A friend of mine, who lives in Mason, Wisconsin, discovered a black walnut tree growing in that vicinity. Since Mason is in the northern part of the state, about 47° parallel north, this tree grows the farthest north of any large black walnut I know of. I would estimate its height at about sixty-five feet and its trunk diameter at about sixteen inches at breast-height. Because of the short growing season there, the nuts do not mature, being barely edible, due to their shrinkage while drying. Some seasons this failure to mature nuts also occurs in such varieties as the Thomas, the Ohio and even the Stabler at my River Falls farm, which is nearly 150 miles south of Mason. Such nuts will sprout, however, and seedlings were raised from the immature nuts of this northern tree. Incidentally these seedlings appear to be just as hardy in wood growth as their parent tree. I have also grafted scionwood from the original tree on black walnut stocks at my farm in order to determine more completely the quality of this variety. Since grafted, these trees have borne large, easy to crack mature nuts and are propagated under the varietal name (Bayfield) since the parent tree is in sight of Lake Superior at Bayfield, Wisconsin.

Many of our best nut trees, from man's point of view, have inherent faults such as the inability of the staminate bloom of the Weschcke hickory to produce any pollen whatsoever, as has been scientifically outlined in the treatise by Dr. McKay under the chapter on hickories. In the Weschcke walnut we have a peculiarity of a similar nature as it affects fruiting when the tree is not provided with other varieties to act as pollinators. It has been quite definitely established, by observation over a period of ten or more years, that the pollen of the Weschcke variety black walnut does not cause fruiting in its own pistillate blooms. Although this is not uncommon among some plants, such as the chestnut and the filbert where it is generally the rule instead of the exception, yet in the black walnuts species the pollen from its own male (or staminate) flowers is generally capable of exciting the ovule of the female (pistillate) flower into growth. Such species are known as self-fertile. As in the case of ordinary chestnuts which receive no cross pollination, and the pistillate flowers develop into perfect burrs with shrunken meatless, imperfect nuts, the Weschcke black walnut, when standing alone or when the prevailing winds prevent other nearby pollen from reaching any or but few of its pistillate bloom, goes on to produce fine looking average-sized nuts practically all of which are without seed or kernels. Such therefore is the importance of knowing the correct pollinators for each variety of nut tree. In the self-sterility of filberts the failure of self-pollination results in an absence of nuts or in very few rather than a full crop of seedless fruits such as the common chestnut and the Weschcke black walnuts produces. This is the only black walnut that has come to the author's attention where its pollen acting on its pistillate bloom has affected the production of nuts in just this way but the variety of black walnut known as the Ohio, one of the best sorts for this northern climate except for hardiness, has often demonstrated that it has a peculiarity which might be caused by lack of outside pollen or because of the action of its own pollen on its pistillate bloom. This peculiarity is the often found one-sided development of the Ohio walnut kernel when the tree is isolated from other pollen bearing black walnuts. One lobe of the kernel is therefore full-meated while the other half or lobe is very undernourished or it may be a thin wisp of a kernel as is the appearance of the Weschcke variety in similar circumstances.

Stabler variety of Black Walnut grafted on a Minnesota seedling stock bore many years but was winter killed. Photo by C. Weschcke

Cutting scionwood early one spring, I noticed that the sap was running very fast in the grafted Stabler tree previously referred to. Later when I came back to inspect this tree, I noticed that the sap had congealed to syrupy blobs at the ends of the cut branches. My curiosity led me to taste this and I found it very sweet and heavy. I mean to experiment some time in making syrup from the sap of this tree as I believe its sugar content to be much higher than that of the local sugar maple. This makes the Stabler a 3-purpose tree, the first being its nuts, the second being the syrup, and the third being, at the end of its potentially long life, a good-sized piece of timber of exceptionally high value. The tree is one of beauty, having drooping foliage similar to that of the weeping willow. This is another point in its favor, its being an ornamental tree worthy of any lawn. However, the Stabler is now considered as a tender variety and is not recommended for northern planting.

Stabler graft on old seedling grafted in May, 1938 bearing in August of the same year. Photo by C. Weschcke

Cut Leaf Black Walnut. Scions furnished by Harry Weber of Cincinnati, Ohio. Variety was hardy on Minnesota seedling for about 5 years. Photo by C. Weschcke

The aesthetic value of the black walnut does not cease here since there are some varieties which are exceptionally attractive. One of these is the cut-leaf black walnut which has the ordinary compound leaf but whose individual leaflets are so scalloped and serrated that they resemble a male fern. Everyone who has seen one of these has evinced pleasurable surprise at this new form of leaf and it may become very popular with horticulturists in the future. Another interestingly different variety is the Deming Purple walnut which, although orthodox in leaf form, has a purplish tint, bordering on red in some cases, coloring leaf, wood and nuts, resulting in a distinctly decorative tree. This tree was named for Dr. W. C. Deming who was the founder of the Northern Nut Growers' Association. Neither the Laceleaf nor Deming Purple are hardy for this climate but survived several years nevertheless before succumbing to one of our periodical test winters.

Chapter 4

In April 1928, I planted a dozen Jones hybrid hazels but only two of them survived more than two years. I think the reason they lasted as well as they did was that around each plant I put a guard made of laths four feet high, bound together with wire and filled with forest leaves. I drove the laths several inches into the ground and covered them with window screening fastened down with tacks to keep mice out of the leaves. Although somewhat winter-killed, most of the plants lived during the first winter these guards were used. The second winter, more plants died, and I didn't use the guards after that.

The two Jones hybrids that lived produced flowers of both sexes for several years but they did not set any nuts. One day while reading a report of one of the previous conventions of the Northern Nut Growers' Association, I discovered an article by Conrad Vollertsen in which he stressed the importance of training filberts into a single truncated plant, allowing no root sprouts or suckers to spring up since such a condition prevents the bearing of nuts. I followed his advice with my two Jones hybrids and removed all surplus sprouts. This resulted in more abundant flowers and some abortive involucres but still no nuts developed. In the spring of 1940, I systematically fertilized numerous pistillate flowers of these plants with a pollen mixture. On the branches so treated, a fairly good crop of nuts similar to those of the orthodox Jones hybrid appeared.

I had cut off a few branches from the Jones hybrids when I received them and grafted these to wild hazels. This had been suggested by Robert Morris in his book, "Nut Growing," as an interesting experiment which might prove to be practical. It did not prove to be so for me for although the grafting itself was successful I found it tiresome to prune, repeatedly, the suckers which constantly spring up during the growing period and which are detrimental to grafts. Although they lived for five years, these grafts suffered a great deal of winter-injury and they never bore nuts. The one which lived for the longest time became quite large and overgrew the stock of the wild hazel. This same plant produced both staminate and pistillate blossoms very abundantly for several seasons but it did not set any nuts in spite of the many wild hazels growing nearby which gave it access to pollen. It is now known that this hybrid is self-sterile and must have pollinators of the right variety in order to bear.

My next work with members of the genus Corylus was discouraging. In April 1929, I bought one hundred hazel and filbert plants from Conrad Vollertsen of Rochester, New York, which included specimens of the Rush hazel and of the following varieties of filberts:

Although many of these filberts bore nuts the first year they were planted, within two years they were all completely winter-killed.

In 1932, I received ten filbert bushes from J. U. Gellatly of West Bank, British Columbia. These consisted of several varieties of Glover's best introductions and some Pearson seedlings. I planted them on the south side of a high stone wall, a favorable location for semi-hardy plants. They appeared to be thrifty and only slightly winter-killed during the first two years but by 1939, all but two of the bushes had died or were dying. Although as nut-bearing plants they have been of little value to me, their pollen has been of great service.

I found an unusually fine wild hazel growing in the woods on my farm and in 1934, I began an experiment in hybridizing it. I crossed the pistillate flowers of the native hazel with pollen from a Gellatly filbert and obtained four hybrid plants, which I have called hazilberts. In the spring of 1940, three of these hybrids had pistillate flowers but no staminate blooms. As I was very eager to see what the new crosses would be like, I fertilized the blossoms with a gunshot mixture of pollen from other plants such as the Winkler hazel, the European filbert and the Jones hybrid hazel. Certain difficulties arose in making these hybrids, mainly due to the curiosity of the squirrels who liked to rip open the sacks covering the blossoms which were being treated. Deer mice, too, I found, have a habit of climbing the stems of hazel bushes and gnawing at the nuts long before they are mature enough to use for seed. Later I learned to protect hybrid nuts by lacing flat pieces of window screening over each branch, thus making a mouse-proof enclosure. Even after gathering the nuts I discovered that precautions were necessary to prevent rodents from reaching them. The best way I found to do this is to plant nuts in cages of galvanized hardware cloth of 2 by 2 mesh, countersunk in the ground one foot and covered completely by a frame of the same material reinforced with boards and laths.

The most interesting hazilbert that has developed bears nuts of outstanding size, typically filberts in every detail of appearance, although the plant itself looks more like a hazel, being bushy and having many suckers. After more testing, this hybrid may prove to be a definite asset to nursery culture in our cold northern climate, fulfilling as it does, all the requirements for such a plant. The second hazilbert resembles the first closely except that its nuts, which are also large, are shaped like those of Corylus Americana. The third hazilbert has smaller nuts but its shell is much thinner than that of either of the others.

In reference to the hazilberts, I am reminded of certain correspondence I once had with J. F. Jones. He had sent me samples of the Rush hazel and although I was impressed by them, I mentioned in replying to him that we had wild hazels growing in our pasture which were as large or larger than the Rush hazelnuts. I admitted that ours were usually very much infested with the hazel weevil. Mr. Jones was immediately interested in wild hazels of such size and asked me to send him samples of them. He wrote that he had never seen wild hazels with worms in them and would like to learn more about them. I sent him both good and wormy nuts from the wild hazel bush to which I had referred. He was so impressed by them that he wished me to dig up the plant and ship it to him, writing that he wished to cross it with filbert pollen as an experiment. I sent it as he asked but before he was able to make the cross he intended, his death occurred. Several years later, his daughter Mildred wrote to me about this hazel bush, asking if I knew where her father had planted it. Unfortunately I could give her no information about where, among his many experiments, this bush would be, so that the plant was lost sight of for a time. Later Miss Jones sent me nuts from a bush which she thought might be the one I had sent. I was glad to be able to identify those nuts as being, indeed, from that bush.

In the spring of 1939, I crossed the Winkler hazel with filbert pollen; the European hazel with Winkler pollen; the Gellatly filbert with Jones hybrid pollen. These crosses produced many plants which will be new and interesting types to watch and build from. I have already made certain discoveries about them. By close examination of about forty plants, I have been able to determine that at least five are definitely hybrids by the color, shape and size of their buds. This is a very strong indication of hybridity with wild hazel or Winkler. On one of these plants, about one-foot high, I found staminate bloom which I consider unusual after only two seasons' growth.

During the fall of 1941, I became interested in a phenomenon of fruit determination previous to actual fructification of the plant by detailed examinations of its buds. I noticed, for instance, that large buds generally meant that the plant would produce large nuts and small buds indicated small nuts to come. The color of the buds, whether they were green, bronze green or reddish brown, could be fairly well depended upon to indicate their hybridity in many cases. These tests were not wholly reliable but the percentage of indication was so high that I was tempted to make predictions.

At that time, hazilbert No. 1 had not borne nuts. The bush resembled a wild hazel so much that I had begun to doubt its hybridity. Upon examining its buds, I found indications in their color that it was a hybrid, although the nuts apparently would not be large. It would be an important plant to me only if its pollen should prove to be effective on the other hazilberts. At the time this was only a wishful hope, because the pollen of the wild hazel, which this plant resembles, apparently does not act to excite the ovules of either filberts or filbert hybrids with filbert characteristics. Pure filbert pollen seemed to be necessary. In 1942, its pollen did prove to be acceptable to the other hazilberts and my hope for a good pollinizer was realized in it.

From the conclusions I reached through my study of the buds, I made sketches of which I believed the nuts of No. 1 would be like in size and shape. In March 1942, these sketches were used as the basis of the drawing given here. A comparison of this drawing with the photograph taken in September 1942, of the actual nuts of hazilbert No. 1 show how accurate such a predetermination can be.

I am convinced from the work I have done and am still doing, that we are developing several varieties of hazilberts as hardy and adaptable to different soils as the pasture hazel is, yet having the thin shell and the size of a European filbert. As to the quality of the kernel of such a nut, that of the wild hazel is as delicious as anyone could desire.

3/4 Natural size Filberts

3/4 Natural size Hazilberts and Winkler Hazel

31/32 of actual size Hazilberts. Left to right: No. 3, No. 5, No. 4, No. 2

No. 1 Hazilbert about 9/15/42. Note almost identical size and shape of this actual photograph of No. 1 compared to predetermined size and shape in drawing made almost one year previous to photograph. Plant had not produced any nuts prior to crop of 1942

Chapter 5

One salient feature which definitely separates the species Corylus Americana or wild hazel, from others of its genus, is its resistance to hazel blight, a native fungus disease of which it is the host. Controversies may occur over the application of the names "hazel" and "filbert" but there is no dispute about the effect of this infection on members of genus Corylus imported from Europe. Although there is wide variety in appearance and quality within each of the species, especially among the European filberts, and although filberts may resemble hazels sufficiently to confuse even a horticulturist, the action of this fungus is so specific that it divides Corylus definitely into two species. Corylus Americana and Corylus cornuta, through long association, have become comparatively immune to its effects and quickly wall off infected areas while filbert plants are soon killed by contact with it. Hybrids between filberts and hazels will usually be found to retain some of the resistance of the hazel parent.

The ideal nut of genus Corylus should combine qualities of both hazels and filberts. Such a hybrid should have the bushy characteristics of the American hazel with its blight-resisting properties and its ability to reproduce itself by stolons or sucker-growth. It should bear fruit having the size, general shape, cracking qualities and good flavor of the filbert as popularly known. The hybrids I am growing at my farm, which I call "hazilberts" and which are discussed later, seem to fulfill these requirements. The plants may be grown as bushes or small trees. They are blight-resistant and their nuts are like filberts in appearance. Three varieties of these hazilberts have ivory-colored kernels which are practically free of pellicle or fibre. They have a good flavor.

A comparison of the ripening habits and the effect of frost on the various members of the genus Corylus growing in my nursery in the fall of 1940, is shown by these extracts taken from daily records of the work done there. It should be noted that the summer season that year was rainy and not as hot as usual, so that most nuts ripened two to three weeks later than they normally do.

On October 20, I had an opportunity of comparing the action of frost on the leaves of these plants. Those of the White Aveline type had not changed color and were very green. The leaves of the Jones hybrid showed some coloration but nothing to compare with those of the Winkler hazel, many of which had the most beautiful colors of any of the trees on the farm—red, orange and yellow bronze. Hazilbert No. 1, which resembles a wild hazel in appearance and habits of growth, had colored much earlier in reaction to the frost and was as brightly tinted as the wild hazel and Winkler plants except that, like the wild hazel, it had already lost much of its foliage. Some of the wild hazels were entirely devoid of leaves at this time. Hazilbert No. 5 showed the best color effects with No. 4 second and No. 2 last.

The color of the leaves and the action of the frost on the plants during the autumn is another thing, in my opinion, that helps to differentiate between and to classify European filberts, American hazels and their hybrids. My conclusion in regard to the effect of frost is that the reaction of the Winkler hazel is very similar to that of the wild hazel in color but exceeding it in beauty since its leaves do not drop as soon after coloring. At this time, the leaves had not changed color on the imported European plants, the Gellatly filberts from British Columbia or the White Aveline type. They had turned only slightly on the Jones hybrid. I think an accurate idea of the general hardiness of a plant is indicated by the effect of frost and by early dropping of leaves, using the sturdy wild hazel as the limit of hardiness and assuming that its hardiness is shown by both degree of coloration and early dropping of leaves.

In noting the action of frost on the Winkler hazel, I have mentioned that it was more like that on the American hazel than on the European filberts. The Winkler has always been considered a native woodland hazel, but, although it does show several similarities to Corylus Americana, I have also noticed certain qualities which definitely suggest some filbert heritage. I have based my theory on a study of the Winkler hazels which have been bearing annually at my farm for six years, bearing more regularly, in fact, than even the wild hazels growing nearby. My comparisons have been made with wild hazels in both Minnesota and Wisconsin and with European filberts.

I found the first point of similarity with the filbert is in the involucre covering the nut. In the wild hazel, this folds against itself to one side of the nut, while in the filbert it is about balanced and if not already exposing a large part of the end of the nut, is easily opened. The involucre of the Winkler hazel is formed much more like that of the filbert than that of the hazel. In Corylus Americana this involucre is usually thick, tough and watery, while in the filbert it is thinner and drier, so that while a person may be deceived in the size of a hazelnut still in its husk, he can easily tell that of a filbert. This is also true of the Winkler whose involucre is fairly thick but outlines the form of the enclosed nut. Another feature about the involucre of the Winkler which classes it with the filberts rather than the hazels is in its appearance and texture, which is smooth and velvety while that of the hazel is hairy and wrinkled.

The staminate blooms of the Winkler hazel show similarity to those of both filberts and hazels. Sometimes they appear in formation at the ends of branches, much as those of the European filberts do, in overlapping groups of three or four. Again, they may be found at regular intervals at the axis of leaf stems very much as in the case of the American hazel. The buds on the Winkler hazel are dull red which is also true of those on the hybrid hazilberts, another indication of hybridity.

The initial growth of the embryo nut is very slow in the Winkler as it is in the filbert, as contrasted with the very rapid development of the native hazel embryo which matures in this latitude about one month ahead of the Winklers and some filberts. Although Winkler nuts are shaped like hazels and have the typically thick shells of hazelnuts, their size is more that of a filbert usually three times as large as a native hazel.

During the years between 1942 and 1945 many new hybrids between filberts and hazels were produced. Four wild varieties of hazels, which had unusual characteristics such as tremendous bearing and large size nuts and others having very early maturing or very thin shelled nuts were used as the female parents in making the crosses. Pollen was obtained from other parts of the U. S. or from filbert bushes which were growing on the place. Crosses included pollen of the Barcelona, Duchilly, Red Aveline, White Aveline, Purple Aveline, the Italian Red, Daviana and several hybrids between other filberts and hazels. By 1945 the number of these plants were in the neighborhood of 2000 and by 1952 considerable knowledge had been gained as to the hardiness, blight resistance to the common hazel blight (known scientifically as cryptosporella anomala), freedom from the curculio of the hazelnuts (commonly known as the hazel weevil) and resistance to other insect pests. Also, considerable data had been accumulated by cataloging over 650 trees each year for five years; cataloging included varied and detailed studies of their growth, bearing habits, ability to resist blight, curculio and other insects, the size of the nut, the thinness of the shell and the flavor of the kernel. Several books of all this detail were accumulated in trying to nail down several commercial varieties that would be propagated from this vast amount of material. Although some bushes produced good nuts at the rate of as much as two tons to the acre, measured on the basis of space that they took up in the test orchard, the most prolific kind seemed to be the ones that had a tendency to revert to the wild hazel type. The better and thinner-shelled types, more resembling the filberts, seemed to be shy bearers so that there being a host of new plants to catalog (more than 1000) which had not indicated their bearing characteristics, we included these among the possible ideal plants we were seeking. Although there were several plants that could be considered commercial in the original group of over 650 it has been thought that the waiting of a few more years to ascertain whether there would be something better in the next 1000 plants to bear that would be worthwhile waiting for and no attempt has been made to propagate the earlier tested plants. Some of these 650 tested hybrids proved to have nuts that were classed as Giants being much larger than the filberts produced by male or pollen parent such as the Barcelona, Duchilly or Daviana, and several times the size of the nuts of the female parent which was the wild hazel.

Wild Wisconsin Hazel discovered on Hazel Hills Farm near River Falls. Note size of nuts in husks as compared to woman's hand. This plant became the female parent in over 1,000 crosses by pollen furnished from male blooms of Duchilly, Barcelona, Italian Red, White, Red, and Purple Aveline and many other well known filberts. Photo by C. Weschcke

Chapter 6

I gave several of the original seedlings to friends who planted them in their gardens, where rich soil has stimulated them to grow at twice the rate of those on my farm. There were four individual pecan trees growing in or near St. Paul from my first planting, the largest being about 25 feet high with a caliber of five inches a foot above ground. Although this tree did not bear nuts I have used it as a source of scionwood for several years. These graftings, made on bitternut hickory stock, have been so successful that I am continuing their propagation at my nursery, having named this variety the Hope pecan, for Joseph N. Hope, the man who owns the parent tree and who takes such an interest in it.

Shows the use of a zinc metal tag fastened by 16 or 18 gauge copper wire to branch of tree.

By the year 1950 the tree had such a straggly appearance, although still healthy and growing but being too shaded by large trees on the boulevard, that Mr. Hope caused it to be cut down. The variety is still growing at my farm, grafted on bitternut stocks and although blossoming it has never produced a nut up to this time.

Another tree given to Joseph Posch of the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, had made even better growth and was luxuriantly healthy and in bloom when it was cut down by the owner because the branches overhung the fence line into a neighbor's yard. This was done in about 1950.

Another tree given to Mrs. Wm. Eldridge of St. Paul still flourishes and is quite large (in 1952 at breast height, 6 inches in diameter) but being in a dense shade, it has not borne any nuts.

The fourth tree, given to John E. Straus, the famous skate maker, presumably exists at his lake residence north of St. Paul. I have not seen it in the last seven or eight years.

Although they are not as hardy as bitternut stocks, I have found the wild Iowa pecan seedlings satisfactory for grafting after five years' growth. I use them as an understock for grafting the Posey, Indiana and Major varieties of northern pecan and find them preferable to northern bitternut stocks with which the pecans are not compatible for long, as a rule, such a union resulting in a stunted tree which is easily winter-killed. Although the Posey continued to live for several years our severe winters finally put an end to all these fine pecans. The root system of the seedling understock continued to live, however.

I chanced to discover an interesting thing in the fall of 1941 which suggests something new in pecan propagation. There were two small pecans growing in the same rows as the large ones planted fifteen years previously. When I noticed them, I thought they were some of this same planting and that they had been injured or frozen back to such an extent that they were mere sprouts again, for this has happened. I decided to move them and asked one of the men on the farm to dig them up. When he had dug the first, I was surprised to find that this was a sprout from the main tap root of a large pecan tree which had been taken out and transplanted. The same was true of the second one, except that in this case we found three tap roots, the two outside ones both having shoots which were showing above the ground. Another remarkable circumstance about this was that these tap roots had been cut off twenty inches below the surface of the ground and the sprouts had to come all that distance to start new trees. All of this suggests the possibility of pecan propagation by root cuttings. These two pecans, at least, show a natural tendency to do this and I have marked them for further experimentation along such lines.

On the advice of the late Harry Weber of Cincinnati, Ohio, an eminent nut culturist, who, after visiting my nursery in 1938, became very anxious to try out some of the Indiana varieties of pecans in our northern climate, I wrote to J. Ford Wilkinson, a noted propagator of nut trees at Rockport, Indiana, suggesting that he make some experimental graftings at my farm. Both Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Weber gathered scionwood from all the black walnut, pecan, hiccan and hickory trees at their disposal, for this trial. There was enough of it to keep three of us busy for a week grafting it on large trees. Our equipment was carried on a two-wheeled trailer attached to a Diesel-powered tractor, and we were saved the trouble of having to carry personally, scions, packing material, wax pots, knives, pruning shears, tying material, canvas and ladders into the woods. Mr. Wilkinson remarked, on starting out, that in the interests of experimental grafting, he had travelled on foot, on horseback, by mule team and in rowboats, but that this was his first experience with a tractor.

When he saw the type of grafting with which I had been getting good results, Mr. Wilkinson was astounded. He declared that using a side-slot graft in the South resulted in 100% failure, while I had more than 50% success with it. He was willing to discard his type of grafting for mine, which was adequate for the work we were doing, but I wanted to check his grafting performance and urged him to continue with his own (an adaptation of the bark-slot graft to the end of a cut-off stub). We both used paper sacks to shade our grafts. Although results proved that my methods averaged a slightly higher percentage of successful graftings in this latitude and for the type of work we were doing, his would nonetheless be superior in working over trees larger than four inches in diameter and having no lateral branches up to eight feet above ground, at which height it is most convenient to cut off a large hickory preparatory to working on it.

In the late fall of that year, we cut scionwood of the season's growth and inverted large burlap bags stuffed with leaves over the grafts, the bags braced on the inside by laths to prevent their collapsing on the grafts. So we have perpetuated the following varieties:

The Major and Posey pure pecans being incompatible on bitternut hickory roots were grafted on pecan stocks, but they proved to be tender to our winters and the varieties were finally lost.

Largest planted pecan in World having a record. About 17 ft. circumference breast height, 125 ft. spread and 125 ft. height. Very small worthless pecans. Easton, Maryland. Photo by Reed 1927

Other experiments I have made with pecans include an attempt to grow Southern pecans from seed, but they seem to be no more hardy than an orange tree would be. It is certain that they are not at all suited to the climate of the 45th parallel. In 1938, I received from Dr. W. C. Deming of Connecticut, some very good nuts from a large pecan tree at Hartford, Connecticut. Of the twelve pecans I planted, only six sprouted, and of these, only one has survived up to this date and is now a small weak tree. Apparently, the seedlings of this Hartford pecan are not as hardy as those from Iowa.

Iowa seedling Pecans. Tree planted in 1926 as seed. First crop October 29, 1953. 7/8 of actual size. Nuts were fully matured. Photo by C. Weschcke

Of the hiccans, hybrids between hickory and pecan, there are several varieties, as I mentioned before. Of these, the McAlester is the most outstanding, its nuts measuring over three inches in circumference and about three inches long. Horticulturists believe that this hybrid is the result of a cross between a shell-bark hickory, which produces the largest nut of any hickory growing in the United States, and a large pecan. I have experimented a number of times with the McAlester and my conclusion is that it is not hardy enough to advocate its being grown in this climate. There are other hiccans hardier than it is, however, such as the Rockville, Burlington, Green Bay and Des Moines, and it is certain that the North is assured of hardy pecans and a few hardy hybrids, which, although they do not bear the choicest pecan nuts, make interesting and beautiful lawn trees. Indeed, as an ornamental tree, the pecan is superior to the native hickory in two definite ways: by its exceedingly long life, which may often reach over 150 years as contrasted with the average hickory span of 100 years, and by its greater size. One pecan tree I saw growing in Easton, Maryland, in 1927, for example, was then seventeen feet in circumference at breast-height, one hundred twenty-five feet in height and having a spread of one hundred fifty feet. The wood of the pecan is similar to that of the hickory in both toughness and specific gravity, although for practical purposes, such as being used for tool handles, the shagbark hickory is enough harder and tougher to make it the superior of the two.

I was pleasantly surprised on October 30, 1953 when a pecan seedling of the Iowa origin, which had not yet borne any nuts, showed a small crop. These nuts were fully matured and were of sufficient size so that they could be considered a valuable new variety of pecan nut for the North. A plate showing a few of these pecans illustrates, by means of a ruler, the actual size of these pecans, and the fact that they matured so well by October 30 indicates that in many seasons they may be relied upon to mature their crop. No other data has been acquired on this variety and we can only be thankful that we can expect it to do a little better in size as successive crops appear, which is the usual way of nut trees. Also, by fertilizing this tree we can expect bigger nuts, as is generally the case. The shell of this pecan is so thin that it can be easily cracked with the teeth, which I have done repeatedly, and although small is thinner-shelled than any standard pecan.

Chapter 7

The question which naturally occurs is, "Why hasn't this been done with hickory nuts?" Hundreds of attempts have been made to do so, by the greatest nut propagators in the United States. They have been successful in grafting outstanding varieties of hickory to wild root stocks but the time involved has prevented any practical or commercial success, since most grafted hickories require a period of growth from ten to twenty years before bearing any nuts. This length of time contrasts very unfavorably with that required by grafted pecans which produce nuts on quite young trees, frequently within three to five years after grafting. This factor of slow growth has set the pecan far ahead of the tasty shagbark hickory. Experimenters have long thought to reduce the time required by the hickory to reach maturity by grafting it to fast-growing hickory roots such as the bitternut or the closely related pecan. Both of these grow rapidly and the bitternut has the additional advantage of growing farther north and of being transplanted more easily. It has always been thought that when a good variety of shagbark hickory had been successfully grafted to bitternut root stocks, orchards of hickory trees would soon appear. This takes me to my discovery of the variety now known as the Weschcke hickory, which I have found fulfills the necessary conditions.