Read Ebook: Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting Washington D. C. October 7 and 8 1920 by Northern Nut Growers Association Editor

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A great many organizations have been formed in the District of Columbia under that provision of the code. It seems to me about as simple and as comprehensive as any of the laws of any of the states, and about as free from any burdens or obligations of reports or matters of that kind. If it is the sense of this meeting, and I think you have quite a representative membership here, that this organization be so incorporated I shall take pleasure, after this meeting, in drafting proper papers, presenting them to some of the members for signature and perfecting a corporation.

THE PRESIDENT: That seems to be an excellent suggestion.

DR. MORRIS: I move that this recommendation be adopted.

MR. FOSTER: I second the motion.

The motion was carried.

The convention adjourned at 12 o'clock.

AFTERNOON EXCURSION OF THE NORTHERN NUT GROWERS' ASSOCIATION

OCTOBER 7, 1920, 12:45

The members of the Northern Nut Growers' Association, in convention at Washington, D. C., October 7, 1920, made an excursion which included visits to the thirty-acre bearing northern pecan plantation of T. P. Littlepage; Dr. Walter Van Fleet's Government Station for the production of blight-resisting chestnuts and chickapins and other new hybrids, at Bell Experiment Plot, Glendale, Maryland; and the old Jefferson pecan trees at Marietta. The following notes were taken at points along the route:

DR. VAN FLEET: These are hybrids between the chinkapin and the Japan chestnut showing the blight even after thirteen years immunity. We do not do anything to check the disease at all.

There is a Japan variety said not to take it but you see how it affects it. It girdles it and the new wood builds it up. The tree is doomed. It is gone now but it has made a tremendous attempt to recovery. You see the new growth that has tried to come out there trying to bridge it and make it up. Of course even that is hopeful. In view of that we feel justified in breeding. The Chinese resist it much better. They take it more readily but they resist it far better. The efforts at self-bridging are quite successful.

There are 1,100 trees here and I think about a hundred have been killed outright and probably 75 per cent of them show infections but there are a few individuals that do not seem to get it. It seems almost impossible to inoculate them. We are letting the disease run its way purely through elimination. It is only those that can stand it through a series of years that are supposed to be worth anything at all.

Probably no species is immune from it; I do not think we can use the word "immunity" in connection with it.

The party then visited the old Jefferson place at Marietta, and viewed the immense pecan trees which were given to Judge Duval by Thomas Jefferson. Thence to Mr Littlepage's plantation.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: These trees are set 100 by 120. The Butterick is a good grower. There is a great difference in the growth of the cultivated and the uncultivated ones. I would quit working about the first of August. The first of August here they are growing actively.

Question: Is that the habit of the pecan to set a crop and then drop off?

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Yes, young trees will do that. This is a typical Busseron. They were all sprinkled with nuts; this tree had fifty nuts on this spring. There are some caterpillars on the Stuart. This is the work of the caterpillars on the Stuart. It set a number of nuts. This Greenriver is a little larger than the Major. It is one of the prettiest nuts, one of our medium sized northern pecans. The Greenriver grows in a forest in the Green River district in Kentucky. This is the first transplanted pecan tree this far north that has grown nuts.

DR. MORRIS: In two or three years you will have a crop on them.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: That is a Major, they grow like the Cedars of Lebanon. You don't see a winter-killed twig on a tree. They were full of nuts this spring.

MR. MORRIS: That is so thrifty and so hardy that it might have some species of hickory in it.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: The Stabler black walnut is much better than the Thomas. All black walnuts are reasonably easy to propagate. I have them all around over the farm; I stick pecans around the fences, or wherever I have a space. This chestnut is a European variety. It bears a big striped nut. It tastes a little better than the sweet potato.

DR. MORRIS: It is good for cooking. It is the same as the Marron.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: They are the Indiana hazels, and this is an European filbert.

EVENING SESSION

THURSDAY OCTOBER 7 1920 8 P. M.

The convention was called to order by the President, Mr. Linton, at 8 o'clock.

THE PRESIDENT: The presentation of the next speaker will be made by Mr. Littlepage.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: I want to take just one or two minutes in introducing Mr. Reed, the next speaker on the program. The Department of Agriculture, as we all know, is an aggregation of many of the very brightest men in this country. Those of us who are here in Washington know that at times it is sadly in need of organization. It is perfectly apparent to anybody who has judgment enough to make observations that there is a great deal of very valuable material down there going to waste for the lack of organization. Perhaps it will always be so. I do not know. Institutions are not perfect because the individuals constituting these institutions are not perfect. The Department of Agriculture is, taken as a whole, a most wonderful institution. I do wish, however, that the Department officials would not always wait until they think they know exactly all the facts about a thing before they publish it. I sometimes wish they had enough nerve to say: "Now, this is what we found out today. We may change our minds tomorrow and if we do we will tell you so," the same as any other honest citizen. Why in the world they collect all the data they do, file it away day after day, month after month and year after year, and publish it after it is of no use to anyone on this earth, I never could figure out! I know it is a difficult problem because if the Department of Agriculture should say today that Winesap apples grow beautifully on Maryland hills some fellow would promptly capitalize that and go to selling the Maryland hills, the water underneath, the air above them and everything around them for the modest sum of ten times what it was worth. So that is the other side of it. It makes it necessary for the Department of Agriculture, of course, to be cautious. I know, however, that you all think as I do because you have said so to me but you do not all have the nerve to get up here and say as I do that the Department of Agriculture ought to give us more of these data; that they ought to give it to us for what it is worth today and in this lifetime, leaving it to us to have a little common sense to know that what they say must be taken as they say it. However, I did not get up here to say all of those things. My purpose is to introduce the speaker.

Now, I happen to know a great deal about Mr. Reed's work. I know that he is one of the most active men in the Department and one of the men who has, as much as anybody in the Department of Agriculture, the confidence of those of us who know about the project that he is working on. Mr. Reed has more work in the Department of Agriculture than he can do and I have been trying to lay out some additional work for him. For example, we have found in Southwestern Illinois a larger pecan than any propagated in the North. I saw it in a bunch of Schleys which is the premier pecan of the South. It was larger than many of the Schleys. We don't know anything more about the pecan but I would like to know about this and several others. That is one little job that comes under Mr. Reed's supervision and he ought to have more time and more help. As a matter of fact everybody in the Department thinks he should have more money for his particular project. Those of us who are interested in nut work think the nut people should have more money. The Department was very fortunate in receiving Mr. Reed who came from Michigan. I have talked to him many times and I have never found him yet to make a statement about anything in the nut world that he could not back up. In an illustrated lecture of this kind you have the good fortune to get a great many data that you cannot get in any other way. I wish the whole country that has an interest in these matters could hear it. If I could think of anything else good to say about Mr. Reed I would say it. He is entitled to it.

NUT CULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

C. A. REED, Washington, D. C.

We are annually importing into the United States from ,000,000 to more than ,000,000 worth of nuts. In this country, production is of leading importance with but three species,--the Persian walnut, the pecan, and the almond. Of these together, we are producing in the neighborhood of ,000,000 worth of nuts. In addition to these three species, two others now bid fair to become of considerable importance within the next decade. These are the filbert of the Northwest and the Eastern black walnut. In the Northwest, the filbert is receiving intensive attention at the hands of a considerable number of skilled horticulturists. The species is making rapid strides and in a short while will probably rank fourth in importance with reference to the extent to which it has been developed horticulturally. Possibly because of the extent to which it is common over the United States, the black walnut might properly now be rated as fourth as that nut has as great, if not a greater, range and is of interest to more people in this country than is any other one species of nut. It remains, however, to be seen how rapidly it will be developed by the pomologists.

The view before you is one which some of you have seen before. It was taken in the famous Vrooman orchard of Persian walnut trees at Santa Rosa, California. This is the largest and most noted orchard of Franquette variety in the country. It is from this orchard that scions have been obtained for the propagation of a great part of the Franquette orchards in this country.

In the Willamette Valley of Western Oregon, the walnut has received a large amount of attention during recent years; its development there has made rapid strides, and in the better soils, the trees grow rapidly and ordinarily bear very well. The photograph before you was taken in February, 1920, in an orchard near Hillsboro. It was situated on low but rich land and I regret to say that it was practically wiped out of existence by an unusual cold spell occurring from the 12th to the 15th of December in 1919. During that spell, the temperatures went down in some points of the Willamette Valley to 24 degrees below zero. As nearly as could be told at the time the picture was taken the trees were all killed to the snowline which was from a foot and a half to two feet above ground. The owner has since reported that he cut the trees down to that line.

To some extent, the Persian walnut is grown in the eastern part of the United States. It was introduced here long before it was on the Atlantic Coast, but this side of the Rocky Mountains, it has nowhere become of great commercial importance. The photograph before you was taken in 1911. It shows a seedling orchard of twenty-three Persian walnut trees in Bucks County in the northwestern part of Pennsylvania. The orchard then appeared to be in first-class condition with no sign of winter-injury, but so far as we have been able to ascertain, the trees have never borne important crops of nuts.

This tree before us is the parent, or original tree of the Nebo variety from Southern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a variety first propagated by Messrs. Rush and Jones. It is one of the old historical trees of that section, and while the nut it produces is very good in many respects, for various reasons, the variety is no longer being propagated to great extent.

This is the parent Rush tree, another variety now not propagated as much as formerly, but one which, nevertheless, is a good sort and regarded as being well worthy of planting about the home grounds in sections of the eastern part of the country to which the species is adapted.

The Persian walnut is evidently quite at home from the eastern shore of Maryland up through Delaware and New Jersey to Long Island and lower Connecticut. From this strip west inland to well toward York and Harrisburg in Southern Pennsylvania, it is by no means uncommon. To some extent, it is grown in Western New York and close to Lake Erie in Northern Ohio. There are some trees in Eastern Michigan and a very few in what is known as the Niagara Peninsula of Ontario, but with few exceptions, the crops they bear are uncertain.

The tree before us is the parent of the Aurand variety named in honor of Mr. Geo. D. Aurand of Lewistown, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. The gentleman in the foreground is Mr. Aurand in the act of examining a split in the bark caused by winter-injury. This trouble is fairly prevalent over a great part of the east.

Leaving the walnut industry for the time being, we will take a fleeting glance at the pecan industry. The greater part of our pecan crop comes from wild trees in the Southwest. The view before us is typical of Texas scenes especially in such towns as San Saba, Brownwood and others where nuts are brought from the country in wagon loads much the same as are cereals in the northern states. Pecan orchard development has taken place almost wholly in states east of the limits of the native range. In sections to which the pecan has been indigenous development has been very slow. The greatest and most extensive development of any section happens to be in Southwestern Georgia.

The view before us was taken in an orchard of Frotscher trees in Thomasville some 20 miles north of the Georgia-Florida state line. The trees were planted in 1905, set fifty feet apart, and last spring, because of crowding, the alternate trees were removed. The lower limbs had begun to die and the nuts from the lower branches had, for several years, been inferior in both size and filling quality.

The trees in the orchard before you were three years planted when photographed. This is an orchard in the Albany district of southwestern Georgia. It is in the immediate Albany district that more pecan planting has taken place than in any other one district of the whole South. It is possible to go from Albany in most any direction and to pass through orchards on both sides of the road with rows of pecan trees extending as far as the eye can see in each direction.

There is more or less, of a prevailing idea that the pecan is a California product but it is the exception rather than the rule to find thrifty and productive trees in that state. The tree before you is one which bore enough nuts during a recent year to bring 5 in the market, at 20 cents a pound.

Coming considerably nearer home, we find the parent tree of the Butterick variety situated on the Illinois side of the Wabash River a short distance below Vincennes, Indiana. The range of the pecan, as the most of you probably know, extends well up into Iowa along the bank of the Mississippi River and also into Central Illinois along the Illinois and other rivers and north to Terre Haute, Indiana, along the Wabash. The Butterick has been regarded as one of the most promising northern varieties. Reports which seem to be fairly well authenticated are to the effect that this fine tree has since partially died because of having its roots cut in the digging of a ditch.

Two years ago, Dr. J. B. Curtis and myself spent a week's vacation in Eastern Maryland. At Easton we were greatly surprised to find what we agreed was the largest planted pecan tree we had ever seen. During the past summer, this tree has been photographed and its measurements taken: It has a girth measurement at breast height of 15 feet. Its spread is 129 by 138 feet. Its height was estimated at approximately 135 feet. It is not one of the largest pecan trees of the country as larger trees are not uncommon in many sections from Southern Indiana, south and west to Texas but they are native and not planted trees. We know this to be a planted tree as there are no native pecans in the state of Maryland. This tree bears with a fair degree of regularity. We are told that in 1917 it yielded approximately twelve bushels of nuts which, although small, were exceedingly good and a delight to the children of the whole neighborhood.

This scene was taken in one of the oldest orchards in the state of California. The trees were planted in about 1870. The picture affords a typical illustration of one of the methods of harvesting. The nuts are being thrashed or "knocked" from the trees to heavy canvas sheets spread upon the ground which are drawn from tree to tree by horse power. The nuts are loaded loose in wagons or in sacks and taken to some central plant where they are run through hulling machines and the nuts separated from the hulls after which they are spread out in trays and left in the sun to dry. At that season of the year, there is practically no danger of dew or rain and, after being exposed for several days and nights during which they are frequently stirred, they are taken to the nearest exchange point, bleached and put forth into final shape for the market.

A very important factor in the success of almond production is the honey-bee. Bee keepers shift their hives from orchard to orchard during the blossoming period making a profit out of the honey and at the same time charging a rental to the orchard owners. The bees, of course, attend to the matter of interpollination.

In some sections, it is necessary to equip the orchards with smudge or fire pots which are kept filled with crude oil and fired at the moment the temperature goes down to below the freezing point during the blossoming period. In one district these pots were this last year fired again and again but after all the temperature went down to a point such that a great part of the crop was lost. We are told that it is possible to raise the temperature 26 to 34 degrees. It is tedious work and a dirty job. The oil is placed in the pots in the daytime and the firing usually takes place in the latter part of the night, very often after 5 o'clock in the morning.

We come now to the filbert industry. One of the reasons why filberts were planted in the northwest was because the native hazels grow there with great vigor. This picture shows a typical stool of the native hazel as it is commonly seen in the western parts of Oregon and Washington. Not infrequently it attains a height of 30 or 35 feet and when trained to single stems, the trees not infrequently develop trunk diameters of from 6 to 8 inches.

The Mr. Vollertsen of the Northwest is Mr. A. A. Quarnberg of Vancouver, Washington. In 1893 Mr. Quarnberg read an article by the late Professor H. E. Van Deman in which the latter urged the experimental planting of the filbert in the Northwest. Mr. Quarnberg ordered two trees of the Du Chilly variety from Mr. Felix Gillett, a Frenchman and then proprietor of the Barren Hill Nurseries, Nevada City, California. These were planted in February of 1894 and are believed to have been the first trees of that variety shipped to the Northwest. They are so close together that they are considerably crowded but still they have done fairly well, bearing in some years as much as 45 pounds together.

This is a view of the first filbert orchard planted in the Northwest. It consists of three hundred trees mainly of the Barcelona and Du Chilly varieties obtained from Mr. Gillett in January of 1901 by Mr. Quarnberg and planted by him for a neighbor, Mr. John E. Norelius.

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