as that?
Mr. Jones: I don't think so; pecans don't stand much drying.
The Chairman: No, unless you cut off all the roots.
Prof. Smith: If we should dig up a tree like this and cut it off a foot
and a half down, would it be all right to transplant it?
Mr. Jones: Yes, if your season should not be too dry.
The Chairman: What has been your experience with the Stringfellow method
of cutting off every single root?
Mr. Jones: We cut the tap-roots off, but leave an inch of the lateral
roots.
The Chairman: I think you can do better by following the Stringfellow
method and cutting off all the laterals.
Prof. Smith: If you were going to transplant those for your own use
where would you cut them off?
Mr. Jones: About here, a foot and a half down.
The Secretary: And the top?
Mr. Jones: Yes, sir, I'd reduce the top about that much; I think we will
have to work for a better root for the North.
BEGINNING WITH NUTS
DR. W. C. DEMING, WESTCHESTER, NEW YORK CITY
In his official capacity as secretary of the Northern Nut Growers
Association the writer is frequently asked, by persons wishing to grow
nuts, about climate, soils, varieties and methods.
The following observations are intended to apply only to the
northeastern United States, the country lying east of the Rockies and
north of the range of the southern pecan. They are intended more for the
person who already has his land, or is restricted in his range, than for
the one who can range wide for larger operations and will study deeper
before deciding.
It is probable that most nuts will grow wherever the peach will. Outside
the peach area there is probably not much use in trying to grow the
pecan or Persian walnut. Yet it must always be remembered that nut
growing in the North is, at present, almost entirely experimental and
that anybody may be able to disprove the authorities. We are all
experimenting now. By and by it will be different.
In severer climates the chestnut, shagbark, black walnut, butternut,
hazel, beech, pine, Japanese cordiformis and hardy Chinese walnuts can
be grown or, at least, offer possibilities. In such climates the
development of the native nuts by selection and crossing, and the
adaptation of alien nuts, deserves, and will repay, experiment.
It is to be supposed, as before said, that the hopeful beginner already
has his land. Let him choose the best part of it that he can spare. By
"best part" is meant the most fertile, not too wet nor too dry nor, if
possible, too hilly to cultivate. Hard pan near the surface, and too
thick to be easily broken up by dynamite, is not desirable.
A nut orchard ought to have much the same preparation as an apple
orchard. A practical way would be to plow deeply and harrow well in
summer and sow a cover crop like rye and vetch or clover. The more
stable manure, or other fertilizer, applied the better.
Let the field now be staked off thirty feet apart in squares, or in
triangles if preferred. Late in the fall dig the holes and plant nuts,
three or four in each hole, two to four inches deep, according to size,
and six inches apart. Put a good handful of ground bone in each hill.
Unless the soil and subsoil are mellow, so that the long tap roots may
penetrate deeply, it would be best to dynamite the holes, using a half
pound of 20 per cent or 25 per cent dynamite at a depth of two and a
half feet. This is a simple matter and the dynamite companies will
furnish materials and instructions. It is also some fun.
There is some danger that nuts planted in fall may be destroyed by
rodents, that some will "lie over" and not sprout the first year, or
that all the nuts in a hill may make inferior plants, so that some
authorities advise putting them in a galvanized wire cage, the nuts only
half buried, then covered with a few leaves during the winter and
otherwise left exposed to the elements. In the spring they must be taken
from the cage and planted in the hills before the sprouts are long
enough to be easily broken.
The different kinds of nuts should be planted in "blocks" rather than
mingled, to facilitate handling.
These nuts are to furnish trees that are later to be grafted or budded.
After they have grown a while the weaker ones are to be removed, as
necessary, until only the strongest remains in each hill. When grafted
and grown to great size the brave man will thin them out to sixty feet
apart. Interplanting with fruits or vegetables may be practised.
As to the kinds of nuts to be planted that depends on what you want to
grow. If chestnuts it must be remembered that the bark disease is very
likely to attack them, in the East at any rate. Experiments with
chestnuts outside the range of the blight are very desirable. The
American (_Castanea dentata_) and European (_C. sativa_) chestnuts are
specially susceptible. The Asiatic chestnuts (_C. Japonica_, etc.) seem
to have a partial immunity, especially the Korean, and it is possible
that the native chestnut grafted on these may be rendered more or less
immune. It is being tried and is an interesting experiment.
The Asiatic chestnut trees are dwarfish in habit, come into bearing
early, the nuts are generally large and some of them of pretty good
quality. They may be planted as fillers between the trees of larger
growth. The nuts may be bought of importers. (See circular on "Seedsmen
and Nurserymen".) The small Korean chestnut has been especially
recommended.
If you wish to grow the shagbark hickory (_Hicoria ovata_) plant the
best specimens of this nut you can get, or the bitternut (_H. minima_)
which is said to be a superior stock for grafting.
High hopes are held that that other favorite hickory, the pecan (_H.
pecan_) may be grown far outside its native range, and the Indiana pecan
is the nut on which these hopes are founded. Seed nuts may be obtained
from reliable Indiana dealers, but it is said that some of them are not
reliable.
The hickories may be budded and grafted on one another so that one kind
of stock may serve for both shagbark and pecan.
If you want to grow the Persian walnut (_Juglans regia_), often called
the "English" walnut, the black walnut (_J. nigra_), seems to afford the
most promising stock, though _J. rupestris_, native in Texas and
Arizona, has been recommended and _J. cordiformis_, the Japanese heart
nut, is also promising. This nut can be recommended for planting for its
own sake as the tree is hardy, a rapid grower, comes into bearing early
and bears a fairly good nut. There are no grafted trees, however, so the
variable seedlings will have to be depended upon.
On any of these walnut stocks the black walnut and the butternut (_J.
cinerea_) may also be propagated if worthy varieties can be found. There
are none now on the market.
The nuts mentioned are enough for the beginner and the three stocks,
chestnut, hickory and walnut, will give him all he wants to work on and
furnish plenty of fascinating occupation.
The hazel, the almond and others, though offering possibilities, had
better be left to those further advanced in the art of nut growing.
Now the nut orchard is started and the owner must push the growth of the
trees by the ordinary methods, cultivation, cover crops and fertilizers.
See any authority on growing fruit trees.
In from two to five years the trees will be ready for budding and
grafting, they will have made a good growth above ground, and a bigger
one below, they are permanently placed and haven't got to be set back a
year or two, or perhaps killed, by transplanting, with loss to the tap
roots and laterals. In the writer's opinion that natural tap root of the
nut tree growing down, down to water is not to be treated as of no
importance.
So let your seedlings grow up and down happily while you get ready the
stuff with which to build their future character, for seedling trees are
very slow in coming into bearing, and uncertain in type and quality of
nut. Grafted trees bear early and true to type.
Take your choicest bit of ground and put it in the best shape you know
how. Then order the finest grafted trees you can find on the market.
(See circular on "Seedsmen and Nurserymen".) Your choice will be limited
for there are as yet only a few grafted varieties of the Persian walnut
and the Indiana pecan, and but one of the shagbark hickory to be had. Of
chestnuts there are more and, in the South of course, plenty of pecans.
But pecan growing in the South is another story. If you order chestnuts
be sure that they do not come from a nursery infected with blight. Get
young trees because they are more easily established.
Order from two to four of each variety. Fewer than two gives too small
an allowance for mortality and more than four, besides the not
inconsiderable strain on the pocket, will divide your attention too
much; for you have got to give these trees the care of a bottle baby.
Set them sixty feet apart if you have the room. If not set them closer.
Better closer if that means better care. They may be set in the fall but
probably spring is better, as early as you can get them in. Follow the
instructions of the nurserymen closely. Digging holes with dynamite is
probably good practice. Put some bone meal in the soil around the roots
but no strong fertilizer. Some soils need lime. Tamp the soil about the
roots with all your might. It cannot be made too firm.
Then water them all summer, or until August if they have made a good
growth. Give them all they can drink once a week. Sink a large bar about
a foot from the tree and pour the water into the hole, as much as the
soil will take.
Keep up cultivation and a dust mulch or, if you cannot do this, mulch
with something else. Mulching doesn't mean a wisp of hay but something
thick or impervious. Six inches of strawy manure, grass, vines or weeds;
an old carpet, burlap, feed or fertilizer bags or even newspapers, held
down with stones or weeds or earth, all make good mulches.
These trees ought to grow and, whether you ever succeed in grafting your
seedlings or not, you should have at least a small orchard of fine nut
trees.
The second summer with the trees will be something like the baby's.
Worms may bother them. Look out for bud worms and leaf-eating
caterpillars. Give them all the water they can drink in the dry dog
days. Nurse them, feed them and watch them and they will grow up to
bless you. Some of them may bear as early as apple trees.
These trees, and such scions as, from time to time, you may obtain
elsewhere, are to furnish your propagating material.
The plan just described may be modified in various ways, but the general
principles are the same. Instead of planting the nuts in their permanent
positions they may be put in nursery rows where they may have the
advantage of intensive cultivation. The best of the resulting trees may
be grafted or budded in the rows, or after they have been transplanted
and have become well established. This method is an excellent one and
has distinct advantages and many advocates.
Yearling seedlings may be bought and set either in permanent positions
or in nursery rows.
Of course the man who is in a hurry, who can disregard expense and who
does not care for the experience and gratification of grafting his own
trees, may set his whole plantation with expensive grafted trees and
replant where they fail.
The technique of budding and grafting you must work out yourself with
the help of the instructions obtainable from several authorities, or, by
far the surer way, study the art with a master. The essentials are good
stocks and good scions, the right moment--and practice.
Excellent publications giving instructions in methods of propagation
are: "The Persian Walnut Industry in the United States," by E. R. Lake;
Bulletin 254, Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture,
1913: "The Pecan," by C. A. Reed; Bulletin 251 of the same department,
1912: "Walnut Growing in Oregon," published by the Passenger Department
Southern Pacific Company Lines in Oregon, Portland, Oregon, revised
edition, 1912; and "Nut Growing in Maryland," by C. P. Close; Bulletin
125 of the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station, College Park,
Maryland. Any of these may be had free on application.
The files and current issues of the nut journals are full of
information. Join the nut growers associations, subscribe to the nut
journals, get all the literature (see Circular No. 3) and you will soon
be happily out of the fledgeling stage of nut growing and begin to do as
you please.
* * * * *
The Chairman: Comment upon this paper is now in order.
Mr. Lake: You say you are going to issue that?
The Secretary: On my own responsibility, but subject to modification.
Mr. Lake: If that is going out as a circular of the association, I would
like to suggest two slight changes. For instance, you wouldn't expect
the ordinary nut tree to begin to bear as early as the ordinary
transplanted apple tree.
The Chairman: Some would.
Mr. Lake: A summer apple would begin to bear much earlier than the
ordinary nut tree.
The Secretary: Well, chestnuts begin to bear very early after grafting.
I refer only to grafted trees here.
Mr. Lake: I thought that the paper had to do with trees that were
planted as nuts.
The Secretary: No, I think I made that perfectly clear.
Mr. Lake: What is that new statement about roots, that it is desirable
to leave them?
The Secretary: That it is better that a tree should go undisturbed than
that it should be transplanted.
Mr. Lake: Isn't there a question about that?
The Secretary: A question would arise in the hands of an expert,
perhaps, but I think for an amateur, that a tree growing where the nut
was planted is more likely to live and do well than a transplanted tree.
Mr. Lake: I am not so certain about that, but what I had in mind was
that the planter would get the idea that the tap-root was not to be cut
off and that it is very desirable to the tree.
The Secretary: That's a good point.
The Chairman: About cutting the tap-root I have said yes and no so fast
that I don't know which I've said last, and it seems to me that we ought
to have discussion on this very point.
The Secretary: I have said that in buying these grafted trees you should
set them out following the instructions of the nurseryman closely.
Mr. Lake: But that statement about the tap-root would lead the average
planter to think that it was very desirable to have the tap-root.
The Secretary: Has it been settled that it is not desirable?
Mr. Lake: Well, I think it has been generally accepted that it is of no
special value.
The Secretary: That trees will grow as well transplanted as if they have
never been transplanted?
Mr. Lake: Well, I shouldn't want to put it that way, but this is the
point: I would like to have the tree planter understand that a walnut
tree doesn't need the tap-root and if he cuts off the tap-root in
planting, there is no great loss. I wouldn't want to say that his trees
wouldn't begin to bear earlier or bear larger if left in the original
place. I prefer to transplant my own tree after it is grown, rather than
run the risk of getting scrub trees in the post hole or on the hill. I
prefer to select the grafted trees even without the tap-roots, which
would be removed in digging, and planting them all uniform, rather than
to plant the seeds. Speaking for the amateur, I think the latter is good
practice. The point I had in mind was that many people will not take the
time to plant nuts but will want to set grafted trees, and the question
is, should they have considerable tap-root--the grafted trees?
The Secretary: Following my plan, a man would buy a small number of fine
trees and set them out at once; that would probably be all he would
undertake and all he could probably manage. He would also plant a small
number of nuts on which to experiment in propagation. My experience up
in Connecticut has been that all my southern transplanted trees, almost
without exception, have died. I have planted pecans and Persian walnuts
from a number of different nurseries. I have done it personally and done
it as carefully as I could, but they have either made a very feeble
growth indeed or have all died. On the other hand, the seeds I have
planted have grown into very vigorous trees.
Mr. Rush: I have had a little experience with the tap-root theory. You
can't dig a walnut tree without cutting the tap-root, and that tap-root,
I find, is practically of no benefit at all after you have your upper
laterals, and an abundance of them; by cutting the tap-root growth is
stimulated and a new tap-root is made. It is very largely in the mode of
pruning the tap-root. You can readily stimulate the tap-root system.
The Chairman: You try to keep an equilibrium by cutting down the top in
proportion?
Mr. Rush: Yes, sir.
Mr. Pomeroy: In examining transplanted trees I found ten times as many
roots where the tap-root had been cut; and there were two tap-roots. I
like a tree with a good tap-root system and I am positive that if you
transplant a tree you get a better root system, get a great many more
roots.
The Chairman: The tree development, it seems to me, depends not upon the
number of roots which are carried with it when it is transplanted, but
upon the feeding roots which develop. Now, if we cut back the tap-root,
cut back the laterals, cut back the top, we have a tree carrying in its
cambium layer, food, just as a turnip or beet would carry it--and I look
upon a transplanted tree much as a carrot or beet, with stored food
ready to make a new root.
Mr. Harris: I planted last fall a year ago a lot of English walnuts.
Would the gentleman advise taking those up, cutting the tap-roots and
planting them again?
Mr. Rush: I don't think that would be advisable.
Mr. Harris: They were grown from the nuts sown in a row last fall a year
ago and grew very well.
Mr. Rush: In propagating the English walnut we have had them do the best
by transplanting when the tree is about two years old, but it will more
or less disturb the vigor of a tree to transplant it. That is
self-evident; it needs some time to heal those wounds that are made both
in the root and the branch.
Mr. Harris: What time of year do you bud them?
Mr. Rush: In August.
Mr. Hutt: I notice some trees here that are evidently two-year old
pecans that have been cut back, and you notice that in every case
several tap-roots have taken the place of the one. Here are some others
that have not been cut. These have gone straight down. They are strong
roots with few fibers on them. On these other trees that have been cut
the formation of tap-roots continues. They will go down till they strike
a permanent water-table and then the tap-root will stop. In Hyde County,
North Carolina, near the ocean, the water-table is close to the surface
and there is a deep black alluvial soil with a great deal of water in
it. In order to grow anything there they have to put in ditches to get
the water out. The pecan trees growing there have absolutely no
tap-roots at all, it rots off as soon as it strikes the permanent
water-table; and I think that's the reason they produce such enormous
quantities of pecans in that county. In bottomless, sandy land where
there is no clay the root keeps on going down till it finds the
permanent water-table, even if that is six or eight or ten feet down.
These roots, as you see, were going right down to China to look at that
king on the other side if they got a chance. It's the same with the long
leaf pine. It has a tap-root below ground thicker than the trunk above
ground. The reason is that it grows naturally on those bottomless
places; the root goes down till it strikes water, then runs off
laterally. If you cut the roots they are bound to make new tap-roots.
You can see the place where they have been cut and in place of one
tap-root you have two, going right down into that sandy soil till they
find a water-table. I believe that a nurseryman who will cut off the
root of the pecan tree when it is transplanted, will cause it to form
more lateral roots and make a better tree. There's a great number of
vigorous roots in this tree than in this, and this tree whose root has
been cut off will make a tree much easier to transplant and will be a
better tree than those with great thick roots without the fibers that
have the root hairs upon them.
A member: You wouldn't recommend cutting back that tap-root too
severely, would you?
Mr. Hutt: In planting a tree of this kind, I'd cut off a foot or 18
inches. If you get about 24 inches in a specially good soil, or about 30
inches of root ordinarily that's all you want.
A member: I should think that would depend quite a little on the height
of the water-table. If you were planting on land where the water-table
is low, you would leave more tap-root?
Mr. Hutt: Yes.
A member: That was the reason I brought up the point, because I think
cutting so short would be too severe.
Mr. Hutt: The cambium is the only part of the tree that maintains
growth. Every wound kills the cambium to a certain extent, so I always
cut off roots of any size with sharp shears as smoothly as possible. I
cut far enough back to find good, fresh, living tissue. In moist soil
that will callous over. In the South the soil is moist and we have
growing conditions in the winter time, so it will callous over during
the winter. In the North, I understand, you make a practice of planting
in the spring, because of the weather conditions.
Mr. Harris: In Western Maryland we have in the mountains a deep, sandy
soil; there doesn't appear to be any water bottom to it; what would the
tap-root do in that case?
Mr. Hutt: It will go down until it finds what it wants, finds sufficient
moisture.
Mr. Harris: Gravelly bottom?
Mr. Hutt: If you have ever seen the roots of a long leaf pine, you've
seen where the roots go to when they get a chance.
Prof. Smith: I should like to ask Dr. Deming if he would give us his
experience in propagating the walnut and hickory?
Dr. Deming: A very important thing indeed for us nut growers in the
North is to learn how to propagate. Dr. Morris has had some success; I
haven't had any. I have tried it summer and spring, year after year. I
believe there are a few pieces of bark, without buds, still growing.
Chestnuts I haven't found very difficult, but with the walnut and
hickory I have had no success whatever, although I have practiced the
best technique I could master. I think one reason why I have had no
success is that I haven't had good material. I have had good stocks, but
I haven't had good scions, not the sort of scion that the successful
southern nurserymen use. Still, Dr. Morris has had success with the same
kind of material that I have failed with.
The Chairman: Not very much success.
Mr. Lake: Dr. Deming said that the land ought not to be too dry nor too
wet. Would you feel like saying that a water-table at 24 inches was
neither too low nor too high?
Mr. Hutt: It depends a great deal on the nature of the soil, the
water-pulling capacity of the soil. Take a soil like that I mentioned,
in Hyde County, near the ocean; you can see it quake all around you.
Mr. Lake: But would you say that the northern nut grower might safely
put his orchard on soil that had a water-table within two or three feet
of the surface?
Mr. Hutt: I could tell if I saw that soil. If it is craw-fishy, or soil
that is ill-drained or won't carry ordinary crops, I'd say keep off of
it, but if it will bear ordinary crops it's all right; in some cases
where the soil is very rich the plant does not need to go down into that
soil anything like the depth it would in a poor soil. The poorer the
soil the further the roots have to go to find nourishment.
Mr. Lake: I think that is an extremely exceptional case in relation to
northern nuts. There is very little such North Carolina land in this
section of the country, if I judge right. We don't plant nut-growing
orchards up here in peaty soils, so Dr. Deming's recommendation was
rather for very good agricultural soil. A water-table here must be eight
or ten feet deep; in that event, it would not make any difference
whether you left three feet of tap-root or 15 inches.
Mr. Hutt: No.
The Chairman: In the soils of some parts of New England, a tree would
have to have a root three or four hundred feet deep to get to flowing
water, but nevertheless trees flourish there.
Mr. Lake: But the capillarity of the soil provides water for the tree
above the water-table.