DR. ROBERT T. MORRIS, NEW YORK
According to Sargent the chinquapin (Castanea pumila) occupies dry
sandy ridges, rich hillsides and the borders of swamps from southern
Pennsylvania to northern Florida and the valley of the Neches River in
Texas. He states that this chestnut is usually shrubby in the region
east of the Alleghany Mountains, and assuming the tree form west of the
Mississippi River. Most abundant and of largest size in southern
Arkansas and eastern Texas.
Curiously enough there are chinquapins also in northeastern Asia which
occur as understudies of the larger chestnuts, very much as they do in
America.
The indigenous range of the chinquapin in America is limited northward
by a plan of nature for checking distribution of the species. This plan
is manifested in a habit which the nuts have of sprouting immediately
upon falling in the early autumn. They proceed busily to make a tap root
which may become several inches in length before frost calls a halt. In
the north where the warm season is not long enough to allow the autumn
sprout to lignify sufficiently for bearing the rigors of winter it is
killed. If we protect the small autumn plants, or if we transplant older
seedlings from their natural habitat, they may be grown easily far north
of their indigenous range. Thrifty chinquapins are happy in the Arnold
Arboretum at Jamaica Plain in Massachusetts, and no one knows but they
might be cultivated in Nova Scotia and Minnesota.
The American chinquapin is one of the many beautiful and valuable plants
which have not as yet been taken up by horticulturists for extensive
development. It promises to become one of our important sources of food
supply for tomorrow. If we were to develop all of our plant resources at
once it would be an unkindness to the horticulturists of two thousand
years from now, who would be left moping around with nothing to do.
Chinquapin nuts borne in heavy profusion by the plants are delicious in
quality, but usually too small to attract customers aside from the wood
folk. The wood of the chinquapin of tree form (C. pumila var.
arboriformis) is valuable for purposes to which wood of the common
American chestnut is put, and some of the tree chinquapins acquire an
earned increment of two or three feet diameter of trunk, and a height of
more than fifty feet. The bush chinquapin on the other hand feels rather
exclusive when attaining a height of as much as fifteen feet.
I present for inspection a freshly cut branch from an ordinary bush
chinquapin, loaded with burs, indicating the prolific nature of the
variety. The nuts in this particular specimen are small. The next branch
exhibited is from a similar bush, but with nuts quite as large as those
of the average common chestnut. The horticulturist has only to graft or
bud his ordinary run of chinquapin stocks from some one bush which bears
large nuts, and he will then have a valuable graded market product. The
larger the nut the less prolific the plant is a rule which holds good
with the fruiting of almost any plant.
Look at this branch from a tree chinquapin. It is not remarkable in any
way, but the leaves seem to be a little larger than those of the bush
chinquapin. My tree chinquapins came from Stark's nursery in Missouri.
The first two which came into bearing had nuts quite as large as those
of the common chestnut and I imagined that a discovery of value had been
made, but other trees of this variety later bore very small nuts, and
all of the tree chinquapin nuts, large and small, were much duller in
color than those of the bush chinquapin. My final conclusion is that so
far as nuts alone are concerned we may plant and cultivate either the
tree variety or the bush variety of the species and then bud or graft
any number of stocks from some one plant which bears the best product.
DR. AUGUSTUS STABLER: Is it a somewhat finer grained wood than the
ordinary chestnut?
DR. MORRIS: I think it is. All the chestnuts have rather coarse wood. It
is strong, hard, durable, and valuable. This chinquapin wood is somewhat
coarse grained, but, for comparison with the American chestnut, I don't
know. I imagine it is finer grained.
DR. AUGUSTUS STABLER: I know that the chinquapin wood is very much
tougher than the American chestnut.
DR. MORRIS: Oh, yes. You cannot break the branches so easily.
Here is a branch from a hybrid between a chinquapin and a common
American chestnut (Castanea dentata). The leaves and bark, you will
observe, are very much like those of the larger parent. The burs are
borne singly or in small groups like those of the common chestnut,
instead of being crowded in dense clusters like chinquapin burs. There
are two or three nuts to the bur, while the chinquapin has normally, but
one nut to the bur. This particular hybrid tree showed an interesting
peculiarity. During the first two seasons of bearing it had but one nut
to the bur, and this was of chinquapin character. In the third year its
nuts were still borne singly, but they were lighter in color than before
and oddly corrugated at the base. As the tree became older its chestnut
parentage influence pre-dominated, and the tree began to bear two or
three nuts to the bur, and more like chestnuts in character, becoming
smooth again at the base.
I have a number of hybrids between chinquapins and various species and
varieties of other chestnuts, but none of these as yet has produced nuts
of marked value. There seems to be a tendency for the coarseness of the
larger nuts to prevail in the hybrids, a certain loss of gentility
beneath a showy exterior.
The next branch which I present for inspection is from a most beautiful
member of the chestnut family, the alder-leaved chestnut (Castanea
alnifolia). It is classed among the chinquapins in Georgia where the
plant is nearly if not quite evergreen. At Stamford it is deciduous very
late in the autumn, but sometimes a green leaf will be found in
February, where snow or dead leaves on the ground have furnished a
protecting covering. The notable value of this species is perhaps in its
decorative character for lawns, although the nuts are first rate. The
dark green brilliant leaves are striking in appearance, and the shrub is
inclined toward a trailing habit, much like that of some of the
junipers. This species is one of my pets at Merribrooke, and a perennial
source of wonder that nurserymen have not as yet pounced upon it for
purposes of exaggeration and misstatement in their annual catalogues.
All of these specimens shown today are from my country place at
Stamford, Connecticut, where the mercury in the thermometer leads one to
make quotations relating to the Eve of Saint Agnes; five or ten degrees
below the zero of Fahrenheit occasionally, and once down to twenty
degrees below without injury to any kind of chestnut so far as I could
observe.
I cannot make an exhibit of the golden-leaved chinquapin, from the
Pacific slope, because tragedy came to all of my little trees of this
species, and like most of the Pacific slope plants they are not very
joyous in the east. One lot lived through one winter at Merribrooke, but
they were the first green things that my cows saw in the springtime, and
further comment would be surplus. A single specimen took courage in its
root and grew finely until autumn, but it was near a path and somebody
pulled it up and left it lying stark naked on the ground. Botanists have
recently made two species of the golden-leaved chinquapin, one of the
species attaining a height of more than one hundred feet. If
horticulturists will secure specimens of Castanopsis chrysophilla from
the region of Mount Shasta in California I presume that this beautiful
evergreen chinquapin may be taught to grow in some of our gardens. It is
cultivated in the gardens of temperate Europe. In our north it should be
planted close to a running brook, where the roots of young trees can
carry water in plenty to the evergreen top while the ground is frozen
hard in winter.
Our common chinquapin of the east is perhaps the one that will be
cultivated most profitably in the region between the Rocky Mountains
and the Atlantic coast. The beauty of freshly picked bush chinquapin
nuts is not rivalled by that of any other kind of nut that I have ever
seen. The exquisitely polished mahogany color comes out of a light downy
cloud near the apex of the nut, dark as midnight for a moment and then
shading through glows of lively chestnut until it dawns in a dreamy
cream color at the base, with just enough suggestion of green to temper
the reds.
If any gourmet with a color soul could serve each one of his friends to
a plate of twenty freshly picked bush chinquapins along with two Bennett
persimmons, and all resting upon late September leaves of tupelo or of
sweet gum the friends would remain and live at his expense while the
combination lasted.
Furthermore, the children must always be taken into consideration along
with chinquapin questions. According to authorities on the subject of
decadence, we do not care very much about the children in these days. If
some old-fashioned folks still remain, and if these old-fashioned folks
do not take any particular personal interest in the beautiful garden and
lawn trees that America has held out towards us in the chinquapins, they
may at least plant a few of them because of the social standing that
will follow. How so? Well, you see, it's because the parents of elite
children will run over for a little visit in order to find out why the
children do not come home. Then again, we are kind to dumb animals when
raising chinquapins. Squirrels and white-footed mice, crows and blue
jays are full of enthusiasm for the nuts, and they will assume the
responsibility of gathering the crop if the matter is left in their
charge.
This is really a funny country; something of a joke of a country when
you come to think of it. Instead of setting out trees that will become
both useful and beautiful, in accordance with the old Greek ideal of
combining beauty and utility we set out Norway spruces that will make
people hate evergreens in general. We set out poplars and all sorts of
bunches of leaves in our parks and along the highways, instead of trees
still more beautiful that would yield tons of coupon dollars every
autumn. De gustibus non est disputandum!
When experimenting with hybridization of chinquapins, I ran across a
phenomenon of new interest to botanists, and quite accidentally. A
number of clusters of pistillate flowers of the bush chinquapin had been
covered with paper bags, but not pollenized because of a shortage of
pollen. An active man with a good sense of neatness and order would have
removed those bags merely for the sake of appearance, but I was lazy
and allowed the bags to remain for two or three weeks. When they were
finally removed, it was found that the branches had set quite full of
fruit, although not so full as other branches that had been pollenized
from oaks. We were evidently dealing with an instance of
parthenogenesis. The flowers that had received oak pollen did not show
any oak parentage later in their progeny, and it was observed in other
experiments in other years that almost any cupuliferous pollen would
start cells of the chinquapin ovary into division and into the
development of fertile nuts, but without inclusion of the pollen cell in
a gamete. For purposes of convenience in thinking I have temporarily
called this phenomenon "stereochemic parthenogenesis." Apparently the
propinquity of foreign pollen serves to stimulate a female cell into
division, although the pollen cell retains fixed molecular identity, and
does not fuse with the female cell. I need not bring up abstruse
questions of chromatin or of subatomic influence here.
At Stamford the bush chinquapins begin to blossom regularly about the
twelfth of June, irrespective of weather conditions. The tree
chinquapins blossom a little later, but the alder-leaved chestnut may
not blossom until July, later than the common American chestnut. The
bush chinquapins begin to open their burs very regularly about the
fifteenth of September; earlier than any other chestnuts. They bear at
an early age, sometimes in their fifth summer.
Grafting and budding is easily done among all of the chestnuts as a
rule, and this year I employed for the first time a large chinquapin
bush for top-working with the choice Merribrooke variety of the common
chestnut. Every one of the grafts caught, and some of them have grown
tremendously. This introduces an interesting question. May we graft the
common American chestnut upon bush chinquapin stocks and secure
precocious bearing? In that case we shall have trees like the dwarf
apple and pear trees that are readily pruned and sprayed.
The chinquapin is practically immune to the blight (Endothia
parasitica.) Easily blighting varieties of choice American chestnuts
may be grafted upon these blight resistant stocks in orchard form if my
experiment proves to be a success. It will not lessen the vulnerability
of the American chestnut, but dwarf trees will be within reach of the
horticulturist's pruning knife and spray outfit. Orchards of fine
varieties of the common chestnut may perhaps be maintained in this way
until the present epidemic of Endothia has expended its protoplasmic
energy, or until it has succumbed to microbic parasites of its own.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there any questions to put to Dr. Morris?
THE SECRETARY: I venture to say that a good many people have tried, in
the north, to raise the chinquapin, and I would like to have Dr. Morris
tell us what to do to get it to grow best, whether to buy the trees from
the nurserymen, or to plant the nuts, and just how to do it.
PROF. C. P. CLOSE: I would like to ask Dr. Morris about those
chinquapins that set without the application of pollen, whether they
fill well and whether they sprout at planting?
MR. LITTLEPAGE: With us out in Maryland it isn't a question of producing
the chinquapin; we cut the bushes down every year by the thousands; we
have nothing at all against it, but we have found that the weevil has
been absolutely unsurmountable with us. It is the only discouraging
thing about it in this part of the country. Around Washington the
chinquapin is a weed tree, and if you gather a peck of chinquapins you
will find that the whole peck, in two weeks, have turned to weevils.
Perhaps Dr. Morris can tell us what to do about that, and put us on the
road to success.
THE PRESIDENT: I should like to ask Dr. Morris two questions, first, as
to the possibility of utilizing the western tree chinquapins as stocks
for the larger eastern chinquapins with nuts of chestnut size. Is there
a possibility thus of getting a larger tree?
The second question is akin to that—utilization of the western tree as
a stock for a hybrid chinquapin which might have arboreal possibilities
and enough chinquapin qualities to be blight-resistant.
DR. STABLER: I am very much interested in Dr. Morris' proposition to
produce dwarf chestnut trees by grafting on chinquapin stocks. Now, the
difficulty I would expect to encounter is the same as when pecans are
grafted on hickory, and when sweet cherries are grafted on Mahaleb,
namely, that the root is not sufficiently vigorous to support the top.
The fact that his grafts grew so tremendously when put on the chinquapin
roots would look as though that might occur.
THE PRESIDENT: The audience seems to have run out of questions.
DR. MORRIS: All right, sir. First, how are we to grow chinquapins? Plant
as soon as the nuts have fallen. Put them in a cage. I have wire cages
that are about eight inches high, and about two feet wide and three feet
long. I plant all the nuts there. They have wire mesh tops to keep out
the rodents; that is the important thing. All nuts, I find, are best
planted under conditions which simulate the normal conditions. Our nut
trees are not as yet domesticated. They haven't learned bad habits, and
they depend upon peculiarly favorable conditions of moisture, warmth and
light. You plant a nut two inches below the surface, but nature doesn't
do anything like that. Consequently, that nut is surprised, doesn't know
what to do, and stays down there looking for something to happen. But if
you put that nut so it is about half buried in the sand, so that it is
damp on one side and the sun strikes it on the other side, and the frost
and snow affect it naturally, the nut does just what you want it to do.
It gets out of that uncomfortable condition and begins to grow.
(Laughter.) When planting any nuts, I place them in the sand and leave
one side exposed to light, moisture, frost, and the observation of
visitors. When I have sprouted chinquapins in the north and there is
danger of their not lignifying when the ground begins to freeze, I put a
lot of little sticks upright amongst them, so that my mulch will not
bear too heavily upon the chinquapins, and then cover them with several
inches of oak leaves, or any good, strong leaves that will not pack too
tightly. That mulch of loose leaves will protect the sprouted nuts
perfectly during the winter in Connecticut, so they all start growing in
the next spring.
Another way is to buy chinquapin stocks from any of the nurserymen,
stocks two or three years old, which begin to bear when four or five
years of age.
Professor Close, I think it was, who asked if the nuts were fertile,
both the ones that developed without fertilization by any pollen and the
ones that developed by stereochemic parthenogenesis—by the influence of
neighboring pollen. Both sorts are fertile, and I presume that the
effect of that would be similar to the effect of close inbreeding. In
other words, we would have intensification of characteristics of some
one parent. If you get parthenogenesis through two or three generations
I presume that same peculiar feature of the original parent would become
so intensified as to become a marked feature of the progeny. This offers
a new line of cleavage for horticultural investigation. I am very glad
that you raised that question.
Answering Mr. Littlepage, I have apparently managed to get some crosses
back and forth between chestnuts, and oaks, and beech, this year. I have
a number of those crosses now under way that are apparently good
hybrids.
DR. STABLER: A cross between a chestnut and a beech?
DR. MORRIS: Yes, I think so. You see, I have got to wait a year or so
until the plants develop later characteristics. All of these parent
trees are pretty closely related, you see. The blooming period between
the different ones may be as much as two or three weeks, or three months
apart, in fact. I have cross pollinated hazels and oaks, this year. The
way to do that is to find correspondents at the extreme limit of the
blossoming range of the species, who will send pollen. For instance,
Professor Hume, in Florida, sends me chestnut pollen in time to cross my
oaks, and Professor Conser, of the University of Maine, has some beeches
that blossom in time for me to cross with chinquapins and oak trees.
That is one way to do it.
Another way is to put your pollen in cold storage with some sphagnum
moss, just put a little damp moss in your box with the pollen and put it
in cold storage, and keep it at just about forty, above the freezing
point. Another way is to put branches with dormant flower buds in cold
storage. Hazels, for instance, may be kept for six months in this way.
Put them in water, in the sun, and you soon have flowers furnishing
pollen. I would take up the whole session of two days here if you were
to ask too many questions along that line. (Laughter.)
Mr. Littlepage's question about the weevils. The question may be settled
very easily where there are not many chinquapin trees. That is the case
in Connecticut. Collect all the nuts, and you collect all of the weevil
larvae. Curiously enough, the common chestnut weevil, that had become
very abundant, has disappeared locally with the disappearance of our
American chestnut, and has not attacked our chinquapins. If you have an
orchard of chinquapins and collect all the nuts you will soon dispose of
the weevils. That is the only way that I know of for disposing of the
weevils. Eat them up. (Laughter.) You can pick out the weevil chestnuts
fairly well if you toss all of the nuts into a cup of water and pick
out the ones that float. Pound them up with a mallet and throw them
into the chicken coop.
Dr. Smith asks if the use of the tree chinquapin as a stock for the
American chestnut would give good-sized trees. Undoubtedly, and, besides
that, if it is used for hybridizing purposes, we shall probably find
that we have, now and then, an individual that is very much larger than
the American chestnut or the tree chinquapin. It is a peculiarity of
hybrids to show eccentricities, and many hybrids that occur are very
thrifty and larger than either parent. That is the case with the Royal
walnut that they have said so much about in California. It grows so
rapidly there that even Californians do not dare to tell about it.
(Laughter.)
Another question, the last one—will the effect of using a bush
chinquapin stock for the American chestnut be like that of growing sour
cherries upon stocks which do not carry them well? Now, we have there
what the lawyers call "a question of fact," and we shall have to work
that out. Some tops will exhaust a root. Some tops will grab a root by
the back of the neck and drag it right along. Some tops will adjust
themselves philosophically to almost any sort of unusual conditions, and
go on and bear fruit like true philosophers. We have an instance of that
in the dwarf apple, which is a success. We have an instance of failure
in some of the cherries which exhaust themselves. We have an example of
dragging the smaller stock along when we graft the Royal walnut upon the
common black walnut. The Royal walnut just drags the black walnut along
where it doesn't want to go at all. So there we have three instances of
grafting a foreign visitor upon another stock.
I have taken more than my share of time, Mr. Chairman, but the
discussion has been very interesting, indeed. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: I am going to take the liberty of asking Dr. Morris one
more question, which, perhaps, is of interest to others. In your
experience with the golden-leafed chinquapins, from how far South have
you secured stock, and how far North will the golden-leafed chinquapin
grow?
DR. MORRIS: My specimens I got from a dealer in Portland, Oregon, and
they grew pretty far North. The tree ranges from Oregon and Washington
down through the lower extremities of the Coast range, but we had better
get the northern forms, and there is one man, Carl Purdy, of Ukiah,
California, who has the golden chinquapin for sale.
THE PRESIDENT: The next subject on the programme is the American black
walnut. We have sent to the membership a series of questions about the
black walnut which I will read for the benefit of those who haven't this
programme.
First. What evidence is there to show that the black walnut may become a
valuable nut commercially?
Second. Is quality important with the black walnut, and is there much
difference in the quality of different nuts?
Third. What varieties of black walnut are most promising?
Fourth. Is the Thomas black walnut better than many others that have
been brought to notice?
Fifth. What are the best methods of propagating?
Now, we have no set paper on that subject. I will call on ex-President
Littlepage to make a few sallies concerning the black walnut.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President, the black walnut ought to be the easiest
subject in the world to talk about. It is a question of how much one
ought not to say, however, in a limited time. The pecan tree was my
first love. I shall always stick to the pecan. But if I were called upon
today, to point out to this Association or to any prospective grower who
actually wants to make money raising nuts, and who wants something that
will pay the grocery bill and his sixty or ninety day notes, I think I
should tell them to plant the black walnut. And I don't think, either,
that that is treason, because I think, as we go through with this
programme, the pecan will be properly taken care of.
In the first place, the black walnut is a native tree. I have seen it
growing, too, on the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Dominion of Canada. Most
native trees are immune to fungous and bacterial diseases that destroy
so many trees. The black walnut is a hardy tree, and a fine timber
proposition. In the second place, it is a fast growing tree. I don't
knew just how quickly one could actually produce a black walnut orchard,
but, outside of a few trees, such as the black locust and a number of
others that do not produce nuts, the black walnut is one of the fastest
growers. If you will feed a young walnut tree a small application of
wood ashes and some stable manure it will commonly make a growth of six
or seven feet a year. Therefore, you don't have to wait a long time for
walnut trees to come into bearing.
It is easy to propagate the black walnut. Cleft grafting is one of the
simplest methods in the spring. Dormant wood, cut in February or March
and put in cold storage, and cleft grafted in the spring, ought to give
from sixty to seventy per cent of success. I haven't had experience
budding, but those who have say it is easy. Mr. Roper says it is, but
grafting is easy and simple. The walnut, like other nut trees, must be
propagated by budding or grafting in order to come true. It will not
come true from seed.
Up until a few years ago I seldom saw a whole half of a black walnut.
The ordinary black walnut cracks about like this (showing picture). Here
is a black walnut cracked with two halves, and you can't even see the
kernel. The two upper pictures show very beautiful walnuts, but they
defy you to get out a whole kernel.
Now, then, when you come to a black walnut like this (showing picture),
where you can crack out anywhere from fifty to seventy-five per cent of
whole halves, and many entirely whole kernels, the most important
problem is solved, and the black walnut has come into the competition.
This variety was discovered by Henry Stabler, and I named it after him.
Perhaps one out of every ten of these nuts furnishes a whole, solid,
undivided kernel. The other walnut is the ordinary field walnut that has
little commercial value for the reason that you can't get the kernels
out. It wouldn't make any difference if the nuts grew as big as pumpkins
and a million of them on a tree if you couldn't get the meat out of
them. I suppose no one will question that the black walnut will grow and
bear almost anywhere. It is a weed tree in this part of the country. On
President Smith's farm last year I saw them growing everywhere. They
grow and bear all over the fields. And, as I said, the question of
propagation is rather simple. I think the great trouble we are up
against on the farm in America is labor, and that is because you cannot
afford to pay good labor. You want a superabundance of laborers in the
summer time for two or three months, and expect them to loaf all winter.
The farm proposition isn't a profitable one, very largely because of the
question of labor, and the farmers of this country must produce
something profitable enough to enable them to hire and pay high-grade
labor the year round, or they will go broke. They must raise such crops
as Alfalfa that they can feed to their dairy cattle, and tree crops that
they can use their labor on in the winter time. Nine men are leaving the
farm today for every one going there. If you don't believe it, read the
census statistics. The reason is labor and because you can't afford to
pay it. I don't think there is any profit in selling the black walnut as
a nut, but there will be profit in gathering that nut, storing it, and,
when your farm crops are all in and you are ready to discharge the
labor, put up an ordinary cheap cracking shed and let them crack the
nuts for you, and sell the meats. That solves the question of what to do
with farm labor in the winter time. The walnuts return about ten pounds
of meat to a bushel, and a good cracker ought to crack from four to six
bushels of nuts a day. Suppose you get only twenty-five cents a pound
for the meats and your men crack only three bushels a day, each there is
$7.50 a day coming in from each cracker, and, besides, you have made a
valuable employment for your labor through the winter, and you can
afford to pay them for their work. That is why I say the black walnut
is, to my mind, one of the best commercial propositions.
I don't know how soon you can bring a black walnut orchard into bearing.
Here is a picture of a tree probably seven or eight years old, loaded
with nuts. That is a seedling tree. I should think a budded tree would
bear sooner than that.
I don't know much about walnut varieties. The Rush and Thomas are
excellent nuts. But this Stabler walnut, in my opinion, is in a class by
itself in cracking possibilities. It is simply a cracking proposition
with the black walnut, and that is, to my mind, about all there is to
it. Perhaps, other good varieties will be discovered. Then, suppose we
find, after a while, an English walnut much better and more profitable
than we have at present, and one that is blight resistant. If you have
an orchard of black walnuts you have an ideal stock to top-work to
English. I will show you one on my farm with a larger top than I cut off
grown in two summers, and it set some nuts last spring. So, if you want
a foundation for an English walnut orchard, you can't make any mistake
in planting the budded or grafted varieties of these black walnuts.
The black walnut is a beautiful roadside tree. There are different
types, the same as with the pecan tree. Here is a picture of curly black
walnut wood. The logs were cut from a tree in Kentucky. It took three
wagons to haul this one tree to market, and it brought thirty-five
hundred dollars.
THE PRESIDENT: I wish to present Mr. Stabler as the original propagator
of the tree that bears his name. The nuts of the Stabler black walnut
have been pronounced by a good many authorities as the best variety thus
far discovered.
MR. HENRY STABLER: Dr. Smith has just introduced me as the discoverer of
this walnut. This is hardly fair to Mr. Littlepage, who first introduced
and, probably, first propagated this walnut. It was discovered by my
grandfather a little over forty years ago. Nothing was done with it at
that time for the reason that nothing could be done, but I was not the
first one to get the idea of propagating it, because my father, who is
here today, attempted to graft these walnuts, and every cion failed.
It seems to me that Mr. Littlepage strikes the key-note in his article
in The Country Gentleman last spring when he says that:
"Through the efforts of the Northern Nut Growers' Association there was
recently discovered a black walnut tree in Howard County, Maryland,
producing nuts that crack out seventy-five to eighty per cent of whole
halves. The meat of this variety, the Stabler, weighs forty-seven per
cent of the whole nut."
That's it, gentlemen. I did not discover this walnut, and without the
organization of the Northern Nut Growers' Association I could not have
done any more with it than my grandfather was able to do forty years
ago, but, as it was, we just took up several samples and the Northern
Nut Growers did the rest. The walnut has been attracting more and more
attention ever since.
Considering the black walnut as timber, here is a picture of a black
walnut log, published in Farmers' Bulletin No. 715, of the Department of
Agriculture. The original owner, a farmer, sold the whole tree,
standing, for fifty dollars; the buyer felled it at a cost of fifteen
dollars, and sold it there for $138.26. It was resold, without being
removed, for $164.84, and later sold (the last price is not published)
to a large sewing machine factory, but it certainly brought more than
that last price which is printed, of $164.84. We occasionally hear of
prices of $100 or so being paid for black walnut trees on the stump. The
reason we don't hear of such prices being paid more frequently is
because the farmer in not more than one case out of twenty gets real
value for his black walnut trees. There is a very highly organized and
efficient system in the United States of gathering up the black walnut
trees which are large enough to use for furniture and other purposes and
paying for them as little as possible; but they make a practice of
getting them even if they do have to pay more. There was a man living
not so far from where I live, up in our country, who had a very fine
black walnut tree standing in his yard. One day a man came around and
entered into conversation with him, and said, "Mr. Harder, what will you
take for that tree in your yard?" "It isn't for sale," said Mr. Harder.
"Well," said the man, "I'll give you a hundred dollars for it." Mr.
Harder merely shook his head. The buyer dickered along a little bit more
and after a while said, "I'll tell you what I'll do; I'll give you $150
for that tree." Mr. Harder said "If you don't get off this place, sir,
immediately, I'll shoot you."
I am prepared to say that if you are going to plant trees for timber
there is no other tree which will give such a yield as the black walnut,
with the exception of the catalpa, and, perhaps, the black locust. It is
the most valuable tree we have, and it is the most valuable wood grown
in the North. I don't believe, either, the black walnut will ever be
less valuable than it is. I know positively that the Stabler tree is not
over sixty-five years old, perhaps, not over sixty, and yet that tree,
judging from the prices I have seen paid for other trees of similar
size, is worth from $125 to $150 on the stump. From the time that tree
started until now, it has increased in value at the rate of two dollars
a year, for timber alone, to say nothing of the nut. Suppose the tree
had been purchased sixty years ago at two dollars from the nurseryman.
It would have paid one hundred per cent annually on the investment. It
bears, as a regular thing, a crop every other year.
As to what Mr. Pomeroy said about the black walnut not cracking well and
crumbling up when it gets to be old, I have some specimens here of the
Stabler walnut I cracked this morning, which are of the 1915 crop.
The kernel of these old nuts keeps its flavor and sweetness wonderfully.
There is hardly any change in quality within one year, whereas some
other nuts, as the hazel and some varieties of the pecan, become rancid
after keeping six months.
DR. MORRIS: I would like to say one word about the curly walnut. In
Maine, not long ago, I saw a young man who had bought a bird's eye
maple, perhaps fifty years of age, that he paid $1,500 for. I asked him
why he didn't graft one million ordinary maples from that tree and sell
the stock at $200 per tree, and then he would have $200,000,000 at just
about the time of life when he could enjoy it. Well, that hadn't
occurred to him. Now, if Mr. Littlepage will hunt up this curly black
walnut stump that sold for $3,500, and if he will graft a million trees
from that he will be able to raise a family of ten children (Laughter.)
DR. STABLER: Mr. President, I just want to call attention to an omission
in the little talk that my son gave about the characteristics of this
Stabler tree, namely, its beauty as a shade tree. He didn't mention
that, and I don't think any one has mentioned it in connection with the
black walnut. Now, the black walnut trees, as we meet them along the
roadsides, vary exceedingly in habit of growth. The majority of them
have very few main limbs, perhaps not over half a dozen main limbs on a
tree, and they will be gaunt, ungainly things, stretched out straight,
like great arms reaching out with very little beauty. Now, if you plant
seedlings, that is what you are likely to get on your lawn. You may have
something that is not pretty except as a trunk, but the tree that
produces these very remarkable nuts is also one of the most beautiful in
its conformation. It is shaped just like an umbrella, rather low, very
spreading, and very frequently with a very much larger number of limbs
than almost any black walnut tree that I have ever seen, and its habit
of growing in the nursery confirms that opinion—that it produces a very
large number of buds and branches from each graft.
Mr. Littlepage has in his fence row, uncultivated and surrounded by
bushes of every kind, a small seedling walnut that he grafted this year
with the Stabler walnut. When he grafted the seedling it was a little
over an inch in diameter. I measured the growth from that graft
recently, and five shoots measured over five feet long, and others over
four feet long. Four month's growth—five shoots over five feet long!
Now, I don't know of any other walnut or any other nut tree that would
have produced that many shoots from a single graft. It makes a very
beautiful shade tree and has a top which is capable of producing very
large crops of fruit.
THE PRESIDENT: It sometimes makes me feel ashamed of my race when I
realize our limitations in comparison with the trees. We run across a
valuable type of tree genus, and we can make millions like it in a short
time. But when a remarkable specimen of the genus homo, arises, he stays
with us but a short while before we cart him off to the cemetery, and
that is the last of him. Does any one else wish to make a contribution
to the black walnut?
MR. M. P. REED: Mr. Littlepage made the remark that it is very easy to
propagate the black walnut. We haven't found it so. We have made almost
a complete failure of both budding and grafting.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, I was speaking of my experience in grafting this
spring. I think I remarked that my personal experience in budding had
not gone far enough to tell definitely what the results are going to be.
But I put in about fifty-five grafts, and I had fifty of them to grow,
and of that fifty there were probably ten or twelve knocked out—thrown
out at the first cultivation—and probably thirty-five are growing there
yet. I don't know what Mr. White's experience was in Indiana. I think it
was, perhaps, not as good as he expected, because of the fact that a lot
of the bud-wood dried out, but I think Mr. McCoy can give some
experience. Now, Mr. Roper here, has had experience in budding the black
walnut, haven't you?
MR. W. N. ROPER: We only put in about a dozen buds a short time ago. I
think half of those are growing.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, we budded, perhaps, two or three hundred this
summer, and I don't know really how they are coming out, but, from the
way these grafts behaved this spring, I don't see any reason why it is
going to be very difficult. What do you know about it, Mr. McCoy?
MR. R. L. MCCOY: Mr. Stabler's grafts didn't take very well, but so far
as budding the black walnut is concerned, it is just as easy as handling
the peach; there is nothing to it when you get the bud-wood; but first
you have got to have the bud-wood. You can't jump on to any old tree and
get buds that will give satisfactory results. Now, if Mr. Reed and his
father had to go into Wisconsin and Michigan to get their bud-wood, and
cut it from some old cherry trees, we'll say, and came back to Indiana
and tried to produce trees from those buds in the nursery, they would
fail.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the net result, apparently, of the discussion on
propagation seems to be that Mr. McCoy, in Indiana, has had great
success with buds; Mr. Littlepage, in Maryland, has had great success
with grafts; I also had great success with grafts put in by a man who
could neither read nor write, but who was taught the technique as
taught by this Society. Is there any further discussion?
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President, Professor Hutt ought to know something
about the black walnut. He knows something about everything else I have
ever talked to him about. I believe he wrote me, in connection with some
of his tests, that forty-seven per cent of the Stabler nuts were meat.
PROF. W. N. HUTT: I think so. I think it was pretty close to a half.
There were no broken halves at all, and some of them came out entirely
whole.
THE PRESIDENT: We want to hear from Dr. Deming.
THE SECRETARY: I just want to call attention to one of the questions on
our list. "What can we do to cheapen nuts and nut meats in the retail
market so as to make this valuable food available to persons of small
means?" It seems to me that we are going to do that with such nuts as
the black walnut. I think we ought to work for the time when the black
walnut can be sold in quantity in New York City, and in all the larger
cities for around a dollar a bushel. Perhaps the shellbark hickory is
also going to be a nut of the same kind, a nut that can be put on the
market in large quantities at a small price, for the man of limited
means to buy and crack out himself. Dr. Morris, speaking of some tough
nut, once said it was so tough that it was only of interest to squirrels
and men out of work. That expression about "men out of work" made me
think, as do so many things that Dr. Morris says. If a man out of work
can buy a bushel of black walnuts for a dollar, and if he can crack out
several bushels a day, or even only one bushel a day, he can make more
wages just cracking out that bushel of black walnuts than at ordinary
laboring work. I think that we ought to get on the market a supply of
cheap nuts for the man of limited means and that we ought to educate the
people to a knowledge of the value of such nuts.
THE PRESIDENT: It is always well to put the brakes on. I haven't heard a
thing about this black walnut except virtues. I believe Mr. McMurran, of
the Department of Agriculture, is present, and I think he has been
giving particular attention to the black walnut, and perhaps he will
tell us of some of its enemies, either animal or vegetable.
MR. S. M. MCMURRAN: Well, Mr. President, unfortunately, I haven't given
much attention to the black walnut. My time has been given to the pecan
until this summer, when I worked on the persian walnut to some extent,
but I can say, generally, that the black walnut hasn't got any very
serious enemies. Everything it has got is right here now. There isn't
any reason to suppose that it would have any serious disease if we
cultivated it on an extensive scale.
As to the insects, I am not able to state. I have never noticed any
particularly on the nut since a boy.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President, I think Mr. McMurran has covered the
diseases of the black walnut. I think the observation of every one will
confirm what Mr. McMurran has said.
THE PRESIDENT: The chair will deviate from parliamentary practice for a
moment by dismissing the question. I wish to contribute three small
facts. One is with reference to the special growth of the black walnut
under fertilization. The men on my place have to cut bushes around apple
trees, and some stray black walnuts planted by nature under those trees
have been cut for 10 years but for the last two seasons have been left
alone. They have promptly come up through those apple trees, under the
influence of nitrate of soda, like a steer going through a bush. They
have grown five or six feet each season.
Another point is the great variation, apparently, of the black walnut
with regard to its keeping qualities. I recall putting away in a garret,
in 1894, a number of bushels of a nut of particular merit, and they were
perfectly sweet and edible as much as seven years later. Now it is only
occasionally that you will find one that will keep as long as that, but
with the trees bearing every two years, it is quite possible that the
fruit would be marketable for two or three, or even four years
afterwards, if kept properly.
There is no reason to think that the Stabler is the best nut growing in
the United States. It merely grew within reach of the eyes of observing
men.
The filbert and the almond we hope to cover briefly before adjourning. I
will ask Mr. Reed to give us a short contribution on the almond.
MR. M. P. REED: This almond (exhibiting specimens) we received scions of
from Mr. C. A. Reed, of the Department a few years ago. It was three
years ago this summer that we top-worked it, and we picked almost half a
bushel of almonds from it this summer. The almond has a thick shell,
kernel of good flavor, but I don't think it will amount to anything
very much except for home use.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: How old was the tree that bore them?
MR. M. P. REED: Top-worked three years ago this summer.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: And bore how many?
MR. W. C. REED: Bore a half a bushel this last summer.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: If any one here would like bud-wood of that almond I
will be glad to send it to them.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Littlepage offers to send those present bud-wood of
that tree, which can be, with great ease, top-worked on the peach by the
ordinary process of shield budding.
DR. IRA ULMAN: I have grafted scions of this nut on Amygdalus Davidiana,
the new Chinese peach of the Department of Agriculture, and the growth
is marvelous. It does just exactly as Mr. Reed told you.
DR. STABLER: I would like to ask whether the almond is attacked by the
same insects and diseases that affect the peach, whether it is affected
by peach yellows and whether it is affected by the peach borer. I
understand that the apricot is, in a measure, immune to the peach borer
at least, and possibly also to the peach yellows. If the almond is to be
short-lived like the peach tree, it may not be nearly as valuable as if
it were a hardy tree. If you place it upon peach stock it seems to me
you must expect it to be attacked by the peach borer.
MR. M. P. REED: I believe that the original tree of this variety is
something over sixty years old. Not very many peach trees live to be
that old, and in the nursery it is a very vigorous grower.
THE PRESIDENT: The commercial almond is a rather long-lived tree in the
countries where it is grown. Of course, here is a question of technique
and individual behavior which only experience can answer. We ought to
take some of these nuts home that Mr. Reed has given us. I should like
to know why Mr. Reed so deprecates a tree which bears so much fruit in
so short a time. If the fruit is good, why can't it be handled
commercially?
MR. M. P. REED: It is the cracking quality. It has a very thick shell.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that a problem that machines cannot solve?
MR. M. P. REED: No, sir.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: How is the flavor?
MR. M. P. REED: The flavor is good.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I was just going to say, Mr. President, that I visited
Mr. Reed's place this summer, and it is utterly surprising how fast and
beautifully this hardy almond grew. He took me out at the edge of the
garden where he has them growing, and I could hardly realize that they
were only three-year-old trees. They were as full of little almonds as
the peach trees were of peaches, only they were much longer and with
very red leaves. Vincennes, Indiana, is on the thirty-ninth parallel,
which is the northern boundary of the District of Columbia, and it gets
much colder there than here, and those trees haven't the slightest sign
of winter-killing. I don't know anything about the quality of the meat,
but they are certainly wonderful bearers.
DR. MORRIS: I find that in the region of Stamford, Connecticut, hard
shelled almonds do pretty well if you look after them pretty closely,
but they take all your time. They have so many different blights on them
that I am glad mine died a long time ago. They bore heavily, but they
were too much trouble. They blossom so early in our locality that the
blossoms are apt to be caught by frost. You may overcome that if you set
the trees on the north side of a stone wall where the ground retains the
frost for from one to two weeks later than on the south side. I find,
that by doing this you can retard their time of blossoming sufficiently
to materially lessen the danger of their being caught by spring frosts.
MR. HARRY R. WEBER: Will you get the same results if you put a mulch
under the tree? Won't that prevent thawing and hold the tree for a week
or two?
DR. MORRIS: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you used this particular almond?
DR. MORRIS: One very much like it, and it was a mighty good almond—hard
to get at but good.
THE PRESIDENT: I would like to ask Mr. Reed as to the blooming time of
this particular tree in comparison with some standard peach like the
Elberta.
MR. M. P. REED: It bloomed about a week earlier than the Elberta, and
the peach crop is light.
MR. HENRY STABLER: I have been associated for the past three or four
years occasionally with Mr. M. B. Waite, of the Department of
Agriculture, and I have had a good chance to study the effect of
spraying on peaches in preventing brown rot and curculio. At Mr.
Littlepage's I observed an almond tree that started, I should think,
with twenty-five or thirty almonds on it this spring. Those almonds
gradually succumbed to the curculio and brown rot until, at last, only
one was left, and it seems to me that, if this almond is to be grown
commercially in this climate, we will have to use the same methods of
growing as with peaches, and we will have to spray them.
THE PRESIDENT: I think the chief benefit of the discussion of the almond
would be to get more of us to try it, and the fact that we have one
which is only one week earlier than the Elberta peach in blooming shows
that we have a good chance, possibly, of even exceeding the
possibilities of the peaches.
MR. MCCOY: Mr. President, I notice a good many almonds bloom about the
same time as Elberta peaches. I have probably twenty-five trees of this
almond that Mr. Reed spoke of, and I think they were in bloom at the
time the peaches were. It is very productive, just as he says. I have
noticed some of the old trees around in our neighborhood have borne good
crops for several years, and I don't notice much disease on them either.
DR. STABLER: I asked the question whether anybody knows whether the
almond is affected by peach yellows, and nobody seems to know, but peach
yellows is something connected with climate. There is a yellows line
that has remained definite and distinct for the last twenty-five years,
and you can describe that line on the map, and it stays right where you
put it. All north of that line the peach trees are affected by yellows,
and south they are not. That line runs through Mount Vernon and
Annapolis, and across Chesapeake Bay to Chestertown. Now, below that
isothermal line there is a little peninsula south of Chestertown, in
Kent county, a little peninsula there—a little long neck that runs out
into the bay below Chestertown—where they have never had any peach
yellows, and yet at Chestertown the trees have always been affected by
peach yellows, and it is probable that it will be found, if the almond
is affected by peach yellows, that the same laws apply to it. That is,
south they will have the yellows, and north they will not. Now, at
Vincennes, I suppose that they are north of the yellows line for
peaches. Do your peach trees have peach yellows?
MR. M. P. REED: No, sir.
DR. STABLER: Perhaps you are north of it, then. If so, the almond hasn't
been tried out as to yellows.
THE PRESIDENT: This association is greatly indebted to Dr. Morris, who
helped to get it together, for his indefatigable searching of the
corners of the earth for specimens, species and varieties of trees in
his ambition to get to his Stamford place all of the varieties of
nut-bearing trees. Several of our members have taken a little interest
in the question of the hazel-filbert family. Dr. Morris has taken a lot
of interest. Last year he gave us a most exhilarating presentation of
the subject, and he is this year going to give us some brief notes on
the progress of his knowledge concerning the hazels and filberts. Dr.
Morris.
DR. MORRIS: Just a word, in order to start the discussion. I have tried
to work out during the past year two or three points that came up for
discussion last year. I stated that in Connecticut the common American
hazel would probably not become a horticultural proposition for the
reason that the main stock seldom lives more than seven or eight years,
and then dies. New stolons, starting from the root, make abundant new
stocks. In that way, dying at the center, and growing at the periphery,
like a ring worm, one plant may extend so widely as to drive cows out of
the pasture lot. (Laughter). Dr. Deming understood me to say that it
spread so "rapidly" as to drive the cows out of a lot. I said "widely,"
not "rapidly." (Laughter). For that reason a plant of our common hazel
bears a few nuts about the third year; it bears a good crop about the
fourth year and sometimes in the fifth year. It then begins to die and
is gone by the seventh or eighth year, while new stolons, coming up on
all sides, are ready to perpetuate that rotation. That, at least, is
ordinary hazel history in my part of Connecticut. So I doubt if this
species will ever be a good horticultural proposition.
This year, for the first time, I have budded the European hazel upon our
common stock for the purpose of observing whether the character of the
guest will change the character of the host.
Now another point. Many of the European hazels that have been brought to
this country, I find, do not bear for the reason that they flower so
early that the staminate flowers are caught by frost—not the
pistillate. The pistillates will hold out against frost for a long time
and make good. There are two or three ways for overcoming this
difficulty. We may select for cultivation those kinds which bloom a week
or two, or even three weeks later than others, as in the case of the
Bony Bush variety.
There is hardly any more valuable tree in Central Europe than the purple
leafed hazel. I never have seen one bearing in this country. Its
staminate flowers come out too early in Connecticut. I have now some in
which I have grafted the Bony Bush, which flowers so much later that I
hope to have my purple hazels bearing nuts at Merribrooke.
On the whole, most of the points have been simply confirmatory of points
previously considered. We need not fear hazel blight because it is very
easily controlled, and many of the European hazels will furnish an
immensely valuable crop for almost all parts of temperate America. We
may develop, by breeding and by cultivation, types which will be hardy,
which will give us large, valuable, marketable crops, and which will be
desirable from the market man's point of view.
DR. STABLER: Can you get stocks that are free from blight?
DR. MORRIS: Last year I showed specimens of blight. The blight,
fortunately, begins upon a fairly large stem—upon a part of the stem
that is in plain sight. It takes from two to four years for a patch of
that blight to encircle a limb. If one will go over his hazel orchard
once a year and, where a bit of blight appears, cut it out with his
jack-knife and later paint the spot with a little white paint, one can
very readily control hazel blight. It is so easily done that we need not
fear it at all.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Ulman, I believe, is a hazel enthusiast.
DR. ULMAN: I have attempted to gather as much information as I could by
seeking out the failures with hazel because I had found no one reporting
success. In answer to a large number of letters which I sent out I
received some 290 replies which reported failures with the European
hazel. Dr. Morris tells us that blight can be readily controlled. So
far, that does not seem to be the experience of others, but it is only
fair to say that they do not know how to get rid of it in the way that
Dr. Morris has told us.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Ulman, I should like to ask if it is not true that
the hazels growing at Rochester could be added to your collection of 290
and change this complexion a little bit. Certainly last year we saw
hazel trees almost the diameter of this room which appeared to be
perfectly healthy.
THE SECRETARY: Can we recommend the hazel to be planted commercially?
THE PRESIDENT: If the hazel propagates by underground stolons
automatically, why can we not take the stolons and plant them in the
places that the trees have abandoned, letting them run on elsewhere?
DR. MORRIS: In regard to Dr. Deming's question, green European hazel
nuts are now selling in New York, out of cold storage, at seventy-five
cents a pound. Green hazel nuts like green almonds are prized by the
gourmet. All of the European hazels will eventually furnish a good
commercial proposition provided that the market is large enough, and the
market will probably grow, is growing in fact. Ripe filberts bring,
approximately, from ten to fifteen cents a pound. The trees bear well,
and I don't know of any reason why the hazel proposition should not be a
first rate one right now. The thing to do is to select kinds which we
know are valuable here. One may go through the seedling orchards at
Rochester and select one parent which bears large nuts prolifically, and
then propagate any number of European hazels from that one stock. My
Bony Bush is probably a desirable hazel.
In regard to the question of breeding from stolons, if we can keep that
thing going it would be all right, but it requires so much work I doubt
if we shall do anything in that way with the American hazel. The
European hazels don't travel by stolons. That is the advantage. So I
have given up the common American hazel as a commercial proposition. A
number of European and Asiatic hazels will be commercially profitable,
unquestionably, just as soon as we care to develop them.
MR. WEBER: What do you know about the hazels of the Western coast?
DR. MORRIS: Very profitable in parts of Oregon and Washington. They have
a large, good crop, which sells locally, but, like most Pacific Coast
fruits, the nuts lack flavor and quality. They have size and beauty, but
lack quality. The fruits and nuts grown on the Pacific Coast all lack a
certain fineness of character, for some reason yet unknown.
You have got to look after your European hazels, and not neglect the
orchard. I remember seeing some very beautiful apple trees in central
Maine not very long ago—no blight—no codling moth, and the trees free
from almost everything in the way of insects or fungous
troubles—beautiful, cultivated trees, and beautiful apples on them. I
asked another man, one of my acquaintances there, an old farmer, why he
didn't set out a lot of similar trees and make a good income. He said,
"Well, it won't go." He had a pasture about eight miles north of there,
and, said he, "I spent thirty dollars for apple trees to put into an
orchard, and I had great ideas about those apples. I set the trees out
in that orchard about three or four years ago, and last year when I went
up to look at them, there were hardly any apple trees left." He hadn't
looked at them for three or four years. (Laughter.) You can't raise
hazels that way.
THE SECRETARY: The reason I asked about the commercial value of the
hazel is that my own experience has been very unsatisfactory. I got some
hazels from Gillet, on the Pacific Coast six or seven years ago, set
them out around my place, and they have grown beautifully. I haven't
been able to detect any blight on them anywhere. Some of them are
fifteen feet high, have grown luxuriantly, and blossom every year, but I
haven't seen one nut yet. On the other hand, the other day I visited a
man near my home, who told me that he had raised some trees from nuts
which he had bought from an Italian grocery on the corner. He gets the
nuts when the crop first comes in, and stratifies in wet sand all
winter, and he says they all grow. He had some beautiful hazel trees.
One I estimated to be twenty feet high. I never saw a hazel tree which
approached it. He said it was only five or six years old. Last year he
had a fine crop of nuts from it. This year, however, he said that during
a warm spell in the winter the staminate bloom came out and was killed,
and there were no nuts on the trees. Now it seems to me that there is
great uncertainty about the hazels, and I don't know exactly what to
advise people to do. People ask me for advice as to what nuts to plant
commercially. I don't know whether to advise them to plant hazels or
not, and I don't know what varieties to advise people to plant. I don't
know how to advise them to overcome this difficulty of the early
staminate bloom and the winter killing. I can't now conscientiously
recommend people to plant hazel nuts commercially.
DR. MORRIS: Go to Rochester and get some there that bloom every year and
that bloom later. My Bony Bush blossoms some three weeks later than the
others, I presume. It is a bush that bears well every other year,
apparently.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there any further questions about this large family
of nut trees of which we have but a small corner of knowledge? If not,
we may look to an adjournment.
First, I wish to announce that this afternoon we are going to devote to
an excursion around the city, to see some of the most remarkable Persian
walnut trees which I think may be found anywhere.
I am asked by Prof. Close to say that the Department of Agriculture has
an exhibit of nuts on the fourth floor at 220 Fourteenth Street,
Southwest.
Meeting adjourned.