“ I know practically nothing about growing trees for a nut crop, but we seem to have something in common in growing trees both for nuts and timber. Just a lot of it is "horse sense", with a few rules of thumb based upon scientific principles. You must give the crop trees space, give them plenty of room to grow. In the woods they start to grow in a dense undergrowth. The young trees soon reach a height where they begin to dominate their neighbors. There you pick the straight, thrifty-growing trees for crop trees and favor them in your thinning and pruning operations. ”

“ I do not approve of the performance of our butternut varieties on the Japanese walnut root, as it results in a weak and dwarfed tree. The use of butternut rootstocks is also unsatisfactory, for they tend to produce trees of low vitality that in a few years fall victim to blight and then perish. I tried our Michigan black walnut seedlings as a rootstock and found that they are very much better rootstock material. The growth at the union is about equal. Top growth is good, and the butternut tops bear early and heavily, with no signs of blight during the ten years I have had them under test. ”

“ In other cases, the rootstock may cause a dwarfing habit in the future tree, with the resulting top being a scant producer of nuts. Then there is the combination where rootstock and top vary too much [Pg 83] in their growth rate, thus making an unsightly tree. The ideal rootstock is one that attains a diameter nearly equal to the diameter of its partner, and is capable of producing a moderate amount of top growth, together with the production of heavy crops of nuts. Such a rootstock should also accept buds or grafts readily, and be compatible with the scion throughout the life of the tree. ”

“ Once the livestock begin to trample or compact the soil, tree growth slows down and when that happens it makes the tree more susceptible to attack by insects and fungi.
As to marketing trees, let's assume you have some material you want to sell. The one thing you want to know is, "how much is it worth?" That is like me asking you what my house is worth. I understand there are persons here not only from Illinois and Iowa, but from New York, West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky. Prices on wood products vary not only from state to state but also within a state as well. ”

“ I have four big trees of Stabler, and hardly a nut grows on them. Down there they behave themselves and have big crops. How do they have such big crops? I like them. I don't believe there is a tastier nut in the world. Even my hybrid Asiatic butternut cross. I have got quite a lot of them here to show you and the biggest filberts in the world and they are all seedlings.
Not a hickory nut, butternut or black walnut. I had a ton of black walnuts. There is a good crop of hybrids, filberts, English walnuts, and there are some other nuts. I am north of Lake Ontario. ”

“ It is particularly fitting that we assemble here with a common goal and purpose and also with the common knowledge that there is much work to be done. This society, which was formed 42 years ago, has enjoyed great progress and I wish to commend the men who had the vision to conceive this association and nurture it to manhood. Their accomplishments were indeed fruitful. However, there is still room and need for a program of expansion. It is our responsibility and obligation to see that this growth continues. ”

“ Nut Rootstock Material in Western Michigan Harry P. Burgart, Union City, Michigan
It is only natural that those who propagate by budding and grafting are always hoping to find a rootstock that will accept their scions with the highest percentage of takes and impart vigorous growth to the scion variety. Sometimes in our eagerness to adopt a new rootstock we are likely to neglect a vital point, namely—Future Performance of the root-top combination we are about to use.
It would take years of observation in a test planting to prove whether or not a new rootstock material is safe to use. ”

“ When some of the original seedlings from Iowa were transplanted from the nursery row they were already quite large trees and we did not get all the roots. The portions that were cut off were left in the soil. One of these roots sprouted three trees; one was subsequently moved into the orchard and marked because of its vegetative nature, and a variety of hickory known as the Weschcke was grafted on it. It makes a very good growth, but in most instances our native bitternut stock produces an equally good growth in unions with this particular variety. ”

“ The only known method of control of the bunch disease is to prevent healthy trees from becoming infected. This can be done only by destroying completely all diseased trees. In the early stage of the disease, sometimes only one branch on a tree may show symptoms; and complete removal of this branch may result in the tree's not showing additional symptoms for a year or more. Except in the case of black walnut, the disease breaks out again; hence cutting out diseased limbs cannot be considered a satisfactory control measure, except possibly on the eastern black walnut. ”

“ The members of the Northern Nut Growers Association are all good people and they are very much interested in nut growing, not so much from the standpoint of making a fabulous income and being able to retire on an unlimited bank account on ten acres of land in nut trees, but they get a lot of pleasure out of fooling with them as a hobby, and in order that they might more or less through their trees respond under God's loving care. ”

“ I list the Niblack as first choice because it seems to be about as productive as any of the other varieties, and because of its excellence as a cracking nut and the quality of the kernel. The Niblack is really a very desirable nut for cracking, when it is cracked by such devices as the Squirrel cracker which applies pressure to both ends. The kernel comes free from the shell. In a good many varieties, such as the Indiana and Busseron the kernel and shell do not drop free, but the kernel frequently is wedged in furrows in the shell so that the two must be pulled apart. ”

“ Trees with bunch disease may live for several years in a stag-horned or tufted condition. Affected trees generally set few nuts and the nuts that mature are usually poorly filled and hence low in oil content. It is likely that a part of the unsatisfactory growth and fruiting performance of certain eastern black walnut trees may be due to the disease, even though they do not show the symptoms as they are now known. Severely affected trees are subject to cold injury, and in addition the wood becomes very brittle and is easily broken by storms. ”

“ Under the conditions of this experiment, the trees of the Potomac variety are much more vigorous than those of the Reed. The greater vigor of the Potomac trees may account for the fact that they produce suckers much more freely than do trees of the Reed variety. The habit of producing abundant suckers is an advantage in propagating by layering, but it is a disadvantage in orchard trees because the suckers must be removed for optimum nut production. ”

“ Maybe you need a new secretary who is a more successful salesman, to push the membership higher. Actually we still have more members than at any time before the late 1940's, but we need more salesmanship to double or triple the present number. The planting of hardy named nut trees is going up by leaps and bounds (ask any nut nurseryman) but membership in the leading organization to promote their culture is lagging. We need more members among the new nut planters, and I think we have plenty to offer them for their $3.00, but we are not getting the point over to enough of them. ”

“ Maybe Illinois is going to become a nut growing state after all, in spite of oak wilt, walnut bunch, spittle bugs, and the 1950 Thanksgiving freeze.
Will the Illinois people rise, both members and visitors? Not quite a fourth of the group is from Illinois. ”

“ There has got to be a lot of changes in the kernel after they have once dried out and been harvested before germination will be initiated again.
DR. McKAY: In connection with this question of germinating nut seeds of all kinds, we think it is very important to plant the seed in a well aerated medium. I think that is a mistake many people make. If the soil happens to be of a clay nature, it keeps out oxygen and air and the sprout will rot. That is the reason why, when we plant chestnut seed, we like to plant in sand or the same with any nut seed. Coarse sand has a lot of air in it. ”

“ It will produce from 95 to 100 per cent of its seedlings, that are so true to type that you can identify them in the nursery. At the end of the first season you plant 95 to 100 per cent of the remaining trees in the orchard and anybody can identify the trees.
In the case of budded trees we have the variability of the rootstocks, which affects the growth. Since that particular variety has been released there has not been one single nut of that variety crushed. Every single seed is grown to tree size, to plant in a new orchard. ”

“ We have to talk about grafted trees because that is the only thing that can be developed. Every grafted tree is potentially like every other of the same variety.
MEMBER: What factors suppress them? In pinching back, do you mean that the actual growth rate is changed, or that debudding will suppress the entire tree?
DR. McKAY: We mean the amount of the top itself. Usually it is the spread and the height together. When you prune, you tend to hold back the total amount of the fruiting area of the tree. If you allow it to develop untouched you have a greater fruiting area. ”

“ Good pasture lands, clear streams, plenty of trees for shade are all important and real assets to any farm. Shade produced by a tree is incomparable to any man-made structure. Instead of compromising with any shade tree let us all accept it as our mission to educate the people to know that nut trees are the most economical and useful. ”

“ The trees do not seem as susceptible to insect and disease damage as the native black walnut, and growing well in sod should make good lawn trees. Some of the nut trees were sprayed with "Nu Green"—five pounds per 100 gallons of spray material was used on the orchard crops, and great growth response was noted for the sprayed over unsprayed trees. As the home owner is forever looking for new trees to plant, and trees with clean habits, the Persian and particularly the Carpathian selections may be the answer. ”

“ The more I see of wind killing, the more I believe he is right. Wind is more important than temperature. If you have your trees surrounded, you don't get wind injury. The trees I am reporting on were planted from 1920 to 1930. Some of them now are 16 to 18 inches in diameter and 30 feet high and the varieties are such as we got from Mr. Wilkinson. Indiana, Busseron, and one other which Mr. White—he is a wholesale druggist interested in horticulture—selected and he knows the nut trees probably better than any other one man. ”

“ Observations at Beltsville show that the butternut is almost as susceptible to attack as is the Japanese walnut. Some workers are inclined to believe that the rather serious decrease in numbers of butternut trees in some areas is due to the bunch disease. The Persian (English) walnut is also quite susceptible, although probably not so much so as the butternut or the Japanese walnut. The eastern black walnut seems to be the most resistant of all, although some evidence indicates that at least certain trees of this species may have the disease but not show symptoms of it. ”

“ Several areas in Indiana are suitable for more extensive plantings. The Jones hybrids have proven satisfactory and are found growing from the northern part to the Ohio River.
Several crosses were made four years ago using pollen from the Rush and large fruited seedlings on the native hazel. There are 35 or 40 such plants, two years old, now growing in the Purdue plot. They came through the winter in excellent condition. Many of the catkins on the older plants were killed during the early cold spell, and the nut crop this year is very spotty. ”

“ The characteristic symptoms of the bunch disease are mainly the production of brooms or sucker shoot growth on the tree trunk and main branches and the tufting of terminals, profusion of small branches from axillary buds, the dwarfing and narrowing of the leaflets, and the dying back of the trees resulting sometimes in the death of the trees. The principal symptom is the production during summer of bushy, wiry growth caused by the breaking into growth of lateral buds that normally would remain dormant over the winter. ”