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One fall day in 1926, when I was at the home of a neighboring farmer, he offered me some mixed hickory nuts he had received from an uncle in Iowa. As he knew of my interest in nuts, he wanted my opinion of them. I looked them over and explained that they were no better than little nutmegs, having very hard shells and a small proportion of inaccessible meat. To demonstrate this, I cracked some between hammer and flatiron. My demonstration was conclusive until I hit one nut which almost melted under the force I was applying. The shape of this nut was enough different from the others to enable me to pick out a handful like it from the mixture. I was amazed to see how very thin-shelled and full of meat they were. Upon my request, this neighbor wrote to his uncle, John Bailey, of Fayette, Iowa, asking if he knew from which tree such fine nuts had come. Unfortunately he did not, because the nuts had been gathered from quite a large area. After corresponding with Mr. Bailey myself, I decided that I would go there and help him locate the tree, although it was nearly Christmas and heavy snowfalls which already covered the ground would make our search more difficult.
On my arrival in Fayette, I called on Mr. Bailey, who was glad to help me hunt out the tree in which I had so much interest. We called A. C. Fobes, the owner of the farm from which the nuts were believed to have come, and arranged to go out there with him by bob sleigh. A rough ride of six or seven miles brought us to the farm and we began our quest. Once there, Mr. Bailey had a more definite idea of where to look for the tree from which these particular nuts came than he had had before and we had not been at our task for more than an hour before it was located. There were still quite a few nuts on the ground beneath it, which identified it accurately. It was a large shagbark whose first living branch was fully sixteen feet off the ground and, since we had no ladder with us, I had to shin up the tree to cut off some of the smaller branches. This shagbark, true to its name, had rough bark which tore not only my clothes but some of the skin on my legs as well and whereas the climbing up was difficult, the coming down was equally so. Having contracted verbally with Mr. Fobes to buy the tree, I packed the branches I had cut in cardboard boxes with straw packing and carefully brought them home to St. Paul.
I wrote at once to my friend, J. F. Jones, of my expedition, telling him of my plans to propagate this hickory. I also sent him some of the nuts from the parent tree and samples of extra-good nuts from other trees growing near it so that he could give me his opinion of them. Mr. Jones responded by advising me about the kind of a contract to make with Mr. Fobes in regard to both the purchasing and propagation of the original hickory tree and he urged the latter enthusiastically. Of the Weschcke hickory nuts themselves, he wrote: "This is practically identical with the Glover. The Glover is usually a little larger but this varies in all nuts from year to year. This is a fine nut and if it comes from Iowa, it ought to be propagated. I suggest you keep the stock of it and propagate the tree for northern planting, that is for Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, etc., where most nuts grown here would not mature." A few years ago, I saw the Glover hickory nut for the first time and I also thought it much the same as the Weschcke in shape, as is also the Brill.
Because I did not know how to preserve the scions I had cut, they dried out during the winter to such an extent that they were worthless for spring grafting. This meant losing a whole season. The next fall I obtained more scionwood from Mr. Fobes and having kept it in good condition during the winter by storing it in a Harrington graft box shown by illustration, I was able to graft it in the spring. However, these grafts did not take hold well, only two or three branches resulting from all of it and these did not bear nor even grow as they should have. I was disappointed and discouraged, writing to Mr. Fobes that I did not believe the tree could be propagated.
In the fall of 1932, Mr. Fobes sent me a large box of scions and branches, explaining that he had sold his farm and, as the tree might be cut down, this was my last opportunity to propagate it. Without much enthusiasm, I grafted the material he had sent me on about a dozen trees, some of them very large hickories and I was most agreeably surprised to find the grafting successful and more than one branch bearing nutlets. These nuts dropped off during the summer until only one remained to mature, which it did in the latter part of October. But I waited too long to pick that nut and some smart squirrel, which had probably been watching it ripen as diligently as I had, secured it first. I made a very thorough search of the ground nearby to find the remains of it, for while I knew I would not get a taste of the kernel—the squirrel would take care of that—I was interested in finding out whether it followed the exact shape and thinness of shell of the first nuts I had examined. I finally did find part of it, enough to see that it was similar to the nuts from the parent tree.
The grafts I made in 1932 have been bearing nuts every year since that time. The Weschcke hickory makes a tremendous growth grafted on bitternut hickory (Carya Cordiformis). The wood and buds are hardy to a temperature of 47 deg. below zero Fahrenheit, so that wherever the wild bitternut hickory grow, this grafted tree will survive to bear its thin-shelled nuts. The nuts have a fine flavor and the unusual quality of retaining this flavor without becoming rancid, for three years. The only fault to find with them is the commercial one of being only medium in size, so that compared to English walnuts, for example, they become unimpressive. I have noticed time and again that the average person will pass over a small, sweet nut to choose a larger one even though the latter may not have as attractive a flavor. This is noticeably true in regard to pecans, when the large paper-shell types, which have a rather dry, sweet kernel, are almost invariably preferred to the smaller ones of finer flavor, which are plump and have slightly thicker shells.
Previous to finding the Weschcke hickory, I experimented with several varieties of hickory hybrids. In March 1924, I purchased twelve Beaver and twelve Fairbanks hybrid hickories from J. F. Jones. I planted these trees in April of that year but of the lot, only two Beaver trees lived to bear nuts. One of these is still growing on my farm, in thin, clay soil underlaid with limestone, and it bears nuts annually. It is only a fair-sized tree but I think its slow growth has protected it from the usual amount of winter damage. I also ordered from Mr. Jones, in July 1924, 12 Marquardt hiccans, 12 Laney, 12 Siers, 34 Beaver and 30 Fairbanks. The last four are hybrids between species of hickories. Out of the whole order, amounting to one hundred trees, none remains alive now.
The Marquardt hiccan mentioned above was the subject of dispute among nut culturists for a time but it has been definitely agreed now, that the Marquardt was never actually propagated, the tree having been lost or cut down before scions were taken from it. Substitutes were taken from the Burlington, a hybrid whose nut is similar to the Marquardt and whose foliage and other attributes are thought to be like it. The name of Marquardt persisted for several years, however, and it has been entirely discarded only recently. The Burlington is now known to be the representative of that part of Iowa. However, I grafted some of the tops of the Marquardt trees from Jones to bitternut trees at the time that I transplanted them; several of the grafts made successful growth and resulted in several trees growing deep in the woods. After 28 years these grafts are still alive and certainly have established their right to be called compatible with bitternut hickory stocks. Close examination of the branches, leaves and buds, particularly the leaf-scars, indicate that this hiccan is enough different and more hardy than the Burlington, which also grows well on the bitternut, to discredit the story that the Marquardt is lost. It will not be determined, however, that this is the genuine Marquardt until it has fruited.
Altogether I have grafted about 70 varieties of hickory and its hybrids on bitternut stocks in my attempts to increase the number of varieties of cultured hickory trees in the North. Most of those I worked with were compatible with the bitternut stock, but a few, perhaps a dozen, have indicated that they would rather not live on the bitternut and have died, either from incompatibility or winter-killing. Yet as a root system, the bitternut is the hardiest and easiest to transplant of any of the hickories and for these reasons it makes an ideal stock for the amateur nut-grower to use. I did try, in 1926, to grow some shagbark hickory stocks, which would be more compatible with those varieties I could not get started on bitternut. I planted half a bushel of shagbark hickory nuts from Iowa, but although they sprouted nicely, they were not sufficiently hardy and were winter-killed so severely that, after twelve years, the largest was not more than a foot high, nor thicker than a lead pencil. Some of these, about 50, were transplanted into the orchard and in other favorable locations. The largest of these, in 1952, is about 4 inches in diameter, 1-foot off the ground, and about 15 feet high. I have not grafted any yet and only one has borne any seedling nuts so far. I am now reconciled to using my native bitternut trees for most of my stock in spite of some disadvantages. A list of successfully grafted varieties is appended, and indicates to what extent this stock is a universal root stock for most of the hickories and their hybrids. A successful union, however, and long life, does not mean that good bearing habits will be established, since most of these trees grow in the woods in dense shade and poor surroundings. Some varieties have not borne many nuts, and some not at all. The following scions were cut this fall (in 1952) from successfully grafted trees deep in the woods:
Bixby hiccan (pecan by shellbark) grafted in 1938 Burlington hiccan (pecan by shellbark) grafted in 1938 Green Bay hiccan (pecan by shellbark) grafted in 1938 Des Moines hiccan (pecan by shellbark) grafted in 1938 Burton hiccan (pecan by shellbark) grafted in 1939 McAlester hiccan (pecan by shellbark) grafted in 1938 Anthony Shagbark hickory grafted in 1938 Barnes Shagbark by mocker nut grafted in 1938 Brill Shagbark hickory grafted in 1936 Brooks Shagbark hickory grafted in 1938 Camp No. 2 Shagbark hickory grafted in 1938 (?) Deveaux Shagbark hickory grafted in 1936 Fox Shagbark hickory grafted in 1939 Glover Shagbark hickory grafted in 1936 Gobble Shagbark hickory grafted in 1940 Hand Shagbark hickory grafted in 1939 Harman Shagbark hickory grafted in 1939 Leonard Shagbark hickory grafted in 1939 Lingenfelter Shagbark hickory grafted in 1942 Manahan Shagbark hickory grafted in 1939 Milford Shagbark hickory grafted in 1939 Murdock Shagbark hickory grafted in 1941 Netking Shagbark hickory grafted in 1938 Platman Shagbark hickory grafted in 1938 Pleas Pecan by bitternut grafted in 1938 Schinnerling Shagbark hickory grafted in 1942 Stanley Shellbark hickory grafted in 1939 Swaim Shagbark hickory grafted in 1941 Taylor Shagbark hickory grafted in 1939 Triplett Shagbark hickory grafted in 1939 Woods grafted in 1939
The varieties below are growing in orchard or random locations out of the woods:
Beaver Hybrid hickory grafted in 1924 Cedar Rapids Shagbark hickory grafted in 1926 Clark Shagbark hickory grafted in 1938 Fairbanks hybrid Shagbark by bitternut grafted in 1924 Herman Last Hybrid grafted in 1948 Hope pecan Pure pecan grafted to bitternut grafted in 1938 Kirtland Shagbark hickory grafted in 1936 Laney Pecan by shellbark grafted in 1936 Marquardt Hiccan grafted in 1924 Norton Hiccan grafted in 1938 River hickory Undetermined hybrid grafted in 1948 Rockville hiccan Pecan by shellbark grafted in 1926 Siers Mockernut by bitternut grafted in 1936 Stratford Shagbark by bitternut grafted in 1938 Weiker hybrid Shagbark by shellbark grafted in 1936
In addition to the above, several large and small trees of the Weschcke variety are located in orchard and random locations, some having been grafted in 1926 and later. Also, there is a sprinkling of Bridgewater variety, grafted in 1936 and later, all bearing each year.
For many years, I observed hickories and walnuts in bloom and hand-pollinated them, yet I overlooked many things I should have discovered earlier in study. It was only after ten years of observing the Weschcke hickory, for example, that I realized the importance of proper pollinization of it. In years when it produced only a few nuts, I had blamed seasonal factors, rains and soil conditions, but I now realize that it was due to lack of the right pollen. In the spring of 1941, I decided to make special pollen combinations with all the hickories then in bloom. The information I acquired in return was great reward for the work I did.
I selected branches of the Weschcke hickory trees bearing a profuse amount of pistillate (female) blossoms. I hand-pollinated these with a special apparatus (the hand-pollen gun described later in this book), using a magnifying glass so that both pollen and blossom could be plainly seen. In doing this, I found it most practical to wear what jewelers call a "double loupe," a light, fiber head-gear carrying lenses well-suited to such work. I treated the marked branches with pollen gathered from the Bridgewater, the Kirtland and the Beaver, all very good pollen-bearers. I also pollinated branches of the Cedar Rapids variety, which bears little pollen in this locality, with Kirtland pollen. However, the pollinization of the Cedar Rapids, which involved treating from 35 to 50 pistillate blossoms, resulted in only two mature nuts.
The Weschcke hickory has an abortive staminate bloom so that it must depend on some other variety for pollen. At the Northern Nut Growers' Convention, held at Hershey, Pa. in 1941, (where I had the honor of being elected president of that venerable organization and succeeded myself thereafter for the next five years) I mentioned this abortive staminate bloom of my hickory to my friend, Dr. J. W. McKay, Associate Cytologist of the U. S. Department of Agriculture at that time. He was very interested in this phenomenon and wanted specimens of the abortive catkins for examination. These were sent to him in the spring of 1942. I quote from Dr. McKay's report on his primary findings:
"I have just made a preliminary examination of the catkins from your hickory tree received last May, and it seems that the individual staminate flower of the catkin produces 4-5 undersized stamens, the anthers of which are devoid of either pollen or pollen-mother-cells. So far I have made only temporary preparations of the crushed anthers in stain but careful study of these mounts discloses no sign of pollen grains or mother cells, so we may tentatively conclude that no pollen is produced by the tree; in other words it is male-sterile. The stage at which degeneration of the pollen-forming tissue occurs in the anthers and its nature will have to be determined by means of a longer and more elaborate technique and I will let you know what we find as soon as the results are available. It may be that pollen-mother-cells are not even formed in the anthers; the small size of these structures and their more or less shriveled appearance lead me to believe that this may be the case.
"So far as I know there is no instance among nut species comparable to that outlined above. We have two or three cases of male sterility in chestnut but in these no stamens are formed in the individual staminate flower. In one of the hybrid walnuts that I reported on at the Hershey convention, imperfect pollen grains are formed in the anthers but the latter structures never open, so no pollen is shed.
"Bear in mind that the above report is preliminary and other angles may turn up when permanent mounts are available for study."
On December 14, 1943 I received a second, and final report from Dr. McKay from which I quote, as follows:
"Dear Mr. Weschcke:
The enclosed pencil sketches will give you an idea of the results obtained from sectioning four lots of material from the two samples of catkins that you sent, two lots from each sample. Since the sample collected May 25 at the time of catkin fall was old enough to contain mature pollen and showed only anthers of the two types described herewith I think we may safely conclude that the tree is male sterile because of the failure of the mother cells to function. It is odd that in some anthers the pollen-mother-cells develop (type 2) while in others they do not (type 1). For this we have no explanation; nor can we explain why the tree is male sterile. I am afraid these phenomena will remain a matter of conjecture for some time to come. Since sterilities of this and other sorts in most other plants are largely genetic, that is, controlled by one or more genes that are inherited in Mendelian fashion, it is likely that such is the case here. You and I will not live long enough, however, to grow the necessary number of generations of trees to clear up these matters.
"In the course of routine preparation of other material I plan to run up other lots from your samples, and I will let you know if anything different turns up. I believe we may safely conclude, however, that the results reported herewith are representative."
In further explanation, Dr. McKay submitted the drawings shown on page 57, and says:
"Four lots of material were sectioned, two from the collection of May 6 and two from that of May 25. Of these, two gave anthers of type one, and two of type two. More material will have to be sectioned before we know which type is predominant.
"The anthers of type one are greatly shriveled, and a band of deeply-staining collapsed cells apparently represents the remains of archesporial or pollen-forming tissue.
"The anthers of type two are normal in appearance, but the pollen-mother-cells degenerate before pollen grains are formed. A comparison of the degenerate pollen-mother-cells of this plant with normal pollen-mother-cells is given below:"
This substantiates the conclusion that I had arrived at previous to this report, that this hickory is able to mature its nuts early in the fall by reason of not having to waste its energy in the production of pollen. (There is only one other variety of hickory which I have grafted on bitternut which has proved unable to mature pollen and it is the Creager from Iowa.) I was immensely pleased to find that it responded very well to Bridgewater pollen, a high percentage of the blooms treated with it developing mature nuts. The results with the Kirtland pollen were almost equally good, the poorest showing coming from those branches treated with Beaver pollen on which only three mature nuts developed. (The Beaver is presumed to be a hybrid between bitternut and shagbark hickories.) Sixty-two nuts from these pollinizations were planted in the fall of 1941 in rodent-proof seed beds. In the spring, counting germination, I found 100% of these nuts had sprouted and grown into small trees during the season.
After finding the most suitable pollen for the Weschcke hickory, I realized the necessity for including more than one variety of hickory in a planting, just as there should be more than one variety of apple or plum tree in an orchard. I think that it would always be well to have three or more varieties of known compatibility within reasonable distances, probably not more than 100 feet apart, nor less than 40 to 50 feet for large hickories.
Of the many varieties of hickory and hickory hybrids I have tested, about twenty have, by now, proved to be sufficiently hardy to recommend for this latitude. These include:
*Beaver hybrid hickory *Fairbanks hybrid hickory *Laney hybrid hickory Burlington hybrid between pecan and shellbark hickory Rockville hybrid between pecan and shellbark hickory Hope pecan pure pecan grafted on to bitternut roots Hand pure shagbark *Bridgewater pure shagbark Barnes hybrid hickory *Cedar Rapids pure shagbark *Weschcke pure shagbark *Deveaux pure shagbark *Brill pure shagbark *Glover pure shagbark *Kirtland pure shagbark *Siers thought to be a hybrid between the mocker nut and bitternut *Stratford hybrid (bitternut by shagbark) *Creager
*Have produced mature nuts
There are three or four others that are hardy but all means of identification having been lost, it will be necessary to wait until they come into bearing before their varieties will be known. As experiments continue, more varieties of worthy, hardy hickories and hiccans will be found which will justify completely the opinion of those of us who always hail as king of all our native nuts, the hickory.
Chapter 8
BUTTERNUT
Like the hickory tree, the butternut shares in the childhood reminiscences of those who have lived on farms or in the country where butternuts are a treat to look forward to each fall. The nuts, which mature early, have a rich, tender kernel of mild flavor. Only the disadvantage of their heavy, corrugated shells prevents them from holding the highest place in popularity, although a good variety cracks easily into whole half-kernels.
Butternuts grow over an extended range which makes them the most northern of all our native wild nut trees, although their nuts do not mature as far north as hazelnuts do. Butternut trees blossom so early that in northern latitudes the blossoms are frequently killed in late spring frosts. Only when the trees are growing near the summit of a steep hillside will they be likely to escape such frosts and bear crops regularly. I have found that really heavy crops appear in cycles in natural groves of butternut trees. My observation of them over a period of thirty-two years in their natural habitat in west-central Wisconsin has led me to conclude that one may expect butternut trees to bear, on an average, an enormous crop of nuts once in five years, a fairly large crop once in three years, with little or no crop the remaining years.
As a seedling tree of two or three years, the butternut is indistinguishable from the black walnut except to a very discerning and practiced eye, especially in the autumn after its leaves have fallen. As the trees grow older, the difference in their bark becomes more apparent, that of the butternut remaining smooth for many years, as contrasted to the bark on black walnut trees which begins to roughen on the main trunk early in its life. Bark on a butternut may still be smooth when the tree is ten years old. Forest seedlings of butternut, when one or two years old, are easily transplanted if the soil is congenial to their growth. Although the tree will do well on many types of soil, it prefers one having a limestone base, just as the English walnut does.
A butternut seedling usually requires several more years of growth than a black walnut does before it comes into bearing, although this varies with climate and soil. It is impossible to be exact, but I think I may safely say that it requires at least ten years of growing before a seedling butternut tree will bear any nuts. Of course, exceptions will occasionally occur.
As a butternut tree matures, it spreads out much like an apple or chestnut tree. Of course, it must have enough room to do so, an important factor in raising any nut tree. Enough room and sunlight hasten bearing-age and insure larger crops of finer nuts. Grafting valuable varieties of butternut on black walnut stock will also hasten bearing. I have had such grafts produce nuts the same year the grafting was done and these trees continued to grow rapidly and produce annually. However, they were not easy to graft, the stubborn reluctance of the butternut top to accept transplantation to a foreign stock being well known. This factor will probably always cause grafted butternut trees to be higher in price than black walnut or hickory. The reverse graft, i.e., black walnut on butternut should never be practiced for although successful, the black walnut overgrows the stock and results in an unproductive tree. Specimens 25 or more years old prove this to be a fact.
Butternut trees are good feeders. They respond well to cultivation and lend themselves to being grafted upon, although, from my own experience, I question their usefulness as a root stock. I have found that when I grafted black walnuts, English walnuts or heartnuts on butternut stock, the top or grafted part of the tree became barren except for an occasional handful of nuts, even on very large trees. Since this has occurred throughout the many years of my nut culture work, I think it should be given serious consideration before butternut is used as a root stock for other species of nut trees.
I had the good luck to discover an easy-cracking variety of butternut in River Falls, Wisconsin, in 1934, which I have propagated commercially and which carries my name. A medium-sized nut, it has the requisite properties for giving it a varietal name, for it cracks mostly along the sutural lines and its internal structure is so shallow that the kernel will fall out if a half-shell is turned upside down. I received one of those surprises which sometimes occur when a tree is asexually propagated when I grafted scions from this butternut on black walnut stock. The resulting nuts were larger than those on the parent tree and their hulls peeled off with almost no effort. Whether these features continue after the trees become older is something I shall observe with interest.
The nearly self-hulling quality of these nuts makes them very clean to handle. The absence of hulls in cracking butternuts not only does away with the messiness usually involved, but also it allows more accurate cracking and more sanitary handling of the kernels. In 1949 I noticed a new type of butternut growing near the farm residence. This butternut was fully twice as large as the Weschcke and had eight prominent ridges. The nut proved to be even better than the older variety and we intend to test it further by grafting it on butternuts and black walnut stocks. Although hand-operated nutcrackers have been devised to crack these and other wild nuts, they are not as fast as a hammer. If one protects the hand by wearing a glove and stands the butternut on a solid iron base, hitting the pointed end with a hammer, it is quite possible to accumulate a pint of clean nut meats in half an hour.
The butternut tree is one whose lumber may be put to many uses. It is light but very tough and stringy and when planed and sanded, it absorbs varnish and finishes very well. Although not as dark in natural color as black walnut, butternut resembles it in grain. When butternut has been stained to represent black walnut, it is only by their weight that they can be distinguished. In late years, natural butternut has become popular as an interior finish and for furniture, being sold as "blonde walnut," "French walnut," or "white walnut," in my opinion very improper names. I see no reason for calling it by other than its own. Depletion of forests of butternut trees brings its lumber value up in price nearly to that of fine maple or birch, approaching that of black walnut in some places.
I have run several thousand feet of butternut lumber from my farmland through my own sawmill and used it for a variety of purposes. It is probably the strongest wood for its weight except spruce. I have used it successfully to make propellers which operate electric generators for deriving power from the wind. Because butternut is so light and, properly varnished, resists weathering and decay to so great an extent, I have found it the best material I have ever tried for such construction. In building a small electric car for traveling around the orchards, I used butternut rather than oak or metal, which saved at least 100 pounds of weight, an important matter since the source of the car's power is automobile storage batteries.
Butternut is very durable in contact with the ground and is used for fence posts on farms where it is plentiful. Bird houses built of this wood will last indefinitely, even a lifetime if they are protected with paint or varnish. Butternut is like red cedar in this respect, although much stronger. Stories have been told of black walnut logs which, after lying unused for fifty years, have been sawed into lumber and found to be still in excellent condition. It is quite likely that the same could be said of butternut for these woods are very much alike in the degree of their durability and resistance to weather.
An incidental value butternut trees have is their ability to bleed freely in the spring if the outer bark is cut. Therefore, they can be tapped like maple trees and their sap boiled down to make a sweet syrup. It does not have the sugar content that the Stabler black walnut has, however. Another possible use is suggested by the shells of butternuts which, even when buried in the ground, show great resistance to decay. I have found them to be still intact and possessing some strength after being covered by earth for fifteen years. This indicates that they might be used with a binder in a composition material. Their extreme hardness also offers a good wearing surface.
Not only good things can be said of the butternut tree and it would be wrong to avoid mentioning the deleterious effect that a butternut tree may have on other trees planted within the radius of its root system. I have had several experiences of this kind. One butternut tree on my farm, having a trunk six inches in diameter, killed every Mugho pine within the radius of its root system. This amounted to between 50 and 100 pines. Their death could not be attributed to the shade cast by the butternut as Mugho pines are very tolerant of shade. As the first branches of the butternut were more than three feet off the ground, the pines could not have been influenced by the top system of the tree nor do I believe that it was due to fallen leaves, but rather directly to the greatly ramified roots. Large evergreens, such as Colorado blue spruce, native white pine, limber pine and Jeffrey pine are known to have been similarly influenced. While small butternut trees do not, in my experience, have this effect, this may be explained by the fact that the radius of their root systems is much more limited. Most plants, other than pines, thrive within the influence of butternut roots, however, and it certainly does not damage pasture grass as some of the country's best grazing land is among such trees. The damage results from a chemical known as Juglone which is elaborated by the root system and when the roots of the butternut cross those of its evergreen neighbor, this acts as a poison to the evergreen and may kill it.
The butternut is attacked by one serious disease which is in the nature of a blight (melanconium oblongum), since it is transmitted through spores. It usually attacks old trees, the branches of the top part dying, and the bark on the main trunk becoming loose. The disease progresses slowly and I have seen large trees infected for twelve or fifteen years, continuing to bear fine crops. It does have a very weakening effect, though, and eventually saps the life from the tree long before its natural span of life of about fifty years is over.
Chapter 9
PIONEERING WITH ENGLISH WALNUTS IN WISCONSIN
The convention of the Northern Nut Growers' Association at Geneva, New York, in 1936, brought many interesting subjects to the attention of nut enthusiasts. None, however, commanded as much attention as an exhibit by Paul C. Crath, of Toronto, of walnuts from the Carpathian Mountains in Europe. There were more than forty varieties of walnuts represented in it, in sizes ranging from that of a large filbert to that of a very large hen's egg, and in shape being globular, ovate or rectangular. The exhibitor had these identified by varietal numbers until testing and propagation should suggest appropriate names. In several talks which Rev. Crath gave during the convention, he described his trips and findings in the walnut-producing sections of the Polish Carpathians. The subject remained in prominence during the three days of the convention and the idea was suggested that the Association sponsor another trip to Europe to obtain walnuts growing there which Rev. Crath considered even hardier and finer than the ones he had. The plan was tabled, however, for only two of us were eager to contribute to the venture.
On my return home, I thought more about what a splendid opportunity this would be to procure hardy English walnuts to grow in this part of the country. I interested my father in the idea, and, with his backing, corresponded with Rev. Crath. This was not the first or the last time that my father, Charles Weschcke, had encouraged me and had backed his good wishes and advice with money. A professional man and a graduate of pharmacy and chemistry of the University of Wisconsin, he showed an unusual interest in my horticultural endeavors. The immediate outcome was Rev. Crath's visit to my nursery at River Falls, to determine whether material that he might collect could be properly tested there. To my satisfaction, he found that temperature, soil conditions and stock material were adequate for such work.
We contracted with Rev. Crath to reproduce asexually all the varieties that he could discover and ship to us, agreeing to finance his trip and to pay him a royalty whenever we sold trees resulting from the plant material he sent us. We decided that the material which he was to gather should include not only English walnuts but also the hazels or filberts native to Poland. The walnuts were to consist of about six hundred pounds of seeds, representing some forty varieties, several thousand scions and about five hundred trees. We planned that the filberts should consist of both trees and nuts, but because of a total failure of this crop the year that Rev. Crath was there, only trees were available.
Rev. Crath left Canada in October 1936, and spent all of the following winter in Poland. While he was there, I began the task of arranging for the receipt of the walnuts and hazels he was to send, and so began a wearisome, exasperating experience. First, it was necessary to obtain permits from the Bureau of Plant Industry in Washington. Because of the vast quantity of material expected, these permits had to be issued in the names of five people. Next, I engaged a New York firm of importers, so that no time would be lost in re-routing the shipment to the proper authorities for inspection. This firm, in turn, hired brokers who were responsible for paying all duty, freight and inspection charges. I certainly thought that we had everything in such readiness that there would be nothing to delay the shipment when it arrived. How wrong I was!
Although Rev. Crath had written me that the shipment had been sent on a certain Polish steamer, I learned of its arrival only from a letter I received from the importing company, which requested that the original bill of lading and invoice be sent to them at once, as the shipment had already been in the harbor for a week but could not be released by the customs office until they had these documents. I had received the bill of lading from Rev. Crath but not the invoice, for he had not known that I would need it. So my valuable, but perishable, shipment remained in port storage day after day while I frantically sought for some way to break through the "red tape" holding it there. Cables to Rev. Crath were undeliverable as he was back in the mountains seeking more material. In desperation, I wrote to Clarence A. Reed, an old friend, member of the Northern Nut Growers' Association and in charge of government nut investigations in the Division of Pomology at Washington. Through his efforts and under heavy bond pending receipt of the invoice, the walnut and filbert material was released and sent to Washington, D. C. As there was too much of it to be inspected through the usual facilities for this work, it was necessary to employ a firm of seed and plant importers to do the necessary inspecting and fumigating. At last, terminating my concern and distress over the condition in which the trees and scions would be after such great delays and so many repackings, the shipment arrived in St. Paul. There remained only the requirement of getting permission from the Bureau of Plant Inspection of the State of Minnesota to take it to Wisconsin, where, if there was anything left, I intended to plant it. This permission being readily granted, we managed, by truck and, finally, by sled, to get it to the nursery about the middle of the winter.
The following spring, we planted the nuts and trees and grafted the scions on black walnut and butternut stocks. The mortality of these grafts was the greatest I have ever known. Of about four thousand English walnut grafts, representing some twenty varieties, only one hundred twenty-five took well enough to produce a good union with the stock and to grow. Some of them grew too fast and in spite of my precautions, were blown out; others died from winter injury the first year. By the following spring, there were only ten varieties which had withstood the rigor of the climate. Of the five hundred trees, only a few dozen survived. Fortunately, this was not one of our severe, "test" winters, or probably none of these plants would have withstood it.
The walnuts which were planted showed a fairly high degree of hardiness. Of 12,000 seedling trees, our nursery is testing more than 800 for varietal classification. These have been set out in test orchard formation on two locations, both high on the slope of a ravine, one group on the north side, one on the south. It has been suggested that from the remaining seedlings, which number thousands, we select 500 to 1000 representative specimens and propagate them on black walnut stocks in some warmer climate, either in Oregon, Missouri or New York. This would determine their value as semi-hardy trees worthy of propagation in such localities. Such an experiment will probably be made eventually.
The same year, 1937, in which I obtained the Polish nuts, I also bought one hundred pounds of Austrian walnuts, to serve as a check. Eighty pounds of these consisted of the common, commercial type of walnut, while the remainder was of more expensive nuts having cream-colored shells and recommended by the Austrian seed firm as particularly hardy. Altogether these nuts included approximately one hundred varieties, twenty of which were so distinctive that their nuts could be separated from the others by size and shape.
About two thousand seedlings grew from this planting, most of which proved to be too tender for our winter conditions. The seedlings grown from the light-colored nuts show about the same degree of hardiness as the Carpathian plants. Many of them have been set out in experimental orchards to be brought into bearing.
After the first year, the English walnuts progressed fairly well. Large trees, which had not been entirely worked over at first, were trimmed so that nothing remained of the original top, but only the grafted branches. The winter of 1938-39 was not especially severe and mortality was low, although it was apparent that all of the varieties were not equally hardy. Even a few of the scions grafted on butternut stocks were growing successfully. I had made these grafts realizing that the stock was not a very satisfactory one, to learn if it could be used to produce scionwood. As the results were encouraging, I decided it would be worthwhile to give them good care and gradually to remove all of the butternut top.
Each fall, the first two years after I had grafted all these walnuts, I cut and stored enough scionwood from each variety to maintain it if the winter should be so severe as to destroy the grafts. Unfortunately, the grafts had developed so well, even to the actual bearing of nuts by three varieties, that in 1940 I did not think this precaution was necessary. Then came our catastrophic Armistice Day blizzard, the most severe test of hardiness and adaptability ever to occur in the north. Many of our hardiest trees suffered great injury from it, such trees, for instance, as Colorado blue spruce, limber pine, arborvitae; cultured varieties of hickories, hiccans, heartnuts; fruit trees, including apples, plums and apricots, which bore almost no fruit the next summer.
Although not one variety of English walnut was entirely killed, all, except one, suffered to some degree, and it was not until late the following summer that several varieties began to produce new wood. The variety which showed the greatest degree of hardiness is "Firstling," originally known as Letter F. Although the primary buds on the Firstling were nearly all killed, very few of the small branches were affected and the union itself suffered no injury. Second in hardiness is Kremenetz, much of its top being killed, but its union being only slightly affected. No. 64 was affected in about the same amount as Kremenetz. Increasing degrees of tenderness and, of course, decreasing degrees of hardiness, were shown by the many other varieties, some of which may never recover completely from the shock of that blizzard. The seedling trees suffered only slight damage so that I expect that they are hardy enough to produce fruit here.
I cannot conclude this chapter without mentioning certain observations I have made regarding hardiness, which, although they require more specific study, I wish to describe as a suggestion for further experimentation by either amateur or professional horticulturists. My theory is that a determination of the hardiness factor of an English walnut tree can be made according to the color of its bark. I have seen that a tree having thin bark which remains bright green late into the fall is very likely to be of a tender variety. Conversely, among these Carpathian walnuts, I have found that varieties whose bark becomes tan or brown early in autumn show much more hardiness than those whose bark remains green. One variety, Wolhynie, whose bark is chocolate brown, is very resistant to winter injury. Another, whose green bark is heavily dotted with lenticels, shows itself hardier than those having none or only a trace of them. In testing almonds, I have found that trees whose bark turns red early in the fall are definitely more hardy than those whose bark remains green or tan. In observing apricots, I have learned that young twigs with red bark are more resistant to cold than those with brown. Of course, these findings cannot be considered as facts until further studies have been made. I hope that others will find the idea of investigating this more-than-possibility as interesting as I do.
As the years increased, however, the growth of the seedling walnuts decreased and some having made a nice tree-like form, with a trunk of approximately an inch in diameter, within a succession of years were reduced in size through the combination of winter injury and attacks by the butternut curculio as well as a bacterial blight until by 1952 only a fraction of the 12,000 seedlings remained, certainly less than 1,000. All of the originally grafted specimens are dead with the exception of one variety which has been kept alive by constantly re-grafting it on black walnut. We have not named this variety as yet, although it has borne both staminate and pistillate bloom, it has never borne any ripe nuts. Some of the seedlings, however, still show persistent traits of hardiness and of insect resistance and we still have hopes that after 15 years these trees will yet overcome the adversities of this uncongenial climate for this species.
Chapter 10
OTHER TREES
Heartnut
The heartnut is a sport of the Japanese walnut (Juglans sieboldiana). Since its nut is heart-shaped, it has the name of "cordiformis" added to its species name. There are many of these sports, some of which have been propagated under the varietal names of Faust, Lancaster, Fodermaier, Wright, Walters, Canoka, Okay and Gellatly.
I think this is the most ornamental of all nut trees. In shape, it is similar to an apple tree, spreading out rather than growing tall, but its long, compound leaves give it a tropical appearance. During the autumn these leaves do not color any more than do those of the black walnut. The tree produces long racemes of red blossoms and its staminate blooms are catkins eight to ten inches long, which, when fully ripened, swish in the wind and release clouds of yellow pollen. The heartnut tree holds the interest of its owner closely during that time when the nuts resulting from the racemes of blossoms are steadily increasing in size. I have seen as many as sixteen nuts on one stem and doubtless, there sometimes are more. The owner of such a tree, at least if he is at all like me, will proudly exhibit it to all comers during the spring and summer seasons. And then, at harvest time, after the nuts have gradually changed from green to the dull yellow that indicates their maturity, he will have the satisfaction of shaking them down for drying and storage.
The heartnut kernel tastes much like that of the butternut and its internal structure is almost the same but the outside shell is smooth. Cultivated varieties usually crack easily and in such a way that the kernel is released in halves. From all this, it is easy to see that the heartnut is not only a beautiful tree but is definitely useful.
In my own work with heartnuts I have found that, although they are to be classed only as semi-hardy, there are a few varieties which are hardy enough for northern temperatures. Only testing will determine which ones can endure severe climates. In the spring of 1921, I planted a Lancaster heartnut grafted on a black walnut, but the weather was cold that season and it was killed down to the graft joint, where it threw out a sprout. This was weak and succulent by fall and the graft was entirely killed back that winter. I bought twelve more Lancaster heartnuts a year later. They were interspersed in the orchard among some black walnuts. Although a few survived the first winter, none ever lived to come into bearing. From time to time, I also experimented with seedlings sent to me by Professor James A. Neilson of Vineland, Ontario, who was interested in having them tested in this latitude. These, too, were always unsuccessful.
I had my first success with several unnamed varieties of heartnuts I purchased in 1933 from J. U. Gellatly of British Columbia. These were grafted on black walnut stocks of considerable size. To insure their surviving the first winter, I built wooden shelters which completely enclosed them, filling these shelters with forest leaves and protecting them against mice with screen covers. No doubt this was a decided help; at least all of these heartnuts lived for many years until the invasion of the butternut curculio and the damage done by the yellow bellied sap sucker bird caused me the loss of all except one variety, the Gellatly. This variety I have perpetuated by re-grafting on other black walnut stocks and by spraying and covering the limbs with screen to prevent the sap sucker from working on it, still have it in the nursery and at my home in St. Paul where a young tree on the boulevard bears each year.
I have found that heartnuts are difficult to propagate, the number of successful grafts I have made being far below that of black walnuts on black walnut stocks. The reason for this is not well understood any more than is the fact, in my experience, that the Stabler walnut will graft readily and the Ten Eyck persistently refuses to. A good feature that these grafted trees do have, however, is their early productiveness. I have seen them set nuts the second year after grafting and this has also occurred in trees I have sold to others.
When a nut of J. sieboldiana cordiformis is planted, it does not reliably reproduce itself in true type, sometimes reverting to that of the ordinary Japanese walnut, which looks more like a butternut and has a rather rough shell as distinguished from the smooth shell of the heartnut. In hulling my heartnut crop for 1940, I noticed many deformed nuts.
The season had been a prolific one for nut production of all kinds, and I knew there had been a mixture of pollen in the air at the time these nutlets were receptive (a mixture made up largely of pollen from black walnuts, butternuts, with some English walnuts). Since irregularities in size and shape indicate hybridity frequently and since heartnuts are easily hybridized I have assumed that these were pollinized by the mixture. I have planted these odd-shaped nuts and I expect them to result in many new crosses of J. sieboldiana cordiformis, some five to eight years from now.
To show how nature reacts to much interference I will follow through on these nearly 100 small trees that resulted from this pollination. They were transplanted into an orchard on a side hill and well taken care of for several years, but during that time one after another was killed, apparently by winter conditions or perhaps the site was too exposed or the soil may have been uncongenial. Today there remains but three trees, none of which have borne but all indicate that they are true heartnuts from the shape of the leaves and color of the bark and general formation. In order to hasten their bearing, scions have been taken from these small trees and will be grafted on large black walnut stocks to bring them into fruitfulness much earlier than if they were left to their own slow growth. This system of testing out seedlings long before they have reached a size sufficient to bear on their own roots is applicable to all of the species of nut trees and is one way that the plant breeder can hurry up his testing for varieties after making crosses and obtaining young plants.
Beechnut
The beechnut, Fagus ferruginea, belonging to the oak family, is one of the giants of the forest, growing to great size and age. Even very old beech trees have smooth bark and this, in earlier and more rustic days, was much used for the romantic carving of lovers' names, as scars still visible on such ancient trees testify. The wood itself is dense and hard, even more so than hard maple, and is considered good lumber. Beechnut is one of the few nut trees with a more shallow and ramified root system as contrasted with that of most, which, as in the oak, walnut and hickory, is a tap root system. This fact suggests that in those localities where beeches grow wild, grafts made on such trees, and transplanted, would survive and grow well.
Perhaps one of the reasons why very little propagation is done with beeches is that no outstanding variety has ever been discovered. Although the nut shell is thin and the meat sweet and oily, the kernel is so small that one must crack dozens of them to get a satisfying sample of their flavor. This, of course, prevents their having any commercial value as a nut. There is also the fact that the beechnut is the slowest growing of all the common nut trees, requiring from twenty to thirty years to come into bearing as a seedling. Of course this could be shortened, just as it is in propagating hickories and pecans, by making grafts on root systems which are ten or more years old, as explained in the chapter on heartnuts. However, I know of no nursery in which beechnuts are propagated in this way.
My attempts to grow beechnut trees in Wisconsin have met with little success. About the year 1922, I obtained 150 trees from the Sturgeon Bay Nurseries. I planted these on level ground which had clay near the surface with limestone about a foot under it. Although all of these trees seemed to start satisfactorily, some even growing about a foot, within two or three years they had all died. I decided they were not hardy but I now realize that the character of the soil was responsible for their gradual death; they should be planted in a limestone or calcareous soil, preferably of the fine sandy type, the main requisite being plenty of moisture because of their shallow root system. Since then, I have purchased beechnut seeds several times from various seedsmen, but none of these seeds has ever sprouted. I think this is because beechnuts, like chestnuts, must be handled with great care to retain their viability.
In 1938, I ordered 100 beechnut trees from the Hershey Nurseries of Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Although these trees were set in sandy soil, there are now only about five of them alive, and of these, only four are growing well enough to suggest that they will some day become big trees.
Beechnuts must be protected against mice and rabbits as these species of rodents are very fond of bark and young growth of these trees and I have every reason to believe that deer are in the same category.
Oaks
Although the acorns produced by the red oak are very bitter and consistently wormy, those from the white oak are more edible. In my own exploring, I have found one tree, apparently a hybrid between the red and white oaks, which bears good acorns. The nuts, which are long and thin, are generally infested with weevils. If there were a demand for such a nut tree, I'm sure that it could easily be grafted on oak roots. During favorable seasons, when these edible nuts were of good size and free from worms, I have carried them in my pocket and enjoyed munching on them. I found that their flavor, like that of chestnuts, was improved by roasting.
Acorns are a balanced food and contain enough starch to make them readily assimilated, except for their bitterness. They are a good food for farm animals and chickens. I have kept a flock of goats in good condition by feeding them acorns during the winter. It isn't necessary to grind them for such use. I have read that Indians at one time prepared acorns for their own use by storing them in bags submerged in cold running water. This not only extracted the bitterness but also it probably discouraged the development of weevil eggs.
Oak trees are generally prolific and are regular bearers, but of course, what they are widely known and loved for is the beauty of their leaves in the autumn. No one doubts their esthetic value, which will keep them forever popular whether they come into demand as a grafted nut tree or not.
Chestnuts
Another of our ornamental nut trees is the chestnut, also of the oak family, classified under the genus Castanea, which grows into a large, beautiful tree with wide-spread branches. Chestnuts do not grow well on limestone soil and always fail in the heavy blue clay so common on farm lands in this part of the country. It is best for their growth that the soil be gravelly and slightly acid.
The chestnut has always been a good timber tree. Its wood, although not as hard as the red oak, resembles it in grain. The beams of many old pioneer homes are found to be chestnut. It is said that this is one of few woods to give a warning groan under too heavy a burden before it cracks or breaks. Chestnut wood is very durable in contact with the soil, outlasting all others except possibly black walnut and cedar. It contains so much siliceous matter in its pores that it quickly dulls chisels and saws used in working it.
The chestnut trees at my nursery were grown from mixed hybrid seeds which I obtained from Miss Amelia Riehl of Godfrey, Illinois. Almost all of the seeds she first sent me, in 1926, spoiled while they were stored during the winter. But Miss Riehl sent me more the following spring, many of which proved hardy. In 1937, the oldest of these trees produced staminate bloom for the first time. I naturally expected a crop of nuts from it that year, but none developed. The same thing happened in 1938. I then wrote to Miss Riehl about it, also asking her where to look for the pistillate blossoms. Her reply was a very encouraging one in which she wrote that the pistillate blossoms appear at the base of the catkins or staminate blooms, but that it is quite a common thing for chestnut trees to carry the latter for several years before producing pistillate blossoms. She also explained that it was very unlikely that the tree would fertilize its own blooms, so that I should not expect one tree to bear until other nearby chestnuts were also shedding pollen. This occurred the next year and another chestnut close to the first one set a few nuts. It was not until 1940 that the tree which had blossomed first, actually bore nuts.
In 1940, I crossed the pistillate blossoms of this tree with pollen from a Chinese variety called Carr, resulting in half a dozen nuts which I planted.
Since the chestnuts in these parts do not bloom usually until early July we can expect chestnuts to be a more reliable crop than butternuts, for instance, which bloom very early in the spring about May 1 to 15th.
Having had this reward for my efforts I took much more interest in chestnut growing and ordered trees of the Chinese varieties, Castanea mollissma from J. Russell Smith, H. F. Stoke, and John Hershey. Some of these were seedlings and some were grafted trees, not over a dozen of them alive today and none have produced mature nuts. Seemingly they have not been hardy although they have grown large enough to produce both staminate and pistillate blooms; they have never winter killed back to the ground, however.
Also, I have been planting nuts from all sources from which I could obtain them, mostly of the Chinese chestnut type. Some of these nuts were results of crosses, and showed their hybridity in the young seedlings that resulted there from. Today I have perhaps 150 of such young seedlings which I am pampering with the hope of getting something worthwhile from them. One of the big thrills of chestnut growing was the result of a chestnut that I picked up from a plant that was no higher than 2 feet, growing at Beltsville, Maryland in the government testing ground there, in 1937. My records show that this plant began to bear nuts in 1943 and have subsequently borne several crops in between the times that it was frozen to the ground and grew up again, which happened at least three times. Like most chestnuts this one has to be pollinated by taking the staminate bloom from a dwarfed chestnut nearby whose bloom coincides with the blossoming of the female flowers of this Chinese hybrid. Chestnuts rarely set any nuts that produce mature seed from their own pollen but depend on cross-pollination. The nut from this hybrid is also the largest of any that I have grown and to my taste is a palatable one. It may not rank among the best ones of known varieties today, but for our climate I would consider it unusually large and good. Experimentally, I have been able to produce new plants from this tree by layering young shoots coming from the roots. This generally requires two years to make a well-rooted plant before they are cut off and transplanted. This alternative of propagating by grafting or budding is considered a better method if it can be practiced, as it gives a plant on its own roots instead of the roots of some unknown seedling stock.
Another tree that surprised me when it came into bearing proved to bear one nut in a burr which led me to believe that it was a chinquapin hybrid. Later on, the habit of this tree changed somewhat and some of the burrs had more than one nut. I have found this to be the experience of others who have observed so-called chinquapin trees of a hybrid nature. It is my belief that the kind of pollen with which these blossoms are fertilized directly influences the number of nuts in a burr and sometimes the size of the nuts, again showing the importance of the cross-pollinating varieties when setting out an orchard of trees. This particular chinquapin type chestnut has upright growing habits different from a tree bearing similar nuts but having a very dwarfed habit. All of the nuts of the latter after six years of bearing can be picked off this tree by standing on the ground. There are several other trees bearing chestnuts, some large and some small nuts, all of which are interesting to me and may be important in the future of the chestnuts this far north since they indicate without doubt that the chestnut can accommodate itself to our climate, providing it has the right type of soil to grow in. In 1952 I acquired a 20-acre adjoining piece of land which has a much better chestnut growing site, being deep sandy soil, well drained, and yet not ever being dry. New varieties will be tested on this piece and should give much better results than the old trees which already were good enough to indicate success in chestnuts.
Apricot
If it were not that an apricot is a nut as well as a fruit, I should hesitate to include a description of my work with it. But the apricot seed has a rich kernel which, in many countries, for example, China, is used as a substitute for the almond to which it is closely related.
It was in 1933 that my aunt, Margaret Weschcke, told me of an apricot tree growing in a yard on the Mississippi River bluff in St. Paul and said to be bearing fruit. I was quite skeptical until I saw the tree and also saw fruit from it which had been preserved by the woman who owned it. Convinced of the hardiness of the tree, I was anxious to obtain scionwood but it was not until late that winter that I received permission to do so. It happened that a truck had broken off a large branch from the tree while delivering coal, and the owner very reasonably decided that taking a few twigs from it would not hurt it any more. I not only took the small branches that she was willing to sacrifice from her tree but also as many as possible from the branch which had been torn off, as its terminals were still in a fresh condition.
I grafted these scions on hybrid plum trees where they took hold readily, and in 1938, they began to bear prolifically. The apricots, which I have named Harriet, in honor of my mother, are a fine-flavored fruit, medium in size. Their cheeks are a mottled red with raised surfaces. Their pits are well-formed and fairly edible. Although the parent tree died the winter I took scions from it, my grafts have proved quite hardy, having received no injury when temperatures as low as 47 deg. below zero have occurred. Since the parent tree died because its roots were severely frozen, it would seem that the top of the tree, in this case, was more hardy than the root system. This does occur sometimes, although it is unusual.
In developing the factor of hardiness further in this apricot variety, I have taken advantage of something I had observed about other fruit trees. When one combines parts of two trees by grafting, it is a simple thing to select a hardy root stock from the available plants, just as I selected hardy plum stock on which to graft my apricot scions. This is not always possible in choosing scionwood, however, since scionwood is usually selected for such reasons as the quality of its fruit. It may happen that the top part of a tree is limited in its climatic scope because of its inability to withstand precipitate or otherwise unfavorable temperatures. Having observed that certain grafted varieties of fruit trees, such as the Wealthy apple, for instance, have gradually come to be planted much farther north than they originally were, I reasoned that this was because only the hardiest of them survived and these hardy ones therefore became the mother blocks for future grafting. This was an inescapable procedure which acted as a method of bud selection. I therefore assumed that by a careful choice of the hardiest among surviving twigs of the most recent graft of the Harriet apricot, when particularly severe winter weather had caused some injury, I could induce extra-hardiness in future grafts.
I also believe that I have added to the hardiness factor of the apricot by making frequent grafts. It is my theory that the root stock is able to exert some influence over the top other than mere maintenance of life. By frequently uniting a hardy stock with a less hardy top, I think that the individuality of the top part may be somewhat broken down and the extra characteristic of hardiness added to it. After the fifth re-graft of this apricot made in eight years, I am convinced by its appearance and behavior that it is capable of becoming a reliable apricot for the region around St. Paul. Today the apricot still exists grafted on plum at my nursery at River Falls, Wisconsin, and the weakness of the tree seems to be in the union between the top and the plum stock. If this union were not so corky and large and succulent it might be less injured by our winters; therefore it is quite apparent that the plum is not a congenial stock for an apricot, at least it does not produce a satisfactory union. I am now making tests with this same variety by grafting it on more hardy apricot seedling stock such as the Prof. N. E. Hansen of Brookings, South Dakota, introduces.
Chapter 11
PESTS AND PETS
The pocket gopher is an herbivorous animal which attains approximately the size of a gray squirrel. It has a sleek, grey-brown coat of fur which is almost as fine as that of the mole and would, I think, make a good quality fur except that the skin is too tender to stand either sewing or the wear that fur coats have to undergo. I learned this by trapping them and having a furrier try them out, as I knew that the quickest way to get rid of a pest is to eat it or use its hide. Since I found its hide to be of no practical value, I enjoined my troop of Boy Scouts, a willing group of boys, to carry out my suggestions that they skin and prepare one of these animals in a stew. Gophers are purely herbivorous and I thought they should be quite edible, but as I am a strict vegetarian myself, I had to depend on them to make this experiment. The boys followed instructions up to the point of cooking, but by that time the appearance of the animal had so deprived them of their enthusiasm and appetites that I had no heart to urge them to continue. I am still of the opinion, however, that to meat-eating people, the pocket gopher would taste as good as squirrel or pigeon.
The first introduction I had to the devastating work that these animals can do in an orchard was when I was working among my young apple and plum trees one spring. I noticed that the foliage was turning yellow on many of them and upon investigation I found that the trees were very loose in the ground. At first I thought that planting operations and heaving of the ground by frost in the spring might be the cause, but in testing the looseness of one of these trees, I found that I could pull it out of the ground easily. There I saw what appeared to be the marks of an axe. I was completely convinced that I had personal enemies who went around nights chopping off the roots of my trees, for I knew that most of my neighbors were completely out of sympathy with my tree cultivation. In fact, farmers living in that section of the country were always poking fun at my nut tree plantings and orchard work, for their idea of what was proper on a farm was a treeless field of plowed ground. As I thought of all these things, I pulled up many other trees; in fact, there were dozens that were chopped off so that they could be completely pulled out. Others still had one or two roots clinging to the main trunk and these I carefully replanted so that they would continue to live and grow.
Not long after the tragic day on which I found all these ravaged trees, I noticed, winding in and out close to the young orchard trees, the mounds which pocket gophers make when they tunnel under the ground. I followed some of these by digging into them with a shovel, and discovered that they led to the roots of trees, the very trees that had been chopped off and killed. My enemies were not human after all.
Sending for a pamphlet from the U. S. Department of Agriculture, I studied the material given about pocket gophers and their habits. I then began their systematic eradication, using about twelve steel muskrat traps. I succeeded in trapping, in one season, over thirty of them, at a time when they were so prolific and their holes so numerous that I could not drive a horse through the orchard without danger of breaking one of its legs. I also used poisoned grains and gases but I do not recommend them. Trapping is the only method in which one obtains actual evidence of elimination. It took me many years to force the gophers out of my orchards and I still must set traps every fall, during September and October when they are most active. Their habits are such that they do most of their tunnelling in the early fall months, before frost, during which time they expose and isolate the roots on which they intend to feed during the winter months when the ground is so hard that they cannot burrow further. This period is when they are most easily trapped.
It was with the idea of establishing a balance of nature against these animals that I conceived the idea of importing bull snakes. Almost everyone has heard of the bull snake, but its name is a poor one, for it has the wrong connotation. These snakes are actually a fine friend to the farmer since each snake accounts for the death of many rodents each year. Their presence certainly was of definite value in decreasing the number at my farm. Bull snakes have the long body typical of constrictors, sometimes reaching a length of nearly six feet at maturity, and being at the most an inch and one-half in diameter. This country had a natural abundance of such snakes at one time but ignorance and superstition have lessened their number so that it is now a rare thing to find one. During the early days of automobiles, these huge bull snakes, or gopher snakes, as I prefer to call them, would lie across the sunny, dusty roads, and drivers of cars delighted in running them down. Since they are very docile, they are the least afraid of man of any members of the local snake family. They are slow in movement until they sense the immediate presence of their natural food, which is live mice, rats, gophers, squirrels, young rabbits, and sometimes, though rarely, birds. Then it is they become alert, and the horny appendage on their tails vibrates with a high-pitched, buzzing sound, simulating, although not similar to, the sound of a poisonous rattlesnake.
When I first brought some of these snakes to my farm, I loosed them and they wandered off to a neighbor's premises where they were promptly found and killed. Later importations I confined to my basement, where I built an artificial pool with frogs and fish in it. However, I could never induce the bull snakes to eat any of these batrachians. They would, almost playfully, stalk the frogs, but at the moment when one was within reach, the snake would glide away. Neither would the snakes, unless force-fed, eat anything they had not caught themselves.
My children were delighted to have the snakes there and made pets of them. Only once was one of the girls bitten when she attempted force-feeding. The bite was a mere scratch but we feared that it might be slightly poisonous. However, it healed so promptly that it was quite apparent that the bull snake's bite is not toxic. I, too, have had my skin slightly punctured by their teeth, but always the wound healed with no more pain or trouble than a pin prick. Such is not at all the case when a person is nipped by a squirrel or gopher. I have purposely allowed a pocket gopher to bite me, to determine what the effects are. The pain was severe and healing was slow. Once, bitten by a gray squirrel when I reached into a hollow tree to get it, I received such a wound that fever started in my whole hand. Its teeth punctured a finger-nail and were stopped only by meeting the bone. Such bites I consider rather poisonous.
Rabbits also committed much damage at my nursery by gnawing the bark of my trees, especially during times of deep snow. They did not bother the walnuts particularly, but were very fond of hickories and pecan trees. On the smallest ones, they cut branches off and carried them away to their nests. On larger trees, they gnawed the bark off of most of the lower branches. This was dangerous but seldom fatal, whereas the gnawing of mice, near the base of the trunks, was such that in some cases when complete girdling occurred, it was necessary to use bridge-grafting to save the trees. This consists of connecting the bark immediately above the roots with the bark above the girdled portion, so that the tree can receive and send the food substances it elaborates to its upper and lower parts.
Rabbits and mice, therefore, had to be dealt with. Of course, one could go hunting for rabbits and later eat them. This was one task I had my employees do. I, myself, was unwilling to take an active part in it, although still intent on saving my trees in spite of my pity for the little animals. Placing hundreds of cans in the orchard, with a pinch of poisoned wheat and oat mixture in each, helped to eradicate the mice. The bait was placed inside the cans to prevent birds from being poisoned, and the cans were tipped at an angle so that water would not enter them.
To be absolutely sure of preventing mice damage, one should provide each tree with a screen guard. I have made about 10,000 screen protectors for my trees for this purpose. I have also trapped rabbits which we were not able to shoot and I conceived the idea of painting the traps with white enamel. When these were set on the snow around those trees which the rabbits attacked, they worked very successfully. The traps were a size larger than the common gopher trap, but were not expensive. There are other ways of catching rabbits or curtailing their activities, but on my list, shooting comes first, with trapping as a second effective measure.
Squirrels, although they do no damage to the trees themselves, except on rare occasions, are a definite nuisance when they come in large numbers and cut down nuts before they are ripe. They do this to hickory nuts, and apparently are very fond of the half-ripened nuts. I have seen squirrels chew hickory buds and young sprouts of hickory grafts and I had to trap several before I stopped them from doing this to certain ornamental trees in our garden. In fact, when one has a large nut orchard, squirrels will be attracted in number that preclude the possibility of harvesting a crop unless measures are taken to banish them. They are very active early in the morning and my experiences indicate that two or three people should hunt them together, as they are very clever at dodging a single hunter. I also have built galvanized metal guards around isolated trees which prevent squirrels from climbing them.
In speaking of mice, we have two important species commonly known as the meadow mouse and the other species known as the white-footed mouse. The meadow mouse is the one that does so much damage to the orchard trees and young nursery stock if unprotected, and the white-footed mouse may be responsible for some of this when present in great numbers, but of the white-footed mouse this much good can be said:
Much of its diet, especially of the mother mouse during the time that she is nursing her young ones, is made up of insects. A personal experience accentuates this. Since these are such pretty little creatures, having such cunning ways, it was my ambition to catch a complete family of mother and young ones which sometimes numbered as high as ten. My ambition was finally gratified and I was able to get a mother of eight and her tiny mouslings, which have a habit of fastening themselves securely to her breasts while she runs about, and drags them all along in a most ludicrous fashion. At times, under these circumstances, the combined weight of the brood exceeds that of the mother mouse but they are exceptionally strong creatures for their size, a mature mouse being able to jump out of a 3-foot barrel with one leap. In observing this brood of mice, I was particularly anxious to see what kind of a diet they throve on and tried the mother's appetite with tidbits from the table. While she ate most everything, it soon became apparent that something was wrong because the young ones became weaker, finally to the extent that they were unable to nurse, and one morning I found several on their backs with their feet feebly waving in the air indicating that they were dying of starvation. At about that time I was drying some hazelnuts on a flat back porch floor and in sweeping them up found a lot of alive and dried up larvae which had escaped from the shells. Just for fun, I swept this material up and threw it into the mouse cage. The reaction of this treatment was gratifying, for the mother mouse pounced upon this insect life greedily devouring everything. Within three days, the young mice were all in good health and running around showing that the milk produced from the diet that I had been giving the mother was inadequate for the baby mice. It is therefore to their credit to state that these mice and probably at times the meadow mice do consume large quantities of larvae and grubs in the surface soil, as well as mature active insects, such as crickets and grasshoppers.
HOW TO PREPARE RODENT PROTECTORS FOR TREES
1. Cut 6" strips from 24" wide roll of galvanized screen with a 12 x 12 mesh.
2. Cut strips in half to make two protectors from each strip.
3. Make bundles of 25 each by running wire through protectors.
4. Dip these bundles in a solution containing 5 pounds of red lead per gallon of linseed oil. Use from 3 to 5 gallons of this solution.
5. Remove bundles and hang them on a pole with a drip pan beneath to catch the solution, which can be used again. Allow bundles to drip for 8 hours, then separate each protector and place on grass for a few days to dry.
6. Roll each protector around a 3/4" pipe or broomstick and it is ready for the tree.
In dealing with wild creatures, one must forebear condemning a whole species of animals merely because at times they become troublesome, for the main purpose of their existence, like owls, hawks and crows, they may be more beneficial than otherwise.
A good word should be said here for skunks and moles. A great deal of the skunk diet is insect life. The same is true of the mole whose diet probably consists of 75% insects, mostly in their larval state. This is an important feature of mole and skunk as they dig these insects out before they mature into winged female adults which may lay hundreds of eggs. If these larvae should be allowed to develop into a mature winged insect that would lay eggs, this particular insect would multiply itself hundreds of times over and it would take many more birds than at present exist to take over the big job of keeping the balance between necessary insect life and a surplus which would be destructive to all plant life. We can never hope to eradicate all insect life which we deplore as being deleterious to the interests of mankind, and it is mighty well that we cannot do this for the insects are as important to us as all other life, for without them we would be unable to produce the vast quantities of foods that are now dependent upon such insect life. It is true that they take their toll of the food that they are instrumental in sometimes producing but when one attempts to unravel the mystery of balance of nature one is confronted by the big question of how far to go in the eradication of both animals and insect pests. Before man's interference the wild crops were plentiful and balances were kept in harmony by vast multitudes of frogs and toads, birds and rodents, all of which have been slaughtered and reduced by such amounts as to endanger man's food supply, forcing him to resort to poison sprays and other measures in order to hold destruction in check. All of this expense and trouble he could have avoided if he had been sensible enough to observe the natural checks and foster the natural procedure of which nature is the best guide.
Chapter 12
STORING AND PLANTING SEEDS
Most nut tree seed requires ideal storage conditions to preserve its germinating power or viability. Under natural circumstances, such nuts as black walnuts, English walnuts, butternuts, hickory nuts, pecans, hazelnuts, filberts and almost all other nuts, will be planted by squirrels, mice and other rodents. Although most of these will be eaten by the animals who buried them, a large percentage of the ones which are not eaten will sprout. The sprouts which achieve maturity and bearing age, however, will be only a very small percentage—some say only a fraction of 1%—of the number that sprouted. This is an expensive and wasteful method, horticulturally speaking, but it does indicate that it is best to plant nuts as soon as possible after they have properly ripened and been dried.
After walnuts, hickory nuts, butternuts and hazels have been gathered, they should be dried until the hulls have lost most of their moisture. The husks should be removed from filberts before they are dried. While this preparation is not essential, nuts are less likely to mold if they are dried somewhat before they are planted. However, I have planted freshly-gathered black walnuts and butternuts and most of them sprouted. If nuts are to be stored in large quantities, the drying-out process is absolutely essential and should be carried to the point of completely drying the hulls. The system I followed in doing this is to gather the nuts after they have fallen and spread them out in the sunlight on roofs or floors where air can circulate around them. After the hulls are dry, such nuts as black walnuts, English walnuts and butternuts may be put in barrels or burlap bags and stored in an unheated basement without seriously deteriorating. English walnuts are most safely stored when they are hulled before being packed in burlap bags. These bags should be suspended above the floor of the cellar by a rope or wire. These are additional precautions which allow better circulation of air, further prevention of mold, and safety from mice and squirrels.
Chestnuts, beechnuts and acorns require more care when they are to be stored, for their viability is very sensitive to dryness. I have found that these soft-shelled species of nuts should be treated in a different manner than the walnut and hickory types of seeds if we are to get the most out of their germination. Since chestnuts are very prone to molding or rotting, the best way to maintain their viability and freshness over winter is to stratify them in a can or box between layers of a peat moss. This peat moss must be decidedly on the acid side and must be dampened, but must not be so wet that you can wring any water out of it. The best way to prepare this dry peat moss is to soak it in water and wring as much water out of it as possible by squeezing with your hands. Then mix it with half as much of the undampened peat. This will give you approximately the right moisture coefficient. If stored in cans, the bottom of the can must be punctured with a few holes about 1/4 of an inch in diameter, well distributed on the bottom to act as a drain and to admit some slight circulation of air. The same thing should be done with the cover.
First, put down an even layer about 1-1/2 inches of this dampened moss, then put in a layer of chestnuts or other nuts to be stratified, placed evenly or well distributed but not touching each other. After the first layer, carefully sift in more dampened moss about 1 inch thick and repeat the process until either the can is full or all the seeds have been stored. The last layer should be a 2-inch layer of peat moss before the cover is placed on. Now the important thing about all this is to place this can in a storage room of low temperature and yet it should not freeze solid. But in a temperature of from 32 to 40 degrees is ideal and preferably it should be on the ground floor so as to maintain the moisture that is already stored in the seed and the moss. A mechanical refrigerator which would constantly dehydrate might eventually dry them out too much for good germination; otherwise such a refrigerator would be ideal for the storage of small amount of seeds of this kind.
It would be well from time to time to inspect these seeds to see whether they were in good condition and check the temperatures as well. If they start to sprout all the better; they can then be planted with the sprout downward and the nut barely covered with earth. Some years I have had sprouts nearly six inches long on my chestnuts which had been so stored and care will have to be taken not to break the sprout when transplanting the nuts.
In planting nuts, great care must be taken not to plant them too deeply. Large nuts, such as black walnuts, butternuts and English walnuts, are often planted with a small part of the nut still exposed. Certainly, the depth of the soil over a nut should never exceed the thickness of the nut. Most seeds develop best when they are planted just under the surface of the soil. The earth should be lightly tamped around the planted seeds to eliminate air-pockets. A thin coating of manure, not more than three inches deep, is valuable if large seeds are planted but it is detrimental to the development of small seeds and manure should never be used for evergreens. Seeds of the nut pines, usually purchased from seedsmen and received in a dry state, should be planted no deeper than their own diameter in a light, sandy loam. A seed bed, incidentally, is a very necessary protection against rodents in the case of nut pine seed. I have used a mixture of bone meal on such seeds with good results. Four quarts of bone meal carefully worked into the first two or three inches of the surface soil of a 4 x 12 seed bed greatly increases its fertility. Sifted hardwood ashes scattered over the bed after the seed is in, will discourage cutworms and increase the potash content of the soil.
Proper drying and storage are of no use if nuts are not planted where they will have protection against rodents, improper drainage, and other hazards. To keep them from being eaten by rodents, nut seeds should be planted under wire screens inside a deep frame. The seed beds I have made for use in my nursery are four feet wide and twelve feet long. By using heavy galvanized hardware cloth 2 x 2 mesh, which means that it has 1/2-inch square holes, is ideal for the top and sides of this frame. By using this wire cloth 2 feet wide, 18 inches is sunk under the ground surface, and only 6 inches protrudes above. This is to prevent burrowing rodents from going underneath and extracting the seeds which you will find they will do unless the screen protection goes down deep enough into the ground to discourage them. A stout frame of rot-resisting wood, such as cedar or fir should be placed on the inside of this countersunk screen. This should also be 4 feet wide, 12 feet long so that a similar frame, which is removable, can be placed over this. The edges of the frame should match perfectly so that no rodents can reach the interior of the seed bed without going down 1-1/2 feet under ground to burrow under the countersunk screen. Several thousand evergreens or several hundred walnut trees can be raised in a seed bed this size.
The soil is now removed from the inside of this enclosure or stationary part of the bed to the depth of 6 inches so that the plants will have head room to develop leaves and stems and still be protected under the top or removable frame part. The top frame made of the same material and covered also by the 2 x 2 hardware cloth should be about 6 inches in height so that there will actually be 18 inches of head room for the plants to grow in before touching the screen.
There are several important points to remember in starting a seed bed. It must be in a well-drained site, so that the seeds will not be under water or water-logged for any length of time. It should be in an open place where sunlight is plentiful, unless evergreens are being grown. Evergreens must be in half-shade the first season to avoid a condition known as "damping off." The top six inches of soil in the bed should be the best garden soil obtainable, the growth resulting from using good, clean soil, free from weed seeds, being worth the trouble of preparing it. By having the bed in two parts, with a cover that may be taken off, proper weeding can be done when necessary. The cover should always be replaced afterward, though, as rodents will sometimes attack the young shoots and the remainder of the seed kernel.
In the spring of the second season of growth, the young plants may be dug up and lined out in nursery rows. After two or three years more, they may be planted in permanent locations.
Chapter 13
TREE PLANTING METHODS
Since nut trees usually have deep, well-developed root systems of the taproot type, they are more difficult to transplant than such trees as plum, apple, elm or maple which have many small fibrous roots. Taproots have a long, main trunk like a parsnip, from which lateral roots branch. These roots are heavy and may extend deep into the ground even in trees only two or three years old. In moving such a tree, the lower part of the central taproot must, of course, be cut off, but as many of the side roots as possible are retained. Because such roots have no fibrous or hair-root system, their handling during transplantation necessarily differs from that of the ordinary shade or fruit tree.
If trees having a taproot system, such as the English walnut, black walnut, butternut, hickory or pecan, are received with bare roots, they should be treated in the following way: Immediately after the trees have been unpacked, their roots should be submerged in a barrel of water for several hours. After their thirst has been quenched, the roots should be dipped into a mixture of clay and water made to the consistency of thick paint. With a heavy coating of wet clay around them, the roots may then be wrapped in wet burlap sacks. They are now ready to be transported to their planting site. |
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