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Title: Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922
Author: Northern Nut Growers Association [Editor]
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922" ***
NORTHERN NUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION
REPORT
OF THE PROCEEDINGS AT THE
THIRTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK
September 7, 8 and 9, 1922
CONTENTS
Officers and Committees of the Association 4
State Vice-Presidents 5
Members of the Association 7
Constitution 15
By-Laws 16
Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Convention 17
President's Address 20
Dr. Walter Van Fleet, Biography of, 23
Chestnut Blight, Letter from G. F. Gravatt, 27
Manchurian Walnut Industry, Letter from C. A. Reed 28
Report of the Treasurer 32
Almond Possibilities in the Eastern States, R. H. Taylor 42
Opportunities for a Woman in Nut Culture, Mrs. W. D. Ellwanger 46
The Plane and Screw in Grafting, Dr. R. T. Morris 48
Nut Growing in the South, Address by J. M. Patterson 53
The Blight-proof Filbert, Conrad Vollertsen 61
Nut Culture in Canada, J. A. Neilson 69
The Experimental Nut Orchard, W. G. Bixby 80
Pioneer Experience and Outlook, Dr. R. T. Morris 85
Tree Planting Ceremonies at Highland Park 108
Nuts the Source of Proteins and Fats, Dr. J. H. Kellogg 112
Chinese Nuts, Walnuts, P. W. Wang 120
Resolution on the Death of Dr. Walter Van Fleet 122
Resolution on the Death of Coleman K. Sober 123
Attendance and Exhibits 126
OFFICERS OF THE ASSOCIATION
_President_ JAMES S. MCGLENNON Rochester, New York
_Vice-President_ J. F. JONES Lancaster, Pennsylvania
_Secretary_ WILLIAM C. DEMING 983 Main Street, Hartford, Ct.
_Treasurer_ WILLARD G. BIXBY Baldwin, Nassau Co., New York
COMMITTEES
_Auditing_--C. P. CLOSE, C. A. REED
_Executive_--J. RUSSELL SMITH, W. S. LINTON AND THE OFFICERS
_Finance_--T. P. LITTLEPAGE, WILLARD G. BIXBY, W. C. DEMING
_Hybrids_--R. T. MORRIS, C. P. CLOSE, W. G. BIXBY, HOWARD SPENCE
_Membership_--JAMES S. MCGLENNON, H. R. WEBER, R. T. OLCOTT, W. G.
BIXBY, W. C. DEMING, J. A. NEILSON, H. D. SPENCER, J. A. SMITH
_Nomenclature_--C. A. REED, R. T. MORRIS, J. F. JONES
_Press and Publication_--R. T. OLCOTT, W. G. BIXBY, W. C. DEMING
_Programme_--JAMES S. MCGLENNON, W. C. DEMING, R. T. OLCOTT, C. A.
REED, R. T. MORRIS, W. G. BIXBY, J. A. NEILSON
_Promising Seedlings_--C. A. REED, J. F. JONES, W. G. BIXBY,
J. A. NEILSON
STATE VICE-PRESIDENTS
Alabama H. M. Robertson 2026 1st Ave., Birmingham
Arizona Fred W. Heyne Douglas
Arkansas Prof. N. F. Drake University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
California T. C. Tucker 311 California St., San Francisco
Canada James A. Neilson Guelph
China P. W. Wang Kinsan Arboretum Chuking Kiangsu
Province
Colorado C. L. Cudebec Boulder, Box 233
Connecticut Ernest M. Ives Sterling Orchards, Meriden
Dist. of
Columbia B. G. Foster 902 G. St., Washington
England Howard Spence Eskdale Knutsford Cheshire
Georgia J. M. Patterson Putney
Illinois Henry D. Spencer Decatur
Indiana J. F. Wilkinson Rockport
Iowa D. C. Snyder Center Point
Kansas James Sharp Council Grove
Kentucky Frank M. Livengood Berea
Maine Alice D. Leavitt 79 High St., Bridgton
Maryland P. J. O'Connor Bowie
Massachusetts C. Leroy Cleaver 496 Commonwealth Ave., Boston
Michigan Dr. J. H. Kellogg Battle Creek
Mississippi Theodore Bechtel Ocean Springs
Missouri P. C. Stark Louisiana
Nebraska William Caha Wahoo
Nevada C. G. Swingle Hazen
New Hampshire Henry B. Stevens Durham
New Jersey C. S. Ridgway Lumberton
New York Mrs. W. D. Ellwanger 510 E. Ave., Rochester
North Carolina C. W. Matthews N. C. Dept. of Agriculture, Raleigh
Ohio Harry R. Weber 123 E. 6th St., Cincinnati
Oklahoma Dr. C. E. Beitman Skedee
Oregon Knight Pearcy Salem, R. F. D. No. 3, Box 187
Pennsylvania F. N. Fagan State College
South Carolina Prof. A. G. Shanklin Clemson College
Tennessee J. W. Waite Normandy
Texas J. H. Burkett Clyde
Utah Joseph A. Smith Edgewood Hall, Providence
Vermont F. C. Holbrook Brattleboro
Virginia W. N. Roper Petersburg
Washington Richard H. Turk Washougal
West Virginia Fred E. Brooks French Creek
Wisconsin Dr. G. W. Patchen Manitowoc
MEMBERS OF THE
NORTHERN NUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION
ALABAMA
Robertson, H. M., 2026 1st Ave., Birmingham
ARIZONA
Heyne, Fred W., Douglas
ARKANSAS
*Drake, Prof. N. F., University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Dunn, D. K., Wynne
CALIFORNIA
Cajori, F. A., 1220 Byron St., Palo Alto
Cress, B. E., Tehachapi
Thorpe, Will J., 1545 Divisadero St., San Francisco
Tucker, T. C., 311 California St., San Francisco
CANADA
Bell, Alex, Milliken, Ontario
Corcoran, William, Port Dalhousie, Box 26, Ontario
Corsan, G. H., Address 55 Hanson Place, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Corsan, Mrs. G. H., Address 55 Hanson Place, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Haight, P. N., St. Thomas
Neilson, Jas. A., Guelph, Ontario
CHINA
*Kinsan Arboretum, Lang Terrace, No. Szechuen Rd., Shanghai
P. W. Wang, Sec'y.
COLORADO
Bennett, L. E. Cory
Butterbaugh, Dr. W. S., Engleburg, Las Animas Co. (via Trinidad)
Cudebec, C. L., Boulder, Box 233
Hartman, Richard, Kremmling
CONNECTICUT
Barrows, Paul M., Stamford, R. F. D. No. 30
Bartlett, Francis A., Stamford
Benedict, Samuel L., 98 So. Main St., So. Norwalk
Bielefield, F. J., South Farms, Middletown
Bradley, Smith T., Grand Ave., New Haven
Craig, Joseph A., 783 Washington Ave., West Haven
Deming, Dr. W. C., 983 Main St., Hartford
Deming, Mrs. William, Litchfield
Glover, James L., Shelton, R. F. D., No. 7
Gotthold, Mrs. Frederick, Wilton
Hardon, Mrs. Henry, Wilton
Hilliard, H. J., Sound View
Hungerford, Newman, Torrington, R. F. D. No. 2, Box 76
Ives, E. M., Sterling Orchards, Meriden
Leroy, Peter, 1363 Main St., Hartford
Lewis, Henry Leroy, 1822 Main St., Stratford
Morris, Dr. R. T., Cos Cob, Route 28, Box 95
Pomeroy, Eleazer, 120 Bloomfield Ave., Windsor
Sessions, Albert L., 25 Bellevue Ave., Bristol
Southworth, George E., Milford, Box 172
Staunton, Gray, 320 Howard Ave., New Haven
White, Gerrard, North Granby
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Beatty, Dr. Wilbur M. L., 4027 Georgia Ave.
Close, Prof. C. P., Pomologist, Dept. of Agriculture
Foster, B. G., 902 G St., N. W.
*Littlepage, T. P., Union Trust Bldg.
Reed, C. A., Dept. of Agriculture
ENGLAND
Spence, Howard, Eskdale, Knutsford, Cheshire
GEORGIA
Bullard, Wm. P., Albany
Killian, C. M., Valdosta
Parrish, John S., Cornelia, Ga. Box 57
Patterson, J. M., Putney
Perry, A. S., Cuthbert
Steele, R. C., Lakemont, Rabun Co.
Wight, J. B., Cairo
ILLINOIS
Brown, Roy W., Spring Valley
Buckman, Benj., Farmingdale
Buxton, T. C., Stine Bldg., Decatur
Casper, O. H., Anna
Clough, W. A., 929 Monadnoch Bldg., Chicago
Falrath, David, 259 N. College St., Decatur
Heide, John F. H., 500 Oakwood Blvd., Chicago
Illinois, University of, Urbana
Marsh, Mrs. W. V., Aledo
Mosnat, H. R., 7237 Yale Ave., Chicago
Potter, Hon. W. O., Marion
Powers, Frank S., 595 Powers Lane, Decatur
Rickelman, Harry J., Weed Bldg., Effingham
Riehl, E. A., Godfrey, Route 2
Shaw, James B., Champaign, Box 644
Spencer, Henry D., Decatur
Sundstrand, Mrs. G. D., 916 Garfield Ave., Rockford
Swisher, S. L., Mulkeytown
Wells, Oscar, Farina
White, W. Elmer, 175 Park Place, Decatur
INDIANA
Clayton, C. L., Owensville
Crain, Donald J., 1313 North St., Logansport
Jackson, Francis M., 122 N. Main St., South Bend
Redmon, Felix, Rockport, R. R. 2, Box 32
Reed, W. C., Vincennes
Rowell, Mrs. Geo. P., 219 N. 5 St., Goshen
Simpson, H. D., Vincennes
Staderman, A. L., 120 So. 7 St., Terre Haute
Wilkinson, J. F., Rockport
IOWA
Bricker, C. W., Ladora
Finnell, J. F. C., Hamburg
Pfeiffer, W. F., Fayette
Skromme, L. J., Roland (Skromme Seed Co.)
Snyder, D. C., Center Point
Snyder, S. W., Center Point
KANSAS
Bishop, S. L., Conway Springs
Gray, Dr. Clyde, Horton
Sharpe, James, Council Grove
KENTUCKY
Baker, Sam C., Beaver Dam, R. F. D. No. 2
Livengood, Frank M., Berea
MAINE
Leavitt, Mrs. Alice D., 79 High St., Brighton
MARYLAND
Auchter, E. C., Md. State College of Agri. College Park
Keenan, Dr. John F., Brentwood
Littlepage, Miss Louise, Bowie
O'Connor, P. J., Bowie
MASSACHUSETTS
*Bowditch, James H., 903 Tremont Bldg., Boston
Cleaver, C. Leroy, Hingham Centre
Jackson, Arthur H., 63 Fayerweather St., Cambridge
Johnstone, Edward O., North Carver
Mass. Agri. College, Library of, Amherst
Scudder, Dr. Charles L., 209 Beacon St., Boston
MICHIGAN
Beck, J. P., 25 James, Saginaw
Charles, Dr. Elmer, Pontiac
Cross, John L., 104 Division St., Bangor
Graves, Henry B., 2134 Dime Bank Bldg., Detroit
Guild, Stacy R., 562 So. 7th St., Ann Arbor
Hartig, G. F., Bridgeman, R. F. D. No. 1
House, George W., Ford Bldg., Detroit
Kellogg, Dr. J. H., 202 Manchester St., Battle Creek
*Linton, W. S., Saginaw
MacNab, Dr. Alex B., Cassopolis
McKale, H. B., Lansing, Route 6
Olson, A. E., Holton
Penney, Senator Harvey A., 425 So. Jefferson Ave., Saginaw
Smith, Edward J., 85 So. Union St., Battle Creek
MISSISSIPPI
Bechtel, Theo., Ocean Spring
MISSOURI
Crosby, Miss Jessie M., 4241 Harrison St., Kansas City
Hazen, Josiah J., Neosho Nurseries Co., Neosho
Rhodes, J. I., 224 Maple St., Neosho
Spellen, Howard P., 4505a W. Papin St., St. Louis
Stark, P. C., Louisiana
NEBRASKA
Caha, William, Wahoo
Thomas, Dr. W. A., Lincoln, R. R. No. 2
NEVADA
Swingle, C. G., Hazen
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Stevens, Henry B., N. H., College of Agriculture, Durham
NEW JERSEY
Brown, Jacob E., Elmer, Salem Co.
Franck, M., Box 89, Franklin
*Jaques, Lee W., 74 Waverly St., Jersey City
Landmann, Miss M. V., Cranbury, R. D. No. 2
Marshall, S. L., Vineland
Marston, Edwin S., Florham Park, Box 72
Phillips, Irving S., 501 Madison St., West New York
Price, John R., 36 Ridgedale Ave., Madison
Ridgway, C. S., Lumberton
Salvage, W. K., Farmingdale
Stover, Evan W., Riverton
Westcoat, Wilmer, 230 Knight Ave., Collingswood
NEW YORK
Abbott, Frederick B., 1211 Tabor Court, Brooklyn
Adams, Sidney I., 418 Powers Bldg., Rochester
Ashworth, Fred L., Heuvelton
Babcock, H. J., Lockport
Bennett, Howard S., 851 Joseph Ave., Rochester
Bethea, J. G., 243 Rutgers St., Rochester
Bixby, Willard G., 32 Grand Ave., Baldwin, Nassau Co.
Borchers, H. Chas., Wenga Farm, Armonk
Brown, Ancel J., 418 W. 25th St., N. Y. C.
Brown, Ronald K., 320 B'way, N. Y. C.
Buist, Dr. G. L., 3 Hancock St., Brooklyn
Clark, George H., 131 State St., Rochester
Coriell, A. S., 120 Broadway, N. Y. C.
Crane, Alfred J., Monroe
Culver, M. L., 238 Milburn St., Rochester
Diprose, Alfred H., 468 Clinton Ave., South, Rochester
Dunbar, John, Dep't. of Parks, Rochester
Ellwanger, Mrs. W. D., 510 East Ave., Rochester
Ford, Geo. G., 129 Dartmouth St., Rochester
Gager, Dr. C. Stuart, Bklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn
Gilgan, Pat'k. H., 358 Lake Ave., Rochester
Gillett, Dr. Henry W., 140 W. 57th St., N. Y. C.
Goeltz, Mrs. M. H., 2524 Creston Ave., N. Y. C.
Graham, S. H., Ithaca, R. D. No. 5
Haggerty, Susanne, 490 Oxford St., Rochester
Hall, L. W. Jr., 509 Cutler Bldg., Rochester (L. W. Hall Co.)
Harper, George W, Jr., 115 B'way, N. Y. C.
Hart, Frank E., Landing Road, Brighton
Haskill, Mrs. L. M., 56 Oxford St., Rochester
Haws, Elwood D., Public Market, Rochester
Henshall, H., 5 W. 125th St., N. Y. C.
Hoag, Henry S., Delhi
Hodge, James, 199 Kingsbridge Rd. W., Kingsbridge, N. Y. C.
Hodgson, Casper W., Yonkers, (World Book Co.)
Hoffman, Arthur S., 36 Church St., White Plains
*Huntington, A. M., 15 W. 81st St., N. Y. C.
Jewett, Edmund G., 16 S. Elliott Place, Brooklyn
Johnston, Harriet M. B., 15th St. & 4th Ave., N. Y. C.
Kains, M. G., Pomona
Lattin, Dr. H. W., Albion
Lauth, John C., 67 Tyler St., Rochester
Liveright, Frank I., 120 W. 70th St., N. Y. C.
MacDaniel, S. H., Dept. of Pomology, N. Y. State College of
Agriculture, Ithaca
Masseth, Rev. John E., Dansville
Mayer, Norman, 30 Avenue "A", Rochester
McGlennon, J. S., 28 Cutler Bldg., Rochester
McGlennon, Norma, 166 N. Goodman St., Rochester
Meyers, Charles, 316 Adelphi St., Brooklyn
Motondo, Grant F., 198 Monroe Ave., Rochester
Nolan, Mrs. C. R., 47 Dickinson St., Rochester
Nolan, M. J., 47 Dickinson St., Rochester
Olcott, Ralph T., Ellwanger & Barry Bldg., Rochester
Piehler, Alois, 706 Commerce Bldg., Rochester
Pirrung, Miss L. M., 779 East Ave., Rochester
Pomeroy, A. C., Lockport
Rawnsley, Mrs. Annie, 242 Linden St., Rochester
Rawnsley, James B., 242 Linden St., Rochester
Richardson, J. M., 2 Columbus Circle, N. Y. C.
Ritvhir, John W., 2 A. Beach St., Yonkers
Ryder, Clayton, Carmel
Schroeder, E. A., 223 East Ave., Rochester
Shutt, Erwin E., 509 Plymouth Ave., Rochester
Smith, Louis R., 145 Merrimac St., Rochester
Snyder, Leroy E., 241 Barrington St., Rochester
Solley, Dr. John B., 968 Lexington Ave., N. Y. C.
Stephen, John W., Syracuse, N. Y. State College of Forestry
Teele, Arthur W., 120 B'way, N. Y. C.
Tucker, Arthur R., Chamber of Commerce, Rochester
Tucker, Mrs. G. B., 110 Harvard St., Rochester
Tucker, Geo. B., 110 Harvard St., Rochester
Vick, C. A., 142 Harvard St., Rochester
Vollertsen, Conrad, 375 Gregory St., Rochester
Waller, Percy, 284 Court St., Rochester
Whitney, Arthur C., 9 Manila St., Rochester
Whitney, Leon F., 65 Barclay St., New York City
Wile, M. E., 955 Harvard St., Rochester
Williams, Dr. Chas. Mallory, 4 W. 50 St., New York City
*Wissmann, Mrs. F. de R., Westchester, New York City
Wyckoff, E. L., Aurora
NORTH CAROLINA
Hutchings, Miss L. G., Pine Bluff
Matthews, C. W., North Carolina Dept. of Agriculture, Raleigh
Van Lindley, J., J. Van Lindley Nursery Co., Pomona
OHIO
Burton, J. Howard, Casstown
Dayton, J. H., Storrs & Harrison, Painesville
Fickes, W. R., Wooster, R. No. 6
Jackson, A. V., 3275 Linwood Rd., Cincinnati
Ketchum, C. S., Middlefield, Box 981
Pomerene, Julius, 1949 East 116 St., Cleveland
Ramsey, John, 1803 Freeman Ave., Cincinnati
Truman, G. G., Perrysville, Box 167
*Weber, Harry R., 123 East 6 St., Cincinnati
Yunck, Edward G., 706 Central Ave., Sandusky
OKLAHOMA
Beitmen, Dr. C. E., Skedee
OREGON
Frost, Earl C., Route 1, Box 515, Gates Rd., Portland
Marvin, Cornelia, Librarian, Oregon State Library, Salem
Nelson, W. W., R. No. 3, Box 652, Portland
Pearcy, Knight, 210 Oregon Bldg., Salem
PENNSYLVANIA
Althouse, C. Scott, 540 Pear St., Reading
Balthaser, James M., Wernersville, Berks Co.
Bohn, Dr. H. W., 34 No. 9 St., Reading
Bolton, Chas. G., Zieglerville, Pa.
Bomberger, John S., Lebanon, R. F. D. No. 1
Chapin, Irvin, Shickshinny
Clark, D. F., 147 N. 13 St., Harrisburg
Druckemiller, W. H., 31 No. 4th St., Sunbury
Ewing, Chas. A., Steelton
Fagan, Prof. F. N., State College
Fritz, Ammon P., 35 E. Franklin St., Ephrata
Heffner, H., Leeper
Hess, Elam G., Manheim
Hile, Anthony, Curwensville
Hoopes, Edwin A., Pocono Manor, Monroe Co.
Horst, John D., Reading
Irwin, Ernest C., 66 St. Nicholas Bldg., Pittsburg
Jenkins, Charles Francis, Farm Journal, Philadelphia
*Jones, J. F., Lancaster, Box 527
Kaufman, M. M., Clarion
Leas, F. C., Merion Station
Mellor, Alfred, 152 W. Walnut Lane, Germantown, Philadelphia
Minick, C. G., Ridgway
Murphy, P. J., Vice Pres. L. & W. R. R. Co., Scranton
Myers, J. Everitt, York Springs, R. D. No. 3
Negley, C. H., Greencastle, R. D. No. 2
Patterson, J. E., 77 North Franklin St., Wilkes Barre
*Rick, John, 438 Penn. Sq., Reading
Rittenhouse, Dr. J. S., Lorane
Robinson, W. I., Fort Loudon
Rose, William J., 413 Market St., Harrisburg, "Personal"
Rush, J. G., West Willow
Russell, Dr. Andrew L., 729 Wabash Bldg., Pittsburgh
Shoemaker, H. C., 1739 Main St., Northampton
Smedley, Samuel L., Newtown Sq., R. F. D. No. 1
Smedley, Mrs. Samuel L., Newtown Sq., R. F. D. No. 1
Smith, Dr. J. Russell, Swarthmore
Spencer, L. N., 216 East New St., Lancaster
Taylor, Loundes, West Chester, Box 3, Route 1
Walther, R. G., Willow Grove, Doylestown Pike
Weaver, Wm. S., Macungie
Whitner, Harry D., Reading
Wilhelm, Dr. Edward A., Clarion
*Wister, John C., Clarkson & Wister Strs., Germantown
Wolf, D. D., 527 Vine St., Philadelphia
SOUTH CAROLINA
Kendall, Dr. F. D., 1317 Hampton Ave., Columbia
Shanklin, Prof. A. G., Clemson College
Taylor, Thos., 1112 Bull St., Columbia
TENNESSEE
Waite, J. W., Normandy
UTAH
Smith, Joseph A., Edgewood Hall, Providence
VERMONT
Aldrich, A. W., Springfield, R. F. D., No. 3
Holbrook, F. C., Brattleboro
VIRGINIA
+Dodge, Harrison H., Mount Vernon
Harris, D. C., Capital Landing Rd., Williamsburg
Hopkins, N. S., Dixondale
Jordan, J. H., Bohannon
Roper, W. N., Petersburg
WASHINGTON
Baines, William, Okanogan
Turk, Richard H., Washougal
WEST VIRGINIA
Brooks, Fred E., French Creek
Cannaday, Dr. J. E., Charleston, Box 693
Hartzel, B. F., Shepherdstown
Mish, A. F., Inwood
WISCONSIN
Lang, Robert B., Racine, Box 103
Patchen, Dr. G. W., Manitowoc
+Honorary member
*Life member
CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE I
_Name._ This society shall be known as the NORTHERN NUT GROWERS
ASSOCIATION.
ARTICLE II
_Object._ Its object shall be the promotion of interest in
nut-bearing plants, their products and their culture.
ARTICLE III
_Membership._ Membership in the society shall be open to all
persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to
place of residence or nationality, subject to the rules and
regulations of the committee on membership.
ARTICLE IV
_Officers._ There shall be a president, a vice-president, a
secretary and a treasurer, who shall be elected by ballot at the
annual meeting; and an executive committee of six persons, of which
the president, the two last retiring presidents, the
vice-president, the secretary and the treasurer shall be members.
There shall be a state vice-president from each state, dependency,
or country represented in the membership of the association, who
shall be appointed by the president.
ARTICLE V
_Election of Officers._ A committee of five members shall be
elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating
officers for the following year.
ARTICLE VI
_Meetings._--The place and time of the annual meeting shall be
selected by the membership in session or, in the event of no
selection being made at this time, the executive committee shall
choose the place and time for the holding of the annual convention.
Such other meetings as may seem desirable may be called by the
president and executive committee.
ARTICLE VII
_Quorum._ Ten members of the association shall constitute a quorum,
but must include two of the four elected officers.
ARTICLE VIII
_Amendments._ This constitution may be amended by a two-thirds vote
of the members present at any annual meeting, notice of such
amendment having been read at the previous annual meeting, or a
copy of the proposed amendment having been mailed by any member to
each member thirty days before the date of the annual meeting.
BY-LAWS
ARTICLE I
_Committees._ The association shall appoint standing committees as
follows: On membership, on finance, on programme, on press and
publication, on nomenclature, on promising seedlings, on hybrids,
and an auditing committee. The committee on membership may make
recommendations to the association as to the discipline or
expulsion of any member.
ARTICLE II
_Fees._ Annual members shall pay two dollars annually, or three
dollars and twenty-five cents, including a year's subscription to
the American Nut Journal. Contributing members shall pay five
dollars annually, this membership including a year's subscription
to the American Nut Journal. Life members shall make one payment of
fifty dollars, and shall be exempt from further dues. Honorary
members shall be exempt from dues.
ARTICLE III
_Membership._ All annual memberships shall begin either with the
first day of the calendar quarter following the date of joining the
Association, or with the first day of the calendar quarter
preceding that date as may be arranged between the new member and
the Treasurer.
ARTICLE IV
_Amendments._ By-laws may be amended by a two-thirds vote of
members present at any annual meeting.
PROCEEDINGS
at the
THIRTEENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION
of the
NORTHERN NUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION
Rochester, N. Y., September 7, 8 and 9, 1922
The convention was called to order at 9:40 A. M., Thursday, September 7,
1922, by the President, Mr. James S. McGlennon, of Rochester, New York,
at the Osburn House, Rochester, N. Y.
THE PRESIDENT: This is the thirteenth annual convention of the Northern
Nut Growers' Association. We have been favored by Rev. Dr. Cushman in
consenting to give the invocation.
Invocation by Rev. Ralph S. Cushman.
THE PRESIDENT: I believe I voice the sentiment of all present in saying
that we are grateful to Dr. Cushman for his prayer and I personally
extend to him my sincere thanks and on behalf of the association.
I have the great honor and the rare privilege of introducing to you our
Mayor. He has very kindly consented to come here and make an address of
welcome to this association.
MAYOR VAN ZANDT: Mr. President and ladies and gentlemen, members of the
Nut Growers' Association: Your President has said I was going to make an
address; I never did such a thing in my life. I am glad to welcome you
to the city of Rochester; I hope your meeting will be profitable and so
pleasant that you will want to come again. I believe there are very few
people in Rochester who know anything about nut growing. We have a
splendid exhibit here from our parks and one that I am very proud of and
we have a man here, Mr. Dunbar, that we are very proud of; he is a
wonder; I confess that I didn't know there were so many nuts to be found
in the parks myself--that is no joke. It is a wonderful thing, it is a
revelation to me, I never dreamed that you could find such things
growing around this part of the country at all. I fancy that most people
don't know anything about nuts at all, except the five-cent bag of
peanuts. I certainly wish you success in every way and particularly with
reference to the plantation that I understand has been started here
close to Rochester where they are doing some wonderful work. Most of us
have the idea that nuts are used by people to put on the table for
dessert at Christmas time and but little appreciate their true food
value.
I sincerely trust that you will all come again, that you will have
pleasant weather and that you will have time after work to see
something of our beautiful city. We think it is the most beautiful one
in the country. Thank you. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: If you can wait just a minute, I am going to ask for a
reply to your address of welcome. Mr. Patterson comes from Albany,
Georgia, and is probably the biggest producer of pecans in the world.
Mr. Patterson is a member of this association and has very kindly
consented to come all the way from Georgia to be with us.
MR. PATTERSON: Mr. President, Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen: I wonder
if the President in saying I was the biggest nut grower in the world had
any reference to my physical proportions. You have certainly a wonderful
exhibit here, Mr. Mayor, of the products of your parks and you have
reason to be proud of it, as you have for many other things in the city
of Rochester. It has been my privilege to make short visits to the city,
my wife having some relatives here. I said to my cousin this morning, if
there is any place outside of the South where I would rather live, it
would be Rochester.
The nut proposition is in its infancy and we all believe, those of us
who are wholly nuts, that it will grow into a giant. We have a little
giant in the south in the shape of the paper-shell pecan and we are
expecting that this Northern Nut Growers' Association will, within the
next few years, develop some varieties of nuts, or discover some
varieties of nuts, that are adapted to this northern climate and will do
for the northern states, the northern, eastern and western, what the
pecan is promising to do and really is doing for the South. While not a
native of the South I think I may extend the cordial greeting of the
South to you in the North. There was a time when a northerner like
myself who moved into the South had just one name and that was a "damned
Yankee", and a good many people through the South thought that was one
word, but that time has passed and they are welcoming in the South today
the northerner who comes with an honest purpose of helping develop that
wonderful country. The day of bitterness is fast passing away, so I
bring to you not only the greetings of the southern nut growers, but of
the South and I bring to the Mayor, and through the Mayor to the
citizens of this beautiful city, the greetings of the membership of this
association. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: I am very grateful to you for your consideration of my
impromptu request.
THE MAYOR: I will promise to give an order to the policemen to crack no
nuts while the nut growers' association is in town. As to the 18th
amendment, I think that nuts are about the only vegetable that I know of
that they are not making hootch out of at the present time.
THE PRESIDENT: I feel that we have been particularly favored not only in
receiving an address of welcome from our Mayor, but also in having with
us the President of our Chamber of Commerce, who has kindly consented
to come and welcome us also. It gives me distinct pleasure to call upon
the president of our Chamber of Commerce, Mr. James W. Gleason.
MR. GLEASON: Mr. President and ladies and gentlemen: On behalf of the
Rochester Chamber of Commerce, I certainly want you to know that we
appreciate the honor and privilege of having this convention held in
Rochester. I don't know of a convention that has come to Rochester that
should be more welcome on account of the scientific nature of your work
and the magnificent aims and purposes of your organization in extending
the planting of trees and the culture of your product. I know the Mayor
has extended to you a welcome for the city but we have one citizen here
in Rochester, Mr. George Eastman, of whom we are very proud because of
the unselfish work that he has done, and in the work that you are doing
you can appreciate what he is doing in a larger way than is given to
most of us to be able to do. This week saw the opening of the famous new
five million dollar Eastman Theater, dedicated to the public, and I
believe the motto over the door is "For the enlargement of community
life". Now, Mr. Eastman wants the people to consider this theater as
their own, and that means you, that means all of us here. He would like
to have the people from Rochester and the people from out of town take
advantage of this magnificent structure, the wonderful orchestra,
probably the finest thing of its kind in the world.
I won't make an extended address but I can promise that if you can come
to the Chamber of Commerce we will make you all welcome. Thank you.
(Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Weber of Cincinnati has kindly consented to make a
reply to your address.
MR. WEBER: Mr. President and Mr. Gleason: We really know each other as
old friends, for some years ago we had our convention here and we are
very glad to have it in your city again. Such bodies as yours, the
Chamber of Commerce, can further the activities of the Northern Nut
Growers' Association and what it stands for in the North; which is
demonstrated by the exhibits shown on the table. I see at both ends of
the table exhibits that show what can be done in this community in
particular in the way of nut growing. Right out behind us there is one
of the largest English walnut groves in this part of the country. I
think it has 228 trees. The mistake the gentleman made who planted them
was that he didn't plant grafted trees. Had he planted grafted trees he
would have had a gold mine right there on his farm; Mr. Vollertsen, one
of your citizens, has begun an industry which in time may become another
one for your Chamber of Commerce to look after. We appreciate your very
fine exhibits, we are glad to be here with you and thank you for your
address of welcome. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: According to the program the next feature is your
president's address. I feel that it is unnecessary for me to even
attempt to add anything to what His Honor, the Mayor and President
Gleason have said relative to our wonderful city. It is one of the great
cities of the world.
THE SECRETARY: What is the population of Rochester?
THE PRESIDENT: Over 300,000.
To Members of The Northern Nut Growers' Association:
GREETINGS:
Your President recommends that definite action be taken to the end of
increasing our membership, to the still further end of exemplifying the
truth of the old saying that "in union there is strength." More members
mean the spreading of our gospel over greatly increased areas that
should be interested in nut culture. The present membership is
approximately 250, an increase of only 24 since the Lancaster Convention
in October last year. And while it is also an old and true saying that
"self praise is no recommendation," the fact remains that 18 of these
new members were secured through my office.
It has been suggested at previous conventions that a systematic campaign
for members can be perfected through organized co-operation by our State
Vice-Presidents. I believe this to be the most efficacious medium
through which the greatly desired results can be obtained. Of many, I am
sure, systems that can be employed to such end there are two that always
appeal to me as most desirable. Doubtless you all have thought of them
at some time or other; in fact I have heard at previous conventions
casual mention of the second. But the first I have heard little if
anything of, and it is that effort should be exerted to interest women
more actively in nut culture. We have a few women members. Why shouldn't
there be as many women as men? I can think of no reason why there
shouldn't. I believe that women are just as competent as men to conduct
any feature of nut culture, with the possible exception of specific
manual labor. And I can think of no more delightful vocation for women
who love the great and wonderful outdoors--and where is the woman who
does not?--than nut culture, the cultivation of nut trees and bushes,
beautiful things not only for the grace and beauty of trunk and limb,
foliage and flower, but for their real substance, their fruit, nuts, one
of the most nutritious foods for human beings. More and more nuts are
being consumed every day, and I venture to say that their consumption as
a leading item in our dietary is only in its infancy. So I feel that
here is another opportunity for our women to demonstrate the justice of
her recent acquired suffrage in our national affairs.
The other possible source of membership I have in mind is a systematic
campaign to enlist the interest and co-operation of school teachers.
Just think of the possibilities of such a campaign. School teachers,
every one, being the high-class people they necessarily are, would
respond finely, I'm sure, and serve as a most desirable medium through
which that very potent additional force can be reached, namely, the
pupil. What parent would refuse a child's request to enable him or her
to participate in the planting of a tree! Recently I cut out the
following little poem, by Charles A. Heath, from my old-home-town
Canadian paper:
THE MAN WHO LIKES A TREE
I like a man who likes a tree,
He's so much more of a man to me;
For when he sees his blessing there,
In some way, too, he wants to share
Whatever gifts his own may be,
In helping others, like a tree.
For trees, you know, are friends indeed,
They satisfy such human need;
In summer shade, in winter fire,
With flower and fruit meet all desire,
And if a friend to man you'd be,
You must befriend him like a tree.
A beautiful sentiment, I know you will agree, and applicable to any
tree, but especially so to nut trees, for the reason that they combine
all the laudable qualities enumerated plus that of food--food for
man--one of the very finest of foods for man.
There are, of course, numerous other ways that can be employed to get
new members. Another I might mention is that of offering suitable
prizes; but I urge you to action, definite and specific, along this
line, that our Association may better ably execute the worthy ambitions
in which it was founded in 1910.
Then, again, more members mean more money. With more money we can get
along faster. "Procrastination is the thief of time," you know. I trust
that real action will be taken at this convention to the end of
increasing our membership to at least one thousand by the time of the
1923 convention. It can be done--yes, easily. If only each member would
pledge himself or herself to get three new members during the year the
1923 convention would find us with the desired membership; and I am sure
that a considerable excess would be found on the roll at that time.
Also, increased membership is desirable to the end of increasing
subscriptions to, and widening the scope of our official organ, The
American Nut Journal, the only publication of the kind in the country.
Under the able editorship of that Roman, one of our most earnest and
intelligent members, Mr. Ralph T. Olcott, it is a power for good in the
interests of nut culture. It can be made an even greater power with a
materially increased subscription list, and I know that I speak for my
friend, Olcott, when I say that he is ready and willing to expand the
Journal's columns as will be required, of course, by the expansion of
nut culture--I believe I voice the general sentiment of our membership
when I say that no more welcome messenger comes to us each month than
the American Nut Journal.
Another recommendation I am going to offer is, that the association
consider the advisability of establishing a nursery at a point agreed on
as best adapted for the propagating and nursing of such nut trees and
bushes as it endorses as suitable and desirable for the area of country
naturally governing the origin of our title--Northern Nut Growers'
Association. This recommendation germinated in my thought from a casual
remark made to me recently by our esteemed member, Mrs. W. D. Ellwanger,
while I was a visitor at her charming summer home, Brooks Grove. Viewing
her nursery of several thousand black walnut seedlings she casually
mentioned that she would be very happy to present to any one desirous of
planting such trees any consistent number he or she desired. As my
thought dwelt on the expression of such a splendidly magnanimous nature
I began to wonder, if a lady was willing to perform such a noble act,
why should not the association elaborate on the worthy plan along the
lines I have suggested. And with more members, and, thereby, more money,
we can do it. Then The Northern Nut Growers' Association will be doing a
real thing, something tangible, something that will attract new members
in a way nothing else would, because people would then be able to see
the living evidence of the practicability of our ideals. We could start
in a small way, and grow. After long and earnest thought on the subject
I came to the conclusion that it was worthy of our consideration.
From Mrs. Ellwanger's reference to "Johnny Appleseed" I believe that she
found precedent for her nut tree nursery initiative in the work of
inestimable value to posterity done by that same worthy. If the legend
be true, he worked with much happiness of heart, but not more so than
that of Mrs. Ellwanger, I am sure you will agree, when I tell you that
many of her nursery trees are growing from nuts she garnered from
roadside and field trees manifesting some exceptional trait, or
indicating rare strain.
And I cannot refrain from urging action to the end of influencing our
other states to pattern after good old Michigan in our effort to enact
legislation, as she has done, providing for planting our roadsides with
nut-bearing trees. It is something tangible, like this, that really
counts. I believe that it is a fundamental of life, and living, that
precedent, pro or con, is invaluable as governing subsequent action
along similar lines. Here we have, in Michigan's action, a most worthy
precedent, and I can think of no good reason why OUR other states should
not do likewise. And I believe that this association, functioning
efficiently, can exert the necessary influence to bring about a similar
condition in OUR other states. My emphasis of the word OUR means The
Northern Nut Growers' Association's states, you know.
I just wish to mention in passing that the author and collaborator,
respectively, of the Michigan roadside planting of nut trees legislation
are our esteemed members, Senator Harvey A. Penny and the Hon. William
S. Linton, both of Saginaw, Mich.
In closing I desire to refer to our wealth, as an association, in
scientific lore. The association is particularly well equipped in having
a faculty, so to speak, than which there is none better in the
country--yes, the world--in whose hands our recommendations, to the
planter of nut trees, can be entrusted with absolute safety. For genuine
scientific research in nut culture of the northern states this
association stands singly and alone. This tribute is born of vivid
remembrance of the really scientific work done by several of our worthy
members, notably, Jones, Bixby, Morris, Deming and Vollertsen. Them,
especially, I salute. (Applause.)
* * * * *
MR. OLCOTT: With reference to the suggestions in the President's
address, why wouldn't it be desirable to refer them to a committee to
report upon and take any action that may be desired?
THE PRESIDENT: I believe, Mr. Olcott, that is a good suggestion.
MR. OLCOTT: I move that the President's address be referred to a special
committee to consider and report at a later meeting in respect to the
suggestions made and the plans for carrying them out. Motion seconded by
the Secretary and carried.
Committee appointed: The President, Mr. Olcott, Dr. Deming, Mr. Bixby
and Mr. Jones, to report Friday evening.
THE PRESIDENT: The next feature of our proceeding is the report of our
secretary, Dr. William C. Deming of Hartford, Conn.
THE SECRETARY: Mr. President, I beg to say that the secretary has no
formal report; but I have a number of items that will be of interest to
the association which we can take up at this time if you think best. I
think first should be taken up the notices of two members who have died
this year, both of whom were very prominently connected with nut
growing, Dr. Walter Van Fleet and Col. C. K. Sober. I will read a notice
of Dr. Van Fleet's death which has been especially prepared for us by
Mr. Mulford of the United States Department of Agriculture.
DR. WALTER VAN FLEET
In the death of Dr. Walter Van Fleet on January 26, 1922, the United
States has lost one of the greatest plant breeders in its history, and
garden rose growers an ardent advocate and sincere friend. Since a lad
he had been interested in these lines of work and the products of his
unremitting and painstaking energy, combined with unlimited patience,
are known by garden lovers all over the country, as well as in Europe.
Rosarians naturally know him best by his roses, of which there were
many, among them that splendid variety that bears his name, as well as
such others as Silver Moon, American Pillar, and Alida Lovett. Many
more are still in the trial grounds of the United States Department of
Agriculture at Bell Station, one of which, christened Miss Mary Wallace,
will be available in two or three years.
The ideal rose for which he was striving, in all his later work at
least, was a garden rose with foliage that would compare in
healthfulness and disease resistance with the best of the rose species,
that would be hardy under ordinary garden culture, and that would be a
continuous bloomer. His experience taught him what would be likely to
give the desired results, but often he could not come directly to the
ends sought. For example, when he wanted to combine the characters of
some newly found species with the Hybrid Tea roses, he would often find
the two could not be crossed directly with one another. He would then
seek some other rose that would combine with the new species, without
changing the characteristics which he wished to preserve, after which he
would grow the resulting hybrids and cross them with the hybrid tea.
Sometimes he would need to make another cross before he could get the
seedlings for which he was striving. When it is realized that each cross
of this kind would take from three to five years before he could take
the next step an idea is gained of the patience required. Sometimes the
results of these crosses would be infertile, producing neither perfect
pistil nor viable pollen, as in the case of a handsome scarlet rugosa
growing in the National Rose Test Garden which he was unable to use for
further breeding on this account.
His great love of his work is shown in his having given up a successful
medical practice in 1891 to devote all his time to plant breeding. He
did this, even though he had taken a post graduate course in medicine at
the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1886-7, after having
graduated at the Hahneman Medical College in the same city in 1880. His
first work after this change was primarily with the gladiolus on a farm
between Alexandria and Mount Vernon, Va. The soil was not adapted to his
purpose so he abandoned it and went from there about 1892 to the Conard
and Jones Company of West Grove, Pa., then to Little Silver, N. J., and
in 1897 to the Ruskin Colony in western Tennessee as the colony
physician.
In 1899 he became associated with the Rural New Yorker and lived at
Little Silver, N. J., where he continued his breeding work on his own
place. As associate editor for the following ten years and as writer of
the column of "Ruralisms" in this paper he has left much valuable
information on plant life and plant growing. From 1902 to 1910 he was
also Vice-President of the Rural Publishing Company. While at Little
Silver he was breeding fruits, roses, chesnuts, lilies, freesias,
azaleas, and other ornamentals.
In 1909 he went to the Plant Introduction Gardens of the United States
Department of Agriculture, at Chico, Cal. As the climate did not agree
with his wife, he remained at Chico but a year and moved to Washington,
D. C., where his official work was with drug plants and chestnuts, but
his own time was largely devoted to breeding work with a wide range of
other plants, a continuation of much of the work he had been doing at
Little Silver. The move to Chico, Cal., resulted in a great loss to his
breeding work. Some of his material was left at Little Silver, much of
it died in the uncongenial climate at Chico, and other promising plants
were lost in the long shipment across the continent, both going and
coming.
In 1916 he was transferred to the office of Horticultural and
Pomological Investigations where he was permitted to devote himself to
plant breeding along such lines as looked promising to him, while at the
same time he continued his work with chestnuts and chinquapins and a few
drug plants.
Dr. Van Fleet was born at Piermont, N. Y., June 18, 1857. His early
years were spent on a farm but later he lived at Williamsport, Pa. In
early life he made a study of birds, his first book being "Bird
Portraits," published in 1888, apparently being a reprint of magazine
articles, one of which dates back to 1876. He was also a successful
taxidermist, having studied under Maynard, and trained several of the
leading taxidermists of his generation, including Charles H. Eldon of
Williamsport, Pa. At nineteen he spent a year in Brazil, first connected
with a party constructing a railroad around some of the rapids of the
upper Amazon, and later in connection with the Thomas scientific
expedition collecting birds and plants.
August 7, 1883, he married Sarah C. Heilman of Watsontown, Pa., who was
associated with him in his medical practice and in his breeding work,
and has been a sympathetic and helpful companion, and who survives him.
His was a most lovable personality. Those who came into contact with him
day after day appreciated best his sterling qualities. He was kindly and
considerate and nothing was too much trouble, and yet he had an
intolerance of hypocrisy and cant that was almost violent. He was
steadfast of purpose and there is nothing that shows this better than
his lifelong work in plant breeding and the ruthless manner in which he
rooted out his inferior seedlings as soon as he felt them to be
valueless. His likes and dislikes were strong. Above all, he was modest
and retiring in the extreme. He not only avoided, but shunned publicity.
He avoided the outdoor meetings of the American Rose Society in the
National Rose Test Garden as much from the fear of publicity that we,
his friends, could not refrain from giving him, as for any other reason.
He regretted in his later years that he had given up, during his
editorial career, the little public speaking that he had previously done
and had gotten so out of practice that, with his disposition, he could
not again take it up.
He was an amateur musician with a thorough knowledge of orchestral and
band instruments, harmony, theory, and orchestration but during the last
few years none but intimate frequenters of his home had the privilege
of hearing him, although until within the last two or three years he
often played the violin.
In 1918 he was awarded the George Robert White Medal of Honor for
eminent services in horticulture by the Massachusetts Horticultural
Society, probably the greatest honor that can come to a horticulturist
in this country. He had also been awarded three medals for the rose Miss
Mary Wallace, a gold medal by the American Rose Society, a gold medal by
the City of Portland, Oregon, and a silver trophy by the Portland
(Oregon) Rose Society. He was associate editor of the magazine
"Genetics" at the time of his death.
* * * * *
Although he was an honorary member of the association I think very few
of us knew that he had such varied activities in his life as this little
biography tells us he had. The death of Dr. Van Fleet has been a great
loss to American horticulture and nut growing.
Also during the year Colonel Sober has died. Colonel Sober, as you know,
was a man who had made a very great success of growing the Paragon
chestnut. His was the first commercial success in nut growing in the
North. Then the blight came along and wiped out his industry. The
Colonel was loath to admit for a long time that he had the blight or
that his trees were not immune and that his nut growing was going to be
a failure on account of the blight. I have no biography of Colonel Sober
to read but one was published in the American Nut Journal for August.
THE PRESIDENT: I feel that we ought to make some record here of our
feeling for these two men. I knew them both personally. I met Dr. Van
Fleet at Washington two years ago and Colonel Sober seven years ago when
the convention was held here. I had a great deal of correspondence with
Colonel Sober. I think that we should adopt a resolution now and send
copies of it to the families of these two deceased gentlemen to let them
know the high regard in which this association held them as members and
men.
MR. O'CONNOR: I make that motion.
THE SECRETARY: I second that motion and ask that the President appoint a
committee on resolutions, which will also cover any other resolutions
that may be necessary during the course of the meeting.
(See Appendix for Report of Committee on Resolutions.)
THE PRESIDENT: I will appoint on that committee Dr. Morris, Mr.
Patterson, Dr. Deming, Mr. Jones and Mr. Rick.
THE SECRETARY: I have still a number of things here that will take up a
good deal of time. I don't know that it is particularly interesting to
any one outside of the association but I have a letter that I think is
interesting to the members, especially those who have attempted chestnut
culture, from Mr. G. F. Gravatt, assistant pathologist, United States
Department of Agriculture, in which he says as follows:
As you may be asked questions at the Northern Nut Growers' Association
meeting at Rochester regarding chestnut blight work of the Office of
Forest Pathology I am sending the following letter:
By means of short field trips and correspondents I am keeping up in a
general way with the spread of the chestnut blight. The disease is
steadily spreading southward and westward. Infections are now known in
seven counties in Ohio and thirteen counties in North Carolina. There is
every reason to expect that the disease will ultimately cover the range
of the native chestnut and chinquapin.
In Ohio several orchards have been reported as infected by State
authorities. The blight is now present on native and planted chestnut in
a number of localities in the Northwest quarter of that state. State
authorities have reported one orchard in Indiana as infected.
It is evident that chestnut orchards located in the middle west are in
danger of becoming infected with the blight. The most important means of
spread to localities outside of the range of native chestnut are by
chestnut poles and lumber products, and by infected chestnut nursery
trees. Owners of chestnut orchards should keep on the watch for the
disease and any suspicious specimens will be gladly identified.
There is some disagreement among pathologists as to the practicability
of controlling chestnut blight in orchards located outside of the range
of native chestnut or in localities within the range of the native
growth where the native trees are very scattering, such as in many parts
of Ohio.
My personal opinion is that the orchardist thoroughly familiar with the
disease who will systematically inspect his trees, properly remove any
infection as soon as it becomes visible and who has eliminated the
sources of new infection in his neighborhood has a good chance of
success. Control of the disease in some orchards is being tried out and
I am desirous of getting in touch with other chestnut orchardists who
have infected trees.
The chestnut breeding work at Bell, Md., started by Dr. Van Fleet, is
being continued. Mr. Reed is looking after points relating to culture,
quality of nuts, productions, etc., while I am looking after the
hybridization and disease work. The Chinese chestnut seems to be the
most resistant to the disease though a number of trees of this species
have been killed primarily by the blight.
A number of reports of chestnut blight becoming less virulent have been
investigated but in all cases the reports were incorrect. Professor
Graves is continuing his observations on resistant trees around New York
City.
That, I think, summarizes the chestnut blight situation very well.
I have a letter from Mr. Reed from China; it is a long letter and I will
only read from it one or two extracts which tell why he was sent to
China:
My task is that of obtaining a summary of the so-called "Manchurian"
walnut industry of this country. So many walnuts from here are being
delivered in the States each year that our own industry is considerably
affected. The extent of production, its present rate of growth and its
probable character and magnitude ten years hence are things our own
people needed to know. So serious is the situation that Thorp, manager
of the California Association left San Francisco for over here more than
two months ago to get a short general glimpse, then to go to European
points for the same purpose.
The consuls here have reported that no walnuts are grown in Manchuria,
except in half wild, low-grade, scattered product which is assembled in
small quantities only and probably not exported. The exported nuts are
mainly from the provinces of Chihli, Shantung, Shansi and Honan.
Tientsin and Hankow are the chief points of export.
* * * * *
Mr. Reed expects to be back about Thanksgiving time. We miss Mr. Reed
very much here at the conventions because he is the Government
representative of the nut industry. He has a wider general knowledge of
the nut industry in the United States than any other man.
In connection with the suggestions that our President has made, I think
I ought to call the attention of the association again to the address of
Dean Watts that he delivered at the convention last year in Lancaster.
(This address, entitled "A National Programme for the Promotion of Nut
Culture," will be found on page 80 of the report of the proceedings at
the twelfth annual meeting.)
I have brought here a cluster of burrs from some chinkapin bushes that
have been growing in Elizabeth Park, Hartford, for 23 years. They are
loaded with nuts and although attacked by the blight, the fact of their
being there so many years shows how resistant they are. I have also some
clusters of burrs from chinkapin bushes in my own garden. They bore a
full crop the second year from transplanting.
MR. O'CONNOR: Before I forget it, I want to say a word in regard to
chinkapins. Right close to where I live there was a fire swept through
the place and burned them down to the roots. But they have come up from
the roots and are full of chinkapins at the present time; I have seen
where the blight has hit them and they died back to the ground and they
have shot up new shoots again and are bearing. The chinkapin is a coming
nut; the school children are looking for them like I used to look for
the butternuts in the early days.
THE PRESIDENT: That is very interesting information, Mr. O'Connor, and I
am very glad you have stated it.
THE SECRETARY: Mr. Wycoff of Aurora, N. Y., has brought here a little
branch containing two well developed Indiana pecans grown on a grafted
tree. I think that is the first instance in which a grafted pecan tree
of the Indiana variety has borne in the North. Mr. Snyder says he has
fruited a Witte pecan at his place. A number of us have been striving to
make the record for first bearing of a grafted "Indiana" pecan tree in
the North. Mr. Wycoff has won it.
Mr. O'Connor, I think, has brought with him a number of branches of
pecans grown in Maryland.
MR. O'CONNOR: I have some hazels and also some chinkapins.
THE SECRETARY: Have you any pecans fruiting down there this year?
MR. O'CONNOR: Several nights of frost hurt us pretty bad this spring. We
have one tree that has got a few pecans on this year; last year the same
tree had over a hundred; this year it hasn't got more than a dozen, but
it promises to have a heavy crop next year.
THE PRESIDENT: What variety of pecans?
MR. O'CONNOR: If I am not mistaken, it is the Indiana. There are several
trees that promise to bear heavily next year. In the spring we had a
severe frost for seven nights in succession and that hurt our trees
pretty bad. We are in the frost belt down there. Last year we didn't
have any apples or peaches; this year we have some apples and some
peaches but the grapes were severely hurt by the frost, also there are
very few walnuts on the trees this year.
MR. CORSAN: From traveling around as much as I do I can vouch for that
gentleman's statement in regard to the frost. I was up in the extreme
northern part of the United States, northern New York, and I never saw
such a crop of hickory nuts in my life and I have gathered nuts since I
am able to remember. I have also seen more peaches up in Ontario and
even north of Ontario. When you talk about frost and the South having
such an advantage over the North, it is entirely wrong; I have had that
idea knocked out of me for a good many years.
THE SECRETARY: I wish also to say that I brought here a small branch
from the Hartford pecan tree bearing two nuts. The Hartford pecan tree
is undoubtedly the largest pecan tree in the North. It is about ten feet
in circumference, over seventy-five feet high and has a very large
spread. I will ask Mr. Weber if he will give us the account again of the
finding of that black walnut in the river and tell us the result of his
investigation.
MR. WEBER: Whenever I come across a black walnut I want to open it up
and see what it looks like inside. Following that custom when I found a
walnut that had lodged against the dyke north of the central part of the
city, I was surprised when I opened it because the partitions were very
thin, like an English walnut. Later on I found another similar nut
lodged against the dyke of the river about a quarter of a mile along.
Then through a statement in the paper and an advertising campaign we
tried to locate the tree. Finally we got the name of a man in Floyd,
Va., who said he knew of the existence of such a tree, but a few years
previously they had cleared the land and it had been cut down. So that
finished that. But he gave me the name of the man who had owned the
place and said that there were some other trees that had originated
there and that they were bearing. It is down in Virginia at the extreme
western end and off the railroad and rather hard to get to. I thought
possibly on my way home I would get there this trip.
THE SECRETARY: As an example of nut enthusiasm here is the corporation
counsel of the city of Cincinnati, who on his walks abroad picks up nuts
that he finds and examines them. He finds one on the dyke of the river
that he considers remarkable and in conjunction with the president of
this association conducts an advertising campaign in the watershed of
the river where that nut was found in order to locate the tree, and
succeeds eventually in doing so.
Mr. President, here is a communication which I received in July from the
Secretary of the American Pomological Society inviting us to become a
member. I didn't feel that I had the authority to send him a check for
ten dollars, but I would like to put before the association the question
as to whether we ought not to make this association a member of the
American Pomological Society. I would ask, Mr. President, that you put
that matter up for discussion, if you think it is of sufficient
importance.
THE PRESIDENT: I do, Mr. Secretary, and think it would materially help
in gaining names in our plans for increasing the membership if we were
able to say we were a member of that society. What do you suggest
relative to the procedure in that connection?
THE SECRETARY: I think all that is necessary is the motion by some
member that the treasurer be authorized to take out a membership for the
association in the American Pomological Society.
BY A MEMBER: I so move. They will know we are in existence and if we
take an interest in their work they will take an interest in ours.
Motion duly seconded and carried.
THE PRESIDENT: Your reference to Mr. Reed reminds me that prior to his
receiving orders to go to China, he and Mrs. Reed both had promised to
come and make addresses at this convention; Mrs. Reed on the subject of
nuts as a food and Mr. Reed with a fine exhibit and also an illustrated
lecture. He wrote me quite fully just before going saying he was awfully
sorry that he could not be here. With reference to the Secretary's
remarks regarding Dean Watts, I had the privilege of meeting Dean Watts
last year at Lancaster and I think his ideas are very much along the
same line relative to increasing our membership and improving our
financial condition so that we can do real things. I had a letter from
Mr. Littlepage early in the season and he expected to be here. Then he
finally wrote me and said it would be absolutely impossible for him to
come but he was sending his able lieutenant, Mr. O'Connor. I was
beginning to feel a little worried this morning that perhaps Dr. Morris
might not be able to get here but I was very happy a few minutes ago to
see the Doctor come in and now I feel considerably more comfortable
because he is a great aid and help at these conventions. Is there
anything further, Mr. Secretary, that you have in mind?
THE SECRETARY: I just want to call your attention to the exhibits; they
really hardly need any one to call attention to them, but I would like
to mention especially the exhibits at the two ends of the table. The one
at the further end of the table by Mr. Dunbar of the Department of Parks
of Rochester is really a very remarkable exhibit, especially from a
scientific point of view. (See list of exhibits in appendix.) At this
end of the table is a splendid exhibition of filberts grown in Rochester
in Mr. McGlennon's filbert nursery under the direction of Mr.
Vollertsen; it needs no word of praise from any one, it speaks for
itself. Also I call your attention to these three English walnut trees
in pots, each one bearing fully developed nuts, which were grown by Mrs.
Ellwanger. Last of all I will mention again the cluster of Indiana
pecans brought here by Mr. Wycoff of Aurora.
MR. DUNBAR: Dr. Deming didn't tell us about the Chinese chestnuts that
are fruiting--the castanea mollissima.
THE SECRETARY: Dr. Morris has had them fruiting for a number of years. I
don't know whether any others have or not.
DR. MORRIS: They fruit very well and are a good hardy nut. They are on
limestone land.
THE SECRETARY: It is a very interesting nut.
MR. CORSAN: Out of twelve varieties of chestnuts that I planted on my
place it is the only one that died. I got them in Washington. I looked
after them probably too well. I will try them again to be certain they
had no climatic reason for dying. It is very strange that that chestnut
didn't grow. Nobody near me grows chestnuts so I can cultivate them for
a good many years without any worry about blight.
DR. MORRIS: I doubt if the blight amounts to much with you. It is
carried by migrating birds. Some birds will take the blight north and
our friends in Canada will finally have it, so cheer up, the worst is
yet to come, but it will be a good many years.
MR. CORSAN: The blight has got to the extreme northern part of the
chestnut growth, that is, to the top of Lake George. The chestnut
doesn't go a quarter of a mile beyond Silver Bay.
DR. MORRIS: I have found chestnut trees in Quebec.
PROFESSOR NIELSON: Speaking of the range of nut trees, I have seen the
hazelnut in the Saskatchewan several hundred miles north of the
international boundary and at Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
THE PRESIDENT: That is very interesting to me for about the time that we
started in experimenting with filberts I received a letter from an old
friend of mine in Canada, Mr. Edward Kennedy; he stated that he believed
the hazelnut or filbert would do very well in the Canadian Northwest. At
that time we were in the nursery business and were finding it difficult
for our general nursery stock to survive the severe winters in the
Canadian Northwest. Mr. Kennedy thought that from his observation of the
filbert throughout that country it was the one item in the nurseryman's
list that would do very well there.
DR. MORRIS: In that connection I would like to say that I have seen the
hazelnut growing as far north as Hudson Bay and it is very hard to
distinguish it from the elm. The hazelnuts grow to a height of from
twenty to twenty-five feet and the elm comes down to about that height.
The leaves look so much alike that I found myself looking for hazelnuts
under an elm tree.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Patterson told me that while fishing on one of the
streams near Albany he had found some of the common hazelnuts in fruit.
I have sent down to some of my friends at Albany some of our filbert
plants to see how they might do there and the reports up to the present
time have been altogether favorable. My thought up to the present time
has been that perhaps the climate there is a little too hot.
The next item on our program is the report of the treasurer, Mr. Willard
G. Bixby of Baldwin, N. Y.
NORTHERN NUT GROWERS' ASSOCIATION
_In Account With_
WILLARD G. BIXBY, _Treasurer_
_Receipts:_
From annual members, including joint subscription
to American Nut Journal $222.25
From contributing members, including joint
subscription to American Nut Journal 80.00
From contributions 357.50
From advertising in report 5.35
From sale of reports 12.00
From sale of Bulletin No. 5 8.58 $685.68
------
From Life Membership W. L. Linton 50.00
------
$735.68
Deficit September 1, 1922:
Balance Special Hickory Prize $25.00
Balance Life Memberships 95.00
Deficit for regular expenses 176.87
Net deficit 56.87
------
$792.55
_Expenditures:_
American Nut Journal--their portion of joint
subscription $74.00
1921 Convention 71.46
Printing report 12th meeting 212.19
Printing and stationery 142.82
Nut contest 111.01
Postage and express 5.00 $616.48
------
Deficit October 1, 1921:
Balance Special Hickory Prize $25.00
Balance Life Memberships 45.00
Deficit for regular expenses 246.07
Net deficit 176.07
------
$792.55
The work of the treasurer for the past year has not been satisfactory to
him.
The amount of attention he has been able to give it has been much less
than he had hoped. While supposed to be retired with nothing to do
except just what he wants to this is far from the facts. While it is
true that in 1919 he did retire from business, in which he had spent
practically all of his time since leaving school, he has never been able
to retire entirely and is still president of one corporation and
vice-president of two. In the case of one of these the conditions under
which it operated have changed so entirely that he has had practically
to get back into business and the work of the association has had to be
sandwiched in as best it could and at times has had scant attention. Had
it not been for Mrs. Bixby's help on the work of the treasurer proper,
he would have had to resign.
There is a deficit[1] shown by the treasurer's report although less than
that of a year ago. The attempt to induce a rather large proportion of
our members to become contributing members, paying $5.00 per year as
membership fee, including subscription to the American Nut Journal, has
been reasonably successful, about one-quarter of our receipts of
membership fees being from this source. The real difficulty, however, is
that our total membership is not sufficient to enable receipts from dues
to pay expenses. In every year, for a good many years, receipts from
contributions have been about equal to those from dues and apparently
that condition will have to continue until our membership is doubled,
unless the activity of the association is materially reduced, which
course seems inadvisable to your treasurer.
[1] This was wiped out at the meeting by contributions and guarantee of
new membership which more than equalled the amount of the deficit.
The results of the nut contest the past year have been unsatisfactory.
The nut crop was a failure over quite a portion of the country covered
by the association. The number of nuts sent in was not over one-tenth
of those received in 1920 and no nuts of notable excellence were
received. Were it not for the fact that this year promises to be a great
year for nuts in the northeastern United States, one might think that
the nut contests had outlived their usefulness. They have, however,
brought us so many good nuts and are so comparatively inexpensive that
your treasurer would not want to give them up yet.
During the past year an earnest effort was made by the treasurer to get
new members by getting nurserymen to enclose in their catalogs circulars
regarding the association as well as membership application blanks, over
$100.00 being expended on this item. The nurserymen on the accredited
list responded heartily. The results, however, were far from being as
satisfactory as a year ago when the literature sent out by the
nurserymen simply called attention to bulletin No. 5. Literature
regarding the association and membership application blanks were
inserted in bulletin No. 5 and between five and ten per cent. of those
who received bulletin No. 5 became members, the number being
considerably greater than those from similar efforts this year.
This shows conclusively that direct appeals, unless there is personality
behind them, do not have much force. A year ago bulletin No. 5 in the
possession of one interested enough to purchase it, supplied the
personality and gave force to the appeal that was lacking this year.
Thirty-eight new members have joined the association since the last
report, making 561 since organization, of whom we have 249 at present,
making 312 who have resigned, or dropped out, or have been removed by
death. The additional members obtained this year are largely due to the
personal efforts of the president and those in his office.
During the past year we have lost by death our only honorary member, Dr.
Walter Van Fleet of the United States Department of Agriculture, and one
life member, Col. C. K. Sober of Lewisburg, Penn.
Respectfully submitted,
WILLARD G. BIXBY, _Treas._
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: I feel that we have got to get busy and get some more
members and more money. At nearly every convention a deficit is
reported; it ought to be the other way, and it can be. We will all
agree, I believe, those of us who are in the habit of attending these
conventions, that they resolve themselves largely into meetings of a
mutual admiration society. Outside of Dr. Deming, Mr. Bixby and one or
two others, there is very little thought given to this association
during the year except immediately prior to the convention. Of course,
we can't get ahead very far that way. Ever since I have been actively
connected with this association I have given first thought to the matter
of membership and the improvement of our finances. I do hope that at
this convention some definite and specific action will be taken so that
a year from now there will be a decided increase of members, because I
am confident we can do it if we put our shoulders to the wheel. Then we
will have a surplus instead of a deficit. As I said in my paper this
morning, the association is engaged in scientific work, but we are not
going to get very far along unless we have more money, and we can't get
more money unless we get more members. We ought to put our shoulders to
the wheel and pull this association up to a membership that is worthy of
its title. If each member would get from three to five new members
during the year we would have a membership in the neighborhood of a
thousand another year and that would give us a surplus of money. I hope
that definite action will be taken at this convention to stimulate that
development of the association. If any of the other members have
anything to say on that subject I would be very glad to hear from them.
MR. OLCOTT: I think that the membership is really one of the most
important things for this association to consider. But I do not think it
would be well to go away from this convention with only the idea that
each member should try to get three or four others. That is all very
well and it would mean considerable IF they would do it. I think there
are enough business men here and brains enough here so that if this
matter were referred to a good big committee that would spend some time
on it, and before we go would report some definite way of stimulating
interest in nut culture and in this association, that it would bring the
membership up to a point where it could accomplish something in a
business way. It is not a matter for individual action but a matter for
association action. It needs publicity and a good comprehensive plan.
The money will come as more members come. The wider knowledge of what
this association is doing for an active membership would make a bigger
membership. If you will remember President Linton suggested that each
state should provide twenty-five to fifty members; it does seem as
though there should be twenty-five or fifty members, men and women, in
each one of the twenty or so northern states. If there were fifty there
is a thousand members in the twenty states. He pledged, I believe,
twenty-five names from Michigan on his own account; I don't know whether
he made good or not but the plan is good to aim at fifty members in each
of twenty states.
MR. SPENCER: I am very much interested in the production of nut trees
largely as a matter of curiosity. My home is in Decatur, Ill. Illinois
has 56,000 square miles, 30,000 square miles of that state are, or were,
covered with hard wood timber. In Bureau County the hickory, the hazel,
the walnut and butternut grow with a great deal of vigor; less than two
blocks from me there is an ordinary sweet chestnut brought from the East
by a gentleman a great many years ago. I measured it last fall and it is
six feet nine inches in circumference, it has a spread of about sixty
feet and it is about seventy-five feet high. The neighbors told me that
they got a bushel of chestnuts every year off that one tree. I presume
if they took better care of it and gave it some fertilization they would
get more than that. I happen to be the chairman of the tree committee of
the Bird and Tree Club. The city of Decatur purchased 42 trees and
planted them in seven parks of the city of Decatur; members of the Bird
and Tree Club came to me for advice and last year I placed 114 trees for
them. They placed a number of trees with the Oberlin Conservatory of
Music, chestnut trees, and they planted them on the campus. I believe
that persons who are associated with different clubs would take up the
matter of nut growing. That means that you can interest the children and
if you can interest the children then you get the parents interested. In
Macon County alone the county surveyor told me there are 20,000 acres of
ground that are absolutely worthless except for pasture because they
form bluff land along the Sangamon river. It isn't a large stream, I
suppose down here you would call it a creek, but the city has put a dam
across the river and trees were planted. I tried to create a sentiment
to have that shore planted with nut trees instead of ash and elm and the
various trees that can bear nothing but leaves, but the hardest thing in
the world is to start a new idea.
An ordinary crop of nuts after a tree commences bearing is worth a great
deal more than a crop of wheat or oats and in the meantime you can use
the ground under it if you want to.
Now these are simply my individual efforts in Macon County to get people
interested in nut-bearing trees. It is a hard road and I am like some
other people, I don't like to be pointed out as a crank, but I am pretty
near that on this subject. With the co-operation of Mr. Reed a year ago
I delivered an address, illustrated with pictures that were supplied by
the Bureau of Plant Industry, on the subject of "The Value of the Nut
Trees for Shade and Food," with the idea of having farm homes made
beautiful by trees and attractive by the fruits thereof to keep the
children home. Last year I delivered an address on "Nut Trees and
Roadside Planting," also illustrated by pictures sent me by Mr. Reed and
through the courtesy of McMillan & Company I reproduced pictures
describing Dr. Morris's new way of grafting. If you will take steps
along those lines and work through the Bird and Tree Clubs and get the
children interested I believe you could do something toward spreading
the gospel of nut culture. I thank you for your attention. (Applause.)
MR. CORSAN: As to getting new members, I am ashamed to say that since I
joined in 1912, I just got one new member actually into the club and
that was Dr. Kellogg. I interested hundreds of people but he was the
only person I got in. The only way to do is to step right up and ask a
man for his money as soon as you give him the proposition. Now that is
where I fail. I struck Mr. MacDonald, the permanent Boy Scout Director,
200 Fifth avenue, New York City. He is very enthusiastic but he hasn't
come in as a member. Then the Overseer of the Boy Scouts, a tall young
fellow with sandy hair and a good complexion, I have forgotten his name,
but he is a splendid fellow. He was enthusiastic but he hasn't come in
as a member. I met Mr. McLean of the Orphan's Home and he is going to
have the Orphan's Home planted with nut trees, but he didn't join the
society. I suppose I didn't beg them enough. I suppose I should say,
"Give your money to me right now, immediately, and let me send it over
to Mr. Bixby." I think that would be the best method of getting in new
members. Then they will read the literature and keep in touch with the
association. I must confess downright negligence for not getting members
into the association. I thought we were a kind of a rich gang and don't
need money. But we have got to have money in order to get people into
the idea of growing nut trees.
THE PRESIDENT: What seems to be the objection?
MR. CORSAN: No objection at all except I had that fault of not gathering
in their membership while I was speaking to them upon the possibilities
of nut culture.
THE PRESIDENT: If you don't get some members in this year there will be
trouble!
MR. CORSAN: Why not give a tree with every new membership so that the
member can plant a nut tree on his own farm, and the Boy Scouts and also
the Girl Scouts would come into this thing, too, as the tall gentleman
from Decatur has said.
MR. PATTERSON: I should like to tell you what happens in our association
in the south of Georgia. For a number of years our treasurer has come up
with a deficit each year. The only practical way that we have found in
the southern nut growers' association for increasing our membership and
getting additional funds is to do it by subscriptions taken at the
meeting. Let each man pledge so many members and turn over the money to
the treasurer to pay up for the members that he has pledged. Then let
him go out and get the members to reimburse himself. In that way we have
increased our membership very much. I do not say that that is the way
that it should be handled here but that is the only way we have found of
solving the problem.
MR. TAYLOR: I represent the Northern Apple Growers' Exchange. We want to
get people who grow apples into our association and the first thing of
all is to get them interested. You first have to attract the attention
of a man, your prospective member, and then you have to arouse his
interest and you have to create a desire. We found that in order to
attract his attention a circularization of people who were eligible for
membership accomplished a great deal. These people were circularized,
given little bits of information here and there, not the information
that was given the members as a rule, not to that extent, but they were
given a certain lot of information from time to time to let them know
that the Apple Growers' Exchange was there. After a while they were
approached personally and if they said "No" we continued circularizing
them a little while longer along a different line. Finally, when we
thought we had gotten them to a point where they were interested, the
problem was to get them properly signed up. So we then made a drive for
those particular individuals by showing them what they could personally
get out of it. After he had joined our problem was to hold him, to keep
him interested until he became enthusiastic. Unless you keep them
interested they are liable to cool off, and once they are cooled off it
is almost impossible to get them interested again. We find the members
who have gone out are the hardest to get back. A way of keeping that new
member in, and helping him to feel that he is a potent factor in the
organization, might be by having some sort of a special communication
with him at the time he joins, or at the next meeting of the
association. I know that in California that is the way they work it.
Keep members informed, not merely with reports of proceedings but with
something like an occasional sheet or two on the latest thing that is
going on, especially for the new members. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: I would like to have any other suggestions. Dr. Morris,
have you anything to say?
DR. MORRIS: No, I have been doing a lot of thinking.
THE PRESIDENT: It seems to me it is the one vital thing for us to
consider. We have got to increase our membership.
MR. OLCOTT: Apropos of the remarks of Dr. Taylor comes the question of
the desirability of giving a prospective member something for his money.
Our first problem is to interest someone to the extent of membership and
then to keep him after we get him. Those are problems that require
thought. I think the President in his address suggested that the
association produce young nut trees to be given away to someone to
plant, to interest that someone and others who see it. Would you give
him another tree at renewal time?
THE PRESIDENT: That was the idea.
MR. OLCOTT: The renewal proposition with trees selling at $2.50 to $3.00
apiece would be pretty expensive for the association--for a member to
pay us $2.00 and get a tree for nothing. My personal idea has been that
there should be a state organization in every one of the northern
states, subsidiary to this association; that each association have its
monthly meeting, or maybe quarterly or annual, taking in those who
cannot find it convenient to come to the parent association's
convention.
DR. MORRIS: I will pay the dues, and subscription to the Journal, for
any Boy Scout for ten years if you will make that the object for
striving for a prize in some organization of Boy Scouts.
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that very much.
THE SECRETARY: I have two suggestions for ways of drawing attention to
our association. The first is lectures. There are a number of our
members who have given lectures on the subject of nut growing. Mr.
Spencer has just told you that he has and Dr. Morris loses no
opportunity to give them. I have given them myself and Mr. Reed of the
Department of Agriculture speaks on nut culture. There is hardly a
member of this association but belongs to some agricultural society or
club. That is one possible place for bringing nut culture to the
attention of people who are interested in either agriculture or
horticulture. I am sure that Mr. Reed of the Department of Agriculture
will send a collection of lantern slides on nut growing to responsible
persons. These slides make lecturing much easier. I will undertake to
get Mr. Reed to make up a collection of slides to be sent out to members
for the purpose of illustrating lectures. My other suggestion is the
writing of articles for magazines, horticultural and agricultural, and
especially high-class horticultural magazines that reach wealthy people
who are interested in new things and in trying experiments, such as the
Country Gentleman, Country Life in America and the Garden Magazine. What
we really want is some person who will give himself continuously to the
promotion of this nut-growing idea. It is a great misfortune that Mr.
Bixby has taken up business again because he made a splendid beginning
in devoting himself to the interests of nut culture. I did a great deal
more myself in the earlier days of this society but circumstances have
been such that lately I have not given it much attention. I feel that
there must be members who are all ready to do work, members who would
like to jump in and take a hand. I would be very glad to share my work
as secretary. I would be glad to hand over the entire work of secretary
to some member who feels an itch to get in and do this sort of work.
THE PRESIDENT: You are very liberal in your service but I think others
ought to take a bigger share so that your duties will be easier and also
Mr. Bixby's. Now that we have this thing going I hope we will stick to
it until we get something concrete because I can't see that we are going
to make much progress just meeting from year to year with an increase of
twenty to twenty-five members. I personally will guarantee a hundred
members for this year for this association. I speak advisedly because I
know what we have been doing in our office this last couple of months. I
am satisfied that I can bring to the association a hundred new members
this year if the rest will bring ten each. We have got to get more
members and more money; let's get down to bed rock and look the thing
squarely in the face and make up our minds to go to it and do it.
MR. CORSAN: Where can these slides be got?
THE SECRETARY: I will undertake to furnish them through Mr. Reed of the
Department of Agriculture. There is also a good moving picture film of
Colonel Sober's chestnut grove that I think can be had. I have used it
myself two or three times.
MR. KAINS: Rochester, as a good many of you know, is the center of the
fruit industry in western New York. Right here is also the scene of one
of the greatest fights to get an association on a paying basis that ever
occurred. Some of you probably know that away back in the fifties
Patrick Barry and Mr. Worter and several others of the fruit growers got
together and formed the Western New York Horticultural Society.
Gradually people came in and took an interest in the work but, as always
in the beginning, there was trouble to make ends meet and Mr. Barry and
some of the others put their hands in their pockets to keep the
association going. At last it got so bad and the amount of the deficit
was so great that it was decided to have a closed meeting, no one to be
admitted except those who had actually paid their one dollar membership
fee. The year that it was announced that this would be put into effect
the following year there was all kinds of a fuss at the meeting. The
next year the people came there in a crowd to see if the rule was going
to be put in effect and the result was the largest meeting the
association had ever had. The only men and women who got inside the door
had paid their dollar. That was the first year that the association got
on its feet. One other method that could be used to spread the love of
nut growing would be to have the association offer a nut tree to
different schools where they would plant it as an Arbor Day tree. In
that way the children would learn the value of the grafted nut tree and
the value of real first-class nuts. The result would be that other
people would become interested in grafted nuts and thus extend the
interest in the whole nut-growing proposition, and your membership would
most likely increase. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: I will ask for nominations from the floor for the
nominating committee.
Mr. Pomeroy, Dr. Morris, Mr. Olcott, Mr. Rick and Mr. Patterson
nominated and elected.
THE PRESIDENT: The next order of business is to call for the reports of
any of the standing committees.
THE SECRETARY: The chairman of the committee on incorporation, Mr.
Littlepage, wrote me not long ago that he was taking active steps to
incorporate the association. I don't know whether Mr. O'Connor may know
if Mr. Littlepage has done anything about it or not.
MR. O'CONNOR: I can't say about that.
THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 7, 1922
THE PRESIDENT: I am going to ask Dr. Taylor to present his paper now, if
he will please.
PROF. RALPH H. TAYLOR: Through a previous arrangement with our secretary
I had assigned to me an entirely different subject from that on the
printed programme, "The Use of Nuts the Year Around." I have prepared a
paper on the original subject and so I will proceed to deliver it in
accordance with my arrangement with him.
I do, however, want to say first, in connection with the use of nuts the
year around, that we from California are vitally interested in that
problem. I know of no problem that faces us more at the present time
than the one of marketing the product that we grow in competition with
the tremendously increasing imports from abroad, brought in from
countries where labor costs anywhere from twenty to fifty cents a day,
and at the highest a dollar a day for what they call skilled labor, most
of it twenty to fifty cents, and with freight rates across the Atlantic
that amount to less than half of our freight rates, or one-quarter of
them. With the commodity in the hands of speculators who are able in
various ways to make tremendous profits, and giving the public none of
the benefit of these conditions, we find it almost impossible to market
our product at a profit. We must get it into the hands of the consumer
cheaply. We are endeavoring to do it. One of the plans is to encourage
the use of nuts the year around, and the California Almond Growers'
Association, whom I represent, are planning now to shell their own
almonds and put the kernels up in vacuum packages, both tin and glass,
and make it possible for the housewife, instead of going to the candy
stores and buying salted almonds for a dollar to a dollar and a quarter
once or twice a year, to secure her own almonds, blanch them herself and
use them considerably more often because she can get them cheaper. We
believe it is going to be worth while for us to go into the business the
year around. The demand at the present time is for almonds for a brief
period up to the first of January. Thereafter there is no sale until the
following November. Under those conditions you can see that with
increasing crops we are facing difficulties that are almost
insurmountable. Therefore we are changing the form in which we are
marketing part of our crop. I want to say to those people who do
recognize the value of almonds for food that it is going to be possible
for you to secure them in a most desirable form, clean, wholesome and
absolutely fresh, as almonds packed in vacuum. They will be just as
fresh as when they are put in from the orchards of California.
ALMOND POSSIBILITIES IN THE EASTERN STATES
BY R. H. TAYLOR[2]
There is probably no better way to open a discussion of this kind than
by asking a question and then using it as a text. The future
possibilities for almond production in the eastern states can not be
stated any other way than as a question. For my text I am indebted to
your secretary, Dr. W. C. Deming. It is taken from a letter written by
him under date of June 22nd to Mr. T. C. Tucker, the manager of the
California Almond Growers' Exchange, and is as follows:
"Why can't we breed an almond that will do in the East what its
sister, the peach, does?"
Any answer we might give must be, of necessity, more or less empirical
in nature.
[2] In charge Field Department, California Almond Growers' Exchange.
In order properly to understand that answer, and I shall attempt to give
one later, certain fundamental relations and limitations must first be
considered; then the possibilities of any given line of procedure may be
more clearly understood.
Botanically the almond is very closely related to the peach, both
belonging to the genus _Prunus_, sub-genus _Amygdalus_. The species of
the peach being _persica_, and of the almond, _communis_. In fact the
two trees are in many respects so much alike that it is possible to
select twigs and leaves from each which cannot be distinguished except
by an expert, and even he may be misled at times. Ordinarily, however,
they are of sufficient difference to be readily distinguished.
In the fruit the principal difference is that the fleshy portion of the
peach becomes in the almond a leathery hull which splits at maturity
revealing a seed or nut, the shell of which is generally softer than
that of the peach pit. The kernel may or may not be bitter, depending
upon the characteristics of that particular seedling. If 100 almonds
from a sweet almond tree are planted and brought to bearing it is
probable that from a third to a half of them would produce bitter
almonds. As a matter of fact, we have had by actual tests as high as 50
per cent. bitter. The peach, on the other hand, will, probably in 99-1/2
per cent. of the cases, produce a seed with a bitter kernel, only very
rarely a seed developing which will produce edible kernels. The same is
true of the apricot, the Smyrna variety being an edible apricot with an
edible kernel.
The almond is normally the first of the stone fruits to begin growth and
come into blossom in the spring and is also normally the last tree to
become dormant in the fall. It is evident, therefore, that its normal
winter resting period is comparatively short. The peach has a much
longer resting period than the almond although less than the apple, pear
and other similar fruits, and it is for this reason that peach
production is possible in a commercial way in many sections of the East.
In California, where almonds and peaches are very often planted in close
proximity, many seedlings are known which are very evidently natural
crosses between the peach and the almond. In addition many artificial
crosses have been made with no difficulty and have been planted and
brought to maturity. The products of these crosses have shown the same
general characteristics as those found naturally.
We are familiar with a peach-almond growing on the edge of a large
almond orchard in California which produces good crops of fruit quite
regularly. The fleshy portion or hull is almost edible, being much drier
than the flesh of an ordinary peach and yet much more fleshy than the
hull of the ordinary almond. It has a slight amount of astringency, a
characteristic of the almond hull, but not sufficient to prevent its
being eaten. Upon maturity this fleshy portion or pericarp splits but
does not open as is usually the case with almond hulls. Inside this the
pit, stone, seed or nut, or by whatever name it may be called, exhibits
characteristics of both the peach and the almond. It does not have the
deep corrugations of the peach pit nor does it have the comparatively
smooth shell with small pores of the almond. In this particular variety
the kernel is mildly bitter. In almost every respect this cross exhibits
characteristics of both the peach and the almond. In other cases this is
not true, some approaching more nearly the almond type while others are
almost indistinguishable from peaches. In other words, the variations
are those naturally to be expected in hybrids.
Now to return to the almond again. We find that for best results in
production the almond must be grown in a climate where the winters are
comparatively short and yet where there is sufficient cold weather to
force the trees into complete dormancy. Where the winters are long or
the summers are so dry as to force the trees to come dormant too early
in the fall there is a great tendency to premature blossoming in the
spring. In other words, the first warm weather in the late winter will
bring the trees into bloom because of the fact that they have completed
their normal rest period. This same condition has been found to be true
of certain varieties of peaches which can be grown in the South but do
not do well when planted in the North. It is for this reason primarily,
in our judgment, that almonds do not produce under eastern conditions.
There are other factors, such as extreme humidity, which may have a
bearing, and undoubtedly would in the maturing of these nuts, but this
should not prevent them bearing provided they could escape the adverse
weather of late winter and early spring.
A mistaken notion has been given considerable credence that the almond
is much more tender to frost or cold than the peach. Our experience,
where the two have been grown side by side under identical conditions,
is that the almond will stand fully as much cold as the peach and in
some cases even more. The reason why almond crops are lost oftentimes
when peach crops are not is due to their earlier blossoming and
consequent subjection to the more severe weather of early spring which
the peaches avoid.
It is evident, therefore, that the principal problem in producing
almonds in regions of long winters, as compared with those localities
where almonds can be produced, is to secure an almond which naturally
has a long resting period, resulting in late blossoming, and yet one
which will mature its fruit reasonably early. An almond tree beginning
to blossom about the first of February will usually ripen its crop
between the first and middle of August, though sometimes later. Those
beginning to blossom about the first of March or later ripen their crops
during September usually and often extend into October.
The question of soils and stocks is too broad to discuss here, except to
dismiss it with the statement that the soils that will successfully
produce peaches should also prove reasonably satisfactory for almonds
through the use of peach rootstocks. These are commonly and successfully
used in commercial almond orchards in the West.
Whether it will ever be possible to produce commercial almonds will
depend upon whether an almond can be bred which will fulfill the
requirements of late blossoming and early ripening and at the same time
answer the requirements of a commercial nut. We should judge that it is
possible, although we believe it is a big problem. Our reason for
thinking so is that the Ridenhauer almond under eastern conditions will
often produce nuts and it is recognized as doing quite well. We have
never had an opportunity of tasting this nut but have seen photographs
of the tree and have examined personally the nuts. Without any knowledge
as to the actual ancestry of this nut we are very much inclined to the
belief that it is a peach-almond. If this is so it opens up a line of
breeding possibilities which should not be overlooked.
The procedure which should be followed will depend necessarily upon the
conditions under which breeding experiments may be carried on. We
believe that under eastern conditions the only opportunities for outdoor
breeding work will lie along the line of interbreeding with peaches and
almonds. The feasibility of indoor breeding with almonds is questionable
in view of the difficulty of properly hardening for winter and yet
affording protection during blossoming and providing at the same time
for conditions which will favor the setting of the fruit. We do believe
that there is abundant opportunity for experimentation, with the
possibility that valuable results may be secured by systematic breeding
along the line just mentioned.
Along with this cross breeding simple almond breeding experiments should
be carried on, but these must be done in a locality where almonds can be
brought to fruitage. Of course, the ideal place for this would be in
California in a known almond district, and it is hoped that as time goes
on experiments along this line will be conducted in an effort to secure
later blossoming varieties and earlier ripening varieties. Our guess is
that it would not be possible, at least within the lifetime of one man,
to lengthen the normal resting period of any strain of pure bred almonds
to the point where they would be able to withstand the long eastern
winters and at the same time shorten the ripening period to practical
limits. The development of this work, as far as it can be practically
carried, should result in relatively late blossoming almonds which could
then be used as a basis for breeding with peaches in an effort to still
further approach the desired results and yet maintain the desirable
characteristics of the almond. This simply involves the application of
known breeding methods to these fruits.
To accomplish anything of this kind involves the development of a
long-time plan which must be consistently followed. We would not look
for any results to speak of before ten years, and would not expect any
definite worthwhile results short of twenty years. It appears, however,
that the possibilities are great and well worth striving for, and it is
our sincere hope that some day a variety may be developed which will
prove adaptable to eastern conditions.
The usual summer climatic conditions which prevail in the eastern states
are not favorable to the economical production of almonds in a
commercial way but we see no reason why they should not be eventually
developed to the point where they may prove of considerable value and
satisfaction for home orchards. The very fact that thus far no varieties
of peaches have been developed which are immune year after year to
spring frosts would indicate that it would probably be impossible to
secure an almond which would be better than any peaches now known. On
the other hand, one never knows until he tries and we believe that out
of the effort much good could be accomplished, not only in the possible
production of satisfactory varieties of almonds, but possibly in the
accidental development of new and highly desirable peach varieties.
The possible development of a desirable table or canning peach variety
with a sweet kernel would in itself be well worth the effort.
I had occasion to examine those Illinois almonds on the table here. It
is quite evident that even though dried out somewhat they have some of
the characteristics of the peach. The hull itself is fleshy even though
thin. That is a characteristic that does not appear in the normal, pure
bred almond hull.
I was just talking with Dr. Morris about some efforts he made at
Stamford, Connecticut, to grow almonds. He stated to me, what was a very
great surprise, that almonds there are afflicted with peach leaf curl
and other diseases to which, under our weather conditions, they are not
subject at all. There are undoubtedly other conditions here, due to a
different climate, which we of California do not recognize at all.
I have endeavored to make this paper just as short as I could. I think
that after it comes out in the proceedings there may be opportunity to
study a few of the suggestions made here, and I want to express, on the
part of the people in California, our desire to co-operate with those of
you from the other sections of the country in every way possible for the
development of varieties of almonds, or peach almonds. I can see that it
will be difficult to compete with the sections in which almonds are
naturally produced under semi-arid conditions. But I do believe in being
close to your market if it is possible and in developing an almond which
will be worth while for local consumption, especially for home use.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Taylor, we thank you for the good advice and
suggestions offered in your paper. I believe some attempt has been made
to study the almond here in this vicinity. I know of one instance down
in Forest Lawn by Mr. Baker. I believe that some years ago Mr. Wile
attempted to do something in a commercial way with the almond, but I
have since learned it proved a failure.
As Mrs. Ellwanger was very gracious in giving up her place I am going to
call upon her now to read her paper.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR A WOMAN IN NUT CULTURE
MRS. W. D. ELLWANGER, Rochester
When at Mr. McGlennon's request I agreed to give some of my experiences
in nut growing at this meeting I had no idea such a large and
comprehensive title was to be given to my brief remarks.
Are not such opportunities wide and open to all? Women are now taking up
so many branches of agriculture, gardening, farming, landscaping, that
specializing in nuts is but one more. A real love for growing things,
perseverance in face of many discouragements, and incidentally a place
to grow the trees, are all that is necessary. I hope before long there
will be classes in nut culture in the women's horticultural schools.
What is more delightful than to plant a tree? Planting flowers is a
pleasure of the present but a tree is a link with the future.
My interest in growing Persian Walnuts in this region was started in
1912 by reading in a newspaper that these nuts could be grown in any
climate suitable for peaches. Then I remembered that when a child I had
picked walnuts from a tree on our lawn here in Rochester. Having a farm
on the shore of Lake Ontario, part of which was a peach orchard, it
seemed worth while to experiment with walnuts. Needless to say I am
still experimenting!
The first trees planted were about one hundred Pomeroy seedlings and
some fifty grafted trees, of the Rush variety. Dynamite was used at this
time with such success that we have used it ever since. The seedlings
are now quite large trees but not over half a dozen of them have borne
any nuts. I early learned from growers in California that seedlings are
a waste of time and money. I own a few acres of land in Southern
California and of course have planted walnuts there. A few years ago I
received word that the crop from my trees was being shipped to me. They
arrived. There were six nuts. If I were a Californian I might say six
bushels.
Three years ago the trees here bore quite a crop and no squirrel ever
hoarded his winter supply with more satisfaction than I had with that
first peck or so of nuts. Last year promised well, and many trees had
nuts set for the first time, but owing to the intensely hot summer, or
some other reason they did not mature.
There is a question as to the adaptability of Persian walnuts to this
climate. The severe winter of 1917-18 with its sudden and extreme
changes of temperature killed scores of my peach trees, while the
established walnuts came through practically uninjured by a temperature
of twenty-three below zero.
The World War did not take all the black walnuts in the country for gun
stocks, for there are many fine trees still in the Genesee Valley. Every
fall I am on the watch for trees bearing an abundance of large nuts
which we use for parent stock.
It would be quite out of place for me to discuss the various methods of
grafting before this audience all of whom know so much more about it
than I do. But after many trials we have had the best results from
grafting in the greenhouse. The black walnut stock is about four years
old when potted, and the scions are cut in January or February and used
immediately. Fifty per cent. is our average of success by this method,
and some of the trees not two years old are bearing nuts.
I have tried planting pecan trees, but so far they have always been
winter killed. Some Indiana trees planted this spring are growing and I
am hoping they may prove hardy.
The Sober Paragon chestnuts have shown wonderful growth and bear nuts
most abundantly. Each year, however, a tree or two is killed by the
blight and I suppose soon my orchard will meet the fate of all the other
chestnuts in the East. It seems as if someone ought to discover a remedy
for this destructive pest. Tomorrow I hope to see you all at my farm
where you can see what use one woman has made of her opportunities for
nut culture.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: On behalf of the association I am certainly very grateful
to you for your paper which contains some very valuable information.
Last week I went up to East avenue here to see the Thompson walnut grove
and met Mr. Thompson and talked with him. The grove is in a very much
run down condition. In fact he is thinking of using dynamite to blow it
up and market the wood in Batavia for gunstocks at the gun factory
there. He told us that in the thirty-six years that he has had it, he
has had only three crops of nuts. One of the crops was an especially
good one, I have forgotten the number of bushels he had, but he sold one
hundred bushels, he said, to Sibley. Lindsay & Curr at nine dollars a
bushel. If he could get a crop every year at that price I think he would
be making pretty good money. I would class that orchard as a failure.
Last week, however, I had the privilege of seeing a walnut orchard that
certainly surprised me greatly. I went to Lockport at the invitation of
our very enthusiastic member, Mr. Pomeroy, to see the Pomeroy orchard,
and I saw several trees heavily loaded with good sized nuts. Mr. Pomeroy
estimates that he will have in the neighborhood of six or seven thousand
pounds of nuts. The trees look healthy and show no evidence of disease.
As I understand some of the trees are fifty years of age and there have
been only two crop failures in that time. My idea is that the Pomeroy
walnut is very hardy and of unusually fine strain. I believe that there
is little hope for the commercial development of the English walnut much
north of the fortieth parallel. I believe there will be some instances
found, like that of the Pomeroy nut, where the seedling will do very
well. It certainly has done very well with him. The Avon orchards are
seedling trees, of course, the nuts having been gotten from a residence
on Lake avenue, Mrs. Cramer's, at the corner of Emerson street.
Evidently that strain is entirely different from the strain of nuts
represented by the Pomeroy orchard which were brought from Philadelphia
by Mr. Pomeroy's father.
I am going to ask Dr. Morris if he will present his paper and make his
demonstration at this time.
DR. ROBERT T. MORRIS: I have had a good many experiences in grafting for
a number of years. I have finally discarded most methods and have gotten
down to rather simple principles. As a matter of fact this is the last
word from my own point of view. During the past thirty or forty years I
have changed my mind so many times on so many subjects that I have no
confidence at all in anybody who puts any trust in me.
I am getting down to the splice graft. The reason why I didn't try it
before was because it didn't seem reasonable to believe that the simple
splice would hold. It was because I was so busy with many other
responsibilities that on one occasion I neglected to brace some large
splice grafts. Thus I learned that the splice graft would hold even
through the very severe storms in our vicinity of Stamford, Connecticut.
We have violent thunder storms and sometimes for a few minutes in
advance of a storm we have a wind velocity of sixty or seventy miles an
hour. If at the time the leaves happen to be wet the battering power of
a seventy-mile wind is so tremendous that it will break out almost any
form of graft. But my splice grafts during the past two years, simple
splice grafts, subjected to this sort of storm, have not given way on a
single occasion so far as I know, much to my surprise.
I will pass about some examples of the simple splice graft first and
then show how we do it.
Here is a Stabler black walnut graft on common black walnut stock last
year. For years I had been in the habit of cutting my scions and
throwing the stubs away. I had a nice lot of hardy looking stubs in the
grass and I said to myself "Why not try some of the stubs?" They made a
very fine growth. I didn't lose one of them. Here is one of the big stub
grafts and here is the growth it made last year. Here is another plain
splice and the growth it made last year. This tree was killed by the ice
in the river on my place last year. Sometimes in the spring we have
great masses of ice come down that run through the orchard and kill some
of my trees. That is the reason I cut off this one. I have only brought
specimens that were injured but they show perfectly well. In this
smaller splice you see I fitted the scion to the diameter of the stock.
In the larger one I took no pains to do that. Furthermore the paraffin
method was used. The scion is covered entirely with paraffin and I think
you will notice, by rubbing your fingers over this stock, that the
paraffin, although two years have elapsed, is all there. It is because I
put it on in such a fine layer that it expanded with the growth of the
scion.
Not always, but in order to make sure that my simple splice graft would
hold, I have sometimes put in screws. I use flat-head, brass, wood
screws, seven-eighths inch long.
I will put in some screws for you. So, if any of you fear that the
simple splice grafts may not hold, put in screws and study Basil King's
book on the "Conquest of Fear." This is a black walnut graft that I put
in late this year with screws. You can see the screws projecting from
the paraffin cover. I do not care if the screw sticks out quite a little
distance. It is covered with a thin layer of paraffin. This graft caught
and started to grow but was killed off by sprouts springing from the
butternut in great masses before it had a chance to assert its own
individuality. The graft, however, is all complete. Here is another one,
where the screws are projecting, which was killed off by the stock
sprouts below, with the repair all complete. In fact it would have gone
on well enough to a successful growth if I hadn't been away and allowed
the stock sprouts to grow. This shows, incidentally, the thin layer of
paraffin. If we use a thick layer of paraffin it will crack and not be
successful.
The simple splice graft is a very simple affair. In the first place it
is well to have a knife with which you can shave. I think, Mr. Chairman,
you could shave with that (handing knife to the President). That is the
sort of edge to use in all our grafting work, the sort of edge that will
bring terror to the heart of the mother of boys. I find very few people
who really can sharpen a knife. I have been surprised at the small
proportion of people who are really able to do it. They put on a feather
edge, or they leave a round edge, or at any rate they are unable
apparently to use the little finesse required to put the finishing touch
on a really good knife. Above all other essentials is this little piece
of carborundum made at Niagara Falls, F F Fine. Moisten it, hold it in
the fingers this way, and then by simply rubbing it back and forth in
this way you can put on the very finest edge. Do not use a knife unless
you can shave with it because it is quite essential to have the cambium
layer very nicely kept.
A couple of years ago hearing of Mr. Biederman's work in the use of the
plane for grafting with his Persian walnuts, it occurred to me to try it
with shagbark hickories. I went out in the barn to look for a block
plane and I found three or four rusty ones. I wondered where they came
from and then it occurred to me that about eight years ago I had thought
to try the plane, and did try the plane, but it was not a success. That
was before we had any success in grafting hickories. Now we may use the
plane almost to the exclusion of the knife in cutting our scions of hard
wood trees. Perhaps the majority of scions are shaped with the plane
rather than with the knife because it gives a much truer surface. The
block plane, then, I believe, is to be used more and more instead of the
knife because of the very true surface that we make on the scion and on
the stock and very quickly.
Of course with a small scion of this sort that would be about the slope
that I would use for my ordinary splice. Fasten the splice together and
simply wrap it with raffia. There is an ordinary splice graft fastened
with raffia. That is the simple form that has given me the best results
and I have tried out all the fantastic forms of grafting.
Now I am going to use the plane on a little larger scion. That is about
the slope that I would use ordinarily. We will say this is to be the
scion and this the stock. In order to make them fit perfectly I will use
a smaller block plane. Now I will pass this about. You see with what
absolute perfection those surfaces fit. You can get absolute perfection
of fit by trimming a scion with a plane instead of with a knife. Even
the best experts, like Mr. Jones, who make beautiful free-hand cuts,
will find that with a plane they may make still better ones. That is one
of the grafts that I would ordinarily fasten just with raffia, but I
will fasten one together with screws to show how it is done. Now we will
say that this is the stock and this is the scion. I am going to prepare
them to fit each other. Some will ask if I ever use a scion as large as
that. Sometimes I use a scion two or three feet long and as large as
that in diameter. They are full of vitality and make wonderful growth.
In order to do this I trim it down roughly with the knife to the general
shape before I use the plane. I will cut as true as possible with the
knife in order to simplify my work later.
MR. WEBER: In a large scion don't you have to have a larger exposed
surface?
DR. MORRIS: I do not think that really counts.
MR. SMEDLEY: Isn't the tree in the ground when you graft it?
DR. MORRIS: This is supposed to be in the ground.
MR. JONES: You couldn't do a thousand of those a day?
DR. MORRIS: If you have something special, where you want to use up some
big scions. But you can use the plane on little grafts just as well. Now
this is the stock and Dr. Deming is going to represent Mother Earth.
MR. SMEDLEY: Are the scion and stock necessarily of the same diameter?
DR. MORRIS: Not necessarily, but preferably so. One's sense of nicety
might demand that they be just alike, but you will find it doesn't make
any difference. It takes a little longer to put in a big scion of his
sort but it is very sure to grow. Your tree is already made by the time
you have done this.
MR. SMEDLEY: Should you have bark contact all around?
DR. MORRIS: I could do it with contact on one side.
MR. CORSAN: What time of the year do you do it?
DR. MORRIS: Almost any time of the year, preferably May or June.
MR. CORSAN: Do you wax that before you put the raffia on?
DR. MORRIS: After everything is all complete that is my final touch.
MR. WEBER: When the stock is sappy wouldn't the sap jam the edges of the
plane and roughen the bark?
DR. MORRIS: Not if you make it shave. I get the edge of my plane so it
will shave. Then it will not roughen it. I can screw in a scion two feet
long. I have tried it and had it start into growth. Thus I have got half
my tree under way. Now I cover the whole thing with melted paraffin.
MR. CORSAN; How do you apply the paraffin, paint it on?
DR. MORRIS: Yes, with a soft brush.
MR. CORSAN: Do you use the stuff you buy at Woolworth's by the pound?
DR. MORRIS: Yes, I buy what they call parawax.
QUESTION: It is not necessary to wrap a scion with raffia if it is
fastened with screws?
DR. MORRIS: No. After it is screwed you don't have to use raffia. I use
either screws or raffia. In a large one like this the screw is
preferable. In a smaller one the raffia would suffice. It is the plain
splice graft that I use almost to the exclusion of anything else.
MR. WEBER: Wouldn't it assist the union, if the graft didn't make a
perfect fit, to wrap it with raffia to hold it together?
DR. MORRIS: Possibly, but I think with the plane one can make a perfect
fit. That is the idea at any rate. After three weeks of growth that will
stand any storm.
QUESTION: How do you tell when the paraffin is the right temperature?
DR. MORRIS: That is very much as a woman does in cooking. You put in so
much of everything. It is a matter of experience. I get it very hot but
not hot enough to scald. The idea is to have it hot enough and to have
it very thin. On one occasion my light went out when I was grafting
walnut trees. It went out when I was grafting the very last tree. I put
in perhaps twenty or thirty grafts in all. All the other grafts caught
but on that tree, after my light went out, only one caught. In examining
into the philosophy of it a week later I found that the paraffin, being
a little too thick, had cracked.
QUESTION: When is the best time to do the grafting?
DR. MORRIS: I think the best time is after the sap season in the spring;
all through the latter part of May and in June and the first half of
July.
QUESTION: Do you use paraffin of a particular melting point?
DR. MORRIS: I have tried many but the one I use the most is the
commonest one. You can buy parawax in all groceries. If you wish to make
the parawax harder for the southern sun put in stearic acid. It may be
bought at any drugstore. Melt it with the paraffin and that will harden
it very much.
QUESTION: What proportion do you use?
DR. MORRIS: It would depend on the degree of heat to be resisted. I
suppose you might use it in the proportion of one to four of parawax,
but very little stearic acid will harden it.
QUESTION: Isn't there a tendency to melt under the high temperature of
the sun?
DR. MORRIS: As a matter of fact I pay no attention to that in the North.
Although we have very hot days and the paraffin does soften, it does not
seem to interfere with the repair on the part of the tree.
QUESTION: In the case of smaller grafts, what would be your objection to
the use of the ordinary whip graft?
DR. MORRIS: It makes one more motion.
QUESTION: It seems to me that it is more quickly done?
DR. MORRIS: It may be; that is a matter of individual technic. My idea
is to do the thing the quickest way. If a man has found that he can put
on one graft more quickly, that he has a technic that gives him speed,
which is one of the essentials of grafting, if you can put on the whip
graft quicker than I can put the other on, do it.
QUESTION: Do you have any trouble with the oxidizing of the cambium?
DR. MORRIS: Yes and no. Of course you free a certain number of enzymes.
I haven't thought of it as an oxidizing process so much as an enzymic
injury, where enzymes are freed from an organic solution.
QUESTION: I think that is correct. That is the common method of
expressing it.
DR. MORRIS: I use sometimes, when the weather is very hot and I am
grafting in the midst of sunshine on a hot day, a solution that I have
described containing salts belonging to the salts of trees. I use that
to dip my graft in and in that way the enzymes that are freed from the
cut surface are removed by the solution in such a way that they do not
interfere. Practically we can get almost one hundred per cent. of
catches of our grafts now by the paraffin method, that is, with perfect
scions, perfect stocks and perfect technic by the operator.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: Time is pressing and we have with us a member whom I am
very anxious to have you all hear. I refer to our beloved member and my
warm personal friend, the Pecan King, Mr. J. M. Patterson of Putney,
Georgia, who is here this evening with Mrs. Patterson and their two
sons. It affords me great pleasure to introduce Mr. J. M. Patterson.
MR. PATTERSON: Ladies and Gentlemen, your distinguished president has
set a nice pace for me, introducing me as a king! Of course I am not
unmindful of the fact that crowned heads are not any longer in favor in
this democratic world of ours.
THE PRESIDENT: When I introduced Mr. Patterson at the Chamber of
Commerce yesterday to Secretary Woodward, I introduced him as the Pecan
King. He is known as the Pecan King and he is the Pecan King. There is
no question about it. Mr. Woodward responded in what I thought was a
very gracious way. He said he was much happier in meeting a pecan king
than he would be in meeting some of the kings in the old world.
MR. PATTERSON: That is my apology for being here. You have made it easy
for me. I have been away from home for nearly five weeks traveling on
four wheels, and I received notice from your worthy president just a day
or two before leaving my office that he would expect me to read a paper
on the Commercial Possibilities of Nuts. At all events I had no time to
collect my thoughts or make any preparation, and those of you who have
toured through a new country and through some twelve or fifteen states,
and passed through eight or ten universities and got your graduation
papers each time as you went through, will realize that I have had not
much time to compose my thoughts on this subject.
However, I am exceedingly glad to be here and I am going to talk a
little like a preacher I heard once in the city of Pittsburgh. He said,
"My text will be found in the Gospel of John, 4th Chapter, 15th verse,
which reads as follows:" and he read the text. Then he proceeded without
a lapse of breath and said, "From which we now take our departure." My
subject is the Commercial Possibilities of Nuts, "from which we now take
our departure."
California, or the Pacific Coast, has found the commercial nuts, the
almond and the walnut. The Southland has found the commercial nut in the
pecan. You good people of the effete and frozen East are still looking
for the commercial nut. That is how it comes that we are here. It looked
to me very much this afternoon when we were out at Mr. McGlennon's
nursery that he had helped you very materially to answer that question,
that he had discovered for you one commercial nut.
We have in the South two pecan organizations, one of which we call the
National Nut Growers' Association. You will notice the word _National_
Nut Growers' Association. The association is composed wholly of pecan
growers. Many of us recognize that the name is a misnomer. We have been
hoping that the time would come when we could have the name of that
organization changed to the Southern Pecan Growers' Association, but we
have one old member who has one English walnut tree in his orchard, who
says we are a national nut growers' association and he objects. Some
time that English walnut tree will die or he will die, and then we will
be able to change the name. Then we have the Georgia-Florida Pecan
Growers' Association. There is a California Walnut Growers' Exchange and
a California Almond Growers' Exchange, and I am hoping to see a time
when this Northern Nut Growers' Association will have discovered some
real commercial nut, and then we will have complete the organization of
the nuts of this country, the Almond Association, the Walnut
Association, the Pecan Association and then the filbert, or whatever nut
you discover here. We will bring them all together in one great national
organization, and we will have an organization of real nuts. I am
expecting to see that day. (Applause.)
I read a criticism the other day of a book that was published in which
the reviewer said: "It is well for a man when he sits down to write a
book that he know something of the topic on which he is going to write."
I know very little about the possible nuts that may become commercially
important in this section of the world. If it wasn't for the fact that
when I come North here I like to meet some fellow nut, we wouldn't care
very much whether you fellows ever discover a commercial nut in this
part of the world or not, because the Lord has been so generous to you.
The Lord has not given us a perfect climate. He gives one climatic
feature here and another one there and another one some place else. He
distributes his benefactions. It seems to me he has been lavish with you
people, especially in New York and all through the middle West and the
East. You have so many things. Why should you want to grab off the nut
business? But just for the sake of letting you have a little variety and
having some real good things to eat, I am willing to have you discover
some real good commercial nut and then the time will come when we will
have this national organization.
I am going to tell you a little bit about the history of the pecan. I
think you would be interested in that. The cultivated pecan is of
comparatively recent history. It is not so long since those who were in
the South dreaming of a commercial nut were in very much the same
position as this association is here, although the South seemed to be
the natural place for the pecan. There were no commercial pecan orchards
twenty years ago. There were wild groves in the river bottoms of Texas
which there are today, but there were practically no cultivated pecans.
There were actually no bearing groves of cultivated pecans. It is only
a matter of fifteen or eighteen years that the cultivated pecan has been
commercially planted.
I think our concern was among the earliest. I think we may claim to be
the very first who, in a large way, planted pecans. We did not start
with the intention of planting them in a large way. It was a sort of
natural growth. It was only sixteen years ago this month, sixteen years
ago, that I first heard of the paper shell pecan from John Craig of
Cornell University; right under the shade of where we are meeting
tonight I first heard of the paper shell pecan and was induced to put a
little money in planting groves. I think I may say that New York State,
through the instrumentality of old John Craig, can take credit for the
start of the great commercial pecan groves of the South. Since that time
pecan groves have been planted very extensively. I don't think that any
accurate statistics are obtainable of the acreage planted to pecan
groves in the district in which we are located in southwest Georgia, but
in an area of probably forty or fifty miles I imagine there are
seventy-five thousand acres of pecan groves. They have not all proven
successful. Some have been planted on soil that was not adapted and
there are some cases of insufficient or unwise care, and some of not
having the proper stock to plant. For one reason or another a good many
groves have not proven successful today. Others have proven quite
successful. There is no question but what that which was a hope fifteen
years ago is today a reality and that the cultivated pecan is today an
established industry. I do not mean by that that we have reached the
stage which our friend Mr. Taylor has reached with his almonds or which
the almond growers have reached. We are still in our infancy and have
many problems and the problems multiply as days and years go by. Fifteen
years ago we would have said there were no insect pests nor any diseases
of the pecan. They have certainly made themselves known in the last few
years. We have a good many insect pests and we have some fungus. We do
not believe that any of these will be beyond the skill of scientific
investigation and that they will ultimately be brought into subjection.
As an indication of the growth of the industry, eight years ago the
association of which I chance to be president gathered their first crop
of nuts of something like six thousand pounds. Last year we harvested
over four hundred thousand pounds of nuts. In eight years of course
there was an increased acreage but they were all young groves. I tell
you that fact just to show you that when you do find a nut that is
adapted to your soil and to your climate, as the pecan is adapted to the
climate and soil of the South, it will not take many years to develop
such a nut into a commercial proposition.
I had the pleasure last fall of entertaining Mr. Pierce, the president
of the California Almond Growers' Association. Mr. Pierce was very much
interested in this young giant of the South in the nut world. He had had
a very unfortunate experience in the use of pecans. He had passed
through Chicago a short time before and a friend of mine, an officer of
our association, happened to be a friend of his, and gave him some
pecans, and he liked them so well that as he started from Chicago on the
way to Washington he indulged too freely, and by the time he got to
Washington he had to go to the hospital for repairs. Mr. Pierce wrote me
a letter after that and said that he didn't know why the Lord permitted
trees to grow such nuts until he created a new race of human beings with
gizzards in place of stomachs. That is because California men were not
used to eating good, rich nuts. We claim for the pecan that it is about
the best nut there is. We don't claim the earth but if you people can
develop or discover any nut that is better in quality and more tasty and
more alluring than the pecan, we shall be mighty glad to have you
discover it, and we hope it will be adaptable to the South. You know the
Buick automobile says, "When better cars are made, Buick will make
them." "When better nuts are made, we will make them." We know that all
people can't have the best. We know that some people have to eat cheaper
steaks. The trouble with this country today is that everybody wishes the
very best. The packers tell us they have great trouble in disposing of
the cheaper cuts of the meat. I do not imagine that the nut growers are
going to have much trouble in disposing of the round steaks, but we are
going to furnish the best nuts. The market for cultivated pecans has
developed in a most marvelous way. There has never been any advertising,
except in a very small way, and yet the demand has always exceeded the
supply. It has grown just naturally. People learn of a good nut and they
spread the good news to their friends so that the demand increases.
Customers in New York but four or five years ago would order eight or
ten barrels of nuts; they are ordering 150 barrels now.
I want to say to you, find a nut like that that you can grow in New York
State or that you can grow down in Connecticut, or in any of this part
of the world, and we will be mightily glad to see what you can do, and
we will try to steal it and grow it in the South. It has been said that
every great institution is only the shade of some great man. If you can
build up a great institution of a great commercial nut here in the North
let it be the shade of the Northern Nut Growers' Association.
I am not going to keep you longer because this rambling talk is not
prepared. I have been interested as I drove through New England in
seeing great groves along the public highways of maples and elms, and I
have thought how wonderful it would be if those were all pecans or
walnuts or almonds or some tree that would bear nuts instead of
furnishing shade. There is a world of opportunity in this country for a
commercial nut. They are used as delicacies now, most of these nuts, but
they are food, and they are food of the very highest type. I expect to
see the day when all our best hotels and restaurants will have on their
menus nut steaks, almond and pecan steaks, and when a great many of
their guests will order these steaks in place of the beef steaks that
they are ordering now.
I want to say that we are glad to have your distinguished president as a
fellow pecan nut. He is largely interested in Georgia and we see his
smiling face frequently in that section of the world. We are interested
to see him succeed there and I am sure the members of this association
are all interested and pleased to see what he has accomplished in
developing the filbert right here in the shade of Rochester. (Applause.)
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Patterson, I thank you. I feel that I cannot let this
opportunity pass to correct an impression that might have gotten over
from one remark of Mr. Patterson's about the filbert nurseries being the
result of my efforts. That is a long way from being so. In every
successful operation I believe the master hand can be traced. In this
operation of ours here the master hand has been that of my esteemed
friend of long standing and very close coöperation covering a period of
over a decade, Mr. Conrad Vollertsen. Mr. Vollertsen is entitled to the
full credit for the success of our industry. I feel that I am justified
in claiming for myself in connection with it the credit for the
enterprise. Each of us in life has our particular place to fill. Mr.
Vollertsen brought to me the idea of this filbert operation some years
ago, over a decade, especially the idea of propagating the filbert from
the layer instead of from the bud or graft, it being my belief up to
that time that it could be propagated only by budding and grafting. He
had worked in the nurseries in Germany as a young man and had told me of
his experiences. So I sent to Germany and got five plants of twenty
varieties, leaving to the nurseries from which I purchased them the
selection of the varieties. I think the plants were six to twelve inches
in size. From these, under the ability and knowledge of my friend,
Conrad Vollertsen, has been developed what you saw this afternoon. I am
mighty proud of it and so is he because he and I alone know what we have
had to buck these last ten or eleven years. Speaking frankly, it has
been pretty hard going sometimes, but personally I feel tonight, after
what has been said to me by many of our members at our place this
afternoon, especially the praise of our faculty to which I referred in
my paper, that we have accomplished something really worth while, and it
is my ambition and Mr. Vollertsen's, too, I know, to prove that we have
a really worthwhile thing for the people. The pecan is the highest in
food value of any nut known to the world today. The filbert is the
second highest in food value and I believe it is a nut adapted for a
wider range of soils and climates in the North than any other nut. I
know this may sound a little like blowing my own horn, but I want you to
understand that I am chuck full of filbert as well as pecan. I am
certainly mighty happy for my pecan association in southwest Georgia,
and I am feeling pretty happy tonight in connection with the filbert
also.
I am met with a disappointment this evening. Mrs. Patterson tentatively
promised to favour us with a paper on the use of nuts as foods. But I
regret to say that she is somewhat indisposed and unable to favor us
with a paper as promised. So I am going to ask another member, a new
member, to make a few remarks on the subject of nuts as food. I know
that he knows what he is talking about when it comes to a discussion of
the subject of nuts as food, because I come in rather vigorous contact
with him twice a week, and he talks nuts as food to me on those
occasions. I am endeavoring to follow out his suggestions as closely as
possible and I know that I am benefiting in health by so doing. I refer
to James B. Rawnsley, the noted physical culturist who lives in this
city. I have great pleasure in introducing to you Professor James B.
Rawnsley.
MR. RAWNSLEY: Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen: The gentleman that
Mr. Patterson referred to as going to the hospital for repairs was not
taken there because of eating nuts. The cause of the need for repairs
was good food going into that man's stomach and mixing up with a lot of
refuse matter that he had been eating at some previous time.
MR. PATTERSON: Almonds!
MR. RAWNSLEY: I hope that there are no medical doctors in the place or
any butchers because if there are I am liable to go through the door or
window. The nuts that you people are growing I hope will be the only
thing, along with fruits and vegetables, that will be eaten in the
future. As Mr. Patterson said tonight, since God put nuts and fruits and
vegetables on this earth, those are what we ought to use from the
commencement of life. The nut is one of the cleanest and most wholesome
foods that is grown. I have tried it a good many years and I want to
tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there is nothing so sweet, so good
or so substantial. It does not take much of a meal of nuts mixed with
fruits to keep a person alive and well and strong. The sooner you people
that are growing nuts get that into your minds and use it the sooner you
will find it the best advertisement by which to get new members into the
association. Show it yourself by using them.
THE PRESIDENT: I am mighty grateful to you for your words. We are going
to try and get through one more paper this evening. It is by Mr. John
Dunbar, Assistant Superintendent of Parks, Rochester, N. Y., on the
subject, Nut Trees in Rochester Parks. I have great pleasure in
introducing Mr. Dunbar.
MR. DUNBAR: Mr. President, and ladies and gentlemen: I picked up the
program this morning and looking it over I was quite surprised to see
that I was down there for a paper. We have given much attention for
possibly twenty-five or thirty years to the establishment of an
arboretum in the parks of Rochester of all the trees that are hardy in
the north temperate zone. I think that perhaps the Rochester parks today
stand next to the arboretum at Harvard University in the number of
species and variety of trees from all parts of the north temperate zone.
We are studying trees generally from the ornamental point of view and to
educate the people in the value of trees. Of course we have a large
number of nut trees, hickories, walnuts and hazels, and incidentally we
are interested in their food value.
In listening to Mr. Rawnsley tonight I was much interested in what he
said because he is a neighbor of mine and lives across the street. I
remember seeing him on a cold winter day when I was walking down street
in a big overcoat, five below zero. Across the street there was Mr.
Rawnsley shoveling snow and all he had on was trousers and a shirt. I
have found out tonight how he could do it, by eating nuts. I said to my
wife that I didn't see how he could stand it but now I shall tell her
that I have found out.
Of course there are some nuts that are commercially of no use here. The
pecan is the nut of the South. Mr. McGlennon and Mr. Vollertsen are
doing great things with the filbert here. I think there is a great
future here in the North for the hazels and king nuts. Other nuts that
are very important here because they are hardy are the black walnut and
the butternut. If walnuts and hickories can be grafted in tens of
thousands like apples and peaches, all right, go ahead, but in the
meantime raise all the seedlings you can. I am surprised that so far
nothing has been said here about the king nut. There are only two places
in New York State where the king nut grows. It grows in the Genesee
Valley from Rochester up to Mt. Morris quite abundantly and it grows
around Albany and Central New York. There are no other places in New
York State where it grows. It is a larger nut than the common shell
bark. It makes a magnificent tree. I think the king nut should be
planted. We are growing it ourselves in the park. The tree itself grows
fifteen miles from here. We have it in the park today and I have planted
a good many of these nuts. I think the big shell bark or king nut and
the shell barks should be planted quite extensively. Put them in the
ground and let them come up. They will come up. Another good tree we
have here with great possibilities in it is the Japanese butternut. It
is hardy and I understand it is growing at Lockport. These are a few
rambling ideas. Incidentally we are doing all we can to spread the
gospel of nut culture and the growing of nut trees. If people could see
them in the parks it would help along their education.
MORNING SESSION, SEPTEMBER 8th, 1922
The Convention was called to order by the President at 9:30 o'clock A.
M.
THE PRESIDENT: After a night of good rest we are ready to proceed with
our deliberations and as we have a lot to do we are going to try to push
things along fast this morning.
Some of the papers have not arrived and some of the speakers will not be
here. Senator Penney of Michigan wrote me that he was not only in rather
poor health but he was in the midst of an election primary and that it
would be impossible for him to be here but that he would endeavor to
send a paper. I am sorry to say that it has not arrived.
I was pretty sure that ex-President Linton would be here. But I have a
telegram from him this morning saying it is absolutely impossible and
that he, too, hasn't had any time to prepare a paper. Mr. Linton is a
very busy man and about the only way to get a rise out of him is by
wire. I have written him three times and wired him five times. Finally I
succeeded in getting a telegram from him this morning. I was
particularly anxious that he and Senator Penney be here to discuss the
roadside planting of nut trees and the legislation of Michigan in that
regard, believing that such aid would materially help us in getting
other states interested along the same line. I'm sorry, therefore, that
they are not here.
This telegram from Mr. Linton, received this morning, reads as follows:
"Expected until yesterday that I would get to Rochester convention but
am bitterly disappointed in being unable to do so owing to fatal illness
of chairman of our state commission, whose called meetings and pendent
duties have fallen upon me. Senator Penney is in midst of strenuous
primary campaign closing Monday and can not leave and Mr. Beck is in
hospital recovering from operation. So your Saginaw trio, positively
with you in spirit and good wishes, is held here this time absolutely
and all regret the situation beyond measure. I expressed to you
yesterday, prepaid, the Washington walnuts, fine young trees only
eighteen months old, and will replace them next spring if necessary.
Penney and Beck join me in sincerely desiring the success of your
convention and extending kind regards to you and those present, all of
whom we hope to meet another year.
WM. S. LINTON.
The trees we are going to plant tomorrow morning, if these seedlings get
here, are grown from nuts furnished Mr. Linton by the superintendent of
Mount Vernon. Last year we planted some in one of the parks at
Lancaster.
I will ask Mr. Vollertsen to read his paper now.
MR. CONRAD VOLLERTSEN: Ladies and gentlemen: My paper this morning will
necessarily be very short as the subject assigned to me is one of which
I so far have not had any practical experience and therefore am unable
to say much about.
According to our program I have been assigned to make a few remarks on
"The Blight-proof Propagated Filbert," a subject I think rather hard to
discuss as we have so far no positive proof that blight, if it at all
exists on the improved filbert, will not eventually appear on varieties
we are now growing. I therefore believe the subject, "Blight-proof
Propagated Filbert," should have been worded somewhat differently, as we
have no assurance when blight may appear, nor any guarantee against its
appearance. It may fall on our plants over night or at any time. That we
can not prevent nor control.
In the nursery of improved European filberts which we have maintained
for ten years, blight is so far not known and has never made its
appearance. We know of other filbert plants, several varieties, all of
German origin, in this, our home city, from thirty to forty years old,
never affected by blight, bearing nuts today. But all this will not
guarantee the improved propagated filbert to be blight-proof. We
certainly do not claim our propagated improved filbert plants are
blight-proof. In fact to our knowledge there is no such thing as
blight-proof filberts no more than there are blight-proof pears, quinces
or other fruits. But we do claim that our improved filbert varieties,
imported from Germany, will stand our climatic changes very much better
and will resist the attack of blight to a greater extent than any other
variety imported from France or Italy.
We really do not fear blight. We have heard very much about it and have
so far seen nothing of it. But should it eventually appear in our
nursery I am fully convinced we can easily control it and prevent its
spreading by cutting the affected parts thoroughly away, removing the
diseased twigs or branches so low as to make the cut in entirely sound
wood. Through such an operation I am fully convinced the disease can be
completely eliminated in a comparatively short time, should it ever
appear.
We have been repeatedly told blight will not only attack small parts or
branches of the improved filberts but will kill them entirely. Such a
thought I can never entertain, not for a moment. I have had too many
years' practical experience with the growing and cultivating of improved
hazel or filbert plants, and have never seen anything of the kind. It
would be very interesting if members of this association who have
observed blight on the improved hazels and seen plants actually killed
by that disease would relate their experiences and the real facts so as
to enlighten the public on the subject. For instance:
Where did it happen that blight killed the plants entirely?
What varieties were attacked and killed?
And was it genuine blight that killed them?
These questions should be well considered, particularly the last one, as
it is a well-known fact that in a general way the term blight is
frequently used for various injuries or diseases of plants causing the
whole or parts to wither and die, whether occasioned by insects, fungi,
or atmospheric influences.
We will, in the early summer, occasionally see on various shrubs or
trees numerous little twigs and branches dead and decaying and the
general saying then will most assuredly be, the shrub or tree is
blighted, where a close and thorough investigation will not reveal the
slightest sign of blight, merely injuries by frequent climatic changes
in the late winter or early spring months.
I also have observed the same thing where insects were the cause of all
the trouble. A little downy species of the aphis, or plant louse, had
completely overrun a Stump apple tree and really caused it to die. The
owner told me that tree was blighted. But here also no sign of blight
could be detected. Nothing but insects caused the tree to die, not
blight.
I merely mention these instances to show how thoroughly and readily a
disease or ailment of a tree or shrub is called blight where in reality
not the slightest sign of it can be discovered.
If our people had the understanding and would take the time to
investigate the cause of their diseased trees I am fairly satisfied the
complaining of trees or shrubs being killed by blight would not be heard
as freely as it is today.
Now under no circumstances should this be construed as meaning that I
dispute or doubt the existence of blight among our filbert plants. Not
at all. Quite the contrary. We have, as stated above, so far no
blight-proof filberts and no guarantee that blight will not eventually
attack our plants. We therefore will have to be more or less on the
alert, will have to watch our filbert plants as we do our pear or quince
orchards or other fruit trees more or less inclined to blight. By no
means let blight discourage the planting of filbert or hazel nuts, as I
am fully convinced should it eventually appear it will not kill our
plants. In fact it will not harm them as much as it will our pear trees,
our quinces or other varieties of fruit inclined to that disease, of
which we, in spite of blight, plant and maintain large orchards.
My advice would be to stop all talk on blight and wait until it appears.
Do not let us cross the bridge before we come to it but let us watch our
trees inclined to blight, particularly our hazel and filbert plants, as
they are not blight-proof, but eventually should blight make its
appearance let us be ready for it, fully prepared to receive it, not to
welcome but to eliminate it. That we can do, that we can accomplish very
thoroughly through the operation set forth in the beginning of this
paper.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: That is a subject that I feel we ought to have a little
discussion on and I would like to hear from Mr. Jones, Doctor Morris,
Mr. Bixby, Doctor Deming, for a brief discussion on the points just
touched on by Mr. Vollertsen.
THE SECRETARY: I have had very little experience with the blight. Two
years ago Mr. Bixby and I visited the very large hazels in Bethel,
Connecticut, seedlings raised from grocery store nuts, and we saw there
the blight on some of the largest trees, on the large limbs,
unquestionable blight with sunken areas covered with pustules. I didn't
see the trees last year, but on Wednesday, just before taking the train
to come here, I ran in to this place to get a bunch of hazels to bring
here, and I saw the tree on which Mr. Bixby and I had found the blight
looking as well as ever. In a hasty examination of the tree I saw one or
two stubs where large limbs had been cut off. I presume that the owner
had followed our advice and had cut off the blighted limb and,
apparently, the tree itself was none the worse for the blight.
I have had hazels planted and neglected for twelve or thirteen years and
this is the first year in which I have found the blight. I have found
before other causes of death of parts of the shrubs, girdling by insects
and apparent winter killing, but this year I found several of my trees
on which were undoubted patches of cryptosporella. That is the extent of
my experience with the blight.
MR. JONES: I have not had any actual experience with the blight but I
have seen it in Connecticut. I have not found it on any of the wild
hazels of Pennsylvania. Therefore we do not have it at Lancaster. I have
not regarded it as nearly as serious as pear blight and some other
blights that attack fruit trees.
THE PRESIDENT: What is that, Mr. Jones?
MR. JONES: I say I have not regarded the filbert blight as nearly as
deadly as some of the blights that attack the fruit trees, because of
the fact that it works very slowly, and it takes, I understand, about
two years to girdle a limb of any size; therefore, it is easily cut out
and controlled.
MR. CORSAN: Could it be that the blight would be very much more active
in a tree growing in the shade than on one growing out in the strong
sunlight and well nourished?
MR. VOLLERTSEN: I know of some trees that were for at least ten or
eleven years practically overgrown by butternut trees. I have known the
trees for more than thirty years. I visited the place about a week ago
and found a tree doing fairly well under the circumstances. That tree is
between thirty and forty years old and has grown steadily for the last
five or six years entirely in the shade and is bearing fruit fairly
well. There were quite a few nuts on it although there were more over
the top than on the lower branches; but I did not notice any dead limbs
or anything of that kind.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you refer to Doctor Mandel's plant?
MR. VOLLERTSEN: No.
DOCTOR MORRIS: Stamford is a natural home of the hazel. Wild hazels fill
the fields to such an extent that they destroy pastures very often.
Hazel blight, therefore, is to be found there as an indigenous organism
or parasite. Among the native hazels it apparently attacks only those
that have been injured or are weakened by age or otherwise. That is the
common history where a plant has existed along with a parasite for
centuries or ages, a certain amount of tolerance is established by the
resistance of a few individual plants and the elimination of the others.
By natural selection the best survives.
Now when I brought some European hazels to this place a little over
twenty years ago they made a good start. In two or three years all were
attacked with blight and at the end of four or five years all were dead.
I spoke to Mr. Henry Hicks about it. He has a place on Long Island. Mr.
Hicks said, "I have given up foreign hazels. They are no use. They all
die. I don't try them." Whenever anybody says that to me it starts me
right off doing it. When they said we couldn't graft hickories I said,
"Well, here is something to do," and I did it. They said, "Well, we
couldn't raise hazels; we might as well give up." I said, "Well, here is
the best thing for us to do then." So again I got a small lot and
observed them day by day. Very soon the blight began to attack them. I
found it grew slowly and gave me plenty of time to cut it out. I
neglected some purposely to see how long it would take the blight to
girdle a limb and some of the larger limbs took two years. In all of the
limbs that were affected, in the hazels which I wished to save, I simply
cut out the blight with a sharp jackknife, painted the spot with a
little paint, an antiseptic or something of the sort, and had complete
control. In fact I found that I needed to go over my hazel bushes not
more than once a year to look after the blight, and in one day, or part
of a day, with a sharp jackknife I had absolute control of the blight.
There are some large European hazels that I have neglected and have
allowed the blight to get under way. Some of them are so resistant that
they bear very good crops notwithstanding the fact that they are
neglected and have the blight. Others have died. Therefore it is a
relative question, a question of relative immunity to the blight. My
belief is that the blight will not be any more injurious to our hazels
than the San Jose scale has been to the peaches. We have complete
control of the San Jose scale because we know the habits of the scale
insect. I believe we have complete control of the hazel blight because
we know the habits of that particular sporella.
As to the question of growing in the shade or in the sunshine, on the
Palmer property not very far from me, there are some very large bushes
of red and white avellana and of the purple hazel that have been
overshadowed by other trees because they haven't been looked after.
Those are all very large bushes, in fact they have grown to be small
trees and they are completely overshadowed by other things. They have
some blight but continue year after year to bear heavy crops of nuts.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Bartlett, have you any remarks on the subject?
MR. BARTLETT: My experience has been very similar to that of Doctor
Morris. I have visited possibly a hundred places and have seen hazels
growing, some of which have probably been there seventy-five years. In
talking with the people connected with the place I have often heard
said, "Why, years ago we used to have hazels, a great many hazels here,
picked maybe a bushel at a time, but the best varieties have died, and
what we have left are worthless." Or perhaps, "There is only one bush
left and we don't get any hazels now." Apparently the purple hazel is
freer from blight than most of the other imported varieties. I have seen
the blight in these places. I have seen branches from three to four
inches in diameter that were attacked with blight and were still growing
but were not fruiting very much. I know a very few places where hazels
are grown within fifty miles of New York, and I know of some places
where they are getting some nuts. But the general impression is that the
European varieties will be attacked with blight and killed.
I have seen bushes that have been attacked by blight where the roots are
alive but sending up very weak shoots. That is probably through neglect
of stocks. Certain of those that I have raised, five or six years old,
are absolutely free from blight. Most of the older trees that I have
seen around have blight in some form or other.
MR. BIXBY: Doctor Morris' remark as to what Mr. Hicks says of giving up
attempting to grow hazels because the blight would take them, seemed to
me very appropriate in view of an observation I made on Mr. Hicks' place
last fall. I found there a large hazel which was probably twenty-five
feet high and bearing a fair crop of nuts. Mr. Hicks told me that he had
brought that tree from Germany many years ago--I think it was over
twenty years ago--and that that was the only one left out of a lot. Now
if other European hazels had been killed there with the blight and this
one was left there was apparently a blight-proof hazel in that lot.
I have seen a good many hazel bushes affected with blight, but I have
not seen any since I went with Doctor Deming up to Bethel. I have seen
no blight since then though I have looked for it whenever I have been
where there were European hazels. I examined that tree in Mr. Hicks'
nursery very carefully and found there was no evidence of blight. I feel
as the other speakers do who have expressed themselves, that we have
little to fear from the hazel blight; that if it does appear in the
nurseries we can control it by cutting out the blighted portions.
MR. PIERCE: In northern Utah I have a number of bushes of the foreign
and the American hazel and they are ten years old. So far I have not
seen any evidence of blight.
I would like to ask a question. What form does this blight take, and is
it deadly? In other words, will it kill the bush? Is it good to cut out
the affected parts?
DOCTOR MORRIS: You find a depression of the bark over a small area,
gradually increasing, and around the part that is depressed you will
find a little swelling of the healthy part that is trying to grow over
the blight area. This also contains the roots, if you can call them
that, of the blight. You can recognize it everywhere on the hazel by the
distinctly depressed area of bark, which should be cut out before it
gets to be the size of a quarter.
In other cases the blight will encircle a small branch and cause a
swelling instead of depression that looks very much like the swollen
area around the depressed bark. There may be depression in the branch
parts but the swelling blocks that so you can see only the swelling.
These branches may be very easily removed, with as much ease as a boy
would steal the nuts, so there is nothing to be feared on that score. If
the blight is left uncared for it will kill some of the plants and it
will not kill others. It will injure some also without killing them, so
that we have to consider the question of what we call relative immunity.
In the case quoted by Mr. Bixby we have a case of relative immunity of a
hazel which has grown to be twenty-five feet high and bearing crops in
the midst of the blight area on Long Island, while others have
disappeared from the vicinity.
MR. BIXBY: I would say in connection with that hazel that Dr. Deming and
I visited in Bethel that I took a blighted branch away with me and it
was such an excellent example of a blighted area that I had a photograph
made and it was printed in the Nut Journal.
THE PRESIDENT: This discussion on the blight of the filbert is of
intense interest to me. It is a considerable relief to us to hear these
encouraging statements, because during our experiments, covering the
past decade, the bugbear of all of our deliberations has been the
possibility of blight wiping us out, it having been suggested at the
time we imported plants that we would never get anywhere with them. I
think we have little cause to feel very much worried on the subject of
the blight.
It now gives me real pleasure to introduce to you our friend, Mr.
Pomeroy.
MR. POMEROY: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen: Josephus says that he
has set down various things according to his opinion and if anybody
holds to another opinion he will not object. That's my position in
regard to nut growing. I will tell you a few things that I believe and
if you hold another opinion you are entitled to keep it.
Professor John Craig once referred to a thing that surprised me very
much. We Americans believe we are a very energetic, smart people not to
be fooled much in a trade. Well, he had statistics which showed that
after we have shipped millions of dollars worth of wheat and cotton and
various other products to Europe we receive our pay in the form of great
quantities of nuts which we use for food, holiday nuts, all-year-round
nuts. Now I believe that those nuts can be raised right here and we can
pocket that money instead of leaving it in Europe.
I was a very small child when my father went to Philadelphia to visit
the Exposition in 1876. While he was there he picked up a few walnuts
which had dropped from a tree in front of his lodging house and brought
them home and planted them. A very few years after he amazed us all by
taking a load of nuts to Buffalo and obtaining more money for them than
the hired man and I did for a large load of fruit.
At one time I put out some English walnuts in a cemetery as a memorial
orchard and the trees are now doing fine. The other night my wife and I
strolled over and looked at them and when we were on our way back we
passed a neighbor's house where there were a number of maple trees on
the lawn. I said to my wife, "Those maple trees are fifty years old, and
there by the side of his lawn is a chestnut tree that is forty-four or
five years old." She made the remark, "Those English walnut trees over
there cast a much more beautiful shade than those maples," and it was
true. I think Mr. McGlennon saw them.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes; that's so. I thank you very much, Mr. Pomeroy.
Mr. G. H. Corsan, of Toronto, Canada, is known as the "Canadian Johnny
Appleseed." Mr. Corsan goes about the country and when he can find nuts
and seeds of what he thinks are good trees and plants he gathers them up
and arranges to distribute them. If Mr. Corsan will give us about ten or
fifteen minutes I should certainly appreciate it very much.
MR. CORSAN: Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Our friend here called
me Johnny Appleseed, I suppose because I went around among my friends
who had gardens and said, "Let me plant this," and I would plant a nut
tree. I said, "Why don't you plant something with a utility value as
well as a thing of beauty?" I said, "Why not plant something that will
not only grow rapidly and cast a splendid shade but that will also
return you something in the way of food?"
I first devoted twelve acres to the culture of nut trees. I afterwards
added four more. I just planted seedlings. In the year 1912 I joined the
Nut Growers' Association and I set out a hundred chestnut trees. When I
found the blight was in them and I cut them all down but two. I have
those two now and last year I gathered a peck of very large chestnuts
from them which caused the Ontario government to take notice of what I
was doing.
I bought a great many other trees, among them some of Mr. Pomeroy's. I
had a hard fight with Pomeroy's trees. They would die down one year and
grow a foot or a foot and a half the next and then die down again. But
each year they increased a little in size and now they are over my head
and are not dying down at all.
I tried a lot of others, among which were seedling English walnuts from
St. Catherine's. They did not freeze down at all, but whether they will
throw as good a nut as Mr. Pomeroy's I don't know. They are certainly a
different nut.
Then I got a Chinese walnut of Black's nursery, Hightstown, New Jersey,
and it is growing remarkably well. All three types of trees are doing
very well and are all over my head, sometimes growing three or four feet
a year, very rarely less than a yard from each terminal branch, and I
have had no winter killing.
It may be interesting to recount a few other things about my place. I
had an awful fight with mice. My land is in a valley and the spring
floods come down and I can't plow the land or it would all be washed
away. I put a tree in and protect it with a certain amount of space
around it. I found that the mice would chew down the trees almost as
fast as I could get them in, so I got some cats. The cats soon learned
to prefer birds to mice so I killed the cats. Then I bought a flock of
geese and the geese cropped the grass short and prevented it from
growing so powerfully as to smother out the trees. But the geese had
hard bills and when the trees were small they clipped off pieces of bark
with their bills, so I traded the geese for wild geese. I learned that
they are more discriminating in their choice of food and that though
their wings are more powerful their bills are not as strong. They have
kept the grass down for me and destroyed the homes of the mice. Then I
got pheasants in order to rid myself of the insect pests. I feel that in
another ten or twenty years we will have a very beautiful place.
I need not refer to the fact that nuts are very valuable for food.
Dentists would all go out of business if we ate nuts.
Pennsylvania is a state which should certainly take up with its
agricultural authorities the possibilities of nut growing because that
is a state that can be ruined utterly by trying to grow grain on the
hillsides. The water comes down and washes all the rich top soil off
into the creeks and it is lost to us and our children.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: Will the secretary please read Doctor Kellogg's paper?
THE SECRETARY: Mr. President, this is a very long paper and I have not
read it over. It seems to me that perhaps we have devoted so much time
to genealogy and reminiscences that the time is short for the papers
which are to be read by members present. Would it not be well to defer
the reading of this paper of Doctor Kellogg's to a later time, or,
possibly, merely print it in the proceedings?
DOCTOR MORRIS: I move it be laid upon the table and printed in the
proceedings.
The motion was duly seconded and carried.
(See Appendix for Dr. Kellogg's paper.)
THE PRESIDENT: One of our important visitors is Professor James A.
Neilson, Guelph, Canada. The title of Professor Neilson's paper is, "Nut
Culture in Canada." This is an especially interesting subject to me.
PROFESSOR NEILSON: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen: I want to
express my appreciation of your kind invitation to attend your
convention and for the opportunity of talking to you for a while on the
subject that is more interesting to me than any other branch of
horticulture. I had looked forward to coming to this convention but
wasn't just sure that I would be able to be here. Therefore when I got a
wire from your president I immediately got busy and pulled the wires at
the college and asked them to authorize me to come here at college
expense. I am very glad to be here. It has been most interesting to me,
and I am very pleased, indeed, to meet so many whom I knew already by
reputation.
NUT CULTURE IN CANADA
J. A. NEILSON, B. S. A.
_Lecturer in Horticulture, Ontario Agricultural College Guelph, Canada_
The conservation and improvement of our native nut trees and the
introduction of suitable species from foreign countries has not received
much attention by horticulturists in Canada, except in British Columbia
and in Ontario. In British Columbia, Persian walnuts, Japanese walnuts,
filberts, almonds and European varieties of chestnuts have been planted
to a limited extent in the fruit districts and small plantings have been
made at the Dominion Experimental Farms located at Aggaziz on the
mainland and at Sidney on Vancouver Island.
In Ontario very little had been done by the Provincial Experiment
Stations to test the different varieties of nut trees until about one
year ago when the Vineland Station undertook to establish experimental
plantings. A few enthusiasts like G. H. Corsan of Toronto, Dr. Sager of
Brantford, Dr. McWilliams of London and William Corcoran of Port
Dalhousie are about the only parties who have attempted anything along
the line of nut growing. These remarks of course do not apply to those
people who have planted a few black walnuts or Japanese walnuts on the
home grounds or along the roadsides. Of such plantings there are a few
here and there in the older settled parts of the province.
For some years the writer has felt that something should be done by the
Horticultural Department of the College to interest the people of Canada
in planting more and better nut trees and in conserving the remnant of
the many fine nut trees which formerly grew so abundantly in parts of
Ontario and elsewhere. Therefore an attempt was made during the spring
of 1921 to interest the public in the possibilities of nut culture. A
letter and questionnaire asking for information on nut trees were
prepared and sent to officers of horticultural and agricultural
societies, agricultural representatives, agricultural and horticultural
magazines, daily and weekly newspapers, school inspectors and other
interested parties.
The following is a copy of the letter and questionnaire which were sent
out:
"Dear Sir:
"We are investigating the possibilities of nut culture in Ontario and
would be pleased to have you assist us by reporting the occurrence and
distribution of the various species of native and introduced nut trees
growing in your locality. We are particularly anxious to learn of the
exact location of superior trees and if any such are found we plan to
have these propagated and distributed for test purposes. We would also
like to secure the names of people who are interested in nut culture.
Please fill out the enclosed questionnaire and return to the undersigned
at your earliest convenience.
"Thanking you in anticipation of receiving some interesting information
on nut trees, I am, yours sincerely, (signed) James A. Neilson, Lecturer
in Horticulture."
_Questionnaire:_
Q. 1. Are any of the following kinds of trees growing in your locality:
American Black Walnut European Chestnut
Japanese Walnut Japanese Chestnut
English Walnut Chinese Walnut
Butternut Beechnut
Hickory nut Hazel nut
Pecans Filbert
Sweet Chestnut
Q. 2. Do you know of any individual trees of the above mentioned kinds
that are superior because of large size of nuts, excellent flavour of
kernel, thin shells, rapid growth or high yields? Please give exact
location of such trees.
Q. 3. Is any one in your section making a special effort to grow any
native or foreign species of nuts? If so please give their name and
address.
Name of correspondent
Post Office
Township
County
Province
I am delighted to say that I never did anything in my life that met with
such hearty and general approval as this venture. From almost every
quarter of Canada I received commendatory letters and offers of
assistance. One encouraging feature was the keen interest shown by
wealthy business and professional men in our larger centres and by some
of our more progressive fruit growers and farmers. Inasmuch as my
venture was an innovation there were of course some humorous comments to
the effect that we had enough "nuts" in the country now without
encouraging any more. I replied to my humorous friends that the "nuts"
they had in mind did not grow on trees whereas the kind I had in mind
did.
The information I received in answer to my questionnaire was very
interesting and instructive and confirmed some of my impressions
regarding the occurrence of nut trees in our province. More important
still it showed that there were several superior trees of various
species growing here and there throughout the country.
_Geographical Distribution of Nut Trees in Canada_
The chief native nut trees are the black walnut, the butternut or white
walnut, the hickory, of which there are four species--the chestnut, the
beechnut and the hazelnut. Of introduced nut trees there are the
Persian, Japanese and Chinese walnuts, the European, Japanese and
Chinese chestnuts, the pecan and the European filberts.
THE BLACK WALNUT (_Juglans nigra_).
The black walnut is one of our finest native nut trees and is found
growing naturally along the north shore of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario
and around Lake St. Clair. It has been planted in many other parts of
Ontario and does well where protected from cold winds. The tree grows to
a large size, sometimes attaining a height of 90 feet and a trunk
diameter of 5 feet. When grown in the open it makes a beautiful
symmetrical tree, having a large, rounded crown with drooping lower
branches.
The black walnut is not found growing naturally outside of Ontario. It
has been planted in Manitoba but does not do well there because of the
cold winter. In 1917 the writer observed a few specimens near Portage la
Prairie which were about five feet tall. These trees made a fair annual
growth but most of this froze back each winter.
Many people in Canada believe that the black walnut is a slow grower.
This impression is not correct as some trees grow very rapidly. About
eighteen years ago I planted a number of nuts along the line fence and
along the roadside on my father's farm near Simcoe, Ontario. Most of
these nuts sprouted and grew and some have done exceptionally well. One
of these trees is now thirty-seven feet tall and has a trunk
circumference of forty-one inches at the ground. It has borne nuts since
it was six years of age and this year has a very heavy crop. Some of
the first crop of nuts were planted and these in turn have developed
into trees which have produced nuts. Nuts from the second generation
have been planted and will likely make trees which will yield nuts in a
few years. An interesting feature of the original planting is the great
variation in the size, shape of nut, thickness of shell and yield. Some
are large, some are small, some are round and others are pear-shaped.
The majority of the trees yield well but a few, however, are light
croppers.
THE BUTTERNUT (_Juglans cinerea_)
The butternut is much hardier than the black walnut and has a much wider
distribution in Canada. It occurs throughout New Brunswick, in Quebec,
along the St. Lawrence basin and in Ontario from the shore of Lakes Erie
and Ontario to the Georgian Bay and Ottawa River. It has been planted in
Manitoba and does fairly well there when protected from cold winds. West
of Portage la Prairie the writer observed a grove of seventy-seven
trees. Some of these trees were about thirty-five feet tall with a trunk
diameter of ten inches and had borne several crops of good nuts.
The butternut in Ontario sometimes attains a height of seventy feet and
a trunk diameter of three feet.
THE ENGLISH OR PERSIAN WALNUT (_Juglans regia_).
The English walnut, or the Persian walnut, as it should be called, is
found growing in the Niagara district and to a lesser extent in the Lake
Erie counties. It is stated on good authority that there are about 100
of these trees growing in the fruit belt between Hamilton and Niagara
Falls. There are several quite large trees in the vicinity of St.
Catharines, which have borne good crops of nuts. One of these trees
produced nuts of sufficient merit to be included in the list of
desirable nuts prepared by C. A. Reed, Nut Culturist of the United
States Department of Agriculture. This variety has been named the
"Ontario" and is now being propagated, experimentally, in the United
States. In the vicinity of St. Davids, on the farm of Mr. James
Woodruff, there is a fine English walnut tree which produced ten bushels
of shelled nuts in one season. This tree is one of the largest of its
kind in Ontario, being about sixty feet tall with a trunk diameter of
three feet at one foot above the ground and a spread of branches equal
to its height.
The English walnut is not as hardy as the black walnut and is adapted
only to those sections where the peach can be grown successfully. At
present this tree cannot be recommended for any part of Ontario except
the Niagara district and the Lake Erie counties and even in these areas
it should not be planted unless it has been grafted or budded on the
hardier black walnut.
JAPANESE WALNUTS.
The Japanese Walnut is known to occur in Canada in three different
forms--Juglans cordiformis; Juglans Sieboldiana; Juglans mandschurica.
_Juglans Cordiformis._
This species is cultivated extensively in Japan and is the most valuable
one for Ontario. The tree is very beautiful, comes into bearing early,
bears heavily, grows rapidly and is reported to live to a great age. It
is believed to be as hardy as the black walnut and ought to do well
wherever the native walnut grows satisfactorily. In the best types the
nuts are distinctly heart-shaped, have a thin shell, crack easily and
contain a large kernel of good quality which can often be removed almost
entire from the shell with a light tap from a hammer.
There are two fine heartnut trees growing near Aldershot which is near
Hamilton on the road to Toronto. These trees are eight years of age and
are about twenty-eight feet tall with a trunk diameter of eight to nine
inches. In the seventh year one tree produced about a bushel of fine
nuts with thin shells.
_Juglans Sieboldiana._
This type was first introduced into the United States about 1860 by a
Mr. Towerhouse in Shasta County, California. Since then it has been
widely distributed and is now found in many parts of the United States
and Canada. It is much the same in appearance as the one first described
and grows just as rapidly and bears just as early but does not produce
so valuable a nut. The nut has a smooth shell of medium thickness with a
kernel of good quality. It does not usually crack easily and the kernel
cannot be taken out entire, therefore, is not so desirable as the
cordiformis type. In rapidity of growth the Japanese walnut is only
excelled by the willows and poplars. In the vicinity of Grimsby there is
a tree eight years of age which is about twenty-five feet high and has
trunk diameter of seven inches at the base. It began to bear nuts in the
third year and in the sixth year produced one bushel.
_Juglans Mandschurica._
The general growth characteristics of this species are somewhat similar
to the other two types but the nut, however, is quite different, being
somewhat like a butternut. Because of this it is sometimes called the
Japanese butternut. It is the least desirable of the Japanese group and
should not be planted except where the cordiformis type will not grow.
CHINESE WALNUTS (_Juglans regia sinensis_).
The Chinese walnut is being grown experimentally in the northern part of
the United States and has been tried at only one place in Canada, e.
g., in the grounds of G. H. Corsan, Islington, Ont. The tree is reported
to be fairly hardy at the Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plains, Mass., and
should be sufficiently hardy for southern Ontario. It is believed that
the Chinese walnut will prove to be hardier than the English walnut and
it may have an important place amongst the trees in the northern part of
the United States and in Southern Canada. The nuts are quite large and
have a shell which is thicker than the English walnut but not nearly as
thick or hard as the native black walnut. The kernel generally has a
fine flavour, being almost as good as the English walnut. Nuts of this
species have been planted at the Ontario Agricultural College, Guelph,
and at the Experiment Station, Vineland, Ont., and it is expected that
trees will be hardy enough for our climate and produce nuts which will
be as good as the Persian walnut.
THE SWEET CHESTNUT (_Castanea dentata_)
The sweet chestnut is found growing naturally on sandy ridges in that
part of Ontario extending from Toronto to Sarnia and southward to Lake
Erie. At the Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, there is a fair sized
tree and near Newcastle there are a few fine specimens.
It grows to a large size, sometimes reaching a height of one hundred
feet and a diameter of five feet at the base. When grown in the open it
forms several heavy branches and makes a broad rounded crown, but when
grown in a dense stand it makes a tall, straight tree.
The native chestnut is subject to a fatal disease called chestnut bark
disease. This disease is not known to occur in Ontario, but there is no
assurance that it will not appear and, therefore, the planting of this
tree is attended with some risk.
A dwarf type of chestnut has been reported from east of Ottawa in the
Ottawa valley. The tree is about fifteen feet tall and produces a small
burr containing only one nut. I have not seen this tree so cannot vouch
for the accuracy of the above statement.
EXOTIC SPECIES OF CHESTNUTS.
Inasmuch as very few of the Chinese, Japanese and European chestnuts
have been planted in Ontario very little can be said regarding their
behaviour. Dr. Sargeant reports the Chinese chestnut (Castanea
Mollissima) as being hardy at the Arnold Arboretum and therefore it
should be adapted to southern Ontario. The Japanese chestnut is also
quite hardy but is susceptible to chestnut bark disease. A few Japanese
chestnut trees are growing near Fonthill, Ontario, and have borne some
good crops. The tree is a small, spreading grower, comes into bearing
fairly early and bears quite heavily.
THE HICKORIES.
There are four species of Hickory native to Canada. The shagbark, the
bitternut, the pignut and mockernut.
The shagbark hickory (Carya ovata) is the chief one of value for the
production of edible nuts. It is confined to the St. Lawrence valley
from Montreal westward and along Lakes Erie and Ontario for a distance
of 40-50 miles back from the shore. It reaches a height of fifty to
ninety feet and a trunk diameter of one to three feet and grows best on
deep, fertile loams.
BITTERNUT HICKORY (_Carya cordiformis_)
This species has a wider range than the shellbark and is found in
southwestern Quebec and throughout Ontario from the Quebec border to the
Georgian Bay district. It grows best on low wet soils near streams but
is also found on higher well-drained sorts. There are two fair sized
trees on such a soil on the O. A. C. campus. This species may prove to
be of value as a stock for grafting with the shellbark kingnut and some
of the good hybrid hickories.
The mockernut (Carya alba) and the pignut (Carya glabra) occur along the
north shore of Lake Erie and along Lake St. Clair.
The mockernut is not of much value as a nut tree but the wood is
considered to be superior to other species of hickory.
The pignut is generally a small tree which produces nuts of variable
size, form and flavor. The kernel may be bitter or it may be sweet and
the nuts vary from round to pear-shape.
THE HAZELS.
There are two species of hazels native to Canada--the common hazel
(Corylus Americana) and the beaked hazel (Corylus cornuta). The hazels
have a wider range than other nut-bearing plants in Canada, being found
in almost every province from Nova Scotia westward to British Columbia
and as far north as Edmonton in Alberta and Prince Alberta in
Saskatchewan. In Ontario the beaked hazel grows as far north as Hudson
Bay and in many other parts the common hazel grows very abundantly and
bears heavily. In Norfolk County it is very common and in places almost
covers the roadside in the little traveled sections. Dr. N. E. Hansen of
Brookings, South Dakota, has made a few selections of the common
hazelnut found in Manitoba and is now propagating the best of these for
distribution.
A few filberts have been planted in Ontario but have not done very well.
The growth of wood has been good but little or no nuts have been
produced. In Guelph there is a filbert about fifteen feet tall growing
on the grounds of J. W. Bell, but like most other filberts in this
province it has not yielded nuts.
THE BEECH (_Fagus grandiflora_)
This tree grows in the hardwood region from Nova Scotia westward to the
western end of Lake Superior.
On suitable soils it attains a height of eighty or ninety feet and a
diameter of four feet. The nuts are much appreciated by old and young,
but on account of the slow rate of growth and the irregularity of
bearing very little has been done to plant this tree.
THE ALMOND (_Prunus amygdalus_).
Almonds have been tried to a limited extent in the warmer parts of
Canada but only with indifferent success except on Vancouver Island. It
is possible that a satisfactory strain will eventually be found that
will extend the range of this desirable nut-bearing tree.
_Introduction of New Species_
In addition to the efforts to gather data regarding nut trees I decided
to introduce some good exotic species for trial with the hope that some
of these might prove hardy enough for our climatic conditions. I thought
that northeastern Asia would be the most promising region from which to
obtain nuts for planting. Therefore, I wrote to the Mission Boards of
the Methodist, Presbyterian and Anglican Churches and obtained the names
of their missionaries in those fields. I then wrote to several of these
missionaries and outlined my programme and asked them to send me samples
of the best nuts growing in their respective sections. Here again I
received great encouragement and assistance. Several packages of fine
chestnuts and walnuts were received from China and Japan. Some of these
nuts were planted at the College and the remainder were distributed
throughout the province to interested parties. Owing to the length of
the period between the gathering of the nuts and their arrival at Guelph
many had lost their germinating power, consequently I only succeeded in
getting ten walnuts to grow and failed entirely with the chestnuts.
However, we may succeed in germinating a few more walnuts after a
winter's frost.
I am aware that we might not get as good nuts from these plantings as
the parents were, but it is also possible to get a real good tree which
would be hardy enough for our climatic conditions. Should we succeed in
this endeavor it would be a desirable acquisition and a great
improvement on our native black walnut.
_Improvement of Native Trees_
Attempts were made to improve ordinary black walnut trees by grafting.
Scions of the Persian walnut and the Japanese walnut were obtained and
grafted onto some of the seedling black walnuts planted by myself years
ago. I regret to state that in this phase of the work I was greatly
disappointed. Not one scion grew but the stock trees grew amazingly
after being cut back and would have been fine for budding this summer if
I had been able to get the buds at the proper time.
_Educational Work_
An attempt has been made to bring before all our students at the O. A.
C. the advantages of paying more attention to nut culture. These
lectures have always been well received and almost invariably have
aroused special interest in the minds of those who are horticulturally
inclined.
Addresses on nut culture have been given to Kiwanis Clubs and
Horticultural Societies and articles have been written for the
agricultural and horticultural press.
A small bulletin is being written and it is hoped that it will be
available for distribution in a short time.
_Plans for the Future_
The activities outlined above will be continued on a larger scale and in
a more thorough manner, provided I can get the necessary funds to carry
on the work. The search for superior trees and bushes will be continued
and nuts from good trees in China and Japan will be introduced in much
greater quantities for test purposes. The conversion of poor or ordinary
native nut trees into superior trees by grafting will receive special
attention.
In this way, ladies and gentlemen, I hope to attain the ideal of all
true horticulturists, e. g., "To make our country more beautiful and
fruitful and thereby help to serve the æsthetic and physical needs of
our people."
* * * * *
DOCTOR MORRIS: Mr. Chairman: Canada is the next country in which great
developments in all of the branches of science will occur. It is to
develop, of course, in our present cultural period and I hope this
movement for the development of nut culture in Canada will keep pace
with the other developments.
I want to speak about one point of Mr. Corsan's. Game breeding can go
very well with nut raising. Wild geese will graze like sheep, they will
keep the grass and weeds down, and after they are ten days old they need
no feeding at all until winter comes. They will graze like sheep, live
out of doors like sheep, take the place of sheep, and will return to the
land immediately valuable fertilization.
The pheasants Mr. Corsan spoke about are tremendous destroyers of
insects. I have had pheasants in my garden this year and the other
morning I looked out of the window and saw a pheasant in the midst of a
nest of fall web worms. The pheasants will destroy insects of every
sort. The only difficulty is that where there are rosebugs in abundance
they will kill young pheasants.
I hope every one will take a copy of this "Game Breeder" that Mr. Corsan
has left on the table. The subscription price is very small and we may
profitably add game breeding of certain kinds to our nut breeding with
benefit all around.
MR. BIXBY: Mr. President: There are some points brought out upon which I
could throw some light. I have some specimens of Juglans mandschurica
which were sent by E. H. Wilson from Korea. I also have a young tree
growing that is apparently larger leafed and with thicker shoots than
even Juglans cordiformis. The nut is rougher than the other.
I had the privilege of talking to Doctor Wilson regarding his travels in
Japan, particularly in relation to the Japanese walnuts. He tells me
that Juglans sieboldiana is a wild tree he has found all through the
Japanese islands, from the southern part of the northern island Yezo to
the mountains of Kyushu, the southern island. He says that Juglans
cordiformis is a cultivated tree found in only three or four provinces
in central Japan where the walnuts are cultivated. He also tells me he
has never seen any of the so-called Japanese butternut type with the
rough shell.
I devoted some time three or four years ago to finding out what this
so-called Japanese butternut really was. I could never find any instance
of where Japanese walnuts, either cordiformis or sieboldiana, had been
imported from Japan and planted here and trees grown from them, where
those trees had borne rough-shelled nuts like butternuts. In every case
where I found any trees bearing those so-called Japanese butternuts they
were grown from nuts, Japanese walnuts, which had been grown in this
country. In a number of instances I was able to find that the nuts which
were planted were smooth-shelled nuts, either sieboldiana or
cordiformis. When they were planted and the trees grew they bore these
rough shelled Japan nuts. In a number of instances I was able to find
native butternut trees not far away.
The other question was about the varieties of the American hazel. We
have here specimens of the best variety which we have found, the Rush
hazel. The gentleman who asked about it may see specimens on the table.
I believe that will be commercially valuable.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you have all enjoyed Professor Neilson's address
quite as much as I have. I wonder, Professor, if it would be agreeable
to you that we, as an association, should communicate with these people
who answered your questionnaire, inviting them to membership in this
association.
PROFESSOR NEILSON: Mr. President, I think that would be an excellent
suggestion, and I would be very glad indeed to prepare a list of those
that I know are interested in nut growing, and also give you a list of
the names of people who gave me exceptionally good replies.
THE PRESIDENT: That's fine. That's perfectly fine.
PROFESSOR NEILSON: Yesterday when you were talking about a membership
campaign it occurred to me that it might be well for me to write
personally to several people whom I know are interested in nut growing,
asking them to join.
As a matter of fact there is one gentleman in southwestern Ontario who
suggested to me that we form a Canadian branch of the Northern Nut
Growers' Association.
THE PRESIDENT: Don't do it. Just let us all be one.
PROFESSOR NEILSON: I think that's the better way to do it.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Is Mr. John Watson here?
MR. OLCOTT: He asked me to state in his behalf that he really didn't
have much to say, he noticed your program was pretty well filled up, and
he asked to be excused. I hoped Mr. Watson would say something here, but
what would be more important would be for him to speak before the
nurserymen and induce them to take more interest in our work. Mr. Jones
is here and Mr. Watson was here. Of all the nurserymen in this nursery
center here that is the only representation.
Nursery catalogues list seedling trees for the most part. One nurseryman
wrote me the other day saying he was continually receiving requests for
nut trees but he couldn't supply them and knew nothing about them. He
asked me for a list of nurseries growing them. Nursery nut trees are not
being produced in very great quantities except by Mr. Jones, and they
are unlisted in the nursery catalogues, or only listed in an incidental
way, very much as though they were tacking on something in the way of
citrus fruit, or something of that kind.
A subject that this association might well take up in the enlisting of
the nurserymen's interest in this work. Mr. Brown, by the way, of
Queens, New York, was here last night. There was a third one here, the
head of a very large nursery down there. I talked with him. He was here
with Mr. Dunbar. He was interested mildly but not from a practical point
of view. I don't know what is the reason for this lack of interest. I
thought maybe Mr. Watson could tell us.
THE PRESIDENT: This thought occurs to me in connection with Mr. Olcott's
remarks, that it might be desirable for us to send a representative from
this association to the annual meeting of the national nurserymen, and
let such representative put before the nurserymen the possibilities of
making the growing of nut trees in their nurseries a real feature.
MR. SPENCER: Mr. President, several years ago when I first became
interested in nut raising I wrote to the University of Illinois which
has really one of the great agricultural schools. It is especially famed
for its soil fertility studies and for engineering. I asked them what
they were doing in the way of spreading information in regard to nut
trees, and if they could give me a list of persons from whom I could
purchase reliable stock. To my amusement they said they had no list of
nurserymen who produced nut trees. I wrote back to them and said that it
seemed to me that in a country which is a nut country they ought to know
the products of their own state, and I sent them a list of the people
from whom they could get trees.
Now I think it would be good policy to send information to the various
agriculture schools, giving them what we know of their particular
territory based on our experiences, and also send this information to
the farm bureaus.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Olcott, what do you think about the suggestion to
send a delegate to the nurserymen's convention. You are familiar with
the nursery trade.
MR. OLCOTT: That's a good suggestion, Mr. President. I don't know--I had
thought of Mr. Jones, who is in the nursery business. It might mean
competition for him but I didn't think he would be able to supply all
the trees that might be needed. Mr. Jones, by the way, is a regular
attendant at the nurserymen's association.
THE PRESIDENT: He would be the man of all men to carry the message and I
am sure that he would be very glad to.
MR. CORSAN: Mr. Chairman, I have an idea that the best thing we can do
is carry on a magazine campaign this winter. Now my wife is a very good
magazine writer and can fix up anything in good shape. Send me along all
the photographs you can to the Brooklyn Central Y. M. C. A., where I
will be located this winter, and on cold, wet days and odd days I don't
work, why, we can get up some magazine articles on nut growing.
THE PRESIDENT: It affords me great pleasure to introduce Mr. Bixby.
THE EXPERIMENTAL NUT ORCHARD
WILLARD G. BIXBY, Baldwin, N. Y.
We have heard much about the desirability of the experimental nut
orchard and the association has repeatedly urged the planting of such by
each one of the agricultural experiment stations in the country. These
have been advocated in order that we might learn of the behavior of the
fine varieties of nuts that we now have under varying conditions of soil
and climate, and in this way accumulate the experience out of which to
make positive recommendations as to the species and varieties that might
be planted in any given section with reasonably assured prospects of
success.
The association has been criticised, sometimes a little harshly I have
thought, for the lack of specific planting recommendations, for, as a
general rule, that was what those interested have wanted. They did not
want to be experimenters; they wanted to plant varieties and get
reliable estimates of the returns that might be expected and information
as to the returns that similar plantings have shown. Indeed the
statement has been made that, unless the association could give this, it
could not hold its members and would largely fail in its mission.
That it has not until recently made any very specific recommendations of
this character is to my mind an evidence of wisdom. There is a legend
told of King Canute whose courtiers flattered him by telling of his
power, not differentiating between the immense power he did possess from
that which he did not, and who persuaded him to try it on the rising
tide. The King learned a lesson by the test that he never forgot. Had
the association attempted to make very definite recommendations before
it could point to specific instances where things had been done it would
almost certainly have failed as signally as did King Canute.
It is not because it did not realize the value that such recommendations
would have, but because it did realize that the experience necessary had
not been accumulated before it could safely make them. It is only
through experience that recommendations worth while can be made, and it
is because of the need of accumulating this for the various sections
that the association has advocated the planting of experimental
orchards.
It is encouraging to note that while these are not being planted as
rapidly as we would wish, the work is going on steadily and we are
continually learning of new plantings. Some of the older orchards are
now giving us their experience. The oldest plantings are those of Mr.
John G. Rush, West Willow, Pa., consisting largely of Persian walnuts,
and of Mr. E. A. Riehl, Alton, Ill., consisting of chestnuts and black
walnuts.
Mr. Rush's orchard has given us an American hazel, the Rush, the best
native variety that we have and which seemingly has commercial value. It
has also shown us that the nuts on a young grafted hickory tree, a
Weiker, are considerably larger and crack easier than the nuts from the
parent tree, and that the English walnut will grow and bear when grafted
on practically every species of walnut, black walnut, butternut, and
Japan walnut, and it seems likely that this orchard will be a source of
knowledge for us for many years to come.
A number of others have been started some of which are beginning to give
us evidence of value. Probably more problems have been solved,
particularly those relating to propagation on Dr. Morris's and Mr.
Jones's than any others so far. Dr. Deming is giving us evidence on
grafted hickories of a large number of varieties and Mr. Littlepage's
and Mr. Wilkinson's orchards are giving us evidence on pecans. There are
also a number of others still too young to give us much information. Mr.
Riehl's orchard of chestnuts and black walnuts has gotten beyond the
experimental stage and is now a commercial success.
I had a desire to establish an experimental orchard when living in
Brooklyn, before I owned any land on which to plant trees, and I bought
and set out trees on the land of three relatives before it was possible
to set any on my own land. The principal thing gained from these early
plantings was experience and the principal things learned were things
not to do, for none of the trees then planted are alive today. Buying my
present place in Baldwin, at the close of 1916 gave me about three acres
available land and since then I have been gathering grafted, budded or
otherwise asexually propagated trees of all the fine varieties that we
have. At present there are on my place some
14 varieties of black walnuts
2 " " butternuts
12 " " Persian walnuts
4 " " Japan walnuts
14 " " chestnuts
20 " " pecans
25 " " hickories
23 " " hazels
4 " " almonds
The only nut tree, native in the northeastern United States of which I
have no named variety is the Beech.
In addition there are seedling trees of four additional species of
walnuts, seedlings from several hybrid walnut and hickory trees, besides
some thousands of seedling nut trees of practically all species for use
as stocks.
I have for the past two years been gathering selected native hazels from
the various sections of the United States taking care to select bushes
that bore nuts that were relatively large, thin shelled and fine
flavored.
Inasmuch as the hazel is native all over the country, and just how to
get bushes that bear the best nuts is not generally known, I will tell
how I do it, hoping that many others will seek out the best hazels in
their section and get them into cultivation. I provide myself with a
cloth about as large as a large handkerchief, a number of wooden labels,
some paper bags, a hand vise, a pair of calipers, a scale and tools for
digging plants. A spade or round-nose shovel is about the best tool for
digging the plant and frequently a hatchet, axe, mattock, or bar is
required in addition in case the hazels have to be dug away from among
the roots of large trees or from among stones of considerable size.
When a plant is found where the nuts look promising the branch on which
nuts are to be examined is marked temporarily by throwing the cloth over
it. A nut is then carefully cracked in the hand vise, taking pains to
extract the kernel whole. This is then calipered with the calipers, set
at a minimum size desired. If it is undersize the bush is rejected and
another sought. In measuring the longest dimension is the one
considered. The minimum size depends on the section from which the
hazels are being taken, no kernel which is less than 3/8" in its longest
dimensions being considered. While sometimes it requires a good deal of
hunting to accomplish it, I have never had to take bushes where the
kernel was smaller than this and it is seldom that it is necessary to
take those where the kernel is as small as this. In many instances it
is very much larger. If the size is satisfactory the kernel is then
eaten, only those bushes having well flavored kernels being taken. If
all tests are satisfactory the cloth is removed and a wooden label put
on the bush which is then dug. The nuts are removed from the bush and
put in a paper bag labeled the same as the bush; the bush is cut back to
about 6" in height and then put in a sack or other convenient means for
keeping moist till it can be put into the ground.
The gathering of the above mentioned trees in a small compass and
closely observing them have enabled me to make a number of observations
which may be of interest.
_Fertility of Soil:_ The importance of this was shown strikingly in the
case of a lot of Japan walnuts received in the spring of 1918. They were
quite large and seemingly never had been transplanted and were dug with
small roots. For lack of a better place they were set in sod ground
which had not been cultivated or fertilized for many years. They eked
out a miserable existence during the years 1918 and 1919. During the
spring of 1920, I put chickens in that patch and an improvement was
noted that year but this year practically every tree has grown six feet
or more. The manure of the chickens and the thorough cultivation of the
soil caused by their scratching have certainly worked wonders. While I
do not minimize the effect of clean cultivation, I am inclined to
believe that abundant plant food is the really important thing, for a
goose watering pan under a tree pushes the tree along at a remarkable
rate, and geese never scratch. They do keep the grass closely cropped,
supply an abundance of manure, and the watering pan puts the plant food
where the trees can get it.
_Pruning:_ The importance of severely cutting back was strikingly shown
this spring. A butternut raised from a nut in a lot of "Virginia"
butternuts, bought in a nut store and which had outgrown every other
tree in that lot and which I believe to be a Japan walnut butternut
hybrid was transplanted this spring. Care was taken to get as much of
the roots as possible and practically all were obtained; good soil was
taken to fill in around the roots. Over the half of the branches were
removed but the five highest ones were not shortened. This tree has not
grown as well this year as some others not as vigorous and set in poorer
soil but where all branches were cut back severely. Were this the first
time I had noticed this, I might have considered it an isolated case,
but the need of severe pruning was emphasized even in this case where I
hardly expected it to show on account of the tremendous natural vigor of
the tree which was transplanted, and the ideal conditions under which
the transplanting was done.
_Varieties:_ I get frequent requests from persons who want to know the
best variety of this nut or that nut with the idea of planting only the
best. The thought behind the request is one with which I heartily
sympathize, but the method of accomplishing it that the enquirer has in
mind will not accomplish it. The failure of most plantings of European
hazels has, it has been thought, been due more to lack of proper
pollination than to any other one reason. This year several varieties
showed abundant pistillate flowers but there was but one European
variety where it was not evident that the staminate flowers had suffered
greater or less winter injury. This variety, Grosse Kugelnuss, shed an
abundance of pollen when pistillate flowers of several of the others
were receptive and there are nuts on three or four varieties for the
first time. I believe that the success of Messrs. McGlennon and
Vollertsen in fruiting the European hazels would have been but a
fraction of what it has been had they not set out the large number of
varieties that they did. In setting out nut trees at the present time as
large a number of varieties as practicable should be planted. Later we
will have the accurate observations that will enable us to select a few
and feel sure of getting good crops of nuts, but we cannot do this now.
_Chestnuts:_ While the blight is all around me and several of my trees
have been killed by it, there are enough left to produce nuts of nearly
every variety and I see no reason yet to change my belief that, by
watching, cutting out blight and occasionally setting out new trees,
chestnuts of nearly every variety can be grown and fruited in the blight
area.
_Age of Bearing:_ My experience would seem to show that grafted or
budded nut trees are as a class not slow in coming into bearing provided
they have had good care. I have had Lancaster heart nut trees set out in
the fall bear next spring and have had hand-pollinated English walnuts
bear the third year. Apparently a year or two longer will be required
before they bear staminate flowers. Walnut trees certainly appear to
bear fully as young as apple trees, in fact sooner, as a class, than
apple trees which I set out at the same time that I did walnut trees.
Pecan trees appear to take about two or three years longer than walnuts
and hickories several years longer than pecans. On the other hand
top-worked hickory trees bear about as soon as young transplanted
Persian walnuts. Hazels with me have taken about as long as Persian
walnuts but I think that they are more rapid in most instances. The soil
of most of my place is quite heavy, walnuts, pecans and hickories doing
finely. I am inclined to believe that a lighter soil would be fully as
good if not better for hazels.
_Stocks:_ The varying rapidity of growth of trees of the same variety
has been noticeable and has caused more than passing notice for one can
not help thinking that such varying rapidity of growth would be likely
to cause equal variations in bearing. It would seem as if this must be
caused by the variations in the stocks for the scions all come from the
same tree. Inspection of seedling trees has shown that some grow much
faster than others. If normal growth trees are considered, trees making
less than half this are numerous and those making double are rather
rare. Apparently we have in seedling stocks enough variations in vigor
of growth to account for the variations in growth noticed in grafted
trees of the same variety. Mr. Jones tells me that he expects to discard
nearly 50% of his seedlings because not vigorous enough to bud or graft.
Then there are some trees which seem incapable of taking grafts or buds.
It would seem very desirable to select rapid growing stocks that will
take buds and grafts readily and use those but this will mean working
out means of propagating them by cuttings, layers, or some asexual
method and these have not been well worked for nut trees, other than
hazels, although some work has been done on it.
The above conclusions are largely from the limited observations I have
made on my small place. None are very new for I believe I have heard all
of them advanced before, but observing them myself has fixed them in my
mind in a way that they could not have been otherwise. Many of them have
been corroborated by others. For example, Mr. Jones has shown me walnut
trees of the same size set out at the same time, some severely pruned
and others not, where the severely pruned ones in two or three years had
so far outstripped the others as to make it very noticeable and it
seemed as if the difference in vigor would continue. On the other hand
it is possible that there may be points where the experience of others
differs from mine.
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT: There is one more address this morning. That is by Doctor
Morris, the subject being, "Pioneer Experience and Outlook."
DOCTOR MORRIS: Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:
Lord Byron said that the reason why he did not commit suicide was
because he was so curious to know what was going to happen next. For any
one to do pioneer work in almost any department of human activity there
are two essentials: First, he must be more or less stupid and not read
the handwriting on the wall; and in the second place he must be very
obstinate and persistent. Given those qualities one may succeed in
pioneer work in almost any department of life.
Something over twenty years ago I had the idea of putting upon my
country place every kind of American tree that could be grown there. I
planned to occupy a little time away from professional work and attend
to this. As I began to acquire information the subject grew so rapidly
that I found it would be necessary to give up my profession wholly and
employ several assistants in order to carry out this idea. Consequently
I cut down my ambition to include only coniferous and nut trees. This
study in turn grew so rapidly that I found it necessary to cut out
everything except nut trees, and then I found that one might devote his
entire life to the subject of hickories alone to the exclusion of all
other occupation.
In the beginning of the development of my nut trees there were failures
continually and it became interesting. Lord Byron found it interesting
to live in order to see what was going to happen next. My failures were
so interesting that I was very curious to know what was going to happen
next. I started in with a very large lot of shagbark hickory trees. I
had them grafted for me in the South. I think I expended something like
$250 for that lot. I had it grafted upon the common hickory stock of the
South. They lived through the winter, the summer, and the next winter,
but in the spring, following a few warm days and a freeze, the bark of
every one of those common stocks exploded, fairly, and the entire lot
was lost, not one tree lived.
A great many trees that I brought from farther south, from California
and from the Pacific coast, all died. I learned then that the climate
there will allow trees from western Europe to grow because they have the
Japanese current furnishing similar conditions of climate; that trees
from that part of the country would be mostly failures here in the East;
and that trees for the East should come from northeast Asia where
climatic conditions are similar.
I learned also that trees from a distance, not accustomed to our soil
and climate, would not adapt themselves readily, and it would require
long selection and breeding to acclimatize or adapt to our soil trees
which were developed under differing conditions. Out of a large lot of
things that I got from Chili, hoping that their altitude would
correspond to our latitude, nothing grew. Consequently by elimination of
things that would not live I gradually arrived at the conclusion that it
is best for any locality to develop the species, or a like kind of tree,
which belong to that locality. Well, they say, how about the prairies
that are treeless? Of course we have there to deal with a question of
fire that from time immemorial has swept the prairies covered with grass
and has been halted only when it reached the regions of established
forests; so that on the prairies I have no doubt we may have great
groves of nut trees flourishing. In my locality the trees that are
indigenous are the ones which do the best, and that is the line for
perseverance.
Then I took up hybridization. I found there were many disappointments.
It was difficult to be sure of securing reliable pollen and of getting
it to the flowers at the right time and surely, so that we would have
good hybrids instead of parthenogens which sometimes develop as the
result of the female not making fusion with its mate.
On one occasion I remember I covered a lot of branches with large bags
for pollenization, and going out a few days later to add pollen I found
a wren's nest with two eggs in one of my bags. Now if a wren could lay
two eggs in one of those bags the cross-pollenization was not likely to
be a success. In this work, however, I find that we have a tremendous
field opened up and one which might yield particularly to the ladies. It
is very pretty work, it is nice work. It includes idealism, speculation,
the idea of developing new trees, or trees that one has never seen
before. After many failures in hybridizing I find now that by following
rules it is simplified very much. Almost any one who is persistent
enough may learn eventually to hybridize very easily.
The question of labeling trees and of keeping track of different
specimens was one that gave me many disappointments. I would lose the
labels, lose the records, so I was not able to tell truthfully about
trees when visitors came to ask me about them. I know in one lot where I
had a lot of hybrid trees, each one marked with a stake and number, the
cow of a neighbor got over the fence into the field and the boy who came
after that refractory cow found that to pull up those stakes gave him
very convenient objects for throwing at the cow, and my labels were all
hybridized.
This sort of thing was the kind of disappointments that I had in early
experiences in growing nut trees. It is very essential, however, to keep
good records and I find now that the best way is to use a galvanized
iron rod with a metallic tag stamped with a machine and fastened on in
such a way that it will not be injured by any sort of use. These
galvanized rods, galvanized spring wire, are very durable if one is
careful about placing them on the trees. That experience in keeping the
labels was one which was very disappointing at first, but the question
has now been finally settled.
The number of animals and birds that like a good thing is perfectly
surprising, and in trying to raise my seedling nuts I have had great
difficulty and have had to take up a new department of natural history
in order to study the habits of rodents and of the birds. The crows have
been, perhaps, the worst enemy, after the field mice, of the seedling
nuts that were planted out in the field. But the crows may be kept away
if we put up bean poles with a simple cotton string stretched between
them at a distance of twenty-five or thirty feet. One of my friends who
took my advice said that it didn't work, that he had not only put up the
string but had fastened a piece of tin onto the string. That is just
where he made a failure. The crows sized up the situation immediately.
They sat on the fence and looked it over and made up their minds that
those things were not meant for them, and then they went in and
destroyed his grain. But a simple string between the poles will keep the
crows guessing, and that alone will suffice to keep them out of the
grain, nuts, or anything else.
These are a few rambling remarks which come to my mind, but still they
belong to the experiences that we have in getting things under way in
our experimental work. As to the outlook, there is no doubt whatsoever
but that any man who is interested in the subject, who loves trees and
loves plants, can manage all the problems. We shall eventually have
horticulturists and amateur gardeners who will raise all of this great
new food supply without difficulty.
We must now look for new food supplies. Wheat, grain, corn, and the
other cereals are not going to supply this country indefinitely but the
nut trees will. It is absolutely impossible to have over-population. It
can't be done. Over-population as a social matter relates wholly to the
habits acquired by people in using established kinds of food, but with
the development of the nut trees, which furnish the appropriate starch,
oils, and essentials of human diet, the danger of over-population
becomes absolutely nil. We can not have over-population anyway, because
nations of people reach cultural limitation, just as breeds of cattle
run out, just as a breed of dogs runs out, just as a breed of any
cultivated animal runs out. We are sure to do that. In all of our
cultural periods we are sure to rise to a certain point, decline, and go
out, and somebody else will follow, so that we never can really have
over-population excepting as a matter of choice rather than one of
necessity. On the question of food supply we may avert over-population
by taking up something new to meet the conditions. That new thing right
now is the development of the nut trees which furnish all of the food
essentials and will take away any fear whatsoever of any over-crowding
of the people of this country.
EVENING SESSION, SEPTEMBER 8th, 1922
The convention was called to order by the President at 8:30 o'clock P.
M.
MR. SPENCER: Mr. President: I have an idea I would like to present on
behalf of the ladies. Quite a number of years ago I was entertained at
dinner on the plantation of Mr. John Todd, St. Mary's Parish, Louisiana.
It is on the banks of a stream lined with live oaks at a point where
Evangeline and the Arcadians passed on that trip to the next county
which is known as Arcadia. The whole country round there is full of
reminders of the Arcadians.
Mr. John Todd has several thousand acres in his plantation and four
thousand acres are in sugar cane. When it came to the dessert a
beautiful two-storied white cake was placed on the table. After eating
it I turned to Mrs. Todd and said, "I dislike very much to comment on a
lady's cooking but I hope you will excuse me if I ask you what this cake
is made of. There is something peculiar about it that I do not
recognize." "Well," she said, "while you and the other gentlemen were
down inspecting the land that you came to see, I had the boys go out and
rattle down some pecans. They cracked them, picked out the meats, and I
put them in the oven and dried them. I knew that they would not dry out
ordinarily in time for my meal. I then ran them through the meat chopper
and chopped them as fine as I could and then I put them through a very
fine sieve. The parts that were fine enough to go through I put in the
flour of the cake, the rest I put in the filler between the two layers
of cake and in the frosting." It was one of the most delicious cakes I
ever tasted in my life. With that recipe you can make a white cake in
about three minutes, fill your flour and your frosting with pecans and
you certainly will have a feast for the gods.
DOCTOR MORRIS: Mr. President, the committee on resolutions has referred
matters to the secretary for action.
THE SECRETARY: It was the duty of the committee on resolutions to
prepare the resolutions on the deaths of Doctor Van Fleet and Colonel
Sober, copies of which are to be sent to their families. The committee
not having had time to meet that task has been assigned to the
secretary, who will be very glad to carry it out to the best of his
ability.
The other and more important task of that committee was to take action
on the suggestions made by the president in his paper in regard to
increasing the membership of the association. As it has been impossible
to take such action in the committee I propose that we now take up
consideration of that matter as a committee of the whole.
I would like at least to say that Mr. Jones has offered to the
association five hundred nut trees to be given as premiums with new
memberships. I think Mr. Jones said that they included Stabler walnut
trees, Chinese walnuts, and what others, Mr. Jones?
MR. JONES: Chinese English walnuts, or Chinese Persian walnuts, Mayette
& Franquette English walnuts and Stabler black walnut seedlings. I have
an idea the Chinese walnuts would be the most attractive.
THE SECRETARY: They would all be seedling trees, of course?
MR. JONES: Yes; they would all be seedling trees. We would put them up
and mail them out.
THE SECRETARY: Think of what an extraordinary, generous offer that is on
the part of Mr. Jones, to contract to send out five hundred nut trees to
as many new members, dig and pack and send them out!
MR. JONES: Well, growing the trees doesn't cost very much. Of course
packing the single trees will cost more than the trees but we are glad
to do that if it will help out.
THE SECRETARY: I know that to some members this premium offering for new
members does not seem an advisable thing; to others it does seem a good
thing to do. Perhaps that would be a good question to debate at the
present time.
THE PRESIDENT: I think it is a good idea, Doctor, to the end of getting
a thousand members this year?
MR. JONES: Set aside a thousand trees if you get a thousand members.
MR. OLCOTT: Mr. President, Mr. Jones said the cost of growing the tree
isn't so much, but the packing and mailing is something. How would it do
to offer the tree at cost of packing and mailing--fifty cents, or so? I
suppose the value of that tree would be about a dollar, grown, packed
and delivered. Suppose we made it twenty-five, thirty-five or fifty
cents, something to cover the cost of packing? Would that not make
it----
MR. JONES: (Interrupting.) We don't want anything for packing.
MR. O'CONNOR: Mr. President, If you make a bonus of that kind, which is
very generous of Mr. Jones, I think it would be appreciated by some, but
others would say, "Well, a thing which you get for nothing isn't worth
much." This gentleman behind me here says, "Make it cost a little
something, which would make it more attractive." How about putting the
membership up a little, so as to cover the cost of mailing.
MR. JONES: I would say that the association was giving these trees
because it wants them tried out for new varieties.
MR. SNYDER: The fact that our association offers these trees ought to be
enough to establish their value. A new member would appreciate receiving
something in this way. The largest horticultural society in our country
is the Minnesota Horticultural Society. They have followed the practice
for years of giving to each new member a tree of some kind, scions or
plants of new fruits, and it has been a great success in building up
their society. I doubt not that it will be here.
MR. SPENCER: I'm heart and soul in favor of the movement for better nut
trees. I'm tired of having trees planted that produce nothing but
litter, and for the small boy to keep breaking all the time instead of
going fishing. As I said the other day through the committee on trees of
the Bird and Tree Club of Decatur we have placed in that city a hundred
and fourteen nut trees. I believe that I can go to the different
purchasers and say that this association is anxious to increase the
knowledge of the people as to the value of nut orchards and nut trees
for food and shade and I can get them to become members. When those
subscriptions are sent in send the names to Mr. Jones and have all the
trees put in a little package and sent to me. Then I can deliver them
and Mr. Jones will only have one package to do up.
I believe by a little effort among our friends a great deal of good can
be accomplished. For instance I stated here that I was going to buy a
subscription to the American Nut Journal and send it to the Maitland
County Farm Bureau. Likewise, I hope I can get the Board of Education or
the Public Library, which purchased twenty-eight different trees to put
in the library grounds, to subscribe for the Nut Journal and take out
membership. It won't be very hard, I should say, to get fifty or sixty
new members in Decatur without going out and making myself a regular
canvassing agent. I have got a great many friends there and I know that
upon my representation they would be very glad to take out a membership
and get a tree. Anybody can go and plant a Carolina poplar or a soft
maple, or a basswood, or an elm, but his lot won't look different from
any other. If all the ladies in town dressed in the same calico and the
same cut you would not know whose wife was who. This idea of having all
the yards, all the lots, all the places look alike, is wrong. You might
as well have your home look distinctive and if you will take that idea,
to have your place stand out as a place distinct in horticulture on your
street, in your block, or in your city, you can appeal to civic pride.
You must appeal to something besides dollars and cents. You must appeal
to their public spirit, their civic pride. Then you can get them
interested. A great many people are proud of their city and there are a
great many people who can very easily say with Paul, "I am a citizen of
no mean city."
Keep at it and take advantage of this offer of Mr. Jones. I believe by
following those lines you can very easily go out and get five or ten
members apiece.
MR. BIXBY: I don't want to throw cold water on any idea that is going to
increase the membership but it seems to me that there are some
objections to the proposed plan. In the first place the association has
gone on record as favoring largely the planting of grafted trees. Now on
the proposed plan the minute we get a new member in we have to send him
a seedling tree. That does not seem to me the best thing to do. In the
second place, I have had a good many years' experience in merchandising
and it has always worked out with me that people do not much appreciate
what they get for nothing. You can do this if a man is going to buy a
certain kind of goods, by offering him an inducement, giving him
something for nothing you can make him buy more than he would otherwise;
but if a man who has never had a certain kind of goods, generally
speaking you can't sell them to him by offering him a prize with them.
In the case suggested by Mr. Spencer, where a member working in a
certain location could club with others and get several new members, why
that hasn't the same objection. I do think that it would be a fine thing
if the members in the different sections each agreed to get five or ten
members, go after them and get them. I think that would be fine. And if
they are willing to be responsible at the end of the year if they don't
get them, and pay two dollars apiece for the ones they don't get, why
that would help out the treasury.
MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, I am rather in favor of the premium plan. In
this great state of New York there exists an organization at Geneva
known as the New York State Fruit Testing Co-operative Association. In
order to get members they offer premiums, a yearly premium. The year
that I joined the association they sent me a new apple which had been
tried out and found to be a very desirable fruit. They named it the
"Tioga" variety. The next year they sent me as a premium twelve new
raspberries that had been tested first by the Geneva Experiment Station,
a branch of the agricultural college, and then by this association of
fruit growers.
Now I don't know how it would operate with others but it was an
inducement to me in the first place to get that new apple to experiment
with, and the next year it was an inducement to get the twelve new
raspberry bushes which are claimed to be the best raspberries grown.
The objection raised by Mr. Bixby seems to be, however, quite a valid
one. The organization has put itself on record as opposed to seedling
nut trees and it is a question whether we ought to encourage the
distribution of seedlings. But in some way or other I'm in favor of the
premium plan to attract new memberships.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it not better to plant seedlings than none at all? It
is possible that some of the seedlings might be really worth while.
Those that are not really worth while can be top worked.
MR. JONES: Mr. President, my idea about the Chinese walnuts and the
Stabler walnuts was that if we want to get new varieties we have to get
them from seedlings. My plan was to grow these and send them out as
extras to people who had sent in orders for other trees. I thought that
in that way we could introduce them to those who would take an interest
in them. It would take a good deal of land and a good deal of money and
a good deal of attention to care for several hundred or several thousand
such trees, but you could send them out in that way one at a time and
possibly get new varieties superior to anything we have. That was my
idea in disposing of these trees. I thought that if the association felt
that that would be an inducement for new members we could send them out
in that way as premiums. The only difference in the cost to me would be
the packing.
MR. SMITH: Would it be possible for the association to take out from
this first year's dues sufficient to compensate Mr. Jones for the
difference between the value of a seedling and some of the best nut
trees, so we could say to a proposed member, "We are giving you
something that years of experience have proved to be the very best thing
up to date, and we want you to plant this and care for it"? I think he
would be more interested if he knew he were getting a tested tree than
if he were getting a seedling. The seedling may be a good thing and it
may not.
MR. WEBER: Mr. President, we know that in the spring the dry goods
stores distribute shade trees, and people carry them all day with the
tops tied up and the roots uncovered. You might as well expect a fish to
live out of water as to expect those trees to live. If we send the
average person a tree he may make it grow but the chances are he will
not, so why let him ruin a good grafted tree with his initial
experiments in planting a nut tree. On the other hand you will emphasize
the distinction between seedlings and grafted trees, because on his
coming into the association you will present him with a seedling and
explain to him in advance just the purpose for which it is being given.
He will then plant that tree. If it grows he can see its performance
along side of a later grafted tree which he will buy if he is
interested in furthering his nut tree plantings. If he isn't, why, you
get his membership fee and he centers his membership around that
seedling which he thinks is the finest thing in the world.
Last summer I was talking nut trees to the wife of a rather prominent
Detroit man. They have traveled around the world considerably. We were
discussing some nut trees which had been sent out. I knew the size of
the trees and I didn't laugh, or I sort of saved my face, when she asked
me the question, "How many bushels of nuts could we get next year?" I
just closed my jaws a while and looked out of the window. I didn't want
to dampen her enthusiasm.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Tobin, I would like to have your views on the
subject.
MR. TOBIN: This offer of Mr. Jones's is of great importance to this
association. I have been interested in trees and forestry and plants of
all kinds but until the present time I have not been so much interested
in the cultivation of nuts. I wish to say that if there is any way I can
help this association along in regard to an experimental station or in
any way whatsoever, financially or otherwise, if the suggestion could be
made I would be glad to hear it.
THE SECRETARY: Mr. President, this association is not opposed to the
planting of seedling trees. One of our founders, the late John Craig,
advocated the planting of seedling trees in great numbers, for only thus
can we originate new varieties. The association is opposed to the
dissemination of seedling trees as grafted trees. It does not advocate
the planting of seedling trees for commercial purposes or for ordinary
home use. It does not advise the purchase of seedling trees for growing
nuts. In sending out these premium trees we should send with them a
letter distinctly stating that the association does not advise the
planting of seedling trees from a commercial point of view, but it does
wish to disseminate these seedling trees which we offer as premiums for
new members, for the purpose of testing and the possible discovery of
new varieties of nuts. It would then be clearly understood. Certainly
such seedling trees shouldn't be sent out to give members the idea that
we advocate the planting of seedling trees for any other purpose than of
possibly obtaining valuable new varieties.
MR. O'CONNOR: Mr. President, I'm a life member of the Wisconsin
Horticultural Society which has offered a thousand dollars for an apple
better than the Wealthy. We also offer premiums for new members every
year. Sometimes it is a seedling apple tree. Among those premium trees
may be a seedling which will win the prize. We do not know what the
seedling nut tree will do. We may get something from a seedling which is
far better than anything we have today on the table before us. Nature is
something wonderful and no one can tell you what she will do. Only this
last year has what is called the "O'Connor" come out. But we find this
O'Connor nut is not hardy enough for certain sections of the country.
This Persian walnut before you is a seedling, too you know, from nature.
So it is through seedlings that we are going to get better fruit. I
believe that Mr. Jones's offer is a very good thing. But I suggest that
we send these seedlings out with the understanding that they are
seedlings and that we don't know what they will produce. If the new
member will plant them and take care of them (and we should give a
little instruction as to how they should be planted) in a few years,
seven or eight if it is a pecan, he should see it coming into fruit.
I would like to say that if you will dynamite the hole with a one-half
stick of twenty per cent. dynamite, or, if you are afraid to use the
dynamite, dig a large hole so as to give these young roots a chance to
spread, a grafted tree will come into bearing in three years. I have
seen them do it down there with us in Maryland and I believe they will
do the same thing anywhere else.
THE PRESIDENT: I would like to hear from Mr. Vollertsen on the subject.
MR. VOLLERTSEN: I haven't a great deal of confidence in seedlings. As a
general thing we find all the nut trees are inclined to go back to their
original type. If we take our filberts, even the best varieties, the
chances are that they will go back to the European type that they
originally came from. I have proven it time and again on the farm down
there. I don't think it wise for this association to send out seedlings.
THE SECRETARY: Mr. President, in order to bring this question to a head,
I move that Mr. Jones's offer be accepted and put in to practice if a
suitable plan can be devised and carried out in the estimation of the
executive committee.
Seconded and carried.
MR. OLCOTT: Mr. President, I wonder if the suggestion of Mr. O'Connor is
clearly appreciated. It was barely suggested in his talk but he did not
seem to clinch it at the end. As I understand his idea it was that this
plan of furnishing a tree as a premium might well be accompanied by an
offer of a prize for results, which would be an added inducement to
membership.
THE SECRETARY: I will see that that point is considered by the executive
committee.
I wish also to say that Mr. McGlennon, if I understand him aright, has
offered to get one hundred members in the ensuing year if the others
present will get ten each.
THE PRESIDENT: That's right, Doctor.
THE SECRETARY: I don't know just which comes first, whether Mr.
McGlennon is to get one hundred members and then the rest of us to get
ten each; or whether we are to get ten each and then Mr. McGlennon is to
get the others!
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Mr. Secretary, I have associated with me the
champion membership getter. When we can go out and get twenty or
twenty-five in a month I think we can go out and get the others. We are
all enthusiastic now and happy. We are glad we are here and we are going
to do wonders this next year. But I'll wager inside of a week our ardour
has materially cooled and it will be getting colder until about a month
before the next convention. We are not going to get anywhere that way.
We want to get busy immediately after this convention, and if we do
there is no reason why we can't have a thousand members by the time of
the 1923 convention. I repeat that my office will have a hundred members
by the time of the next convention but it is with the understanding that
the rest of you co-operate in this movement and that each of you here,
and the other members who are not here, be informed and instructed what
is expected of them, to get at least ten each.
MR. BIXBY: I don't believe you will ever succeed, Mr. President, in
getting each of the other members to get ten members each. If the rest
of the members get a hundred between them they would be doing more than
we ever did before.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Mr. Bixby, but even if the members here get ten each
I think if we follow them up closely and keep right after them we can
increase this membership to a thousand.
MR. BIXBY: I will agree for one to get ten or else pay the amount in to
the treasury.
MR. JONES: We can get ten.
MR. WEBER: Mr. President, I will get ten or kick in to the treasury the
money they would have brought.
THE PRESIDENT: That's fine. That's thirty right there. How about you,
Mr. Thorpe?
MR. THORPE: I think I can get it.
PROFESSOR NEILSON: I think I can get ten.
THE PRESIDENT: I think there is no doubt about it. Mr. Spencer will get
ten won't you, Mr. Spencer?
MR. SPENCER: I will try to.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you will, won't you, or else you will "kick in"
with the money,--$20?
MR. SPENCER: Yes, I think so. Well, if I am going to put in $20 I want
to say something more on the subject. If we send out this Chinese tree
it would be very easy to put in a slip stating that the association is
very anxious to know whether this is suitable for the receiver's
particular part of the country. We should tell him that we don't know
whether it will grow in Illinois or in Louisiana, and that it's an
experiment on the part of the association to learn whether this tree,
which is desirable in China, is suitable for his particular locality. We
should ask him to please take care of it, watch results and report to
the association. Make him sort of a partner in the discovery.
THE PRESIDENT: Pat, you will get ten, won't you?
MR. O'CONNOR: I will promise myself ten.
THE PRESIDENT: And Mr. Tobin, you will get ten, won't you? You said you
were anxious to help this association.
MR. TOBIN: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Even financially?
MR. TOBIN: Yes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, you will get us ten members during the year?
MR. TOBIN: Well, I would not promise you.
THE PRESIDENT: But if you don't, if you promise to help us financially,
you would "kick in" with the money, wouldn't you?
MR. TOBIN: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, sure. Then you get ten members.
MR. TUCKER: Mr. President, I want to ask about the vice presidents from
the different states. Are those still in existence?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. The secretary said yesterday they had been changed
every year.
MR. TUCKER: Why can't memberships be also increased through the vice
presidents? Put it up to them.
THE PRESIDENT: Joseph A. Smith, of Utah?
MR. SMITH: Mr. President, I will guarantee ten.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, that's an exceptionally fine offer of Mr. Smith, who
comes to us from Utah. Just try and fix in your mind the map of the
United States and realize where Utah is. Mr. Rawnsley, you will get ten,
won't you?
MR. RAWNSLEY: Yes, I will get ten.
MR. TUCKER: I will get ten. Carrie and I together will get ten.
THE PRESIDENT: There are two hundred right there.
MR. TUCKER: My ten went with your hundred. I think we ought to do
something through the vice presidents.
THE SECRETARY: The secretary will get up a letter and send it to each
one of the vice presidents, stating what was done at this meeting in the
way of pledging these new members and asking the vice presidents to do
the same, to each guarantee ten members or to turn the money in
themselves.
THE PRESIDENT: If we had more money so that some of the officers of this
association could get about and confer with our state vice presidents
there isn't any doubt but what we could stimulate their interest and get
many new members. Of course, ladies and gentlemen, we have got to get
new members, that's all there is to it.
MR. O'CONNOR: The more the merrier.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the use? Here we are meeting with a deficit every
year. That's all wrong.
MR. OLCOTT: Mr. President, I am glad something is going to be done about
the state vice presidents. I also have proposed that the state vice
presidents be brought into line. Mr. Spencer has made a very good
suggestion for them and that is to encourage friendly competition in
dressing up yards, one section against another. If the state vice
presidents would use that suggestion in getting new members I believe it
would be a good thing. I believe also, as I have said many times that
the state vice presidents should be the local directors of a state
association subsidiary to this one, that Ohio, for instance, should have
an association of Ohio nut growers. If they can't meet then let them
correspond back and forth. Certainly the nut growers of Ohio should know
each other and be brought in to correspondence. They could do that
through an association of which our state vice president would be the
chairman or the local president. I am a great believer in organization
and I feel that the state vice presidents should amount to something.
After the state organization is started by this association in that way,
then the members of each association could elect their own chairman, if
they wish, and report it to our secretary.
THE PRESIDENT: That is along the line of the suggestion offered by
Professor Neilson this afternoon.
MR. OLCOTT: Yes. We could have a branch in Canada.
THE SECRETARY: The secretary will be glad to see that Mr. Olcott's
suggestion is incorporated in the letters to the state vice presidents.
MR. JONES: We would be glad to make up a mailing list and turn it over
to the secretary if he should want to circularize in making this offer
or any other offer for memberships.
THE PRESIDENT: If we could get this thing where it ought to be it is
possible that we might be able to induce the secretary to give his
entire attention to the interests of the Northern Nut Growers
Association. He would have to have a lucrative salary of course. That is
one of my ambitions. I am frank to state it here right now.
Then the Northern Nut Growers Association would be the thing that it is
supposed to be, the thing that it is not at the present time when we're
meeting with a deficit every year. I hope and believe, in fact it must
be, that this is the last time we are going to meet with a deficit. We
are going to have a good surplus next year or what is the use of going
on?
MR. SPENCER: The governors of three or four of the states met in Chicago
not very long ago to consider the interests of the states that center
around Chicago. The people in Illinois don't know that the Forest
Reserve covers sixteen thousand acres and that it has English walnuts
growing just as nicely as you have them here. That knowledge hasn't been
spread. Also there are people who are propagating nut trees in Illinois
and southern Indiana. Now if our vice presidents in Indiana, Illinois,
Ohio and Missouri, which is the native home of most every kind of
hickory, would get together and go to any one of the central cities of
those particular states, call a meeting of their customers in that
neighborhood, and spread a knowledge of this association I think that we
could build up a local interest that would advertise this organization
wonderfully.
You have got to advertise and you must show to the common people who are
going to be your members, who are going to be interested in nut trees,
that they are valuable; that an ordinary acre of nut trees is worth ten
times the value of any crop of wheat raised in Illinois, and Illinois is
the wheat country. Before the hard wheat was discovered in Minnesota the
whole south half of Illinois was given to wheat. But now so far as white
wheat is concerned, and spring wheat, it isn't wanted and the result is
that you have got to get something else into that country. Now that
wheat country of southern Illinois is a natural nut country. Pecans,
persimmons, chinkapins, grow wild all over there, and there is no reason
why that land, which can be bought for from ten and fifteen dollars an
acre up to twenty-five, according to the improvements, if the oil rights
are eliminated, can't be made to produce a hundred to five hundred
dollars an acre. If that is so, why not do it?
Today, Illinois has over 11,000,000 bearing apple trees, and they raise
just as good apples there as any where, but they haven't got the
organization, they don't advertise, and we don't know it generally. If
we can organize and distribute our information, get these vice
presidents from two or three cities to join with the chambers of
commerce and have a meeting down at Evansville, among the nut growers,
for instance, the growers of Indiana pecans, and see what they grow, and
what they are worth, why then you can get the people interested. You
must have somebody that is interested in the propagation of a new idea.
Don't get somebody who just comes here for a good time without any
desire particularly of learning anything. If he doesn't want to learn we
don't want him.
THE SECRETARY: I understand that, in view of the very generous offer of
the president to get a hundred new members in the ensuing year, and of
the pledge of ten other men to get ten more members, or turn in the
necessary amount to the treasury, each of us goes forth from the meeting
tonight with the understanding that he is morally under obligations to
do what the other members have promised to do.
THE PRESIDENT: It would be a nice thing to give a Christmas gift of a
membership in this association and a subscription to the American Nut
Journal. A great many of us receive Christmas gifts which are
appreciated when received, and maybe for a week or ten days, two weeks
or a month, and then they're forgotten; but this membership and the
American Nut Journal that one would receive every month, would be a
constant reminder of the giver. What do you think of that, ladies and
gentlemen?
THE SECRETARY: It is a fine idea, Mr. President, and I will see that it
is also incorporated in the letters to the state vice president that
each vice president give to at least one friend a subscription and
membership in the association. I suggest also that those who can write
for the magazines and the journals get up little articles for the
horticultural papers about nut culture. There can't be too many of those
in the periodicals.
THE PRESIDENT: Apropos of that suggestion, I believe Mr. Tucker has
something to say in regard to a special edition of the Journal. Maybe
Mr. Olcott would be good enough to make one of his--
MR. TUCKER: (Interrupting) To make one of his numbers a convention
number.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes; one of the numbers in the near future devoted
largely to the proceedings of this convention, that is, if he could see
his way clear to do it.
MR. OLCOTT: You mean in the matter of--
THE PRESIDENT: (Interrupting) Of this convention. Sort of make it a
northern nut growers issue. It is merely a suggestion, Mr. Olcott.
MR. OLCOTT: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: So that it is practically all about this convention of
the Northern Nut Growers Association.
MR. OLCOTT: Yes. Well, it is rather difficult to do that, Mr. President,
to the exclusion of all other matter. Is that what you mean? How are we
going to take care of the news? It is not a magazine of stories and
fiction; it is a magazine of news, and the news of the period between
August 15th and September 15th, for instance, will become stale if it is
not used in the September 15th issue and runs over until the October
15th issue. It is the American Nut Journal. I think your idea can be
carried out very fully by featuring the convention as the main thing,
but not to use every last page for it.
MR. TUCKER: No. My idea wasn't to give the whole magazine up to that.
But when you got up that magazine, to have the northern nut growers
convention stick right out.
MR. OLCOTT: Sure.
THE PRESIDENT: Wasn't it your idea to have some of the pictures, too?
MR. OLCOTT: I see.
MR. TUCKER: Yes; run some of the pictures, and so forth.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Olcott, I am sure, is willing to give that issue just
as soon as we can get more members and more money.
MR. OLCOTT: We are carrying the nut journal on its subscription list.
There is no advertising to speak of in this pioneer industry. The nut
nurserymen do not advertise; they should. People want to know where they
can get nuts, butternuts and hickory nuts. The people in the South who
grow pecans are doing a commercial business but they don't have to
advertise; they can't furnish enough nuts to meet the demand. There is
no occasion for them to ask for customers; the customers are flocking to
their doors and standing in line. People want to know where to get
black walnuts; they write in to me. I don't know where to send them. I
don't suppose anybody has enough for his local trade and he doesn't have
to advertise; he can sell all he has. There is no advertising to speak
of. We are living on subscriptions. Now if you enlarge the Journal, use
pictures which run up all the way from six to fifteen dollars apiece,
you are soon using up your $1.50 per that is left out of the combination
membership.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
MR. OLCOTT: After paying the tremendously high printer rates. A special
edition can be gotten out at considerable additional cost. We have done
it in the past and come out at the small end and it took several months
to get even again. We can do it again for the sake of the association;
but I am saying this to show why it is not done oftener.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I understand it. What do you think, then, of a
little co-operation on the part of the association in the way of that
extra expense for a special edition?
MR. OLCOTT: That's all right. In Mr. Linton's administration I furnished
some very large and rather expensive half-tone engravings on the part of
the association and they worked in very nicely. I don't know whether the
association paid for them or whether he did. I think we divided the cost
of them.
MR. BIXBY: I know he did. I have furnished some cuts myself.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I know, Mr. Bixby. You are very liberal.
THE SECRETARY: I suggested also that those who can give talks before
their local horticultural societies should do so on the subject of nut
culture, and if they wish to go in to it extensively slides could be
obtained. I think that I could guarantee to obtain them from the
Department of Agriculture for illustrated lectures. I have also another
question which I would like to put before the association, and that is
if we cannot use in some way our surplus back reports to gain new
memberships. We have never been able to work out any method of doing so.
We have printed each year an edition of a thousand numbers of the annual
report. We send out two hundred and fifty or three hundred;
consequently, we have about seven hundred annual reports accumulating on
our hands every year. Now, what good are they going to be? Can't we use
those in some way to increase our membership? Can't we use those as
premiums, distribute them gratis some way or other, or distribute them
for a small sum to educational institutions, newspapers and agricultural
journals? Can't we do something with that annual surplus of about seven
hundred nut reports to increase our membership?
MR. TUCKER: Why is there a thousand of them printed?
THE SECRETARY: Because you can get a thousand for just about the same
price that you get five hundred, or a very little more.
MR. O'CONNOR: Mr. President, why couldn't some of those be sent to the
different experiment stations; also to some of our libraries? We have a
number of experiment stations that don't see anything of this kind and
that don't know that such a thing exists as the Northern Nut Growers
Association. It is only recently that within the state of Minnesota they
knew there was such a thing. I have offered a prize in that state for
nut culture work. This winter I am going to speak at the Maryland
Horticultural meeting, which will be held in Baltimore, and wherever I
can get a chance at any of those meetings I always put in a word for the
nut. Over on the eastern shore of Maryland, I went into one of the
largest apple orchards and nurseries, I believe, in the United States.
There were a few northern pecans growing in the yard, and when I asked
one of the young men what kind of pecans they were, he said, "Well, I
don't know whether it is Indiana or just what it is; but I know it is a
pecan." That was growing very beautifully right under the window, you
might say, of their dwelling house. That was over at Berlin, at Mr.
Harrison's. He likes to sell to nut tree owners, and yet has he come to
his year's meeting? Is he a member of the association? For that reason I
don't feel like helping him to sell a tree as long as he is not a
member. But every chance I get I will put in a good word for the nut
tree firm.
I think by sending out our literature to different magazines, to the
different experiment stations and over into Canada we would be greatly
benefited. We have got some good friends to the north of us. Why not
send them some copies and have them help spread this good thing along?
THE SECRETARY: I would like to have Mr. Bixby state about the
distribution of those reports outside of the membership. Is there any
gratis distribution now?
MR. BIXBY: No, there isn't. There used to be and I made every one of
them who received them gratis buy them of me.
THE SECRETARY: About how many institutions now buy the journal?
MR. BIXBY: I should say about half a dozen. That's the same number that
had them free before. In nearly every instance when they would write in
and request it I would tell them how the association was doing work the
Department of Agriculture ought to do, supporting itself with great
difficulty, and we would be glad to have them as a member; that if not a
member we would furnish a report for so much. In nearly every case we
got them as members or they bought the report. As I said before I don't
believe in giving things away; I believe in trying to get the people to
see the advantage of buying them.
THE SECRETARY: It would be quite an expense to send out all the back
numbers of the reports.
MR. BIXBY: I don't think they would appreciate them either. Although I
have not been able to do it the most practicable thing to do seems to me
to make an index, say of the first ten and bind them up in a booklet and
then I think you could sell them. I hope to do this some time.
MR. TUCKER: What is the expense of mailing?
MR. BIXBY: I think it is about eight cents.
THE SECRETARY: It would be considerable labor, but I think it might be
best to circularize different experiment stations, horticultural
societies, etc., and ask them if they wouldn't like to have in their
libraries a complete file of the reports of the Northern Nut Growers
Association which can be obtained for a certain small number of dollars.
THE PRESIDENT: Professor Neilson, what would your attitude be toward a
communication you would receive of that nature? Supposing that you were
not the enthusiastic member that you are of our association?
PROFESSOR NEILSON: I believe it would be favorable. I believe that is
general, and judging from the interest shown in our province I believe
that a good many of those horticultural societies and other
organizations would be glad to have the reports on file; they would be
glad to purchase them at whatever figure was set upon them, if it were a
reasonable figure. And I think that I could interest several of our
agricultural representatives in having these on file in their office,
and possibly in subscribing, or getting the departments of agriculture
to subscribe to the northern nut growers journal. There are several
county offices along the northern shore of Lake Ontario and in those
counties nuts are produced. I think their representatives might be
induced to persuade the department to subscribe to your journal.
PROFESSOR TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman: I want to speak on the suggestion made
by Mr. Bixby. I may illustrate it in this way: we people in California
are, of course, in a little different situation from those represented
by the Northern Nut Growers Association. Over there west of the Rockies,
or west of the Sierra Nevadas, we have an entirely different situation.
By virtue of our peculiar climatic conditions we have already gone
through our experimental period and we now have nuts that we are growing
on a commercial basis just as they have in the South.
For several years I was connected with the University of California and
I used to have to teach students, among other things, the various nuts.
That was my particular line, the various nuts, especially those
adaptable to California, but also along with that the nuts of the United
States and the nuts of North America. I believe that Mr. Bixby will bear
me out when I say that it was during my time that all of the back
reports of the Northern Nut Growers Association were ordered. That was
prior to 1919, was it not?
MR. BIXBY: Yes.
PROFESSOR TAYLOR: It was prior to 1919 that all the back numbers were
ordered, and I hope they are still taking them.
MR. BIXBY: They are. They get them every two years.
PROFESSOR TAYLOR: They ought to and if they are not I will see that they
do. But I found this difficulty, that there will very shortly be
thirteen numbers and if it comes to a question of looking something up,
we will find that the average man will not be enthusiastically
interested because he won't know how quickly he can get at just exactly
what he wants. Mr. Bixby suggested that ten of these volumes be taken
together and indexed as a unit. That is one of the finest things that
you can possibly ask for. I think the institutions will buy them in a
way that they do not now because then they will not have to look through
ten volumes to find a little idea they want.
I know it is an expensive proposition to index things of that kind; it
takes time and a lot of patience. Not only that but it must be done by
some one whose heart is in the work and who recognizes the problems that
the man who is going to use that index is going to look up. But I do
think that if it could be put in to a combined volume, and some sort of
an effort made by the various vice presidents in the different sections
to see the institutions in their own sections who would be interested,
that something might be accomplished which would be of real worth. I
believe this would be increasingly so in the future, because those
people will want to look back ten, fifteen, twenty years, and see what
the others went through. One of the biggest things that I think I did in
our classes was to point out the problems that occurred in California
ten, fifteen, twenty-five and thirty years ago, along the line of nut
culture solely, and then point out where the nut growers succeeded.
And if I may just branch off here to one of the things I haven't spoken
about before this evening, I am absolutely against planting seedling
trees unless there is a very strong emphasis laid on the fact that they
are not for commercial purposes and not for planting in orchards, but
are simply and solely for the possibility of developing new varieties. I
think that growers are going to want to go back over old reports in
order to save covering the same ground twice. We have found our new
people in California starting right in where people started fifty years
ago because they didn't know what happened fifty years ago, because our
reports out there were not properly indexed.
MR. WEBER: Mr. President, in order to bring the matter to a head, I move
that the distribution of the old reports, by sale or otherwise, be left
to the discretion of the executive committee.
(Seconded and carried.)
MR. OLCOTT: Mr. President, I would like to ask what the condition of the
treasury is. I do so for this reason, that we have planned out a good
deal to be done during the interim, from now to the next convention,
and the secretary's office ought to be busy. We are planning upon making
it so to keep up interest.
I think that the secretary shouldn't be handicapped by lack of funds for
stationery and things of that kind. I think that with a deficit maybe he
has been. Maybe more matter would go out if he had funds and to that end
I am putting in my check for $20 for my subscription tonight in advance.
If others will do that he will have funds to work with. (Applause)
THE PRESIDENT: In a discussion I had with the treasurer and the
secretary before this evening's session we considered that point, Mr.
Olcott, and I thought that we would go after the remaining deficit
tonight and make it up, start off with a clean sheet. Mr. Bixby said
that if we were going to enter into this new membership campaign in a
really generous spirit, he felt that the matter of the remaining deficit
should be taken care of.
MR. BIXBY: If we can get two hundred new members this year that will
take care of it.
THE PRESIDENT: Two hundred are already pledged.
MR. BIXBY: If we get them that will take care of it.
MR. OLCOTT: It will take to the end of the year to get the returns.
MR. WEBER: I will send my check when I get home, because I don't want to
go in to my pocketbook now.
THE PRESIDENT: What was the deficit, Mr. Bixby?
MR. BIXBY: The deficit was $176. There was pledged yesterday, $75, and
there has been $10 more today. That's $85 of the $176. Then there is $20
of Mr. Olcott's. That would make it $105. Mr. Weber, when he gets home,
will make it $125. We will clean it up one way or another.
THE SECRETARY: I think we should proceed now to the report of the
nominating committee and the selection of the next place of meeting.
THE PRESIDENT: The hour is growing late and there is just one message I
want to give you here. While it may savour some what of advertising our
filbert enterprise, it was not with that idea in mind that we proceeded
to get the information we have got. Our filberts have been distributed
through the L. W. Hall Company, nurserymen of this city, who have
exclusive sale of them at this time. They have been distributed during
the past three years over a considerable area: Illinois, Idaho, Iowa,
North Carolina, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Delaware,
New York, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Georgia, District of
Columbia, Pennsylvania and Kansas.
Some little time ago I conferred with Mr. Hall in regard to
communicating with his customers to whom he had delivered filbert
plants, the first in the spring of 1919. He has written them asking them
how the plants have done, and particularly with regard to fruit bearing.
I have the replies here and the gist of them is this: that the plants
have done finely, have been entirely satisfactory in that respect. There
has been a complaint that they have not borne; there are some instances
of extreme pleasure expressed over the way they have borne. My own idea
is, and I believe it is that of Mr. Vollertsen also, that they have not
had quite time enough yet, since the spring of 1919.
MR. BIXEY: That is not time enough.
THE PRESIDENT: Furthermore, Mr. Hall, in offering them--against our
advice as we endeavored to persuade him to offer them as improved
European filberts, assorted varieties--thought that the people would be
attracted to those unpronounceable names that we have them under. Maybe
they were. He listed some six or eight varieties, I think, and those
varieties were of our larger fruited kinds. We frankly confess that
those varieties will not bear as abundantly as the smaller fruited
varieties--not that they are very small they are quite a good sized nut.
I believe if Mr. Hall had made a freer distribution of the so-called
smaller fruited varieties that there might have been an even more
favorable report in connection with fruiting. Another year or so will
give us more definite information.
We have now cleaned up our program pretty well. You are going to find
Doctor Kellogg's paper in the report, together with the secretary's. We
have the papers here. That completes the program up to the present time
with the exception of Senator Penny and Mr. Linton. We supposed Mr.
Linton would be here. I had telephoned this morning as Mr. Penny
promised to send a paper but he hasn't been able to do so. Those are the
only two papers of the program that we haven't got.
There are two more things we have to take care of; one is the election
of officers, and the other is the selection of a place for the next
convention. I call for the report of the nominating committee.
MR. WEBER: The report of the nominating committee is as follows:
_President:_--JAMES S. MCGLENNON.
_Vice President:_--J. F. JONES.
_Secretary:_--WILLIAM C. DEMING.
_Treasurer:_--WILLARD G. BIXBY.
(Signed)
ROBERT T. MORRIS,
G. H. CORSAN,
HARRY R. WEBER,
Nominating Committee.
MR. O'CONNOR: I move the nominations be accepted.
THE PRESIDENT: Just one moment. Up to this evening I understood that the
president was to be elected for a year. I do not know much about the
condition prior to President Linton. He was elected at Battle Creek at
the same time I was elected vice president. There were extenuating
circumstances justifying the re-election of President Linton. I feel
that similar conditions do not prevail justifying my re-election as
president of this association. It is not going to make any difference to
me whether I am president or just simply a soldier in the ranks. I want
to see this association the success it ought to be and I feel, in view
of the wonderful work that has been done in this association and for its
best interests at all times by Mr. Jones, that it is due him that the
presidency should be passed to him at this time. He is going to the next
convention of the National Association of Nurserymen, he and Doctor
Morris, Mr. Olcott and Mr. Weber, to get before that convention of
nurserymen something more of the history of this association and its
ambitions and desires. I know he could appear before that convention in
a much more advantageous way for the benefit of this association if he
were president of it. I feel that Mr. Jones ought to be elected
president of this association here tonight.
MR. OLCOTT: Mr. President, the presidents of this association have been
elected for two years and I think it has become an established custom.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Bixby referred to that tonight. I didn't understand
it that way. I supposed I was elected last year at Lancaster for one
year.
MR. O'CONNOR: Mr. President, I took that matter up with Mr. Littlepage
and he told me it was customary to elect the president for one year at a
time and to re-elect him for the second year if he proved all right. So
far I think every member of this association has been well satisfied
with the service you have given us and we want you to continue on for
another year.
THE PRESIDENT: Pat, I thought you were my friend.
MR. SPENCER: I move the secretary cast the ballot of the association in
favor of the officers nominated by the committee on nominations.
MR. O'CONNOR: I second the motion.
(Upon the motion being put to a vote of the members, it was declared
duly CARRIED, the secretary cast one ballot for the persons nominated,
and they were declared duly elected.)
THE PRESIDENT: All right, ladies and gentlemen. Here we are with our
coats off and sleeves rolled up for another year; but I want to give you
all fair warning that if we don't have that thousand memberships at that
next convention, this child is going to drop out. (Laughter.)
The next in the order of business is the selection of a place for the
next convention. You heard the telegram this morning from Mr.
Littlepage and the telegram from the Washington Chamber of Commerce.
Personally, I would like to have you come to Rochester again because we
sure enough have enjoyed the sessions with you all here this time. There
is no finer city in the world than Rochester, N. Y., and we would like
to have you come back here. I want you to come here.
MR. O'CONNOR: Mr. President, I feel it is quite an honor that we are
asked to the capital city of the United States to hold our meeting. It
shows we were appreciated there some few years ago. I move you we have
the next meeting in Washington.
MR. OLCOTT: I second the motion.
(The motion being duly put to a vote of the members, it was carried.)
THE SECRETARY: Now, Mr. President, we should decide upon a date.
THE PRESIDENT: I think that is true. In Lancaster, last year, it was
held later than this. I believe the ordinary time has been considerably
later than this, about a month.
MR. O'CONNOR: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Littlepage asked me to say, after the
convention city had been selected, that it would be best to make it
about the last week in September as that would show the pecans and
walnuts at about the right time.
MR. BIXBY: I move that the time of the next convention be fixed at
September 26th, 27th and 28th, 1923.
MR. O'CONNOR: I second the motion.
(The motion being put to a vote of the members, it was declared
CARRIED.)
There being no further business to come before the Convention, it
thereupon adjourned.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE TREE PLANTING CEREMONIES AT HIGHLAND PARK, ROCHESTER,
N. Y.
_September 9th, 1922, 11 A. M._
PRESIDENT MCGLENNON: This occasion represents the custom of the
association of planting a nut tree in one of the parks of the community,
in which the annual convention is held. We had expected to have some
black walnut seedlings grown from nuts presented to ex-President Linton
by the superintendent at Mount Vernon, Washington's old home. I am not
sure but I have quite a vivid remembrance that the trees from which
these nuts were gathered were fruiting in Washington's time. However it
would be a very delightful time if we could have such trees to plant in
memory of that great character. But I am sorry to say that we have been
disappointed in not receiving the trees from Mr. Linton. He expressed
them from Saginaw the day before yesterday and we have made diligent
effort to locate them in this city this morning but have been unable to
get any trace of them. Anticipating such a happening Mrs. Ellwanger, who
had on exhibition at the convention some Persian walnuts grown in pots,
at our request very kindly consented to let us use one of those trees.
If we had had a little more time to consider it undoubtedly Mr. Dunbar
would have arranged to have this tree planted on the land that was given
to the city by George Ellwanger, Mrs. Ellwanger's father-in-law, and
Patrick Barry of the world famed nursery of Ellwanger & Barry. We are
going to plant one of these Persian walnut trees here (the planting is
now going on) and there is a greater likelihood that this tree will live
than the black walnut, as that tree had to be dug and transported. We
feel reasonably sure that this tree will live to commemorate our meeting
in Rochester this year.
We are also going to plant an Arkansas hickory, that Mr. Dunbar has had
dug from the park nursery, a short distance from where the walnut is
planted. I think this, too, is an appropriate tree to plant because of
the success of the hickory in this community. Mr. Dunbar tells me that
practically all of the varieties of hickory of North America are planted
on this park slope. We took great pleasure in driving through here the
other day and listening to an explanation of their history by Mr.
Dunbar.
We are honored today by the presence of the Dean of the New York State
School of Forestry, Dean Mann, who has consented to address us. It gives
me great pleasure to introduce to you Dean Mann.
DEAN MANN: President McGlennon, ladies and gentlemen:
I assure you it gives me great pleasure to be here because as a forester
and tree lover by profession I am also a tree lover by nature. I can
conceive of no more worthy, more beautiful nor attractive memorial than
a tree dedicated to the Father of our Country, something which will grow
in size, in beauty and in productivity as the years roll by. As
foresters would remind you, ladies and gentlemen, the Father of our
Country served his apprenticeship long before he became a land owner and
patriarch on those broad Virginia acres. The Father of our Country
started out in life as a forester and surveyor. You may remember that he
piloted, or was to be one of the pilots of Braddock's expedition, having
gained his knowledge of the woods through his early life as a young
surveyor in the forests of Virginia.
There are in New York state approximately fourteen million acres better
suited to tree crop production than to field crop production. Here in
the northeastern corner of the United States, where our great centers of
population are found, we have in the state of Maine seventy per cent
suited to tree crop production but unsuited to tillage; we have similar
conditions in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Throughout this
northeastern section of the country we have a tree soil domain which
will grow trees and which can't be plowed with profit. All who are
interested in the production of trees for whatever purpose should
realize that this nation cannot permanently prosper unless every acre of
its land is put to its best permanent use.
I think that you will agree with me that it requires no prophetic eye to
see the day not far distant when we will have, stretching from the
Island of Manhattan up to where Albany now stands, one vast series of
teeming cities with suburb touching suburb. The problem then will be how
to feed this multitude. Developments in Russia show that, no matter how
idealistic one's theory of government may be, food, in the last
analysis, is the thing which makes or breaks a nation.
Those of you who have studied some of the interpreters of early
Scripture will remember, perhaps, that the Garden of Eden was in reality
an oasis of trees in the great valley of Mesopotamia, and even today
"garden" in the oriental term means a group of trees. It has been proven
by experience in these different tropical realms that where tree
production is biggest and nuts and other products are grown under
intensive cultivation, an acre will produce more food than where grazing
is practiced. I spent a very pleasant year in California and saw some of
the operations of the California nut growers, where they are growing
English walnuts on a most extensive scale. I believe I will be making no
false statement when I say that those areas in southern California which
are growing nuts produce more in fats, proteins and calories for the
maintenance of the health and strength of the human race than do the
acres which are given up to the growing of animal crops.
So I applaud the idea of planting a tree in the memory of the Father of
his Country. I believe I belong to your group, at least through
interest, because I have been doing a little experimenting of my own in
my back yard at Syracuse where I have an English walnut which I planted
in 1915 which is this year producing for the first time. I am going to
take those nuts and see what can be done with them in perpetuating that
particular variety, because it is hardy, fast growing, and early to
mature.
The New York State College of Forestry has a platform as broad as the
entire state. We are interested in every kind of land which is not
suited to agriculture, fish, game, recreation, conservation of water,
and I pledge to you the sympathy and the support of the New York State
College of Forestry. We have three experiment stations; one in Oneida
county, one in Onandaga county, and another in Cattaraugus, with a
fourth in St. Lawrence, if you wish to call it such. We would be
delighted to receive from you any slip or any sort of fruit which you
wish us to try out at these experiment stations. I believe that the time
will come when some combined system of forestry and horticulture can be
maintained which will aim at the production of food stuffs from trees,
with lumber, perhaps, as a by-product. That works out in the old country
and the day is not far off when it can be practiced here.
I congratulate the members of this association on having completed what
was, from all accounts, a most successful meeting. I regret that I
couldn't have been here earlier and met the other members of your body.
I congratulate you; I wish you God speed, and I again tender the support
of the College of Forestry.
* * * * *
PRESIDENT MCGLENNON: We certainly have received great encouragement from
Dean Mann's remarks, which to me, and I believe to all present, were
most interesting and instructive.
I want to hear just a few words from our esteemed friend, Mr. John
Dunbar, Assistant Superintendent of Parks.
MR. DUNBAR: I think it is a very happy and fortunate circumstance that
Mr. Mann is here this morning representing the College of Forestry of
Syracuse. Every word that Mr. Mann has said is absolutely true. The
forestry question of this country is indeed a very serious question.
Every man, and every woman, should give most serious thought to it, and
I hope the words Dean Mann has spoken to us here this morning will go in
to all our hearts very deeply.
Of course the Park Department is studying trees from the ornamental and
arboricultural point of view. We think, however, that arboriculture,
horticulture and forestry, as the Dean said, are very, very closely
allied and should surely work together. I think his idea is a very
excellent one; that there should be a very close connection or union
between forestry, horticulture, nut culture, and all kinds of fruit
culture. I hope that day is not far distant.
PRESIDENT MCGLENNON: Ladies and gentlemen, the treasurer of our
association is a man who is intensely interested in nut culture. He has
done wonderful things for its advancement and especially for the
advancement of the interests of the Northern Nut Growers Association.
MR. BIXBY: While Dean Mann was speaking the thought came to me, how
could we better co-operate with the Department of Forestry? I think the
work of the Nut Growers Association, which is particularly interested in
the use of nut trees for orchards, and that of the Department of
Forestry, which looks upon them particularly as producers of timber,
could be very closely allied. The thought came to me, could not we right
here work out some practical suggestion whereby we two could co-operate?
I would like to ask Dean Mann what nut trees they are planting for
forest purposes.
DEAN MANN: We have done very little. We have, at our experiment station
at Chittenango, done some work with the English walnuts. This
particularly hardy specimen that I have in my own back yard--I have two,
one of them is growing very slowly--are from our experiment station. We
have really had so much to do in the way of popular education in New
York State in the timber products, that we are merely, as they say in
the South, fixing to begin with other things. That is the only species
with which we have made an actual start. There is this however: what can
foresters, horticulturists and nut enthusiasts do to supply the place of
the American chestnut? I really came here as a seeker after truth on
this particular phase. You men probably know more about it than I. What
can we produce? Is there any hybrid which can be introduced into this
country which will take the place of the American chestnut?
MR. BIXBY: In reply to that I would say that I have hundreds of
seedlings of the Chinese chestnut on which the blight has been working
for years and has not destroyed them. I would be very glad to send them
to the College of Forestry and let you try them.
DEAN MANN: They will be planted with extreme care and a barbed wire put
around them.
MR. BIXBY: There is another thing, the rough shell Japanese walnut,
so-called, which is really a butternut hybrid. I have planted it and it
is growing at a tremendous rate, even faster than the Japanese walnut. I
expect to get a lot of those nuts this year and I wondered how the
College of Forestry would like to try some of them.
DEAN MANN: I would be delighted.
MR. BIXBY: Then there is one other nut the big shell bark hickory which
is a native of the Mississippi Valley, which has been planted in
Pennsylvania and up in Lockport, New York. It grows finely, it bears
early, and I think that it might be worth trying.
DEAN MANN: We have adopted this platform: "Anything which will interest
the people of New York State." We must, as a state institution, limit
our horizon very largely to the state of New York. We do slip over
occasionally, but anything which will interest the people of New York
State in trees of any kind, for any purpose, is a step towards forest
conservation. Take your city dweller in New York City, get him
interested in a shade tree in front of his apartment house, or in a
group of shade trees in the adjoining park, and you have converted that
man along the line of King Forest. So we will be very glad to take any
seeds you have and give them excellent care.
NUTS THE NATURAL AND ADEQUATE SOURCE OF PROTEIN AND FATS
_By_
JOHN HARVEY KELLOGG, M. D., F. A. C. S.,
_Medical Director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium_
In the writer's opinion, the most important thing which can be done to
promote the nut growing industry is to make clear to men and women
everywhere the necessity for returning to natural and biologic living.
Since he left his primitive state, in his wanderings up and down the
face of the earth to escape destruction by terrific terrestrial
convulsions and cataclysmic changes in climate and temperatures, chilled
during long glacial periods, parched and blistered by tropic heats,
starved and wasted by drouth and famine, man has been driven by ages of
hardships and emergencies to adopt every imaginable expedient to survive
immediate destruction, and in so doing has acquired so great a number of
unnatural tastes, appetites and habits, perversions and abnormalities in
customs and modes of life, that it is the marvel of marvels that he
still survives.
Man no longer seeks his food among the natural products of field and
forest and prepares it at his own hearthstone, but finds it ready to
eat, prepared in immense factories, slaughter-houses, mills, and
bakeries and displayed in palatial emporiums. No longer led by a natural
instinct, as were his remote forebears, in the selection of his
foodstuffs, he finds his dietetic guidance in the advertising columns of
the morning paper, and eats not what Nature prepared for his sustenance,
but what his grocer, his butcher and his baker find most for their
pecuniary interest to purvey to him. The average man no longer himself
plants and tills and harvests the foods which enter into his bill of
fare, that is, "earns his bread by the sweat of his brow," but accepts
whatever is passed on to him by a long line of producers and purveyors
who do his sweating for him, depriving him of the opportunity of earning
both appetite and good digestion by honest toil. So he resorts to
condiments and ragouts, palate-tickling and tongue-tickling sauces and
nerve-rousing stimulants, as a means of securing the unearned felicity
of gustatory enjoyment.
At the World's Eugenics Congress held in New York last fall, Professor
Davenport expressed the opinion that the human race will ultimately
perish, and Major Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, one of the world's
leading economists, gave expression to similar views. We are evidently
traveling a downhill road and the tide of degeneracy is rising so fast
it will certainly sweep us on to race extinction unless we return to
sane and biologic living. We are primates, not carnivores like the dog,
nor omnivores like the hog. The primates are fruit and nut eaters in
whatever part of the world they are found. All the primates adhere to
the family bill of fare. The gorilla, reigning king of beasts in the
forests of the Congo, his somewhat lesser relative, the chimpanzee,
which tenants a wide area of the Dark Continent, the orang-utan of
Borneo, and the gibbon of tropical Asia, diversified as they are in form
and habitat, are all equally circumspect in their adherence to the diet
of nuts and fruits, tender shoots and soft grains, foods which Nature
has prescribed as the primate's bill of fare.
A return to natural eating would doubtless do, to say the least, as much
as any one thing toward checking the downward race movement, and no one
who has ever studied the economics of diet will question that the only
way in which the earth's dense populations of the future can be fed will
be by the elimination of the flesh-pots and a resumption of the natural
dietary. This is clear when we recall the fact that the Agricultural
Experiment Stations have demonstrated that 33 pounds of digestible
foodstuffs are required to make one pound of beef. When an animal is
fattened, the creature uses a large part of the food which it consumes
for its own purposes. The eater of flesh does not get back the original
corn and other foods given to the animal but only a small fraction of
it; and hence dense populations can only indulge in beef eating by
importing meats from other countries not yet fully occupied. Evidently,
the present rapid increase of the earth's population will soon bring us
to a point where this enormous waste must cease. Flesh eating will have
to be abandoned for economic reasons. Even the milk supply will
necessarily be limited, for we are compelled to feed the cow 5 pounds of
digestible foodstuffs to obtain 1 pound of water-free food in the form
of milk.
Those pessimistic economists who predict that by the year 2000 the
American Continent will be so densely populated that means will have to
be adopted to limit the increase of population because of the scarcity
of foodstuffs, are evidently not aware of the activities of the Nut
Growers Association and of the marvelous efficiency of nut trees as
producers of protein and fats, the two elements of our foodstuffs which
are most costly because hardest to produce.
I am creditably informed that one acre of land supporting 35 black
walnut trees in full bearing, will produce not less than 350 pounds of
walnut meats, each pound of which has a nutritive value in protein and
fats fully four times that of an equal weight of beef or an equivalent
of 1400 pounds of meat. To produce a steer weighing 1600 pounds,
requires two acres and two years. Two acres and two years will produce
1400 pounds of nut meats, the equivalent of 5600 pounds of beef or more
than 9 times the amount of nutritive material in the form of protein and
fat produced by beef raising.
Of course, the question might be raised whether nuts as a source of food
are equal in value to meats, which supply the same sort of food
material, namely, protein and fats. If the anthropologists are right,
this is a question which need not worry us, for, according to Professor
Keith, the eminent English anatomist and a leading paleontologist, and
Professor Elliot, of Oxford, nuts were the chief staple of our hardy
ancestors of prehistoric times. Professor Elliot, indeed, tells us in
his work, "Prehistoric Man," that the first representatives of the human
race who appeared in the Eocene Period were fruit and nut eaters, and
were abundantly supplied with this sort of nutriment. This eminent
author says,--
"On the bushes by the rivers and along the shore there were all sorts of
fruits and nuts. For the subsistence of our lemur-monkey-man in the
early stages of evolution, what fruits would seem _a priori_ most
suitable?
"I think that one would select the banana and bread-fruit. Ancestral
forms of both were flourishing in the Eocene. Many other fruits with
which man has been afterwards continually (perhaps one might venture to
say _most intimately_) associated, occur at this period. These are, most
of them, found in so many places that one is apt to think they were then
of world-wide distribution.
"In the temperate brushwood and on the river-sides, acorns, hazel-nut,
hawthorne, sloe, cherry and plum might be found. Here and there, he
might alight upon a walnut or an almond; figs also of one kind or
another seem to have been common. Palm trees existed, and some of them
were of enormous size."
If, in modern times, nuts have come to be used as a luxury rather than
as a staple article of diet, it must be because we have neglected to
cultivate this choicest of food products which Nature is ready to
provide with a lavish hand when invited to do so by our co-operation.
But as the public become better informed respecting the high food value
of nuts and especially in view of the steadily rising cost of flesh
meats, the nut is certain to gain higher appreciation, and the writer
has no doubt that some time in the future nuts will become a leading
constituent of the national bill of fare and will displace the flesh
meats which today are held in high esteem but which in the broader light
of the next century will be regarded as objectionable and inferior
foods, and will give place to the products of the various varieties of
nut trees which will be recognized as the choicest of all foods.
In nutritive value the nut far exceeds all other food substances; for
example, the average number of food units per pound furnished by half a
dozen of the more common varieties of nuts is 3231 calories while the
average of the same number of varieties of cereals is 1654 calories,
half the value of nuts. The average food value of the best vegetables is
300 calories per pound and of the best fresh fruits grown in this
country, 278 calories. The average value of the six principal flesh
foods is 810 calories per pound or one-fourth that of nuts.
Recent studies of the proteins of nuts by Osborne and Harris, Van Slyke,
Johns and Cajori, have demonstrated that the proteins of nuts are at
least equal to those of meat. This has been shown to be true of the
almond, English walnut, black walnut, butternut, peanut, pecan, filbert,
Brazil nut, pine nut, chestnut, hickory and cocoanut; that is, of
practically all the nuts in common use.
Observations seem to show that, in general, the proteins of oily seeds
are complete proteins.
Cajori's research has also shown the presence of growth-promoting
vitamins in abundant quantity in the almond, English walnut, filbert,
pine nut, hickory, chestnut and pecan.
That the nut is appreciated as a dainty is attested by the frequency
with which it appears as a dessert and the extensive use of various nuts
as confections. That nuts do not hold a more prominent place in the
national bill of fare as food staples is due chiefly to two causes;
first, the popular idea that nuts are highly indigestible, and second,
the limited supply.
The notion that nuts are difficult of digestion has really no foundation
in fact. The idea is probably the natural outgrowth of the custom of
eating nuts at the close of a meal when an abundance, more likely a
super-abundance, of highly nutritious foods has already been eaten and
the equally injurious custom of eating nuts between meals.
Neglect of thorough mastication must also be mentioned as a common cause
of indigestion following the use of nuts. Nuts are generally eaten dry
and have a firm hard flesh which requires thorough use of the organs of
mastication to prepare them for the action of the several digestive
juices. It has been experimentally shown that nuts are not well digested
unless reduced to a smooth paste in the mouth. Particles of nuts the
size of small seeds may escape digestion. Nut paste or "butter" is
easily digestible.
Delicious nut butters may be prepared from true nuts such as the almond,
filbert and pine-nut, by blanching and crushing, without roasting.
Peanuts require steam roasting. Over-roasting renders the nut difficult
of digestion.
More than 50,000 tons of nut butters are produced in England every year.
Peanut oil, palm kernel oil and coconut oil are the principal raw
materials used. In face of vanishing meat supplies, it is most
comforting to know that meats of all sorts may be safely replaced by
nuts not only without loss, but with a decided gain. Nuts have several
advantages over flesh foods which are well worth considering.
1. Nuts are free from waste products, uric acid, urea, and other tissue
wastes which abound in meats.
2. Nuts are aseptic, free from putrefactive bacteria, and do not readily
undergo decay either in the body or outside of it. Meats, on the other
hand as found in the markets, are practically always in an advanced
stage of putrefaction. Ordinary fresh, dried or salted meats contain
from three million to ten times that number of bacteria per ounce, and
such meats as Hamburger steak often contain more than a billion
putrefactive organisms to the ounce. Nuts are clean and sterile.
3. Nuts are free from trichinae, tapeworm, and other parasites, as well
as other infections due to specific organisms. Nuts are in good health
when gathered and usually remain so until eaten.
In view of these facts, it is most interesting to know that in nuts, the
most neglected of all well known food products, we find the assurance of
an ample and complete food supply for all future time, even though
necessity should compel the total abandonment of our present forms of
animal industry.
Another of the great advantages of the nut is that with few exceptions,
it may be eaten direct from the hand of nature without culinary
preparation of any sort. Indeed, the common custom of offering nuts as
dessert is an acknowledgment that in the nut the refined chemistry of
Nature's laboratory permits of no improvement by the clumsy methods of
the kitchen.
Every highway should be lined with trees. Many nut trees will grow on
land unsuited to ordinary farm crops. The pinon flourishes on the bleak
and barren peaks of the Rockies.
A few nut trees planted for each inhabitant would insure the country
against any possibility of food shortage. A row of nut trees on each
side of our 3,000,000 miles of country roads would provide half enough
fat and protein for a population of 100,000,000.
If each one of the 6,000,000 farmers in the United States would plant
and maintain an orchard of ten acres of black walnuts, the annual crop,
with little or no attention, would yield not less than 3,000,000 tons of
nut protein, the equivalent of more than 12,000,000 tons of meat,
besides more than 6,000,000 tons of fat of the finest quality,
sufficient to supply every one of 100,000,000 people with an ample
amount of protein, and, in addition, the fat equivalent of 6-2/3 ounces
of butter.
Nuts should be eaten every day and should be made a substantial part of
the bill of fare. So long as the nut is regarded as a dainty, suitable
only for dessert, the demand will be limited. But as its merits come to
be appreciated, it will be in greater demand and the supply will rapidly
grow in volume.
_The Lime Content of Nuts_
In proportion to their weight, nuts contain more lime than any other
class of foodstuffs except legumes, the average being more than
one-third grain to the ounce (.370 grs.). Certain nuts are surprisingly
rich in lime. For example, the almond affords one and one-third grains
of food lime to the ounce, while the hazel-nut or filbert affords one
and three-quarters grains of lime to the ounce, or 11.3 per cent of a
day's ration of lime. The pecan and the walnut are also fairly rich in
lime, as is also the peanut.
An ounce and a half of each of almonds and hazel-nuts or filberts will
supply one-third the total lime requirement for a day. In general, this
addition to the ordinary bill of fare would be quite sufficient to
insure against any serious deficiency of lime.
Meats of all sorts are poor in lime. The lime in animals is almost
exclusively in the bones. One ounce of almonds, for instance, contains
as much food lime as a pound of the choicest steak, and a quarter of a
pound of black walnuts supplies as much food lime as nearly two pounds
of average meats.
_The Iron Content of Nuts_
The almond, hazel-nut, chestnut, peanut, pecan and walnut, all contain a
rich store of iron, the average iron content expressed as per cent. of
the iron ration being 4.79, more than two and one-half times that of
fruits (1.74), three times that of vegetables (1.46), greater than that
of cereals and even superior to average meats. It is true that the
extraordinarily high food value of nuts renders them less available than
fruits as prime sources of iron, for one would have to eat 5,000
calories of chestnuts or walnuts or more than 4,000 calories of pecans
or peanuts to get a day's ration of iron; but three-quarters of a pound
of almonds or hazel-nuts would supply the needed quantum of iron with an
energy intake of 2,500 calories, on account of their unusually rich
store of iron.
It is worth while to know that vegetable milk prepared from almonds, by
adding five parts of water to one part of blanched almonds made into a
smooth paste, supplies two and a half times as much iron as does cow's
milk in equal quantity, and furnishing the same amount of protein. It is
worth noting, just here, also, that the protein of the almond is, like
that of milk, a complete protein, that is, a protein out of which human
tissues may be readily formed, which is by no means true of all
vegetable proteins. Such a milk, however, would be somewhat deficient in
lime, a lack which could be supplied by lentil soup.
A product commercially known as Malted Nuts, prepared from almonds or
peanuts, has been found of very great service in meeting the needs of
infants and some classes of invalids for an easily digestible liquid
nourishment to take the place of milk when a substitute is needed.
The chief obstacle which at the present time stands in the way of making
nuts a food staple is the meager supply. If the population of the United
States should suddenly turn to nuts as the chief means of meeting their
protein requirement, the total annual crop of nuts would be consumed in
a day or two, or possibly less time. The American people readily change
their eating habits. As nuts become more plentiful through the efforts
of the Nut Growers Association, and the general enlightenment of the
people concerning the superiority of this class of foodstuffs by a well
conducted propaganda such as has been carried on in behalf of the raisin
industry and such as the meat packers are now conducting in their effort
to induce the American people to eat more meat, but of course on an
honest, scientific basis rather than by means of untruthful and
misleading statements, as the packers are doing, the intelligent people
of this country could soon be brought to an appreciation of the great
value of edible nuts and the important place which they should fill in
the bill of fare.
Thirty years ago, the writer prepared a paste from peanuts which had
been previously cooked by steaming or baking, and gave to the
preparation the name of "Nut Butter." Little attention was paid to the
product for two or three years, then it began rapidly to win favor and,
according to a recent report by the Census Bureau, 56 establishments, in
1919, produced peanut butter to the value of nearly $6,000,000, and the
peanut crop last year was 816,464,000 pounds. In 30 years, the peanut
crop has increased from a few thousand acres to nearly 2,000,000 acres,
and the peanut has come to occupy a place on the national bill of fare
of considerable prominence. The peanut is not really a nut but a legume
and is in flavor and other edible qualities greatly inferior to the
products in which this Association is interested. Nevertheless, the fact
that it is accessible has given it an opportunity to quickly gain
popular favor. The writer feels very confident that if this association
and other similar organizations will continue their efforts in behalf of
nut growing, and will at the same time adopt measures to inform the
public concerning the remarkable nutritive properties of these products
which have been created expressly for the use of man and which are so
wonderfully adapted to his sustenance, there will be a steady advance in
their acceptance by the public and in the not far distant future, the
raising of nuts will come to be as nearly universal among farmers as the
production of apples or other fruit crops. If the uncultivated lands of
this country not now occupied as farms were occupied by nut trees in
good bearing, the annual crop of nut protein and fat would be amply
sufficient, in connection with the corn, wheat and other crops harvested
by our 6,000,000 farmers from our big billion acre farm to easily
support a population of 1,000,000 persons. If the nut is given a chance,
it will not only save the human race from perishing from starvation, but
will give it a good boost upward in the direction of race betterment.
The Eat More Meat campaign which the packers are now conducting and for
the support of which they at their recent convention in Kansas City,
voted to raise a fund of $500,000, is being carried on by the grossest
chicanery and misrepresentation. Pseudo-scientific men are being put
before the public as great authorities in human nutrition and these men
are sending out plausible but most misleading eulogies of meat as a
foodstuff possessing essential qualities for the lack of which the
American people are suffering. The only possible reason for these
frantic appeals to the American people to consume more meat is the
depletion of the packers' profits by the steady decrease in meat
consumption which has been going on for a number of years and which
begins to threaten the future development of their industry. The public
will be damaged rather than benefited by an increase of meat
consumption. A nation-wide campaign in behalf of the almond, the
hazel-nut, the walnut, the pecan and other of our native nuts would
unquestionably improve the health and vigor of the American people,
provided the nut growers will supply the demand which would be created.
* * * * *
August 12th, 1922.
Dear Dr. Deming:
I have received your letters. I am sorry to answer you very late,
because on March 28th my wife died. I have been again heart broken and
delay everything for these few months.
I have not yet met Mr. Read, I went to the U. S. Consulate to find him,
but no definite answer received yet.
The place Chuking is rather inconvenient to reach from Shanghai. I am
gong to buy land near Shanghai i. e. one hour trip from business center.
When I succeed that, I will remove all trees out.
I am sending you separate paper that you want for the convention.
The seeds that I sent you last year is Castanopsis sp. grows near
Hangchow, 100 feet high and ever green.
Yours very sincerely
P. W. WANG.
CHINESE NUTS--WALNUT
P. W. WANG
_Kinsan Arboretum, Chuking, Kiangsu Province, China._
Historic research by Berthold Laufer in his "Sino Iranica" published by
Field Museum of Natural History of Chicago is very valuable. His
conclusion is that China is not the original home of walnuts but
imported from Persia via two routes, the earlier by Chinese Turkestan
and little later by Tibet. I recommend every member to read this book.
It contains many valuable historical informations about trees and
vegetables in Asia.
According to the recent travel of late Mr. F. N. Meyer no grafting or
budding of nut trees yet practiced in China. The walnuts varied from
thinnest shell like peanut or hard shell with poor flavor. The Chinese
walnut are proved to be hardier than Persian walnut in America.
There is no walnut in this province except a few in ornamental gardens.
What we can get is through grocery stores. They imported them from
Tientsin or Tsintao. The former is easy to crack with fine flavor and
the kernel color is light. The latter is hard to crack, the internal
partition has a peculiar construction that the kernel is very hard to
take out even in broken pieces and the kernel has a brown color with the
taste of bitterness and astringency. That shows that the walnut in Chili
is far superior to that of Shantung. I do not believe that the above
difference is due to the latitude, because there is one walnut tree in a
garden in Soochow, a big city 50 miles from Shanghai, the nut is very
good.
The Chinese way of eating walnut is just like Americans. One thing that
coincides with Dr. Kellogg's treatment to a Senator's daughter. In China
there is no baby fed by cow's milk. When the mother lacks milk and the
home is not rich enough to hire a milk nurse, walnut milk is
substituted. The way of making walnut milk is rather crude here, they
simply grind or knock the kernel into paste then mix with boil water. I
wish to learn Dr. Kellogg's way of making walnut milk.
One tradition that believed by most Chinese even well educated Chinese
for thousands years that if you eat walnut constantly, your life will be
prolonged, and if you only eat fruits and nuts excluding all provisions
other than produced from trees even rice and wheat your life will be
eternal. I must recall the theory of Dr. Kellogg that may be the proof
of the above tradition. "Beef fats is deposited in the tissue as beef
fats without undergoing any chemical change whatever; mutton fat is
deposited as mutton fat; lard as pig fat etc." Perhaps the influence of
animal fat reduces the life as animals are generally short lived and nut
fats increases the life as nut trees live for centuries.
Chinese walnuts are sometimes met with very good ones, moreover they are
hardy and free from insect or fungus attack. They are really worth while
to propagate. As I can not get propagate nor scions I am now planting
seedling from best nuts. I wish you are doing the same work and finally
we can supply the colder world with suitable walnut trees.
I suggest one plan that I know very big amount of walnuts of best
quality are exported from Tientsin to the States. You can secure the
best ones by selecting from the walnut importers for planting.
There is another walnut produced in the vicinity of Hangchow Carya
Catheyensis, really a hickory, last year I sent to Mr. Jones for 50 lbs.
The taste is far below that of Pecan, but just 3 months ago I ate at a
friend's house. The hickory kernel was roasted with sugar syrup. It lost
all bitterness and has a very good hickory taste with fine hickory
flavor.
Pterocarya stenoptera grows best among any other trees in this region.
It resists drought very well. I like to try to use it as stock for
grafting.
I do not interest in chestnut yet. As far as I know the best chestnut is
produced in Lian-Shang near Tientsin.
Castanopsis from Hangchow is very nice. They said the tree is over 100
feet high and is ever green.
Hazelnut is from Chili and North. They are not so good as yours.
Chinese almond is apricot kernel, the best one is from Peking or
Tientsin.
Ginkgo nuts are never eaten afresh, we eat them sometimes roasted and
most times cooked with meats. In which you will find both meats and nuts
of good taste.
I like Torreya Grandis very much, I think Americans do not like it
because they do not use the right way. Chinese roast the Torreya nut
until all moisture gone then wait they are cold and eat them. They must
be kept dry after roasted otherwise the taste is not so good and a
second roast is necessary.
I hope you will try the above two kinds nuts by the above way, as Ginkgo
can live over thousand years and Torreya in this country is also long
lived, their nut fat would keep the human tissue less easy to decay.
The pine seeds kernels are sold here for Mex. $1.60 per pound. If your
pine seeds kernel are cheap, it is possible to come over. The pine seeds
are Pinus Bungeana and P. Massoniana.
RESOLUTIONS ON THE DEATH OF
DR. WALTER VAN FLEET
At the thirteenth annual convention of the Northern Nut Growers'
Association, held at Rochester, N. Y., September 7, 8 and 9, 1922, a
committee was appointed to express the sorrow of the association at the
death of its honorary member, Dr. Walter Van Fleet, at the age of
sixty-four, on January 26th 1922, and to inform Mrs. Van Fleet of its
action.
Dr. Van Fleet, at one time the only honorary member of the association,
was made so in recognition of his services to nut growing in breeding
blight resistant chestnuts and chinkapins, and of his unfailing courtesy
to the association whenever asked to present the results of his
investigations.
Although incomplete his experiments had already produced results of
great promise and shown the way that his successors must follow. Many of
us knew him personally and had visited his home and experimental grounds
at Bell, Maryland, some of us more than once. Few of us knew his varied
and high attainments in many other fields than plant breeding, though a
moment's thought would have made a discerning person see that his
modesty, self-effacement, kindliness and sympathy were things that most
often come to those whose experiences of life have been the widest. His
accomplishments in plant breeding and other fields, a bibliography of
his writings, and the events of his life, were fully and sympathetically
related in a communication written by Mr. Mulford of the U. S. Dept. of
Agriculture at the request of the association and read at the meeting.
The association feels that no one can ever quite take the place of Dr.
Van Fleet in the field of his life work, in experimental nut breeding
and in the hearts of the members of this association who had the
privilege of knowing him, and it wishes to put on record its great
sorrow at his untimely death in the very midst of his beneficent
activity for the benefit of mankind.
RESOLUTION ON THE DEATH OF
COLEMAN K. SOBER
At the thirteenth annual convention of the Northern Nut Growers'
Association, held at Rochester, N. Y., September 7, 8 and 9, 1922, a
committee was appointed to express the feeling of the association at the
death of one of its life members, Coleman K. Sober, at the age of
seventy-nine, at his home in Lewisburg, Pa., in December 1921, and to
inform his family of its action.
Colonel Sober, as he was most often called, was a frequent attendant at
the meetings of the association in its early history. He was a pioneer
in the culture of the chestnut in America and the grower and distributor
of a variety which he called the Sober Paragon. He developed the
production of this valuable variety, and its nursery stock, on a large
scale and had demonstrated chestnut growing as the first of the
established nut industries in the northeastern United States. He devised
methods of grafting and cultivating the chestnut and invented means and
machinery for harvesting and shelling the nuts, for which he found a
ready market at good prices.
A man of strong personality, capable of large operations and
unaccustomed to failure he found it hard to admit defeat of his deeply
cherished purpose, and success already within his grasp, by that great
national calamity the invasion of this country by the fatal chestnut
blight. Undoubtedly he foresaw, as did other advocates of nut culture,
the great help and stimulus to the industry that would result from the
commercial success of chestnut culture, and it was a bitter
disappointment to him to find himself helpless before the irresistable
progress of the blight. This failure came too late in life for him to
recover and develop new fields in nut culture which, let us believe, he
would have done if he had been younger, for we know that he was an
advocate of the roadside planting of nut trees and a supporter of the
efforts of those of us who are striving for the success of all forms of
nut culture.
Nut growing and this association have lost an able and energetic worker.
An account of Col. Sober's life and works may be found in the August
1922 number of the American Nut Journal.
Telegram from Washington, D. C.
TO JAMES S. MCGLENNON:
Deeply regret my inability attend thirteenth annual meeting. Am sure it
will be great success and all will enjoy trip to your beautiful city and
surrounding country. The next few years will show fine results of
efforts our Association, and nut culture in north will take on new life
and result in planting thousands of acres trees. I hope Washington will
be selected as place for next annual meeting.
T. P. LITTLEPAGE
* * * * *
Lincoln, Nebraska, September 5, 1922
My Dear McGlennon:
Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be in your city this
week. I have been through your city five times in three years. If I had
known what you have there I should have stopped there three years ago.
Since it is impossible for me to be there at this time I will save my
coin to purchase trees and nuts for next year.
Dr. Deming's wonderful discovery of a monster pecan tree in Hartford,
Conn., together with native pecans north of Burlington, Iowa also two
Iowa pecan trees growing in this city for twenty-eight years, makes the
field for pecan trees a very large one viz. from the Gulf to the
forty-first parallel. Tell Dr. Deming we trust his wonderful discovery
does not prove to be a pignut.
Our opportunities in the north for growing nut trees I think are
wonderful.
The association with you will be a great success.
Sincerely,
W. A. THOMAS.
* * * * *
August 23, 1922.
MR. JAMES S. MCGLENNON,
Rochester, N. Y.
Dear Sir:--
I wish to thank you for your very kind letter of the eighteenth, and beg
to assure you that it would afford me great pleasure to attend and meet
you and others who are doing constructive work in the cause of nut
culture. Unfortunately it will not be possible for me to do so. I have
been on the sick list for the past few weeks which with my eighty-five
years has left me so weak that I could not endure the fatigue connected
with such an undertaking.
I would much like to see the results of your work with filberts, as I
believe that is one branch of nut growing that can be made a success.
Some years ago I planted out some filberts and they grew very well and
tried to bear nuts. But unfortunately they had been planted near some
woods that contained some squirrels who invariably ate all the nuts
before the time they were half grown, so I grubbed them out. Recently I
planted some more farther removed from woods and hope to see them fruit
soon.
Some years ago I caused some filberts to be planted in ground used by
the State Horticultural Society for testing new fruits. These are still
living and bearing good crops.
I feel sure you will have a good meeting and am very sorry I can not be
with you. Give my best regards to my nut growing friends, to all of whom
a cordial invitation is extended to visit me and see what I am doing
here with chestnuts.
Truly
E. A. RIEHL.
* * * * *
NEW YORK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION GENEVA, N. Y.
June 24, 1922.
Dear Dr. Deming:
It is kind indeed of you to ask me to help you out in your coming
convention. Were I to be in the country I should be very glad to do
anything I could to help out. I am leaving in a few days, however, to
spend the summer in Europe and shall not be home at the time of your
meeting.
You may be interested in knowing that we are growing some almonds on the
Station grounds and that we have been trying to cross them with peaches.
We think we have a cross but just what it will amount to I do not know.
At any rate, we are living in hopes that sometime we may breed an almond
for this part of the world. We are doing something with other nuts but
not as much as I should like. We are always hoping that opportunity may
offer to do more and possibly we shall be able to within a year or two.
Very truly yours,
U. P. HEDRICK.
* * * * *
The Battle Creek Sanitarium
Battle Creek, Michigan
September 5, 1922.
MR. JAMES S. McGLENNON,
Rochester, New York
Dear Sir:--
Enclosed you will find my paper.
I am very sorry, indeed, that I could not be with you, but an unexpected
amount of surgical work compelled me to remain at home. I hope you will
have a most successful convention. The Nut Growers Association, in my
opinion, may prove one of the most important factors in the world
movement for race betterment.
Sincerely yours,
JOHN HARVEY KELLOGG.
ATTENDANCE
Dr. Robert T. Morris, N. Y. City, Mr. and Mrs. J. S. McGlennon, Miss
Norma McGlennon, Mrs. W. D. Ellwanger, Rochester, N. Y., Mr. and Mrs. W.
G. Bixby, Baldwin, N. Y., J. F. Jones, Lancaster, Pa., Mr. and Mrs. J.
M. Patterson, Putney, Ga., S. W. Snyder, Center Point, Iowa, Harry R.
Weber, Cincinnati, Ohio, John Rick, Reading, Pa., Jas. A. Neilson,
Guelph, Canada, Joseph A. Smith, Providence, Utah, Harry D. Whitner,
Reading, Pa., Henry D. Spencer, Decatur, Ills., Mr. and Mrs. Samuel L.
Smedley, Newtown Square, Pa., Mr. and Mrs. Geo. H. Corsan, Brooklyn, N.
Y. Jacob E. Brown, Elmer, N. J., W. R. Fickes, Wooster, Ohio, W. J.
Strong, Vineland Station, Ontario, Canada, P. H. O'Connor, Bowie,
Maryland, Adelbert Thomson, East Avon, N. Y., A. C. Pomeroy, Lockport,
N. Y., F. A. Bartlett, Stamford, Ct., Mr. and Mrs. S. H. Graham, Ithaca,
N. Y., E. L. Wyckoff, Aurora, N. Y., M. G. Kains, Suffern, N. Y., Mrs.
J. B. Comstock, Hollywood, Cal., Joseph Baker Comstock, III, Hollywood,
Cal., Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Hoopes, Pa. John Dunbar, Rochester, N. Y., R.
E. Horsey, John P. Lauth, Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Rawnsley, Geo. B. Tucker,
Mrs. C. R. Nolan, D. D. Culver, M. L. Culver, C. A. Vick, Mrs. K. Dugan,
W. J. Nolan, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Garrison, Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Spurr,
Miss K. M. Pirrung, Miss Ida Schlegel, Alois Piehler, Miss Robena
Murdoch, John Herringler, Mr. and Mrs. Conrad Vollertsen, Elwood D.
Haws, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph T. Olcott, Rochester, N. Y.
* * * * *
List of Nuts exhibited before the Northern Nut Growers Association
September 7-8-9, 1922 at Rochester, N. Y., by Park Department.
Black Walnut, Juglans nigra, United States.
English Walnut, Juglans Regia, Europe and China.
Western Walnut, Juglans major, Western States.
Hybrid Walnut from Washington, D. C, supposed hybrid between
Juglans rupestris and Juglans nigra.
Butternut, Juglans cinerea, North America.
Siebold's Butternut, Juglans Sieboldiana, Japan.
Juglans cathayensis, China.
Juglans coarctata, Japan.
Winged Chinese Walnut, Pterocarya stenoptera, China.
Winged Caucasian Walnut, Pterocarya fraxinifolia, West Asia.
King-Nut, Carya laciniosa, United States.
Shagbark, Carya ovata, North America.
Carya ovata ellipsoidalis, United States.
Ash-leaved Hickory, Carya ovata fraxinifolia, United States.
False Shagbark, Carya ovalis, United States.
Small Fruited Hickory, Carya ovalis odorata, North America.
Carya ovalis obovalis, North America.
Carya ovalis obcordata, United States.
Pignut, Carya glabra, North America.
Large Pignut, Carya glabra megacarpa, United States.
Bitternut, Carya cordiformis, North America.
Hybrid Hickory, X Carya Laneyi, Carya cordiformis X Carya ovata.
Hybrid Hickory, X Carya Dunbarii, Carya laciniosa X Carya ovata.
Beaked Hazel, Corylus rostrata, North America.
American Hazel, Corylus americana, North America.
European Hazel, Corylus Avellana, Eastern Hemisphere.
Constantinople Hazel, Corylus Colurna, South Europe.
Manchurian Hazel, Corylus mandshurica, Manchuria.
Sweet Chestnut, Castanea dentata, United States.
European Chestnut, Castanea sativa, Europe to China.
Japanese Chestnut, Castanea crenata, Japan, China.
Chinquapin, Castanea pumila, United States.
By the McGlennon-Vollertsen Filbert Nursery, twenty or more plates, of
about a quart each, of named varieties of the European filbert grown in
these Rochester nurseries, a very striking exhibit in demonstration of
the commercial possibilities of this nut. By E. L. Wyckoff, Aurora, N.
Y., a cluster of Indiana pecans, grown on a grafted tree at Aurora, of
good size, apparently, other qualities not determined. A cluster of two
small pecans grown on the great pecan tree in Hartford, Ct. One of these
nuts was matured and filled. Brought by W. C. Deming who showed also
chinkapins grown in Hartford and Redding, Conn. two strains of the Van
Fleet hybrid chinkapins, Chinese chestnuts, C. mollissima, Japanese
chestnuts, clusters of Kirtland and Griffin shagbarks from grafted
trees, Ridenhauer almonds and several varieties of European and American
filberts, all grown in Redding, Ct. filberts from the large trees at
Bethel, Ct. and the large Sayre English walnut from Danbury, Ct.
Illinois wild almonds were exhibited by Henry D. Spencer of Decatur,
Ills. These have a fleshy covering like a thin peach. Mr. P. H. O'Connor
showed specimens of the O'Connor hybrid walnut, J. regia X. J. nigra,
and the Indiana hazel. Mr. A. C. Pomeroy had an exhibit of the Pomeroy
English walnut. There were a number of other exhibits which have escaped
record.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922" ***
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