MR. M. P. REED: Last Sunday.
MR. JONES: You can't judge a pecan by the growth of the tree. You take a
pecan that makes a thick head and lots of limbs, and it is very likely
to be a heavy bearer. On the other hand, a nurseryman likes a variety
that makes a tree, you know.
THE PRESIDENT: On your criterion of a bunched top, which of these eight
varieties we are now propagating is the most promising?
MR. JONES: The Butterick appeals to me.
THE PRESIDENT: Is the Posey in the same class?
MR. JONES: The Indiana makes a thick head.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other do that?
MR. JONES: The Green River is inclined to on the mature block, but not
the first year in the nursery.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President, in view of the fact that this meeting is
reported, and that what we say will go into the official records to be
read by lots of people who can't come and examine us, it might be
understood that there would be some question about the bearing of these
Northern pecan trees. As a matter of fact, I am surprised that any of
them bore any nuts this year when I think how hard Mr. McCoy and Mr.
Reed and myself have cut them for bud-wood. As a matter of fact, our
opinion is that these Northern pecan trees are all excellent bearers, as
the bearing reputation goes with pecan trees. I have watched them pretty
carefully, and the best evidence of what I think of them is that I am
setting them in my orchard. For fear that the minutes may leave the
impression with some casual reader later that these trees bear a quart,
and two gallons, I just want to say that if these gentlemen put into the
record the amount of nuts that they know the Green River, the Butterick,
the Posey and Major have borne--for instance, six weeks ago I bought
sixty pounds of Posey nuts from a certain tree. The man who counted them
counted 120 pounds on the tree, and if the boys around were as active as
when I was a boy, I bet he didn't get more than half of them.
THE PRESIDENT: This is the time of year when the squirrels get nuts, and
I expect they got after the trees, too.
MISS LOUISE LITTLEPAGE: Why does the rain affect the nuts, and why in
that certain one month?
MR. MCCOY: In our latitude the pecan blooms somewhere near the twentieth
of May, from that probably up to the twenty-fifth, and the pollen is
scattered by the winds, and, if it rains at that particular time, the
female bloom perishes, and we have no pecans. I think the pecan depends
entirely upon the winds.
THE PRESIDENT: We have been hoping all the time that we would have a
chance to hear from Prof. Hutt on the relation of the hickory stock to
the pecan top. A good many persons have experimented with it, and
papers are giving, from time to time, glowing accounts of the pecan tree
on hickory roots. We would like to hear from Prof. Hutt.
PROF. HUTT: We haven't much data matured on that at present, Mr.
President. It takes so long to get data on those subjects. We have a lot
of trees budded on the stocks of water hickory and on the pecan, and we
are testing them out. My theory was that the _Hicoria aquatica_, growing
in wet, sour lands, would enlarge the range of probable production of
pecans on such lands, and on lands on which the pecan, on its own roots,
could not normally be grown, but our data are not matured yet. I think
they have been three years in the nursery and two years set in the
orchard. It will probably be four or five years before we get any exact
data on that subject.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps, Mr. C. A. Reed has investigated some of the
later top-worked hickories.
MR. C. A. REED: That is an old question--pecan on hickory. It has been
tried all over the South and the Southwest, and you will see some this
afternoon at Mr. Littlepage's place. As a usual thing, the enthusiasm
over pecan on hickory has run high while the experiment was new. The
propagator has found that it was not a difficult thing to make the
scions live, and, so long as the hickory stock is larger than the pecan
scion, so that the feeding capacity is equal to, or even greater than,
the consuming capacity of the scion, the outlook has been very
satisfactory and encouraging, and while that stage has been going on a
great deal has been written. A little later you hear less about it, and
less and less, until, finally, you hear almost nothing. But I will say
this, that there are sections in the Southwest where there is
considerable enthusiasm over it just now. Just recently an article was
published by Judge Frank Gwynn which was quite encouraging, and from his
point of view it is. He is on high, hilly land, where he has no pecan
trees, and he has been able to get nuts considerably sooner by
top-working these dryland hickories--the mocker nut, or "bull nut," as
it is known down there--and so far he is getting very satisfactory
crops. But it is the consensus of opinion over the entire South, so far
as I have observed it, that where there are pecan trees suitable for
top-working, they answer much better, and the final outcome is very much
more satisfactory with pecan on pecan than with pecan on hickory. Now,
with pecan on _Hicoria aquatica_, which Prof. Hutt spoke of, I can cite
you one instance which is very interesting south of Morgan City,
Louisiana. Mr. Frank Beadle, I believe, was the name, top-worked a
number of trees that were standing in water, and he also top-worked some
that he had transplanted from the wet bottom to higher land. Those that
were transplanted lived and bore nuts for quite a number of years. The
last I knew they were bearing quite satisfactory crops, but those that
were allowed to remain in the standing water died very shortly after the
pecan top began to develop. The entire tree died.
THE PRESIDENT: That is, the pecan top killed the native right in its own
habitat.
MR. C A. REED: That's right.
DR. STABLER: How about the acidity of the soil on that higher land? Was
that tested?
MR. C. A. REED: Well, there would be so very little difference in the
level of the soil that I imagine the acidity would be about the same.
When I said "high land" I meant land that wasn't over-flowed.
DR. STABLER: Oh, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Reed, you made the qualified statement awhile ago
that where a man had a choice between hickory and pecan stock for
top-working, he should take the pecan. Now, in the North there are
magnificent stands of native hickory--the Appalachians are full of it
from end to end. Would you advise him not to bother with that?
MR. C. A. REED: There is another question that enters there. I don't
believe that you can grow good pecans on hickory stocks on uplands where
there is not moisture enough in the soil to grow good pecans on pecan
stocks. It takes moisture to make pecans, and if there isn't enough in
the upland soil to grow pecan trees on pecan roots I don't believe there
is any evidence to indicate that you can get them on hickory roots.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President, the hickory only grows about six or eight
weeks every summer, and the pecan grows all summer. I think that answers
the question.
PROF. HUTT: A case came up last year in the National Nut Growers'
Association that was quite interesting. Mr. Smithwick, of Americus,
Georgia, brought to the meeting and exhibited a number of varieties of
pecan grown on hickory--fourteen varieties, standard varieties, grafted
on a hickory tree, and they were remarkable for their small size. They
were remarkably small--smaller than ordinary, woods-grown seedling
pecans. There were Schleys and Delmas, and various other varieties that
you could recognize by the form of the nuts, but exceedingly small. I
believe Mr. Reed's point is the crux of the whole situation, that if you
have a good supply of moisture they will make nuts of a pretty fair
size, but unless the moisture supply is very large you get diminutive
nuts. These were matured in the South. The hickory is such a slow grower
in comparison with the pecan--that is, the common varieties--that it
can't keep up with the pecan top.
MR. C. A. REED: Some of the nuts from that tree were on exhibition where
you were this morning.
THE PRESIDENT: Then you have, practically, a dwarfing, with the dwarfing
manifesting itself in the fruit rather than in the wood.
MR. C. A. REED: It did in that one instance, but, on the other hand, we
have seen pecans grown on top-worked hickories that you could hardly
tell from typical specimens of pecans grown on pecan stocks.
THE PRESIDENT: Isn't the bitternut several times as rapid in growth as
the shagbark, or some others? That is, probably, one of the best stocks
for the hickories if one wishes to experiment.
MR. C. A. REED: AS Colonel Van Duzee said last night, "there are a lot
of things we don't know." This is one of them. I might quote a number of
men who are right here in this audience to convince you that we don't
any of us know much about nut culture today. I will quote Dr. Morris and
Mr. Littlepage. We were talking about hickory nut varieties in Dr.
Morris' office one night about the first of this year, when Mr.
Littlepage made the remark that "the man who didn't change his mind
every three years on nut culture didn't keep up with the game," and Dr.
Morris replied that he had changed his mind so much in the last five
years he had no respect for any man who believed what he said. Now, when
you can't believe Dr. Morris, Colonel Van Duzee, or Dr. Smith, what are
you going to do with the rest of us?
COL. VAN DUZEE: Mr. Reed, I didn't say what you said I did. I said:
"There are so many things you already know that are not true."
(Laughter.)
MR. C. A. REED: Well, now, I will quote another man, Dr. Curtis, one of
the best known pecan men in the South. It was Dr. Curtis that I went to
for my initial experience in pecans. The first I ever saw were in his
orchard in Florida, and I asked him quite a good many questions, and he
would tell me a story and go away. And I called him up one day, went
into his orchard in harvest time when he was gathering the nuts in the
hulls and taking them to the packing house. And I said "What is that
for?" And he said "Don't you see those shuck worms all through the hulls
here? I am throwing them out there to let the chickens get them."
"Well," said I, "can you say you are getting rid of the shuck worms by
doing that?" And he replied, "I can see, one year with another, that
they are gradually getting less." A year later I went down there before
he did. He was in Maine at the time, but his orchard trees were just
alive with shuck worms, every variety almost eaten up with them. I said
to him, when he came back, "I thought you were going to get rid of those
shuck worms by feeding them to the chickens?" "Well, there it goes," he
said, "you get a nice theory all worked out and some one comes along and
asks you a simple little question that knocks it all in the head." And
that is almost the unanimous experience. What you know you have got to
qualify if you talk at all. I am getting to be such a pessimist I am not
much good in the government any more. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: The one hope a college professor of my acquaintance has
is when a student comes around and says he believes he doesn't know
much. He regards that as the beginning of knowledge, and I think that
Mr. Reed's confessions, and incriminations of the rest of us, show one
thing, perhaps, better than anything else, and that is the great
necessity of organizations of this sort in which many men who are trying
many things in many ways come together and give the results of their
observations. No doubt, this whole question of agriculture in general,
and nuts in particular, is so complex, it is so run through and through
with so many different controlling factors, and, with them, so many new
things are constantly coming along, that we are all going to be handing
down to our children and grandchildren a great and, perhaps, increasing
host of problems to be investigated, and new realms in which knowledge
can be piled up for the benefit of those who wish to use it.
COL. VAN DUZEE: Mr. President, may I talk half a minute? I can't help
but feel that, perhaps, there may be some good brother or sister who may
have been over-impressed with the difficulties, who might have been
discouraged, who might have left this meeting, perhaps, and failed to
see what this meeting is for--to stimulate the planting of nut trees.
Notwithstanding the emphasis that has been put on all these things,
notwithstanding the difficulties and disappointments that we are all
laboring under at the present time, I feel that we have a wonderful
industry ahead of us. I can't see any reason in the world why we should
not go on within our means, wisely planting nut trees. It doesn't make
any difference if you are seventy-five or eighty years old, plant nut
trees, because they will be a constant pleasure to you, and, ultimately,
a benefit to some one else.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President--
THE PRESIDENT: This is Mr. Littlepage, ladies and gentlemen. (Laughter.)
MR. LITTLEPAGE: That is a very important suggestion that you just made.
If you were to ask the average groceryman in Washington City whether he
wanted his son to go into the grocery business he would say no. If you
asked a lawyer if you should make a lawyer out of your son, if the
lawyer looks back over the drudgery and years of toil that it takes to
make a lawyer, he would undoubtedly hesitate to recommend it, and if you
asked a doctor or a college professor a similar question, they, no
doubt, would steer you clear away from a university. And so, Mr.
President, if you stand back on the difficulties in these things, there
would be not only no grocerymen, but no lawyers, no doctors, no
dentists, and, perhaps, nobody working for the government. (Laughter and
applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: I want to take the liberty of using thirty seconds in
this period of exhortation and confession to come in on the same strain.
After all, what is life for? How many of us want the thing that is dead
easy, and how many of us want the job with nothing to do? We all, in a
certain lazy mood, say we want something easy and want to rest, but if
there is anything on earth that a man shuns above all else it is that
little room with absolutely nothing to do, namely, a cell. When they
want to break a man they don't put him at hard labor on the stone pile;
they put him in a little room with nothing to do. The youngster who
plays doesn't want a dead easy game. He builds a house, and, when he has
done with it, bang, he doesn't want the house he wanted to build. And I
must confess that if it were perfectly plain sailing and you could plant
out all these nut trees and have them grow like fury, it would not be
much fun. It is a fact that men like to achieve and experiment; men
like effort. Suppose everybody in this country retired and could put up
his feet and do nothing, there wouldn't be a name in the paper the next
morning. Mr. Hughes, President Wilson, Mr. Taft, Mr. Brandies, and all
of the great men who are doing things in this world would all be gone
fanning themselves quietly. This world is run by men who don't have to
work; they work for fun. So I wish to submit that the tree--if a man
happens to be built to love plants that grow--that the tree is one of
the great avenues of fun.
MR. WEBER: Mr. President, along the same line of thought, I wish to
express my views with what Colonel Van Duzee has had to say. If we were
to attend a convention of surgeons and hear different diseases and
ailments of the body discussed, we would probably all be disposed to
think that we were standing on the tip-end of the diving board into
eternity beyond. But people keep on living just the same,
notwithstanding the knocking of the doctors, and the diseases to which
we are subject, and trees will keep on growing just the same,
notwithstanding their diseases and various other troubles, and so I
think no one should be discouraged.
THE SECRETARY: I just want to add my little encouragement. In spite of
all the failure that I have had, and they have been many, in spite of
the reports of failures of others and the pessimism of others, I have
the same abiding faith in the future of nut growing, and just the same
enthusiasm for it that I had in the beginning, if not greater.
(Applause.)
MR. KYNER: Mr. President, I came here to get information on a matter
that I am very much interested in. At seventy years of age I have become
interested in nut growing--in nut culture. (Applause.) I am not planting
particularly for myself, not that I expect to get any harvest from these
trees, but I do want to see them bear fruit--bear nuts. I want to plant
the right kind of trees. I have joined this Association; I intend to
retain a membership in it as long as the Association lives. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: My dear sir, that will cost you twenty dollars for a life
membership. (Laughter.)
MR. KYNER: And I want to get all the information that the Association
has. Now, if I can get it in fifteen or twenty minutes, why, let me have
it. (Laughter.) I bought Persian walnuts at a nursery, cultivated them,
and watched them, walked around them and looked at them, and along came
a winter and killed them. I bought them from a Rochester nursery. Now,
they didn't grow them there. They must have grown them somewhere else.
If they had been grown in a Rochester nursery they would have withstood
the severity of a Maryland winter. Now, there is something wrong there.
This Association should take this matter up with that nursery. They
should not be allowed to take people's money and give them chaff for it.
I am saying this for the benefit of some of our members here who are
growing nut trees for sale.
THE PRESIDENT: May I give you a bit of information here? We have a list
of accredited nurserymen. This Association has a list of nurserymen in
whose trees we think we can place more confidence than in some others.
MR. KYNER: I would like to get that. But now I have set out a whole lot
of these Persian walnuts, and pecans, filberts, Japanese walnuts, etc.,
and I guess every one of them is a seedling, and I don't know what I
have, and I don't know how many varieties of Japanese walnuts there are.
I supposed a Japanese walnut was a Japanese walnut, and that that was
all there was to it. But I get some trees from one nursery, and some
from another, and they grow up and aren't alike at all. Now, I haven't
so very awfully long to be in the business of setting out nut growing
trees, and I want to get the right kind, and I want this Association's
assistance in that matter, and while you are assisting me you are
assisting people all over the country. Men and women everywhere are
interested in nut growing. They want nut trees, but how are they going
to know that they are getting what they want? I believe it is up to this
Association to help them get the right kind of stuff. I came in here
purposely to get your help.
THE PRESIDENT: You go on the excursion this afternoon and you will find
plenty of men there that will take pleasure in explaining some of these
things to you. Our plan is to go at one o'clock from the corner of
Fourteenth and H streets to the grounds of Mr. Littlepage, who has
practically all the good varieties of northern pecans growing there, and
on the trip will be men who can answer most every question you want to
know. I think that brings us to the point of adjournment.
COL. VAN DUZEE: Mr. President, I move we adjourn.
A MEMBER: Second the motion.
THE PRESIDENT: The meeting stands adjourned.
APPENDIX.
_Letter From W. C. Reed, Vice-President of the Association._
FELLOW MEMBERS AND FRIENDS:
It is with the deepest feelings of regret that I am compelled to be
absent from what I trust may be one of the most profitable meetings of
the Association. It is impossible for me to be present, owing to the
fact that I have been summoned on a case in court in Wisconsin.
Having been honored as your Vice-President, I felt it my duty to attend
and do what I could to help make this our best meeting, but fate ruled
otherwise. Though absent in person, I assure you my thoughts and best
wishes will be with you while wandering about the Nation's Capital,
viewing its magnificent parks and basking under the shade of its stately
Persian walnuts.
The interest in nut culture is widespread. We have had inquiries from
many foreign countries, one of the last from near Bombay, British India.
I have arranged with the Indiana Apple Show, which is to be held at West
Baden, Indiana, November 14th to 20th, for ample space for a nut
exhibit. Anyone having nuts for exhibition should send them to me at
Vincennes prior to these dates, or write for information, and I will try
and arrange for premiums.
REVIEW OF PAST YEAR.
The present summer has been of extremes, very cold and wet early,
followed by extreme heat and drouth. Foliage of all kinds not as good as
usual. Nut trees, however, have made a very good growth, not as heavy as
last year on younger trees.
Winter, 1915-16, while not extremely cold, was very hard on many kinds
of trees, owing to the fact that the previous summer and fall were very
wet. Most fruit trees went into winter full of sap, with buds in
weakened condition. Pecan buds came through in good shape with a very
fair stand in nursery, and one-year trees were not injured a particle.
Pecan bloom was very fair, crop, generally seems to be light, in fact
such is the case with all kinds of nut trees, generally, and most fruit
trees. Pecan trees set in orchard 2 and 3 years ago are making a good
growth.
ENGLISH WALNUTS.
Stand of buds in nursery poor; stand of grafts this spring very good
where we used good, strong scions of well matured wood, 60 to 75 per
cent, and in some cases Mayette was better than that. Where Eastern
scions were used from old trees, stand of grafts very poor. All one-year
English walnut trees in nursery came through in good shape. Eastern
varieties began to vegetate or burst into growth April 15; Mayette and
Franquette, May 1; Parisienne, May 5, and one tree from Grenoble,
France, grown from scion sent from Department of Agriculture, May 25.
These French varieties, I feel, are very promising, owing to the fact
that they will escape late frosts. English walnut trees in orchard set 3
years ago, fourth summers growth, doing splendidly, 2 to 4 feet of
growth, foliage perfect, varieties, Hall, Rush, Nebo and Burlington.
Top-worked trees, 3-year tops doing nicely of Hall, Rush, Mayette and
two or three other Eastern varieties. Grafting in nursery done from May
15 to 25, was best after stocks were in full leaf.
PECAN GRAFTING.
We have usually had best success grafting May 5 to 12, but this year,
being a late spring, we did not commence general grafting of pecans
until the 12th, and it seems to have been too late. Stand very poor, a
few grafts set early in May with old wood, about 40 per cent. stand. We
find old wood gives much better stand on pecans, and new wood on English
walnuts.
BLACK WALNUTS.
Grafted quite a number of Stabler Black Walnuts, which were almost a
failure. Thomas done better, but still poor. However, larger scions gave
best results and have made splendid growth, many 5 to 6 feet, very
strong. Buds of Thomas set last fall failed to start well. It seems we
have something to learn in the propagation of the Black Walnut, as it
has proved more difficult than the English.
HARDY ALMOND.
Two years ago we received some buds of the Ridenhauer Almond from
Department of Agriculture. Some of these buds were set on a bearing
peach tree; these have borne a good crop this summer, and were gathered
August 20, some of which are on the exhibition tables. These seem to
bear very young, of good quality, a very strong grower and very hardy;
do not consider them of any commercial value, but for family use are
very good.
BEARING PECANS IN NEBRASKA.
During the past year I have received photographs and description of the
pecan trees 12 miles south of Lincoln, Nebraska, and of two trees on the
grounds of E. Y. Grupe, of Lincoln. These trees are 20 years old, some
having been bearing regular crops for the past 10 years. This season's
crop is a failure owing to continuous cold rain at blooming time. The
nuts on one of these trees are of fair size and quality.
With kindest regards to the many friends in the Association, and
trusting that I may have the pleasure of greeting all at our next annual
meeting, I am,
Respectfully yours,
W. C. REED.
THE FOOD VALUE OF NUTS.
DR. J. H. KELLOGG, BATTLE CREEK, MICHIGAN.