Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting Part 11

8. Kernel Color: _Light tan_ Quality: _Good, desirable taste_ Average Wt. Per Nut: 6.4 _gm._

9. Percent Kernel: 54.5%

10. Remarks:

_Fairly large, well filled, attractive shape and size with a thin sh.e.l.l.

This seedling placed first at the Indiana State Fair and the State Nut Show, 1949. Tree medium in size, planted as one year seedling in 1939.

This tree bore 24 pounds of cured nuts in 1949 and has been in good production for 7 years. (Carpathian strain.)_

The descriptions given of the two Fateley trees are typical of some of the forty seedlings coming from various parts of Indiana, as shown in the following list.

The distribution of the Persian walnut to the public depends on the ability of the nurserymen to propagate and list the available varieties or unnamed seedlings. There is a great demand and a wonderful opportunity for the hardy Persian walnuts all over the Middle West or where apples will produce, not only for the nutritious fruits but for the ornamental value and for something different.

Indiana Counties with Carpathian Walnuts Under Observation and Test

(North to South and West to East on Map)

Northern

Porter (on Lake Michigan) Elkhart (adjoins Michigan) La Grange (adjoins Michigan) Kosciusko Whitley Allen (adjoins Ohio) Miami (Peru here) Wells

Central

Tippecanoe (Lafayette here) Carroll Howard Grant Delaware Henry Wayne (adjoins Ohio) Marion (Indianapolis here) Rush Johnson (Franklin here)

_Southern_

Greene (Linton here) Monroe (Bloomington here) Brown Gibson (adjoins Illinois) Pike Posey (adjoins Illinois and Kentucky) Vanderburg (Evansville here) Warrick Spencer (Rockport here) Harrison (Last 5 counties are on Ohio river, opposite Kentucky.)

DR. MacDANIELS: Is Mr. I. W. Short of Taunton, Ma.s.sachusetts here, or does he have his paper here?

MR. McDANIEL: I haven't received it.

There is a paper here, however, "Notes on Nut Growing in New Hamps.h.i.+re,"

by Matthew Lahti of Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts. Mr. Wellman.

MR. WELLMAN: This is very short. It is just a report of bad winters in New Hamps.h.i.+re. Mr. Lahti I knew in Boston. His farm is in Wolfeboro, New Hamps.h.i.+re, about 75 or a hundred miles north of Boston.

Notes on Nut Growing in New Hamps.h.i.+re

MATTHEW LAHTI, Wolfeboro, New Hamps.h.i.+re

I will bring up to date my experience on nut growing in Wolfeboro, N.

H., and supplement my reports for the years 1947 and 1948.

We had late frosts this spring, so that there is not a peach on any of my peach trees this year. This may also account for the fact that there are no black walnuts either on the Tasterite, the wood of which has withstood the winters very well, or on the Thomas. The Thomas black walnut which I reported in 1948 as having suffered no winter injury the previous winter, apparently did suffer considerable damage, which became evident later. It has borne no nuts since, and there is a lot of dead wood this year and the leaves are sickly looking. I am afraid that the tree is going to die.

The filberts, Medium Long, Red Lambert, and No. 128 Rush x Barcelona, which started to bear in 1947, have since then borne a few nuts each year, but the crop is not heavy enough to recommend them for planting in our climate. While the wood suffers no winter injury, the catkins for the most part get winter killed and, consequently, there is a very spa.r.s.e crop. What is needed for northern lat.i.tudes is a filbert that will ripen in our fairly short growing season, and whose catkins are immune to winter kill. The Winkler seems to be more hardy than the others, but the nuts do not ripen. This year even the Winkler catkins were killed, although the catkins of a wild hazel growing nearby were not.

I have two Crath Persian walnuts planted in 1938 which are the survivors of perhaps a dozen seedlings. These two trees have shown no injury. One is bearing seven nuts this year for the first time, and the other one, bearing for the second year, has 80 nuts on it at the present time. Last year the squirrels got all the nuts so that I could not evaluate them, but I will take precautions to save some this year.

The Broadview Persian walnut has thirty nuts on it this year, but the wood of the Broadview definitely is not hardy in our climate.

Summing up my experience with the various nut trees as previously reported, I would say that our climate is not suited for commercial nut growing, but for home use named varieties of b.u.t.ternuts and hickories that crack out easily and possibly one or two of the Crath walnuts should give satisfactory results. My chief difficulty with hickories has been the poor union at the graft, resulting in slow starvation and death in a few years. I have only three left out of approximately 25 trees that I have planted.

MR. CORSAN: A professor from the University of New Hamps.h.i.+re wrote to me that they were very much interested in planting a nut arboretum. Does anybody know what result came of it? I sent them some hybrids of the j.a.panese heartnut (female blossom) crossed with our native b.u.t.ternut (male blossom).

DR. MacDANIELS: I guess they are somewhat interested. They have very little possibility of growing very much except the b.u.t.ternuts, and sometimes hybrid filberts.

MR. WELLMAN: I have a friend who is up a little farther north than that, in Woodsville, and they have been urging him to set out filberts for wildlife food there, and he has shown me some of those that he has started. It's been quite a movement up there. I don't know how wide. He has about a hundred seedlings that are used for propagation by the state.

Is the Farmer Missing Something?

JOHN DAVIDSON, Xenia, Ohio

(Read by t.i.tle)

The farmer is a specialist; a producer of edible crops. Like any other specialist, his thinking tends to be channeled along the lines of his specialty, to the exclusion of other lines.

For example, the average farmer probably knows little and cares less about teleology, metaphysics, or, let us say, forestry. He is a farmer.

He makes his living by raising crops. And yet, a better knowledge and practice of forestry will not only make him a better farmer wherever he is located but, in certain locations, this knowledge and practice is absolutely essential to his continued existence.

In a recent decision of the U. S. Supreme Court upholding a decision made by the Supreme Court of the State of Was.h.i.+ngton, a principle has been approved which may have a profound influence upon our future well-being. It affirmed the const.i.tutionality of a Was.h.i.+ngton State law which requires the owners of land used for commercial logging to provide for its reforestation.

Such a law is novel indeed. What? May private owners of the earth's resources not use or destroy them as they see fit? The court, in effect, says they have no such right. In the court's own words, the "inviolate compact between the dead, the living, and the unborn requires that we leave to the unborn something more than debts and depleted natural resources. Surely, where natural resources can be utilized, _and at the same time perpetuated_ for future generations, what has been called 'const.i.tutional morality' requires that we do so."

The New York Times, in commenting upon this revolutionary but perfectly sane decision, says: "Time is truly running short; the annual cut of saw-timber, with natural losses, is 50% greater than annual growth....

If the individual forestland owner is too lazy, short-sighted, or indifferent to act, the Federal Government will have to enter the picture."

It is a complex picture. The American farm owner is, by every implication, also involved along with the forestland owner. He, too, has a duty to the unborn, but it is an opportunity as well as a duty. It is only because of what J. Russell Smith calls his insane obstinacy, that the average farmer is now operating a one-story agriculture in place of a two-story agriculture. If he were thinking and doing more about his debt to the unborn, he would also be serving himself better.

I am convinced that the farmer is the key man in forest husbandry. And the best way to interest him in tree planting is through his specialty--through _crop_ production. A _two-story_ agriculture! Tree crops along with other crops!

The farmers' education along this line has been very inadequate. We have been very stupid. Can we never learn to begin, as. .h.i.tler began--as the Russians are even now beginning--with the nation's children?

Perhaps we are learning a little. It is heartening to know that school and community forests are fast increasing in number, notably in New England. When fully used and well managed, they can work a revolution in the thinking of the young people who are so fortunate as to have some of their schooling out in the open. These future American leaders are learning at first hand through the ways of the woods how to make the work of their hands live far beyond the span of their lives.