Chapter IV: Part 4

High hopes are held that that other favorite hickory, the pecan (_H. pecan_) may be grown far outside its native range, and the Indiana pecan is the nut on which these hopes are founded. Seed nuts may be obtained from reliable Indiana dealers, but it is said that some of them are not reliable.

The hickories may be budded and grafted on one another so that one kind of stock may serve for both shagbark and pecan.

If you want to grow the Persian walnut (_Juglans regia_), often called the "English" walnut, the black walnut (_J. nigra_), seems to afford the most promising stock, though _J. rupestris_, native in Texas and Arizona, has been recommended and _J. cordiformis_, the Japanese heart nut, is also promising. This nut can be recommended for planting for its own sake as the tree is hardy, a rapid grower, comes into bearing early and bears a fairly good nut. There are no grafted trees, however, so the variable seedlings will have to be depended upon.

On any of these walnut stocks the black walnut and the butternut (_J. cinerea_) may also be propagated if worthy varieties can be found. There are none now on the market.

The nuts mentioned are enough for the beginner and the three stocks, chestnut, hickory and walnut, will give him all he wants to work on and furnish plenty of fascinating occupation.

The hazel, the almond and others, though offering possibilities, had better be left to those further advanced in the art of nut growing.

Now the nut orchard is started and the owner must push the growth of the trees by the ordinary methods, cultivation, cover crops and fertilizers. See any authority on growing fruit trees.

In from two to five years the trees will be ready for budding and grafting, they will have made a good growth above ground, and a bigger one below, they are permanently placed and haven't got to be set back a year or two, or perhaps killed, by transplanting, with loss to the tap roots and laterals. In the writer's opinion that natural tap root of the nut tree growing down, down to water is not to be treated as of no importance.

So let your seedlings grow up and down happily while you get ready the stuff with which to build their future character, for seedling trees are very slow in coming into bearing, and uncertain in type and quality of nut. Grafted trees bear early and true to type.

Take your choicest bit of ground and put it in the best shape you know how. Then order the finest grafted trees you can find on the market. (See circular on "Seedsmen and Nurserymen".) Your choice will be limited for there are as yet only a few grafted varieties of the Persian walnut and the Indiana pecan, and but one of the shagbark hickory to be had. Of chestnuts there are more and, in the South of course, plenty of pecans. But pecan growing in the South is another story. If you order chestnuts be sure that they do not come from a nursery infected with blight. Get young trees because they are more easily established.

Order from two to four of each variety. Fewer than two gives too small an allowance for mortality and more than four, besides the not inconsiderable strain on the pocket, will divide your attention too much; for you have got to give these trees the care of a bottle baby.

Set them sixty feet apart if you have the room. If not set them closer. Better closer if that means better care. They may be set in the fall but probably spring is better, as early as you can get them in. Follow the instructions of the nurserymen closely. Digging holes with dynamite is probably good practice. Put some bone meal in the soil around the roots but no strong fertilizer. Some soils need lime. Tamp the soil about the roots with all your might. It cannot be made too firm.

Then water them all summer, or until August if they have made a good growth. Give them all they can drink once a week. Sink a large bar about a foot from the tree and pour the water into the hole, as much as the soil will take.

Keep up cultivation and a dust mulch or, if you cannot do this, mulch with something else. Mulching doesn't mean a wisp of hay but something thick or impervious. Six inches of strawy manure, grass, vines or weeds; an old carpet, burlap, feed or fertilizer bags or even newspapers, held down with stones or weeds or earth, all make good mulches.

These trees ought to grow and, whether you ever succeed in grafting your seedlings or not, you should have at least a small orchard of fine nut trees.

The second summer with the trees will be something like the baby's. Worms may bother them. Look out for bud worms and leaf-eating caterpillars. Give them all the water they can drink in the dry dog days. Nurse them, feed them and watch them and they will grow up to bless you. Some of them may bear as early as apple trees.

These trees, and such scions as, from time to time, you may obtain elsewhere, are to furnish your propagating material.

The plan just described may be modified in various ways, but the general principles are the same. Instead of planting the nuts in their permanent positions they may be put in nursery rows where they may have the advantage of intensive cultivation. The best of the resulting trees may be grafted or budded in the rows, or after they have been transplanted and have become well established. This method is an excellent one and has distinct advantages and many advocates.

Yearling seedlings may be bought and set either in permanent positions or in nursery rows.

Of course the man who is in a hurry, who can disregard expense and who does not care for the experience and gratification of grafting his own trees, may set his whole plantation with expensive grafted trees and replant where they fail.

The technique of budding and grafting you must work out yourself with the help of the instructions obtainable from several authorities, or, by far the surer way, study the art with a master. The essentials are good stocks and good scions, the right moment--and practice.

Excellent publications giving instructions in methods of propagation are: "The Persian Walnut Industry in the United States," by E. R. Lake; Bulletin 254, Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1913: "The Pecan," by C. A. Reed; Bulletin 251 of the same department, 1912: "Walnut Growing in Oregon," published by the Passenger Department Southern Pacific Company Lines in Oregon, Portland, Oregon, revised edition, 1912; and "Nut Growing in Maryland," by C. P. Close; Bulletin 125 of the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station, College Park, Maryland. Any of these may be had free on application.

The files and current issues of the nut journals are full of information. Join the nut growers associations, subscribe to the nut journals, get all the literature (see Circular No. 3) and you will soon be happily out of the fledgeling stage of nut growing and begin to do as you please.

* * * * *

The Chairman: Comment upon this paper is now in order.

Mr. Lake: You say you are going to issue that?

The Secretary: On my own responsibility, but subject to modification.

Mr. Lake: If that is going out as a circular of the association, I would like to suggest two slight changes. For instance, you wouldn't expect the ordinary nut tree to begin to bear as early as the ordinary transplanted apple tree.

The Chairman: Some would.

Mr. Lake: A summer apple would begin to bear much earlier than the ordinary nut tree.

The Secretary: Well, chestnuts begin to bear very early after grafting. I refer only to grafted trees here.

Mr. Lake: I thought that the paper had to do with trees that were planted as nuts.

The Secretary: No, I think I made that perfectly clear.

Mr. Lake: What is that new statement about roots, that it is desirable to leave them?

The Secretary: That it is better that a tree should go undisturbed than that it should be transplanted.

Mr. Lake: Isn't there a question about that?

The Secretary: A question would arise in the hands of an expert, perhaps, but I think for an amateur, that a tree growing where the nut was planted is more likely to live and do well than a transplanted tree.

Mr. Lake: I am not so certain about that, but what I had in mind was that the planter would get the idea that the tap-root was not to be cut off and that it is very desirable to the tree.

The Secretary: That's a good point.

The Chairman: About cutting the tap-root I have said yes and no so fast that I don't know which I've said last, and it seems to me that we ought to have discussion on this very point.

The Secretary: I have said that in buying these grafted trees you should set them out following the instructions of the nurseryman closely.

Mr. Lake: But that statement about the tap-root would lead the average planter to think that it was very desirable to have the tap-root.

The Secretary: Has it been settled that it is not desirable?

Mr. Lake: Well, I think it has been generally accepted that it is of no special value.

The Secretary: That trees will grow as well transplanted as if they have never been transplanted?

Mr. Lake: Well, I shouldn't want to put it that way, but this is the point: I would like to have the tree planter understand that a walnut tree doesn't need the tap-root and if he cuts off the tap-root in planting, there is no great loss. I wouldn't want to say that his trees wouldn't begin to bear earlier or bear larger if left in the original place. I prefer to transplant my own tree after it is grown, rather than run the risk of getting scrub trees in the post hole or on the hill. I prefer to select the grafted trees even without the tap-roots, which would be removed in digging, and planting them all uniform, rather than to plant the seeds. Speaking for the amateur, I think the latter is good practice. The point I had in mind was that many people will not take the time to plant nuts but will want to set grafted trees, and the question is, should they have considerable tap-root--the grafted trees?

The Secretary: Following my plan, a man would buy a small number of fine trees and set them out at once; that would probably be all he would undertake and all he could probably manage. He would also plant a small number of nuts on which to experiment in propagation. My experience up in Connecticut has been that all my southern transplanted trees, almost without exception, have died. I have planted pecans and Persian walnuts from a number of different nurseries. I have done it personally and done it as carefully as I could, but they have either made a very feeble growth indeed or have all died. On the other hand, the seeds I have planted have grown into very vigorous trees.

Mr. Rush: I have had a little experience with the tap-root theory. You can't dig a walnut tree without cutting the tap-root, and that tap-root, I find, is practically of no benefit at all after you have your upper laterals, and an abundance of them; by cutting the tap-root growth is stimulated and a new tap-root is made. It is very largely in the mode of pruning the tap-root. You can readily stimulate the tap-root system.

The Chairman: You try to keep an equilibrium by cutting down the top in proportion?

Mr. Rush: Yes, sir.

Mr. Pomeroy: In examining transplanted trees I found ten times as many roots where the tap-root had been cut; and there were two tap-roots. I like a tree with a good tap-root system and I am positive that if you transplant a tree you get a better root system, get a great many more roots.

The Chairman: The tree development, it seems to me, depends not upon the number of roots which are carried with it when it is transplanted, but upon the feeding roots which develop. Now, if we cut back the tap-root, cut back the laterals, cut back the top, we have a tree carrying in its cambium layer, food, just as a turnip or beet would carry it--and I look upon a transplanted tree much as a carrot or beet, with stored food ready to make a new root.

Mr. Harris: I planted last fall a year ago a lot of English walnuts. Would the gentleman advise taking those up, cutting the tap-roots and planting them again?

Mr. Rush: I don't think that would be advisable.

Mr. Harris: They were grown from the nuts sown in a row last fall a year ago and grew very well.

Mr. Rush: In propagating the English walnut we have had them do the best by transplanting when the tree is about two years old, but it will more or less disturb the vigor of a tree to transplant it. That is self-evident; it needs some time to heal those wounds that are made both in the root and the branch.

Mr. Harris: What time of year do you bud them?

Mr. Rush: In August.

Mr. Hutt: I notice some trees here that are evidently two-year old pecans that have been cut back, and you notice that in every case several tap-roots have taken the place of the one. Here are some others that have not been cut. These have gone straight down. They are strong roots with few fibers on them. On these other trees that have been cut the formation of tap-roots continues. They will go down till they strike a permanent water-table and then the tap-root will stop. In Hyde County, North Carolina, near the ocean, the water-table is close to the surface and there is a deep black alluvial soil with a great deal of water in it. In order to grow anything there they have to put in ditches to get the water out. The pecan trees growing there have absolutely no tap-roots at all, it rots off as soon as it strikes the permanent water-table; and I think that's the reason they produce such enormous quantities of pecans in that county. In bottomless, sandy land where there is no clay the root keeps on going down till it finds the permanent water-table, even if that is six or eight or ten feet down. These roots, as you see, were going right down to China to look at that king on the other side if they got a chance. It's the same with the long leaf pine. It has a tap-root below ground thicker than the trunk above ground. The reason is that it grows naturally on those bottomless places; the root goes down till it strikes water, then runs off laterally. If you cut the roots they are bound to make new tap-roots. You can see the place where they have been cut and in place of one tap-root you have two, going right down into that sandy soil till they find a water-table. I believe that a nurseryman who will cut off the root of the pecan tree when it is transplanted, will cause it to form more lateral roots and make a better tree. There's a great number of vigorous roots in this tree than in this, and this tree whose root has been cut off will make a tree much easier to transplant and will be a better tree than those with great thick roots without the fibers that have the root hairs upon them.

A member: You wouldn't recommend cutting back that tap-root too severely, would you?

Mr. Hutt: In planting a tree of this kind, I'd cut off a foot or 18 inches. If you get about 24 inches in a specially good soil, or about 30 inches of root ordinarily that's all you want.

A member: I should think that would depend quite a little on the height of the water-table. If you were planting on land where the water-table is low, you would leave more tap-root?

Mr. Hutt: Yes.

A member: That was the reason I brought up the point, because I think cutting so short would be too severe.

Mr. Hutt: The cambium is the only part of the tree that maintains growth. Every wound kills the cambium to a certain extent, so I always cut off roots of any size with sharp shears as smoothly as possible. I cut far enough back to find good, fresh, living tissue. In moist soil that will callous over. In the South the soil is moist and we have growing conditions in the winter time, so it will callous over during the winter. In the North, I understand, you make a practice of planting in the spring, because of the weather conditions.

Mr. Harris: In Western Maryland we have in the mountains a deep, sandy soil; there doesn't appear to be any water bottom to it; what would the tap-root do in that case?

Mr. Hutt: It will go down until it finds what it wants, finds sufficient moisture.

Mr. Harris: Gravelly bottom?

Mr. Hutt: If you have ever seen the roots of a long leaf pine, you've seen where the roots go to when they get a chance.

Prof. Smith: I should like to ask Dr. Deming if he would give us his experience in propagating the walnut and hickory?

Dr. Deming: A very important thing indeed for us nut growers in the North is to learn how to propagate. Dr. Morris has had some success; I haven't had any. I have tried it summer and spring, year after year. I believe there are a few pieces of bark, without buds, still growing. Chestnuts I haven't found very difficult, but with the walnut and hickory I have had no success whatever, although I have practiced the best technique I could master. I think one reason why I have had no success is that I haven't had good material. I have had good stocks, but I haven't had good scions, not the sort of scion that the successful southern nurserymen use. Still, Dr. Morris has had success with the same kind of material that I have failed with.

The Chairman: Not very much success.

Mr. Lake: Dr. Deming said that the land ought not to be too dry nor too wet. Would you feel like saying that a water-table at 24 inches was neither too low nor too high?

Mr. Hutt: It depends a great deal on the nature of the soil, the water-pulling capacity of the soil. Take a soil like that I mentioned, in Hyde County, near the ocean; you can see it quake all around you.

Mr. Lake: But would you say that the northern nut grower might safely put his orchard on soil that had a water-table within two or three feet of the surface?

Mr. Hutt: I could tell if I saw that soil. If it is craw-fishy, or soil that is ill-drained or won't carry ordinary crops, I'd say keep off of it, but if it will bear ordinary crops it's all right; in some cases where the soil is very rich the plant does not need to go down into that soil anything like the depth it would in a poor soil. The poorer the soil the further the roots have to go to find nourishment.

Mr. Lake: I think that is an extremely exceptional case in relation to northern nuts. There is very little such North Carolina land in this section of the country, if I judge right. We don't plant nut-growing orchards up here in peaty soils, so Dr. Deming's recommendation was rather for very good agricultural soil. A water-table here must be eight or ten feet deep; in that event, it would not make any difference whether you left three feet of tap-root or 15 inches.

Mr. Hutt: No.

The Chairman: In the soils of some parts of New England, a tree would have to have a root three or four hundred feet deep to get to flowing water, but nevertheless trees flourish there.

Mr. Lake: But the capillarity of the soil provides water for the tree above the water-table.

Mr. Corsan: It all depends on the kind of nut. At St. Geneva I came across a butternut that was growing in a soil that would kill a chestnut very quickly. The soil was very springy and wet and the butternut just loves that soil. I found that while other butternut trees bore nuts in clusters of one to three, this butternut tree was bearing them in clusters of ten and eleven. At Lake George, right in front of the Post-Office, there was one tree twenty-four years old, two feet through, that grew butternuts in clusters of ten and you could get a barrel of nuts from it. It bore again this last summer heavily, not in clusters of ten but in clusters of seven or eight. When we have damp soil we can't grow the chestnut but the hickory nut will grow in a swamp, and so will the butternut.

The Chairman: And the beech.

Mr. Corsan: The beech wants clay; it won't grow unless there is clay.

The Chairman: Our beech will grow where it has to swim.

Mr. Reed: Before we get away from this discussion I think that we ought to commend Dr. Deming in the selection of this subject and in the handling of his paper. In my position in the Government, we have a good many inquiries about nut matters, and they are usually from people who want to know how to start. The great call for information at the present time is from the beginners, not from the advanced people, and I am glad that Dr. Deming took that subject and handled it as he did, and I am glad that he proposes to issue it as a circular from this Association. It will be a great relief to others who are called on for information.

I should like to have a word, too, about this tap-root question. From what has been said it is pretty clear that there is quite a difference of opinion. We sometimes think we can improve on nature in her ways by harsh methods and, while I know it is customary in the nurseries of the South to cut the tap-roots back pretty severely, I wonder, sometimes, whether that is always the best thing.

I haven't had any personal experience, but I have observed quite a good deal, and the tendency, it seems to me, is to try to develop as much as possible the fibrous root. Sometimes that is brought about by cutting the tap-root, or putting a wire mesh below where the seed is planted, so as to form an obstruction to the tap-root, so that it necessarily forms a fibrous root. Where the tap-root is the only root I doubt very much the advisability of cutting back too severely.

Col. Van Duzee: I have heard this subject discussed all over this country, in meetings of this kind, and a great deal of energy has been wasted. I do not think any of us know anything about it, but I do wish to say this, that when you come to transplant a tree from the nursery to the orchard, there are things of infinitely more moment than how you shall hold your knife between your fingers when you cut the roots. The exposure of the roots to the air, the depth to which the tree is to be put in the ground, the manner in which it shall be handled--those things are of infinitely more importance, because we know we can transplant trees successfully and get good results when the tap-root has been injured or almost entirely removed. I do not consider that the question of cutting the tap-root is of very serious importance, but I do think we should insert a word of caution as to the exposure of the roots of trees to the atmosphere, and make it just as strong as we are capable of writing it.

The Chairman: That is a very interesting point, that we have fixed our eye on the tap-root and talked too much about it. Not long ago one of the agricultural journals decided finally to settle the question about the time for pruning grapes, whether it should be done in the fall, spring, winter or summer, and after summing up all the testimony from enthusiastic advocates for each one of the seasons, the editor decided that the best time is when your knife is sharp; and that is very much the way with the tap-root. Be very particular in getting the root in and caring for it.

Mr. Pomeroy: Prof. Close, in a bulletin issued two years ago, spoke as does Col. VanDuzee about protecting the roots of the trees; he said "when the trees are taken from the box that you receive them in, don't expose them to the sun or air, puddle every tree, and plant as soon as possible." I think that is pretty good advice. It doesn't cost any money, and takes very few minutes, to puddle the trees and it saves many of them.

The Chairman: I have tried the Stringfellow Method of cutting back top and root until my men asked me if I didn't want to transplant another tree instead, and they have grown just as well as trees on which I took great pains to preserve fine branching roots.

The Secretary: The last thing in my thought was to start a discussion of this perennial subject of the tap-root, but I should like criticism of this little circular, no matter how severe, because I am not finally committed to it and want to make it as useful as possible.

Prof. Smith: Every man likes to ride his own hobby horse. Would it not be wise to suggest that some of these seedlings be put in odd corners? Certainly the hickory and walnut are adept in making themselves a home in the roughest kind of land.

The Secretary: I have tried that, but I don't think, as a rule, the trees do well when stuck around in fence corners and odd places. To be sure the trees I put behind the barn or pig pen have grown beautifully, so that at one time I thought of building barns and pig pens all over the farm to put trees behind, but where they were set in fence corners and out of the way places they have not done very well. I think the experience of others is about to the same effect.

Prof. Smith: My experience has been different from yours. I have some chestnut and walnut trees, on an unploughable hillside in the corner of my father's farm in Virginia which I stuck there ten or a dozen years ago and have done very little to them. Of course they are native. They have thriven. Nature does it exactly that way.

The Secretary: It seems to me there is no question that they will do better under cultivation. Of course they may do fairly well in odd places if they can dominate the other growth.

Prof. Smith: A man could take a pocketful of the various kinds of nuts and go around his fence corners and plant a few. In an hour he can plant fifty, and if he gets one to grow it is good return for that hour's work.

The Secretary: I have advised people to take a handful of nuts and a cane when they go out walking and occasionally stick one in.

The Chairman: In our locality, people would ask, "Why is that string of squirrels following that man?"

Mr. Corsan: I have been planting nuts in that way for years.

The Chairman: If a man planted trees which belonged in his neighborhood, nuts that were already in the dominant ruling group, then his chances for success would be very good, but if he introduced in fence corners trees that had to adjust themselves to a new environment, he would find very few growing and the squirrels, other trees and various obstacles to development in the midst of established species, would wipe out most of them. Nevertheless, as it isn't much trouble, I would advise anybody to take a pocketful of hickory nuts out with him when he goes for a walk and plant one every little way.

A Member: The idea is good; let us follow it up.

Mr. Rush: I don't think it is feasible at all to plant trees around fence corners.

The Chairman: In our locality it would not do at all.

A Member: It won't do in any locality. The sods and grass around the tree will dwarf it and cause a very slow growth. Our time is valuable and we can't wait on that kind of a tree to bring results. Cultivation is the main need. Sometimes trees will do well where the soil is rich and competition absent. In Burlington, N. J. we found a walnut tree bearing enormous crops in a back yard. I have seen the same thing in this county, and also in Carlisle, and the Nebo tree, famous for its wonderful productiveness, has a similar environment. But it is high cultivation that usually is necessary for the best results in all trees, and walnut trees particularly.

The Secretary: Here is a note relating to this subject:

"The women of Sapulpa, Okla., who recently organized for city and county improvement and advancement, have determined to plant pecan, walnut and hickory trees on both sides of a road now being constructed through Creek County, basing their action on the theory that two pecan trees placed in the back yard of a homestead will pay the taxes on the property. They believe that when the trees begin to bear they will provide a fund large enough for the maintenance of the road."

The Chairman: That's all right if you can look after them.

Mr. Littlepage: It is very interesting to listen to these discussions of roadside trees and I have until recently been a strong advocate of them, but I have changed my opinion. I don't think there is anything in the planting of trees in fence corners or along the roadside, for several reasons. The first reason is that nobody knows how long it is going to take that tree to amount to anything. I wouldn't give two cents a piece for trees stuck out where you cannot cultivate them and get to them to fertilize them. Another thing, we are right up against the problem of the insect pests of these trees and who is going to take care of them along the roadside? The insect pests will get on them and come into the fields of the man who is cultivating and raising trees legitimately. Down in southern Indiana, now, we find along the roadside hundreds of walnut trees that are every year eaten up with caterpillars. They love those trees and come over on to my trees. I keep my trees cleaned off pretty well. There's that problem. Up to a short time ago I was an advocate of roadside trees. It would be all right if there was some means of cultivating them. If there is land somewhere that is of no use, so that it doesn't make a bit of difference whether the trees on it have insect pests or not, you can go out there and scatter nuts and let it alone and wait the length of time you've got to wait. I don't think it's of much value, however, even then. I don't think there is a thing in it. I used to pride myself on the fact that I had set out more trees than anybody else in the State of Indiana. I haven't bragged about that for a long time, though I have set out, perhaps, in the last eight or ten years, or had set out under my direction, about 750,000 trees; I am not particularly proud of that any more, but I am proud to meet the fellow who has set out twenty or thirty acres of trees on good land, the best he's got, and cultivated them and kept the insects off of them and burned them up instead of letting them prey on the neighborhood. I think there should be a law passed that these trees along the roadside must be cut down or that somebody will have to take care of them.

The Chairman: The original idea of roadside trees was constructive in its nature but failed to include the idea that, with the increase of orchard trees, or trees of any one species, we increase the insect pests because we disturb the balance of nature; and by disturbing the balance of nature we give advantage to insects which then remain on neglected trees to prove a menace to our own orchards. It we have various towns setting out roadside trees and detailing the children to look after them, asking the children to report on them, I believe the thing can be made a success and that the taxes of many a small town can be paid from the nut trees along the roadside, provided you have one boy or one girl for each tree, their services to be given free and the profit from the tree to be given to the town.

Mr. Corsan: How about the cattle? Let them keep grazing around?

The Chairman: Oh, my, yes.

Prof. Smith: I think we sometimes let our feelings make us say things that our brains would scarcely approve. I believe Mr. Littlepage's charge against the tree on the roadside is not necessarily substantiated. I don't know just how he is going to take care of his trees, but if it requires a vehicle carrying spray, I submit that a roadside tree is about as well fixed as one in his field. If it requires a man with a stick or a hoe or a ladder, the tree on the roadside is in about as eligible a location as one in the field. If care implies the idea of turning over the soil, the roadside is handicapped, but nature has got along without having the soil upturned. My point is this; there is on nearly every farm in the East a little patch of land somewhere, a little row between a road and stream where a few trees can grow, and if fertilization is required, a few barrels of manure can go there as well as anywhere else. The fact that a tree is put in a place that is not ploughed doesn't mean that it is beyond all care. My point is that with care we can get trees in fence rows without tillage and that, in addition to Dr. Deming's formal and carefully cultivated plot, there is about every farm a place where a man can stick a few trees and give them such care as can be given without tillage.

Mr. Littlepage: I agree heartily with Prof. Smith's theory, but having had some experience, I find those things that he describes are not done; there is just that difference, always, between theory and fact. I read a beautiful book once, written by a woman, entitled, "There is No Death," and I found on inquiry that she had already buried four husbands. (Laughter.) I was much interested in reading, once upon a time, Rousseau's beautiful story of domestic life and I found that while he was writing it, his children were in an orphan asylum. A fellow teaching in the high school in Terre Haute, Indiana, married one of the beautiful attractive young ladies of that town. Shortly after they were married he was busy writing and turned and told her that he didn't love her any more and he wished she'd go home. She was heartbroken and left and it turned out later that he was writing a book on how to get to Heaven. (Laughter.) There's just the difference between theory and fact. This is a beautiful theory. I used to be the strongest advocate of it, but all you've got to do is to go on a farm and try it. The trees won't get big enough to amount to anything in our lifetime, because these things you say you will do to them you don't do; at least, that has been my experience, and I would like to ask anyone to point to any section in the United States today, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, where this theory is carried out successfully; and yet I know it has been advocated for fifty years.

The Chairman: How about school children reporting on trees under their care?

Mr. Littlepage: Whenever you give the proper care to them you solve the problem--whenever anyone will convince me that that will be done. There is no reason, of course, why the tree won't grow in these places, but my experience is that they don't thrive.

The Chairman: I've put out thousands of them for public-spirited citizens, but it would be difficult to find one of them today.

Mr. Rush: In France and in Germany the land is very valuable and they take a great deal of pride in their nut trees. The nuts we have here in the Lancaster market, Persian walnuts, are largely brought from France, Spain, Italy and Germany. The land being so valuable there, they devote much of their waste land to nuts, like Mr. Smith's idea of planting along the wayside, and they plant and cultivate them in their yards and in all corners. They would not, under any consideration, plant a maple tree just for the shade; the tree must serve for both fruit and shade, and those are some of the sources of foreign wealth.

Mr. Harris: I don't think the question is so much one of planting in fence corners as that we have a great deal of waste land on which the soil is very well adapted to growing nut trees. I know that sometimes in growing peach trees it is almost impossible to cultivate them. I know places in western Maryland where the rocks are lying so that you can hardly plough, and yet the soil is fertile and particularly adapted in some places for peach trees, and would be for chestnut trees. They have there a system of cultivation much as if you used the plough, and yet they are on steep hillsides. There is no reason, I think, why nut trees shouldn't grow there as well as on the level field where you can cultivate every inch of soil.

The Chairman: They are looked after, that's the whole thing.

Mr. Gowing: I come from New Hampshire and we have what used to be an old farm, but it is now a pasture and the soil is quite a potash soil, I think, amongst the rocks, and there's some apple trees planted there by the original man that worked this place. It was too rough to plough, but they have borne us as good apples some years as we have had on the place; and on this same piece of twenty acres or so, there's some chestnut trees more than two feet through that were cut off when the land was cleared, and they must have done well, for they grew to be such enormous trees.

The Chairman: The trees are planted on this same old stump land?

Mr. Gowing: Yes, sir.

The Chairman: A great deal of stump land can be planted in this way.

Mr. Corsan: That wouldn't be planting them along roadsides and in fence corners.

The Chairman: No, they would be looked after; the whole thing is looking after them.

A Member: My idea is that there would be very few nut trees planted if every one was to start his own trees. They put off planting the trees even when they can get them at the nurseries, and if they had to start their own nurseries there wouldn't be one planted to where there's 10,000 now; and I think that in the end the nurserymen are going to attend to the planting of trees and the other people are going to attend to growing them. Maybe I'm mistaken but did this Government ever produce any trees? Prof. Smith spoke of appropriating money and letting the Government get us some new variety. Hasn't it always been private individuals who get the new varieties? I have been trying to think of some fruit tree, apple or something, that a state or the Government has propagated.

The Chairman: In this country I believe the Government has never done it, but in some parts of Europe, especially Switzerland, the taxes of some towns are paid by the trees along the roadside; but there every man has to report on his own trees and the proceeds go to support the town, and the taxes of certain small towns are actually paid today by roadside trees; but this is in a country where land is valuable, and every tree is under the direct supervision of a citizen who must report on it, and the product of that tree goes to the Government, he giving his labor instead of paying taxes.

Prof. Smith: I was merely pleading for the continuation and spread of that work, both geographically and in increasing the varieties of trees.

Mr. Lake: I am heartily in favor of that, but I think it ought to be referred to a committee. I want Prof. Smith to write it out in the form of a letter.

Prof. Smith: I am glad you called my attention to that.

Mr. Lake: The Government and the states are now engaged in such work and this ought to give it impetus. I think that the time and labor of the Nut Growers Association, since its organization, will have been well spent if we succeed in bringing to fructification this one resolution. I want also to suggest that Prof. Smith include among the nuts, the beechnut, because there's more meat in beechnuts for the amount of shell than any other nut we grow.

The Chairman: If there is no further discussion, we will have now to spend a short time in Executive Committee work. I think we will ask to have a Nominating Committee appointed first. Mr. Rush, will you kindly read the list of the names of the men you proposed to act as a Nominating Committee?

Mr. Rush then moved that the Nominating Committee consist of Messrs. Lake, Hutt, C. A. Reed, Smith and Deming, and the motion was adopted, after which the Nominating Committee reported as follows: For President, Mr. Littlepage; for Vice-President, Mr. C. A. Reed; for Secretary and Treasurer, Dr. Deming. On Executive Committee: Dr. Robert T. Morris, in place of Mr. C. A. Reed. On Hybrids, Prof. J. R. Smith, in place of Mr. Henry Hicks. On Membership Committee, Mr. G. H. Corsan, in place of Prof. E. R. Lake. On Committee on Nomenclature, Dr. W. C. Deming in place of Prof. John Craig; the other committees to stand as heretofore.

Mr. Lake: I move that the secretary be instructed to cast the ballot of the association for these nominations.

The motion was seconded and adopted and the ballot cast in accordance therewith.

The Chairman: Now I will appoint as a Committee on Resolutions relating to Prof. Craig, Dr. Deming and the Chairman; Committee on Exhibits, Col. VanDuzee, Mr. Roper and C. A. Reed, and they will be here this evening to report on exhibits. Committee on Resolutions, Prof. J. Russell Smith and Mr. T. P. Littlepage. There is no Committee on Incorporation. Will someone propose that we have such a committee?

The Secretary: Isn't it a desirable thing that the society should be incorporated? It was mentioned to me by a wealthy man that if anyone wished to leave, or give, some money to this association, they would be much more likely to do it if the society were incorporated.

The Chairman: I think it would be better for someone to make a motion.

Mr. Lake: I move that a Committee on Incorporation be appointed by the chairman; a committee of three.

(Motion seconded and adopted.)

The Chairman: The Committee on Incorporation will consist of Mr. Littlepage and Prof. Close. This evening we will meet informally here at about eight and tomorrow at ten we have the meeting at the Scenic to hear the papers of Mr. Rush and Prof. Lake and Prof. Reed, and see the lantern slides. We will first meet here at nine o'clock for an executive meeting and to look over the exhibits. The Committees will report at that time.

(After discussion, on motion of Prof. Smith, seconded by Mr. Littlepage, the selection of the place of the next meeting was left to the Executive Committee.)

The report of the Secretary and Treasurer was then read.

(SEE APPENDIX)

The Chairman: You have heard the Secretary's report. We had better take up, first, the question of deficit. What are we going to do about the $66.00? What prospects have we for the balancing of that account?

The Secretary: That account will be easily balanced, and more than balanced, by the dues coming in and then I will proceed to run up a deficit for next year.

The Chairman: You have heard the Secretary's report. If there is no discussion, a motion to adjourn will be in order.

(Adjourned till December 19th.)

* * * * *

The Convention met, pursuant to adjournment, December 19th, 1912, at 9:30 A. M., President Morris in the Chair, and went into Executive Session.

It was moved and carried that the President be empowered to appoint a committee to attend the conference at Albany, called for the consideration of the hickory bark borer, by the Commissioner of Agriculture of the State of New York.

The question of the publication of reports of the Convention proceedings in the American Fruit and Nut Journal, was next taken up and it was moved by Mr. Lake and carried that the papers and discussions of this Society shall be used for its own publications exclusively, except as the Executive Committee deems it to the best interests of the industry to furnish them for separate publication.

The Secretary: On November 8th, I received a letter from Calvin J. Huson, the Commissioner of Agriculture of New York, to this effect.

Dear Sir:

At the coming land show in New York this department proposes to have, as a part of its exhibit, a collection of native and introduced New York grown nuts.

Can you give us the names of growers of the better strains of nuts who might be able to furnish material for such an exhibit. Perhaps your association would be able to assist in the matter. The Department will be able to stand a reasonable expense for cost of nuts, expressage, etc. Perhaps a few seedling trees would add interest.... By the exhibit as a whole we wish to show the variety and quality of nuts that may be grown in this state....

Very truly yours,
CALVIN J. HUSON,
Commissioner.

He wished me to assist in getting up an exhibit, but as he only gave us a week I was unable to do anything. I do not know that there is any action to be taken on that, but I read the letter simply to show that the interest in nut growing is increasing and that this is an opportunity for us to make an exhibit another year.

Mr. Lake: Would the secretary take the trouble to make a collection of nuts covering the territory of the association and submit it for exhibit at a meeting of this character, this land show, giving credit to the donors for material, somewhat as Mr. Reed has done in pecans for the National Nut Growers Association?

The Secretary: I think I'd have a few minutes to spare to do that.

Mr. Lake: I think it would be an admirable thing.

The Chairman: Yes, it would advertise the organization extensively and be a constructive step in agriculture.

* * * * *

Mr. Littlepage, have you any report from the Committee on Incorporation?

Mr. Littlepage: That is a matter that will require considerable thought and attention. It will require attention from several standpoints, as for example under what laws we might wish to incorporate, so I think the committee will reserve its report to make to the Executive Committee at some later meeting.

The Chairman: We have no other business, I believe, and will now retire to the hall where we will have the lantern slide exhibition. The morning session closes the meeting and we are to meet at two o'clock at the Monument and from there go out to see certain trees in the vicinity. Mr. Rush and Mr. Jones are to show us these and their two nurseries.

Mr. Lake: I would like to offer as a resolution, that the secretary be instructed to make arrangements with the publishers of the American Fruit and Nut Journal for the distribution of one copy to each member as a part of his membership fee. The secretary will then be able to reach the members in his published notices without special printers' troubles of his own, and the members will be able to get some live matter right along.

The motion was seconded and adopted, after which the executive session closed and the members adjourned in a body to the Scenic Theatre, where the regular program was resumed as follows:

The Chairman: We will have Mr. Rush's paper first.

THE PERSIAN WALNUT, ITS DISASTER AND LESSONS FOR 1912

J. G. RUSH, PENNSYLVANIA

The year just closing has been full of disasters both on land and sea, though I do not wish it to be understood that I am inclined to be a pessimist on account of these occurrences.

I wish to speak of a disaster which overtook the walnut industry in the northern states. Early in the year we had an arctic cold wave which put the thermometer from 23 to 33 degrees below zero. This cold wave apparently did no injury to the walnut trees at the time but late in the spring it was discovered that the wood cells were ruptured though the buds and bark were uninjured. In cutting the scions in early April the bark and buds seemed in good condition for grafting; but as the time approached to do the work it was readily seen, by its changed color, that the wood was injured, some scions of course more than others. Those that were only slightly discolored were used in grafting. But as time passed the unhappy result came to light that out of about 2,000 nursery trees grafted only one graft grew. After climbing an 80 foot walnut tree to get our scions, and paying a good price for them besides, this was rather discouraging.

This cold wave, which was unprecedented for the time, had wrought other injuries to the nut industry. That was especially to the young trees that were transplanted the fall previous and last spring. The transplanting with a frost injury already was too great a strain on the feeble life of the trees. The consequence was that some of them died outright, and others made only a feeble growth. But where low and severe pruning was practised good results followed and such trees as were established on the original root system escaped the frost injury entirely. The young nursery trees with dormant buds were not affected in the least but made a strong growth of from three to seven feet this last summer.

The intense cold wave was such that some old and young seedling Persian walnut trees were killed outright, and not only the Persian walnut but in a few instances the American black was very much injured; likewise the Norway maple, magnolia, California privet and roses. Also the peach both in tree and fruit.

Now in conclusion let me say, what is the lesson to be learned? First, as to the propagation of the Persian walnut, great care should be taken that only trees that are hardy should be propagated from, as well as having good bearing qualities with a first class nut. Second, after a freeze such as we had last winter, a special effort should be made to save the newly planted tree by close and severe pruning. As, for example, I had a very fine two year old Hall Persian walnut which was referred to me as dead. I cut the tree off about 4 inches above where it was budded on the black walnut stock. It was not long after that signs of new life appeared and eventually it made a very fine, handsome tree. Nature does indeed some wonderful tricks in this respect by which we can learn valuable lessons; and chief of these is close pruning.