have stated before, my work has been in the South for the past several
years, and no work has been done on this disease in the East prior to
this summer. That it must have been here for a long time seems almost a
foregone conclusion, because of its wide distribution. Mr. Jones was a
little bit conscience-stricken for fear he brought it here with him.
Still it is in Delaware and Maryland as well as Pennsylvania, and you
can't blame Mr. Jones for that. I think, too, it is less actively
pathogenic than on the Pacific Coast, or we would have heard of it
before. That it should prove a serious menace to the development of the
walnut industry in the East, is too much to assume at this time. It will
undoubtedly eliminate a number of the varieties that are considered
promising now, but the course that will have to be taken will be to
propagate only varieties which are highly resistant or totally immune to
the disease. Just what these varieties are going to be in the East we do
not know as yet, of course. We should avoid the mistakes that the
growers on the Pacific Coast have made of planting seedling trees, and
taking the chance of their being resistant to the disease. A great many
varieties will be automatically eliminated when the nurserymen bear in
mind that this disease is one to be considered, and I want to say, that,
in addition to this, the Department will take pleasure in making
artificial inoculations and tests on all those concerning which there
is any question. We have the germ in culture now and will maintain it,
and anyone who discovers a new variety, or has an old one they would
like to propagate, can communicate with us, and we will take pleasure in
testing its susceptibility.
I think that is about all that can be said on the subject at this time.
This disease has been studied very carefully on the Pacific Coast and a
number of publications issued from the California Experiment Station
concerning it.
For those who are interested in looking the literature up, I have here
the following references: Cal. Station Bulletins, 184, 203, 218, 231,
and Circulars 107 and 131.
A MEMBER: Is spraying of any avail?
MR. MCMURRAN: It has helped somewhat, but it has not proved economical
on the coast.
A MEMBER: In order to have that test made, would it be necessary to send
the things to the Department?
MR. MCMURRAN: No; it would be necessary for me to come to you and test
them on the trees.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Did those walnuts in Mr. Brown's yard look to you as
though they had the blight?
MR. MCMURRAN: Yes, they looked like this (showing specimen).
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Did you notice that tree just across the fence? The
reason I ask the question is that if that is blight out there, then that
tree right across the fence is very likely resistant, because I have
noticed that those walnuts have had this on and off for six or seven
years. The limbs of the two trees are within twenty feet of each other.
MR. MCMURRAN: Well, that is a very encouraging point.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I didn't think that was blight. All those trees at
Georgetown that I have observed have that condition on them, more or
less, except that one tree.
MR. MCMURRAN: Yet, isn't it true that they bore pretty good crops of
nuts, nevertheless?
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Oh, yes.
MR. MCMURRAN: Well, that was the point I had in mind. Of the two trees
one bears every other year, and the other bears heavy crops every year.
DR. MORRIS: You see the same thing at the Experiment Station in southern
California. One tree will be absolutely resistant to blight; the other
will be all killed. And down at Whittier, perhaps, seven-tenths of all
the trees will be badly affected with the bacteriosis, and the others
not very much affected, so that, apparently, it is largely a matter of
this cynips, which introduces the bacteria, selecting certain trees.
Certain walnuts are very much affected, and the involucre looks very
much like that of these nuts (showing specimens), but, on examining
them, I found a very large number of small larvae beneath the involucre.
I sent some of them to the Connecticut Experiment Station and some to
Washington, but they didn't tell me what they were. Those same larvae I
found in one black walnut on my place, which is very heavily infested
with them. Most of the nuts drop because of the injury to the involucre.
I haven't determined the species yet. I don't know whether the larvae
come first and the bacteriosis second, or whether it's the other way
around.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there other persons who wish to give themselves a
chance of asking Mr. McMurran a question? I have a question that is
troubling me. Perhaps the house can throw light upon it. I had a number
of Persian walnuts, Vrooman Franquette and Mayette, grafted on black,
and by the Fourth of July they were growing nicely, with tops all the
way from four to twenty-four inches long, and then the tip got black and
the blackness went down. I sent a sample to Mr. McMurran. The leaves
first died and then the twigs.
MR. MCMURRAN: I received that, but it was so dried when I got it it was
impossible to make anything out of it. I have seen the same thing on
pecans, only in those cases the leaves just got black and fell off, and
we never have been able to assign a reason for it.
THE PRESIDENT: Am I the only man that has had that experience?
A MEMBER: I had this year the same thing on the Vrooman Franquette, but
it recovered and has made excellent growth since.
MR. MCMURRAN: Have yours subsequently lived?
THE PRESIDENT: No, they subsequently died. (Laughter.)
MR. J. F. JONES: I had that experience this summer. The new growth was
very tender and took blight very readily.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, this doesn't appear to be blight.
MR. JONES: If the English walnut starts late and the tender growth comes
in the hot weather, the sun will kill it.
THE PRESIDENT: You have described my conditions. These are late grafts.
Have you had that same experience with late grafts and not with early
ones?
MR. JONES: Yes, sir. The blight will show itself in the specks on the
twig.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, do you mean on this sunburn?
MR. JONES. No, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: There were no specks in this case. Has any other member
any question on the blight? I want to call attention to the fact that we
have here in this room tonight nearly every one who is studying the
question in the eastern United States.
MR. MCMURRAN: Mr. President, I would like to say that we would like to
get all the information we can on it.
A MEMBER: According to my observation, the blight is not going to do
much to the tree, because the tree here makes its growth and hardens up
before the blight comes. The blight, you see, must have moisture and
heat to work, but it comes in just right to catch the nuts.
MR. R. L. MCCOY: Mr. President, some mighty strange things happen with
grafted and budded English walnuts, and I believe I could ask questions
that would puzzle a school of wise men. Now, none of the answers here
will stand up very well. For instance, Mr. Jones says this dieing back
is due to late grafting. Well, I had some Holdens that we budded this
last June a year ago, that suddenly, all at once, along in July this
year, proceeded to quit business, and quit clear down, and the root
died, too, the black walnut root. It is a serious question in my mind
whether the black is the best stock to be used or not. Mr. Jones and Mr.
Reed have good success grafting the English on the black. We don't down
our way. Both of those men are in regions where the land is inclined to
be alkali. The land where my orchard is, and where Mr. Littlepage's and
Mr. Wilkinson's orchards are, is inclined to be acid. I am of the
opinion that, to make a success of the English walnut, we are going to
have to use lime, and use it extensively, not only in the nursery, but
until the time when the trees begin to bear.
THE PRESIDENT: It is one of the common pieces of knowledge of all the
agriculturists of France that the walnut does well on lime soils, and
they don't expect it to do well on acid soils.
MR. JONES: Mr. President, I think, if Mr. McCoy will examine his trees,
he will find that the root dies first.
MR. MCCOY: Well, why should they rot?
MR. JONES: That is like a good many other things, Mr. McCoy. We don't
know why.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: A pecan top-worked on a water hickory will sometimes
kill the whole tree, top and all. It is the top that does it.
MR. M. P. REED: This year we made some observations of different
varieties, as to time of leafing out, and we found the Eastern varieties
leafed out about the first of April, and the Franquette and Mayette
about the fifth of May, and one variety we got from the Department, No.
39,884, didn't leaf out until the twenty-fifth of May. That seemed to
indicate that the French varieties were going to prove better than the
Eastern varieties, because late frosts cannot hurt the blossoms.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: That is correct. I watched them this spring at Mr.
McCoy's. Franquette and Mayette, over there and with us, were anywhere
from ten days to two weeks later leafing out. Some of the buds were
entirely dormant and some just bursting when many of our Eastern
varieties were in full leaf. But my experience here in Maryland on
walnut trees from all sections was that every one winter-killed except
one Nebo tree and a top-worked Potomac. I have a Potomac which has made
ten to twelve feet of growth, and it didn't winter-kill the slightest,
and my Nebo tree hasn't winter-killed any, but the Franquette, the
Meylan, the Rush, the Holden, and several others winter-killed very
badly. At least, Mr. McMurran said that was what it was, and I thought
it was, too.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Mr. Littlepage, isn't "winter-killing" rather a
relative term, dependent partly upon the climate and partly upon the
condition of the tree at the end of the growing season? Was there
anything back of your statement, any late growing, or something of that
sort?
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, they didn't grow any later than the Potomac grew,
but that tree was top-worked about five or six feet above the ground and
I think that makes them hardier.
A MEMBER: Were the winter-killed trees cultivated late?
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Yes; and fertilized heavily.
THE PRESIDENT: Haven't you answered your own question?
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, I won't grow trees if they do not grow better than
that.
MR. MCCOY: Mr. Littlepage may think he has answered this question, and
these other gentlemen may think they have answered it in a different
way, but there are some rather peculiar phenomena there. I don't
question the sincerity of these gentlemen, but I don't think they have
answered the question. Whenever you transplant these trees and whenever
you get to growing them in big quantities, you will have certain
peculiar phenomena that you are not certain at first as to just what is
the cause. Mr. White is just as near right when he says they kill in
July as Mr. Littlepage when he says they winter-kill in December. And I
will just say to people who buy walnut trees from our firm that when
they transplant them under the same conditions as Mr. Littlepage, they
may expect similar results.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I have never seen a northern pecan winter-kill.
MR. MCCOY: Oh, I have.
MR. MCMURRAN: Mr. President, this term "winter-killing" is a little bit
misleading, and it has been a matter of discussion in the National Nut
Growers' Association for several years and a great loss to many Southern
pecan growers. A very common statement that one hears down there is
"Why, our trees don't winter-kill. We don't have cold severe enough to
kill them." But they do. It isn't a question of severity of cold, but
suddenness of change. For instance, in southern Georgia one year, we had
a rainy period in October; about November 20th there was a hard freeze.
A number of orchards which had been fertilized late in the fall were
almost wiped out. If it were not due to the fact that the term is too
long, and we could say "damage due to sudden temperature change," it
would convey the idea exactly. I saw trees injured in the fall of 1914
that didn't die until September of the following year, and I have a
number of photographs in my office.
DR. STABLER: I believe, Mr. President, that the stimulation of growth
late in the season has a great deal to do with the winter-killing of
trees and other plants. I have noticed it in clover and alfalfa, and I
have noticed it in peach trees.
THE PRESIDENT: I think Dr. Stabler has stated a very well-known
principle, not only of horticulture, but also of agriculture. Last year
we questioned Mr. W. C. Reed as to the condition of a certain
top-worked, heavily forced, black-walnut we had seen the year before at
Vincennes. We were confirmed in our belief that the tree was dead, but
that another tree budded at the same time with the same bud-wood and not
forced, lived. We had a dry summer that year, a wet fall, twenty degrees
below zero at Christmas, dead apple trees. I suspect that Mr. Littlepage
has a problem in the balance of tillage and top-working.
DR. STABLER: I think if he visits his neighbor, Professor Waite, he will
find out how to manage trees so they won't winter-kill, because he knows
how to fix it. (Laughter.)
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I treated the trees just like the pecan. I have never
seen it possible yet to over-stimulate a pecan and winter-kill it. I
don't say it isn't possible, but I have never seen it.
THE PRESIDENT: I can show you a few.
MR. M. P. REED: Mr. President, we have that condition in the nursery
row.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, those are grafted, are they not?
MR. M. P. REED: Grafts and buds, both.
DR. MORRIS: In regard to the grafting of the Persian walnut upon black
walnut stock. In Connecticut, we have three species of mice--the common
field mouse, the pine mouse, and the white-footed mouse. These mice all
follow in the holes of the moles, and they are very fond of the bark of
the Persian walnut, and will destroy a good many of them. Now, with the
black walnut, on the other hand, when one of these mice comes along and
takes a bite of that, he shuts one eye, cleans his teeth, and then goes
on to something else. (Laughter.)
Now, in our country the soil is practically all acid. The black walnut
will grow in pretty acid soil. The Persian walnut almost demands a
neutral or alkaline soil. So, for Connecticut there is no doubt that we
really need the black walnut stock for the Persian walnut.
THE PRESIDENT: Any further problems that are vexing the orchardist with
regard to the Persian walnut? If not, I think this is a suitable time to
bury it until next year. Col. Van Duzee, a man who has had more
experience with the pecan than almost any one else in the room, has
kindly consented to make his contribution at this time. Col. Van Duzee.
COL. VAN DUZEE: There is a longing on the part of a large percentage of
men and women that I meet to escape from conditions which do not seem to
be especially favorable in the large cities, and to get away into the
safety of the country. I believe that nut tree growing offers one of the
safest of those outlets. I believe that a nut orchard should be a part
of a general farming operation. I want to give you my ideas about
inter-crops. Fifteen years ago the doctors gave me three months to live,
drove me out of my business, and away from my home to prolong the agony
for a few weeks or months, and I found, among my orchard trees, a
reasonable amount of health which, to me, repays a greater value than I
could reckon in dollars and cents. It has given me the privilege and the
opportunity of removing myself from the turmoil of the city and the
conflict of the business world to a peaceful, quiet existence, that, to
me, is very much more satisfactory. Now, that is an inter-crop.
Down in Florida, when we used to get together in our citrus seminars and
in our horticultural and agricultural meetings we used to try and make a
man say on what class of soil his home or orchard was located, so that
we might get his viewpoint. For the successful nut orchardist, in a
small way, must, of necessity, be a successful agriculturist. He must
understand soils. You can't have successful inter-cropping without
understanding soils, and, therefore, I can't tell you definitely what
would be good for your northern soils. But I can tell you this, that the
first thing to do when you have an orchard problem to consider is to
make an exhaustive survey of the character of the soil. If it is a
fresh, recently cleared piece of fertile soil, under favorable
conditions, I am satisfied you don't need very much in the way of
inter-cropping. On the other hand, if you select for your orchard site a
piece of land that has been worked to death, I believe it would be well
to inaugurate a system of inter-cropping that would have for its object
the building up of that soil and the improvement of the environment for
the roots of those trees. In the South, we are favored with twelve
months of growing weather. We plant our crops throughout the year. I am
just about beginning now to plow for my oat planting. I am going to
pasture those oats all winter with hogs and cattle. We will harvest our
oats in May. We then follow them with a legume which will restore the
fertility to that soil. In the present condition of the market for
commercial fertilizers, I believe we have gone beyond the point where
any man can afford to use commercial fertilizers to any great extent on
ordinary crops. I believe it is possible to go too far in the
stimulation of a growing orchard. My opinion is that a series of
inter-crops that results eventually in a large deposit of nitrogen, such
as we get from several leguminous crops plowed under, will have a
tendency to bring that orchard into a condition--I am speaking now, you
understand, of the pecan---where it will be susceptible to disease and
winter-killing.
If you have followed me as far as I have gone in this, you will begin to
see at once that the men who are going to be successful in solving these
problems are the men who are going to learn the game. Among the human
family, you know, we have a stock phrase that we use sometimes when a
man dies and we don't understand the cause of his death. We say "He died
of heart failure." That is a convenient thing to hide behind.
"Winter-killing," to my mind, is another such term. It is used, for
instance, in a case where an individual tree, for some reason or other
not quite understood, "passed away." (Laughter.)
I have been fifteen years in the growing of pecan trees in the South,
and I am free to confess that the most disturbing element in my life at
the present time is the fact that we "have known so many things that
weren't true." We have gone ahead fully believing that our course was
justified, that it was well digested, desirable in every way, and
suddenly waked up to find that we were radically wrong, or, at least,
that there was a very open question as to whether we were not absolutely
wrong.
To the person of limited means the idea of being able to produce a nut
orchard at very little expense is very attractive, and my heart goes out
to people in that condition because I have been in that condition myself
and passed through it. Ten years ago I bought a piece of land for forty
dollars an acre, and planted seventeen pecan trees on each acre. It cost
me twenty-five dollars an acre to lay off the land, dig the holes, and
plant the trees nicely, with about a half pound of bone meal mixed in
the soil in each hole. I carried that nut orchard on, using some
inter-crops, up to one year ago, when it finished its eighth year of
growth, and, without burdening you with the minute figures, I am going
to say we have sixty-five dollars charged up to it, and it will take
$185 more. Now, there is $250, if I haven't made any mistake. I planted
among those trees nursery stock, and I sold off, during the time that
those trees were growing, nursery stock to the value of, we will say,
$250, making my inter-crops pay the expense of cultivation and interest
on the investment up to that time. So don't forget that. Now, this is a
case where we are going to balance our books, as every business man
does, and every farmer ought to. I have, up to the time those trees were
eight years of age, invested approximately $250, and have received back
not only that, but the interest on the investment. So, at eight years of
age the orchard cost me nothing. Now, that would be the way a great many
people would figure that proposition. I can't do it that way. I am going
to charge that orchard with $250 an acre for supervision. Now, above
that line (indicating on black-board) it looks as though that orchard
had been built up for nothing, and below the line you see a debit of
$250 charged against that orchard. There is not one man in a hundred
that contemplates a proposition of this kind that is willing to charge
his orchard up with the gray matter that he puts into it. But there was
an inter-crop in that orchard, of health and satisfaction, which is
worth more to me than my services, so I will put that in here as $250.
(Laughter and applause.) Now, I walked across this morning--I like to
walk, and I came across the park. I saw a monument right over here in a
little iron circular enclosure, erected in honor of Andrew Jackson
Donald, a man who died several years ago, the man who was partly
responsible for the magnificent landscape gardening effect of which this
building is a part. It said on the monument this: "His life was devoted
to the improvement of the national taste in rural art." Down below it
said: "His mind was singularly just, penetrating and original." Any man
ought to be proud to have that sort of thing engraved upon his monument,
and, gentlemen, any man who will go out and plant nut trees like those
you saw this afternoon, ought to have a monument under those trees
expressing sentiments similar to these, because he has done something
which remains after him, and it is one of the most worth-while things
that any human being can do. That is one of the other valuable things
about a nut orchard.
Now, this nut orchard--this is no myth--this is a practical proposition.
I was practically bankrupt when I went there. It is paying now in a
small way, and will pay more later on, and I am going to leave it to my
children as one of the safest and sanest investments that I could leave
them, and I want to say, ladies and gentlemen, that the consciousness of
possessing something of that sort, which can't be stolen, can't run
away, is another inter-crop that is grown among those trees.
I sometimes tell a story of a little two-horse farm down in the South. I
drove fourteen miles out into the wilderness to find some seed nuts to
plant this nursery with years ago. I found there an old home which was
the central home of a large plantation in days gone by, and there were
half a dozen--perhaps seven or eight--magnificent, great pecan trees
about the lot, and a vegetable garden at the back of the home. Those
trees were loaded with nuts. There was a young man there--one of the
most pitiful things that I ever saw in my life--a fine young
man--magnificent character, and recently married, making his home in
this old tumble-down house, making his start in the world there. He
didn't own this land--rented this fifty or sixty acres of open land, and
these trees went with the two-horse farm. I said, "My friend, you must
receive quite a little income from those nuts." "Yes," he said, "I sell
the nuts from those trees every year, for more money than I make from
the two-horse farm."
I heard of another case down in north Florida where two girls were left
absolutely dependent upon their own exertions, and they were girls who
had been reared, as some of the Southern ladies have been reared, to be
dependent on others. They didn't know how to go and fight the world for
a place. They were a little too far along, perhaps, to take up that sort
of battle. There were two pecan trees in front of that old homestead,
and the old homestead was all that was left of the family fortune. It
was furnished, had a cow in the back yard, and a garden, and a few
Scuppernong grape vines. These two pecan trees in the front yard gave
those two women approximately three hundred dollars worth of nuts per
annum. They were magnificent, great, big pecan trees, and they lived
from them the balance of their lives practically, with the help of the
other things I have mentioned.