California. The trees were planted in about 1870. The picture affords a
typical illustration of one of the methods of harvesting. The nuts are
being thrashed or "knocked" from the trees to heavy canvas sheets spread
upon the ground which are drawn from tree to tree by horse power. The
nuts are loaded loose in wagons or in sacks and taken to some central
plant where they are run through hulling machines and the nuts
separated from the hulls after which they are spread out in trays and
left in the sun to dry. At that season of the year, there is practically
no danger of dew or rain and, after being exposed for several days and
nights during which they are frequently stirred, they are taken to the
nearest exchange point, bleached and put forth into final shape for the
market.
A very important factor in the success of almond production is the
honey-bee. Bee keepers shift their hives from orchard to orchard during
the blossoming period making a profit out of the honey and at the same
time charging a rental to the orchard owners. The bees, of course,
attend to the matter of interpollination.
In some sections, it is necessary to equip the orchards with smudge or
fire pots which are kept filled with crude oil and fired at the moment
the temperature goes down to below the freezing point during the
blossoming period. In one district these pots were this last year fired
again and again but after all the temperature went down to a point such
that a great part of the crop was lost. We are told that it is possible
to raise the temperature 26 to 34 degrees. It is tedious work and a
dirty job. The oil is placed in the pots in the daytime and the firing
usually takes place in the latter part of the night, very often after 5
o'clock in the morning.
We come now to the filbert industry. One of the reasons why filberts
were planted in the northwest was because the native hazels grow there
with great vigor. This picture shows a typical stool of the native hazel
as it is commonly seen in the western parts of Oregon and Washington.
Not infrequently it attains a height of 30 or 35 feet and when trained
to single stems, the trees not infrequently develop trunk diameters of
from 6 to 8 inches.
The Mr. Vollertsen of the Northwest is Mr. A. A. Quarnberg of Vancouver,
Washington. In 1893 Mr. Quarnberg read an article by the late Professor
H. E. Van Deman in which the latter urged the experimental planting of
the filbert in the Northwest. Mr. Quarnberg ordered two trees of the Du
Chilly variety from Mr. Felix Gillett, a Frenchman and then proprietor
of the Barren Hill Nurseries, Nevada City, California. These were
planted in February of 1894 and are believed to have been the first
trees of that variety shipped to the Northwest. They are so close
together that they are considerably crowded but still they have done
fairly well, bearing in some years as much as 45 pounds together.
This is a view of the first filbert orchard planted in the Northwest. It
consists of three hundred trees mainly of the Barcelona and Du Chilly
varieties obtained from Mr. Gillett in January of 1901 by Mr. Quarnberg
and planted by him for a neighbor, Mr. John E. Norelius.
In this connection, it is interesting to note that the Barcelona variety
had already become fairly well established in the Northwest when Mr.
Quarnberg first introduced the Du Chilly to that section. The picture
before you is of one of the oldest Barcelona trees that has come to my
personal attention. It shows a tree in Portland measuring 45 inches in
circumference one foot above ground. It is perhaps the largest filbert
tree in the United States. When visited during the past September, the
limbs were bending down with nuts and an estimate was made that it would
have from 50 to 70 pounds of mature nuts.
The tree before us was another Barcelona of good size. In 1919 it
matured a crop of 45 pounds of nuts. However, unfortunately it was
caught by the cold spell already referred to and the tree about half
killed. It stands in a low place in an orchard of some fifty trees and
was one of the most seriously affected.
Returning to the East, we have before us a picture of an Italian Red
filbert tree in the orchard of Messrs. Vollertsen and McGlennon north of
Rochester, New York. It is a young tree not over two years old. Each
terminal has a cluster of nuts. Mr. Vollertsen is observing it closely
and thus far regards it favorably.
Mr. J. G. Rush of West Willow, Pennsylvania has brought out a native
hazel which offers considerable promise to nut planters. It is a
remarkably prolific variety and the nuts are both large and
thin-shelled. This picture illustrates something of its heavy bearing
tendency.
We come now to the black walnut. One of the first varieties propagated
was the Thomas. This picture is one of several hundred grafted trees of
that variety owned by Mr. E. A. Riehl of Godfrey, Illinois. As here
shown, they are very prolific and these hundred trees grown mainly on
hillsides and untillable lands are furnishing Mr. Riehl with a very fair
income. On the whole, the Thomas is a good variety. It cracks much
better than does the average black walnut but still there are some
others which are a shade better in the matter of cracking quality. The
picture before you shows the parent tree of the variety first known as
Rush but later changed to Herman in order to avoid confusion of names
with the Rush Persian walnut. This variety has been propagated to some
extent but according to recent accounts, the parent tree has been cut
down. The tree now before you is the parent of a well known variety, the
Stabler. It is situated in Montgomery County, Maryland, some 20 miles
from the city of Washington. Reports have it that this tree bore 30
bushels of nuts in one mythical year, but the present owner states that
the maximum yield of any year since he has known the tree has been 10 or
11 bushels of hulled nuts. The variety is being propagated by several
nurserymen and trees are available for planting.
Another variety now being propagated by the nurserymen is the Ohio, the
parent tree of which is some 20 or 30 miles out of Toledo in the state
after which it was named. This picture, (showing seven nuts) illustrates
a remarkable tendency on the part of young grafted trees to bear at an
early age. This tree in the nursery of Mr. Jones of Lancaster, Pa., was
grafted in May and photographed in September one year following. Of
course early bearing is not wholly desirable but in a way it will refute
the common belief that black walnuts are necessarily tardy in coming
into bearing.
Col. J. C. Cooper, McMinnville, Oregon, President of the Western Walnut
Growers Association has on his home grounds two black walnut trees grown
from nuts obtained in the East which were 6 years old when this picture
was taken. Each of these trees which you will notice are from 20 to 30
feet high bore approximately a peck of nuts during the year when
photographed.
The native butternut is a species which has been quite neglected by our
horticulturists but through the efforts of Mr. Bixby, a few varieties
have been brought out and are now being propagated by the nurserymen. In
spite of its thick shell, the flavor of the butternut is preferred by
many people to that of any other nut on the market. It is our most hardy
species of nut tree. It grows as far north as Maine and Nova Scotia. Two
or three recognized varieties are being propagated. Probably those which
will soonest be available for dissemination to the public are the Aiken
from New Hampshire and the Deming from Connecticut.
One of our most decorative native trees is the American beech. As fine a
specimen as is often seen is this one not far from Easton, Maryland
photographed during the past summer. It is an enormous tree and very
productive. It is one of forty or fifty trees on the grounds of one of
the numerous large estates of Eastern Maryland and was planted, so we
are told, in 1830. The lady giving this information said that her mother
had the trees dug up in the forest by slaves and hauled to their present
location in ox carts. Now, ninety years later, they form a magnificent
avenue of trees. Fine crops of nuts are borne each year. The nuts are
small and most too tedious to extract from the shell to be useful for
human consumption, but they go a long way in the finishing off of the
turkeys and other poultry in the fall.
Another species of nut which is quite neglected is the Japanese walnut.
It has been on trial in this country for perhaps fifty or seventy-five
years. It has indicated its adaptability to a wide range of the country;
it succeeds on a great variety of soils and it is both hardy and early
to come into bearing. It has this disadvantage, however,--the nuts are
small; but in flavor the kernals can hardly be distinguished from those
of the butternut. Very often it forms a most attractive tree and it
should be used to a much greater extent than it is on home lawns.
In Michigan, hickory and black walnut trees have been used along the
highways as avenue trees for a considerable period. In Pennsylvania
occasionally the Persian walnut is used as an avenue tree. One of the
beauty spots along the roadway of Lancaster County is this stretch of
roadway under the spreading branches of Persian walnut trees. Senator
McNary of Oregon thought so well of the beauty of the filbert that he
induced his brother to plant several trees on his lawn in the city of
Salem. It is no exageration to say that there are no prettier trees in
the city then are these before you.
To a considerable extent, nut raising is being combined with the poultry
industry in the Northwest. The poultry raisers claim that some kind of
trees are essential to furnish shade in the poultry yards. They say that
fruit trees are not desirable for the reason that at harvest time the
chickens not only pick and ruin the fruit but themselves get internal
disorders. Nut trees, they argue, fit in very well, as the chickens
cannot hurt the nuts nor the nuts the chickens. Furthermore, the trees
in chicken parks salvage a great deal from the chicken manure which
would otherwise be lost. The use of nut trees in this way is a practice
which it would seem could well be introduced to good advantage in the
eastern states.
Among the ornamentals, it is difficult to imagine a species which could
more effectively be used than the pecan. The picture before you was
taken of a comparatively young tree perhaps 30 or 40 years old on the
home grounds of a private citizen near Easton, Maryland at practically
our own latitude. It is a most beautiful tree.
Rightly used, the black walnut is also one of our most effective species
in the landscape. The picture before you is of a tree 51 years old. It
stands in front of the home residence of a sister to United States
Senator Charles L. McNary of Salem, Oregon. When photographed, this tree
measured 10 feet, 6 inches in girth at breast height. It would be hard
to imagine a more noble and graceful nut.
Along the roadways of California, we not uncommonly find the native
black walnut used as an avenue tree. It is very refreshing and cooling
on a hot day to drive under trees of the sort illustrated in the picture
before you. This avenue of trees is along the Lincoln Highway less than
a mile west of the University grounds at Davis.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: The next speaker on the program will be presented by Dr.
Morris.
DR. MORRIS: They say that a biographer unconsciously writes his
autobiography. That is not tautology. Some one writing of the late Frank
N. Mayer said: "The plant hunter and explorer is the unsung Columbus of
horticulture." Our next speaker was the one who wrote that in Mr.
Meyer's biography. We all recognize it as autobiography. Emerson tells
us that every successful institution is the lengthened shadow of one
man. There were heroes before Agamemnon and botanists before Dr.
Fairchild, but with the beginning of the new century there came into
existence the development of a new idea, that of exploration in foreign
countries for the purpose of bringing to us their valuable plant
products. It was one of those things which we may say makes the whole
world kin because the economists tell us that basically the food supply
is fundamental to all subsequent human activities. Dr. Fairchild
organized the machinery of exploration for purposes of introduction into
this country of valuable plants from foreign lands. There is perhaps at
the present time no one who serves better as peace maker than does the
one who gives the world more food. From the economist's standpoint the
food supply subtends all advances in civilization. Now the hour is late
and we all know what Dr. Fairchild has done. Any remarks on my part are
made because they belongs to the form of polite procedure rather than
because of need for telling of things which Dr. Fairchild has
accomplished.
DR. FAIRCHILD: Ladies and Gentlemen of the Northern Nut Growers
Association. When I face men and women who are doing things in
agriculture I feel a peculiar degree of embarrassment. I do not know why
but I suppose it is because what I have done, what little I have done in
bringing in these new things, has never enabled me to get to the bottom
of any of the things that I have brought in. In other words I feel that
I am in the presence of a number of men who know down to the very
smallest minutiae the business that they are engaged in. Now I do not
know these minutiae about plants. I wish I did. There is nothing more
fascinating in the world than to take one crop and learn to know it
"down to the ground." It is coming to be one of the greatest things in
the imagination of man, this grappling with the fundamental problems of
agriculture which are wrapped up in the varieties of the plants that we
grow. I have had a very severe education in that matter of varieties and
I want to congratulate you as a body of men and women who are
individually going to find out what these best varieties are.
I suppose that the talk that Mr. Reed and I had in a bamboo grove out in
Chico., California, when we were trying to find out uses for the bamboo
and Reed said: "Well, the pecan and almond growers want to knock the
nuts off their trees with these bamboo poles," is what led up to this
talk, and I want to thank Mr. Reed for the opportunity to show slides of
a few of the new plants which we are working on in the Department of
Agriculture.
We brought in so many of them, (47,000 different kinds) in these 22
years that the office of Plant Introduction has been in operation that
Mr. Reed suggested that the nut growers would like to have thrown on the
screen pictures of the nuts of foreign countries. I said that we did not
have any. Then I began to dig into our own literature, project reports,
experimenters cards, correspondence and the other recording machinery
that we have and I found that we had a good many. I want to make it
perfectly plain to you that what I am going to do tonight is simply to
open a door and show you the possibilities of some of these foreign
nuts. There are a great many more that we have not succeeded in landing
on the shores of America, and if any one of you will come to my office
on 13th and F streets I will throw all the correspondence and
photographs on the table and let you look through it.
It has been said that the Department's work is badly organized. Yes, it
is badly organized. But I do not know how you are going to very well
organize with a small body of men a group of projects every one of which
is a life job for a man, especially when you cannot get the men, and
when you do get them they do not stay on the job for life. So there is
the great difficulty. Mr. Littlepage has hit the nail on the head. The
Department of Agriculture is not well organized but it is not an easy
thing to organize experimental work on at least 150 different kinds of
industries with the money and the men we have. The fact that the
investigations require the men to be on the land close to their work and
that we are all in city buildings, is a great handicap. We have scarcely
a tree or shrub or plant of any kind that bears on our work within two
or three miles of the Department of Agriculture building. We need the
land. We need a great many more men, and we need more money.
I landed in Greece in 1901. In Athens I saw them selling on the streets
these pistache nuts which I opened with my fingers. The kernels are a
brilliant green. I had never seem them before. I had heard of them. They
were sold around the streets by the Greek peddlers and called
pistachios. The pistache or pistachio industry is one which I wish some
young, energetic man of seventy would take up. I say 70 because it
requires a young man of seventy to take up one of these nut industries,
the boys of 26 are too old. Some young fellow of seventy should go into
the pistache industry and find out what there is in it and develop it
into a great industry. The American Consul in Palestine told me six or
eight years ago that there was no plant culture in all Palestine that
paid so well as a pistache orchard. Trees have been known to yield as
much as 40 to 50 dollars apiece. The Grecian pistaches are different
from those of Tunis and Algeria and others of the Mediterranean
countries. There are a good many different varieties.
This picture shows a piece of praline made of pistaches. This is sold on
the streets of Athens and compares very favorably with our pralines made
in New Orleans from the kernel of the pecan.
Mr. Chisholm, who was connected with the Consulate in Athens and who
spoke Greek very well, took me out and showed me what these pistache
trees looked like and when I found this miscellaneous lot of grafted
pistache trees I made an arrangement to purchase the whole collection
and send it to this country. I had great difficulty in getting the
American Consul in Piraeus to help me ship them. I could not wait
indefinitely and it took a good while to have them dug and packed. I
asked him if he would send them and he said he was very busy. I told him
this was a matter which concerned the people of the United States and if
he did not have time to do it I would telegraph to the Secretary of
Agriculture and tell him that the Consul in Athens was too busy to ship
these plants. Finally he consented to ship them and this was the first
shipment of grafted pistache trees to arrive in America. They were badly
grafted, badly packed and badly prepared and I think only one of this
whole collection survived and is now growing in the Gallespie grounds at
Montecito, California.
Mr. Kearney ought to be here tonight and Mr. Swingle and Dr. Rixford.
These three men have given more attention to the pistache than I have.
Mr. Kearney was studying the date palm industry of Southern Tunis and in
connection with it he made a study of the pistache industry of the
desert region of the coast of Tunis. This picture represents an Arab
standing beside an old pistache tree that probably is forty or fifty
years of age. It represents the pistache in its winter dress. They are
deciduous trees. They plant one male tree to about twenty females. We
have had a great real of difficulty in propagating these pistache trees.
We have five different species of stock on which to grow them, and we
ought to learn all the best varieties in the world. But unfortunately
some of the best varieties in Sicily are infested with a moth which lays
its eggs in the twigs just below the leaf scar and it is impossible for
the entomologist to detect these eggs without destroying the buds. That
apparently trivial circumstance has made it impossible for us to get
these cuttings in from Sicily without sending a trained horticulturist
there for them. We never have had the money to send a man there who
could do it, a man who had had the necessary experience. As a
consequence we have not as big a collection of these pistache varieties
as we ought to have.
These men in the photograph are getting the scions for Mr. Kearney, and
I am glad to say that these particular scions which they cut are now
growing in California. Mr. Kearney also on this same trip visited the
Duke de Bronte estate on the slopes of Mount Etna. It was an estate
bequeathed by the King of Italy to Lord Nelson, who was made the Duke de
Bronte and it is still the property of the Nelson family. Mr. Beck, who
was the manager for this estate and with whom we have had correspondence
for nearly 18 years, gave us perhaps more information than we have
gotten from any other foreign source on the cultivation of the pistache.
The Trabonella, which was one of the best commercial varieties, came
from the Bronte estate on the slopes of Mount Etna, where pistache
growing is a paying industry. In Europe the nuts are very largely used,
outside of the Mediterranean region for making the pistache ice cream
because of the green color in the seed itself, and in the Mediterranean
region both the yellow and green varieties as we are coming to use them
in this country, as table nuts. The highest price is paid for the green
pistache nuts which are used in ice creams and confectioneries. Here are
two Sicilian horticulturists, one of them holding a bundle of bud
sticks. This Trabonella variety is now growing in America. We have
collected pistache nuts from many parts of the world. A very interesting
man by the name of Jewett who became acquainted with the late Ameer of
Afghanistan procured for us the Afghanistan pistache. I got in
correspondence with him through the Consul in Calcutta. Through a
mistake made in sending some of this correspondence direct instead of to
Calcutta it nearly cost him his life. I did not know the conditions
there and asked Jewett in my letter what the possibilities were of
sending an Agricultural explorer there. The letter fell into the hands
of the Ameer and aroused his suspicions. Jewett was one of the two
English speaking persons at that time in the country. One Sunday morning
my door bell rang, and Jewett came to my house in Connecticut Avenue
with two big saddle bags filled with seed sent by the Ameer. This
collection of pistache seeds with its Afghanistan label composed part of
the collection of seeds. Very few of the seeds grew however and the
seedlings, which like many nut trees do not come true to seed, have not
produced any varieties of particular value.
A year ago I had the pleasure of making a motor tour through California.
I went to see Leonard Coats, one of those real pioneers of 65 or 70
years of age, who has perhaps done as much for California horticulture
as any other one nurseryman, and he took me up into his orchard on the
hill side overlooking his nursery where no drops of rain had fallen
between the months of March and October when I was there and where they
only have 22 inches of rainfall anyway, and I found growing there this
collection of pistache trees which we had sent him about ten years ago.
The nuts are borne towards the ends of the branches. The tree is able to
withstand any amount of drought and as I sat there and he told me how
prohibition had wiped out the vineyards of the surrounding country, how
the Italians had deserted them and gone back to Italy, I could not help
feeling that in this beginning on his hillsides we had the possibility
of covering those thousands of acres of hillsides which exist in
California today, from which the grape vines have been taken out, with a
nut crop of the very first importance. These little beginnings are
really the most interesting things in life. I read in the paper today
that this is the ninety-fourth anniversary of the first railroad in
America and my mind went back to a conversation I had with Edward
Everett Hale when he told me that his father was the first man to bring
over an English locomotive to America. What do you suppose was the
principal objection that the people had to railway exploitation in this
country? They could not see how two trains could pass each other on the
same track. So his father brought over from England a little model
switch and put it down in his parlor and took people in there and showed
them that two trains could pass if one ran off on a siding. That story
of Edward Everett Hale has helped me to understand why it is that most
people hesitate to go ahead into any new industry always seeing some
impossibility in its development. I could probably prove to you beyond a
shadow of a doubt that not a single one of these nut trees I am showing
you tonight could ever be made a success. Notwithstanding that they are
successful.