mind directing the problem of handling the soil in which the orchard is
growing. Now, just simply go right down deep under everything, pay
absolutely no attention to the wonderful stories that the promoters tell
you (laughter), keep your money, save it, use it, and spend it--yes, but
recognize this one thing, that the most important element in success in
the small orchard, as part of the rural or suburban home, is a knowledge
of agriculture and horticulture. It is one of the most fascinating
studies in the world, and I have no doubt but what you will find that
you can go right along inter-cropping with vegetables and other crops,
bush fruits, strawberries, and all those things for the first few years
after you plant your nut trees, and even if they all die you will have
been able to break even on the commercial side of the proposition, and
then you will have the additional years of experience, which no nut
orchardist can dispense with. You can't buy it with money or get it out
of books. You have got to dig it out of the ground yourself. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: I am going to take the liberty of emphasizing one point
the Colonel made. He told you about the great number of things they knew
down South that were not so. I wish to give some geographical spread to
his generalities. We are in the same condition in the North. If you will
stop and look clear through an agricultural idea, you will be
astonished, ladies and gentlemen, absolutely astonished, to see how,
mostly, we don't know it. The other day I happened to be walking through
an apple orchard with the official horticulturist, and in response to
some remark he made I asked: "Do you know that, or do you think it?"
"Has that been experimentally proven?" He answered: "No, it has not."
Most of the things we read in the books and hear in this place and other
places we don't know. We think we know, but when we come to a show-down
we really haven't got experimental data. I know of no people to whom
that thing needs to be emphasized more than to the Northern Nut Growers'
Association.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH, AT 10.30 A. M.
Meeting called to order by the President.
THE PRESIDENT: The first order of business, I believe, will be the
report of the Nominating Committee.
THE SECRETARY: The report of the Nominating Committee is the following:
For President, W. C. Reed, Vincennes, Indiana; Vice-President, W. N.
Hutt, Raleigh, North Carolina; Secretary-Treasurer, Dr. W. C. Deming,
Georgetown, Connecticut.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President, I move that the report of this Nominating
Committee be accepted and adopted, and these officers declared elected.
THE PRESIDENT: Do I hear a second?
A MEMBER: Second the motion.
THE PRESIDENT: The nomination of this list is moved and seconded. Is
there any discussion? If not, all those in favor will say "aye;"
opposed, like sign, it is carried, and they are elected.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: While I am on the floor, I want to read a resolution
which I have drafted, and I will read the clauses separately:
"Owing to the fatal character, the unchecked and rapid spread of the
chestnut blight," is there any question about that? If that is not true,
let somebody hold up his hand.
"Owing to the fact that it has been widely disseminated through the
shipment of nursery stock;" is that correct?
"Owing to the fact that in the first stages the disease cannot be easily
detected;" is that true?
"Owing to the fact that the young trees apparently have a temporary
immunity from the disease;"
"Therefore, the Northern Nut Growers' Association believes that the
continued free shipment of chestnut nursery stock will be productive of
endless destruction of property in those places where the chestnut trees
haven't yet the disease." If that is unsound, why, somebody say so.
"Therefore, be it resolved, that we, the Northern Nut Growers'
Association, suggest that the Secretary of Agriculture prohibit the
shipment of chestnut nursery stock, except in the localities known to
have the blight, and that with each permit for shipment shall go a
bulletin or circular giving the important facts about the chestnut
blight. The only exception to this regulation shall be the shipments for
experimental purposes, and such shipments must have the above mentioned
permit, and the name of the nursery from which such trees have come, and
must be inspected by Federal inspectors." I assume, of course, that
inspection is a general inspection. I don't mean each particular
shipment. If there are any questions about that, why, I will let the
chair answer them.
DR. ULMAN: Mr. Littlepage, I would like to ask a question, or, rather,
offer a criticism. If I understand you rightly, you say, "except in the
districts where blight is prevalent." As a matter of fact, sir, the
particular nursery that advertises the chestnut tree works within a
radius of possibly 250 miles of Rochester, in a district where there are
many prospective horticulturists. One of the things that impressed me
more than anything else in the report of the Secretary was the fact that
we have lost a large number of members, and that we haven't attracted to
ourselves many new members. So far as my personal experience goes, if I
were to choose the one method of being most thoroughly disliked, it
would be to ask my neighbors, particularly those who do not know me, to
become members of any kind of a nut association. There is a glamour
about planting, and it is a sort of a disease with some people, year
after year, to seek for novelties. These nut tree advertisements that
read so well attract many purchasers. Right here in this section people
are buying nut trees that they are going to plant in a blighted
district, and these people, when they see what utter failures they have,
will be so disgusted with nut growing that when you approach them you
cannot talk nuts to them, and you will never have them join the
Association. More and more are leaving the Association, and very few new
ones are coming in to take their places. So I think the resolution ought
to be changed.
THE PRESIDENT: In what respect would you have it changed?
DR. ULMAN: To apply generally.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Yes. Well, I agree very largely with what the doctor
says. I have always felt that the success of this organization--the
success of the nut industry as a whole--depended upon its being upon an
entirely truthful, fair and honest basis. I would rather see a crooked
cashier in a bank than a crooked nurseryman or tree man. The cashier you
can check up at 4:30 every afternoon; you can't check up the crooked
tree man for about ten years. I think the worst of all discouraging
things to people who want to go to the country to build up farms and
homes is to run into alluring, but misleading, advertisements. I have an
abounding faith in tree culture. I think that the pecan tree, the black
walnut, varieties of the English walnut and of a number of other nut
trees, are going to make it most possible and more desirable for men to
go to the country, but I think the success of those things depends upon
giving those people, as far as possible, facts, and not misleading them.
Wherever a man sets a tree that is a failure you have a man as a failure
generally as a tree man, and wherever you get a man to set a tree that
succeeds, you have a living, walking advocate of the tree business.
This Association has been fortunate all along in its policies. It has
always stood against the fraudulent promotions; it has always stood
against fraudulent nursery stock; it has always stood against fraudulent
representations, and I think, for that reason, that its future is
reasonably safe, assuming that is its continued policy.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you accept Dr. Ulman's amendment?
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I accept it.
MR. JONES: As I understand the resolution, it applies to nurseries in
the infected areas.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Yes.
MR. JONES: I believe it is practically impossible to grow trees in an
infected area without sending out the blight, but if a man is isolated,
like Mr. Riehl, at Alton, Illinois, he can grow trees without danger of
sending out the blight.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the resolution permits him to do that.
MR. M. P. REED: Did I understand Mr. Kellerman to say the Department
hasn't authority to quarantine against such things?
THE PRESIDENT: No. The point brought up was the theory that lay back of
the quarantine. The speaker made the point that shipment of infected
trees was killing the tree aspirations of the people who ought to be
developing the nut industry. Every time a man buys a chestnut tree and
it dies with blight that man is chilled out of business. Now this
resolution doesn't cover that man. It is based on the ground of injury
to the industry. You can't very well define the limits of where the
blight is not, but it can be fairly well defined as to where it is, and
that is up to the Department.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: The resolutions are offered in a suggestive way, Mr.
President. If the Secretary wants to turn the suggestion down, we will
meet again next year any way.
PROF. CLOSE: I would like some information as to how you propose to take
this matter up with the Department. I was present a year or so ago at a
hearing before the Federal Horticultural Board--I don't know whether any
one else present was there at the time--but the whole thing hinged
largely on Colonel Sober's attitude in propagating and sending out the
Paragon chestnut, and I think the Department--the Federal Horticultural
Board--originated the question that you are discussing now, and Colonel
Sober came there with a whole lot of pretty good information, and people
to back up what he said, and the Department put up a mighty poor show,
I tell you. I was ashamed of what the Department men had to say, and
Colonel Sober won out hands down. Now, if this question comes up again,
it will be referred, no doubt, to the Federal Horticultural Board, and
you will need a good, strong representation, with plenty of facts back
of you, and if you can put up a strong enough case there is no doubt but
what you can establish this quarantine. But I would hate to see the
question taken up again and floored as easily as it was at that time.
THE PRESIDENT: Prof. Close, I have read part of the testimony.--I was
not present at the meeting--and when one considers the number of things
that were said at that meeting that are not so, and the amount of other
evidence that has come up since, I think the defenders of the public
will have the material to make a much stronger presentation than they
did then, and, what is more, I think some of them will be there. Of
course, when a man has a possibility of getting a quarter of a million
dollars out of a lot of junk, he can spend money to hire people to say
things, and when "the dear public" is paying nobody to go, as was the
case last time, nobody goes. If that hearing comes again, I think some
from this Association will be present.
PROF. CLOSE: That is just the point I want to bring up. You have got to
be there with the information.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I just want to say a word, rather endorsing what
Professor Close has had to say. The Department of Agriculture, the
quarantine board, or anybody else, can't go out of their limitations and
get testimony. If we think there ought to be a quarantine, then,
whenever there is a public invitation sent out, such as was sent out
before, we ought to have the nerve to go down there before the
Department officials and tell them the truth. It is very easy for us to
stand up here and write papers and articles criticising the quarantine
board and the Department of Agriculture. If we have anything to say
about these things we ought to go down there and say it. If other people
come there and present facts as a matter of record, the Board can't
entirely go outside of those facts and decide a case right out of the
clear sky. If this organization wants to be effective, it ought to
appoint a committee to present those things before that Board.
Resolution adopted.
THE SECRETARY: I have had in mind some time the idea involved in this
resolution, which I have hastily drawn up.
"Since the principles underlying the successful and economical
propagation of nut trees are not yet thoroughly understood or generally
known, and much effort is being wasted and much disappointment incurred
in unsuccessful or partially successful efforts in propagation.
"Resolved, that it is the sense of this meeting that systematic and
controlled experiments be made, under the direction of the Department of
Agriculture, for the purpose of determining the principles underlying
the successful propagation of nut trees in all sections of the country."
DR. ULMAN: Second that motion. (Carried.)
MR. C. A. REED: I would like to present an invitation to meet at Battle
Creek.
MR. ROPER: Petersburg invites us to meet at Petersburg.
THE PRESIDENT: Those matters are settled by the Executive Committee.
MR. T. P. LITTLEPAGE: Would it not be well, Mr. President, to determine
upon a meeting place now, and let it be known, so that everybody can
prepare for it? Being a member of the Executive Committee, I would
prefer myself that the Association take the responsibility for deciding
the meeting place. If these meeting places are selected in advance, it
makes it possible for a good many people to plan their vacation trips to
fit in. In order to get the matter before the Association, I move that
the Society determine right now the next meeting place. (Seconded.)
MR. OLCOTT: I think Mr. Littlepage's motion is of more than ordinary
importance. The Association, heretofore, has left that matter, very
properly, perhaps, to the Executive Committee. The result is that little
or no attention is given to the place of meeting until thirty or ninety
days before the date of that meeting. It would be very much better if we
knew several months ahead about the meeting, and I think we would have a
larger attendance and more enthusiasm. The American Association of
Nurserymen names the date at the time of their meeting for the following
meeting, and most other organizations do the same, and the results are
quite perceptible.
(Motion carried.)
THE SECRETARY: We have an invitation from the Evansville Chamber of
Commerce, one from the San Francisco Convention League, to meet at San
Francisco, one from Sears, Roebuck & Company, to meet in Chicago, and
enjoy a luncheon at their expense and a trip through their plant; one
from Dr. Morris to meet at his place, or to meet at Stamford and spend
as much time as possible on his place. We could meet in New York City
and visit Dr. Morris' place very comfortably. We have an invitation from
Petersburg, Va.; one to meet with Dr. Kellogg, at Battle Creek, Mich.,
and one from Mr. Rush to meet at Lancaster, Pa. We have had under
consideration a proposition to meet somewhere in the South, possibly
with the Southern Nut Growers. Those are all the invitations that I know
of.
MR. C. A. REED: May I make a remark right here? It seems to me that
before we decide on the place of meeting we ought to take into
consideration what we are going to any of these places to accomplish,
and the time of year that we want to go there. Now, if we go to
Lancaster, or to almost any of these other places, we ought to have a
summer meeting when we can go out and see the trees, but if we go up to
Battle Creek we could just as well go there in the winter time. The
purpose of going there, as I understand it, would be to lay emphasis on
the subject of nuts for food. Whether we want to take our time now for a
meeting, to emphasize that, or whether we want to see nut trees growing
and discuss cultural problems, is a question to be decided.
THE PRESIDENT: In the absence of a definite method of procedure on this
question, which we never before handled in this way, the chair is
entirely willing to receive instructions, but I suggest that we have a
rising vote for one place after another, and that the place receiving
the greatest number of votes gets the convention.
MR. M. P. REED: We have seen trees in nurseries for several years, and I
think that now we ought to select some place where we can get other and
broader ideas on nuts. I think Battle Creek would be the best place.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other favorite son or neighbor wish to make a
speech in favor of his own or nearby city?
MR. HENRY STABLER: It appeals to me very strongly to see Dr. Morris'
experimental grounds at Stamford, Connecticut. As I understand it, he
has the greatest collection of nut-bearing trees in the United States,
and looking over this would help us in a fine way.
MR. JAMES H. KYNER: Mr. President, I am not a member of this
Association, but for a number of years I have been trying to grow nuts.
I am very much interested in the subject, and I would like to know if I
have any rights on this floor.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: It costs you two dollars to vote.
MR. KYNER: All right, I will just give two dollars.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I move that the gentleman be accepted as a full member
now and have full authority to make speeches. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: The gentleman will proceed to the making of his speech.
MR. KYNER: I have no speech. I simply want to vote "aye" for Stamford
and New York.
(Vote taken.)
THE SECRETARY: The result is as follows: For Evansville, 2; Stamford,
10; Battle Creek, 3; Petersburg, 3; Lancaster, 1; for Chicago, San
Francisco and the National Nut Growers, 0.
THE PRESIDENT: We are now ready, I believe, to proceed with the
technical part of the programme. The chair would like to call for
information as to the relative behavior of the Northern pecans,
top-worked or transplanted. Is there, for example, any evidence anywhere
as to the fruiting of any Northern pecan except on the parent tree?
MR. MCCOY: Mr. Wilkinson, in Indiana, has some top-worked bearing trees.
THE PRESIDENT: Unfortunately, they are right at home. What varieties has
he?
MR. MCCOY: The Major.
THE PRESIDENT: And how old was it before he top-worked it?
MR. MCCOY: Three years, I think.
THE PRESIDENT: On pecan?
A MEMBER: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: The Major bore the fourth year, three years old. I
believe that is the first record we have of that sort. Has any other
borne?
MR. MCCOY: A good many of my young trees bloom in the nursery, but I
don't think they succeeded in setting any nuts.
MR. M. P. REED: We have had some two-year trees in nursery, grafted.
Most all of them bloomed when two years old--the staminate but not the
pestillate blossoms.
THE PRESIDENT: I had a staminate blossom the third season on Butterick
in northern Virginia.
MR. HENRY STABLER: Is there any difference between trees budded from
young trees in the nursery row which are not in bearing, which have a
growth very much resembling water-sprouts, and those budded from bearing
trees?
PROF. HUTT: Mr. President, I can't give any experimental data on that
line, but the common practice of nurserymen in taking their bud-wood
from the nursery stock has been in use for years and years, as with
peaches. Very seldom do the nurserymen go to the original trees and get
their buds, but it is cut from nursery stock, because it is in a fine
condition to work. I think that trees propagated from young, vigorous
wood, cut in the nursery, are all right. I am not so sure as to how long
it is before they come into bearing.
MR. HENRY STABLER: I don't mean to say it is an undesirable practice to
bud from the nursery row, but is there any difference in the time of
coming into bearing?
THE PRESIDENT: I spent a very considerable amount of time and money in
that belief, but at State College, they made an elaborate test, and they
have found no difference between the tree from a water-sprout and one
from the bearing tree.
MR. JONES: It is not practicable to propagate very largely from young
trees, either fruit trees or nut trees, but there is a good deal in
maturity of the wood. The plan we follow is to have mature plots and
graft from these old trees. That gives the best wood for nursery
propagation.
THE PRESIDENT: Keeping the same tree?
MR. JONES: Yes, right along. That costs a little more money than to
propagate from the nursery, but we think it is better. We get better
results.
THE PRESIDENT: How have the different varieties of the northern pecan
shown up with regard to speed of growth? At the present time we are
practically ignorant as to which of seven or eight named and propagated
varieties to count on. Apparently, the Busseron has the record for early
bearing, with the Major as second. What about the record of the trees
for making wood, not in the nursery row, but after it has been
transplanted and put in the field? Is there any distinct leadership of
one Northern pecan over another in making wood?
MR. LITTLEPAGE: If the members who go out to my place this afternoon
will observe closely they will have a chance to see something of the
tree growth for the first three years. They will have a chance to
observe the Indiana, the Busseron, the Kentucky, the Green River, the
Major and the Posey, with three year's growth. They will see a row of
Green Rivers, some trees nine feet high, and others that haven't grown
two feet. That is the individual tree variation, however. They will see
certain characteristics running clear through.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Mr. Littlepage, it is a job to go and get exact
results from another man's experimental ground. Which is the winner for
speed, Mr. McCoy?
MR. MCCOY: Well, I know more about how they grow in the nursery than I
do when transplanted. I haven't transplanted as many trees as Mr.
Littlepage, but, of course, the tree will act very similarly in the
nursery to what it does after you transplant it. We have learned at a
glance to tell the difference in the varieties. We don't have to go to
the books or to the stakes to tell each particular variety, as each
variety has its distinguishing characteristics. For instance, the
Kentucky and the Butterick and the Busseron are all inclined to grow up.
I don't know why that should be true, but they all have the lumber
characteristics. The Kentucky grows in the river bottoms surrounded by
lumber trees. Now, the Posey doesn't grow very tall, but it grows a
wonderful stocky, sturdy tree, and has leaf stems as long as my arm in
the nursery. Of course, each particular wood has its color
characteristics. But one thing I observed was that in the other
nurseries they don't color up as they do in mine. For instance, at Mr.
Jones', it will puzzle me sometimes to tell which variety it is by
looking at the wood. Of course, after he would say "This is Butterick"
or "Busseron," I could see, probably, the characteristics, but there is
a little difference in the color of the wood.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you found any difference between these three trees
as to attainment of height?
MR. MCCOY: Well, I suspect that the Butterick is the fastest grower of
them.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the slowest?
MR. MCCOY: The Indiana, I guess.
A MEMBER: How does the Major behave?
MR. MCCOY: The Major is a very slender, tall tree. The Green River is
inclined to be spreading.
THE PRESIDENT: That testimony as to the Indiana being a slow
grower--does anybody verify it?
MR: LITTLEPAGE: Same thing in Maryland, Mr. President--slowest grower I
have.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that sufficiently marked to make it best for us to
hold up its propagation until it has shown some reason for being grown?
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I don't know. The Busseron and the Indiana, which is
supposed to be a seedling of the Busseron--the Busseron outgrows the
Indiana in Maryland five times. But the Indiana is a thin-husked nut.
The Busseron, on the other hand, is a thick-husked nut, a fine place for
the nut worm if he ever gets bad. There are a lot of such things that
you have to think of.
MR. MCCOY: I visited most of these parent trees this year. They are all
centered around Evansville. There is no crop on the Busseron. The
Indiana will, perhaps, have a peck. In the month of May, in Kentucky,
and Indiana, and Illinois, we had rains continually. I have often heard
the expression from the Southern nurserymen that "the pecan is caught
with the frost." Now, that is clear out of place with us. We all smile
at the idea that an Illinois, Indiana or Kentucky pecan would be caught
with the frost, which never affects them. But the rains always affect
them. If the month of May is a beautiful, dry, clear month, you can
gamble on the pecan crop. Now, this year we won't have much of a crop.
The Warwick will have a gallon or two, and the Kentucky crop is a
failure. The Green River and Major we didn't get to, but I suspect that
very few of our own trees will have a crop this year.
MR. M. P. REED: Mr. McCoy, I was up there last week, and the Busseron
has probably four times as many nuts as the Indiana. It has a light
crop, while the Indiana has a very light crop. (Laughter.)