PIONEERING WITH ENGLISH WALNUTS IN WISCONSIN
The convention of the Northern Nut Growers' Association at Geneva, New
York, in 1936, brought many interesting subjects to the attention of nut
enthusiasts. None, however, commanded as much attention as an exhibit by
Paul C. Crath, of Toronto, of walnuts from the Carpathian Mountains in
Europe. There were more than forty varieties of walnuts represented in
it, in sizes ranging from that of a large filbert to that of a very
large hen's egg, and in shape being globular, ovate or rectangular. The
exhibitor had these identified by varietal numbers until testing and
propagation should suggest appropriate names. In several talks which
Rev. Crath gave during the convention, he described his trips and
findings in the walnut-producing sections of the Polish Carpathians. The
subject remained in prominence during the three days of the convention
and the idea was suggested that the Association sponsor another trip to
Europe to obtain walnuts growing there which Rev. Crath considered even
hardier and finer than the ones he had. The plan was tabled, however,
for only two of us were eager to contribute to the venture.
On my return home, I thought more about what a splendid opportunity this
would be to procure hardy English walnuts to grow in this part of the
country. I interested my father in the idea, and, with his backing,
corresponded with Rev. Crath. This was not the first or the last time
that my father, Charles Weschcke, had encouraged me and had backed his
good wishes and advice with money. A professional man and a graduate of
pharmacy and chemistry of the University of Wisconsin, he showed an
unusual interest in my horticultural endeavors. The immediate outcome
was Rev. Crath's visit to my nursery at River Falls, to determine
whether material that he might collect could be properly tested there.
To my satisfaction, he found that temperature, soil conditions and stock
material were adequate for such work.
We contracted with Rev. Crath to reproduce asexually all the varieties
that he could discover and ship to us, agreeing to finance his trip and
to pay him a royalty whenever we sold trees resulting from the plant
material he sent us. We decided that the material which he was to gather
should include not only English walnuts but also the hazels or filberts
native to Poland. The walnuts were to consist of about six hundred
pounds of seeds, representing some forty varieties, several thousand
scions and about five hundred trees. We planned that the filberts should
consist of both trees and nuts, but because of a total failure of this
crop the year that Rev. Crath was there, only trees were available.
Rev. Crath left Canada in October 1936, and spent all of the following
winter in Poland. While he was there, I began the task of arranging for
the receipt of the walnuts and hazels he was to send, and so began a
wearisome, exasperating experience. First, it was necessary to obtain
permits from the Bureau of Plant Industry in Washington. Because of the
vast quantity of material expected, these permits had to be issued in
the names of five people. Next, I engaged a New York firm of importers,
so that no time would be lost in re-routing the shipment to the proper
authorities for inspection. This firm, in turn, hired brokers who were
responsible for paying all duty, freight and inspection charges. I
certainly thought that we had everything in such readiness that there
would be nothing to delay the shipment when it arrived. How wrong I was!
Although Rev. Crath had written me that the shipment had been sent on a
certain Polish steamer, I learned of its arrival only from a letter I
received from the importing company, which requested that the original
bill of lading and invoice be sent to them at once, as the shipment had
already been in the harbor for a week but could not be released by the
customs office until they had these documents. I had received the bill
of lading from Rev. Crath but not the invoice, for he had not known that
I would need it. So my valuable, but perishable, shipment remained in
port storage day after day while I frantically sought for some way to
break through the "red tape" holding it there. Cables to Rev. Crath were
undeliverable as he was back in the mountains seeking more material. In
desperation, I wrote to Clarence A. Reed, an old friend, member of the
Northern Nut Growers' Association and in charge of government nut
investigations in the Division of Pomology at Washington. Through his
efforts and under heavy bond pending receipt of the invoice, the walnut
and filbert material was released and sent to Washington, D. C. As there
was too much of it to be inspected through the usual facilities for this
work, it was necessary to employ a firm of seed and plant importers to
do the necessary inspecting and fumigating. At last, terminating my
concern and distress over the condition in which the trees and scions
would be after such great delays and so many repackings, the shipment
arrived in St. Paul. There remained only the requirement of getting
permission from the Bureau of Plant Inspection of the State of Minnesota
to take it to Wisconsin, where, if there was anything left, I intended
to plant it. This permission being readily granted, we managed, by truck
and, finally, by sled, to get it to the nursery about the middle of the
winter.
The following spring, we planted the nuts and trees and grafted the
scions on black walnut and butternut stocks. The mortality of these
grafts was the greatest I have ever known. Of about four thousand
English walnut grafts, representing some twenty varieties, only one
hundred twenty-five took well enough to produce a good union with the
stock and to grow. Some of them grew too fast and in spite of my
precautions, were blown out; others died from winter injury the first
year. By the following spring, there were only ten varieties which had
withstood the rigor of the climate. Of the five hundred trees, only a
few dozen survived. Fortunately, this was not one of our severe, "test"
winters, or probably none of these plants would have withstood it.
The walnuts which were planted showed a fairly high degree of hardiness.
Of 12,000 seedling trees, our nursery is testing more than 800 for
varietal classification. These have been set out in test orchard
formation on two locations, both high on the slope of a ravine, one
group on the north side, one on the south. It has been suggested that
from the remaining seedlings, which number thousands, we select 500 to
1000 representative specimens and propagate them on black walnut stocks
in some warmer climate, either in Oregon, Missouri or New York. This
would determine their value as semi-hardy trees worthy of propagation in
such localities. Such an experiment will probably be made eventually.
The same year, 1937, in which I obtained the Polish nuts, I also bought
one hundred pounds of Austrian walnuts, to serve as a check. Eighty
pounds of these consisted of the common, commercial type of walnut,
while the remainder was of more expensive nuts having cream-colored
shells and recommended by the Austrian seed firm as particularly hardy.
Altogether these nuts included approximately one hundred varieties,
twenty of which were so distinctive that their nuts could be separated
from the others by size and shape.
About two thousand seedlings grew from this planting, most of which
proved to be too tender for our winter conditions. The seedlings grown
from the light-colored nuts show about the same degree of hardiness as
the Carpathian plants. Many of them have been set out in experimental
orchards to be brought into bearing.
After the first year, the English walnuts progressed fairly well. Large
trees, which had not been entirely worked over at first, were trimmed so
that nothing remained of the original top, but only the grafted
branches. The winter of 1938-39 was not especially severe and mortality
was low, although it was apparent that all of the varieties were not
equally hardy. Even a few of the scions grafted on butternut stocks were
growing successfully. I had made these grafts realizing that the stock
was not a very satisfactory one, to learn if it could be used to produce
scionwood. As the results were encouraging, I decided it would be
worthwhile to give them good care and gradually to remove all of the
butternut top.
Each fall, the first two years after I had grafted all these walnuts, I
cut and stored enough scionwood from each variety to maintain it if the
winter should be so severe as to destroy the grafts. Unfortunately, the
grafts had developed so well, even to the actual bearing of nuts by
three varieties, that in 1940 I did not think this precaution was
necessary. Then came our catastrophic Armistice Day blizzard, the most
severe test of hardiness and adaptability ever to occur in the north.
Many of our hardiest trees suffered great injury from it, such trees,
for instance, as Colorado blue spruce, limber pine, arborvitae; cultured
varieties of hickories, hiccans, heartnuts; fruit trees, including
apples, plums and apricots, which bore almost no fruit the next summer.
Although not one variety of English walnut was entirely killed, all,
except one, suffered to some degree, and it was not until late the
following summer that several varieties began to produce new wood. The
variety which showed the greatest degree of hardiness is "Firstling,"
originally known as Letter F. Although the primary buds on the Firstling
were nearly all killed, very few of the small branches were affected and
the union itself suffered no injury. Second in hardiness is Kremenetz,
much of its top being killed, but its union being only slightly
affected. No. 64 was affected in about the same amount as Kremenetz.
Increasing degrees of tenderness and, of course, decreasing degrees of
hardiness, were shown by the many other varieties, some of which may
never recover completely from the shock of that blizzard. The seedling
trees suffered only slight damage so that I expect that they are hardy
enough to produce fruit here.
I cannot conclude this chapter without mentioning certain observations
I have made regarding hardiness, which, although they require more
specific study, I wish to describe as a suggestion for further
experimentation by either amateur or professional horticulturists. My
theory is that a determination of the hardiness factor of an English
walnut tree can be made according to the color of its bark. I have seen
that a tree having thin bark which remains bright green late into the
fall is very likely to be of a tender variety. Conversely, among these
Carpathian walnuts, I have found that varieties whose bark becomes tan
or brown early in autumn show much more hardiness than those whose bark
remains green. One variety, Wolhynie, whose bark is chocolate brown, is
very resistant to winter injury. Another, whose green bark is heavily
dotted with lenticels, shows itself hardier than those having none or
only a trace of them. In testing almonds, I have found that trees whose
bark turns red early in the fall are definitely more hardy than those
whose bark remains green or tan. In observing apricots, I have learned
that young twigs with red bark are more resistant to cold than those
with brown. Of course, these findings cannot be considered as facts
until further studies have been made. I hope that others will find the
idea of investigating this more-than-possibility as interesting as I do.
As the years increased, however, the growth of the seedling walnuts
decreased and some having made a nice tree-like form, with a trunk of
approximately an inch in diameter, within a succession of years were
reduced in size through the combination of winter injury and attacks by
the butternut curculio as well as a bacterial blight until by 1952 only
a fraction of the 12,000 seedlings remained, certainly less than 1,000.
All of the originally grafted specimens are dead with the exception of
one variety which has been kept alive by constantly re-grafting it on
black walnut. We have not named this variety as yet, although it has
borne both staminate and pistillate bloom, it has never borne any ripe
nuts. Some of the seedlings, however, still show persistent traits of
hardiness and of insect resistance and we still have hopes that after 15
years these trees will yet overcome the adversities of this uncongenial
climate for this species.