Chapter C: C. LOUNSBERRY, Iowa State College (2)

The louse, _Callaphis castaneae_, appeared on July 5, 1947, at least the leaves became so much curled that its presence was then noticed. Two spraying on successive days with nicotine sulphate ("Black Leaf 40") were sufficient to control it. With us this insect attacks leaves of American stock only. Japanese-American hybrids are also susceptible, but not Chinese-American or American-Chinese. The lice, of an orange color, congregate in great numbers along the midrib of the leaf, sucking out its juices.

This summer, perhaps on account of the unusual almost tropical weather conditions--hot and humid with continually recurring showers--we have been harassed by a new pest which has appeared in one of our plantations only sparingly for five or six years--a mite, which Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station authorities say is _Paratetranychus bicolor_. Affected leaves have a whitish or grayish color chiefly along midrib and principal veins, due partly to the deposit of the creature's shells on molting, and partly to injury to the tissues of the leaf. Hexa-ethyl tetraphosphate, known in the trade as "Killex 100," was used effectually twice as a spray. Unfortunately this chemical has no ovicidal properties, so that a second spraying was necessary to kill the mites newly hatched out from thousands of eggs. We are informed that DN 111 will kill the eggs as well as the mites and will kill aphids at the same time. The mites seem to prefer Chinese chestnut leaves, but this summer they didn't seem particular and spread from one badly infested tree as a center.

_Chinese Chestnuts._ I am enthusiastic about Chinese chestnuts as a nut substitute for our old native chestnuts. The Chinese are quite blight resistant. They are attacked by the blight fungus--at least most individuals suffer at some time in their lives, and yet the fungus doesn't thrive and the trees are able to overcome its attacks, in many cases forming a healing wound callus around the lesions; in others the lesion becomes simply a granular mass in which the fungus appears to be living only in the outer bark. Cultivation, fertilization, and judicious pruning certainly help these trees to withstand these fungus attacks. We harvested a bumper crop last year and this from trees given us in 1929 by the Division of Forest Pathology, U.S.D.A.

_Public Interest in the Problem._ Last fall, September 1946, in an article in the Yankee Magazine, I asked for nuts and pollen of the American chestnut. As a result the following persons from many different parts of the country sent in nuts: Mr. Henry Hartung, Methuen, Mass.; Mrs. Marie Garlichs, Brooklyn, from Lake Minnewaska, N. Y.; Mr. Charles Ericson, Brooklyn, nuts from Staten Island, N. Y.; Mrs. Jay B. Nash, N. Y. City, from Lake Sebago, Sloatsburg, N. Y.; Mr. H. W. Donnelly, Tacoma, Wash.; Mr. George M. Hindmarsh, Kent County, R. I.; Mrs. Steiner, Niota, Tenn.; Miss Marjorie Bacon, New Haven, Conn. from Litchfield, Conn. through Dr. Edgar Heermance; Mr. Harold E. Willmott, Bethel, Conn.; Mr. W. F. Jacobs, Tallahassee, Fla. (_Castanea crenata_); Mr. P. P. Pirone, New Brunswick, N. J. (_C. crenata_); Mr. Morton F. Sweet, Seattle, Wash. (_C. sativa_), nuts, and scions in March '47; Mr. John I. Shafer, Sparta, Tenn. This lists shows not only the widespread interest in the subject but also that the chestnut sprouts are still bearing nuts. In some cases the nuts were "blind," i.e. sterile, containing no kernel or embryo. In order to develop a good nut there must be two chestnut trees within a reasonable distance of each other so that cross fertilization may take place. Isolated trees will usually not bear nuts. In other words, the chestnut is usually self sterile. We are still planting all nuts received, labeled with the name and address of the sender. The resulting trees are being set out in the Yale Forest in Tolland and Windham Counties, Conn. under the direction of Mr. Basil Plusnin, Forester in charge. Thus the possibility is being explored of the existence of blight resistant strains of the American chestnut. When nuts are sent they should be mailed within a few days after harvesting and wrapped in moist cotton, peat moss or something similar. Drying of the nut kills the embryo so that it will no longer germinate. Nuts should be mailed to me at Chestnut Plantations, Wallingford, Conn.

Pollen of the American chestnut is getting scarce. After scouring the vicinity of Hamden, Conn. this summer, we found a good supply at Bethany, Conn. from native shoots. The following persons also sent us American pollen, for which we are indeed grateful: Mr. George Gilmer, Charlottesville, Va.; Mrs. M. E. Garlichs, Lake Minnewaska, N. Y.; Mr. Alfred Szego, Pine Plains, N. Y.; Mr. Seward Pauley, Sumerco, W. Va.; and Mr. Charles W. Mann, Fennville, Mich. To ship the pollen it is necessary only to wrap small branches bearing the catkins in oiled paper and mail to me, preferably by air mail. The catkins should be ripe, i.e. shedding the pollen.

_Acknowledgments._ It is a pleasure to have this opportunity to express our appreciation of the cooperation of the above mentioned persons. The interest of these and many other persons and institutions is encouraging. During 1946 and 1947 this project has been sponsored by the Connecticut Geological and Natural History Survey, and we have as usual enjoyed the cordial cooperation of the Division of Forest Pathology, U.S.D.A. Dept. of Agriculture.

Beginning as of October 1, 1947, the work is also being sponsored by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, Conn. On July 1 I retired from my position as Curator of Public Instructor at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and shall now be able to devote my entire time to the chestnut work. My permanent address will be: Chestnut Plantations, Wallingford, Conn.

Chinese Chestnuts in the Chattahoochee Valley

G. S. JONES, Route 1, Box 140, Phenix City, Alabama

(Excerpts from letter to Secretary, Oct. 23, 1947.)

Growing trees is a work dear to my heart for I have been interested in it since childhood. Dr. J. Russell Smith's book on "Tree Crops" is one of the best I have ever read along the lines of growing trees to produce food for man and beast as well as producing many other useful products, and much of the work of your Association seems to be along the same line. I am sure we can live easier and better on this earth when we learn to use the trees in their proper place. Man often acts in a shortsighted way by depending largely on annual crops for the main source of food for himself and his animals and neglects the long lived trees which may not have to be planted but once in a lifetime and which, if given a little intelligent management, will improve instead of deplete his land and at the same time make a far more beautiful landscape.

I only have a few trees (maybe 200 or 250) in my nursery which I usually dispose of at the farm or use to set on my place. I have not attempted to grow many seedlings as I don't wish to get into this phase of work. It would take too much time from other work which I like to do. This fall I have sold over 600 pounds of nuts to various nurseries for planting so I would prefer that they grow and sell trees from my orchard. I gather planting nuts from the trees which show the best qualities, consistently, and sell the nuts from the other trees for eating purposes. The trees from which I sell eating nuts have some bad qualities such as some of the nuts being retained in burs, irregular or poor production, and nuts that seem to be too dry at ripening so I would not offer these for sale although the pollen from these trees does mix with the others causing some of the nuts to carry these bad features, a thing which will hardly be avoided in open-pollinated seedlings.

Your letter made me more proud of my orchard than ever when you made the statement that my last year's production of 1,722 pounds for 22 trees so young as mine may have set a record for production. [See 1946 NNGA Report, p. 128--Ed.] I had little idea how my trees compared with other orchards, for Mr. Gravatt had not told me anything about this. In fact I have never seen him nor did I take the trouble to write and ask this question. I knew my trees were producing much better than an orchard of the Soil Conservation Service at Auburn but I attributed that to the better type of soil (for chestnuts) in which my trees are set, and better air drainage. I had also heard about an orchard near Blue Springs above Columbus, Ga., which was not doing so well because the soil was maybe too heavy or damp. I can say one thing and that is that my Chinese chestnuts have surely surpassed my fondest hopes and dreams, for that small area has certainly made me lots of money and has given me much joy in tending it and watching it grow.

You asked me to give some information about my 1947 crop. This has not been quite as large as last year as I have harvested only a little over 1,554 pounds (I say a little over for it is hard to get all the nuts) of weighed nuts. This includes some that were beginning to spoil. I include these since it is sometimes due to my failure to gather promptly and I think can be fairly included in production records. I might state here in fairness to last year's report of a yield of 1,722 pounds of nuts that I recorded 1,557 as being sold which leaves a difference of 165 pounds, which were either discarded as spoiling or were unaccounted for. This gives me a loss of approximately 10% for last year.

Although my total production was lower than last year I had one tree (ML No. 2) which produced 150 pounds of weighed nuts and a few pounds more (maybe 2 or 3) which were not included. This tree has been a consistent heavy bearer for several years but I had not checked its yield separately before. Since it is so early it was easy to keep the nuts separate (as I was keeping these to sell for seed nuts). In about 2 weeks time it had produced about 130 pounds so I made a special effort to check the remainder since I was astonished at so large a yield. When most of the nuts had fallen I had the above figure, to my surprise.

The tree in size is not my largest but about average being 12-1/2" in diameter 3' above the ground with a limb spread of 30' and a height of 24'. It has a very symmetrical shape with enough rigidity in the limbs to hold them off the ground so the tree does not appear very large.

I just had to laugh when I got a letter yesterday from Mr. Ralph D. Gardner, whom I had written previously about the yield of this tree and sent 2 pounds of nuts from it, asking me if the tree produced two crops in one year. He said Mr. James Hobson had told him that he gets two crops from his tree each year. Mr. Gardner had a good reason to ask this question since knowing about the Hobson chestnut, but I reckon he might have thought about what I would have thought under similar circumstances, i.e., surely a tree so young (13-1/2 years from setting) couldn't produce that many nuts at one time, so must have two ripening periods to contain the fruit. I will have to say that all these were produced in one crop. Most of these ripened in just a little over two weeks. I might say that I do have one tree (ML No. 1) which has on a few occasions bloomed the second time and had burs which remained green until near frost but these did not amount to anything and I consider it undesirable. I have never seen No. 2 tree produce late blooms and burs.

I might tell a few things as to how I handle my nuts. As is well said by Mr. Reed in his 1946 article about chestnuts they should be gathered daily (although I sometimes don't carry this out). After weighing I dump the nuts in a tub of water. The nuts which are beginning to spoil will practically all float and the sound nuts will sink. This is where the largest percentage of my culls is eliminated. Some good nuts will float but very few if the nuts are gathered daily. I then put 20 to 25 pounds of nuts in a coarse mesh burlap bag. I use chicken scratch feed bags mostly as these are a nice size, and ties a string near the top of the bag. Then I place these on a lath frame which is about 12" above the ground under a large pecan tree which furnishes shade about 3/4 of the day. I arrange the nuts in the bag so it will be flat, which does not allow more than 2 or 3 nuts to be on top of each other.

On days of moderate temperature I wet these bags thoroughly with water once a day but on very hot or windy days I often wet them twice. This keeps the nuts moist most of the time and lowers the temperature considerably from the evaporation. In this way I can keep the nuts days and days and even weeks with very little change except a slight drying. If any spoiled nuts were missed by the water these too will show up in about 10 days with specks of white mold and can be eliminated. The other nuts seem to be as good as the day they were gathered. I only use this to keep them temperarily (as it is some trouble to wet them) and mostly for the eating nuts until I can take them to market or put them on cold storage (30 deg. to 35 deg.F.) If I attempt to hold seed nuts about a week or more I pack in damp sphagnum in crates and keep these under the shade tree with excellent results. This year I used green sphagnum with all its water and the nuts seemed to keep well in it. Some nuts have been in damp sphagnum for over 5 weeks now and are in excellent shape except for a few that spoiled at first (which I am quite sure were bad to begin with). If too much water is used some nuts will begin sprouting but it is surprising how much they can stand and show no tendency to sour.

I am of the opinion that the chestnuts in my section get ripe prematurely and that at a time when we often have our hottest and dryest weather. These nuts seem to need a period to continue their ripening under cool moist conditions which the wet sack treatment gives (or the damp sphagnum.) Even if this is not the case I have had splendid results with it whereas before I began using this method with lots of water I often became so discouraged that I thought I would have to abandon trying to put my chestnuts on the market. Now if I can get them gathered promptly I have little trouble holding them until I am ready to dispose of them.

I failed to tell you that the bad feature about my ML No. 2 tree which produced the 150 pounds of nuts is its early ripening period (the latter part of August and first part of September) which causes some of the nuts to be spoiled almost when they fall. A few hours of too hot sun seems to start the spoiling process. The tree has no other objectionable features except the nuts are only small to medium in size but nearly every one falls freely from the burs. [Nuts about 70 to the pound.--Ed.]

Some Results with Filbert Breeding at Geneva, N.Y.[6]

GEORGE L. SLATE New York (Geneva) Agricultural Experiment Station

This paper reports the results of attempts to improve filberts by hybridization at the Experiment Station at Geneva, N. Y. The filbert project was started at Geneva in the spring of 1925 when a collection of varieties from American sources was established. In later years additional varieties from European and other sources were added until about 120 were under test. As soon as the varieties had fruited for several years it became evident that many of them were inferior and not adapted to New York conditions. A few exhibited considerable merit and the range of characteristics in the different varieties indicated that it might be worth while to start a filbert breeding project with the object of combining the desirable characteristics of the better sorts.

[Footnote 6: Journal Paper No. 719, New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, N. Y.]

It was decided first to cross Rush, a selected form of _Corylus americana_, with the best varieties of _Corylus Avellana_, Rush contributing the hardiness of the native hazel, possible resistance to filbert blight, and the hybrid vigor that sometimes results from the crossing of two species. The European filberts were expected to furnish large-sized nuts as well as dessert and cracking quality.

The first crosses were made in 1930 when two trees of the Rush variety growing on Dr. MacDaniels' place in Ithaca were pollinated with pollen of several varieties of _Corylus Avellana_ that was brought from Geneva. Additional crosses were made at Ithaca in 1931 and 1933. In 1932 the pollinations were made at Geneva, using a Barcelona tree covered with a tightly woven cloth. No pollinations have been made since 1933.

In the spring of 1932, 535 seedlings were received from Willard G. Bixby, of Baldwin, Long Island, N. Y., which had resulted from crosses made by C. A. Reed of the United States Department of Agriculture, at Baldwin. Including these U.S.D.A. seedlings and those resulting from the breeding work at Geneva, 1,999 seedlings have fruited.

The nuts from these crosses were stratified in sand in a cold frame, dug up, and planted in the greenhouse in early March. After one transplanting they were moved to the nursery to grow for two years, when they were moved to the seedling orchard. The nuts from one year's crosses were planted directly in the nursery but germination was low due to drought.

The seedlings were spaced 10 x 5 feet in the orchard. This spacing was satisfactory if the trees came into bearing the fourth year, but if unfavorable weather eliminated the first or second crops the trees became too crowded to permit satisfactory fruiting. Usually, however, the trees fruited sufficiently to make it possible to evaluate them and remove the inferior trees so that the better seedlings would have enough room to remain for several additional crops.

During the first few years the orchard was clean cultivated until cover crops were sown in August. In later years the orchards were not cultivated but nitrogen fertilization was substituted. Satisfactory growth was maintained, but the grass and weeds made harvesting more difficult. No pruning was done except at planting time as the seedlings were all evaluated before pruning was needed. Suckers were removed around the young trees, but as they became older this was not done and some of the plants now have several stems.

Evaluating the Seedlings

The nuts were harvested in the fall after they had dropped, or, with the later maturing seedlings and those which tended to cling to the tree, they were harvested by picking or shaking them from the tree. As soon as practicable the nuts were husked and the crop of each tree weighed and recorded. Samples of nuts of every seedling fruiting were placed on paper plates, each population being by itself, and eight or ten nuts of each sample were cracked and left on the plate. The seedlings were then divided into three classes, those that were obviously good, those that were poor, and an intermediate class that received further attention. The poor seedlings were marked for discard and if so marked for two or three years they were pulled out.

The good seedlings were then examined more carefully and sorted into three groups, as follows:

1. Those that were outstanding in both nut and tree characters.

2. Those that were good enough to propagate for a second test, but not equal to the best.

3. Seedlings good enough to keep for further observation. These were usually good in one or more characteristics but deficient or doubtful in one important feature. If upon further testing these third group plants proved to be outstandingly productive or hardy they were given a higher rating.

In examining the nuts, emphasis was placed on size and color of the nut, the large, bright brown nuts being considered more desirable than the smaller, duller colored, pubescent nuts. The amount of space between the shell and the kernel was important. If the kernel fitted tightly it was easily broken or chipped in cracking the nut. Thickness of shell was of minor importance as only a few were thick enough to make cracking difficult.

The kernel characters were of most importance since the kernel is the reason for producing the nut. The kernel must be plump, smooth, light brown in color, and free of the superfluous pellicle, or fibrous material that is characteristic of the Barcelona kernels. Generally, seedlings with Rush as one parent had very little of this superfluous fibrous material and the best of them were much superior to Barcelona in appearance and dessert quality. Flavor received less consideration since most of the seedlings were reasonably good in that respect.

Given a good kernel, and there were many of them, it became necessary to rely upon other characteristics to eliminate the less desirable of these seedlings. It was here that the records of yields and catkin hardiness were valuable. After several years it became evident that certain seedlings were consistently high yielding while others were low yielding. Hardiness of catkin also varied greatly and rather consistently from year to year. Weather conditions influenced catkin killing greatly. Catkin hardiness is important since the pollen is necessary for nut production and must be present in abundance as its movement in the orchard is subject to the vagaries of the wind, and only a small percentage of that in the air ever comes in contact with the stigmas of the other varieties.

It is the purpose of this paper to indicate the value, insofar as it may be estimated from the available data, of the different varietal crosses in obtaining desirable filbert hybrids. Table 1 contains a list of crosses made, the number of seedlings raised, and the percentage of these which were of sufficient merit to be retained for further study. The percentage of seedlings propagated indicates even more definitely which crosses are of the greatest value in producing superior seedlings as only the outstanding seedlings were propagated for a second test. Selections included in Table 1 are there by virtue of their all-around merit.

Crosses between Rush and Littlepage and Rush and Winkler produced nothing of value. The populations were small, but other equally small populations from other crosses produced seedlings of value. The inter-crossing of selections of _Corylus americana_ does not appear to be a promising line of attack in filbert breeding where hybrids with _C. Avellana_ will thrive.

Rush and Barcelona were each used as seed parents in crosses with the same eight varieties. In the crosses involving Rush 1,232 seedlings were produced and of these 39, or 3.2%, were good enough to propagate. Of the 306 seedlings raised from the same varieties combined with Barcelona only 4, or 1.3% were worth propagating. None of these Barcelona seedlings are among the best. Under the conditions of the experiment it would seem that Rush is much superior to Barcelona as a parent in crosses with varieties of _Corylus Avellana_.

The cross between Kentish Cob and Cosford failed to produce any seedlings of outstanding merit.

In considering the productiveness and hardiness of the catkins of the seedlings resulting from the different crosses the data have been assembled in Tables 2 to 5, each table containing the summarized records for different plantings. These plantings were started at different times and the records are not directly comparable as they are for different years and varying lengths of time. In Table 1 the total number of seedlings is given, but in Table 2 to 5 only the data for the selections are used. Records for the selections are available for several years, whereas the inferior seedlings were discarded and limited data only are available. Furthermore, the filbert breeder is interested primarily in the worthwhile material that may be taken from populations of known parentage.

Assuming that we have a fairly good nut productiveness is the most important characteristic in a filbert. If the plant is productive it must of necessity be reasonably vigorous and hardy. For that reason much emphasis has been placed on productiveness in the final evaluation of the selections.

The selections in Table 2 are from the U.S.D.A. Bixby plants which were the first to fruit at Geneva. Considerable variation in productiveness is evident in the different populations. Rush x Kentish Cob and Rush x White Aveline selections were only about half as productive on the average as Rush x Barcelona, Bollwiller, Red Lambert, and Daviana. Rush x Italian Red also failed to produce high-yielding selections. In a later planting in the same orchard, as shown in Table 3, the Rush x Kentish Cob selections performed no better, the Rush x Red Lambert selections outyielding them by a substantial margin. The Barcelona x Italian Red selections were very low yielding.

In orchard 22, as shown in Table 4, where Rush and Barcelona are crossed with the same varieties, the resulting selections from the Rush crosses are about one third more productive if mean yields are considered, or one-half more productive if only highest yielding selections are considered than with the Barcelona crosses. Cosford has been outstanding in transmitting productiveness in crosses with Rush, Italian Red, and Nottingham. Rush x Kentish Cob selections in this orchard as in the other planting, were only about one half as productive on the average. In the crosses with Barcelona the combination with Medium Long, Red Lambert, and Italian Red were considerably more productive than crosses with Purple Aveline, Halle, Daviana, and Bollwiller.

The Kentish Cob x Cosford cross was less productive than most of the other combinations made. Kentish Cob definitely appears to transmit unproductiveness when crossed with Rush, Barcelona, and Cosford.

In orchard 8 as shown in Table 5, the trees soon became very crowded as the discards were not removed and the yield records were less reliable than in the other plantings.

Winterkilling of catkins were recorded on the selections for several years. In early April the percentage of winter-killed catkins was recorded by estimate. Tables 2 to 5 contain the mean of these estimates and a considerable variation in catkin hardiness in the different populations is evident. Red Lambert, which had the hardiest catkins of any variety of _C. Avellana_ tried at Geneva, produced a higher proportion of catkin-hardy seedlings than any other variety. Cosford was fairly good in this respect and in orchard 16 Bollwiller, Italian Red, and Barcelona when crossed with Rush produced selections with moderately hardy catkins.

Winter injury of catkins was nearly always very high in crosses between varieties of _Corylus Avellana_.

Of the 1,970 seedlings included in Table 1, 340 or 17%, were retained for further observation and of these, 52, or 2.6%, were considered good enough to propagate for a more extensive test. Of these 52 a few thus far have been outstanding when compared with the others. Possibly the best and most productive selection is No. 1265, Rush x Purple Aveline, that is the heaviest yielding of all and the nuts are also among the best, being of medium size, plump, and free from fiber. This seedling is far superior to any others from the same cross. Nos. 1408 and 1467, both selected from a Rush x Cosford population, are close seconds to No. 1265. In the Rush x Cosford population are several others nearly as good, the general level of merit in this combination being fairly high. Farther down the list, but still among the best, are No. 110 Rush x Kentish Cob, and No. 157, Rush x Barcelona. Filbert breeders working under similar conditions would probably find it worthwhile to make these crosses and also to produce more seedlings from Rush x Red Lambert than were raised at Geneva.

No crosses have been made at Geneva in recent years, but all of the nuts from the selections, sometimes several hundred pounds a year, have been planted by the Soil Conservation Service and the resulting seedlings planted in various parts of the country. Undoubtedly, if these could be examined when in fruit, some worthwhile selections could be made. Those in New York State will probably be worked over during the next few years.

TABLE 1. Results from filbert crosses.

Number of Num- Percent- Number Percent-
Seedlings ber Re- age Re- Prop- age Prop-
Cross Fruited tained tained agated agated

Rush x Kentish Cob (Du Chilly 430 63 14 11 2
Rush x Cosford 447 52 12 11 2
Rush x Bollwiller 165 18 11 6 3
Rush x Italian Red 118 17 16 2 1
Rush x Red Lambert 36 10 28 6 16
Rush x Daviana 13 2 15 2 15
Rush x Purple Aveline 12 3 25 1 8
Rush x White Lambert 11 0 0 0 0
Rush x Barcelona 119 20 16 3 2
Rush x White Aveline 54 10 18 3 5
Rush x Imperial deTrebizond 24 5 21 1 4
Rush x Nottingham 23 7 30 2 8
Rush x Brixnut 8 2 25 0 0
Rush x Littlepage 12 0 0 0 0
Rush x Winkler 6 0 0 0 0
Barcelona x Kentish Cob (Du-
Chilly) 42 21 50 3 7
Barcelona x Cosford 57 27 48 1 2
Barcelona x Bollwiller 11 2 18 0 0
Barcelona x Italian Red 66 9 13 0 0
Barcelona x Red Lambert 41 12 29 0 0
Barcelona x Daviana 21 5 24 0 0
Barcelona x Purple Aveline 25 8 32 0 0
Barcelona x White Lambert 43 1 2 0 0
Barcelona x Medium Long 45 16 35 0 0
Barcelona x Early Globe 78 0 0 0 0
Barcelona x Halle 12 6 50 0 0
Barcelona x Red Aveline 9 1 11 0 0
Kentish Cob (Du Chilly) x
Cosford 35 22 63 0 0

Total 1970 340 17 52 2.6

TABLE 2. Yields and winterkilling of filbert catkins, Orchard 16, 1935
1937, 1938 and 1939. Yields are 4 year total. Catkin injury is
5 year mean

No. of Mean Highest Mean Lowest
Selec- Yield Yield Percent- Percent-
tions per Se- per Se- age Cat- age of
lection lection kins Catkins
in in Winter- Winter-
Cross Ounces Ounces killed killed
per Se-
lection

Rush x Bollwiller 18 81 143 21 4
Bush x Kentish Cob (Du Chilly) 12 38 117 36 3
Rush x White Aveline 9 44 73 42 0
Rush x Barcelona 6 94 147 26 8
Rush x Imperial de Trebizond 5 81 100 28 10
Rush x Italian Red 3 79 80 15 3
Rush x Red Lambert 3 88 116 7 3
Rush x Daviana 2 82 110 33 26
Rush x Purple Maxima 1 37 37 17 17

TABLE 3. Yields and winter injury of filbert catkins, Orchard 16, 1937-41
inclusive.

Mean Highest Mean Lowest
Yield Yield Percent- Percent-
per Se- per Se- age Cat- age of
No. of lection lection kins Catkins
Selec- in in Winter- Winter-
Cross tions Ounces Ounces killed killed
per Se-
lection

Rush x Kentish Cob (Du Chilly) 26 38 102 68 5
Rush x Barcelona 14 52 89 90 38
Rush x Red Lambert 5 67 117 12 5
Barcelona x Italian Red 3 18 20 83 73

TABLE 4. Filbert selections. Orchard 22. Yields 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942,
1944, 1945 and 1946. Catkin injury records 1939-42, inclusive.

Mean Highest Mean Lowest
Yield Yield Percent- Percent-
per Se- per Se- age Cat- age of
No. of lection lection kins Catkins
Selec- in in Winter- Winter-
Cross tions Ounces Ounces killed killed
per Se-
lection

Rush x Cosford 26 129 229 42 0
Rush x Kentish Cob (Du Chilly) 25 68 185 70 13
Rush x Nottingham 7 96 180 31 14
Rush x Italian Red 3 114 181 45 30
Rush x Purple Aveline 3 114 240 42 25
Rush x Red Lambert 2 90 127 21 8
Rush x Brixnut 2 49 51 62 58
Barcelona x Cosford 27 90 138 62 32
Barcelona x Kentish Cob
(Du Chilly) 21 69 126 69 25
Barcelona x Medium Long 16 93 257 83 71
Barcelona x Red Lambert 12 83 147 52 13
Barcelona x Purple Aveline 8 50 73 78 55
Barcelona x Italian Red 6 84 133 90 81
Barcelona x Halle 6 52 79 52 23
Barcelona x Daviana 5 53 75 67 59
Barcelona x Bollwiller 2 66 94 62 58
Barcelona x Red Aveline 1 91 91 56 56
Barcelona x White Lambert 1 103 103 5 5
Kentish Cob (Du Chilly) x
Cosford 22 62 151 64 33

TABLE 5. Filbert selections. Orchard 8. Yields 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1944.
Catkin injury records 1940, 1941 and 1942.

Mean Highest Mean Lowest
Yield Yield Percent- Percent-
per Se- per Se- age Cat- age of
No. of lection lection kins Catkins
Selec- in in Winter- Winter-
Cross tions Ounces Ounces killed killed
per Se-
lection

Rush x Cosford 26 25 47 30 2
Rush x Italian Red 11 25 39 27 0

* * * * *

Discussion after Mr. Slate's paper--

_MacDaniels: "Of the 1999 seedlings tested at Geneva, 52 are being carried on for further observations. Prof. Slate is doing a fine work."_

_J. R. Smith: "I want to express my appreciation of the work Prof. Slate is doing. To care for 1999 seedlings and keep the performance records is a big job and just the kind of thing on which progress depends."_

Nut News from Wisconsin

CARL WESCHCKE

This year at River Falls, Wisconsin, which is only 35 miles southeast of St. Paul, Minnesota, the season started off with much rain and a delayed cold spring. All the grafting had to be postponed from two to four weeks later than normal. The stored scion wood suffered some because of this long storage period, and some of it was quite dry when taken out. This was particularly true of the Weschcke butternut and these scions looked so dry that I was tempted to throw them all away, but instead I gave them to two young horticulture students to practice with. None of them grew, however, so we had a 100% failure on butternut grafting. About a dozen years ago I had much success grafting butternut on black walnuts and was unimpressed, therefore I did not make any notes as to the process I used. This was a mistake for apparently I have lost the art. The last five years has probably produced only about five or six plants successfully grafted on black walnut. Hickories respond much better and I usually get about 50% successful grafts on my native butternut stocks.

Although the insect pests, such as the butternut curculio, were delayed in their attacks, they eventually caught up and destroyed most of the big butternut crop and did their usual damage to heartnut and Persian walnut growth. I noticed in the American Fruit Grower that plum curculio was controlled in the peach orchards through the use of hexaethyl tetraphosphate. If this chemical poison controls plum curculio, it ought to control any of the curculio family, such as the hazel curculio, chestnut curculio and butternut curculio. The butternut and hazel curculio appear to me to be the same insect. I am not troubled with the chestnut curculio yet, but if this chemical gives control over the curculio insect family we will certainly be able to raise large crops of all of the nuts mentioned.

Quite a few of my grafted test trees, both in the forest and in the orchard, which in some cases were grafted on bitternut hickory stocks fifteen years ago, are beginning to bear. These varieties are the Woods, Fox, Taylor, Platman and Davis. Others which have borne a few times previously also have good crops set. These are Bridgewater, Glover, Beaver, Kirtland, Deveaux and Fairbanks. The trees setting the largest crops of hickory nuts are the Weschcke, and they are the only ones that I can really count on maturing early enough to escape our usual early fall frosts.

I derive great pleasure in observing new seedling plants of filberts, hazels and their hybrids coming into bearing for the first time this year. There are about two hundred of these new varieties. Of course most of them will be worthless commercially. The ideal hybrid hazilbert has not yet appeared, but when it does we will propagate it for sale as rapidly as possible.

At this date, August 20, we have suffered from an extremely dry August and will apparently lose many trees that we cannot reach by irrigation or some other means of watering.

We have been busy at the farm and nursery erecting a small pilot plant for grinding filbert butter which we expect to be able to put on the market between October 15 and November 1.

There is about a one-fourth crop of black walnuts in my orchard trees, with the Thomas leading. Many of the Ohio trees are barren. Usually the Ohio bears freely.

It is my observation here that the wild hazels and some of their hybrids will drop their crop of nuts when it becomes too dry. This probably is an excellent feature from the standpoint of the plant as it no doubt saves the plant from being killed by drouth.

There is no doubt in my mind but that the hazel-filbert hybrids (hazilberts) will make a large agricultural crop in the corn belt. When these crops are shelled in local plants and ground into butter the industry will fall into much the same category as country creameries. However, we have not reached the point where we have the right commercial plants for this purpose and for the time being will have to use the Pacific Coast filberts until such large crops of the ideal hybrids appear.

Home Preparation of Filbert Butter and Other Products

MRS. JEANNE M. ALTMAN, Bellingham, Washington

Filberts may be prepared in different ways at home to make a delicious food. To make filbert butter first shell a roasting pan two-thirds full of kernels and put it in a 325 deg. oven. Stir the kernels thoroughly and often to get an even tan. Cut a few in half to determine when they are brown enough. Cook about thirty minutes. Do not leave in oven any longer than necessary because the kernels begin to brown rapidly upon further cooking. Cool and stir when not too hot. Most of the brown pellicle can be removed by rubbing kernels between one's hands. Run the kernels through a food chopper or meat grinder to make a Crunchy butter. To make a more delicious product, however, first run the kernels through a coarse knife, salt them and then run through a fine knife. This results in a butter with enough oil of its own to make a delicious dish. It takes lots of nuts to make much filbert butter.

In preparing salted filberts in quantity I cook them in a strainer in a kettle of deep fat. Check the temperature with a thermometer and do not let them get too hot. Cool them quickly by putting them into a cold dish and stirring. When salting the whole kernels put only enough fat with them to coat the pellicle. After they are sufficiently brown take them out and salt them as they are cooling. Stir just enough to coat the kernels with salt. Eat pellicle and all; it holds the salt. Stirring too much tends to remove the salt.

You can treat a pound of nuts at a time in a heavy iron skillet on top of the stove stirring constantly. When we follow that practice we eat them salted just as they were instead of grinding them. I think they are better than salted peanuts.

I sent a recipe to one of our west coast papers and they added a note to drain them on a paper towel. That is wasteful and unnecessary. A Bellingham dentist put whole nuts into his false-teeth baking oven in the evening. I do not know what temperature was maintained but it must have been low because he left the nuts there all night and the next morning he found them all roasted and ready to eat.

Filberts, even the green ones just as they come from the tree, may be boiled and then salted and buttered. They may be used to advantage in many cooking and baking recipes.

Notes from Central New York

S. H. GRAHAM, Ithaca, N. Y.

This summer has been a difficult one for black walnuts. A late spring delayed starting and three freezes during the week beginning Sept. 22 prematurely checked development so that poor filling seems to be the rule. The Persian walnuts again demonstrated their ability to ripen their nuts in a short season.

Some of our Persian walnut trees are growing in the partial shade of larger black walnut trees. We prefer to keep these larger trees as they may be valuable stocks to be grafted to the superior varieties that one is always hoping will appear later on. This condition gives a good opportunity to observe the effect of shade. There seems to be no doubt that even light shade is detrimental in our latitude to the Persian walnut and results not only in more spindling and unsymmetrical growth but also interferes with proper ripening of the wood making it more subject to winter injury.

One difficulty with the Persian walnuts in the East is premature falling of the nuts. The female flowers on the young Persian trees that we have seen are usually more numerous than with black walnuts of the same size and age, but even hand pollinating often fails to give a good set of nuts. Last spring we took pollen from eight of our Persian trees to the pomology department of our State College of Agriculture for germinating. The best sample showed 45% viable pollen; the next best 15% and the rest from O to 5%. This had been collected and stored for several weeks according to the methods given by Dr. Cox in the annual report for 1943, page 58. It is possible that this lack of viability may be due to some soil deficiency such as insufficient lime or boron. Prof. Schuster of the Oregon station writes that they find that Persian walnuts readily accept good Persian pollen but not black walnut or butternut pollen. If the viability of the pollen falls below 50% they consider it unsatisfactory. On some of the Oregon soils an application of boron in the form of ordinary borax under the trees in the spring has greatly helped in getting a crop of nuts. This should be well worth trying in the eastern states.

The filbert crop this year is better than usual. Out of over a thousand crosses between Rush and Winkler with European and Pacific Coast varieties, in our estimation, only one has proven worthy of propagation considering size, flavor, abundance of bearing and resistance to filbert blight. Some growers think lightly of blight but our experience in fighting it through the years in cutting out cankered wood has convinced us of the futility of this means of control in infested areas. Control measures may apparently succeed for a time but when conditions of moisture, heat and air movement are just right it can spread like wildfire. Therefore, to us, resistance to this disease (Cryptosporella anomala) seems of paramount importance. The prevalence of blight has been almost universal in the scattered plantings which we have visited in central New York, usually without the owner knowing why his trees were dying. All our European and Coast varieties, as well as most of the hybrids, take blight readily but there is an occasional hybrid that is clearly resistant. Bixby is one of these.

We have always used a knapsack sprayer equipped with a mist nozzle for our trees but this is inadequate as the trees grow taller. This summer a much more satisfactory nozzle was found that may be quickly adjusted to throw a mist for low trees or a far reaching one for the taller trees. This is made by the D. B. Smith Co. of Utica, N. Y.

From time to time articles appear on insects injurious to nut trees. Frequently mentioned are the web worms and the walnut caterpillars. With us, the damage they do is as nothing compared to that caused by the curculios, the strawberry root worm beetles and the leaf hoppers. We are getting the upper hand of the curculios by the use of cryolite spray but the root-worm beetle problem is still unsolved. Until Rev. Crath wrote of leaf hopper damage (Annual Report 1938 p. 111) we had not regarded them as at all serious. Subsequent observation has convinced us that he was right and that they are often the cause of the blackening and dying of the tender young leaves of Persian walnuts and the curling up of older leaves. We were especially impressed during the Wooster, Ohio, field trip last year and, later on, in seeing how Mr. Sherman had overcome this trouble on the Mahoning Co. farm simply by adding DDT to his spray mixture.

In closing, we would like to call the attention of new members to the wealth of information that is to be found in the old Association annual reports.

Experience with the Crath Carpathian Walnuts

GILBERT L. SMITH, Wassaic, New York

In the spring of 1935 we purchased from the Wisconsin Horticultural Society two pounds of the nuts which Rev. Paul Crath had imported from Poland. We planted these nuts in the nursery row. Sixty-two seedlings resulted. We assigned a number of each of these seedlings and transplanted them when they were two years old. Here we made our first mistake. We selected what proved to be a very poor site for them, adjacent to and nearly surrounded by woodland, in which were a goodly supply of butternut curculios which we have found to be by far the worst insect enemy of the Persian walnut. It attacks the terminal growth doing some damage by feeding but principally by laying eggs in the terminals and the fleshy base of the leaf stems. From these eggs grub-like larvae hatch which bore into the terminal and the leaf bases, greatly dwarfing the terminal growth. We have found as many as six larvae in a single terminal. Of course they also like to lay their eggs in the young nuts which then drop from the tree in mid-summer.

In the spring of 1937 we started to graft from these seedlings on black walnut stocks, giving each the same number as that of the seedling from which the wood was taken. It is too bad that we did not start this work sooner as we lost a few of the seedlings, largely through the ravages of the curculio, but possibly some of them were just not rugged enough to stand our climate. We still have 49 of these varieties living, either as grafts or the original trees. To this collection we have added a few varieties, securing wood from seedlings being grown by others. We have had living grafts of some of the named Crath varieties which we suppose developed from some of the wood imported from Poland by Rev. Crath. All of these have failed with us except one, Carpathian D. Apparently they were not hardy enough for our climate.

So far we have had only one severe test of our Crath seedlings, as to hardiness. This was on February 16th, 1943, when the temperature at Mr. Benton's farm was thirty-four degrees below zero. This was not official but was registered by two thermometers which Mr. Benton knew to be very accurate. Many of our Crath seedlings showed no injury at all on this occasion while others showed varying degrees of injury. Our grafts of Broadview were damaged quite severely, Carpathian D to just about the same extent. One other named Crath variety, Crath No. 1, was killed outright. Only one of our seedling varieties showed as severe injury as did Broadview. This was S 12. This tree has now fully recovered but we will not grow any trees from it except for more southern latitudes and then only if it shows exceptional merit when it begins to bear. Therefore, according to our experience so far, there is quite definite evidence that these Crath seedlings are hardier than Broadview. McDermid was killed outright.

We have found that practically all Persian walnut trees, when young, will bear pistillate blossoms for several years before they bear staminate blossoms (catkins). This fact has delayed us in securing nuts from these seedling varieties and has compelled us to resort to hand pollination. However, they are now beginning to produce both kinds of blossoms.

The first one to bear was in 1944, when one tree bore twelve nuts which had resulted from hand pollination with pollen sent us by Mr. Reed. This variety appears to be the most promising one that has borne so far. We have named it Littlepage and have had a booklet printed which describes it fully. We will be glad to mail a copy to anyone who wishes. We have now found a good pollinizer for Littlepage, our No. S22 seedling. This variety produces pollen at just the right time, some of which I used this spring to hand pollenize the Littlepage tree. A fine crop of nuts is now on this tree as the result of this pollination.

Last year (1946) we had a few nuts from each of five other seedling varieties. While we did not consider any of them equal to Littlepage, they were all worth growing and compare quite favorably with English walnuts as found in our markets. This year we have nuts on each of eleven varieties, five of them and the same ones that bore last year and six new ones. Now that these seedlings are beginning to bear we are able to cull out any that prove to be very inferior. As our facilities are far too limited to thoroughly test the promising varieties, we have started to propagate them and offer them in many parts of the country and subject them to many different conditions. Thus it should be only a matter of time until the truly worthy varieties will prove themselves. If we were wealthy we could propagate them and distribute them free of charge but I doubt if it would prove as satisfactory as it is to charge for them, as it seems to be a trait of human nature to take better care of that which costs us something. We will not name these new varieties at present but will put them out under their test numbers. Later the ones that prove best can be named.

To facilitate the distribution of these new varieties we are getting out a folder showing natural size pictures of the nuts of the six varieties which were produced last year, with a brief description of each. I am very sorry that I was unable to get these folders from the printer before coming to this convention. However we will have them very soon and will be glad to mail a copy to anyone who requests it.