OTHER TREES
Heartnut
The heartnut is a sport of the Japanese walnut (Juglans sieboldiana).
Since its nut is heart-shaped, it has the name of "cordiformis" added to
its species name. There are many of these sports, some of which have
been propagated under the varietal names of Faust, Lancaster,
Fodermaier, Wright, Walters, Canoka, Okay and Gellatly.
I think this is the most ornamental of all nut trees. In shape, it is
similar to an apple tree, spreading out rather than growing tall, but
its long, compound leaves give it a tropical appearance. During the
autumn these leaves do not color any more than do those of the black
walnut. The tree produces long racemes of red blossoms and its staminate
blooms are catkins eight to ten inches long, which, when fully ripened,
swish in the wind and release clouds of yellow pollen. The heartnut tree
holds the interest of its owner closely during that time when the nuts
resulting from the racemes of blossoms are steadily increasing in size.
I have seen as many as sixteen nuts on one stem and doubtless, there
sometimes are more. The owner of such a tree, at least if he is at all
like me, will proudly exhibit it to all comers during the spring and
summer seasons. And then, at harvest time, after the nuts have gradually
changed from green to the dull yellow that indicates their maturity, he
will have the satisfaction of shaking them down for drying and storage.
The heartnut kernel tastes much like that of the butternut and its
internal structure is almost the same but the outside shell is smooth.
Cultivated varieties usually crack easily and in such a way that the
kernel is released in halves. From all this, it is easy to see that the
heartnut is not only a beautiful tree but is definitely useful.
In my own work with heartnuts I have found that, although they are to be
classed only as semi-hardy, there are a few varieties which are hardy
enough for northern temperatures. Only testing will determine which ones
can endure severe climates. In the spring of 1921, I planted a Lancaster
heartnut grafted on a black walnut, but the weather was cold that season
and it was killed down to the graft joint, where it threw out a sprout.
This was weak and succulent by fall and the graft was entirely killed
back that winter. I bought twelve more Lancaster heartnuts a year later.
They were interspersed in the orchard among some black walnuts.
Although a few survived the first winter, none ever lived to come into
bearing. From time to time, I also experimented with seedlings sent to
me by Professor James A. Neilson of Vineland, Ontario, who was
interested in having them tested in this latitude. These, too, were
always unsuccessful.
I had my first success with several unnamed varieties of heartnuts I
purchased in 1933 from J. U. Gellatly of British Columbia. These were
grafted on black walnut stocks of considerable size. To insure their
surviving the first winter, I built wooden shelters which completely
enclosed them, filling these shelters with forest leaves and protecting
them against mice with screen covers. No doubt this was a decided help;
at least all of these heartnuts lived for many years until the invasion
of the butternut curculio and the damage done by the yellow bellied sap
sucker bird caused me the loss of all except one variety, the Gellatly.
This variety I have perpetuated by re-grafting on other black walnut
stocks and by spraying and covering the limbs with screen to prevent the
sap sucker from working on it, still have it in the nursery and at my
home in St. Paul where a young tree on the boulevard bears each year.
I have found that heartnuts are difficult to propagate, the number of
successful grafts I have made being far below that of black walnuts on
black walnut stocks. The reason for this is not well understood any more
than is the fact, in my experience, that the Stabler walnut will graft
readily and the Ten Eyck persistently refuses to. A good feature that
these grafted trees do have, however, is their early productiveness. I
have seen them set nuts the second year after grafting and this has also
occurred in trees I have sold to others.
When a nut of J. sieboldiana cordiformis is planted, it does not
reliably reproduce itself in true type, sometimes reverting to that of
the ordinary Japanese walnut, which looks more like a butternut and has
a rather rough shell as distinguished from the smooth shell of the
heartnut. In hulling my heartnut crop for 1940, I noticed many deformed
nuts.
The season had been a prolific one for nut production of all kinds, and
I knew there had been a mixture of pollen in the air at the time these
nutlets were receptive (a mixture made up largely of pollen from black
walnuts, butternuts, with some English walnuts). Since irregularities in
size and shape indicate hybridity frequently and since heartnuts are
easily hybridized I have assumed that these were pollinized by the
mixture. I have planted these odd-shaped nuts and I expect them to
result in many new crosses of J. sieboldiana cordiformis, some five to
eight years from now.
[Illustration: _Beautiful tropical looking Japanese Walnut (Juglans
sieboldiana cordiformis). Variety Gellatly, from Westbank, B. C.,
Canada. Photo by C. Weschcke._]
To show how nature reacts to much interference I will follow through on
these nearly 100 small trees that resulted from this pollination. They
were transplanted into an orchard on a side hill and well taken care of
for several years, but during that time one after another was killed,
apparently by winter conditions or perhaps the site was too exposed or
the soil may have been uncongenial. Today there remains but three trees,
none of which have borne but all indicate that they are true heartnuts
from the shape of the leaves and color of the bark and general
formation. In order to hasten their bearing, scions have been taken from
these small trees and will be grafted on large black walnut stocks to
bring them into fruitfulness much earlier than if they were left to
their own slow growth. This system of testing out seedlings long before
they have reached a size sufficient to bear on their own roots is
applicable to all of the species of nut trees and is one way that the
plant breeder can hurry up his testing for varieties after making
crosses and obtaining young plants.
[Illustration: _Natural size Heartnut. Photo 10/26/38 by C. Weschcke.
Gellatly variety._]
Beechnut
The beechnut, Fagus ferruginea, belonging to the oak family, is one of
the giants of the forest, growing to great size and age. Even very old
beech trees have smooth bark and this, in earlier and more rustic days,
was much used for the romantic carving of lovers' names, as scars still
visible on such ancient trees testify. The wood itself is dense and
hard, even more so than hard maple, and is considered good lumber.
Beechnut is one of the few nut trees with a more shallow and ramified
root system as contrasted with that of most, which, as in the oak,
walnut and hickory, is a tap root system. This fact suggests that in
those localities where beeches grow wild, grafts made on such trees, and
transplanted, would survive and grow well.
Perhaps one of the reasons why very little propagation is done with
beeches is that no outstanding variety has ever been discovered.
Although the nut shell is thin and the meat sweet and oily, the kernel
is so small that one must crack dozens of them to get a satisfying
sample of their flavor. This, of course, prevents their having any
commercial value as a nut. There is also the fact that the beechnut is
the slowest growing of all the common nut trees, requiring from twenty
to thirty years to come into bearing as a seedling. Of course this could
be shortened, just as it is in propagating hickories and pecans, by
making grafts on root systems which are ten or more years old, as
explained in the chapter on heartnuts. However, I know of no nursery in
which beechnuts are propagated in this way.
My attempts to grow beechnut trees in Wisconsin have met with little
success. About the year 1922, I obtained 150 trees from the Sturgeon Bay
Nurseries. I planted these on level ground which had clay near the
surface with limestone about a foot under it. Although all of these
trees seemed to start satisfactorily, some even growing about a foot,
within two or three years they had all died. I decided they were not
hardy but I now realize that the character of the soil was responsible
for their gradual death; they should be planted in a limestone or
calcareous soil, preferably of the fine sandy type, the main requisite
being plenty of moisture because of their shallow root system. Since
then, I have purchased beechnut seeds several times from various
seedsmen, but none of these seeds has ever sprouted. I think this is
because beechnuts, like chestnuts, must be handled with great care to
retain their viability.
In 1938, I ordered 100 beechnut trees from the Hershey Nurseries of
Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Although these trees were set in sandy soil,
there are now only about five of them alive, and of these, only four are
growing well enough to suggest that they will some day become big trees.
Beechnuts must be protected against mice and rabbits as these species of
rodents are very fond of bark and young growth of these trees and I have
every reason to believe that deer are in the same category.
Oaks
Although the acorns produced by the red oak are very bitter and
consistently wormy, those from the white oak are more edible. In my own
exploring, I have found one tree, apparently a hybrid between the red
and white oaks, which bears good acorns. The nuts, which are long and
thin, are generally infested with weevils. If there were a demand for
such a nut tree, I'm sure that it could easily be grafted on oak roots.
During favorable seasons, when these edible nuts were of good size and
free from worms, I have carried them in my pocket and enjoyed munching
on them. I found that their flavor, like that of chestnuts, was improved
by roasting.
Acorns are a balanced food and contain enough starch to make them
readily assimilated, except for their bitterness. They are a good food
for farm animals and chickens. I have kept a flock of goats in good
condition by feeding them acorns during the winter. It isn't necessary
to grind them for such use. I have read that Indians at one time
prepared acorns for their own use by storing them in bags submerged in
cold running water. This not only extracted the bitterness but also it
probably discouraged the development of weevil eggs.
Oak trees are generally prolific and are regular bearers, but of course,
what they are widely known and loved for is the beauty of their leaves
in the autumn. No one doubts their esthetic value, which will keep them
forever popular whether they come into demand as a grafted nut tree or
not.
Chestnuts
Another of our ornamental nut trees is the chestnut, also of the oak
family, classified under the genus Castanea, which grows into a large,
beautiful tree with wide-spread branches. Chestnuts do not grow well on
limestone soil and always fail in the heavy blue clay so common on farm
lands in this part of the country. It is best for their growth that the
soil be gravelly and slightly acid.
The chestnut has always been a good timber tree. Its wood, although not
as hard as the red oak, resembles it in grain. The beams of many old
pioneer homes are found to be chestnut. It is said that this is one of
few woods to give a warning groan under too heavy a burden before it
cracks or breaks. Chestnut wood is very durable in contact with the
soil, outlasting all others except possibly black walnut and cedar. It
contains so much siliceous matter in its pores that it quickly dulls
chisels and saws used in working it.
The chestnut trees at my nursery were grown from mixed hybrid seeds
which I obtained from Miss Amelia Riehl of Godfrey, Illinois. Almost all
of the seeds she first sent me, in 1926, spoiled while they were stored
during the winter. But Miss Riehl sent me more the following spring,
many of which proved hardy. In 1937, the oldest of these trees produced
staminate bloom for the first time. I naturally expected a crop of nuts
from it that year, but none developed. The same thing happened in 1938.
I then wrote to Miss Riehl about it, also asking her where to look for
the pistillate blossoms. Her reply was a very encouraging one in which
she wrote that the pistillate blossoms appear at the base of the catkins
or staminate blooms, but that it is quite a common thing for chestnut
trees to carry the latter for several years before producing pistillate
blossoms. She also explained that it was very unlikely that the tree
would fertilize its own blooms, so that I should not expect one tree to
bear until other nearby chestnuts were also shedding pollen. This
occurred the next year and another chestnut close to the first one set a
few nuts. It was not until 1940 that the tree which had blossomed first,
actually bore nuts.
In 1940, I crossed the pistillate blossoms of this tree with pollen from
a Chinese variety called Carr, resulting in half a dozen nuts which I
planted.
Since the chestnuts in these parts do not bloom usually until early July
we can expect chestnuts to be a more reliable crop than butternuts, for
instance, which bloom very early in the spring about May 1 to 15th.
Having had this reward for my efforts I took much more interest in
chestnut growing and ordered trees of the Chinese varieties, Castanea
mollissma from J. Russell Smith, H. F. Stoke, and John Hershey. Some of
these were seedlings and some were grafted trees, not over a dozen of
them alive today and none have produced mature nuts. Seemingly they have
not been hardy although they have grown large enough to produce both
staminate and pistillate blooms; they have never winter killed back to
the ground, however.
Also, I have been planting nuts from all sources from which I could
obtain them, mostly of the Chinese chestnut type. Some of these nuts
were results of crosses, and showed their hybridity in the young
seedlings that resulted there from. Today I have perhaps 150 of such
young seedlings which I am pampering with the hope of getting something
worthwhile from them. One of the big thrills of chestnut growing was the
result of a chestnut that I picked up from a plant that was no higher
than 2 feet, growing at Beltsville, Maryland in the government testing
ground there, in 1937. My records show that this plant began to bear
nuts in 1943 and have subsequently borne several crops in between the
times that it was frozen to the ground and grew up again, which happened
at least three times. Like most chestnuts this one has to be pollinated
by taking the staminate bloom from a dwarfed chestnut nearby whose bloom
coincides with the blossoming of the female flowers of this Chinese
hybrid. Chestnuts rarely set any nuts that produce mature seed from
their own pollen but depend on cross-pollination. The nut from this
hybrid is also the largest of any that I have grown and to my taste is a
palatable one. It may not rank among the best ones of known varieties
today, but for our climate I would consider it unusually large and good.
Experimentally, I have been able to produce new plants from this tree by
layering young shoots coming from the roots. This generally requires two
years to make a well-rooted plant before they are cut off and
transplanted. This alternative of propagating by grafting or budding is
considered a better method if it can be practiced, as it gives a plant
on its own roots instead of the roots of some unknown seedling stock.
[Illustration: _Hybrid Chestnut; natural size, one of the two survivors
of several dozen trees sent by the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture for
testing this far north. Fair size nut and it resembles the American
Sweet Chestnut. Photo by C. Weschcke._]
Another tree that surprised me when it came into bearing proved to bear
one nut in a burr which led me to believe that it was a chinquapin
hybrid. Later on, the habit of this tree changed somewhat and some of
the burrs had more than one nut. I have found this to be the experience
of others who have observed so-called chinquapin trees of a hybrid
nature. It is my belief that the kind of pollen with which these
blossoms are fertilized directly influences the number of nuts in a burr
and sometimes the size of the nuts, again showing the importance of the
cross-pollinating varieties when setting out an orchard of trees. This
particular chinquapin type chestnut has upright growing habits different
from a tree bearing similar nuts but having a very dwarfed habit. All of
the nuts of the latter after six years of bearing can be picked off this
tree by standing on the ground. There are several other trees bearing
chestnuts, some large and some small nuts, all of which are interesting
to me and may be important in the future of the chestnuts this far north
since they indicate without doubt that the chestnut can accommodate
itself to our climate, providing it has the right type of soil to grow
in. In 1952 I acquired a 20-acre adjoining piece of land which has a
much better chestnut growing site, being deep sandy soil, well drained,
and yet not ever being dry. New varieties will be tested on this piece
and should give much better results than the old trees which already
were good enough to indicate success in chestnuts.
[Illustration: _A hybrid chestnut presumed to be a cross between
European Chestnut (Castanea Sativa) and its American cousin (Castanea
Americana). Actual size. Photo by C. Weschcke._]
[Illustration: _Chinquapin hybrids from a tall growing tree. Nuts grow
in racemes of burrs with as many as 10 burrs on one stem. Photo by C.
Weschcke._]
Apricot
If it were not that an apricot is a nut as well as a fruit, I should
hesitate to include a description of my work with it. But the apricot
seed has a rich kernel which, in many countries, for example, China, is
used as a substitute for the almond to which it is closely related.
It was in 1933 that my aunt, Margaret Weschcke, told me of an apricot
tree growing in a yard on the Mississippi River bluff in St. Paul and
said to be bearing fruit. I was quite skeptical until I saw the tree and
also saw fruit from it which had been preserved by the woman who owned
it. Convinced of the hardiness of the tree, I was anxious to obtain
scionwood but it was not until late that winter that I received
permission to do so. It happened that a truck had broken off a large
branch from the tree while delivering coal, and the owner very
reasonably decided that taking a few twigs from it would not hurt it any
more. I not only took the small branches that she was willing to
sacrifice from her tree but also as many as possible from the branch
which had been torn off, as its terminals were still in a fresh
condition.
I grafted these scions on hybrid plum trees where they took hold
readily, and in 1938, they began to bear prolifically. The apricots,
which I have named Harriet, in honor of my mother, are a fine-flavored
fruit, medium in size. Their cheeks are a mottled red with raised
surfaces. Their pits are well-formed and fairly edible. Although the
parent tree died the winter I took scions from it, my grafts have proved
quite hardy, having received no injury when temperatures as low as 47 deg.
below zero have occurred. Since the parent tree died because its roots
were severely frozen, it would seem that the top of the tree, in this
case, was more hardy than the root system. This does occur sometimes,
although it is unusual.
In developing the factor of hardiness further in this apricot variety, I
have taken advantage of something I had observed about other fruit
trees. When one combines parts of two trees by grafting, it is a simple
thing to select a hardy root stock from the available plants, just as I
selected hardy plum stock on which to graft my apricot scions. This is
not always possible in choosing scionwood, however, since scionwood is
usually selected for such reasons as the quality of its fruit. It may
happen that the top part of a tree is limited in its climatic scope
because of its inability to withstand precipitate or otherwise
unfavorable temperatures. Having observed that certain grafted varieties
of fruit trees, such as the Wealthy apple, for instance, have gradually
come to be planted much farther north than they originally were, I
reasoned that this was because only the hardiest of them survived and
these hardy ones therefore became the mother blocks for future grafting.
This was an inescapable procedure which acted as a method of bud
selection. I therefore assumed that by a careful choice of the hardiest
among surviving twigs of the most recent graft of the Harriet apricot,
when particularly severe winter weather had caused some injury, I could
induce extra-hardiness in future grafts.
I also believe that I have added to the hardiness factor of the apricot
by making frequent grafts. It is my theory that the root stock is able
to exert some influence over the top other than mere maintenance of
life. By frequently uniting a hardy stock with a less hardy top, I think
that the individuality of the top part may be somewhat broken down and
the extra characteristic of hardiness added to it. After the fifth
re-graft of this apricot made in eight years, I am convinced by its
appearance and behavior that it is capable of becoming a reliable
apricot for the region around St. Paul. Today the apricot still exists
grafted on plum at my nursery at River Falls, Wisconsin, and the
weakness of the tree seems to be in the union between the top and the
plum stock. If this union were not so corky and large and succulent it
might be less injured by our winters; therefore it is quite apparent
that the plum is not a congenial stock for an apricot, at least it does
not produce a satisfactory union. I am now making tests with this same
variety by grafting it on more hardy apricot seedling stock such as the
Prof. N. E. Hansen of Brookings, South Dakota, introduces.