Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting Part 8

The next paper, by Mr. J. F. Wilkinson of Rockport, Indiana, "Observations and Experiences with the Persian Walnut in Southern Indiana." Mr. Wilkinson.

(Paper not available for this Report.)

DR. MacDANIELS: We have a choice of doing several different things.

There are several other papers we have here, the authors of which are not present. Then the other possibility would be to go on and have some papers that require the use of the lantern, as long as we have this all fixed up.

Perhaps the thing to do is to have Dr. Anthony's paper on chestnuts, using the lantern, and then have these other papers on the Persian walnut summarized after that. Does that seem to be a reasonable thing to do?

(Chorus of yeses.)

DR. MacDANIELS: We will go ahead on that basis, then. Dr. Anthony has the talk on chestnuts.

(This talk, withdrawn for revision, may appear in next Report.)

MR. CORSAN: Dr. Anthony, I knew Captain Sober very well, and he showed me quite a group--a double handful--of Korean sweet chestnuts. They were a little thicker than the native Pennsylvania chestnut, they are rounder and a little larger, but they weren't as large as some of the Chinese or nearly as large as the j.a.panese. What about those nuts, because, you see, the blight killed all his Paragon chestnuts--you know, the cross between the European and the American chestnuts--killed them all off completely, as it did with me.

DR. ANTHONY: In our detective work we were instructed to follow down that plantation. Mrs. Sober is still alive, living in Lewisburg. The planting has practically disappeared. I am going over there next week.

It is still with the man who wrote "Chestnut Culture in Pennsylvania."

MR. CORSAN: It broke his heart.

DR. ANTHONY: We are going over there next week, but I think that whole planting has disappeared. When these things change hands, another man comes in who is not interested, and things disappear very rapidly.

(Continue with paper.)

MR. CORSAN: I want to tell you how to keep the deer out of the chestnut orchard. Plant filberts five feet apart all around the place, and after while just put one single electrified wire five feet from the ground, and the deer won't get in through that.

DR. ANTHONY: Glad to hear that, because deer is one of our problems.

(Continue with paper.)

DR. ANTHONY: There is a tree beside the blacksmith shop, and the old man used to go there early in the morning as a boy to get chestnuts. Today he has taken down the old blacksmith shop and built a home, but he preserved that tree in Linglestown. It practically covers his house, six feet six inches in trunk circ.u.mference, 60 feet high and a spread of 60 feet. It isn't too long before we will have chestnuts that big to eat alongside the old blacksmith shop.

DR. MacDANIELS. It is about three o'clock. We will take a five-minute recess.

(Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)

DR. MacDANIELS: For the first paper after the recess, we will call on Sargent Wellman to speak to us about the Persian walnuts in England. Mr.

Wellman.

Notes on Persian Walnuts in England

SARGENT WELLMAN, Topsfield, Ma.s.sachusetts

MR. WELLMAN: Members of the a.s.sociation: I was fortunate enough to be in England last summer, and I agreed that I would say a few words about nut growing there. What I am really going to do is largely to read you a few things from some articles that I found there.

I was very much impressed with the little interest that there is in nut growing in England, and I was very much surprised at it. Of course, you all know that the walnut grows there. The chestnut grows there. There are some fine, marvelous trees in Kew Gardens, of course, that I saw, and if you read the English poets, you will remember how they talk about chestnut blossoms on chestnut trees, but curiously enough, there is now very little interest.

MR. McDANIEL. When they speak of the blossom, they speak of the horsechestnut, do they not?

MR. WELLMAN: Not always, but there are pink flowered horsechestnuts in France, particularly, whole avenues of pink ones. The cob nut, as they call the filbert, is very common there, grown in hedges. One year when I was in England previously I brought home a few in my pocket, and I have a seedling which grew from one of those, which is comparable to the filberts I have, but apparently there is no interest in that, so far as I can see--I mean, any investigation and any experimentation and encouragement of its planting. But there is about the walnut. That's the one nut tree in which they are interested.

I picked up two reports, both of them made by Elizabeth M. Glenn, who is the woman connected with the East Malling Station down in Kent and is the one person who is doing more with walnut work than anybody else, as far as I could find out. Unfortunately, the day I was there she was on vacation, so I couldn't see her, but they were very kind to me and took me around and showed me everything.

As you know, the East Malling Station is the place where they have done all that work with apple root stocks. This one is a reprint from the annual report for the East Malling Station for 1946. And then "The Men of the Trees," which is a forestry society there which some of you may have heard of, have reprinted in the Autumn, 1949, number another article by Elizabeth Glenn on "The Selection and Propagation of Walnuts." And I think if I make a few comments and read a few things from these, you will be interested.

She says, "The earliest record of a walnut tree in England is 1562, but remains of walnut sh.e.l.ls have been found in Roman villas, and it is probable that the Romans planted some nuts and raised trees in this country."

She says, "There is a large tree of it"--black walnut--"at Kew, near the entrance to the Rock Garden." Of course there are some rootstocks, and they are all specimen trees, but they are not used for nuts. She says somewhere here, "In this country the nuts are of little value, although in America they are used for confectionery purposes."

The East Malling Station is really a fruit research station, as I said, and they are the ones who are primarily interested in walnut crops and not timber production. "However, there is no reason why a tree shouldn't produce both good crops and good timber."

"The French, have been grafting walnuts for well over 100 years, and the famous Gren.o.ble nuts all come from grafted trees of named varieties."

She emphasizes the fact that almost all of the English walnuts are grown on seedling trees and are very much inferior to those that come from the Continent and from this country. And of course that was the purpose of their work, to encourage the use of grafted trees.

I was interested in this sentence: "The late Mr. Howard Spence began the survey and collection of good varieties growing in this country and abroad, and collaborated with East Malling in the trial of selected varieties." He was always interested in our society and was an honorary member of it for a good many years prior to his death.

I was interested in the fact that the problems that they have over there in the way of climate and some other things are very similar to our problems. She speaks a good deal about the matter of climate. I will come to that as I go along.

"Work on walnuts, started at East Malling in 1925, soon showed that the budding or grafting of walnuts out of doors was far too chancy in this climate to be relied upon as a means of raising young trees," so that all their grafting is done in the greenhouse, and they don't try to do anything outdoors.

"Outdoor grafting can be done successfully only where the mean temperature from May to September is above 65 F." Then she gives a description of the greenhouse grafting, bringing in the seedlings and potting them in November, in the fall, and then starting along in February in grafting, and then taking them out and planting them in the spring. I won't go into that; there is nothing particularly interesting I think, for us about that.

Patch budding she also describes.... She says it's a much cheaper method than grafting under gla.s.s but at the moment the results are far less reliable.

"The walnut will tolerate a wide range of soils so long as the drainage is good and the soil is not too acid. Lime should be applied before planting, unless there is plenty present in the soil.

"The site should not be in a valley or frost hole, because, although the dormant tree is quite hardy and can stand severe frost, the young growths and catkins are very easily killed by spring frosts." They are talking about the same problem we have. In fact, in spite of the fact that the weather is warmer than in Boston and New England, they don't have the severe winters, but they do have this late frost.

Manuring. They recommend mulching with farmyard manure or compost put on the soil and worked in and no artificial nitrogen because that again gives too much late growth, and you have trouble with killing back.

She goes over the problems that we have been talking about this afternoon, about the time of leafing out in the spring and what the difference in the varieties is and the effects of that on the winter killing.

Now, I am not going to read much more. I will just read over the names of the varieties which may interest you. This first article, the 1946 one, lists Franquette, Mayette, Meylanaise, Chaberte, Excelsior of Taynton, Northdown, Clawnut, and Secrett. The latter article, which was published last year, says that in 1929, with the help of Dr. Taylor, the Royal Horticultural Society held a walnut compet.i.tion. "Over 700 entries were received and were subjected to severe tests. Most of the nuts were far below the required standards, but five Were selected for propagation and further tests. The owners of the trees from which these nuts came supplied scion wood to raise grafted trees for trial at East Malling."

The best ones came from a tree which they called "Champion of Ixworth."

The second one was called "Excelsior of Taynton," which was in the list I read previously. Another variety is called "Lady Irene." I am not going into the description of these varieties here, because if any of you are interested, you can get hold of these publications and get it.

She lists the Stutton seedling and then the Northdown Clawnut.

Also in this article she mentions the French varieties, of course, which were mentioned before.

Well, I thought it might just interest you that in another part of the world they are doing the same sort of thing we are, and they are having the same sort of problems and working on it. (Applause.)

DR. MacDANIELS: Several of these papers which were scheduled will be either summarized or read. One of them will be read now by Mr. Silvis of Ohio. The paper is by Carl Weschcke.