Chapter XI: Section X: Amendments to By-Laws (4)

[Footnote 14: Waite, M. B. Notes on Some Nut Diseases with Special Reference to the Black Walnut. Ann. Rept. Northern Nut Growers Assoc. 23:60-67, 1932.]

[Footnote 15: Becker, Gilbert, My Observations on Witches Broom Disease of Black Walnut Trees. Annual Report Northern Nut Growers Assoc. 31:106-109, 1940.]

[Footnote 16: Hutchins, Lee M., and Wester, Horace V. Graft--transmissible Brooming Disease of Walnut (Abstract.) Phytopathology 37: 11, Jan. 1947.]

[Footnote 17: Gravatt, G. F., and Stout, Donald C. Diseases Affecting the Success of Tree Crop Plantings. Ann. Rept. Northern Nut Growers Assoc. 39: 60-68. 1948]

WEDNESDAY MORNING SESSION

A Forester Looks at the Timber Value of Nut Trees

CHARLES S. WALTERS, _Forestry Department, University of Illinois_

What I am going to say will apply mostly to black walnut since it is one of our most valuable timber trees, but it also will apply to other species like hickory, pecan, persimmon. I've never seen papaw or hazel nut large enough for timber, but the Persian walnut has some value and the Chinese chestnut is a fair timber tree. All of these species should be commercially useful if there is sufficient quality and volume involved to warrant a sale.

What I have to say may not apply five years from now. Persimmon used to be the main source of material for golf club heads and shuttles for the textile industry. It no longer is.

Today golf club heads are being made of "Compreg," a wood which has been impregnated with phenolic resins and cured with heat. The resin is similar to Bakelite. Thin sheets of wood are glued together to build up the head, rather than using a single solid piece, and it makes a considerably better golf club head. The developments in wood use are progressing just as in many other fields. What the wood specialists are trying to do is to take low quality material and change it over to a form which is suitable for many uses for which high-quality expensive material is now used. The timber buyer now wants a tree of long, clean, bole with few knots, of large size,--at least 16 inches in diameter at breast height. In short, he wants high quality material.

What I am saying may not apply to nut growing. Foresters grow trees for the wood crop, with nuts as a by-product. The first 16 feet of trunk or the butt log is his main interest. It should be completely free of limbs, knots, and other defects for at least 16 feet. You can use the logs above the butt-cut but they usually produce lower grade material.

You have two courses to follow. You can grow wood either in natural stands or in plantations, and the end product is very little different. It is probably easier to grow a high quality tree in a plantation than in the wild. What can be easier than growing a timber tree in the woodlands? It eventually reaches merchantable size and is harvested. Well, nature can do better if you give her help. Your chances of growing a high quality tree to merchantable size are better in the plantation.

About ten years ago Dr. R. W. Lorenz of our Department made a study of 150 plantations growing on prairie soil in Illinois. Thirty-six were walnut which ranged in age from 22 to 75 years. The one thing we had the most trouble with was determining their ages. One day we stopped at a farm and talked to a farmer, and we asked him when the trees were planted. This man said he could tell us the exact day. "I was a young lad and a neighbor drove by and said, 'Yesterday Abe Lincoln was shot.'" So we had the historical records to determine the age of that particular plantation.

These plantations ranged in number of trees per acre from 46 to 330. The number of trees per acre has a direct influence on the size or diameter growth of the timber tree. An eight by eight spacing, or 680 trees per acre, eventually will be thinned to 200 trees per acre. That gives each tree proper spacing for best height and diameter growth.

The trees ranged in height from about 31 feet to 85, averaging about a foot and a quarter in height each year. The average diameters ranged from about 12 inches to 15 inches. Individual trees, however, ranged up to 24 inches at breast height (4-1/2' above ground level). Each plantation had had very little or no care. If some of them had been cared for, or "managed", their owners would have had a better wood crop--higher quality and higher quantity too.

Now, as to the growth in the managed plantations. We believe it is possible to grow 300 board feet per acre per year. Compared with upland oak, walnut exceeded it in almost all growth factors up to 70 years of age and then they were about the same.

Of the cultural practices, the most important is probably pruning. Sawing off the limbs growing on the trunk makes all wood produced thereafter free of knots. When the trees reach about six inches in diameter, one should select those he is going to call "crop trees"--about 200 of these per acre--and spend his time getting them to timber size and quality. The other trees are removed over a period of several years, so that you finally have only the 200 high quality crop trees left. The reason I suggest starting the pruning when the trees are six inches in diameter, is that that is the size of the veneer core left after the veneer manufacturer has turned the log for the thin sheet of furniture veneer. Remove the limbs and improve the quality so you get a 16-foot log free of limbs and knots. That is what the buyer is looking for.

I know practically nothing about growing trees for a nut crop, but we seem to have something in common in growing trees both for nuts and timber. Just a lot of it is "horse sense", with a few rules of thumb based upon scientific principles. You must give the crop trees space, give them plenty of room to grow. In the woods they start to grow in a dense undergrowth. The young trees soon reach a height where they begin to dominate their neighbors. There you pick the straight, thrifty-growing trees for crop trees and favor them in your thinning and pruning operations. Tree density influences diameter growth of the trees. In thick stands, trees are usually small and spindly. So plant a large number to give the crop trees good form, then thin the plantation carefully to make it grow.

Grazing and fire are very harmful to tree plantations. Most of the plantations we studied were grazed. A good many were burned. I don't think nut growers would periodically burn their stands to improve the nut production. It is the same with growing a crop of wood. Once the livestock begin to trample or compact the soil, tree growth slows down and when that happens it makes the tree more susceptible to attack by insects and fungi.

As to marketing trees, let's assume you have some material you want to sell. The one thing you want to know is, "how much is it worth?" That is like me asking you what my house is worth. I understand there are persons here not only from Illinois and Iowa, but from New York, West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky. Prices on wood products vary not only from state to state but also within a state as well. The things you ought to know are the sizes and the grades of the timber that you want to sell, since they determine price. Now, there are publically employed foresters available to help you. They know your local conditions. The manufacturer's markets determine what he can afford to pay you.

For example, we organized some walnut marketing pools in Illinois during the war. I suppose a half million board feet of Illinois walnut was sold for gun stock material. One company was buying most of the product of the pools. Later we found that this company had a market for low grade stump veneer. Most of the other companies would mark a half dozen trees for their stumps. This company would buy 35 to 40 stumps. Every buyer looked at the same quality and quantity of material, since the trees were all marked. In this case, however, the difference in markets determined the price the manufacturer could pay.

Another thing that concerns price is what we call "logging chance" or how easy is it for the buyer to harvest those trees. I imagine anyone buying trees in Pennsylvania would have considerably more difficulty in getting them out than he would in Illinois. The differences in equipment and methods used to harvest the trees all have a bearing on the price paid the timber owner.

Hickory is commonly sold for handle stock. Wood for striking-tool handles has a definite restriction in the specifications on the number of rings allowed per inch of growth. The Federal Government grades handles on the basis of growth rate. From 17 to 22 growth rings per inch is specified. Timber buyers don't want logs grown any slower than 22 rings per inch and those grown a little faster than ten rings per inch may be acceptable.

Now, as to determining the trees to sell. I mentioned a 16-inch diameter limit. A few trees smaller than this with logs shorter than 8 feet in length may be accepted if a large quantity of wood is to be sold. It has to be economically worth while for the buyer to harvest and transport the wood, or he can't afford to buy it. Each buyer of course has a different set of specifications. You ought to measure and _mark_ those trees you want to sell and ask the buyers to bid only on those marked trees.

Buyers like to approach the timber owner with, "You have some timber I can use. I'll give you $100 for what I can use." That is the same approach as if I were to offer $100 for your entire nut crop. You would probably say, "Let's weigh those nuts so we will have a basis for coming to an agreement." It's the same way with timber. There are two ways you can sell your timber. You can either measure your trees and sell on a volume basis, or you can mark certain trees and state to several buyers, "I have marked 25 trees for sale. What is your best offer for them?" Each buyer looks at the same trees, and you have a common denominator for comparing the fairness of each bid.

For example, we had a farmer in Woodford County, Illinois who had walnut trees, wild trees, but growing in a pasture grove. I jotted down the bids that were made. One buyer offered $200 for 27 trees, another bid $225 for 35, a third bid $265 for 40 or $165 for 35, and the last buyer offered $425 for 25 trees. The point I am trying to illustrate is that the farmer, without that extremely high bid, would have been unable to compare the bids because someone bid on 27 trees and someone else on 35 trees. If all buyers had bid on 27 marked trees, he would have had a basis for comparing the bids.

Sell on contract. Farm foresters have simple contract forms which they will give you. The forms can be filled out so that they tell what you agree to do and what the buyer agrees to do. Both parties sign the agreement, so there is less chance for disagreement later.

May I have those slides? (Picture showing large tall tree in dense forest.) This isn't a walnut tree, but I want to show you the kind of condition foresters like to see trees growing under. Nice tall stem, free of any limbs, good diameter. These trees show a rather wide range of age classes. When I talk to my folks about growing timber, they say "70 years is a long time to wait for your money." Here is a tree that started 70 years ago and is ready to be harvested. The crop is sustained yield.

I put this in to show you what we don't like to see. (Picture showing park-like stand of timber.) When these 100 or so trees are gone, there will be no others to replace them. Cattle have grazed this stand to the extent that it will be a long time before any other age classes develop to replace those you see in the picture.

That is a white oak. I told you there weren't many. Good diameter all the way up clear of limbs. When the logger cuts that tree he will have high quality material. The same applies for walnut, hickory, or any other species.

This walnut tree shows you how to mark trees for sale. One mark up here so the buyer knows which tree is designated for cutting, and one down at the bottom so you can assure yourself that that tree was to be sold. It identifies one of the trees you intended to sell; a penalty is involved for cutting any others.

I wanted to show you what a good walnut stump-cut looks like. These trees should be 18 inches or larger in diameter at about two feet above the ground to be worthwhile. The stump will be cut off when it gets to the mill, and peeled for veneer.

This is one of the walnut plantations cut for gun stock material. I put this in to show you how the buyers cut the trees down, and measure off the logs to get the best grade of material. They aren't interested so much in volume as in lumber. They want the best grade of wood, and they want it in that butt log.

I put these in to show poor quality logs that weren't worth taking. This is an open pasture grown tree. No care or attention given it, so the limbs stayed on and grew quite large.

This shows how they load logs with a tractor and chain. This "cross haul" is a trick of the logger's trade. This is the improper way. The tractor was broken down so it took five or six men to load it because they didn't have the tractor. There are some good logs and here are some poor logs.

This is a group of logs, at a railroad siding. Some look small, but at that time--with the market as it was--they could use the smaller logs. You see some of nice length, good form and free of defects. I mentioned metal. Here's a man with an Army mine detector. They tried them out to locate metal. This company uses this mine detector to test all logs for metal content.

Here's what happens. The metal discolors or stains the wood. This tree probably grew in a fence line. The buyers are just a little reluctant to buy them. If they do they cut them off this high so they are pretty sure all fence wire is left in the stump portion.

In this grove of walnut a wire is nailed on every tree. Such a practice ruins the tree.

This shows wasteful practice. This small mill in southern Illinois was buying these short bolts cut from small trees. Be careful that you don't sell trees that are too small and too young. It is like, I suppose, harvesting your walnuts before the kernel develops.

This is the result of fire. That log, from outside appearance, didn't have a blemish. Loggers left this part because it was hollow. The infection developed from a fire scar and rotted out the inside.

This shows the same thing. Fire scarred. Bumping machines used to harvest the nut crop or any defect or injury may result in something like this and decrease the tree's value for timber.

I mentioned hickory. Here are some single-trees that are made out of pecan. Hickory is also used. Hickory grows to a commercial size in southern Illinois but in most states it is too small and knotty. One time the Peoria office of the WPB got a release from Washington indicating that hickory was needed for axe handles. They released it to the newspapers. We answered letters for a month after that. Farmers who had hickory they wanted to sell had to be told that there wasn't enough hickory involved to make it commercially possible to market. In addition, there wasn't a single handle mill in the state at that time.

This is a couple of loads of good walnut logs. They were cut in Illinois and trucked to Indiana to be manufactured into veneer and lumber.

Dr. Colby has asked me if I had any methods of getting rid of stumps. We have worked for five years and we still haven't a method that is economical or easy. We recommend grubbing or burning them out with a small stove, or you can cut them close to the ground and let them rot out. What about the chemicals?--We have worked for a good many years and we have bored stumps until our arms ached, but we haven't found any of them that work.

Discussion

MEMBER: 300 board feet per acre per year?

MR. WALTERS: I said we felt that on good soil and by encouraging nature we can grow that volume.

MEMBER: What are the stumpage prices?

MR. WALTERS: Ranging from about $10.00 per thousand board feet to $300. There is quite a span and each grade is different. There is a prime grade, which is the best grade, which must be 16 inches in diameter at the small end at least. Each company has a little different set of grades. Even with the same grade the prices will range according to the size of the log. Maybe a 16 inch prime log may be worth $200 per thousand board feet and 24 inch will be $300.

MR. CRAIG: Curly walnut would be worth more?

MR. WALTERS: Yes. It is somewhat of a guess as to whether a tree will have a curly figure. If you let them take the bark off a tree, the buyers can tell. I know of one beautiful stump on which the buyer wanted permission to remove part of its bark to see if it had nubby growth. If it had had the figure, it would have been very valuable. The farmer said, "I don't want you cutting on that tree because if it doesn't have the figure and you don't buy it, the tree will be spoiled." Don't let the buyers chop into the tree to see whether it has figure.

MR. CRAIG: I bought two to get grafting wood.

[Editor's note: Mr. Craig refers to the Lamb curly black walnut, article on which appeared in NNGA 39th Annual Report.]

MR. WALTERS: There has been some work done on grafting or stimulating growth for figure. One method was to beat the trees with a rubber hose and try to stimulate figured or curly grain. Not too much has been published on this work as yet.

MEMBER: Do you think the figure could be propagated by asexual propagation?

MR. WALTERS: I don't know. I will say this; in forest trees, the inherited characteristics are the things we depend upon. If a tree has curly figure and the seed carries that characteristic, you may see it in the progeny. An acquired characteristic I don't think you can depend on so much.

MEMBER: Is it thought to be acquired or hereditary?

MR. WALTERS: I just don't know whether it is acquired or hereditary.

DR. ROHRBACHER: One thought came to me on this black walnut timber. It's a long pull, and it is one for our posterity. The thought came to be that it is for those of us who are interested in setting up something for our offspring. The plan has been brought out before of using a grafted known name variety of nuts. Plant those, and perhaps those trees as they grow would first give us that wonderful nut which we were looking for.

Symposium on Nut Tree Propagation

F. L. O'ROURKE, _Leader_

MR. O'ROURKE: I believe if you get 10 nut people together, you are going to have eight or nine propagators. It is the one thing that people like to dream and talk about.

I went through the list a little bit, and in order to save some time I wrote a resumé of what had been done. In order to accumulate that material I had to dig into some of the more or less unused volume. There is a wealth of information in some of those earlier reports of the Northern Nut Growers Association.

MEMBER: You can get them for $15 a set.

MR. O'ROURKE: It's a good investment anyway. At any rate, I think I am going to try to make a bit of an analogy. Suppose this was a church group who had been working on paying off their mortgage. Every once in a while they passed a hat, but instead of dumping that hat on the table they let those contributions accumulate, so that after a while they had the accumulation of 41 years in the hat. Someone has to dump the hat sometime and I tried to do that this summer, and I found all sorts of contributions in that hat. We might say this happened to be the hat. You would find some brand new fresh ten dollar bills, nice new currency, and then you would find some gold pieces (before Roosevelt). They too can be used because they can also be converted. Then you could dig back and come across some stuff, and you didn't quite know what it was. It might be a Spanish doubloon or an old brass button. Right there is where you need a little knowledge. You should be able to tell the difference. I don't know whether I was able to tell that difference. We will, of course, find a lot of slugs and buttons and this and that among the valuable pieces, so possibly we should sift those out and put them in the discard. You never can be sure what to discard.

Just as I said, every nut grower is a propagator at heart. A little wee paragraph may be a lead to something which would be of quite a lot of value.

This little brief resumé I passed around yesterday, and now this morning I am using my school teacherish techniques in passing around a sheet of paper. There is merely an outline. Pardon me if I insult your intelligence in getting out that outline. As you notice, we start out with the seedling and end with nursery practice. This outline should fit almost any nut species. It should fit chestnut, hickory, walnut or any. I thought it might be best to have a vote as to which one we talk about first, and then we will run down each particular species. I think we should have our panel come up front.

As I said a while ago, we know that practically every person in this room is a propagator. In order that we have this panel conducted in an orderly way, please raise your hand when you speak. I will get the question and pass it to one of the panel members. Which one shall we take up first?

MR. McDANIEL: Let's take the hard one first, the Chinese chestnut.

All right, chestnut. To be systematic, let's talk about seed. Anyone having any difficulty? No trouble at all. Who grows most of the Chinese chestnuts, germinates most of the seed?

MEMBER: I have trouble with rabbits, squirrels, ground hogs.

MR. O'ROURKE: He wishes to know of something to protect his chestnuts.

DR. McKAY: We don't plant in the Fall. I know of one person who uses red lead. We have never used it. I know that has been done. We store our chestnuts in cold storage over the winter and plant in the Spring.

C. S. WALTERS: May I interrupt? We tried 50 chemicals, treating walnut seed with them or putting them on the seed spot after the nut was planted. The squirrels lifted every nut except those that wouldn't have germinated anyway. The rascals knew the difference. We tried allylisothiocyanate--"tear gas." The squirrels would dig those nuts up and when the vapor got too strong they would go away and allow it to evaporate. Within two weeks they would come back--maybe two or three times--before they finally took the nut. We tried cayenne pepper and n-butyl mercaptan--the main ingredient in "polecat essence." We had squirrels all over our test plots, and the only nuts they didn't take were the bad ones.

MEMBER: I have had every other kind of rodent. I found I have to plant in the spring and always in a tin can, with rock wool over the nut.

MEMBER: We have used rock wool; planted in the spring. They will get them any time.

MEMBER: I did the same thing with chicken wire and no squirrels got them.

MEMBER: I would like to ask Mr. Chase if he has planted chestnuts on a quantity basis.

MR. CHASE: We planted them on a quantity basis and as some of you know our nursery is adjacent to a wooded area where you would assume there would be a lot of rodents and polecats, both kinds--four and two legged. I made that statement once before about never having had any squirrel damage. We don't have any trouble. We do not lose chestnuts. We mulch with composted mixtures.

MEMBER. They claim sawdust will help keep them away.

MR. CHASE: On the other hand, a gentleman wanted to get started with chestnut in the Smokies. We helped him get lined up and he planted in beds and these are perhaps a hundred feet long. We mulched heavily with sawdust. The area had been cut over six to eight years ago and had immense piles of sawdust. We mulched with about four inches and some animal got every chestnut out. We never knew what animal it was. There wasn't any evidence on the top. They got every chestnut which was quite a shock to him. I brought this point out that there _was_ danger and he was going to build the bed up high and cover with wire or he was going to get some of this old camouflage netting type and cover that bed for protection both against rodents and early spring frost. He didn't follow through on that so I don't plead guilty.

MEMBER: Does the Chinese chestnut seed have a rest period?

DR. McKAY: For some years we have had a friendly discussion with the Division of Forest Pathology in regard to whether a chestnut seed has a rest period in the same way black walnut, hickory, or some of the others do, and we are not absolutely set in our opinion on the matter. We have the opinion that the Chinese chestnut does not require a rest period. I will tell you that one species, the Allegany Chinkapin _(C. pumila_) will germinate very readily as soon as it is matured. It will start growing immediately. When you go into the oak species, you have a number like that. They fall to the ground, and put a root into the soil, become anchored, and grow slowly all winter long. We feel that the Chinese chestnuts are of that type. Perhaps the old American chestnut was that way. It fell to the ground in the fall and it sprouted rather promptly within a month or so and grew slowly. Perhaps the Chinese chestnut is not so much inclined that way. We have done this: we have taken them from storage at various times during the winter and planted them, and have never failed to get reasonably good germination. Others have. The results there vary considerably. Perhaps we can't be too sure about the matter. We simply feel that on the basis of what we have seen and observed, they do not have a definite rest period. Many of the failures that have been obtained have been due to poor storage conditions, where the nut started to spoil and perhaps the workers didn't realize it and planted that nut and the nut spoiled immediately. So you fail, not because of the inability of the seed to sprout, but because it was improperly handled and could not grow.

MR. O'ROURKE: Is it not a fact that ... seed has no true rest period as we know it with trees? On the other hand, about 30 days' exposure to low temperature and moist conditions will cause all those seeds to germinate immediately. It may be somewhat the same with chestnut seed.

MR. STOKE: In confirmation, I furnished a man some seed some years ago and we put them in flower pots and they were a foot high by Christmas.

MR. McDANIEL: The growth is normal from the immediate planting, too. You don't get the suppressed growth later, as in prematurely germinated peach.

MEMBER: The chinkapins will often sprout even before they come out of the bur.

MR. CRAIG: I might say this concerning the California Persian walnuts. Take one at harvest and plant it, and that seed will germinate immediately. You hold it in dry storage and plant in the spring and it will come up in a couple of weeks. I speak from experience.

DR. CRANE: The same thing is true with pecan, in west Texas and Arkansas and California. We have lots of trouble with pecans germinating. It is not uncommon to find a pecan germinated with a root as much as ten inches long grown in the hull. If that nut goes through to maturity and becomes dry, then there is an appreciable delay in germination. They won't germinate as quickly. There has got to be a lot of changes in the kernel after they have once dried out and been harvested before germination will be initiated again.

DR. McKAY: In connection with this question of germinating nut seeds of all kinds, we think it is very important to plant the seed in a well aerated medium. I think that is a mistake many people make. If the soil happens to be of a clay nature, it keeps out oxygen and air and the sprout will rot. That is the reason why, when we plant chestnut seed, we like to plant in sand or the same with any nut seed. Coarse sand has a lot of air in it. That nut has a high demand for oxygen.

MEMBER: In the matter of chestnut seed, don't put too many layers of seeds. One is better than two. Even in rather porous soil, they seem to develop gas. Anyway, I found the bottom ones didn't get enough air and they rotted, whereas on top they didn't. It is better to plant a single layer than more.

MR. SHERMAN: What is the best method of treating the chestnut seeds in the fall to prevent the development of weevils?

DR. McKAY: Of course, there are several ways of treating the nuts for weevils. One is the old hot water method. All of us can heat water. We have to heat it to about 120 degrees. So hot, you can't hold your hand in it. Immerse thirty minutes for an average size nut. Now in connection with the spoilage and rotting that is another matter. We believe in harvesting chestnuts promptly, storing them before they dry out. We of course store our chestnuts in cans. Cans with lids and holes punched at either end.

MR. O'ROURKE: Are there any other questions pertaining to seeds?

MEMBER: I would like to caution persons outside the weevil belt about being very careful if you get nuts that may be infested. Leave your nuts in a small jar and you have the advantage of watching the weevils actually emerging. You can pick the nuts out about February, and you can select all the nuts that are sound. Once in awhile a weevil will live through the winter. One thing we should all be thinking about is that the nurseryman has to produce grafted trees in order to fill a demand, and those nut trees must be produced cheaply and he must use methods which are highly efficient.

MEMBER: Has anyone tried to deep freeze?

DR. CRANE: We tried that just this past winter. For a couple of years back one individual had asked us why we didn't freeze them. Last winter we did. We stored three gallon buckets at two temperatures. One at zero and the other at ten degrees below--hard freezing temperatures. Those nuts stayed frozen from early October until the next April. We brought them out and examined them one morning. The first thing we did was taste them. Those nuts we ate when first opened and you could tell them from no other chestnuts. They were nice eating, sweet. We let those chestnuts thaw evenly at room temperature. That evening we examined them and it's hard to describe what the transformation was in those nuts. In the first place was the deterioration that had gone on as soon as the tissue thawed ... They were dripping water. The tissue had burst and the water just flowed. On the other hand, about an hour after they thawed out, when we first examined them just as they thawed out, you would be amazed at how tender they were. They would melt in your mouth. Freezing apparently breaks down the tissue. The tissue is as soft as it can be. Apparently this freezing transformed some of the starch to sugar. The rub is that it won't keep for even two or three hours.

MEMBER: They might keep if you put them in the soil first.

DR. CRANE: The tissue is ruined.

MR. O'ROURKE: We have now decided certain things pertaining to seed germination. Then we are confronted with the problems of seedling versus clonal rootstocks. I do not know whether or not there have been clonal rootstocks selected for Chinese chestnut. I am sorry to have to ask Dr McKay to talk again but he knows more about it.

DR. McKAY: I can only tell you about the experiment we started this spring on clonal stocks of chestnuts. We have just this year's results. Unfortunately we didn't get good results. We took ten seedling trees. We used nursery trees, large five-year old trees, with vigorous root system, ten seedlings, and got from them 20 roots. We took roots the size of your finger with a lot of feeding roots, and we grafted onto those five times four. We took four per variety. We used five varieties of chestnuts, and all five of those each had four pieces and we had ten of those seedlings. We wanted to find out whether any of those ten seedlings would give us a better set of these five varieties than any other trees. In other words, we are trying to get a start on a clonal rootstock. We used a splice graft. We simply took a piece of scion and spliced it right on the end of the root. We had four of those in the bundle, and we had five per seedling and we had ten of them. That made 20 in all. We planted in a cold frame, with cheesecloth covering to keep the temperature from getting too high. Eventually, if this thing works, we will establish a clonal line. We planted those ten original trees but you will be surprised. We can go back to the original tree if we succeed with clonal lines, so a chestnut variety we hope will be grafted on a line of stock that came from that one original tree. Bear in mind this is the method and it remains to be seen whether it is going to work for chestnuts.

The results are discouraging. Only one or two seedlings gave us six or 8 successful grafts on all the five varieties but by that method of trying all five of these varieties on all ten of the seedings we hope to get a start. We will try them again, and we hope to get at least a start that will work. It may be that we will have to start over again. We may want to take ten other seedlings. That is, in brief, our work so far in that direction.

We took it off the ground. We didn't have long enough side roots.

MEMBER: How about mound layering?

DR. McKAY: We tried cutting off at the ground level and mounding up those sprouts and tried to root them, with no satisfactory results. There was just a small amount of rooting.

MEMBER: Did you try layering?

DR. McKAY: One year we did, but with no success.

MR. McDANIEL: I have seen a few layered successfully but it's a little slow.

MR. O'ROURKE: Shall we move to vegetative propagation and consider cuttings first?

DR. McKAY: Just one thing I think ought to be mentioned at this time. We know that even the use of clonal rootstocks does not entirely eliminate variability. All the work that has been done with these Malling apple stocks shows that, as far as apples are concerned. Now we have an idea which, in a crop like chestnuts, may have very far reaching influence and we feel quite hopeful for it. That is growing seedling progenies of certain parent trees. I want to tell you our experience with it. We started our work on breeding and selection of tung nuts in 1938, and we have tested now over 600 parent trees that were especially selected. Out of those six hundred we have released a total of six horticultural varieties, for asexual propagation. But out of those six we have three trees, the seed of which will produce seedling progenies that come very true to the type of the parent tree. One of those released we know as the Lampton variety. It will produce from 95 to 100 per cent of its seedlings, that are so true to type that you can identify them in the nursery. At the end of the first season you plant 95 to 100 per cent of the remaining trees in the orchard and anybody can identify the trees.

In the case of budded trees we have the variability of the rootstocks, which affects the growth. Since that particular variety has been released there has not been one single nut of that variety crushed. Every single seed is grown to tree size, to plant in a new orchard. It has taken us 12 years to reach that stage, but that one variety is probably the most outstanding thing we have. There is a slight variation in the trees but not as much as you have in other trees.

Now, with Chinese chestnuts, we planted seedlings that were grown from the seed of a parent tree at Beltsville. We planted a thousand trees. There were seedlings grown from seed produced by different parent trees. Out of those thousand there wasn't a single one outstanding. Yet in one lot of seedlings which was planted in Georgia, every one of the seedlings grown from the seeds of that selected tree produced such high quality nuts that we haven't cut out a single tree. There just hasn't been any off types. Now we have gone a step further. We had one called selection 7932 which came into bearing very early. We have had those trees grown from seed. The seedling at three years of age produced a pound of nuts, the seedling having the characteristic of its mother. We have hopes that before many years we shall be able to produce parent trees or clonal lines in which the seed taken from those line and planted will give us uniform seedlings.

I don't want you folks to get the idea we have these parent trees or seed from them that are available. I mention it because a lot of you are growing chestnut trees and planting them from seed. You could make a great contribution if you would take the nuts from each individual tree and plant separately, so that you will know in the future the origin of every one of those seedling trees you have. Some of these days someone is going to find one that is going to give us seedling trees that are good and free from variation.

Elberta peach seed will come practically true to variety from seed, except minor variations of size, shape, color and season. In a peach you are facing a very highly specialized market. But with the Chinese chestnut, color is not so important. What we are interested in is trees that bear and have enough uniformity so that we don't have pee-wees by one and jumbos by another.

We need very badly this sort of thing. We need chestnut varieties planted in pairs in isolated places. Any of you folks could do a great service if you will let us know wherever trees occur in pairs, or just two varieties and no others, and then we know that one variety pollinates the other. When you have a mixed planting of a half dozen varieties the male is promiscuous. Therefore you have a much greater mixing of genetic factors. If we have a pair of trees, we get a much more uniform breeding group of seedlings.

MEMBER: How far removed from other varieties do they have to be?

DR. McKAY: Half a mile or a mile.

MR. O'ROURKE: I think we can go to vegetative propagation of cuttings. I think that we have any amount of evidence that Chinese chestnuts can be rooted from cuttings, but can trees grow on from rooting cuttings?

DR. CRANE: You have summed up the situation perfectly.

MEMBER: Just by accident, in our storage house a couple of chestnuts fell over into a pile of peat moss and they did make roots.

MR. CORSAN: Would you call the Chinese chestnut a second?

MR. O'ROURKE: We should confine this only to propagation. While there are any number of interesting phases of it, we have to stick to propagation or we will never get through. We have had remarks on layers. Any comments on layers?

Let's move on to graftage. We want to have our chestnut produced on a quantity basis so I am going to ask Mr. Bernath to tell us a good method.

MR. BERNATH: I don't graft too many outside, but I do my propagating in the greenhouse. I had more than a thousand graftings growing, some of them this high [indicating] which greatly depends upon the root system and the condition of the soil. I think that is the fastest and easiest way of grafting chestnuts. I do my grafting sitting down.

MEMBER: That's on the potted stock.

MR. BERNATH: That's right.

MEMBER: After you have produced all these grafts, what are you going to do with them?

MR. BERNATH: Sell them.

MR. STOKE: I tried to contact some nurseries. They are selling your seedlings, little chestnut trees for $1.75 and they want to give you 75¢ or a dollar for grafted ones.

MR. O'ROURKE: Mr. McDaniel has received a letter from Mr. Hirschi from Oklahoma City and there is one paragraph that I think the membership will be interested in. [Letter from Mr. Hirschi is partly reproduced here.]

Oklahoma City, Okla.
Aug. 23, 1951
Mr. J. C. McDaniel,
Urbana, Ill.
My Dear Mac;

... In my work with chestnuts I believe I have had an experience
that will be interesting to the membership. As you well know I am a
strong believer in selected named varieties. I do not regard
seedling chestnuts any more valuable than seedling peaches or
apples. The--Nursery, a member of our association, have been
customers of mine for a long time. Last year I persuaded them to
catalog seedling chestnuts at about half the price of Nanking,
Meiling, Kuling, and Abundance. I was anxious to learn the attitude
of the public, where they had an opportunity to buy and plant
selected grafted varieties, when heretofore only seedlings were
available. To my utter amazement the seedlings did not sell at all,
but the thousand trees of selected varieties were sold out long
before the season was over. I could not supply more, neither could
I get them elsewhere. So far as I know Max Hardy and I are the only
ones grafting chestnuts in quantities.

It is amazing the volume of business that catalog nurseries do. For
instance the above firm does a million dollars gross business
annually, and many others do a big business. All would be glad to
catalog grafted chestnuts, and the chestnut movement would grow by
leaps and bounds. True, they would have to be sold to them at
wholesale prices, but they want small sizes, parcel post sizes
preferred, which can be produced the second year from seed. Plant
the seed in March, the next March graft them, and by fall the
grafts will range from three to seven feet as shown by the enclosed
photos.

I had the same experience with the above firm with Carpathians,
sold them 500, which were sold out long before the season ended and
I could not get them any more. They have ordered 2500 for this
coming season. Unfortunately we had a poor take on grafts this
spring due to cutting scion wood after a November freeze, which
killed all other English walnuts. Carpathian wood was not hurt
except where used for scions. Where left on the trees they forced
out as usual and are producing a good crop of nuts.

I must close. I know you will have a wonderful meeting and I wish I
could be with you. I will be with you in spirit, and in the
meantime will be doing all I can to promote interest in nut
growing.--Very truly yours, A. G. Hirschi.

MR. GERARDI: I don't yet have the greenhouse. I depend on field grafting. I produce my own seedlings. I just use seed from those three best trees. They run pretty uniform as far as growth is concerned. I bark graft in the field, when the buds begin to swell nicely and from there on. You can get a growth like that. [Indicating four to 5 feet.]

MEMBER: He has the same thing. Just as soon as the buds swelled. Sometimes I do go to the trouble if I am covering more ground, to cut them off as soon as they start to swell. A chestnut will peel again in four days. I start in after about four days and set these grafts and I use this bark graft. I have a sample of the method here. This is the plain bark graft which is efficient and fast for the production of chestnuts in quantity. I have to get into bigger production. I am trying to make speed and I am using this method. To start, the first week of April, when the buds start. If I get it done, it's the first week or the second of April.

MR. GERARDI: Four days on chestnuts. In my personal opinion after a few years observation I don't believe it is absolutely essential to cut back. Sometimes weather conditions will be a big factor. Sometimes the temperature is around forty and remains that way four or five days. The weather has taken the place of your cut back. That doesn't always happen, but weather conditions sometimes favor this.

MEMBER: What percent of failures do you expect on a hundred?

MR. GERARDI: Well, it is better to take a thousand trees. Out of a thousand you miss 35 or 40. The percent that takes is high. This is an important factor; you must have good wood. You are running just a little on the small size. From a quarter of an inch up to--. I never set a scion over about 9/16. That is just getting into the rough ... It's hard on the tool and rootstocks.

MEMBER: Do you wax the graft?

MEMBER: By all means you use the proper wax.

MEMBER: Did you ever try not to?

MR. GERARDI: Yes, if favorable weather permits. I use this Acme compound. Last season, it was a little stiff and I mixed a little oil and it cut my rubber bands too quick. That brush wax is about as good as you can get, but customers come in and I am called away and someone is always interfering with the work. I was trying to get a wax that I could just drop and it would be ready when I picked it up again. It is beginning to be an assembly line production. You can go faster if you have a helper or two to do the tying and waxing.

MEMBER: I have a rather crude scion storage method. I have dug out in a hill a reservoir that I keep ice in. If you could keep it at 32 to 40 degrees from the time it is cut in February, or the first part of March and then store it in this until the grafting time, it will keep readily.

MEMBER: In California I built a little house and there was room enough to put in at least 40 bushel boxes, 900 pounds of ice and I packed grafting wood in boxes and kept it until July.

MEMBER: The ice keeps up the humidity.

MEMBER: There are a lot of successful methods. It is what is available for you.

MR. WILKINSON: I have had very little experience in propagation of chestnuts. Mine has been limited. I shoulder my scions. I like to shoulder. My percentage of take varies with the conditions, sometimes it's fairly good and sometimes not so good. I have a specimen union of two inches in diameter and you can see what a nice union it makes. Ordinarily I have had very good success with chestnut grafting.

DR. McKAY: We have done some work on budding chestnuts but it hasn't been successful. We have had indefinite results. As Mr. Stoke says, grafting is so much more simple. We realize more work should be done on budding. We simply do our propagating the way it is easiest. Until the time comes that we have got more information on budding we will go along as we do now. One of the difficulties is that the wood is fluted and it is hard to get a good bud fit. It doesn't make for a good fit. We carried out a little experiment on one year old seedling at the crown. There is a smooth area on the stem as it enters into the root condition. It is a perfectly smooth area and we tried putting sealed buds at that point. We have had good success in putting those kinds of buds in at the time when you would ordinarily bud fruits, in the fall, where growth conditions are still good. Another year we did that same work and we didn't succeed so well. So we don't know exactly what we did wrong. In order to keep a set from those buds we don't know just what the conditions should be.

MR. O'ROURKE: To summarize then, the two successful methods are the greenhouse method and the field method used by Mr. Gerardi.

MR. STOKE: I mostly use a plain splice. The cut is about four times as long as scion diameter, if it is on a stock of the same size. It is the best method. I use also a modified cleft graft with a little trimming. Mr. Jones brought out that modified cleft graft and I have made a little change. Here is the stock, and a modified cleft graft is a side graft with the stock top cut off. You cut in at an angle far enough and you put your scion in here and there is your modified cleft graft. You get contact on all four lines. It takes experience and judgment. You cut your scion wedge and then make your understock cut and you will seldom make a mistake after you get experience. That is a side graft and a modified cleft graft. That makes a flexible portion here and you get a fit on both sides. But with the ordinary cleft graft, if you go to the end of your stock you still have a split and not a perfect fit.

MEMBER: Would you explain that? If your scion is not the same size it might over lap or ... how do you handle that?

MR. STOKE: If the scion is undersized, you don't cut so deep. Sometimes the stock is a little oversize. You simply cut less deep in your stock. If you have a large stock and small scion I'd make a bark graft.

MEMBER: I should like to bring up one point. That is produce more nut trees and do it cheaper. It seems to lie between Mr. Gerardi and Mr. Bernath. Mr. Gerardi can set between six and seven hundred per day, and tie them himself, and Mr. Bernath will graft between seven hundred and a thousand a day with someone else doing the tying.

MR. CHASE: We have tried all these grafting methods with varying degrees of success. Our propagation experiments at Norris have been directed at the development of more economic methods.