Growing Nuts in the North Part 1

Growing Nuts in the North.

by Carl Weschcke.

Introduction

GROWING NUTS IN THE NORTH

Only a few books have been written on the subject of nut trees and their bearing habits, and very little of that material applies to their propagation in cold climates. For these reasons I am relating some of the experiences I have had in the last thirty-two years in raising nut trees in Wisconsin. To me, this has been a hobby with results both practical and ornamental far beyond my original conception. I hope that the information I am giving will be of help and interest to those who, like myself, enjoy having nut-bearing trees in their dooryards, and that it will prevent their undergoing the failures and disappointments I sometimes met with in pioneering along this line. Since my purpose is to give advice and a.s.sistance to those whose interest parallels mine by relating my successes and failures and what I learned from each, I have included only those details of technique which are pertinent.

It is a fine thing to have a hobby that takes one out-of-doors. That in itself suggests healthful thought and living. The further a.s.sociation of working with trees, as with any living things, brings one into the closest a.s.sociation with nature and G.o.d. I hope this book may help someone achieve that att.i.tude of life, in which I have found such great pleasure and inner satisfaction.

Anyone wishing to make a planting of a few nut trees in his dooryard or a small orchard planting should join the Northern Nut Growers'

a.s.sociation. This a.s.sociation can be joined by writing the current secretary, but since that office may be changed from time to time, persons applying for membership should write George L. Slate of Geneva Experiment Station, Geneva, New York, or Dr. H. L. Crane, Princ.i.p.al Horticulturist, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry, Beltsville, Maryland, or the Author. The first president was Dr. Robert T. Morris, New York City, N. Y., 1910-1911, the a.s.sociation being founded by Dr. W. C. Deming of Westchester, New York, who called the first meeting in 1910.

Each year a report was printed of the proceedings of the Annual Meeting and exclusive of the 1952 meeting, the Reports which are in substantial book form number forty-two. Most of these Reports can be obtained by writing to the secretary, the total library of these Reports const.i.tuting one of the best authorities for nut tree planting in the northern hemisphere of the United States than any extant.

The author acknowledges with thanks the consistent encouraging praise from his father, Charles Weschcke, of the work involved in nut growing experiments, also for his financial a.s.sistance, thus making the publication of this book possible and available to readers at a nominal price.

The editor of the greater part of this book, Allison Burbank Hartman (a descendent of the great Luther Burbank), is ent.i.tled to great praise and thanks for the interest and work she put forth.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to William Kuehn, the artist. He had been a.s.sociated with the author in Boy Scout work, also became a part of the nut growing experiments in Northern Wisconsin, which work was interrupted by World War II.

Acknowledgment is hereby made with grat.i.tude to Dr. J. W. McKay of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.; Harry Weber of Cincinnati, Ohio; Ford Wilkinson, Rockport, Ind.; Fayette Etter, Lehmasters, Pa.; Dr. W. C. Deming, Litchfield, Conn.; Clarence A. Reed, Washington, D. C.; Dr. J. Russell Smith, Swarthmore, Pa.; George S.

Slate, Urbana, Ill.; Herman Last, Steamboat Rock, Iowa, and many other professors and horticulturists who lent their time and effort a.s.sisting me in my experiments throughout the years. And last but not least, the author is indebted to his secretary, Dorothy Downie, for tireless efforts in re-writing the ma.n.u.script many times which was necessary in compiling this book.

GROWING NUTS IN THE NORTH

Chapter 1

FIRST ENCOUNTERS

Almost everyone can remember from his youth, trips made to gather nuts.

Those nuts may have been any of the various kinds distributed throughout the United States, such as the b.u.t.ternut, black walnut, beechnut, chestnut, hickory, hazel or pecan. I know that I can recall very well, when I was a child and visited my grandparents in New Ulm and St. Peter, in southern Minnesota, the abundance of b.u.t.ternuts, black walnuts and hazels to be found along the roads and especially along the Minnesota and Cottonwood river bottoms. Since such nut trees were not to be found near Springfield, where my parents lived, which was just a little too far west, I still a.s.sociate my first and immature interest in this kind of horticulture with those youthful trips east.

The only way we children could distinguish between b.u.t.ternut and black walnut trees was by the fruit itself, either on the tree or shaken down.

This is not surprising, however, since these trees are closely related, both belonging to the family _Juglans_. The black walnut is known as _Juglans nigra_ and the b.u.t.ternut or white walnut as _Juglans cinera_.

The similarity between the trees is so p.r.o.nounced that the most experienced horticulturist may confuse them if he has only the trees in foliage as his guide. An experience I recently had is quite suggestive of this. I wished to buy some furniture in either black walnut or mahogany and I was hesitating between them. Noting my uncertainty, the salesman suggested a suite of French walnut. My curiosity and interest were immediately aroused. I had not only been raising many kinds of walnut trees, but I had also run through my own sawmill, logs of walnut and b.u.t.ternut. I felt that I knew the various species of walnut very thoroughly. So I suggested to him:

"You must mean Circa.s.sian or English walnut, which is the same thing. It grows abundantly in France. You are wrong in calling it French walnut, though, because there is no such species."

He indignantly rejected the name I gave it, and insisted that it was genuine French walnut.

"Perhaps," I advised him, "that is a trade name to cover the real origin, just as plucked muskrat is termed Hudson seal."

That, too, he denied. We were both insistent. I was sure of my own knowledge and stubborn enough to want to prove him wrong. I pulled a drawer from the dresser of the "French walnut" suite and asked him to compare its weight with that of a similar drawer from a black walnut suite nearby. Black walnut weighs forty pounds per cubic foot, while b.u.t.ternut weighs only twenty-five. He was forced to admit the difference and finally allowed my a.s.sertion to stand that "French walnut" was b.u.t.ternut, stained and finished to simulate black walnut. Since it would have been illegal to claim that it was black walnut, the attractive but meaningless label of "French walnut" had been applied. Although it is less expensive, I do not mean to imply that b.u.t.ternut is not an excellent wood for constructing furniture. It ranks high in quality and is probably as durable as black walnut. I do say, though, that it was necessary for me to know both the species names and the relative weights of each wood to be able to distinguish between them indisputably.

An instance in which the nuts themselves were useless for purposes of identification occurred when I sent some black walnuts to the Division of Pomology at Washington, D. C. These were the Ohio variety which I had grafted on b.u.t.ternut roots. The tree had been bearing for three or four years but this was the first year the nuts had matured. During their bearing period, these black walnuts had gradually changed in appearance, becoming elongated and very deeply and sharply corrugated like b.u.t.ternuts although they still retained the black walnut flavor. Because of this mixture of characteristics, the government experts had great difficulty in identifying the variety, although the Ohio was well known to them.

Another variety of black walnut, the Thomas, I have also known to be influenced by the b.u.t.ternut stock on which it was grafted, when in 1938, one of my trees bore black walnuts whose meat had lost its characteristic flavor and a.s.sumed that of the b.u.t.ternut.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A--Genuine original Ohio Black Walnut from parent tree_

_B--Nut produced by grafting Ohio on b.u.t.ternut_]

I also liked to pick hazelnuts when I was a boy. These are probably the least interesting among the wild nuts since they are usually small and hard to crack. There is much variation in wild hazels, however, and many people may recall them as being reasonably large. One of the two species abundant in Minnesota, _Corylus cornuta_ or Beak hazel, has fine, needle-like hairs on its husk which are sure to stick into one's fingers disagreeably. When the husk is removed, _Corylus cornuta_ resembles a small acorn. It does not produce in southern Minnesota and central Wisconsin as well as the common hazel, _Corylus Americana_, does, nor is its flavor as pleasing to most people. It is lighter in color than the common hazel and has a thinner sh.e.l.l. Of course, some hazels are intermediate or natural hybrids between these two species, and if the nuts of such hybrids are planted, they generally revert to one of the parents when mature enough to bear. This natural hybridization occurs among all plants, between those of the same species, the same genera or the same family. It is very rare between plants of different families.

The process is a very important one in horticulture and I shall explain some of the crosses which are well-known later in this book.

Chapter 2

FIRST ATTEMPTS

When I was about fifteen years old, my family moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where my home now is and where my experimental work with nuts was begun. St. Paul is in the 45th north parallel, but although it is farther north, it is as favorable for the growth of nut trees as New Ulm or St. Peter, because it lies in the Mississippi River valley and is farther east. Bodies of water and alt.i.tudes have as great an influence on plant life as lat.i.tude; at least, they can have, and these are factors that must be understood thoroughly. Soil conditions also vitally affect plant life, particularly deep-rooted trees such as nut trees usually are. Each has its own requirements; hickory, j.a.panese heartnut and Persian walnuts favor an alkaline soil, which chestnuts, wanting acid will not grow in; chestnuts thrive best in a slightly acid, well-drained soil; hazels will grow in either alkaline or acid soil as will black walnuts and b.u.t.ternuts; almonds need a light sandy soil, similar to that suitable to plums, pecans do well in either rich river bottoms, which may be slightly acid, or in clay soil on high hillsides which are alkaline. A deep, sandy or graveltype soil is usually accepted by the chestnuts even though it may not be slightly acid, and successful orchards have been grown on a deep clay soil on hillsides.

It is not always easy to obtain black walnuts and b.u.t.ternuts to eat.

Hickory nuts have been a favorite of mine since I first tasted them and I often have found it difficult to procure fresh ones, ones that were not slightly rancid. Because I liked eating these nuts, I thought I would try to grow some for my own consumption and so avoid having to depend on a grocer's occasional supply of those shipped in, always a little stale. Raising nuts appealed to me economically too, since obviously trees would need little care, and after they had begun to bear would supply nuts that could be sold at interesting prices.

I turned the back yard of my home in St. Paul into an experimental plot.

Here I set out some of each kind of tree I planted or grafted at my farm in Wisconsin. I had purchased a farm 35 miles east of St. Paul, beyond the influence of the St. Croix River Valley. My experiments really began there. The farm was covered with b.u.t.ternut trees, hazel bushes, and a wild hickory called "bitternut." This last is well-named for I have never found an animal other than a squirrel that could endure its nuts.

Possibly the white-footed mouse or deer-mouse could--I don't know. He usually eats anything a squirrel does. I learned to appreciate these bitternut trees later and they became a source of experience and interest to me as I learned to graft on them many varieties, species and hybrids of hickory. They served as a root-system and shortened the length of time required to test dozens of hickory types, helping me in that way, to learn within one lifetime what types of nuts are practical for growing in the north.

Remembering the nut trees in southern Minnesota, I first thought to procure black walnut and hickory trees from some farmer in that district. Through acquaintances in St. Peter, I did locate some black walnut trees only to find that it was impractical to dig and transport trees of the size I wanted. A nursery near St. Paul supplied me with some and I bought twenty-eight large, seedling black walnut trees. I was too eager to get ahead with my plans and I attempted, the first year these trees were planted, to graft all of them. My ability to do this was not equal to my ambition though, and all but two of the trees were killed. I was successful in grafting one of them to a Stabler black walnut; the other tree persisted so in throwing out its natural sprouts that I decided it should be allowed to continue doing so. That native seedling tree which I could not graft now furnishes me with bushels of walnuts each year which are planted for understocks. This is the name given to the root systems on which good varieties are grafted.

In an effort to replace these lost trees, I inquired at the University of Minnesota Farm and was given the addresses of several nurserymen who were then selling grafted nut trees. Their catalogues were so inviting that I decided it would be quite plausible to grow pecans and English walnuts at this lat.i.tude. So I neglected my native trees that year for the sake of more exotic ones. One year sufficed; the death of my whole planting of English walnuts and pecans turned me back to my original interest. My next order of trees included grafted black walnuts of four accepted varieties to be planted in orchard form--the Stabler, Thomas, Ohio and Ten Eyck.

I ordered a few hickories at the same time but these eventually died. My experience with hickories was very discouraging since they were my favorite nuts and I had set my heart on growing some. I think I should have given up attempting them had not one dealer, J. F. Jones, urged that I buy just three more hickory trees of the Beaver variety. He gave me special instructions on how to prepare them against winter. I have always felt that what he told me was indeed special and very valuable since those three trees lived. Subsequently, I bought several hundred dollars worth of trees from him. More than that, we became friends. I visited him at his nurseries in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and he again demonstrated his interest and generosity by giving me both horticultural information and the kindest hospitality. My friendship with him was but one of many that I have formed while traveling and corresponding in the interests of nut culture. True and lasting friends such men make, too, with no circ.u.mstances of selfish import to taint the pleasure of the relationship.

Since I wanted to have many black walnut trees some day, I decided to plant ten bushels of black walnuts in rows. I thought I could later graft these myself and save expense. The theory was all right but when I came to practice it, I found I had not taken squirrels into consideration. These bushy-tailed rats dug up one complete bed which contained two bushels of nuts and reburied them in haphazard places around the farm. When the nuts started to sprout, they came up in the fields, in the gardens, and on the lawn--everywhere except where I had intended them to be. I later was grateful to those squirrels, though, because, through their redistributing these nuts I learned a great deal about the effect of soil on black walnut trees, even discovering that what I thought to be suitable was not. The trees which the squirrels planted for me are now large and lend themselves to experimental grafting. On them I have proved, and am still proving, new varieties of the English walnut.

The other eight bushels had been planted near a roadside and close to some farm buildings. The constant human activity thereabouts probably made the squirrels less bold, for although they carried off at least a bushel of walnuts, about two thousand seedlings grew. I had planted these too close together and as the trees developed they became so crowded that many died. The remaining seedlings supplied me with root-stocks for experimental work which proved very valuable.

I have always suspected the squirrels of having been responsible for the fact that my first attempt to grow hickory seedlings was unsuccessful. I planted a quart of these nuts and not one plant came up. No doubt the squirrels dug them up as soon as I planted them and probably they enjoyed the flavor as much as I always have.

In 1924 I ordered one hundred small beechnut trees, _f.a.gus ferruginea_, from the Sturgeon Bay Nurseries at Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. The company was very generous and sent me three hundred of them. I planted these trees in a heavy clay soil with limestone running near the surface. They grew well the first year, except that there was heavy mortality during cold weather. In working with these trees my lack of experience and horticultural knowledge was against me. They could not tolerate the soil and within three years they were all dead.

To give variety to the landscape at my farm, I planted several other kinds of trees. Among these were Kentucky coffee-trees which have beautiful bronze foliage in the spring and honey locusts. I planted five hundred Douglas fir but unfortunately, I put these deep in the woods among heavy timber where they were so shaded that only a few lived.

Later, I moved the surviving fir trees into an open field where they still flourish. About two hundred fifty pines of mixed varieties--white, Norway and jack--that I planted in the woods, also died.

I decided, then, that evergreens might do better if they were planted from seeds. I followed instructions in James W. Toumey's "Seeding and Planting in the Practice of Forestry," in bed culture and spot seeding.