Chapter XVI: Section X: Amendments to By-Laws (9)

I have been propagating nut trees since 1910, and have never yet known one of my propagated nut trees to fail to carry the characteristics of the parent tree, as to habits of growth, bark, bud formation, foliage, texture of wood, or quality of nuts. The Deming Purple walnut tree, when asexually propagated, reproduces the purple wood, so I reasoned the Lamb variety would reproduce figured wood. Nature seldom blunders.

+Value of Original Lamb Walnut Tree+

When I was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a few years ago, doing some tree work for the late William J. Wallace, he took me a few miles to the location of the original Lamb tree. It was near a small river in a gravel loam soil near Ada, Kent County, Michigan.

The following is an extract of a letter received from Mr. Lamb as to the original tree:

"November 27, 1929

Lamb Figured Walnut--
Cut into veneers @ 6 to 18c per sq. ft. (1/28")
Use: Furniture
Amount of veneers 60627' [Value: $8,637.62 to $10,918.86 (Prewar!)--Ed.]
Logs produced:
8' x 21"--144 Log Ft.
6' x 18"-- 73 " "
10' x 36"--640 " "
14' x 30"--591 " "
10' x 32"--490 " "
Stump --500 " "
_____

2438

Location of tree--Ada, Kent County, Michigan.
Location--River flat 20 rods from river.
Soil-Gravel loam.
Type of tree--Open grown.
Shape---Double stump.
Height--40 ft.
Figure--Throughout the tree."

Mr. Lamb further states in his letter: "Unquestionably it was one of the most thoroughly figured trees ever discovered, and if figured wood will propagate itself this stock should, certainly should, do so."

He further states, "The figure in this tree was quite apparent, even in the small branches, while the Forest Products Laboratory found evidence of a developing figure in the twigs not over five years old."

The wood specimens I now have on exhibit here were taken from one of my 12-year-old grafted trees that I cut, and in them you will find figure visible to the naked eye, or easily noticeable by touching with a finger, in wood from branches not over 7 years old.

Comparing age at which figure shows in the wood of the two trees, this young tree seems to be developing figure at an early age, as in the parent tree.

My confidence in this outcome had never been shaken by the doubts of others. Few seemed to share this belief with me, and for this reason I have never pushed the sale of Lamb trees. Now I do not hesitate to state that curly figure will reproduce in any propagated Lamb trees, as the evidence before you here is stronger than any argument.

One purpose of the Northern Nut Growers Association is to encourage the perpetuation by propagation of the better varieties of nut trees. I consider the Lamb variety one of the best walnut trees known from a timber point of view, and until a better variety is found I shall continue to propagate Lamb black walnut trees.

+Ed. note:+ The nuts on Lamb trees, as seen at Norris, Tennessee, during this meeting, appear to be of at least average size and have better than average shell structure. They probably would be well adapted to machine-cracking. Thus the Lamb would not be a bad variety to grow for its nuts. Or we could double-work the trees, to have each tree with a good trunk of the Lamb wood growing beneath a fruiting top of any desired walnut variety. One or two of our members already have made a start on this latter scheme of propagation.

+Author's Note:+ The Lamb variety is a rapid and upright grower and should be well adapted as a stock for the purpose suggested.

* * * * *

President Davidson: I don't think one can minimize the importance of what Mr. Wilkinson has done with the Lamb curly walnut. There are possibilities here that are of immense value to those who are interested in timber. Now, I am very, very sorry to put off the rest of this program until this afternoon. Possibly we can work a part of it then. Meantime, we had better adjourn.

Mr. Chase says that he has arranged for a group picture to be taken at the Community Building at one o'clock. Let's everyone be there at one o'clock. That means, of course, that you are going to cut the sandwich and coffee pretty short.

All right, let's adjourn.

(Luncheon recess was taken.)

+Tuesday Afternoon Session+

President Davidson: Come to order, please. The first speaker on the afternoon program is Mr. Shivery. I think I will get Mr. Chase to say a word.

Mr. Chase: Our next speaker is Mr. George Shivery, Extension Forester for the University of Tennessee, and I know that the interest of this Association is in the planting of improved black walnuts, and I simply can say this man arranged for the planting of more Thomas walnut trees than any other man in the world. George Shivery.

The Black Walnut Situation in Tennessee

GEORGE B. SHIVERY, Extension Forester, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee.

Mr. Shivery: Mr. Chairman and members of the Association: I certainly appreciate that compliment made by Mr. Chase, and I want to assure all of you that we certainly are interested in the black walnut in Tennessee. In the past we have had to depend pretty much on the wild black walnut, and we will for years in the future. But we have done everything possible to get distribution on this Thomas improved black walnut which has been propagated here through the efforts of Mr. Chase, Mr. Zarger and other members in his division.

It seems to me that this black walnut kernel industry is sort of a tradition, particularly in East Tennessee. If you have lived in this state as long as I have, you have become curious about its history. Well, in the early days there were no railroads in this state, and commerce moved pretty much by means of wagon team, and the supply center seemed to be Baltimore, Maryland. Now, I can visualize very well that on outbound trips they doubtless carried black walnut kernels, and on the way in, of course, they'd bring clothing and other materials that were not produced here at home.

In the early days they produced tremendous amounts of maple sugar and maple syrup. Doubtless this was consumed at home and nowadays we don't have any evidence of that, because the climatic conditions in New York State and other northern states and New England are much better suited to the flow of the sap. The weather, I believe, is not so changeable up there. Our weather is changeable. We may have a very severe cold week, and then in ten days it will be balmy and pretty weather. We haven't made any effort to bring back the sugar maple industry. We don't consider it economic in this state, because cane sugar in the past has been cheap in price, and then we have another product that some of you may not be familiar with, sorghum molasses. That serves as dessert lots of times in many meals, hot biscuits and sorghum to finish up the meal.

Now, I might mention something about the size of the black walnut industry in this state. We estimate that there are eight million pounds of uncracked whole walnuts produced on the average in a normal crop year in Tennessee, and there is another five million pounds that is never gathered, never hulled, never enters the market, never used, and the value of this crop in a normal year would be around $750,000. That is for the nuts, the fruit, the kernels. If you speak of timber it will amount to $960,000. That is in the form of lumber and veneers, and if you figure that in the form of a log at the shipping point, we'd reduce that figure and say it would be $480,000.

I think to understand this state you have to give some consideration to physiographic regions, and if you will bear with me I'd like to sketch through these regions of the state, because they have a bearing on production of black walnut. Here in the east we have the East Tennessee Mountains, and proceeding westward we have the Great Valley of East Tennessee. It goes all the way down to Chattanooga, up through Bristol, on up through Virginia to Hagerstown, Maryland, all the way up to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

We have fine soil, and we also have different kinds of shale in that valley. Then we proceed westward. We come to the Cumberland Plateau, and the elevation of this plateau is around 2,000 feet. It is higher than this valley. Then we cross that and we reach this area (indicating on map). That is what we call the Highland Rim. That is made up of limestone soil of a different character, usually, than that in this East Tennessee valley. That is what we term the Eastern Highland Rim, and this around here (indicating) we term the Western Highland Rim. And this red portion would be the Central Basin in which Nashville is situated. Then you would travel through this central elevation, come up on the Western Highland Rim, and then you come up here and you cross the Tennessee River flowing north. Then you get into West Tennessee.

Now, that is coastal plain soil, and as you approach the Mississippi River here you have a covering of what the Germans call loess, fine, wind-blown material, silt loam. So that very sketchily gives you some idea of the physiographic regions in this state.

Now you want to know where these black walnuts are grown. Well, up about here (indicating the northeast) we have the towns of Greeneville and Rogersville and Morristown and Jonesboro, the counties of Washington County, Greene County, Hawkins County, say, ten counties; radiating around those ten counties you have in the past had great quantities of walnut kernels produced and sold. Now, go on down this valley past Knoxville, and McMinn County (southeast) has some years produced heavy crops of walnuts. So you have heavy production all through the valley.

There's another center, we might term it, of about six counties in this central basin. But I don't want you to get the wrong impression, because walnuts grow in almost any county in this state, but I am mentioning these greater producing areas. And this County of Williamson south of Nashville in years past has sent plenty of walnuts to market. So that's a walnut producing area. And up here in this Highland Rim we have some counties by the name of Pickett and Overton and Clay County. Well, they produce walnuts, and the people up there have in the past cracked out a lot of walnuts. And in Montgomery County they produce walnuts. So the normal trade centers where these walnuts move is really to a great degree here at this town of Morristown in East Tennessee, and Nashville in Middle Tennessee, and this Middle Tennessee center draws from Kentucky. In fact, these four or five large shelling concerns know about the walnuts pretty much all over the entire walnut producing territory.

Through the years the Agricultural Extension Service, University of Tennessee, with which I am connected, has been keenly interested in assisting in any way we can to get additional income out of walnut kernels, and in recent years the whole uncracked walnut. And even though I am a forester I can see the possibilities of this, and we like to carry it along. In fact, I consider walnut as kind of a dual-purpose tree, fine for timber production, also for production of nuts, walnut meats or kernels. You might term it a triple-purpose tree. I don't think there is any better tree than that for a shade tree in pastures, in the field, and around the home, because for one reason it makes what we term in this state a "cold shade," and it is not a hot shade like you get under a sugar maple. The maple has a dense foliage. And as Mr. Chance indicated this morning, walnut is usually associated with blue grass. Blue grass will grow under it.

I guess some of you here remember the years of the depression, and I remember in 1932, for example, we had a heavy crop of black walnuts in the state. Then I believe the price for kernels of 15 cents a pound would have been a good price during that year, and some of them probably sold for less. So if we had the time we would follow through all the years, beginning with 1927, but just to make it as brief as possible, I will leave those out, but I would like to mention the year 1941. It sort of disrupted things in the kernel industry, because at that time the Pure Food and Drug people came in here and set up regulations, and it interfered with the merchandising of these kernels, because the producer had to satisfy certain sanitary regulations, and it really sounded worse than it was. Anyway, it confused our people, and probably that is about the year in which we had this big shift from the production of walnut kernels cracked out at home to a sale of uncracked walnuts to these shelling plants.

Then another year that I think of (we always think of these as walnut crop years) was 1945, and that year we got better prices, probably, than ever before or since, and a lot of our country people were able to sell hulled uncracked walnuts as high as $6 per hundred pounds.

We will continue to be interested in this industry, but, of course, nowadays the wage scale is higher and money is not worth as much as it was in the past, so it really seems to me that in order to get out this crop we just have to try to make the price a little more attractive.

* * * * *

President Davidson: "We are now going to hear from Mr. Shessler of Ohio, on his method of grafting, and I wish to assure you that he knows what he is talking about. He has done a lot of it.

Grafting Walnuts in Ohio

SYLVESTER SHESSLER, Genoa, Ohio

In 1934 the Ohio Nut Growers Association conducted a black walnut nut contest. I read about it in the _Ohio Farmer_. As soon as the names of the winners appeared in that publication, each owner was contacted for some nuts from the prize winning trees. Answers were received from nine of the 10 winners. I did not receive nuts from the Hoover tree. The Brown nuts I planted came up in 1935 and the trees are now 22 feet high, with spread of 22 feet, and are 27 Inches in circumference. The Tritten prize nuts were planted in a fence row. These did not come up the first year. The next year I plowed and disked the patch of ground and planted potatoes. To my surprise the Tritten seedlings came up with the potatoes. I let them grow and I now have five trees from these nuts. All of these trees produce nuts which resemble the original Tritten nut and have good cracking quality. One in particular fills out nicely, has a very thin hull, and is a little larger than the original Tritten. I have named it the Shessler. The Brown seedling trees also produce good nuts. The seedling trees from the Cowle nuts produce nuts with rough shells.

Following my nut planting project I began to collect scions from all of the original trees. Mr. Homer Jacobs, of Kent, Ohio, supplied me with scions from the Tritten tree. The next year Mr. Jacobs asked me to send him scions from the Brown tree as he intended to bench-graft some. I have planted nuts along a road 80 rods long, so that I could have many stocks to top-work. I began to graft in 1935, using the seedling trees as stock. I now have 200 seedling black walnut trees, 100 grafted black walnut trees, 25 grafted Persian walnuts, 20 chestnut trees, two "buartnuts," 15 heartnuts, six pecans, one butternut, 20 grafted hickory trees and five persimmons. Some of these trees are planted in orchard form, others are scattered along fence rows.

For grafting, I cut scions so that there is about four inches of two-year-old wood at the base and some one-year-old wood with small matured buds. These small buds will grow, as a rule. The scions are kept in damp sawdust until used. I like the stock to be a half to one inch in diameter. I wait until the trees are in full leaf before I graft. After leafing out the stock does not bleed. If I find that the stock is bleeding hard when I cut back, I wait a few days before grafting. It is a waste of time to graft when the stock is bleeding. I have grafted very early when the bark would not bleed at all. I just dug down into the cambium layer and put in the scion. I tried one Persian and three black walnuts like this and all grew. I use the slot bark method of grafting, as described in Mr. Reed's bulletin [U.S.D.A. Farmers Bull. 1501]. The stock is cut straight across and I put the lower bud just above the bark on the outside. I roughen the bark of the scion that fits just behind the bark of the stock. A small nail is pushed through the bark and scion with the handle of my knife. I generally tie with cord but sometimes when the bark is heavy I do not use cord. A two-pound paper sack with a hole on the earth side is placed over the graft and the sack is tied at the bottom. This serves as a "hot house" and protects the scion from rain. As soon as leaves appear on the scion, the sack is removed and all the new sprouts are broken off below the graft. I put only one scion on each graft. I use Beck's cold wax. It is easy to thin with water and I just flatten a stick for my brush. I never wax the bud but wax scion well on top.

I cannot give an accurate count of my grafting success but estimate that 75 percent of my grafts live. Rather than keep records I use that time to graft more trees. I am not an experimenter--I simply like to have grafted nut trees. My own trees are scattered over a two-mile area. I have grafted trees in Toledo and Grand Rapids. Every Sunday I attend church, then in the afternoon I graft trees. My aim is to try all the promising trees and select the best and weed out the poor ones. I am saving only the trees that bear nuts every year.

In 1947, I grafted the Ohio 1946 prize winning black walnuts. I achieved survival on all except Nos. 5 and 8. The scionwood of these two was in poor condition and I did not think they would live. I also have No. 54 which looks promising to me. I am looking forward to other contests in Ohio and elsewhere so that we can uncover some more superior black walnuts.

* * * * *

President Davidson: Thank you, Mr. Shessler.

Mr. Slate, will you say a word to us on grafting? That's right along the same line.

Grafting Walnuts in the Greenhouse

GEORGE L. SLATE, State Experiment Station, Geneva, N. Y.

Walnuts have been grafted in pots in the greenhouse at the Experiment Station at Geneva, N. Y. for a dozen years or more and the practice is successful and very useful. This method was adopted for two reasons. First: Under field conditions results are often uncertain, owing to the vagaries of the weather or neglect at a critical time. The inexpertness of the operator made it desirable that the work be done under as favorable conditions as possible, with the hope that a favorable environment might overcome in part the lack of skill. Second: The work can be done in March before the field work begins, whereas field grafting in May would often not get done owing to the pressure of other work at that time. This method is not original with the writer, but is similar to the method used at the East Malling Research Station in England and described by Witt in 1928 [1].

The rootstocks, two year old black walnut seedlings raised from nuts planted in the nursery, are dug in the fall, stored in the nursery cellar until late February or early March, at which time they are potted in six or eight inch pots, depending upon the size of the rootstocks. The roots are cut back so that the plant will fit in the pot. At this time the tops are cut off, leaving the stem about 8 inches high. The pots are placed in a warm house, watered as needed, and in about 10 days the buds begin to break.

The Jones modified cleft graft is used. The stub is cut off at grafting time and the cleft is made by cutting, not splitting, the stock with a large grafting knife. The scion is tied in place with nursery tape, half-inch size, with a short wick leading out of the cleft. The scion is painted with grafting wax.

+Care of the Grafted Plant+

The pot is set in a propagating frame about 18 inches deep, with bottom heat, and covered with glass, plus lath or cloth shade. An inch of peat in the bottom of the frame is desirable, to hold moisture and maintain high humidity. The temperature of the frame is kept in the eighties, but is not allowed to go above 90 deg.F. Under these conditions of warmth and high humidity, growth activity is rapid and in about two weeks the buds break, although, some may not start for a month. This spring adventitious buds developed on several scions. Many suckers arise from below the graft, and these are rubbed off two or three times a week. As soon as the shoots from the scion are two or three inches long the plants may be removed to a cooler house, where there is less danger of overheating on hot spring days. Later, they go to the cold frame for hardening off, and when danger of frost is over after May 21st, they are set in the nursery for two years. First year growth is not over eight or ten inches, but the second year the plants grow to three or four feet or even more in a favorable season.

The percentage of grafts starting depends largely on the scion wood. Wood cut from vigorous young trees which is grafted the same day will give a 90 percent stand or better, but wood from other sources varies according, to the age and vigor of the tree from which it is cut and the percentage of success may be much less.

This method is useful for small scale operations where a greenhouse is available and it is desirable to do the grafting before outside work interferes with it. For one not skilled in nut tree grafting success is probably more certain than with nursery grafting.

+Literature Cited+

1 Witt, A. W. The vegetative propagation of walnuts. Ann. Rpt. of the East Malling Research Station 14th and 15th Yrs. 1926-1927 II Supplement pp. 60-64.

* * * * *

President Davidson: There are plenty of us who don't know much about grafting, and I did want you to hear Mr. Slate's method. It is certainly worth trying and would come at a pleasant time of the year, would be easy to do, and any of us could try it out.

We now should like to hear from Mr. Clarke on Nut Investigations at Pennsylvania State College.

Nut Investigations at the Pennsylvania State College

WILLIAM S. CLARKE, JR., State College, Pennsylvania

Our present work in nut growing at the Pennsylvania State College was begun in 1946. Some work had been started many years ago, and a small number of trees were planted, mostly black walnut; but a site was selected which proved to be very cold and frosty, and most of the trees soon died. Further work had been planned at a later date, but the depression and lack of labor and land prevented us from getting under way then.

When the present project in nut growing was approved, the country was just beginning to recover from the recent war, and materials of most kinds, including nut trees, were very difficult to obtain. Therefore, in order to learn as much as possible about nut trees, we started at the beginning, with the seed. About two bushels of hulled black walnuts were collected from fence-row trees; some were planted out in the ground that autumn, and some were placed in soil in a box and kept over winter on the outdoor porch of the packing house. Some hickory and pecan nuts were bought and also stored in a similar box. The only nuts which grew were those planted out in the ground. They gave us a good germination, while not a single nut stored in the boxes grew.

At the present time we have about 200 black walnut seedlings in the nursery. When they are a year or two older, they will be grafted to several of the named varieties of black walnuts, and those that take will be planted out in a nut orchard. These seedling trees were transplanted after one year's growth. About four or five times as much of the walnut plant was underground in the root as grew above ground where we could see it.

Since the first year's work we have made a few purchases, and planted a few more nut seeds. At the present time we have planted five pairs of named varieties of filberts, four Chinese chestnuts, of which three survive, four Persian walnuts, three of which survive, and two Japanese walnuts. We also have a few seedlings of Turkish tree hazel obtained from nuts sent to us by one of our friends in the state of Washington and a few butternut seedlings grown from nuts of a tree on the college campus.

Future plans include an orchard with many of the named varieties of black walnuts and also, we hope, some of the new hardy strains and selections of the Persian walnut being introduced by the United States Department of Agriculture. Representative specimens of a wide range of nut species will be collected. Some further work on chestnuts and filberts may be attempted if they prove to be hardy here. Plans for the more distant future include studies in soil fertilization and in spraying for disease and insect control.

+Cold Injury in 1947-48+

This past winter has been very hard on nut trees, and on some other trees as well. In the first place, the cold weather of the autumn began very suddenly after six weeks of uninterrupted warm weather without any cool nights to harden the wood. In late September a few days of cool weather came, and then three nights in five with temperatures near 20 deg.. The walnut foliage and some of the youngest wood turned black. Next came a winter with extremely low temperatures, with the minima ranging from 18 to 23 degrees below zero over our orchard land. Our four Persian walnut trees were killed back to the ground; three of them have sprouted this summer from the roots. Considerable leaf bud killing occurred on Chinese chestnut. One Japanese walnut died back to the ground and has sprouted from the roots. The other tree lost most of its younger wood, but some buds near the base of last season's growth have sprouted out to make a new top. Several specimens of the golden chinkapin (_Castanopsis_) of the Pacific Coast, which had made one year's growth here, were killed outright.

Most of the terminal buds and youngest wood of our nursery trees of black walnut were killed, but the trees have grown well this year from the lateral buds. In the woods some black walnuts which had been cut down about four or five years ago, and which had made sprout growth now about fifteen feet high, were killed back from two to four feet by the winter. A twenty-year-old Stabler black walnut on our lawn lost many of its top limbs, though the lower limbs survived the winter all right. Some other types of trees were also badly damaged: some locust trees were killed to the ground, and many others were killed to very old wood. A ginkgo tree on our lawn was killed back to the main trunk. This was one of the few times that I have ever seen injury on this species.

One of the five named varieties of filberts, Pal, escaped winter injury. DuChilly and Italian Red each have one good tree and one that was killed back to the ground, but is now sprouting from the roots. Of Medium Long, both trees have been killed way back. One tree of Cosford was killed completely, and the other tree has been badly damaged.

* * * * *

President Davidson: Thank you, Mr. Clarke. Our family stopped on the way at a shelling plant where they were handling nuts by the ton, not the bushel, just the ton. I am not exaggerating. You have all heard the hill-billy program from Renfro Valley, no doubt, and we have with us today the man who is running that cracking plant and also this hill-billy chorus, Tom Mullins, who will tell us about what he is doing down at Renfro Valley.

Black Walnuts: A New Specialty at Renfro Valley

TOM MULLINS, Renfro Valley, Kentucky

Mr. Mullins: As Mr. Davidson said, I come from a little hill-billy section up in Kentucky known as Renfro Valley. Up until about a year ago the main commodity there was hill-billy music and a lot of noise on Saturday night. About last August our boss there kind of got interested in black walnuts. There were a lot of them going to waste all over the county due to the fact that most of our locals up there are kind of lazy. They don't like to get up there and stomp them out.

His original idea was to set up a hulling plant and hull the nuts and then buy the walnuts from the locals after they were dried. One thing led to another, and we talked to Mr. McCauley there, and Dad bought a big walnut plant to process black walnuts all the way through. He was new to it and so was I. He said, "Let's buy a million pounds of black walnuts." I didn't any more know what a million pounds of black walnuts was than I know how many grains of sand is in three or four buckets. It didn't take me very long, I think it was 31 days, and I bought 1,030,000 pounds. That's a whole lot of walnuts in anybody's language.

One of the local boys on our radio program came up with the bright idea that before in Renfro Valley we used to be just half nuts; now we are walnuts.

We started cracking these things along about the 15th of October, and last Saturday we cracked our last 10,000 pounds. Our machine is capable of cracking approximately 10,000 pounds in an 8-hour shift, and we carry the walnut all the way through to remove any of the field litter that it may have when it is picked up, and through cleaning air blasts and into a cracking machine that does darn near all the work. The only thing we haven't been able to figure out yet is how to get this machine to tell a bad kernel from a good one. We have to leave that to some of the girls who do the work on the picking belts.

Our future plan for this fall is to buy a million and a half pounds this year and process them. I believe one of these gentlemen a while ago mentioned something about the pure food laws. They are pretty rough on us. We have to pasteurize our walnuts. The state law of Kentucky requires 190 degrees of heat for an hour and a half. That's a lot of heat.

We package our nuts in two-ounce packages and in 35 and 50-pound cartons for the wholesale trade.

That has created quite a little industry there in our county. We have one county there, Clark County--Winchester, Kentucky, is the county seat of it--and out of that one county last year alone I bought 800,000 pounds of walnuts. That was, walnuts in the hull that the farmer had picked up and brought to us in trucks.

Our success was not too great in this method of hulling green walnuts to get our supply. We weren't adequately fixed up to dry the walnuts and take care of them in storage. We lost a few of them that way, but I think this year we have a little better sense and will let the farmer stomp them out.

We are working now on an educational program, both newspaper and radio, to persuade the farmers in our locality to let their walnut trees grow. We tell them nearly all the walnut trees will produce enough kernels or shelled walnuts to bring in as much money as they would if cut down and taken to the mill and used for saw logs. That is our main problem now, to try to keep the black walnut industry working there in our community. And our future plans call for plantings of black walnut seedlings and convincing the farmer and the 4-H Club members and all the boys in the Future Farmers of America and organizations like that to protect and cultivate their black walnut trees.

I am kind of on the fence this year. I stuck my neck away out the other day and bought a farm. After checking the farm I found I had about 600 walnut trees. Now, then, I am hollering on one hand for an increase in prices of raw material, and as a sheller I am hollering on the other hand to get the prices down. But I believe as a producer for next year I am going to try to forget about the shelling and let the prices go to the devil.

Mr. McDaniel: Would you mind telling us what you had to pay for the walnuts in the shell?

Mr. Mullins: Our average last year was $4.33. We went as high as $4.80. Some of those we bought hurriedly--

President Davidson: In the hull?

Mr. Mullins: No, that's dry shell. Our walnuts in the hull we paid a dollar and a quarter a hundred for, and if we had had good success we'd have made some money on it at that angle.

There is one question I'd like to put before you gentlemen. Maybe some of you know a little something about it. I was reading an article not long ago in Popular Mechanics Magazine about some plant on the West Coast that is developing the Vitamin C content of the walnut hull itself. It is very high, the Vitamin C content in the walnut hull.

Another thing we did last year. After we hulled all of these walnuts we had a mess of hulls on hand, and our farmers were a little reluctant to come and get them. We tried to talk them into using them for fertilizer. They are kind of like some of the boys, they have got to be shown. They have to see somebody else do it before they tackle it.

Out of curiosity I laid my garden off and divided it in half, and on one half I put a top dressing of these dried-out, pulverized walnut hulls, and I firmly believe that the side that had the walnut hulls on it produced twice as much. And some of the boys in the neighborhood kind of noticed what kind of garden I had, and we don't have any hull problem anymore. They carried them all off.

Same way with the shells. We tried to get them to haul the shells off to use them on the fields for tobacco land and to grow blue grass, and they found out that was pretty good, so they are bothering us now about our shells.

We have another by-product. It is too small a granule kernel to go through, and we can't remove the shell from it. We have tried that out on chickens and hogs and some other farm animals, turkeys, ducks and geese. One boy that works for me there in the cracking plant had 28 hens. He had them in a pen, and he was getting six and eight eggs a day. So I talked him into taking some of these granules home and feeding them to his chickens, and in two weeks his 28 hens were producing 20 to 24 eggs a day. That kind of settled that problem, too. Some of the boys kind of got an idea they'd like to have some of that.

A lot of you folks are here from the North, and you possibly would be going back along Highway 25 going home, and I'd like to extend an invitation now to stop off tomorrow or the next day and look over our plant. It's quite interesting, quite a complicated piece of machinery. Mr. McCauley at Chicago is the gentleman who designed the machine, and he will have something to say about it.

One of the local farmers came in to see that machine one day, and it was operating, just batting the kernels out right and left. He looked up at it, gandered it all over, and I asked him what he thought it was. He said, "It's a damn lie. That thing can't do it."

So come see us.

* * * * *

President Davidson: Thank you, Mr. Mullins. Next, Marketing Black Walnut Kernels. This fits in with what Mr. Mullins has said. Mr. McCauley from Chicago will tell us about it. Mr. McCauley.

Marketing Black Walnut Kernels

F. J. McCAULEY, McCauley Company, Chicago, Illinois

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Tom has got me on the spot here. I came here to speak to you about the marketing of black walnuts. Machinery is a hobby of mine, and that thing there was just one of those off-shoots of an infertile brain. But Tom is having a lot of trouble, and a lot of fun with it, so if you people would like to see that machine, that particular machine, I am glad that he invited you up there. It may give you a little different idea of what the sheller is up against in the salvaging of black walnut kernels.

You are interested in growing the black walnuts and other nuts in the shell, but they do have to be prepared for the public, and Tom's job, and other people's that are in the shelling business, is getting them out. The machines are made at Knoxville, Tennessee, and you can get a fairly decent idea about the shelling of black walnuts from the machine Smalley has. Tom's is a much larger size.

Now we will get down to this thing I came here to talk to you about, the marketing of black walnuts. My speech is divided into three parts; the first is about nuts, the second is about nuts and the third is about nuts, and I am nuts. Yes, that's more true than you think. My nickname throughout the United States is "Nuts" McCauley, and I am proud of it. It is a good nickname to have for a man that's in the nut business. And I most certainly am in the nut business, machinery on one hand and the selling of various types of nut kernels on the other.

You people probably don't know it, but you have the best advertised nut in the United States that you are working with, black walnuts. There are very few people in the United States that don't know what a black walnut kernel is, or a black walnut. In fact, I would say that 75 per cent of them at some time or other have gathered black walnuts, have hulled them. You know those pretty stained hands you have, and I can remember back in those days when I was a kid when I used to get those hands of mine just so brown and black from the hulling of black walnuts that my mother would almost want to turn me over her knee and spank me. But when wintertime came I always had a bunch of black walnuts that we could sit down and crack and put in those cookies or in that fudge.

I have talked to a good many of you people here, and I have a prepared speech, but I am going to ramble a little bit and I am going to ask you to ask me questions, because I found out that I don't know so many things, or the speech that I was going to make to you might not be as interesting as your asking me questions. I do want to say a few things, and I will go through quickly.

The first is the marketing of black walnuts in the shell. We find in the marketing of any product that there is a tremendous amount of waste due to poor sacking, due to a little dishonesty on the part of the people who are selling merchandise. You know, if there is a brick in a bag, the brick weighs a pound, that costs the man who buys the black walnuts money. In other words, out of that pound of brick he intended to get a small quantity of meats to sell, so his cost immediately goes up. You'd be surprised at how many bricks and how much iron there is in black walnuts and pecans! It's universal throughout the United States. There is a lot of chiseling that goes on. Your bags should be good. Black walnuts must be held for some time before they are processed, and one black walnut bag used one year can't be used another. If you can get by with one year's use of a bag to hold a hundred pounds, or whatever is put in it, of black walnuts, you are very fortunate. Usually they break out before the year is over, and that causes waste. So start out with a decent bag.

I made a little note here to talk to you about California black walnuts. The standard throughout the United States to people who actually buy black walnut kernels is what we call in the brokerage field Eastern black walnuts. That means Kentucky and Tennessee. Those are Eastern blacks, they are the blacks with the flavor, the blacks that stand up. From my home state they have Missouri blacks, but the quality isn't there. The flavor doesn't hold up. But you people down here grow the finest blacks in the world. California, yes, California grows and shells a lot of black walnuts, but they don't have a black walnut flavor. The flavor is gone. Where it went, I don't know. But there isn't any black walnut flavor in California blacks. [A different species, _Juglans hindsi_--Ed.]

So some unscrupulous people buy California blacks and mix them with Eastern black walnuts. Then they can't call them Eastern blacks. They are just black walnut kernels. But black walnut kernels that are 100 per cent Eastern black walnut kernels should be the standard of black walnuts through the country.

Now, Tom has told you something about the process of shelling. I am just going on to say that the average sheller gets about 10 to 11.7 pounds of black walnut kernels to the hundred pounds. So you can realize there again what a problem he has.

Well, the marketing of black walnuts is the selling of black walnuts in the shell or shelled. We have very little demand in the Chicago markets for in-the-shell black walnuts. I probably sell, oh, maybe 5,000 pounds a year on South Water Market, and they go out to the various stores, and they, in turn, sell them to the homes that like to crack black walnuts instead of buying the kernels.

The American public buy with their eyes. Consequently, the packaging of black walnut kernels or the packaging of any merchandise is very important. I made a statement this morning that has always been interesting to me. You know, Chicago is the biggest candy center in the world, and we do a lot of experimenting with candy. Now, your industry is tied very closely to candy, because a lot of the black walnuts, hickory nuts, and the like, go into the making of candy. But to prove my point, a number of times friends of mine who are interested in the sale of merchandise have taken quality candy and packed it in a common box, and they have taken an inferior quality of candy and packed it in a fancy box and set it on the floor and put the same price on both products. The American public, remember, buys with their eyes. So they buy something that is well dressed and they buy that inferior product, twice or three times as fast as they would that quality product in the common box.

I am bringing this out to illustrate a point. _Well packaged merchandise, sightly merchandise, always pays._ Quality to you people who actually crack black walnuts in your homes is something that will pay dividends. Separate your big kernels. Offer them to the public and they will pay for them.

I was talking to Dr. Jones of Pennsylvania about the sale of black walnut halves. He says that he gets a good many of them. Well, there are throughout these United States of ours a good many very fancy stores that will buy merchandise of this type. But the quantity that anyone gets is very small, so the suggestion that I made to Dr. Jones is that he take his quarters and mix them with his halves. That's not cheating or anything like it. It is making a product that is superior. And you know they say if a man makes a better mousetrap the world will come to his door. And that is generally true. Sometimes it takes a long time to bring it to the American public or to your buyers, to make them realize that you have a superior product, but that's the thing that it takes.

Now, there are a number of ways they sell blacks in this country. They sell them in two-ounce cellophane bags, they sell them in six-ounce cellophane, they sell them in eight-ounce cellophane, but the greater quantity of the blacks are sold in bulk, as Tom told you, in 35- and 50-pound cases, and they go to the candy manufacturer, they go to the ice cream manufacturer, and chiefly throughout the southern part of the United States for ice cream, believe it or not. The Southern States buy more black walnut ice cream than any other division of the United States. In the Central West, too, black walnuts are quite popular for use in ice cream.

Now, if there is anyone that has any questions, I'd like for you to ask them, and I will try to answer them, I won't promise that I can, about the marketing of black walnuts.

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A Member: What's the retail sale on those cellophane bags?

Mr. McCauley: What would be the retail sale price?

A Member: Yes.

Mr. McCauley: Well, the cellophaning of walnuts is quite an expensive proposition. We will say right now the kernels are worth 70 cents a pound. The cellophaner has to add a dime a pound to that price, so he figures his cost at 80 cents and the cost of cellophane, and he sells that merchandise so that he makes a 15 per cent profit. Let me see if I can tell you, a two-ounce bag--

Mr. Mullins: It sells for from 18 cents to 25 cents.

Mr. McCauley: Yes, 18 cents in the chain stores. An 8-ounce package at A & P in Chicago will sell for 59 or 69 cents. I have forgotten now just what it is. I can't keep these prices in my mind, although I will tell you this now. If any of you ever come to Chicago, I have an experimental plant in Chicago. If you could remember McCauley, it's "McCauley Company," or "McCauley Machinery Company," and in that plant I also have a new machine for bagging nuts, cellophane bagging. It makes the bag, fills it and seals it in one operation, and we have operated that machine at the rate of 100 bags per minute, 2-ounce or 6-ounce, it doesn't make any difference. The only trouble is the people couldn't handle the bags that fast, so we had to cut it down to 58 a minute. It's quite an operation, and at this time it is an experimental operation. But I would be more than pleased to have any of you drop in on me in Chicago. If I am not there someone in my organization will be glad to show you, if you tell them what you came for.

I have a "California" walnut, or Persian, as you call it. I was much surprised to see all these samples of walnuts down here. I have a walnut shelling plant in Chicago, I do at this time. Maybe when you get there it will be a pecan shelling plant, or maybe it will be a _Macadamia_ nut plant. How many of you people have ever heard of _Macadamia_ nuts? (Several hands raised.) More than I thought for. Well, we are working on a plant to shell _Macadamias_ now. Of course, that is a tropical nut, grown chiefly in Hawaii and Australia. The Australian nut is not nearly as good as the Hawaiian nut. But to those of you who are not familiar with the nut, I have given it to any number of people and asked for their reaction, and some said it tasted like a filbert, others said it tasted like cocoanut, and the third one named was Brazil nut. So it's a very pleasant nut to eat, but very, very expensive.

Dr. Moss: I live in Williamsburg in Whitley County not far from you, and we have no market there for black walnuts at all and got quite a lot of them there. I wonder if it would be practical to have a collection center.

Mr. Mullins: It certainly would. In the southeastern part of Texas we have one.

Dr. MacDaniels: A question, Mr. McCauley. You said that you are able to recover about 11 per cent in the cracking plant on the average, I think you said 10 to 11.7 for ordinary run quality. Now, if you had walnuts that would run 25 to 28 per cent kernel, how much would your processing plants recover out of that, I am just-wondering?

Mr. McCauley: Well, I would like to say two per cent less than the hand-cracked weight. In other words, if you had a total, hand-cracking total kernel content of 25 per cent, I would like to say 23, but I think that is just a little bit strong. In Tom's early processing of black walnut kernels at Renfro Valley his first average was 16 per cent on wild nuts. I don't know where he got those nuts. They must have been Thomas variety. But as he told me today, he is down to 10.7.

Mr. Mullins: Those nuts I talked about, Mac, that ran up that high percentage were from over in Clark County around Winchester. And I have quite a few of them that I pick-up that are even larger in size than some of these Thomas nuts that are lying in here, out of that particular locality. They are very big.

Mr. McCauley: You will find that that is true. Your percentage varies over the country. I like to think that the wild seedling black walnut has a possibility of about 18 pounds in a hundred. I may be wrong.

Dr. MacDaniels: Is that loss in the cracking procedure; I mean, that the things don't crack out?

Mr. McCauley:. The loss is in the cracking, but on an 18 pounds possibility we would probably get between 14 and 15 per cent with this new method of cracking and processing.

Dr. MacDaniels: Now, if you had a nut that would run hand-cracked 24 per cent, you lose 2 in your cracking procedure, and you recover 22. Would you pay twice as much for nuts of that quality as you would for common grade?