FIRST ATTEMPTS
When I was about fifteen years old, my family moved to St. Paul,
Minnesota, where my home now is and where my experimental work with nuts
was begun. St. Paul is in the 45th north parallel, but although it is
farther north, it is as favorable for the growth of nut trees as New Ulm
or St. Peter, because it lies in the Mississippi River valley and is
farther east. Bodies of water and altitudes have as great an influence
on plant life as latitude; at least, they can have, and these are
factors that must be understood thoroughly. Soil conditions also vitally
affect plant life, particularly deep-rooted trees such as nut trees
usually are. Each has its own requirements; hickory, Japanese heartnut
and Persian walnuts favor an alkaline soil, which chestnuts, wanting
acid will not grow in; chestnuts thrive best in a slightly acid,
well-drained soil; hazels will grow in either alkaline or acid soil as
will black walnuts and butternuts; almonds need a light sandy soil,
similar to that suitable to plums, pecans do well in either rich river
bottoms, which may be slightly acid, or in clay soil on high hillsides
which are alkaline. A deep, sandy or graveltype soil is usually accepted
by the chestnuts even though it may not be slightly acid, and successful
orchards have been grown on a deep clay soil on hillsides.
It is not always easy to obtain black walnuts and butternuts to eat.
Hickory nuts have been a favorite of mine since I first tasted them and
I often have found it difficult to procure fresh ones, ones that were
not slightly rancid. Because I liked eating these nuts, I thought I
would try to grow some for my own consumption and so avoid having to
depend on a grocer's occasional supply of those shipped in, always a
little stale. Raising nuts appealed to me economically too, since
obviously trees would need little care, and after they had begun to bear
would supply nuts that could be sold at interesting prices.
I turned the back yard of my home in St. Paul into an experimental plot.
Here I set out some of each kind of tree I planted or grafted at my farm
in Wisconsin. I had purchased a farm 35 miles east of St. Paul, beyond
the influence of the St. Croix River Valley. My experiments really began
there. The farm was covered with butternut trees, hazel bushes, and a
wild hickory called "bitternut." This last is well-named for I have
never found an animal other than a squirrel that could endure its nuts.
Possibly the white-footed mouse or deer-mouse could--I don't know. He
usually eats anything a squirrel does. I learned to appreciate these
bitternut trees later and they became a source of experience and
interest to me as I learned to graft on them many varieties, species and
hybrids of hickory. They served as a root-system and shortened the
length of time required to test dozens of hickory types, helping me in
that way, to learn within one lifetime what types of nuts are practical
for growing in the north.
Remembering the nut trees in southern Minnesota, I first thought to
procure black walnut and hickory trees from some farmer in that
district. Through acquaintances in St. Peter, I did locate some black
walnut trees only to find that it was impractical to dig and transport
trees of the size I wanted. A nursery near St. Paul supplied me with
some and I bought twenty-eight large, seedling black walnut trees. I was
too eager to get ahead with my plans and I attempted, the first year
these trees were planted, to graft all of them. My ability to do this
was not equal to my ambition though, and all but two of the trees were
killed. I was successful in grafting one of them to a Stabler black
walnut; the other tree persisted so in throwing out its natural sprouts
that I decided it should be allowed to continue doing so. That native
seedling tree which I could not graft now furnishes me with bushels of
walnuts each year which are planted for understocks. This is the name
given to the root systems on which good varieties are grafted.
In an effort to replace these lost trees, I inquired at the University
of Minnesota Farm and was given the addresses of several nurserymen who
were then selling grafted nut trees. Their catalogues were so inviting
that I decided it would be quite plausible to grow pecans and English
walnuts at this latitude. So I neglected my native trees that year for
the sake of more exotic ones. One year sufficed; the death of my whole
planting of English walnuts and pecans turned me back to my original
interest. My next order of trees included grafted black walnuts of four
accepted varieties to be planted in orchard form--the Stabler, Thomas,
Ohio and Ten Eyck.
I ordered a few hickories at the same time but these eventually died. My
experience with hickories was very discouraging since they were my
favorite nuts and I had set my heart on growing some. I think I should
have given up attempting them had not one dealer, J. F. Jones, urged
that I buy just three more hickory trees of the Beaver variety. He gave
me special instructions on how to prepare them against winter. I have
always felt that what he told me was indeed special and very valuable
since those three trees lived. Subsequently, I bought several hundred
dollars worth of trees from him. More than that, we became friends. I
visited him at his nurseries in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and he again
demonstrated his interest and generosity by giving me both horticultural
information and the kindest hospitality. My friendship with him was but
one of many that I have formed while traveling and corresponding in the
interests of nut culture. True and lasting friends such men make, too,
with no circumstances of selfish import to taint the pleasure of the
relationship.
Since I wanted to have many black walnut trees some day, I decided to
plant ten bushels of black walnuts in rows. I thought I could later
graft these myself and save expense. The theory was all right but when I
came to practice it, I found I had not taken squirrels into
consideration. These bushy-tailed rats dug up one complete bed which
contained two bushels of nuts and reburied them in haphazard places
around the farm. When the nuts started to sprout, they came up in the
fields, in the gardens, and on the lawn--everywhere except where I had
intended them to be. I later was grateful to those squirrels, though,
because, through their redistributing these nuts I learned a great deal
about the effect of soil on black walnut trees, even discovering that
what I thought to be suitable was not. The trees which the squirrels
planted for me are now large and lend themselves to experimental
grafting. On them I have proved, and am still proving, new varieties of
the English walnut.
The other eight bushels had been planted near a roadside and close to
some farm buildings. The constant human activity thereabouts probably
made the squirrels less bold, for although they carried off at least a
bushel of walnuts, about two thousand seedlings grew. I had planted
these too close together and as the trees developed they became so
crowded that many died. The remaining seedlings supplied me with
root-stocks for experimental work which proved very valuable.
I have always suspected the squirrels of having been responsible for the
fact that my first attempt to grow hickory seedlings was unsuccessful. I
planted a quart of these nuts and not one plant came up. No doubt the
squirrels dug them up as soon as I planted them and probably they
enjoyed the flavor as much as I always have.
In 1924 I ordered one hundred small beechnut trees, _Fagus ferruginea_,
from the Sturgeon Bay Nurseries at Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. The company
was very generous and sent me three hundred of them. I planted these
trees in a heavy clay soil with limestone running near the surface. They
grew well the first year, except that there was heavy mortality during
cold weather. In working with these trees my lack of experience and
horticultural knowledge was against me. They could not tolerate the soil
and within three years they were all dead.
To give variety to the landscape at my farm, I planted several other
kinds of trees. Among these were Kentucky coffee-trees which have
beautiful bronze foliage in the spring and honey locusts. I planted five
hundred Douglas fir but unfortunately, I put these deep in the woods
among heavy timber where they were so shaded that only a few lived.
Later, I moved the surviving fir trees into an open field where they
still flourish. About two hundred fifty pines of mixed varieties--white,
Norway and jack--that I planted in the woods, also died.
I decided, then, that evergreens might do better if they were planted
from seeds. I followed instructions in James W. Toumey's "Seeding and
Planting in the Practice of Forestry," in bed culture and spot seeding.
In the latter one tears off the sod in favorable places and throws seed
on the unprotected ground. In doing this, I ignored the natural
requirements of forest practice which call for half-shade during the
first two to three years of growth. Thousands of seedlings sprouted but
they all died either from disease or from attacks by cows and sheep. One
should never attempt to raise trees and stock in the same field.
Because of these misfortunes, I determined to study the growth of
evergreens. I invested in such necessary equipment as frames and lath
screening. Better equipped with both information and material, I grew
thousands of evergreen trees. Among the varieties of pine were:
native White Pine --Pinus strobus
Norway pine --Pinus silvestrus
Mugho pine --Pinus pumila montana
sugar pine --Pinus Lambertiana
(not hardy in northern Wisconsin)
Swiss stone --Pinus cembra
(not hardy in northern Wisconsin)
Italian stone --Pinus pinea
(not hardy in northern Wisconsin)
pinon --Pinus edulis
(not hardy in northern Wisconsin)
bull pine --Pinus Jeffreyi (hardy)
jack pine --Pinus banksiana (very hardy)
limber pine --Pinus flexilis
(semi-hardy, a fine nut pine).
Many of the limber pines came into bearing about fifteen years after the
seed was planted. At that age they varied in height from three to
fifteen feet. One little three-foot tree had several large cones full of
seed. Each tree varied in the quality and size of its seeds. Although it
might be possible to graft the best varieties on young seedling stocks,
in all the hundreds of grafts I have made on pine, I have been
successful only once. I doubt that such a thing would ever be practical
from a commercial standpoint unless some new method were discovered by
which a larger percentage of successful grafts could be realized.
I cultivated the Douglas fir, white, Norway, and Colorado blue varieties
of spruce. Besides these, I planted balsam fir, red cedar, _Juniperus
Virginiana_, and white cedar, _Arborvitae_. Practically all of these
trees are still growing and many of them bear seed.
I wish to describe the limber pine, _Pinus flexilis_, for it is not only
a good grower and quite hardy but it is also a very ornamental nut pine
which grows to be a broad, stout-trunked tree 40 to 75 feet high. The
young bark is pale grey or silver; the old bark is very dark, in square
plates. The wood itself is light, soft and close-grained, having a color
that varies from yellow to red. The needles, which are found in clusters
of five, are slender, 1-1/2 to 3 inches long, and are dark green. They
are shed during the fifth or sixth year. The buds of the tree are found
bunched at the branch tips and are scaly and pointed. The limber pine
has flowers like those of the white pine, except that they are
rose-colored. Although the fruit is described as annual, I have found
that, in this locality, it takes about fifteen months from the time the
blossoms appear for it to reach maturity. That is, the fruit requires
two seasons for growth, maturing its seeds the second September. The
cones of the limber pine, which vary from three to seven inches in
length, are purple, having thick rounded scales and being abruptly
peaked at the apex. The seeds are wingless or have only very narrow
wings around them.
With the idea of getting practical results sooner, since nut trees
mature slowly, I interplanted my nut trees with varieties of apple, plum
and cherry. Doing so also served to economize on ground, since
ultimately nut trees require a great deal of space for best growth.
Walnut trees, for example, should be set 40 to 60 feet apart in each
direction.
[Illustration: _Pinus Flexilus nut seeds, Natural Size_]
I learned a variety of facts during these first years of trial and
error. I discovered, for instance, that iron fence posts rust away in an
acid soil; that one must use cedar or oak. Conversely, in alkaline soil,
iron will last indefinitely, but that the nitrogenous bacteria will
quickly rot wooden posts. I found that the secret of growing hickories
successfully lies in giving them plenty of room, with no forest trees
around to cut off their supply of sunlight and air. I learned that it is
impractical to graft a large forest tree of butternut or hickory.
Incidental to that, I learned that a branch of a butternut tree which
looks large enough to support a man's weight near the trunk, will not do
so when the branch is green and alive, but that a dead branch of similar
size will. Contrariwise, even a small green limb of a bitternut-hickory
will bear my weight, but an old limb, though several inches thick,
becomes so brittle after it is dead for several years that it will break
under slight pressure. Fortunately, falls from trees do not usually
result in serious injuries but I did acquire quite a few bruises
learning these distinctions.
There is always a natural mortality in planting trees, but in those
first years, lacking badly-needed experience, I lost more than 75%.
Nearly all of them started to grow but died during the first few
winters. Those which survived were the start of a nursery filled with
hardy trees which can endure the climate of the north. In looking back,
I appreciate how fortunate I was in having sought and received advice
from experienced nurserymen. Had I not done so, frequent failures would
surely have discouraged me. As it was, the successes I did have were an
incentive which made me persist and which left me with faith enough in
an ultimate success to go on buying seeds and trees and to make greater
and more varied experiments.