potential supply of the former is usually abundant but the small number
of butternut trees in the country automatically makes the possible
supply of nuts of that kind very limited. The kernels of both these,
walnuts and butternuts, and also of the best northern hickories,
particularly the shagbarks and shellbarks, are highly palatable and
nutritious. In these respects they compare favorably with any other
kinds of nuts on the market. These northern species are singularly free
from an impregnation of tannin in the pellicles which leaves a bitter
after taste so familiar with certain of their chief competitors in the
nut market.
Black walnut kernels in particular appear to be firmly entrenched in the
markets of this country. They are in keen demand with many classes of
manufacturers. This demand is on the increase with no apparent
possibility of foreign competition, as the eastern black walnut,
_Juglans nigra_, the finest of the American blacks, is grown nowhere
outside of the United States except in certain districts of a narrow
adjoining fringe of neighboring Canada.
The present year may be one of the best likely to occur soon in which to
harvest and prepare these nuts for the market or home consumption on the
farm. The drought has undoubtedly reduced the crop as a whole, although
at this writing the yield appears considerably greater than that of
1929. At harvest time it will probably be found that many of the nuts
are below normal size and that the kernels are imperfectly developed.
The quantity of the finished product which it would be possible to place
on the market would therefore appear likely to be small.
On its face, with a light crop of poor grade in prospect, it may be
difficult to understand why this should be a propitious year to
inaugurate a systematic harvesting and marketing campaign. However, in
explanation of this, _first_, there are no carry-overs from last year.
So short was the crop of 1929 that manufacturers found the supply
exhausted before the end of last January. Many sent out urgent appeals
hoping to find some source of supply. They offered the inviting price of
65 cents a pound for good grade kernels, f. o. b. the farmers' shipping
point. Yet it was all in vain as the kernels were not forthcoming.
_Second_, as a result of the recent extreme drought and the consequent
shortage of some of the more staple crops, there will likely be
considerable slack time on many farms. Where this is the case and there
are nut crops in the field it will likely be found in many cases that
they may be gathered and sold to good financial advantage, assuming that
right methods are employed in harvesting and preparing for market.
_Third_, where there are nuts in quantity too limited to justify
gathering and preparing for market, they should still be gathered and as
carefully prepared as though for the market and used on the home table.
They will be found to be most excellent and pleasing food.
To obtain the highest prices for black walnuts or butternuts, certain
fundamentals should be kept in mind.
1. They should be sold only in the shelled condition.
2. The kernels must be delivered early.
3. They should present an attractive appearance.
4. They should be in thoroughly sanitary condition.
The explanation as to why they should be sold in the shelled condition
is simple. The weight of shell is too great to justify shipment in that
condition. In the shell, walnuts and butternuts seldom bring more than
$1.50 or $2.00 per bushel and the demand is exceedingly limited,
especially after the earliest part of the season. Again, the shells are
of no value except for fuel. Fuel of this kind by freight or express is
exceedingly costly. Again, the nuts must be cracked somewhere and the
kernels removed before they can be used, and farm labor is much cheaper
than that of the city. Regardless of where the labor is from, the cost
of cracking the nuts and picking out the kernels, or "shelling" as the
operation is called in the trade, is charged back to the farmer. The
shelling of these nuts is something in which the whole family on the
farm can join.
Delivery should be early as it is then that prices are best. The use of
shelled nuts is practically an all-year affair, yet, just as soon as the
supply begins to bulk up in the hands of the wholesalers, prices
promptly go lower.
The condition in which black walnut kernels reach the market is
ordinarily very poor. Little attention appears to be paid to the matter
of sanitation, and practically no thought is given to their appearance.
As a rule, shipment is made in burlap bags of double thickness. Little
thought is ever paid to separating the kernels according to shade of
color and it is rare that the kernels are properly cured after being
removed from the shells. Oil and moisture given off by the kernels are
taken up by the burlap bags, and by the time delivery is made to the
wholesaler, the kernels are in no sense attractive and are often
unsanitary. Fortunately, the kernels are carefully gone over by
employees of the wholesaler by whom all spoiled pieces are removed and,
in the process of manufacture, the kernels are usually so heated as to
dispel any danger from ill effects due to the unsanitary condition.
The successive steps essential to harvesting and preparing for market
may be grouped as follows:
1. Harvest the nuts as soon as mature.
2. Remove the hulls promptly.
3. Cure the nuts somewhat.
4. Crack the shells and remove the kernels very soon.
5. In cracking, the kernels should be separated into five
grades--Lights, darks, intermediates as to color, small pieces and
crumbs.
6. Before packing for shipment the kernels must be artificially cured
until they no longer feel moist to the hand when it is run through the
container.
7. Barrels or boxes of wood, or strawboard lined with water-proof paper,
should be used in packing for shipment. These should not be closed until
immediately before shipment.
8. As soon as received by the buyer the containers should be opened and
the kernels spread out in clean bins where they may receive frequent
inspection.
_Harvesting_
The nuts should be picked from the ground within three or four days from
the time they fall. If possible the limbs should be jarred so as to
shake the nuts from the tree. Good nuts will usually be found to mature
within a very few days and may readily be shaken down.
At this time the hulls will be perfectly sound and not objectionable, in
so far as staining the hands is concerned. But if the hulls be broken
open the juice which they emit will leave a lasting stain on the hands
or garments. But the hulls need not be broken to any great extent.
_Hulling_
The ordinary corn sheller on the farm is undoubtedly the most
practicable instrument for removing the hulls, generally available at
this time. If the hulls are still green enough to be firm, the nuts may
be placed in the machine by hand. Otherwise, some arrangement may be
worked out by which the nuts may automatically be fed into the machine.
After hulling by this method the nuts should be put into a tub or tank
of water and thoroughly washed with a broom or stiff brush. When the
nuts are hulled promptly and well washed it will be discovered that the
natural color of walnuts is light or whitish and not black. The dark
color is wholly due to stain from the green hulls. This stain, by the
way, loses its effectiveness as soon as the hulls turn dark. Stains from
nut hulls which have lost all trace of green color, so that the hulls
are black, are readily washed from the hands.
After the nuts have come from the sheller they may be handled by shovels
or by forks with tines close together. They should then be cured for a
few days. For this purpose they should never be placed in piles or deep
layers. Preferably they should be spread out in trays with bottoms of
wire mesh or narrow cleats so as to be open. These should be put where
there will be a free circulation of air all about. Where trays are not
available the nuts may be spread on a barn floor and the doors left open
during the day. If the weather is bright they may be spread on boards
laid on the ground directly in the sun, although it is probable that
they should be given partial shade during extremely hot days.
Various methods of hulling other than by the corn sheller are in use.
Some involve merely stepping on the nuts with a forward movement of the
foot, just as the hulls are softening. This is not particularly
satisfactory as the nuts must still be picked out of the mashed hulls by
hand. Besides leaving a very persistent stain on the hands this method
is unsatisfactory for two reasons; it is not at all rapid and very far
from perfect in the degree to which it removes the hulls.
Other methods involve the use of automobile wheels. Sometimes machines
are driven over the nuts as they are thinly spread on the ground. Again
a wheel is jacked up and set in motion in a tub of water in which the
nuts have been placed. Both methods have their advocates. The writer has
had experience with the former only, yet he can conceive of little to
commend either method.
Still another method is that of pounding off the hulls by hand. Of all
common methods this has the fewest conceivable advantages. It is slow,
thoroughly inefficient, and extremely objectionable from the standpoint
of the stain.
What is perhaps far the most satisfactory method of any yet used for
removing the hulls, from every standpoint except that of expense, is one
evolved by the Department of Agriculture in 1926. It consists merely of
running the nuts through large-sized vegetable paring machines. These
machines consist of metal containers, circular in form and having a
capacity of approximately 1-1/2 bushels. The inner walls are lined with
hard abrasive surfaces. A bushel of nuts is placed inside, the lid
closed, a stream of water turned into the container, and the machine set
in operation. By means of gears attached to the bottom of the container
which is separate from the walls, plated and perforated, the bottom
spins around several hundred times per minute. The nuts are made to beat
violently against the rough walls with the result that, in from 2-1/2 to
5 minutes, depending upon the firmness of the hulls, the nuts are ready
to be taken out. They are then perfectly hulled, thoroughly washed and
light or whitish in color.
With a few days of drying, the nuts should be ready for cracking.
_Cracking_
As soon as fit for cracking, and before becoming so dry that the kernels
break badly, the nuts should be shelled. The hammer and a solid block of
wood, or a piece of metal with a shallow cupped depression in which to
place the nuts while held for hitting, is the most common outfit in use.
Various handpower machines are appearing on the market, and already
designers are at work attempting to devise power machines. The former
have been in use for several years. The latter are mostly quite new and
untried. About all that can be said regarding such machines is that they
are much needed and that it is not improbable that there will soon be
several makes of efficient machines in the field.
_Grading the Kernels_
As soon as the shells have been cracked, the kernels should be
extracted. All large pieces, including chiefly quarters and whatever
halves there are, should be separated into three shades: lights, darks
and intermediates, as previously mentioned. All sound, small pieces,
regardless of shade, should be put into a fourth grade and all unsound
kernels and particles too small to separate from minute particles of
shell, should be put into a fifth grade and fed to poultry in moderate
quantity at one time.
Unless given artificial heat before packing for shipment, the kernels
are fairly certain to become moldy and even to cake together in a solid
mass while in transit. To do this they should be placed in trays or pans
and put above or back of a kitchen stove where they will not get hot
enough to be injured. The hand should be run through the kernels not
infrequently so as to detect any excessive heat and also to determine by
experience the proper degree of dryness.
After being kept warm and being frequently stirred until the kernels
seem properly dry they may be removed and allowed to become cool. They
should then be re-examined with the hand so as to determine the apparent
dryness. If they feel at all moist, they should be returned to the
drying position and the operation repeated. The writer has had no
personal experience in this matter and so cannot give precise
directions. However, the farm wife can probably work out a very
satisfactory system in her kitchen.
_Packing and Shipping_
Although previously discussed, the importance of clean, sanitary and
attractive containers for shipment can scarcely be overstressed. Without
such precaution no one need hope to work up a permanent business, for,
regardless of how secure he may feel with the trade he will eventually
find his customers turning to others who are willing to go to this
trouble.
When the time comes for shipping the boxes may be closed up and
delivered promptly to the transporting agency. The containers should
again be opened as soon as the destination is reached and an examination
made as to the moisture condition of the kernels.
_Handling Other Nuts_
So far as harvesting and hulling hickory nuts is concerned, the matter
is not at all complicated. Good nuts drop with the first sharp frost.
Those with good kernels inside become automatically separated from the
hulls. Those which do not easily become separated from the hulls should
be discarded as they are rarely of any value and should not become mixed
with the good nuts. With a moderate amount of curing these nuts should
be ready for market. They usually bring better prices in the shell than
do walnuts; but on the other hand they are in less demand after being
shelled. Perhaps this is because the trade has not been built up but it
is a recognized fact that black walnut kernels are practically in a
class by themselves among the nuts of the world, in the extent to which
they retain an agreeable flavor in cooking. Hickory nut kernels should
be given a much greater place than they now occupy in the cooking and
baking for the farm table. A few finely chopped kernels mixed with
breads, cakes, or cereals will be found highly acceptable to most
palates.
Butternuts are generally too scarce to justify much attention. They
could probably be hulled by vegetable paring machines quite as
efficiently as are walnuts but, so far as known to the writer, this has
not been tried.
Beechnuts make excellent food for poultry and certain kinds of
livestock. To convert the crop into cash is largely a matter of using
the land under the trees for the right sort of grazing. In European
countries beechnuts are highly valued as a source of salad oil. Mr.
Bixby of this association is taking steps to procure trees bearing as
large sized nuts as possible with a view to subsequent breeding. So far
as known to the writer beechnuts in this country are not gathered in
quantity.
BEECHNUTS
_By Willard G. Bixby, Baldwin, N. Y._
Although the association has now been in existence 20 years there has so
far been little progress, we might almost say no progress, made in
getting an improved beechnut.
All have agreed that the flavor of the beechnut was excellent, that it
had a shell so thin that it could be opened with a pocket knife, that it
was an oily nut and would keep, like the thin shelled hickories,
walnuts, etc., and not a starchy one, which would dry out like chestnuts
and acorns, that it would grow and bear well in northern sections where
the best nuts we have do not grow well, but also that it was so small as
to practically nullify the above mentioned excellent qualities. If we
ever get a beechnut the size of a chestnut we shall have a most needed
addition to our nut bearing trees, but there has been so little hope of
finding such that no one has paid much attention to the beech. As a
matter of fact not within the last ten years have there been any prizes
offered for beechnuts except those provided by the writer at his own
expense, neither have there been at any time during the writer's
recollection any varieties suggested excepting one or two by Omer R.
Abraham, Martinsville, Ind., which nobody has growing, so far as known
to the writer.
It was thought that there might be a large fruited species of beech
growing in some part of the world as is the case with the chestnut,
walnut, hickory and hazel, and that it would only be necessary to import
it to get what was needed, or at least to make a good start in getting
what was needed. Rehder in his wonderfully helpful "Manual of Cultivated
Trees and Shrubs" gives seven species of beech, one in America, Fagus
grandiflora, one in Europe, F. sylvatica, two in Japan, F. sieboldii and
F. japonica, two in China, F. longipetiolata and F. engleriana and one
in Asia Minor, F. orientalis. These are growing in the Arnold Arboretum
and leaves, buds and fruits are to be seen in the herbarium there. A day
spent there, however, half in the arboretum and half in the herbarium,
convinced the writer that there is at present no large fruited species
of beech known to botanists. There is an incompletely known species of
Chinese beech, F. lucida, whose fruit is not in the Arnold Arboretum.
While it is of course possible that there may yet be a large fruited
species somewhere in the world, still the relatively slight differences
in the leaf, bud and fruit of the seven species already known makes this
seem improbable and leads us to conclude that the genus "Fagus" is the
most uniform in the species that make it up of any genus of nut bearing
trees. This seemingly reduces us to the necessity of seeking variation
in species already known.
Fagus sylvatica has been by all odds longest in cultivation and many
varieties are known. Rehder lists 17 principal varieties with many other
sub varieties. These have leaves varying in color, purple, copper color,
pinkish, yellow and whitish spotted with green, beside the usual green,
also in shapes of leaves, some very narrow almost linear, some very
small and deeply toothed, others large and roundish up to 3 in. broad
and 5 in. long. The varieties vary in bark from the smooth bark typical
of the beech to bark like that of the oak. They also vary in habit of
growth, being mostly erect but some pendulous and some dwarf with
twisted contorted branches. But no one seems to have ever heard of a
large fruited beech.
It is inconceivable however, that a tree can vary in every particular
except in the fruit and it is believed that it only requires sufficient
searching to find large fruited varieties. There are difficulties,
however, in the way of finding unusual beeches which do not occur with
walnuts, chestnuts and hickories, which are trees where the nuts have
such merit that they are usually spared even if in the middle of a
cultivated field, while the beech is usually a forest tree. A nut
contest brings hundreds and thousands of walnuts and hickories but only
very few beechnuts. Correspondence with the forestry departments of
every state having such departments generally evinced interest in the
search for a large fruited beech, but those replying universally
disclaimed any knowledge of such.
While it is believed that there are such in America, perhaps as many or
more than in Europe, and efforts should be made here to find such, there
are many reasons for believing that a search in Europe will be more
immediately productive of results than will the search here. The beech
is much more esteemed in Europe than here and has been extensively
planted in forests that for centuries have been operated for constant
production of timber. It is believed that the contents of those forests
are as a class better known to their keepers, at least the beeches there
are better known than in the forests in the United States. The number of
propagated ornamental varieties noted in the second paragraph gives
evidence of this. The history of one or two of these varieties will make
this clearer.
Three beeches with red or copper colored leaves as far back as 1680 were
recorded as growing in a wood near Zurich, Switzerland. Most of the
purple beeches now growing are believed to have been derived from a
single tree discovered in the last century in a forest in Thuringia in
Germany. There may be or may have been many such in America but they
would not have appeared valuable to the woodmen who probably would be
the only ones who would see them and then the leaves would not have been
visible in the winter when trees are most frequently cut. That the
Deming purple black walnut is in existence is due solely to the
observation and action of Dr. Deming who gathered scions and got them
growing before the original tree had been cut for the purpose of getting
space for improving a road. That this tree could be seen from the road
was how it came to the attention of Dr. Deming. Had it been in the midst
of a large forest it might have been cut in winter for timber without
the cutter knowing it was unusual.
That we have such a wealth of varieties of the beech valuable as
ornamental trees and none valuable for the large nuts they bear,
certainly suggests that the tree varies in every way except in the size
of the nuts it bears, but this is not believed to be so. The growing of
ornamental trees is an old industry. There are hundreds of nurserymen
today growing ornamentals and only few in comparison growing nut trees.
It is not so many years ago that there were none growing nut trees. A
beech with purple leaves appeared valuable 100 years ago and was
disseminated by nurserymen while one with nuts 10 times normal size
would probably not have been propagated for there would not have been
sale for it. It would have only been known locally as unusual and
probably the tree would have been cut for timber when it reached the
proper size.
The search for a large fruited beech is not going to be easy but it is
believed that persistent work will eventually triumph, much as the 1929
contest brought more shellbark hickories of value to the attention of
the association than all previous contests put together. The shellbark
is a tree the best varieties of which it is difficult to learn about.
Unlike the shagbark hickory it is not generally found growing near
buildings or in fields or pastures. Its natural habitat is the bottom
lands of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, lands that are
overflowed part of the year. There will have to be a campaign, perhaps
for several years, till people begin to look for large fruited beeches;
then will come a harvest of them.
The relatively few beeches that have come in to the contests suggests
that methods used heretofore should be somewhat modified in beechnut
search. Probably a campaign of education among foresters might be more
productive of results than among farmers, at least it should supplement
it. The search for improved beechnuts evidently has more different kinds
of difficulties than the search for any other nut and considerable
thought on the matter leads me to suggest that a committee be appointed
to study the nut and to seek large fruited specimens especially to look
into methods for getting them and report to the association a year
hence, said committee to finance itself.
This suggestion is made because it is believed that efforts made in
Europe to find a large fruited beech will be more immediately productive
of results than in America for the reasons noted above. Even if the
committee consists of but one man correspondence abroad would be better
carried on in the name of a committee of the association than in the
name of an individual and it is believed would be more productive of
results.
THE 1929 CONTEST
_By Willard G. Bixby, Baldwin, New York_
This has at last been finished. It is a memorable achievement in many
ways. It has taken much longer to award the prizes than at any previous
contest, which is a matter of deep regret to me. But, if we except the
shagbark hickories and the beechnuts, the value of the nuts is so far
ahead of those received in any other contest as to make the results of
all previous contests commonplace in comparison.