excellent nuts. But this Stabler walnut, in my opinion, is in a class by
itself in cracking possibilities. It is simply a cracking proposition
with the black walnut, and that is, to my mind, about all there is to
it. Perhaps, other good varieties will be discovered. Then, suppose we
find, after a while, an English walnut much better and more profitable
than we have at present, and one that is blight resistant. If you have
an orchard of black walnuts you have an ideal stock to top-work to
English. I will show you one on my farm with a larger top than I cut off
grown in two summers, and it set some nuts last spring. So, if you want
a foundation for an English walnut orchard, you can't make any mistake
in planting the budded or grafted varieties of these black walnuts.
The black walnut is a beautiful roadside tree. There are different
types, the same as with the pecan tree. Here is a picture of curly black
walnut wood. The logs were cut from a tree in Kentucky. It took three
wagons to haul this one tree to market, and it brought thirty-five
hundred dollars.
THE PRESIDENT: I wish to present Mr. Stabler as the original propagator
of the tree that bears his name. The nuts of the Stabler black walnut
have been pronounced by a good many authorities as the best variety thus
far discovered.
MR. HENRY STABLER: Dr. Smith has just introduced me as the discoverer of
this walnut. This is hardly fair to Mr. Littlepage, who first introduced
and, probably, first propagated this walnut. It was discovered by my
grandfather a little over forty years ago. Nothing was done with it at
that time for the reason that nothing could be done, but I was not the
first one to get the idea of propagating it, because my father, who is
here today, attempted to graft these walnuts, and every cion failed.
It seems to me that Mr. Littlepage strikes the key-note in his article
in _The Country Gentleman_ last spring when he says that:
"Through the efforts of the Northern Nut Growers' Association there was
recently discovered a black walnut tree in Howard County, Maryland,
producing nuts that crack out seventy-five to eighty per cent of whole
halves. The meat of this variety, the Stabler, weighs forty-seven per
cent of the whole nut."
That's it, gentlemen. I did not discover this walnut, and without the
organization of the Northern Nut Growers' Association I could not have
done any more with it than my grandfather was able to do forty years
ago, but, as it was, we just took up several samples and the Northern
Nut Growers did the rest. The walnut has been attracting more and more
attention ever since.
Considering the black walnut as timber, here is a picture of a black
walnut log, published in Farmers' Bulletin No. 715, of the Department of
Agriculture. The original owner, a farmer, sold the whole tree,
standing, for fifty dollars; the buyer felled it at a cost of fifteen
dollars, and sold it there for $138.26. It was resold, without being
removed, for $164.84, and later sold (the last price is not published)
to a large sewing machine factory, but it certainly brought more than
that last price which is printed, of $164.84. We occasionally hear of
prices of $100 or so being paid for black walnut trees on the stump. The
reason we don't hear of such prices being paid more frequently is
because the farmer in not more than one case out of twenty gets real
value for his black walnut trees. There is a very highly organized and
efficient system in the United States of gathering up the black walnut
trees which are large enough to use for furniture and other purposes and
paying for them as little as possible; but they make a practice of
getting them even if they do have to pay more. There was a man living
not so far from where I live, up in our country, who had a very fine
black walnut tree standing in his yard. One day a man came around and
entered into conversation with him, and said, "Mr. Harder, what will you
take for that tree in your yard?" "It isn't for sale," said Mr. Harder.
"Well," said the man, "I'll give you a hundred dollars for it." Mr.
Harder merely shook his head. The buyer dickered along a little bit more
and after a while said, "I'll tell you what I'll do; I'll give you $150
for that tree." Mr. Harder said "If you don't get off this place, sir,
immediately, I'll shoot you."
I am prepared to say that if you are going to plant trees for timber
there is no other tree which will give such a yield as the black walnut,
with the exception of the catalpa, and, perhaps, the black locust. It is
the most valuable tree we have, and it is the most valuable wood grown
in the North. I don't believe, either, the black walnut will ever be
less valuable than it is. I know positively that the Stabler tree is not
over sixty-five years old, perhaps, not over sixty, and yet that tree,
judging from the prices I have seen paid for other trees of similar
size, is worth from $125 to $150 on the stump. From the time that tree
started until now, it has increased in value at the rate of two dollars
a year, for timber alone, to say nothing of the nut. Suppose the tree
had been purchased sixty years ago at two dollars from the nurseryman.
It would have paid one hundred per cent annually on the investment. It
bears, as a regular thing, a crop every other year.
As to what Mr. Pomeroy said about the black walnut not cracking well and
crumbling up when it gets to be old, I have some specimens here of the
Stabler walnut I cracked this morning, which are of the 1915 crop.
The kernel of these old nuts keeps its flavor and sweetness wonderfully.
There is hardly any change in quality within one year, whereas some
other nuts, as the hazel and some varieties of the pecan, become rancid
after keeping six months.
DR. MORRIS: I would like to say one word about the curly walnut. In
Maine, not long ago, I saw a young man who had bought a bird's eye
maple, perhaps fifty years of age, that he paid $1,500 for. I asked him
why he didn't graft one million ordinary maples from that tree and sell
the stock at $200 per tree, and then he would have $200,000,000 at just
about the time of life when he could enjoy it. Well, that hadn't
occurred to him. Now, if Mr. Littlepage will hunt up this curly black
walnut stump that sold for $3,500, and if he will graft a million trees
from that he will be able to raise a family of ten children (Laughter.)
DR. STABLER: Mr. President, I just want to call attention to an omission
in the little talk that my son gave about the characteristics of this
Stabler tree, namely, its beauty as a shade tree. He didn't mention
that, and I don't think any one has mentioned it in connection with the
black walnut. Now, the black walnut trees, as we meet them along the
roadsides, vary exceedingly in habit of growth. The majority of them
have very few main limbs, perhaps not over half a dozen main limbs on a
tree, and they will be gaunt, ungainly things, stretched out straight,
like great arms reaching out with very little beauty. Now, if you plant
seedlings, that is what you are likely to get on your lawn. You may have
something that is not pretty except as a trunk, but the tree that
produces these very remarkable nuts is also one of the most beautiful in
its conformation. It is shaped just like an umbrella, rather low, very
spreading, and very frequently with a very much larger number of limbs
than almost any black walnut tree that I have ever seen, and its habit
of growing in the nursery confirms that opinion--that it produces a very
large number of buds and branches from each graft.
Mr. Littlepage has in his fence row, uncultivated and surrounded by
bushes of every kind, a small seedling walnut that he grafted this year
with the Stabler walnut. When he grafted the seedling it was a little
over an inch in diameter. I measured the growth from that graft
recently, and five shoots measured over five feet long, and others over
four feet long. Four month's growth--five shoots over five feet long!
Now, I don't know of any other walnut or any other nut tree that would
have produced that many shoots from a single graft. It makes a very
beautiful shade tree and has a top which is capable of producing very
large crops of fruit.
THE PRESIDENT: It sometimes makes me feel ashamed of my race when I
realize our limitations in comparison with the trees. We run across a
valuable type of tree genus, and we can make millions like it in a short
time. But when a remarkable specimen of the genus homo, arises, he stays
with us but a short while before we cart him off to the cemetery, and
that is the last of him. Does any one else wish to make a contribution
to the black walnut?
MR. M. P. REED: Mr. Littlepage made the remark that it is very easy to
propagate the black walnut. We haven't found it so. We have made almost
a complete failure of both budding and grafting.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, I was speaking of my experience in grafting this
spring. I think I remarked that my personal experience in budding had
not gone far enough to tell definitely what the results are going to be.
But I put in about fifty-five grafts, and I had fifty of them to grow,
and of that fifty there were probably ten or twelve knocked out--thrown
out at the first cultivation--and probably thirty-five are growing there
yet. I don't know what Mr. White's experience was in Indiana. I think it
was, perhaps, not as good as he expected, because of the fact that a lot
of the bud-wood dried out, but I think Mr. McCoy can give some
experience. Now, Mr. Roper here, has had experience in budding the black
walnut, haven't you?
MR. W. N. ROPER: We only put in about a dozen buds a short time ago. I
think half of those are growing.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, we budded, perhaps, two or three hundred this
summer, and I don't know really how they are coming out, but, from the
way these grafts behaved this spring, I don't see any reason why it is
going to be very difficult. What do you know about it, Mr. McCoy?
MR. R. L. MCCOY: Mr. Stabler's grafts didn't take very well, but so far
as budding the black walnut is concerned, it is just as easy as handling
the peach; there is nothing to it when you get the bud-wood; but first
you have got to have the bud-wood. You can't jump on to any old tree and
get buds that will give satisfactory results. Now, if Mr. Reed and his
father had to go into Wisconsin and Michigan to get their bud-wood, and
cut it from some old cherry trees, we'll say, and came back to Indiana
and tried to produce trees from those buds in the nursery, they would
fail.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the net result, apparently, of the discussion on
propagation seems to be that Mr. McCoy, in Indiana, has had great
success with buds; Mr. Littlepage, in Maryland, has had great success
with grafts; I also had great success with grafts put in by a man who
could neither read nor write, but who was taught the technique as
taught by this Society. Is there any further discussion?
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President, Professor Hutt ought to know something
about the black walnut. He knows something about everything else I have
ever talked to him about. I believe he wrote me, in connection with some
of his tests, that forty-seven per cent of the Stabler nuts were meat.
PROF. W. N. HUTT: I think so. I think it was pretty close to a half.
There were no broken halves at all, and some of them came out entirely
whole.
THE PRESIDENT: We want to hear from Dr. Deming.
THE SECRETARY: I just want to call attention to one of the questions on
our list. "What can we do to cheapen nuts and nut meats in the retail
market so as to make this valuable food available to persons of small
means?" It seems to me that we are going to do that with such nuts as
the black walnut. I think we ought to work for the time when the black
walnut can be sold in quantity in New York City, and in all the larger
cities for around a dollar a bushel. Perhaps the shellbark hickory is
also going to be a nut of the same kind, a nut that can be put on the
market in large quantities at a small price, for the man of limited
means to buy and crack out himself. Dr. Morris, speaking of some tough
nut, once said it was so tough that it was only of interest to squirrels
and men out of work. That expression about "men out of work" made me
think, as do so many things that Dr. Morris says. If a man out of work
can buy a bushel of black walnuts for a dollar, and if he can crack out
several bushels a day, or even only one bushel a day, he can make more
wages just cracking out that bushel of black walnuts than at ordinary
laboring work. I think that we ought to get on the market a supply of
cheap nuts for the man of limited means and that we ought to educate the
people to a knowledge of the value of such nuts.
THE PRESIDENT: It is always well to put the brakes on. I haven't heard a
thing about this black walnut except virtues. I believe Mr. McMurran, of
the Department of Agriculture, is present, and I think he has been
giving particular attention to the black walnut, and perhaps he will
tell us of some of its enemies, either animal or vegetable.
MR. S. M. MCMURRAN: Well, Mr. President, unfortunately, I haven't given
much attention to the black walnut. My time has been given to the pecan
until this summer, when I worked on the persian walnut to some extent,
but I can say, generally, that the black walnut hasn't got any very
serious enemies. Everything it has got is right here now. There isn't
any reason to suppose that it would have any serious disease if we
cultivated it on an extensive scale.
As to the insects, I am not able to state. I have never noticed any
particularly on the nut since a boy.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President, I think Mr. McMurran has covered the
diseases of the black walnut. I think the observation of every one will
confirm what Mr. McMurran has said.
THE PRESIDENT: The chair will deviate from parliamentary practice for a
moment by dismissing the question. I wish to contribute three small
facts. One is with reference to the special growth of the black walnut
under fertilization. The men on my place have to cut bushes around apple
trees, and some stray black walnuts planted by nature under those trees
have been cut for 10 years but for the last two seasons have been left
alone. They have promptly come up through those apple trees, under the
influence of nitrate of soda, like a steer going through a bush. They
have grown five or six feet each season.
Another point is the great variation, apparently, of the black walnut
with regard to its keeping qualities. I recall putting away in a garret,
in 1894, a number of bushels of a nut of particular merit, and they were
perfectly sweet and edible as much as seven years later. Now it is only
occasionally that you will find one that will keep as long as that, but
with the trees bearing every two years, it is quite possible that the
fruit would be marketable for two or three, or even four years
afterwards, if kept properly.
There is no reason to think that the Stabler is the best nut growing in
the United States. It merely grew within reach of the eyes of observing
men.
The filbert and the almond we hope to cover briefly before adjourning. I
will ask Mr. Reed to give us a short contribution on the almond.
MR. M. P. REED: This almond (exhibiting specimens) we received scions of
from Mr. C. A. Reed, of the Department a few years ago. It was three
years ago this summer that we top-worked it, and we picked almost half a
bushel of almonds from it this summer. The almond has a thick shell,
kernel of good flavor, but I don't think it will amount to anything
very much except for home use.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: How old was the tree that bore them?
MR. M. P. REED: Top-worked three years ago this summer.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: And bore how many?
MR. W. C. REED: Bore a half a bushel this last summer.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: If any one here would like bud-wood of that almond I
will be glad to send it to them.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Littlepage offers to send those present bud-wood of
that tree, which can be, with great ease, top-worked on the peach by the
ordinary process of shield budding.
DR. IRA ULMAN: I have grafted scions of this nut on Amygdalus Davidiana,
the new Chinese peach of the Department of Agriculture, and the growth
is marvelous. It does just exactly as Mr. Reed told you.
DR. STABLER: I would like to ask whether the almond is attacked by the
same insects and diseases that affect the peach, whether it is affected
by peach yellows and whether it is affected by the peach borer. I
understand that the apricot is, in a measure, immune to the peach borer
at least, and possibly also to the peach yellows. If the almond is to be
short-lived like the peach tree, it may not be nearly as valuable as if
it were a hardy tree. If you place it upon peach stock it seems to me
you must expect it to be attacked by the peach borer.
MR. M. P. REED: I believe that the original tree of this variety is
something over sixty years old. Not very many peach trees live to be
that old, and in the nursery it is a very vigorous grower.
THE PRESIDENT: The commercial almond is a rather long-lived tree in the
countries where it is grown. Of course, here is a question of technique
and individual behavior which only experience can answer. We ought to
take some of these nuts home that Mr. Reed has given us. I should like
to know why Mr. Reed so deprecates a tree which bears so much fruit in
so short a time. If the fruit is good, why can't it be handled
commercially?
MR. M. P. REED: It is the cracking quality. It has a very thick shell.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that a problem that machines cannot solve?
MR. M. P. REED: No, sir.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: How is the flavor?
MR. M. P. REED: The flavor is good.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I was just going to say, Mr. President, that I visited
Mr. Reed's place this summer, and it is utterly surprising how fast and
beautifully this hardy almond grew. He took me out at the edge of the
garden where he has them growing, and I could hardly realize that they
were only three-year-old trees. They were as full of little almonds as
the peach trees were of peaches, only they were much longer and with
very red leaves. Vincennes, Indiana, is on the thirty-ninth parallel,
which is the northern boundary of the District of Columbia, and it gets
much colder there than here, and those trees haven't the slightest sign
of winter-killing. I don't know anything about the quality of the meat,
but they are certainly wonderful bearers.
DR. MORRIS: I find that in the region of Stamford, Connecticut, hard
shelled almonds do pretty well if you look after them pretty closely,
but they take all your time. They have so many different blights on them
that I am glad mine died a long time ago. They bore heavily, but they
were too much trouble. They blossom so early in our locality that the
blossoms are apt to be caught by frost. You may overcome that if you set
the trees on the north side of a stone wall where the ground retains the
frost for from one to two weeks later than on the south side. I find,
that by doing this you can retard their time of blossoming sufficiently
to materially lessen the danger of their being caught by spring frosts.
MR. HARRY R. WEBER: Will you get the same results if you put a mulch
under the tree? Won't that prevent thawing and hold the tree for a week
or two?
DR. MORRIS: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you used this particular almond?
DR. MORRIS: One very much like it, and it was a mighty good almond--hard
to get at but good.
THE PRESIDENT: I would like to ask Mr. Reed as to the blooming time of
this particular tree in comparison with some standard peach like the
Elberta.
MR. M. P. REED: It bloomed about a week earlier than the Elberta, and
the peach crop is light.
MR. HENRY STABLER: I have been associated for the past three or four
years occasionally with Mr. M. B. Waite, of the Department of
Agriculture, and I have had a good chance to study the effect of
spraying on peaches in preventing brown rot and curculio. At Mr.
Littlepage's I observed an almond tree that started, I should think,
with twenty-five or thirty almonds on it this spring. Those almonds
gradually succumbed to the curculio and brown rot until, at last, only
one was left, and it seems to me that, if this almond is to be grown
commercially in this climate, we will have to use the same methods of
growing as with peaches, and we will have to spray them.
THE PRESIDENT: I think the chief benefit of the discussion of the almond
would be to get more of us to try it, and the fact that we have one
which is only one week earlier than the Elberta peach in blooming shows
that we have a good chance, possibly, of even exceeding the
possibilities of the peaches.
MR. MCCOY: Mr. President, I notice a good many almonds bloom about the
same time as Elberta peaches. I have probably twenty-five trees of this
almond that Mr. Reed spoke of, and I think they were in bloom at the
time the peaches were. It is very productive, just as he says. I have
noticed some of the old trees around in our neighborhood have borne good
crops for several years, and I don't notice much disease on them either.
DR. STABLER: I asked the question whether anybody knows whether the
almond is affected by peach yellows, and nobody seems to know, but peach
yellows is something connected with climate. There is a yellows line
that has remained definite and distinct for the last twenty-five years,
and you can describe that line on the map, and it stays right where you
put it. All north of that line the peach trees are affected by yellows,
and south they are not. That line runs through Mount Vernon and
Annapolis, and across Chesapeake Bay to Chestertown. Now, below that
isothermal line there is a little peninsula south of Chestertown, in
Kent county, a little peninsula there--a little long neck that runs out
into the bay below Chestertown--where they have never had any peach
yellows, and yet at Chestertown the trees have always been affected by
peach yellows, and it is probable that it will be found, if the almond
is affected by peach yellows, that the same laws apply to it. That is,
south they will have the yellows, and north they will not. Now, at
Vincennes, I suppose that they are north of the yellows line for
peaches. Do your peach trees have peach yellows?
MR. M. P. REED: No, sir.
DR. STABLER: Perhaps you are north of it, then. If so, the almond hasn't
been tried out as to yellows.
THE PRESIDENT: This association is greatly indebted to Dr. Morris, who
helped to get it together, for his indefatigable searching of the
corners of the earth for specimens, species and varieties of trees in
his ambition to get to his Stamford place all of the varieties of
nut-bearing trees. Several of our members have taken a little interest
in the question of the hazel-filbert family. Dr. Morris has taken a lot
of interest. Last year he gave us a most exhilarating presentation of
the subject, and he is this year going to give us some brief notes on
the progress of his knowledge concerning the hazels and filberts. Dr.
Morris.
DR. MORRIS: Just a word, in order to start the discussion. I have tried
to work out during the past year two or three points that came up for
discussion last year. I stated that in Connecticut the common American
hazel would probably not become a horticultural proposition for the
reason that the main stock seldom lives more than seven or eight years,
and then dies. New stolons, starting from the root, make abundant new
stocks. In that way, dying at the center, and growing at the periphery,
like a ring worm, one plant may extend so widely as to drive cows out of
the pasture lot. (Laughter). Dr. Deming understood me to say that it
spread so "rapidly" as to drive the cows out of a lot. I said "widely,"
not "rapidly." (Laughter). For that reason a plant of our common hazel
bears a few nuts about the third year; it bears a good crop about the
fourth year and sometimes in the fifth year. It then begins to die and
is gone by the seventh or eighth year, while new stolons, coming up on
all sides, are ready to perpetuate that rotation. That, at least, is
ordinary hazel history in my part of Connecticut. So I doubt if this
species will ever be a good horticultural proposition.
This year, for the first time, I have budded the European hazel upon our
common stock for the purpose of observing whether the character of the
guest will change the character of the host.