Beautiful tropical looking Japanese Walnut (Juglans sieboldiana cordiformis). Variety Gellatly, from Westbank, B. C., Canada. Photo by C. Weschcke.

To show how nature reacts to much interference I will follow through on these nearly 100 small trees that resulted from this pollination. They were transplanted into an orchard on a side hill and well taken care of for several years, but during that time one after another was killed, apparently by winter conditions or perhaps the site was too exposed or the soil may have been uncongenial. Today there remains but three trees, none of which have borne but all indicate that they are true heartnuts from the shape of the leaves and color of the bark and general formation. In order to hasten their bearing, scions have been taken from these small trees and will be grafted on large black walnut stocks to bring them into fruitfulness much earlier than if they were left to their own slow growth. This system of testing out seedlings long before they have reached a size sufficient to bear on their own roots is applicable to all of the species of nut trees and is one way that the plant breeder can hurry up his testing for varieties after making crosses and obtaining young plants.

Natural size Heartnut. Photo 10/26/38 by C. Weschcke. Gellatly variety.

Beechnut

The beechnut, Fagus ferruginea, belonging to the oak family, is one of the giants of the forest, growing to great size and age. Even very old beech trees have smooth bark and this, in earlier and more rustic days, was much used for the romantic carving of lovers' names, as scars still visible on such ancient trees testify. The wood itself is dense and hard, even more so than hard maple, and is considered good lumber. Beechnut is one of the few nut trees with a more shallow and ramified root system as contrasted with that of most, which, as in the oak, walnut and hickory, is a tap root system. This fact suggests that in those localities where beeches grow wild, grafts made on such trees, and transplanted, would survive and grow well.

Perhaps one of the reasons why very little propagation is done with beeches is that no outstanding variety has ever been discovered. Although the nut shell is thin and the meat sweet and oily, the kernel is so small that one must crack dozens of them to get a satisfying sample of their flavor. This, of course, prevents their having any commercial value as a nut. There is also the fact that the beechnut is the slowest growing of all the common nut trees, requiring from twenty to thirty years to come into bearing as a seedling. Of course this could be shortened, just as it is in propagating hickories and pecans, by making grafts on root systems which are ten or more years old, as explained in the chapter on heartnuts. However, I know of no nursery in which beechnuts are propagated in this way.

My attempts to grow beechnut trees in Wisconsin have met with little success. About the year 1922, I obtained 150 trees from the Sturgeon Bay Nurseries. I planted these on level ground which had clay near the surface with limestone about a foot under it. Although all of these trees seemed to start satisfactorily, some even growing about a foot, within two or three years they had all died. I decided they were not hardy but I now realize that the character of the soil was responsible for their gradual death; they should be planted in a limestone or calcareous soil, preferably of the fine sandy type, the main requisite being plenty of moisture because of their shallow root system. Since then, I have purchased beechnut seeds several times from various seedsmen, but none of these seeds has ever sprouted. I think this is because beechnuts, like chestnuts, must be handled with great care to retain their viability.

In 1938, I ordered 100 beechnut trees from the Hershey Nurseries of Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Although these trees were set in sandy soil, there are now only about five of them alive, and of these, only four are growing well enough to suggest that they will some day become big trees.

Beechnuts must be protected against mice and rabbits as these species of rodents are very fond of bark and young growth of these trees and I have every reason to believe that deer are in the same category.

Oaks

Although the acorns produced by the red oak are very bitter and consistently wormy, those from the white oak are more edible. In my own exploring, I have found one tree, apparently a hybrid between the red and white oaks, which bears good acorns. The nuts, which are long and thin, are generally infested with weevils. If there were a demand for such a nut tree, I'm sure that it could easily be grafted on oak roots. During favorable seasons, when these edible nuts were of good size and free from worms, I have carried them in my pocket and enjoyed munching on them. I found that their flavor, like that of chestnuts, was improved by roasting.

Acorns are a balanced food and contain enough starch to make them readily assimilated, except for their bitterness. They are a good food for farm animals and chickens. I have kept a flock of goats in good condition by feeding them acorns during the winter. It isn't necessary to grind them for such use. I have read that Indians at one time prepared acorns for their own use by storing them in bags submerged in cold running water. This not only extracted the bitterness but also it probably discouraged the development of weevil eggs.

Oak trees are generally prolific and are regular bearers, but of course, what they are widely known and loved for is the beauty of their leaves in the autumn. No one doubts their esthetic value, which will keep them forever popular whether they come into demand as a grafted nut tree or not.

Chestnuts

Another of our ornamental nut trees is the chestnut, also of the oak family, classified under the genus Castanea, which grows into a large, beautiful tree with wide-spread branches. Chestnuts do not grow well on limestone soil and always fail in the heavy blue clay so common on farm lands in this part of the country. It is best for their growth that the soil be gravelly and slightly acid.

The chestnut has always been a good timber tree. Its wood, although not as hard as the red oak, resembles it in grain. The beams of many old pioneer homes are found to be chestnut. It is said that this is one of few woods to give a warning groan under too heavy a burden before it cracks or breaks. Chestnut wood is very durable in contact with the soil, outlasting all others except possibly black walnut and cedar. It contains so much siliceous matter in its pores that it quickly dulls chisels and saws used in working it.

The chestnut trees at my nursery were grown from mixed hybrid seeds which I obtained from Miss Amelia Riehl of Godfrey, Illinois. Almost all of the seeds she first sent me, in 1926, spoiled while they were stored during the winter. But Miss Riehl sent me more the following spring, many of which proved hardy. In 1937, the oldest of these trees produced staminate bloom for the first time. I naturally expected a crop of nuts from it that year, but none developed. The same thing happened in 1938. I then wrote to Miss Riehl about it, also asking her where to look for the pistillate blossoms. Her reply was a very encouraging one in which she wrote that the pistillate blossoms appear at the base of the catkins or staminate blooms, but that it is quite a common thing for chestnut trees to carry the latter for several years before producing pistillate blossoms. She also explained that it was very unlikely that the tree would fertilize its own blooms, so that I should not expect one tree to bear until other nearby chestnuts were also shedding pollen. This occurred the next year and another chestnut close to the first one set a few nuts. It was not until 1940 that the tree which had blossomed first, actually bore nuts.

In 1940, I crossed the pistillate blossoms of this tree with pollen from a Chinese variety called Carr, resulting in half a dozen nuts which I planted.

Since the chestnuts in these parts do not bloom usually until early July we can expect chestnuts to be a more reliable crop than butternuts, for instance, which bloom very early in the spring about May 1 to 15th.

Having had this reward for my efforts I took much more interest in chestnut growing and ordered trees of the Chinese varieties, Castanea mollissma from J. Russell Smith, H. F. Stoke, and John Hershey. Some of these were seedlings and some were grafted trees, not over a dozen of them alive today and none have produced mature nuts. Seemingly they have not been hardy although they have grown large enough to produce both staminate and pistillate blooms; they have never winter killed back to the ground, however.

Also, I have been planting nuts from all sources from which I could obtain them, mostly of the Chinese chestnut type. Some of these nuts were results of crosses, and showed their hybridity in the young seedlings that resulted there from. Today I have perhaps 150 of such young seedlings which I am pampering with the hope of getting something worthwhile from them. One of the big thrills of chestnut growing was the result of a chestnut that I picked up from a plant that was no higher than 2 feet, growing at Beltsville, Maryland in the government testing ground there, in 1937. My records show that this plant began to bear nuts in 1943 and have subsequently borne several crops in between the times that it was frozen to the ground and grew up again, which happened at least three times. Like most chestnuts this one has to be pollinated by taking the staminate bloom from a dwarfed chestnut nearby whose bloom coincides with the blossoming of the female flowers of this Chinese hybrid. Chestnuts rarely set any nuts that produce mature seed from their own pollen but depend on cross-pollination. The nut from this hybrid is also the largest of any that I have grown and to my taste is a palatable one. It may not rank among the best ones of known varieties today, but for our climate I would consider it unusually large and good. Experimentally, I have been able to produce new plants from this tree by layering young shoots coming from the roots. This generally requires two years to make a well-rooted plant before they are cut off and transplanted. This alternative of propagating by grafting or budding is considered a better method if it can be practiced, as it gives a plant on its own roots instead of the roots of some unknown seedling stock.

Hybrid Chestnut; natural size, one of the two survivors of several dozen trees sent by the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture for testing this far north. Fair size nut and it resembles the American Sweet Chestnut. Photo by C. Weschcke.

Another tree that surprised me when it came into bearing proved to bear one nut in a burr which led me to believe that it was a chinquapin hybrid. Later on, the habit of this tree changed somewhat and some of the burrs had more than one nut. I have found this to be the experience of others who have observed so-called chinquapin trees of a hybrid nature. It is my belief that the kind of pollen with which these blossoms are fertilized directly influences the number of nuts in a burr and sometimes the size of the nuts, again showing the importance of the cross-pollinating varieties when setting out an orchard of trees. This particular chinquapin type chestnut has upright growing habits different from a tree bearing similar nuts but having a very dwarfed habit. All of the nuts of the latter after six years of bearing can be picked off this tree by standing on the ground. There are several other trees bearing chestnuts, some large and some small nuts, all of which are interesting to me and may be important in the future of the chestnuts this far north since they indicate without doubt that the chestnut can accommodate itself to our climate, providing it has the right type of soil to grow in. In 1952 I acquired a 20-acre adjoining piece of land which has a much better chestnut growing site, being deep sandy soil, well drained, and yet not ever being dry. New varieties will be tested on this piece and should give much better results than the old trees which already were good enough to indicate success in chestnuts.

A hybrid chestnut presumed to be a cross between European Chestnut (Castanea Sativa) and its American cousin (Castanea Americana). Actual size. Photo by C. Weschcke.

Chinquapin hybrids from a tall growing tree. Nuts grow in racemes of burrs with as many as 10 burrs on one stem. Photo by C. Weschcke.

Apricot

If it were not that an apricot is a nut as well as a fruit, I should hesitate to include a description of my work with it. But the apricot seed has a rich kernel which, in many countries, for example, China, is used as a substitute for the almond to which it is closely related.

It was in 1933 that my aunt, Margaret Weschcke, told me of an apricot tree growing in a yard on the Mississippi River bluff in St. Paul and said to be bearing fruit. I was quite skeptical until I saw the tree and also saw fruit from it which had been preserved by the woman who owned it. Convinced of the hardiness of the tree, I was anxious to obtain scionwood but it was not until late that winter that I received permission to do so. It happened that a truck had broken off a large branch from the tree while delivering coal, and the owner very reasonably decided that taking a few twigs from it would not hurt it any more. I not only took the small branches that she was willing to sacrifice from her tree but also as many as possible from the branch which had been torn off, as its terminals were still in a fresh condition.

I grafted these scions on hybrid plum trees where they took hold readily, and in 1938, they began to bear prolifically. The apricots, which I have named Harriet, in honor of my mother, are a fine-flavored fruit, medium in size. Their cheeks are a mottled red with raised surfaces. Their pits are well-formed and fairly edible. Although the parent tree died the winter I took scions from it, my grafts have proved quite hardy, having received no injury when temperatures as low as 47° below zero have occurred. Since the parent tree died because its roots were severely frozen, it would seem that the top of the tree, in this case, was more hardy than the root system. This does occur sometimes, although it is unusual.

In developing the factor of hardiness further in this apricot variety, I have taken advantage of something I had observed about other fruit trees. When one combines parts of two trees by grafting, it is a simple thing to select a hardy root stock from the available plants, just as I selected hardy plum stock on which to graft my apricot scions. This is not always possible in choosing scionwood, however, since scionwood is usually selected for such reasons as the quality of its fruit. It may happen that the top part of a tree is limited in its climatic scope because of its inability to withstand precipitate or otherwise unfavorable temperatures. Having observed that certain grafted varieties of fruit trees, such as the Wealthy apple, for instance, have gradually come to be planted much farther north than they originally were, I reasoned that this was because only the hardiest of them survived and these hardy ones therefore became the mother blocks for future grafting. This was an inescapable procedure which acted as a method of bud selection. I therefore assumed that by a careful choice of the hardiest among surviving twigs of the most recent graft of the Harriet apricot, when particularly severe winter weather had caused some injury, I could induce extra-hardiness in future grafts.

I also believe that I have added to the hardiness factor of the apricot by making frequent grafts. It is my theory that the root stock is able to exert some influence over the top other than mere maintenance of life. By frequently uniting a hardy stock with a less hardy top, I think that the individuality of the top part may be somewhat broken down and the extra characteristic of hardiness added to it. After the fifth re-graft of this apricot made in eight years, I am convinced by its appearance and behavior that it is capable of becoming a reliable apricot for the region around St. Paul. Today the apricot still exists grafted on plum at my nursery at River Falls, Wisconsin, and the weakness of the tree seems to be in the union between the top and the plum stock. If this union were not so corky and large and succulent it might be less injured by our winters; therefore it is quite apparent that the plum is not a congenial stock for an apricot, at least it does not produce a satisfactory union. I am now making tests with this same variety by grafting it on more hardy apricot seedling stock such as the Prof. N. E. Hansen of Brookings, South Dakota, introduces.

Chapter 11

The first introduction I had to the devastating work that these animals can do in an orchard was when I was working among my young apple and plum trees one spring. I noticed that the foliage was turning yellow on many of them and upon investigation I found that the trees were very loose in the ground. At first I thought that planting operations and heaving of the ground by frost in the spring might be the cause, but in testing the looseness of one of these trees, I found that I could pull it out of the ground easily. There I saw what appeared to be the marks of an axe. I was completely convinced that I had personal enemies who went around nights chopping off the roots of my trees, for I knew that most of my neighbors were completely out of sympathy with my tree cultivation. In fact, farmers living in that section of the country were always poking fun at my nut tree plantings and orchard work, for their idea of what was proper on a farm was a treeless field of plowed ground. As I thought of all these things, I pulled up many other trees; in fact, there were dozens that were chopped off so that they could be completely pulled out. Others still had one or two roots clinging to the main trunk and these I carefully replanted so that they would continue to live and grow.

Not long after the tragic day on which I found all these ravaged trees, I noticed, winding in and out close to the young orchard trees, the mounds which pocket gophers make when they tunnel under the ground. I followed some of these by digging into them with a shovel, and discovered that they led to the roots of trees, the very trees that had been chopped off and killed. My enemies were not human after all.

Sending for a pamphlet from the U. S. Department of Agriculture, I studied the material given about pocket gophers and their habits. I then began their systematic eradication, using about twelve steel muskrat traps. I succeeded in trapping, in one season, over thirty of them, at a time when they were so prolific and their holes so numerous that I could not drive a horse through the orchard without danger of breaking one of its legs. I also used poisoned grains and gases but I do not recommend them. Trapping is the only method in which one obtains actual evidence of elimination. It took me many years to force the gophers out of my orchards and I still must set traps every fall, during September and October when they are most active. Their habits are such that they do most of their tunnelling in the early fall months, before frost, during which time they expose and isolate the roots on which they intend to feed during the winter months when the ground is so hard that they cannot burrow further. This period is when they are most easily trapped.

It was with the idea of establishing a balance of nature against these animals that I conceived the idea of importing bull snakes. Almost everyone has heard of the bull snake, but its name is a poor one, for it has the wrong connotation. These snakes are actually a fine friend to the farmer since each snake accounts for the death of many rodents each year. Their presence certainly was of definite value in decreasing the number at my farm. Bull snakes have the long body typical of constrictors, sometimes reaching a length of nearly six feet at maturity, and being at the most an inch and one-half in diameter. This country had a natural abundance of such snakes at one time but ignorance and superstition have lessened their number so that it is now a rare thing to find one. During the early days of automobiles, these huge bull snakes, or gopher snakes, as I prefer to call them, would lie across the sunny, dusty roads, and drivers of cars delighted in running them down. Since they are very docile, they are the least afraid of man of any members of the local snake family. They are slow in movement until they sense the immediate presence of their natural food, which is live mice, rats, gophers, squirrels, young rabbits, and sometimes, though rarely, birds. Then it is they become alert, and the horny appendage on their tails vibrates with a high-pitched, buzzing sound, simulating, although not similar to, the sound of a poisonous rattlesnake.

When I first brought some of these snakes to my farm, I loosed them and they wandered off to a neighbor's premises where they were promptly found and killed. Later importations I confined to my basement, where I built an artificial pool with frogs and fish in it. However, I could never induce the bull snakes to eat any of these batrachians. They would, almost playfully, stalk the frogs, but at the moment when one was within reach, the snake would glide away. Neither would the snakes, unless force-fed, eat anything they had not caught themselves.

My children were delighted to have the snakes there and made pets of them. Only once was one of the girls bitten when she attempted force-feeding. The bite was a mere scratch but we feared that it might be slightly poisonous. However, it healed so promptly that it was quite apparent that the bull snake's bite is not toxic. I, too, have had my skin slightly punctured by their teeth, but always the wound healed with no more pain or trouble than a pin prick. Such is not at all the case when a person is nipped by a squirrel or gopher. I have purposely allowed a pocket gopher to bite me, to determine what the effects are. The pain was severe and healing was slow. Once, bitten by a gray squirrel when I reached into a hollow tree to get it, I received such a wound that fever started in my whole hand. Its teeth punctured a finger-nail and were stopped only by meeting the bone. Such bites I consider rather poisonous.

Rabbits also committed much damage at my nursery by gnawing the bark of my trees, especially during times of deep snow. They did not bother the walnuts particularly, but were very fond of hickories and pecan trees. On the smallest ones, they cut branches off and carried them away to their nests. On larger trees, they gnawed the bark off of most of the lower branches. This was dangerous but seldom fatal, whereas the gnawing of mice, near the base of the trunks, was such that in some cases when complete girdling occurred, it was necessary to use bridge-grafting to save the trees. This consists of connecting the bark immediately above the roots with the bark above the girdled portion, so that the tree can receive and send the food substances it elaborates to its upper and lower parts.

Rabbits and mice, therefore, had to be dealt with. Of course, one could go hunting for rabbits and later eat them. This was one task I had my employees do. I, myself, was unwilling to take an active part in it, although still intent on saving my trees in spite of my pity for the little animals. Placing hundreds of cans in the orchard, with a pinch of poisoned wheat and oat mixture in each, helped to eradicate the mice. The bait was placed inside the cans to prevent birds from being poisoned, and the cans were tipped at an angle so that water would not enter them.

To be absolutely sure of preventing mice damage, one should provide each tree with a screen guard. I have made about 10,000 screen protectors for my trees for this purpose. I have also trapped rabbits which we were not able to shoot and I conceived the idea of painting the traps with white enamel. When these were set on the snow around those trees which the rabbits attacked, they worked very successfully. The traps were a size larger than the common gopher trap, but were not expensive. There are other ways of catching rabbits or curtailing their activities, but on my list, shooting comes first, with trapping as a second effective measure.

Squirrels, although they do no damage to the trees themselves, except on rare occasions, are a definite nuisance when they come in large numbers and cut down nuts before they are ripe. They do this to hickory nuts, and apparently are very fond of the half-ripened nuts. I have seen squirrels chew hickory buds and young sprouts of hickory grafts and I had to trap several before I stopped them from doing this to certain ornamental trees in our garden. In fact, when one has a large nut orchard, squirrels will be attracted in number that preclude the possibility of harvesting a crop unless measures are taken to banish them. They are very active early in the morning and my experiences indicate that two or three people should hunt them together, as they are very clever at dodging a single hunter. I also have built galvanized metal guards around isolated trees which prevent squirrels from climbing them.

In speaking of mice, we have two important species commonly known as the meadow mouse and the other species known as the white-footed mouse. The meadow mouse is the one that does so much damage to the orchard trees and young nursery stock if unprotected, and the white-footed mouse may be responsible for some of this when present in great numbers, but of the white-footed mouse this much good can be said:

Squirrel guards.

Much of its diet, especially of the mother mouse during the time that she is nursing her young ones, is made up of insects. A personal experience accentuates this. Since these are such pretty little creatures, having such cunning ways, it was my ambition to catch a complete family of mother and young ones which sometimes numbered as high as ten. My ambition was finally gratified and I was able to get a mother of eight and her tiny mouslings, which have a habit of fastening themselves securely to her breasts while she runs about, and drags them all along in a most ludicrous fashion. At times, under these circumstances, the combined weight of the brood exceeds that of the mother mouse but they are exceptionally strong creatures for their size, a mature mouse being able to jump out of a 3-foot barrel with one leap. In observing this brood of mice, I was particularly anxious to see what kind of a diet they throve on and tried the mother's appetite with tidbits from the table. While she ate most everything, it soon became apparent that something was wrong because the young ones became weaker, finally to the extent that they were unable to nurse, and one morning I found several on their backs with their feet feebly waving in the air indicating that they were dying of starvation. At about that time I was drying some hazelnuts on a flat back porch floor and in sweeping them up found a lot of alive and dried up larvae which had escaped from the shells. Just for fun, I swept this material up and threw it into the mouse cage. The reaction of this treatment was gratifying, for the mother mouse pounced upon this insect life greedily devouring everything. Within three days, the young mice were all in good health and running around showing that the milk produced from the diet that I had been giving the mother was inadequate for the baby mice. It is therefore to their credit to state that these mice and probably at times the meadow mice do consume large quantities of larvae and grubs in the surface soil, as well as mature active insects, such as crickets and grasshoppers.

HOW TO PREPARE RODENT PROTECTORS FOR TREES

1. Cut 6" strips from 24" wide roll of galvanized screen with a 12 x 12 mesh.

2. Cut strips in half to make two protectors from each strip.

3. Make bundles of 25 each by running wire through protectors.

4. Dip these bundles in a solution containing 5 pounds of red lead per gallon of linseed oil. Use from 3 to 5 gallons of this solution.

5. Remove bundles and hang them on a pole with a drip pan beneath to catch the solution, which can be used again. Allow bundles to drip for 8 hours, then separate each protector and place on grass for a few days to dry.

6. Roll each protector around a 3/4" pipe or broomstick and it is ready for the tree.

Preparation of screen guards.

In dealing with wild creatures, one must forebear condemning a whole species of animals merely because at times they become troublesome, for the main purpose of their existence, like owls, hawks and crows, they may be more beneficial than otherwise.

A good word should be said here for skunks and moles. A great deal of the skunk diet is insect life. The same is true of the mole whose diet probably consists of 75% insects, mostly in their larval state. This is an important feature of mole and skunk as they dig these insects out before they mature into winged female adults which may lay hundreds of eggs. If these larvae should be allowed to develop into a mature winged insect that would lay eggs, this particular insect would multiply itself hundreds of times over and it would take many more birds than at present exist to take over the big job of keeping the balance between necessary insect life and a surplus which would be destructive to all plant life. We can never hope to eradicate all insect life which we deplore as being deleterious to the interests of mankind, and it is mighty well that we cannot do this for the insects are as important to us as all other life, for without them we would be unable to produce the vast quantities of foods that are now dependent upon such insect life. It is true that they take their toll of the food that they are instrumental in sometimes producing but when one attempts to unravel the mystery of balance of nature one is confronted by the big question of how far to go in the eradication of both animals and insect pests. Before man's interference the wild crops were plentiful and balances were kept in harmony by vast multitudes of frogs and toads, birds and rodents, all of which have been slaughtered and reduced by such amounts as to endanger man's food supply, forcing him to resort to poison sprays and other measures in order to hold destruction in check. All of this expense and trouble he could have avoided if he had been sensible enough to observe the natural checks and foster the natural procedure of which nature is the best guide.

Chapter 12

Chestnuts, beechnuts and acorns require more care when they are to be stored, for their viability is very sensitive to dryness. I have found that these soft-shelled species of nuts should be treated in a different manner than the walnut and hickory types of seeds if we are to get the most out of their germination. Since chestnuts are very prone to molding or rotting, the best way to maintain their viability and freshness over winter is to stratify them in a can or box between layers of a peat moss. This peat moss must be decidedly on the acid side and must be dampened, but must not be so wet that you can wring any water out of it. The best way to prepare this dry peat moss is to soak it in water and wring as much water out of it as possible by squeezing with your hands. Then mix it with half as much of the undampened peat. This will give you approximately the right moisture coefficient. If stored in cans, the bottom of the can must be punctured with a few holes about 1/4 of an inch in diameter, well distributed on the bottom to act as a drain and to admit some slight circulation of air. The same thing should be done with the cover.

First, put down an even layer about 1-1/2 inches of this dampened moss, then put in a layer of chestnuts or other nuts to be stratified, placed evenly or well distributed but not touching each other. After the first layer, carefully sift in more dampened moss about 1 inch thick and repeat the process until either the can is full or all the seeds have been stored. The last layer should be a 2-inch layer of peat moss before the cover is placed on. Now the important thing about all this is to place this can in a storage room of low temperature and yet it should not freeze solid. But in a temperature of from 32 to 40 degrees is ideal and preferably it should be on the ground floor so as to maintain the moisture that is already stored in the seed and the moss. A mechanical refrigerator which would constantly dehydrate might eventually dry them out too much for good germination; otherwise such a refrigerator would be ideal for the storage of small amount of seeds of this kind.

It would be well from time to time to inspect these seeds to see whether they were in good condition and check the temperatures as well. If they start to sprout all the better; they can then be planted with the sprout downward and the nut barely covered with earth. Some years I have had sprouts nearly six inches long on my chestnuts which had been so stored and care will have to be taken not to break the sprout when transplanting the nuts.

In planting nuts, great care must be taken not to plant them too deeply. Large nuts, such as black walnuts, butternuts and English walnuts, are often planted with a small part of the nut still exposed. Certainly, the depth of the soil over a nut should never exceed the thickness of the nut. Most seeds develop best when they are planted just under the surface of the soil. The earth should be lightly tamped around the planted seeds to eliminate air-pockets. A thin coating of manure, not more than three inches deep, is valuable if large seeds are planted but it is detrimental to the development of small seeds and manure should never be used for evergreens. Seeds of the nut pines, usually purchased from seedsmen and received in a dry state, should be planted no deeper than their own diameter in a light, sandy loam. A seed bed, incidentally, is a very necessary protection against rodents in the case of nut pine seed. I have used a mixture of bone meal on such seeds with good results. Four quarts of bone meal carefully worked into the first two or three inches of the surface soil of a 4 x 12 seed bed greatly increases its fertility. Sifted hardwood ashes scattered over the bed after the seed is in, will discourage cutworms and increase the potash content of the soil.

Proper drying and storage are of no use if nuts are not planted where they will have protection against rodents, improper drainage, and other hazards. To keep them from being eaten by rodents, nut seeds should be planted under wire screens inside a deep frame. The seed beds I have made for use in my nursery are four feet wide and twelve feet long. By using heavy galvanized hardware cloth 2 x 2 mesh, which means that it has 1/2-inch square holes, is ideal for the top and sides of this frame. By using this wire cloth 2 feet wide, 18 inches is sunk under the ground surface, and only 6 inches protrudes above. This is to prevent burrowing rodents from going underneath and extracting the seeds which you will find they will do unless the screen protection goes down deep enough into the ground to discourage them. A stout frame of rot-resisting wood, such as cedar or fir should be placed on the inside of this countersunk screen. This should also be 4 feet wide, 12 feet long so that a similar frame, which is removable, can be placed over this. The edges of the frame should match perfectly so that no rodents can reach the interior of the seed bed without going down 1-1/2 feet under ground to burrow under the countersunk screen. Several thousand evergreens or several hundred walnut trees can be raised in a seed bed this size.

The soil is now removed from the inside of this enclosure or stationary part of the bed to the depth of 6 inches so that the plants will have head room to develop leaves and stems and still be protected under the top or removable frame part. The top frame made of the same material and covered also by the 2 x 2 hardware cloth should be about 6 inches in height so that there will actually be 18 inches of head room for the plants to grow in before touching the screen.

This 60 x 30 foot corrugated galvanized iron fence 3-1/2 feet tall and sunk 6 inches into ground protects valuable hybrids against invasion by rodents. Photo by C. Weschcke.

There are several important points to remember in starting a seed bed. It must be in a well-drained site, so that the seeds will not be under water or water-logged for any length of time. It should be in an open place where sunlight is plentiful, unless evergreens are being grown. Evergreens must be in half-shade the first season to avoid a condition known as "damping off." The top six inches of soil in the bed should be the best garden soil obtainable, the growth resulting from using good, clean soil, free from weed seeds, being worth the trouble of preparing it. By having the bed in two parts, with a cover that may be taken off, proper weeding can be done when necessary. The cover should always be replaced afterward, though, as rodents will sometimes attack the young shoots and the remainder of the seed kernel.

In the spring of the second season of growth, the young plants may be dug up and lined out in nursery rows. After two or three years more, they may be planted in permanent locations.

Chapter 13

As most nut trees ultimately grow to be very large, they should be planted at least forty feet apart. The hole dug to receive each tree should be wide and deep enough to accommodate the roots without bending or twisting them. If the excavated soil is of poor quality, it should be discarded, and good, rich soil brought in for setting the tree. Trees should not be planted too deeply. The collar of a tree, which is a discoloration of its trunk resulting from contact with the ground, indicates how much of the tree was previously underground. Although it is a good idea to plant so that this collar is a little lower than the surface to allow access to extra moisture, the actual planting depth should be about as it was previously in the nursery. All broken or damaged parts on the roots should be trimmed smoothly with pruning shears. Such clean cuts will send out new rootlets to replace the lost ones. After a tree has been set into the hole made for it, the soil, which should be thoroughly mixed with a quart of bone meal to increase its fertility, is replaced a little at a time. It must be packed very solidly about the roots with a rounded tamping stick to avoid leaving air pockets. I find it advisable to retamp the earth about each tree two or three times during the first year's growing season, to insure intimate contact between soil and roots.

Planting should be delayed if the soil is very wet. Trees will stay in good condition for several days, if the burlap sacks are kept moistened. Wet, soggy soil is certain to shrink away from the roots and leave air pockets which will, in time, kill the trees. If trees are transplanted during a very dry season, they should be thoroughly watered. To do this, remove several shovelfuls of dirt from the ground about a foot from the tree, being careful not to cut any roots. Fill this hole with water and after the water has seeped away, fill it two more times. The tree should receive about five gallons of water. Sprinkling with a hose does not suffice. If dry weather continues, each tree should be watered in this way every week.

Nurserymen in the future will have to deal with this transplanting problem in a different way than the old time nurserymen who handles fruit trees. A suggested way to improve the root system and at the same time make it easy to lift the tree with a ball of dirt, similar to the way an evergreen is transplanted, is to prepare a pocket of special transplanting soil previous to the lining out (which is the term used by nurserymen in setting out seedlings preparatory to grafting them in nursery rows). A suggested balanced soil for making the method practical is to use 1/2 by volume of peat moss; the other half should be rich, black sandy loam with very little clay mixture in it. In other words, each nut tree should be allowed about a bushel of soil for its development, 1/2 bushel to be peat moss, the other half bushel to be represented by rich black loam. This mixture will encourage many fibrous roots to develop and when the tree is dug, approximately all of this bushel of soil will be retained around the roots. Having such a high proportion of peat moss makes it lighter than ordinary ground; such a ball and the tree will weigh approximately from 100 to 125 pounds which can be shipped by freight at a low rate and is well worth the extra price that nurserymen must ask for a specimen of this kind. Such trees have really never been unplanted and for this reason do not suffer the shock which is inevitable in the usual transplanting process. Although pre-planted trees are more expensive to buy and to transport, their improved chances of living make them worth the price. The above recommendation is especially applicable to young grafted hickory trees since they are among the most difficult trees to transplant satisfactorily. The English walnut (Persian), black walnut, butternut and especially the hickory are improved by the use of a handful of ground lime mixed with the soil in preparing these pockets which will later constitute the ball surrounding the roots of the tree to be transplanted.

There is a tendency in grafted trees to produce sprouts below the graft. Unless these are rubbed off, the grafted portion will become discouraged and the tree will revert to a seedling variety. Filberts should never be allowed more than two or three stems, or trunks, while one is more preferable. If they are allowed to have more, they will produce a rank growth of wood but only a few, if any, nuts. I stress, by repeating, that trees should not be planted too deeply and that great care must be taken to eliminate air pockets. Extra effort and nursing of transplanted trees during the first season will be repaid by their successful development and growth.

It is a wise precaution to place a protective screen around the trunk of each tree to prevent rodents from attacking it. Mice gnaw off the bark near the ground, sometimes girdling a tree and so killing it. Rabbits chew off branches and they, too, may girdle the upper part of a tree. Rabbits are very fond of pecan and hickory bark. In some places, it may be necessary to encircle each pecan and hickory tree with a three or four-foot rabbit fence until the tree is large enough to lose its appeal to these nuisances.

Compared with the number of insects which infest fruit trees, very few attack nut trees. One of those which does is the walnut-leaf caterpillar. These appear as a closely congregated group of small worms which feed on the leaves of black walnut and hickory trees during the latter half of the summer season. Very often they are all to be found on a single leaf, which should be picked from the tree and crushed underfoot. A simple spray of lead arsenate of the strength recommended by companies selling spray material, will effectively rid trees of these pests. Another insect often found in a nut orchard is the oak tree girdler, which also is active in the latter part of the summer. It often causes limbs as large as an inch in diameter to be cut through and to fall to the ground. By removing such freshly girdled branches and cutting into the hollow made by the larva, it is possible to find the live worm and destroy it. A good way to combat this pest is to keep each tree pruned of all dead branches and to burn all broken and dead wood each fall. While some nut trees are subject to other insects, the two described here are the most frequently found. Fortunately, they are easily controlled if a watch is kept for them.

Chapter 14

When an unusually large swelling at the graft union appears, it is certain that the plant needs protection such as I have described. Such swellings result from a too-rapid multiplication of cells, a condition which leaves the union weak and susceptible to injury. Although a union is never entirely safe, even after many seasons of growth, each year adds to the safety factor by the development of rough, cork-like bark. I suggest the use of a woolen guard for several winters, by which time this outer bark should be able to do its protective work alone.

A successful but rather expensive method of winter protection, both to the graft itself and its union with its host, is to enclose the entire tree with a box-like structure consisting of four corrugated aluminum roofing sheets set up on their ends and countersunk into the ground about six inches. The purpose of countersinking these below the ground surface is two-fold: it stiffens and braces the structure and prevents the intrusion of mice and other rodents, which may also appreciate both the shelter and possible food supply contained therein. By fastening these sheets together with a stout wire you can depend on the structure to stand up against wind and snow pressures. Fill the entire inside with forest leaves, oak leaves preferred, as their insulating quality is the best and they are slow to rot and ferment.

When working with semi-hardy plants in a cold climate, avoid fertilizing and cultivating the ground after the first of August. Doing so stimulates late growth and such growth is very likely to be badly injured during the winter months. If fertilizer is used, it should be early in the spring, as soon as the ground is free from frost. Trees which persist in growing late into the fall are more subject to winter injury. Protective measures to avoid their doing so by inducing an earlier dormancy, include keeping the soil around them dry and exposing, somewhat, the roots near the trunk of each tree.

My last word of advice in raising what might be termed semi-hardy trees, is to grow them in sod, the ordinary quack grass, June grass, bluegrass or other natural grass sods which can be found on your planting site. Although this will probably hold back your tree development for a few years, until the roots are thoroughly established in the deeper soil beneath the sod roots, it is surprising how many species of trees will thrive in sod and perish on open cultivated ground. I can give no better example of this than relating a circumstance which bears this out in a most convincing way. In 1941 I purchased about 250 filbert seedlings from Samuel Graham of Ithaca, New York. These were planted out on a field site and practically all of the plants made good growth the first year. They were thoroughly cultivated. The next year a second batch of plants of a like amount were purchased from the same man and of the same kind of seedlings. Mr. Graham told me that these were seedling trees from Jones hybrid seeds which he had growing in his orchard. These plants were put on heavy sod ground; all plants were protected by screens, but the plants on the sod ground were subject to a very wet season and it was necessary to build up the soil around some of the plants in order to save them from being drowned out. Today about 45 plants are living on the sod culture and two or three barely alive exist in the open field culture. Although the plants remaining alive on the sod culture plot are almost pure filbert strain they are therefore very subject to the common hazel blight. Some have grown into bushes 10 feet high which later were hit by blight and have been reduced to small bushes. Others are producing good filbert-type nuts and are somewhat blight resistant, but the main fact to remember is that about 1/4 of the plants on sod culture lived, whereas not over 2% are alive of the open field culture plants. The distance between these plantings is approximately 1/8 of a mile. In addition to being placed in sod these filberts which have survived are sheltered by rows of evergreen trees both on the south and on the north side which may be construed as of some assistance but is not altogether the reason for the tremendous difference between the winter protection value of sod and open field culture. This is not the only example that I could cite but is one of the most outstanding ones which has come to my attention. Sod culture is now being recommended to fruit orchardists in this part of the country and in my own experience, I can highly recommend it for apples, plums, pears, mulberries and nut trees.

Chapter 15

Another and better method of storing trees is to plant them outside in a trench, preferably on the north side of a building, having first waxed them as described above. One side of the trench should slope so that the trees will lie in an oblique position with their branches touching the ground. The roots of these trees should be covered with dirt, then more trees set alongside them, until all have been planted and the earth made firm about their roots. Trees will usually suffer no damage during such winter storage if their roots have been properly packed in sand or sandy loam. Six or more cans, each containing a little poisoned grain, should be set among the branches. If these cans are laid on their sides, rodents will have easier access to the poison. The branches of the trees should then be well covered with straw or hay, with heavy boards laid on top to keep it from blowing away. If trees are received for planting after the ground has frozen, all that is necessary is to build a log fire on the side where they are to be heeled in. This will thaw out the soil enough so that a trench can be made to accommodate them.

Chapter 16

Although bud wood may be stored in any of the three ways mentioned, it should not be waxed. Because of this, it is more likely to deteriorate. It must be examined frequently and if mold is found, the wood should be dipped in a Bordeaux solution. After drying, it may be placed in storage again. It is a good plan to wrap bud wood in tar or asphalt paper when storing it. However, I have found that the best storage conditions for all scionwood that I have yet discovered is in the use of peat moss. Peat moss must be on the distinctly acid side in order to perform the function of storing scionwood. Most peat moss is generally acid; however the simple litmus paper test with which every high school pupil is familiar, can be made. Having acquired good acid peat moss, dampen a sufficient quantity to pack the scions in to give them liberal protection. Do not make the bundles of scionwood too large, from 10 to 20 scions in a bundle is better than a large number and much easier to handle. The moss should be prepared exactly the same as advised in storing chestnuts (see chapter for storing seeds). In this case it is not necessary to wax the scions at all. The moss should be applied by sifting it into the open spaces between the scions and a larger wad at the base of the cuttings, not at the terminal or bud ends as these would be better left unpacked. The package is now rolled into a cylinder, using tar paper or asphalt treated paper, and both ends left open. Do not use ordinary paper or wax paper as it will turn moldy. Cylinders of tar paper containing the packed scions should be placed in a damp room like a cellar with a dirt floor which is cold enough to keep potatoes and other roots in good condition throughout the winter. If the cellar is not a good storage cellar for roots and herbs it will not be good enough for the scionwood as it will be too warm generally. Neither should they be frozen solid, therefore if a good root cellar is not obtainable then these should be put in the Harrington graft box already described or placed under the sawdust in an icehouse and close to the ice. An old-fashioned ice refrigerator will also make a good storage bin, placing them close to the ice at all times.