The degree of pubescence on the surface of the twigs varied considerably
and was found to frequently follow group location patterns. Thus nearly
all of the individuals growing in one field might be found with dense
pubescence on the twigs while a similar group several miles away might
have, for all practical purposes, no pubescence on the twigs. In
general, the most rapidly growing trees (or twigs) had the least amount
of pubescence on the twigs.
LEAVES--There was extreme variability found with the leaves of the 158
individual trees observed. All trees were found to have compound leaves,
but the leaflet numbers varied greatly. The typical number for shagbark
is 5, but 3 to 7 were found; three leaflets were common, 5 were abundant
and 7 leaflets were rare. Six cases of leaves with 7 leaflets were
obtained from the vast number of leaves checked on the 158 trees; thus
the frequency of occurrence is quite low for the group as a whole. Where
7 leaflets were observed, 5 of the leaves were normal pinnately compound
leaves (Fig. 4a), while one leaf consisted of five palmately arranged
leaflets plus two normal pinnately compound leaflets (Fig. 4b). The
leaflets on each tree were fairly uniform in shape but the shape of
leaflets between trees varied considerably. Thus one tree might have 5
leaflets quite broadly ovate to obovate in shape while another equally
valid shagbark would be found with narrowly elliptical to lanceolate
leaflets similar to those of red hickory (oval pignut hickory), _Carya
ovalis_ (Wangenh.) Sarg.
[Illustration: Fig. 5a Fig. 5b Fig. 5c
Shagbark Hickory Fruits (1/2X)]
The margins of the leaflets were generally finely serrate and disposed
to be ciliate--i.e. with a fringe of hairs along the serrate margins.
The presence of cilia tend to differentiate shagbark hickory from red
hickory in the field. This feature is a consistently good one if a hand
lens is available but the degree of ciliation varies considerably from
tree to tree and during different parts of the growing season. The
presence of cilia on the margin of the leaflets should not be used as a
means of differentiating shagbark from shellbark hickory, _Carya
lacinoisa_ (Michx. f.) Loud., since shellbark also has a ciliate margin
on the leaflets.
FLOWERS--The female flowers of shagbark are found on short 1 to 5
flowered spikes produced on the current season's growth. Most of the
flowers are around 1/3" long, sessile and covered with a tawny tomentum.
Each flower tends to have two yellowish green stigmatic lobes but
three-lobed stigmas may be found and one case of a 4-lobed stigma was
observed. Various amounts of an amber, or yellow scurfy, substance was
also observed on the new flowers. The male flowers occur on 3 parted,
slender, glandular-hairy aments from the basal portion of the current
season's growth. The aments are usually 3-4 inches long with individual
flowers consisting of 4 stamens with their surrounding bract and calyx
lobes. The anthers are yellowish or greenish yellow. Occasionally a two
branched ament may be found but this seems to occur when one branch of
the ament has failed to develop due to an injury of some sort. One case
of an unbranched ament was observed.
Both female and male flowers are found to be mature after the leaves
have grown to nearly their fully expanded mature size. There are more
male aments to be found on the lower branches than female spikes of
flowers, which would tend to aid in cross pollination of the flowers by
wind action. In general the stigmatic lobes are not quite mature at the
time that the bulk of the pollen is being shed, yet individual trees, at
a considerable distance from another pollen bearing shagbark tree, will
bear considerable quantities of nuts indicating self fertility.
FRUIT--The husk of the shagbark is extremely variable in size, shape,
thickness and opening habits. In general the husk consists of 4 segments
which split along 4 sutures and fall apart at maturity dropping the nut
to the ground. In many cases the husk falls to the ground with the nut
and does not break apart until it reaches the ground. A few of the trees
examined had husks which were not quite deciduous to the base and were
retained on the tree until after the nut had been released. One tree
among the 158 examined consistently had a 5 parted husk.
The husks varied considerably in thickness, the dried measurements
ranging from 1/8 to 1/2 inch with the bulk of the measurements averaging
around 1/4" thick. Two trees had husks so thin as to be more typical of
red hickory while only 6 trees had husks 1/2 inch thick or more.
The overall shape of the husk around the nut ranged from globose (Fig.
5a) to ovoid (Fig. 5b) to obovate (Fig. 5c).
It would seem that the shape of the nut enclosed within the husk might
be predetermined by examination of the husk itself. The obovate husk
shape could most frequently be depended on to produce either elliptical
or obovate nuts but this was not an absolute certainty. The thickness of
the husk effectively concealed the true shape of the nut beneath; the
thinnest husks most nearly conforming to the true nut shape.
The size of the mature shagbark hickory nut and husk ranged from as
small as one inch in a tree which had a seed barely 3/8" wide to as
large as 2-1/4 inches. The size of husk and nut is variable and adjacent
trees which may have developed from the same parent seldom have similar
nuts in the area examined.
The nut itself exhibited the greatest variability of all features
examined on the test trees. These trees exhibited striking
dissimilarities in:
(1) nut size
(2) nut shape
(3) shell color
(4) thickness of shell
(5) sweetness or palatability of nutmeat.
One tree was discovered with a nut which might have caused a taxonomist
to coin the name _Carya ovata_ var. _microcarpa_ due to the very small
dimensions of about 3/8 x 3/8 x 3/4 inches in width, thickness and
depth. Even the squirrels of the area did not feel that this tree
deserved their attention The largest nut
obtained had overall dimensions of 1 x 3/4 x 1 inches in width,
thickness and depth. The majority of average sized nuts were roughly 3/4
x 1/2 x 3/4 inches.
The nut shapes have fallen into a general pattern which include the
following normal types:
Type A--The normal 4 angled nut, nearly rectangular in cross section
(Fig. 6a).
Type B--An elliptical form, nearly oval in cross section (Fig. 6b).
Type C--A smooth oval nut, oval or elliptical in cross section (Fig.
6c).
Type D--An obovate nut, oval to angled in cross section (Fig. 6d).
Type E--A fat globose nut, broadly oval to orbicular in cross
section (Fig. 6e).
[Illustration: Type A Type B Type C Type D Type E
Fig. 6a Fig. 6b Fig. 6c Fig. 6d Fig. 6e
Normal Fruit Forms of Shagbark Hickory (1X)]
[Illustration: Type F Type G Type H
Fig. 6f Fig. 6g Fig. 6h
Abnormal Fruit Forms of Shagbark Hickory (1X)]
In addition to the afore mentioned 5 normal types, three abnormal types
were encountered:
Type F--A smooth or angled nut, triangular in cross section--found
in the same trees as normal nut forms (Fig. 6f).
Type G--A smooth or angled nut square in cross section--found
on the same trees as normal nut forms (Fig. 6g).
Type H--A Siamese twin form occurring very rarely on the same
trees as other normal forms (Fig. 6h).
Type A was the commonest form of nut found in the Onondaga County area.
It roughly exceeded Types B, D and E by a 2:1 ratio. Type C exceeded
Types B, D and E with a ratio of about 7:5 in frequency of occurrence.
Types B and D were the two most easily cracked nut forms when using a
hammer and anvil for a cracking device. It should be noted at this time
that _all_ of the abnormal fruit types were found in _conjunction with_
normal fruit types. Thus, one individual tree used as a collection might
produce _both_ a normal nut type (A, B, C, D or E) _and_ an abnormal nut
type (F, G or H). Occasionally a few nuts in a collection from one tree
might be classed as a _second_ normal type. This was rare however (5
cases) and only occurred in "borderline trees" which were then
classified and recorded as per the dominant nut type for the tree. It
should be noted here that the nut type did _not_ vary from year to year
for the trees examined. Also the frequency of nut crops varied
considerably; less than 1/4 of the sample trees produced nuts each year.
Most of the trees produced crops in alternate years, and a very few have
not fruited in the third year following a heavy nut crop.
The 158 trees examined provided the following distribution by fruit types:
---------------+------------------+--------------------------------
| Number of | Number of abnormal types found
Fruit Type | Individual Trees | in conjunction with
| | normal types
-----------+---+------------------+--------------------------------
| | | F G H
-----------+---+------------------+--------------------------------
Normal | A | 54 | 5 2 1
| B | 23 | 2 1
| C | 36 | 1 2
| D | 21 | 7 1
| E | 24 | 4 1
-----------|---+------------------+--------------------------------
| | 158 collections |
-----------+---+------------------+--------------------------------
Abnormal | F | 15 | 15
| G | 8 | 8
| H | 4 | 4
---------------+------------------+--------------------------------
27 collections
Shell color of the nuts varied between a brownish white and a pinkish
white color when fully dried. From the trees used as a sample, there
were 14 which might be classed in the brownish white categories, and the
remainder (144) as pinkish white or creamy white. Types B and C were the
ones which most frequently were found with the brownish white nutshell
color. Type A was typically pinkish or creamy white in color.
Nutshell thickness varied somewhat. In all but 2 cases, the nuts were
too hard to crack with the teeth. The thin-shelled ones are
_comparatively_ thin only, being about like paper-shelled pecans with
the shell thinnest on the sides of the nut. It is not suggested that
these two thin-shelled nuts be exploited as paper-shelled shagbarks
since they are poorly formed nuts and of small size. One of the two
trees might be a hybrid since it does not have a ciliate leaflet margin
although the buds, bark and leaves are typical of shagbark hickory. The
minimum shell thickness observed for the side of the nut was 1/2 a
millimeter (0.5 mm.) and the thickest was 2.0 millimeters. As previously
stated, nut types B and D (the elliptical and obovate nut forms) were
the easiest to crack. Nut type A was the most difficult and had
generally the thickest shell.
The seed coat color range was from a light tan to a bronze color. The
seed itself was in all cases sweet although certain of the nuts had a
more pleasing taste than others. The nuts eventually became rancid
though 3 years of storage in a heated room did not cause the bulk of the
test samples to change in flavor. This is unlike the pecan which, stored
in the same room with the hickory nuts, became rancid by the following
year after collection.
Summary of Observations
The following observations concerning shagbark hickory may be made from
this study:
(1) The buds of shagbark fall into 2 classes based on bud shape, (1)
globose-ovate and (2) elliptical, the latter being the largest bud
as a rule.
(2) The buds of shagbark fall into 2 classes based upon the length
of the attenuated apex of the outer bud scales. The elliptical form
of bud consistently had the longest drawn out apex.
(3) Normal buds of shagbark occur singly on the twigs above the
lobed leaf scar; however, 2, 3 or 4 superposed buds may occur on
very fast grown sprouts or terminal shoots of vigorously growing
trees.
(4) The twigs of shagbark are pubescent but range in degrees from
almost none to densely pubescent. The fastest grown twigs are apt to
be the least pubescent.
(5) Leaves are compound with 3-5 leaflets commonly found and 7
leaflets rarely found.
(6) Leaflet shapes varied from tree to tree being ovate, obovate or
elliptical.
(7) Leaflet margins with one exception were more or less ciliate.
(8) Most female flowers of shagbark have 2 stigmatic lobes, however,
3 stigmatic lobes resulting in triangular nuts are not uncommon.
(9) The typical male ament is three branched but one and two
branched aments have been observed.
(10) The husk of shagbark varies in thickness from 1/8 inch to 1/2
inch in thickness when dry. The usual husk is 4-parted but one tree
bore 5-parted husks consistently.
The average husk thickness is around 1/4 inch.
(12) There are three general fruit shapes, (1) globose, (2) ovoid
and (3) obovate.
(13) There are at least 5 general types of normal nut shapes for
Onondaga County, N. Y. as listed in the text of this paper.
(14) Three abnormal nut types were also encountered growing
concurrently with the normal types.
(15) Nutshell color varied from brownish to creamy white. The darker
colors were generally associated with the elliptical, oval or
obovate nut forms.
(16) Nutshell thickness varied between 1/2 and 2 millimeters; the
more angled the nut, the thicker the shell.
(17) All of the hickory nuts tested had sweet, edible seeds. The
seed coats varied from a light tan to a bronze in color.
Conclusions
Within the single species of nut tree called shagbark hickory, _Carya
ovata_ (Mill.) K. Koch., in central New York, there exists a great
degree of diversity. However, in spite of these differences, the
examined sample trees may be placed without a question in their proper
genus and species and the author would venture the opinion that the
advisability of placing variety names on portions of the species is a
doubtful and hazardous procedure until much more is known concerning the
species than is known at present.
MR. PAPE: This paper is the result of the fact that some of us down in
Indiana are losing 75 to 95 per cent of our hickory crop each year by
the curculio, and what we are trying to do is work up a little interest
with this paper, so at the conclusion of this we can get a discussion
started and learn the experiences of other people. Maybe you will be
able to help us down in Indiana.
The Control of the Hickory Weevil (Curculio caryae)
EDWARD W. PAPE, _Marion, Indiana_
It is our thought that if some effort were made to bring to this
assembly, a digest of what has been done to control the Hickory weevil,
we might arouse enough interest to carry on some experiments.
If, at the conclusion of this paper, we can get enough discussion, we
will be able to avail ourselves of the knowledge and experiences of
others who have made attempts to control this pest, it would be to our
advantage.
The Pecan weevil of the south and the Hickory weevil are identical and
we learn the following from the experiments carried out by G. F.
Moznette, Bureau of Entomology, U.S.D.A.
Pecan weevil damage is of two types--(1) that resulting from attack
before the shell-hardening period in July and August and causing all
affected nuts to drop, and (2) that resulting from attack after kernel
formation and usually causing the shuck of infested nuts to stick tight
to the shell instead of opening normally. Weevil-injured nuts of the
second type contain grubs which destroy the kernels, or they contain
holes about one-eighth inch in diameter which mature grubs have bored
and through which they escaped after destroying the kernels. The first
type of damage often passes unnoticed and is due to the feeding of early
emerging weevils, which puncture the immature nuts with their long
lancelike beaks to feed on the juices within. Since all nuts punctured
in this way before the shell-hardening period drop to the ground, the
entire crop may be lost if weevils are abundant and the crop is light.
Such damage may be heavy even when a large crop is attacked. The second
type of damage is generally noticeable at harvest-time in October and
November, and in seasons when large numbers of weevils have been present
practically the entire crop may be wormy at harvest.
Since the weevils do not feed very much on the outer surface of
developing pecan nuts, stomach poisons applied to trees have been of
little practical value in control. In 1944, however, laboratory tests
showed that DDT could kill the adults, and that it was worthy of field
trial.
Field tests were made at Fort Valley, Georgia, with DDT and the
conclusions drawn from these tests show that the effectiveness of two
applications of DDT at the rate of 6 pounds of a 50-percent wettable
powder to 100 gallons of water in reducing harvest infestations to 1
percent gives rise to the hope that this treatment, applied for several
seasons, will eliminate a pecan weevil infestation in an orchard, or
will reduce it to such an extent that spraying every year will not be
necessary.
The time of the first application of DDT cannot be based on the time of
the first drop of nuts, because other pecan insects also cause the nuts
to drop during July and August. However, pecan growers who wish to make
the effort can time the first application accurately by spreading a
sheet on the ground beneath an infested tree and lightly jarring the
branches to dislodge the weevils. When the weevils are disturbed they
fall and "play possum" and can be easily collected. When a minimum of
six weevils can be taken by jarring the branches on any one tree, it is
time to make the first application.
While the above will probably give an indication as to what can be done,
using DDT to control the Hickory weevil, for those who have large
plantings and can afford the expensive spraying equipment necessary, it
will be necessary to look farther for control methods for the small
orchard, where expensive equipment is not feasible.
The following is part of a letter from Dr. C. C. Compton, Entomologist
for the Julius Hyman and Company.
"It is our thought that since DIELDRIN is so highly toxic to
Curculionids it might be possible to take advantage of the habits of
this insect and control it by spraying the soil surface. The larval
stage of this insect leaves the nuts and enters the soil sometime in the
fall. It is believed that the larvae penetrate the soil rather deeply,
to a depth of perhaps a foot or more and remain in the soil over winter.
In the spring or early summer the larvae transform to adults and emerge
to lay their eggs. In some regions at least the adults do not emerge
until the second year after the larvae enter the ground.
It is our thought that if DIELDRIN was applied to the surface of the
soil that many of the larvae would be killed upon entering the soil or
would be killed at some later time when the adults emerge.
Dr. C. L. Fluke at the University of Wisconsin has been working for the
past several years with DIELDRIN applied as an orchard spray for the
control of plum curculio. In Dr. Fluke's work he applied the DIELDRIN to
the orchard floor or cover. He has had some very promising results. Dr.
Fluke has used two application rates, namely, six pounds and three
pounds of DIELDRIN per acre. Since he obtained a high degree of control
at the three pound level, it would seem worthwhile to investigate the
possibilities of applying even a lower rate, say one and a half pounds
per acre. In Dr. Fluke's work he applied the DIELDRIN to the soil in the
orchard using a DIELDRIN emulsifiable concentrate containing one and a
half pounds per gallon.
DIELDRIN is now available impregnated on a 30-60 mesh attapulgus clay.
Such formulations are now available containing 5%, 10%, and 15%
DIELDRIN. The DIELDRIN granules would appear to have certain advantages
over liquid sprays where the grove has considerable ground cover. A high
percentage of the insecticide is retained by the cover and does not
reach the soil. The 30-60 mesh granules have the advantage of
penetrating even the densest cover and their application results in a
maximum deposit of the insecticide on the soil surface.
Groves or orchards under cultivation can be sprayed or treated with the
granules. In either case it is advisable to disc the insecticide into
the soil following application.
The granules are free flowing and can be applied quite readily with any
fertilizer or distributor.
Without any field experience to go by it would seem that a 5% 30-60 mesh
DIELDRIN granule formulation would be most convenient to use. By using a
5% DIELDRIN granule material you would obtain a dosage of 1-1/2 pound of
actual DIELDRIN per acre by applying 30 pounds of granules per acre.
Likewise, 60 pounds of the granules per acre would give a dosage of 3
pound of DIELDRIN. On the basis of work done with DIELDRIN for the
control of the Japanese beetle, 3 pounds of DIELDRIN per acre will
control this insect for more than 5 years. While it is not safe to
assume that we could expect the same results in the case of the Hickory
weevil, it does give us something to go by."
It seems likely that the foregoing will create some interest and that by
the time of the next annual meeting we should have the results from the
use of DIELDRIN to control the Hickory weevil.
MR. PAPE: It is my thought now if we could get a little discussion here
concerning what some of you have been doing to control this pest, we
might get somewhere, or at least get enough suggestions or get enough
parties interested to carry on some experiments in different parts of
the country.
MR. SILVIS: What company makes Dieldrin?
MR. PAPE: Julius Hyman Company is the one that sent the most literature
and Shell Corporation local agents handle it. Also in Indiana the Farm
Bureau Cooperative store handles it. The cost in small quantities is two
pounds for 85 cents.
MR. KYHL: Is Dieldrin poison?
MR. PAPE: It's poison like all of these modern sprays, but it isn't as
dangerous as Parathion.
MR. STOKE: In Virginia I have had no experience with DDT, except with
chestnut, and it takes three sprays at two-week intervals to control the
pest.
DR. GRAVES: What time of the year?
MR. STOKE: Apply the last spray about two weeks before the nuts ripen.
That means, with us, starting in late July. You have to figure it for
your own region.
MR. GRAVATT: There is literature available from the Bureau of Entomology
in Washington on spraying to control pecan and chestnut weevils. They
have done quite a bit of research on it.
MR. STOKE: If this ground treatment is effective, I'd like to try it.
It's a lot easier.
MR. PAPE: That would be very nice if you would repeat the work in
Virginia. I know that the Pecan Growers will work on the problem in the
South. If we could get work done in the Central States, it would be an
advantage for all of us.
MR. STOKE: In my area the control of the pest is complicated by the
presence of the chinquapin.
PRESIDENT BEST: We have a surprise feature this afternoon. Dr. Graves of
the Connecticut Experiment station, who, as you know, is the father of a
lot of this work on chestnuts, has consented to discuss with us certain
new procedures that he used in grafting chestnuts.
DR. GRAVES: We have worked with this method of inarching blighted
chestnuts so long and found it so successful that I felt it my duty to
tell you people something about it. It's really a method of cure for the
blight on Oriental chestnuts and their hybrids. I have not found it to
work well on the American chestnut.
Now, suppose we have our tree, with a blighted area on the trunk. I am
assuming that the blight starts near the base of the tree as it usually
does.
When you see it, you cut it out with a sharp knife removing the bark to
the wood. Blighted trees send up shoots from the base, below the
blighted bark. So you take one of these shoots, sharpen it at the top
and insert this sharpened tip under the healthy bark at the top of the
blighted area. The shoot should be a little longer than the blighted
area so that you can get a spring to the shoot as you push its tip in
between the bark and the trunk. Even if it goes up above and breaks the
bark a little bit, it doesn't matter. This inarched shoot renews the
connection between the leaves and the roots across the blighted area.
You know the leaves make the food of the tree, which goes down in the
bark to the roots. The reason blight kills these trees is that it begins
to girdle and sometimes does girdle the tree and destroys the connection
between the leaves and the roots, so the roots eventually die. But by
this method of inarching you restore that connection between leaves and
roots.
Now, you'd be surprised to see how well that's worked with us. We tried
it first in 1937. We have been doing it now for 16 years. Every spring
we take our trees that show the blight, our hybrids and Oriental
chestnuts, and inarch, and the whole thing doesn't take more than a few
minutes. Then after our shoot is inarched here, we tie it with
old-fashioned string. The tips of the inarched grafts should be covered
with grafting wax or paraffin.
The scion will probably send out shoots which should be removed. And
another thing, cut the string when you know the graft has taken above.
If the blighted area is higher up in the tree, you can use bridge graft.
This, you can see, is a kind of bridge grafting. But in bridge grafting,
the scion must be anchored in the bark both above and below the lesion.
As I say, we have cured our hybrids. There doesn't need to be anybody
losing a Chinese chestnut tree ever, using this method. No sense in it.
You can usually do this grafting in the spring about April when the
leaves and the buds are beginning to show their green.
Any questions?
MR. DAVIDSON: You say you paint the wood?
DR. GRAVES: Yes, with any ordinary paint. There is a tree wood paint, I
know, that's better, but we use ordinary paint.
Meeting adjourned at 4:50 o'clock, p.m.
MONDAY EVENING SESSION
"What's Your Problem?"--Round Table Discussion
_Moderator_: J. W. McKay
_Panel_: J. C. McDaniel, D. C. Snyder, Jesse D. Diller, Stephen Bernath
DR. MCKAY: In these panel discussions the moderator usually lays a
little background as an introduction to the subject of the evening. This
title came from a conversation with Dr. Crane. We were talking about
people asking questions about their problems, and decided to have a
panel discussion. Right there we chose the title, "What's your problem?"
All of us have problems to deal with in every walk of life. We run up
against difficulties, and usually much of our time is taken up in
solving or coping with them. At Beltsville we answer a great many
letters, and a great many people ask us about their problems. In
answering problems, we push the industry forward, because we remove
something that is holding it back.
Sometimes the answer to a problem is found by trying to analyze our
successes. In growing nut trees we may have an unusually good crop on a
particular variety or tree. The question is, why does that tree bear
well that particular year, and very frequently it is difficult to
understand why. It is very difficult, for example, in the case of one
success, to repeat that success, because the second time you try to do
it, something else comes in, and you probably have a failure and, well,
you don't know why. It is frequently very difficult to analyze our
successes. Another way of stating it is, of course, that our successes
are often Nature's gift, and we do not know the factors and the forces
that go into that gift.
I want to digress here just a little bit by quoting one thing that Mr.
Best said. I wish, by the way, that we could incorporate some of his
homey philosophy into some of our minutes so as to really benefit by
some of his remarks. I was impressed this morning by his statement in
dealing with a "fairyland of nuts," you remember that language he used,
"no diseases, no insects, no failures."
DR. MACDANIEL: No squirrels.
DR. MCKAY: Wouldn't that be wonderful? I was impressed with another
thing he said; I wrote it down here: "People are not going to break down
with emotion when we talk about the old hollow tree down in the corner
of the pasture where the 'possums were hatched." Language like that, to
me, strikes a very harmonious note. I want to continue this digression a
little to consider the fact that all of us, in a sense, are hobbyists in
nut growing.
Hobbies in this day and age are coming to be more important all the
time, because of the fast pace at which we live. We need to leave our
regular duties once in a while and get out in the garden or the forest
where we can observe nature and get away from some of the stresses and
strains that modern living places upon us.
On this trip we were taking a hike along the north rim of Grand Canyon
in an organized nature walk. The trees, bushes and flowers were all
labelled right down the walk, and we came to this little poem on a
regulation label. It goes like this:
"If you keep your nose to the grindstone rough,
And you keep it there long enough,
You will cease to hear the birds that sing,
And the brooks that babble in early spring,
And finally all that your world will compose,
Will be the grindstone and your poor, old nose."
So that little poem strikes a real note about a person's hobby. You keep
your nose to the grindstone, you will forget all these things. You need
to get away from the grindstone once in a while. I don't mean to neglect
your work, but I do mean to at least take a little time to go out and
look at your trees and forget your troubles and relax and get away from
the stresses and strains that modern living places on us.
Going back now to the subject; we asked you, through the Nutshell and
through members of the Program Committee, to send in the biggest problem
in connection with whatever nut species you grow.
The seventeen replies received included eight problems as follows: (1)
brooming disease of walnut; (2) early vegetating particularly of
Carpathian walnut and frost damage resulting therefrom; (3) delayed
fruiting of chestnut seedlings; (4) season too short for ripening of
fruit; (5) squirrels get the nuts; (6) failure of hicans to set fruit;
(7) grafting problems under which are grouped all asexual propagation
and cuttings; and, finally, (8) getting hickory trees established.
This is a rather low number, but I think out of those eight problems
submitted you have a good representation of some of the things about
which members of this Association talk when they come to meetings. I
will first ask the audience if there is any one who would like to ask a
particular question at this time.
MR. BECKER: At the Weber planting at Rockport, Indiana last year, we saw
no nuts on the trees. I would like to know what is the cause for those
trees not bearing.
DR. MACDANIEL: I would think that failure to bear was caused by a
combination of things; lack of soil fertility, in the first place, soil
physical conditions, probably insect damage and diseases like
anthracnose keeping the trees from being vigorous, overcrowding now,
with many of them, and perhaps to some extent genetic, some varieties
that just naturally don't fruit very heavily.
DR. McKAY: Any others in the audience care to comment on that question?
MR. STOKE: Weather conditions, freezing may have caused it.
DR. MACDANIELS: My impression was that the trees were starving to death.
Cutting down the competition with the weeds and feeding them nitrate
would help.
DR. MCKAY: I think most members felt there that the trees were probably
crowding each other.
MR. BECKER: They had never borne, had they?
MR. WILKINSON: I don't like to comment on it. My opinion is it's due to
the undergrowth under the trees. Keeping the circulation of the air to
the roots of the trees has an effect on its non-bearing. Up until they
quit cultivating and pasturing the orchard, it bore, but after they
quit, production stopped. There is a two- or three-year growth of grass
and weeds, a mat on the ground, and I think it's a lack of air to the
roots of the trees.
DR. MCKAY: Mr. Wilkinson, I heard the question raised as to whether the
orchard had ever produced heavily or not. Can you answer that?
MR. WILKINSON: Yes, it certainly did for several years. As long as it
was cared for, it was a heavy producer.
DR. MCKAY: How long ago was that, could you say?
MR. WILKINSON: That's been eight years and farther back. Nothing has
been done for it in the past eight years.
MR. BEST: May I make a comment? Last year in our part of the country,
which is a little bit west of the orchard we are talking about, we had
almost zero weather in November before the leaves were off of the trees,
and I felt that that took all the buds off our trees. We didn't have any
nuts even on varieties that would bear every year. There are hardly any.
And I think that cold freeze in the fall before the buds really got
ready for it did a lot of damage.
DR. MACDANIEL: I believe that was a factor in the light walnut crop in
that area last year, though some trees did bear.
DR. MCKAY: Of course, I think many of us fail to realize that a tree is
a thing that's confined to one spot, and when it fills the ground with
feeding roots and mines the soil of all nutrients near it, it's stymied,
so to speak, until we give it some more food. Isn't that right, Dr.
Crane.
DR. CRANE: That's right.
DR. MCKAY: And trees, when they reach out as far as they can and can't
get any more food and no more leaves are allowed to fall on the ground,
nature doesn't add any nutrients anymore, naturally, those trees are in
a bad way and will continue to be until fertilizer is applied in some
way.
A MEMBER: I'd like to trim my Persian walnuts so I can walk under the
lowest limb. Does that have an adverse effect upon the bearing of the
tree?
MR. BERNATH: I don't think that's good, to trim them too high. I think
the lower the tree the better it handles all along. Take the fruit
growers, they aim to have the trees as low as possible to make picking
and spraying easy. If you prune a tree, especially the Persian walnut,
too much, it will have a bad effect on the tree.
DR. McKAY: What about the effect on bearing?
MR. BERNATH: You won't have fruit for several years until the tree
recovers what it has lost in foliage.
MR. KINTZEL: I have followed the orchards in California, and I have
noticed they follow the practice of leaving the lower branches on the
trees, and I have noticed that the lower branches have a lot of nuts on
them, also. The branches are hanging down on the ground.
MR. KERR: In France and Germany, they are crazy to get wood, and so they
cut off all the low limbs. I have a Persian walnut that is beside the
walk, and they cut off the low limbs because they hit the sidewalk. This
year I got a tremendous crop.
MR. SILVIS: I think this man has a tree that he wants to walk under.
Under these circumstances he can cut off the low limbs. I agree with Mr.
Bernath, however, that it will reduce the crop for two or three years.
MR. BERNATH: Yes, but he should start pruning when the tree is young. A
tree is just like a child: you have to start to train them while they
are young.
MR. STOKE: You must consider the tree at all ages. In the young tree Mr.
Bernath is right, it will produce sooner if you leave all the leaves on.
But we must consider the mature tree. The branches that are low to the
ground have to have the sunlight and if they do not get it they become
practically barren during later years. If the lower branches are cut
back when they are young and the tree headed higher, the Persian walnut
will have a trunk, say, 10 feet to 14 feet to the first limb, but these
will produce walnuts ultimately. I think the gentleman is right in
having the tree pruned high enough to walk under, and he will get more
nuts in the long run than if he lets the lower limbs develop and then
eventually cut them down.
DR. MACDANIEL: We had an example of that with that huge black walnut tree
with black walnuts starting out 30 feet in the air arching down and
touching the ground. But you wouldn't want to do that immediately with a
young tree, take all the branches up so high.
A MEMBER: Do you have any control for the stink bug on filberts?
DR. MCKAY: We haven't worked with the control of stink bug, because it
is what might be classed as one of our minor problems. The damage is not
so great but what we can overlook it at the present time.
DR. CRANE: In pecan and almond growing in California the effective
control measure for stink bug is the elimination of the host plants on
which the stink bug breeds. Peach growers have the same problem. Stink
bug will, if allowed to multiply in a peach orchard, ruin the peaches,
making injuries very similar to that caused by the plum curculio. The
only satisfactory method of control of stink bug injury is to eliminate
the host plants on which they live, such as most legume plants,
blackberry briars and other brambles. In an orchard, in a grass sod,
stink bug is no problem, but where we have soy beans or cow peas or
something like that growing in the orchard, or we have blackberry briars
or wild raspberries nearby, stink bug is a bad problem.
DR. GRAVATT: I have filbert trees, and the stink bug gets practically
all the nuts. The entomologists looked into the situation, and the
condition that Dr. Crane mentioned was borne out. If there are
blackberries around, it will be quite a problem to control the stink
bugs.
DR. MCKAY: Now I am going to take up the problems that have been sent in
by mail. The one dealing with early vegetating and frost damage to
Persian walnuts was sent in by the most people.
Mr. Snyder lives in a fairly cold country. I am going to ask him to give
us his ideas on this problem and what might be done with it.
MR. SNYDER: I am not qualified to discuss that problem, because we can't
do anything much with Carpathian walnuts. We do have some grafted this
year, and we will have one, in particular, Carpathian, No. 5--I don't
know where it got that number--Crath No. 5, I believe it is, on a young
grafted black walnut tree which is ripening up almost ahead of the black
walnut, and both have made a remarkable growth. But so far as the spring
is concerned, I don't know how they will come out.
DR. MCKAY: Mr. Bernath, what are your views? You live in a fairly cold
area. You propagate Persian walnuts. What is your opinion of this
problem?
MR. BERNATH: Well, there is a way to help that situation. After the
ground freezes, keep that ground frozen. That will delay the growth of
that tree, if you have the time and patience to keep the ground frozen.
MR. SNYDER: I don't believe it.
MR. BERNATH: Yes, it will.
DR. MCKAY: It seems to me we have a difference of opinion here between
Mr. Snyder and Mr. Bernath. The question is this: During a warm spell in
the spring will a tree with frozen roots grow up here in the air. That's
the question.
(There was a chorus of "yes"es from the audience).
MR. STOKE: I would say that one good solution is to select late
vegetating varieties. Mr. Oakes in a report to me on the blooming habits
of Persian walnuts, stated that the variety Schaeffer did not start
growth until the 29th of April. That is almost four weeks later than
most other varieties. And I know from the tabulations that I have made
that some varieties are weeks ahead of others. So let's select the late
varieties that are good and worthwhile and plant those.
In my section our latest spring frost averages the 20th of April, and
yet I have several varieties that do not bloom until after the first of
May. That's the ideal condition.
DR. MCKAY: That's true, Mr. Stoke, but here is another point to
consider. Persian walnuts have a short cold requirement, you know that.
Hence, in February or early March or any time, even in January, when we
have a warm spell of a week or ten days or even shorter, sap will rise
in the trees, and they will start to grow.
MR. STOKE: Not all. In plants of some varieties new growth will hardly
start.
DR. MCKAY: Perhaps you may have varieties that will not start, but the
tendency is to start.
MR. STOKE: If you have one with that early tendency, cut it out.
DR. MCKAY: I'd like to get back to this opinion here on the question of
frozen ground, dormant roots and the effect it has on the top of the
tree. Now, how about our academicians over here, Dr. MacDaniels or Dr.
Crane. Let's hear from one of you.
DR. MACDANIELS: It is my opinion that with a walnut tree of good size
the frozen ground would have little or no effect on the buds starting
growth. The twigs and the trunk would warm up to the temperature of the
air, and when that happens growth occurs. Water is available from that
in the trunk and the deeper roots. This would happen regardless of how
the surface roots were treated.
DR. MACDANIEL: Or whether the tree had any roots on at the time.
DR. MACDANIELS: The best solution to the frost damage problem is to find
trees which vegetate late enough to avoid the spring frosts. Somewhere
on this terrestrial globe there must be some, because I remember years
ago J. F. Jones sent out some Persian walnuts of Chinese origin. I
planted three, and they did not start any growth until about the first
of July, and they were still growing strong when frost hit them in the
fall. Now, somewhere in between these extremes, somewhere in the
climatic analogue of our region we will find Persian walnuts which will
have a delayed vegetating period, and that will be the final answer. At
least, I think so.
DR. MACDANIEL: I'd like to ask a question. In F-2 hybrid walnuts do you
find much segregation of those for later initiation of vegetation?
DR. MCKAY: Yes, we find in those seedlings in some cases the tendency to
vegetate very early and others very late. The most striking case that I
know is an F-1 hybrid which is a very, very late starter in the spring.
It is perfectly dormant when the other young walnuts are in practically
full leaf. We do not have any offspring from that particular one yet,
but it gives us some hope that from this hybrid we may get something
later.
MR. BECKER: With us I don't think this early vegetation means anything.
We are in Michigan. Dark, cold weather continues until about the middle
of May, when frost ends, and then all of a sudden spring breaks loose,
everything comes out, and we don't have any setback, as a rule, from
then on. So early vegetation matters little, means nothing, the way I
feel about it.
DR. CRANE: Mr. Moderator, you ought to point out that most of the United
States isn't Michigan. If we had climatic conditions that Michigan has,
we wouldn't have that problem, but this problem becomes much more acute,
for example, as you go south.
The north knows nothing about cold injury, absolutely nothing. If you
want to see cold injury, you go south. I told Dr. George Potter that
twelve years ago. He was born and raised in Wisconsin and spent 17 years
in the mountains of New Hampshire. I told him he never saw any winter
injury, and he said, "Why, I never heard such a wild statement in my
life." Well, that was because of the fact he had never seen it. He has
been in the South now for 12 years, and he says, "You made a very
truthful statement." He has seen the injury.
In Oregon in 1950 or '51 we had a fall freeze. The temperature was
measured by the Experiment Station in Eastern Oregon, where they are
trying to grow some fruit and nut trees so they will have something else
to eat besides sage brush. They had extensive plantings of walnuts,
Mayette, Franquette and all of those hardy varieties, and along with
them they had some Carpathians. The temperature there in the fall
dropped to 36 degrees below zero, and all of their walnuts of these
other strains were killed to the ground, but the Carpathian came through
uninjured. In the spring of the year however it warmed up, the
Carpathians leafed out and were about ready to bloom when there was a
sharp freeze, and the Carpathians sure got it in the neck. So what
difference does it make whether you lose the trees in the winter or you
lose them in the spring? You have lost them just the same. I think we
ought to hear Spencer Chase cite the history of their big collection of
Carpathians in Tennessee Valley Authority. I understand from him that
they have never fruited any Carpathians down there at all. It's not
winter hardiness, it's this early foliation. So we have got a lot of
areas that are vastly different from that peninsula in Michigan which
the Good Lord designed to make a favored country in a lot of respects.
DR. MCKAY: I recognize Mr. Devitt, who is here from Canada and is well
qualified to discuss Reverend Crath's work there.
MR. DEVITT: It is interesting to me to hear of this early budding and
late fruiting. Along the north shore of Lake Ontario and down through
the Niagara Peninsula our climate is quite consistent. There was only
one year when we had a late frost--it was on May 19th. That was in the
year 1936. Every other year since they have bloomed every year.
MR. STOKE: I'd like to speak of a tree Mr. Crath sent me. The tree was
bearing in Toronto 20 years ago. With me it winter kills sometime in the
winter each year, I don't know when. In some years it has been killed
back to 5-year-old wood, and this spring I found it was all dead. This
tree comes out of dormancy as soon as the sun gets warm. It's hardy in
Toronto but not hardy in Virginia.
DR. MCKAY: I think you can all see why this problem is one of the most
acute ones we have to deal with today. This variation over the country
in the behavior of this so-called hardy strain of walnut is of great
interest now to people everywhere. People are believing that it can be
grown, and there are still problems we have not solved. I would like to
have just a brief statement from Spencer Chase on the performance of
Carpathian varieties at Norris, Tennessee.
MR. CHASE: We reported this, I think, at our Beltsville meeting several
years ago. Trees we had at Norris are Carpathian types secured from the
Wisconsin Horticultural Society about 1940. After two years in the
nursery they were planted, and last year, 1952, was the first year that
they bore any nuts. But that was simply because we did not have a late
frost last year. This year, they were all frosted again. So we have, in
the South, from Virginia and Tennessee to a little farther southward,
a problem of early vegetation of English walnuts. We should encourage
everyone to watch for any late vegetating kinds for trial in the South.
MR. STOKE: Dr. Dunstan reported two walnut trees in North Carolina,
where the season is about ten days earlier than at my place in Virginia
that blossomed after the first of May. I am going to investigate these
trees further.
DR. MCKAY: We have about five minutes that we might devote to some other
problem. Nearly all of us do grafting work of one sort or another. Do I
have a question from the floor on grafting?
MR. MACHOVINA: With cleft grafts or splice grafts held with grafting
rubbers, do you have to cut the rubbers?
DR. MACDANIEL: If it's a chestnut and you have it waxed, I think the
answer is yes.
MR. MACHOVINA: The wax is a hot wax and the rubber does not disintegrate
very quickly.
DR. MACDANIEL: Probably you will have to cut it on species in which the
growth bulges up between the turns of the rubber. This is true of
chestnuts in particular, possibly persimmons, walnuts probably not quite
so much trouble. Let's hear from one of the nurserymen.
MR. BERNATH: I think the best way is after the union is firm enough, to
cut the rubber with a sharp knife.
MR. STOKE: I'd make one qualification. I said I didn't think you had to
cut rubber. I think that's true with grafting above ground. Underneath
ground, with moisture around it, it should be cut.
MR. BERNATH: If you leave the rubber on and bury it, that lasts for
years. Even above ground you find it sometimes.
MR. PATAKY: If you get a fast-growing callus, you have to cut the rubber
band, but if it is rather slow you don't. I do a lot of budding with
roses. I don't cut the rubber bands off, because they will eventually
drop off. If you graft a black walnut or Persian, you will have to cut
it or it will girdle the graft.
MR. STOKE: It doesn't do it for me.
A MEMBER: Has anybody done work with polyethylene film in grafting?
MR. BECKER: I hesitate to tell you my experiment. I don't think much of
it. I used polyethylene bags on chestnuts early in the season, and
practically every one grew, but everything else that was out in the hot
sun boiled. In the hot weather of June the grafts actually cook in the
bags.
MR. MACHOVINA: Did you use a bag over the whole graft, or just a tube
around it?
MR. BECKER: A bag over the whole thing. I have a few Carpathian grafts
that grew well. I think I have better luck with hot wax than anything
else.
DR. McKAY: Our time is up. I want to thank the panel, although we didn't
work you too hard. The panel is adjourned.
PRESIDENT BEST: Dr. Gravatt will show a film entitled: "It Bringeth
Forth Much Fruit."
* * * * *
DR. GRAVATT: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, you all are familiar
with the fact that the chestnut blight is loose in Europe. It was
reported in Italy in 1938, and it spread rather rapidly in Italy. It had
been there many years before they found it. In spite of our numerous
warnings to get them to watch for it, they let it get away. It has
spread into Switzerland, caused a great deal of damage there with no
hope of saving the larger chestnuts there or in Italy. It's spreading
into Yugoslavia. They are making very energetic efforts to control the
disease in Yugoslavia, trying to delay it as much as possible. It
happens the forest pathologist who handles this work is a young lady,
and she has got the forester and other people interested to try to hold
it back as long as possible.
The threat of the chestnut blight to the entire chestnut growth in all
of Southern Europe helped to bring about the organization of an
International Chestnut Council and Congress. This is made-up of
delegates from a number of the European countries, Spain, Portugal,
France, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Japan and the United
States. They have been meeting every other year, first for two years in
succession, but the plan now is to meet every other year. They had a
meeting in Spain and Portugal this past June, and the State Department
paid my expenses over, and so forth, to attend as a delegate from the
United States at this international meeting.
The meeting was very enjoyable. They have a very fine system there. They
hire big buses to take you around over the country. Your hotel is all
arranged for in advance, and you go sightseeing to the orchards and
utilization plants. We have meetings just here and there along the way
where we stop a half day or a day.
The next meeting will probably be held in about two years. They have
decided now that the meetings will be more in the way of conferences,
because the last three meetings have been partly sightseeing to observe
chestnut orchards and laboratories.
The possibility of holding the meeting in the United States has been
discussed by the delegates there. But it involves a lot of expense and
the delegates were of the opinion that there would be a very small
meeting in the United States, because the countries over there simply
couldn't afford the expense of sending them over here.
The problem in Italy is very serious, because they have something over a
million acres of grafted chestnut orchards, all of which they are
probably going to lose, and something like a million acres of coppice
growth that is going to be damaged but not such a severe loss. In
connection with the work in Italy I suggested the production of a movie
film that could be shown to the Italian people showing the chestnut
industry and also the chestnut blight. This was to be shown in different
parts of Italy to arouse more interest in watching out for the disease.
They have more opportunity there of slowing up the disease if they will
work hard at it, but they are not doing too much.
As some of you know when a lot of different people and agencies work on
a movie film there must be all sorts of compromises. This was done by a
temperamental Italian director, and other people had parts in it, so
what you see is a compromise. They made 30 copies in Italian. H has been
shown in many moving picture houses, and it is also on the loan basis to
the United States. There are extensive film loan libraries, located in
different parts of Italy, so any high school, college forestry group can
borrow films showing different operations, many of them prepared in the
United States and part of them in Italy.
DR. MACDANIEL: What about this so-called Korean chestnut? Is it actually
a third species?
DR. GRAVATT: I don't think so, We had quite a bit of argument on this
question, because in Spain where I found chestnut blight on chestnuts
brought from Japan, we found the name Korean chestnut. Sometimes the
Korean chestnut looks more like a Jap, sometimes it looks more like a
Chinese, and usually it's sort of a blend between the two. We prefer to
recognize these two species and call the Korean a natural hybrid. Both
species are grown in pure form in Korea, and they intercross readily,
and we do not regard it as a new species.
MR. WILSON: Are the Italian enough aware of their problem so that they
will have developed an Asiatic chestnut in time to replace their present
orchards, so that there will not be an interim?
DR. GRAVATT: There will be a big interim. That's an opportunity in this
country to get the market before the Italians ever come back, I think.
(The film, "It Bringeth Forth Much Fruit" was shown.)
The International Chestnut Commission and the Chestnut Blight Problem in
Europe, 1953
G. FLIPPO GRAVATT, _Senior Pathologist, U. S. Plant Industry Station,
Beltsville, Maryland_