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[Illustration: Eat more nuts
Carl Weschcke author]
GROWING NUTS IN THE NORTH
A personal story of the author's experience of 33 years with nut culture
in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Includes his failures as well as final
successes.
Scientific as well as readable for the amateur horticulturist with many
illustrations. Tells how to grow and to propagate nut bearing trees and
shrubs.
By CARL WESCHCKE
Published
WEBB PUBLISHING CO.
ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA, U.S.A.
1953
Copyright 1954
CARL WESCHCKE
ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA
Introduction
GROWING NUTS IN THE NORTH
Only a few books have been written on the subject of nut trees and their
bearing habits, and very little of that material applies to their
propagation in cold climates. For these reasons I am relating some of
the experiences I have had in the last thirty-two years in raising nut
trees in Wisconsin. To me, this has been a hobby with results both
practical and ornamental far beyond my original conception. I hope that
the information I am giving will be of help and interest to those who,
like myself, enjoy having nut-bearing trees in their dooryards, and that
it will prevent their undergoing the failures and disappointments I
sometimes met with in pioneering along this line. Since my purpose is to
give advice and assistance to those whose interest parallels mine by
relating my successes and failures and what I learned from each, I have
included only those details of technique which are pertinent.
It is a fine thing to have a hobby that takes one out-of-doors. That in
itself suggests healthful thought and living. The further association of
working with trees, as with any living things, brings one into the
closest association with nature and God. I hope this book may help
someone achieve that attitude of life, in which I have found such great
pleasure and inner satisfaction.
Anyone wishing to make a planting of a few nut trees in his dooryard or
a small orchard planting should join the Northern Nut Growers'
Association. This Association can be joined by writing the current
secretary, but since that office may be changed from time to time,
persons applying for membership should write George L. Slate of Geneva
Experiment Station, Geneva, New York, or Dr. H. L. Crane, Principal
Horticulturist, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant
Industry, Beltsville, Maryland, or the Author. The first president was
Dr. Robert T. Morris, New York City, N. Y., 1910-1911, the Association
being founded by Dr. W. C. Deming of Westchester, New York, who called
the first meeting in 1910.
Each year a report was printed of the proceedings of the Annual Meeting
and exclusive of the 1952 meeting, the Reports which are in substantial
book form number forty-two. Most of these Reports can be obtained by
writing to the secretary, the total library of these Reports
constituting one of the best authorities for nut tree planting in the
northern hemisphere of the United States than any extant.
The author acknowledges with thanks the consistent encouraging praise
from his father, Charles Weschcke, of the work involved in nut growing
experiments, also for his financial assistance, thus making the
publication of this book possible and available to readers at a nominal
price.
The editor of the greater part of this book, Allison Burbank Hartman (a
descendent of the great Luther Burbank), is entitled to great praise and
thanks for the interest and work she put forth.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to William Kuehn, the artist. He had
been associated with the author in Boy Scout work, also became a part of
the nut growing experiments in Northern Wisconsin, which work was
interrupted by World War II.
Acknowledgment is hereby made with gratitude to Dr. J. W. McKay of the
U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.; Harry Weber of
Cincinnati, Ohio; Ford Wilkinson, Rockport, Ind.; Fayette Etter,
Lehmasters, Pa.; Dr. W. C. Deming, Litchfield, Conn.; Clarence A. Reed,
Washington, D. C.; Dr. J. Russell Smith, Swarthmore, Pa.; George S.
Slate, Urbana, Ill.; Herman Last, Steamboat Rock, Iowa, and many other
professors and horticulturists who lent their time and effort assisting
me in my experiments throughout the years. And last but not least, the
author is indebted to his secretary, Dorothy Downie, for tireless
efforts in re-writing the manuscript many times which was necessary in
compiling this book.
GROWING NUTS IN THE NORTH
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 First Encounters
Chapter 2 First Attempts
Chapter 3 Black Walnuts
Chapter 4 Hazels and Filberts
Chapter 5 Hazels and/or Filberts
Chapter 6 Pecans and Their Hybrids
Chapter 7 Hickory the King
Chapter 8 Butternut
Chapter 9 Pioneering With English Walnuts in Wisconsin
Chapter 10 Other Trees
Chapter 11 Pests and Pets
Chapter 12 Storing and Planting Seeds
Chapter 13 Tree Planting Methods
Chapter 14 Winter Protection of Grafts and Seedlings
Chapter 15 Tree Storage
Chapter 16 Suggestions on Grafting Methods
Chapter 17 Grafting Tape Versus Raffia
Chapter 18 Effects of Grafting on Unlike Stocks
Chapter 19 Distinguishing Characteristics of Scions
Chapter 20 Hybridizing
Chapter 21 Toxicity Among Trees and Plants
Conclusion
Chapter 1
FIRST ENCOUNTERS
Almost everyone can remember from his youth, trips made to gather nuts.
Those nuts may have been any of the various kinds distributed throughout
the United States, such as the butternut, black walnut, beechnut,
chestnut, hickory, hazel or pecan. I know that I can recall very well,
when I was a child and visited my grandparents in New Ulm and St. Peter,
in southern Minnesota, the abundance of butternuts, black walnuts and
hazels to be found along the roads and especially along the Minnesota
and Cottonwood river bottoms. Since such nut trees were not to be found
near Springfield, where my parents lived, which was just a little too
far west, I still associate my first and immature interest in this kind
of horticulture with those youthful trips east.
The only way we children could distinguish between butternut and black
walnut trees was by the fruit itself, either on the tree or shaken down.
This is not surprising, however, since these trees are closely related,
both belonging to the family _Juglans_. The black walnut is known as
_Juglans nigra_ and the butternut or white walnut as _Juglans cinera_.
The similarity between the trees is so pronounced that the most
experienced horticulturist may confuse them if he has only the trees in
foliage as his guide. An experience I recently had is quite suggestive
of this. I wished to buy some furniture in either black walnut or
mahogany and I was hesitating between them. Noting my uncertainty, the
salesman suggested a suite of French walnut. My curiosity and interest
were immediately aroused. I had not only been raising many kinds of
walnut trees, but I had also run through my own sawmill, logs of walnut
and butternut. I felt that I knew the various species of walnut very
thoroughly. So I suggested to him:
"You must mean Circassian or English walnut, which is the same thing. It
grows abundantly in France. You are wrong in calling it French walnut,
though, because there is no such species."
He indignantly rejected the name I gave it, and insisted that it was
genuine French walnut.
"Perhaps," I advised him, "that is a trade name to cover the real
origin, just as plucked muskrat is termed Hudson seal."
That, too, he denied. We were both insistent. I was sure of my own
knowledge and stubborn enough to want to prove him wrong. I pulled a
drawer from the dresser of the "French walnut" suite and asked him to
compare its weight with that of a similar drawer from a black walnut
suite nearby. Black walnut weighs forty pounds per cubic foot, while
butternut weighs only twenty-five. He was forced to admit the difference
and finally allowed my assertion to stand that "French walnut" was
butternut, stained and finished to simulate black walnut. Since it would
have been illegal to claim that it was black walnut, the attractive but
meaningless label of "French walnut" had been applied. Although it is
less expensive, I do not mean to imply that butternut is not an
excellent wood for constructing furniture. It ranks high in quality and
is probably as durable as black walnut. I do say, though, that it was
necessary for me to know both the species names and the relative weights
of each wood to be able to distinguish between them indisputably.
An instance in which the nuts themselves were useless for purposes of
identification occurred when I sent some black walnuts to the Division
of Pomology at Washington, D. C. These were the Ohio variety which I had
grafted on butternut roots. The tree had been bearing for three or four
years but this was the first year the nuts had matured. During their
bearing period, these black walnuts had gradually changed in appearance,
becoming elongated and very deeply and sharply corrugated like
butternuts although they still retained the black walnut flavor. Because
of this mixture of characteristics, the government experts had great
difficulty in identifying the variety, although the Ohio was well known
to them.
Another variety of black walnut, the Thomas, I have also known to be
influenced by the butternut stock on which it was grafted, when in 1938,
one of my trees bore black walnuts whose meat had lost its
characteristic flavor and assumed that of the butternut.
[Illustration: _A--Genuine original Ohio Black Walnut from parent tree_
_B--Nut produced by grafting Ohio on Butternut_]
I also liked to pick hazelnuts when I was a boy. These are probably the
least interesting among the wild nuts since they are usually small and
hard to crack. There is much variation in wild hazels, however, and many
people may recall them as being reasonably large. One of the two species
abundant in Minnesota, _Corylus cornuta_ or Beak hazel, has fine,
needle-like hairs on its husk which are sure to stick into one's fingers
disagreeably. When the husk is removed, _Corylus cornuta_ resembles a
small acorn. It does not produce in southern Minnesota and central
Wisconsin as well as the common hazel, _Corylus Americana_, does, nor is
its flavor as pleasing to most people. It is lighter in color than the
common hazel and has a thinner shell. Of course, some hazels are
intermediate or natural hybrids between these two species, and if the
nuts of such hybrids are planted, they generally revert to one of the
parents when mature enough to bear. This natural hybridization occurs
among all plants, between those of the same species, the same genera or
the same family. It is very rare between plants of different families.
The process is a very important one in horticulture and I shall explain
some of the crosses which are well-known later in this book.