Black walnut

“ The black walnut is a grand tree from any point of view, even though it so fully absorbs all water and fertility as to check other growth under its great reach of branches. The lines it presents to the winter sky are as rugged as those of the oak, but there is a great difference. And this ruggedness is held far into the spring, for the black walnut makes no slightest apparent effort at growth until all the other trees are greening the countryside. ”

“ One of the noblest and grandest trees in any American forest is the American black walnut, and while a little slow at the beginning of its career it is only a question of time when it will overtake all others. ”

“ The poison-ivy and the beautiful Virginia creeper like to clamber up the rough trunk, sometimes clothing the huge tree from foot to top in a mantle of brown feelers and glossy leaves. Seen at a distance, the tulip-tree and the black-walnut-tree look very much alike; but upon approaching them the superior symmetry and beauty of the former are at once discovered. The leaves of the walnut are gracefully arranged, but they admit too much light; while the tulip presents grand masses of dense foliage upheld by knotty, big-veined branches, the perfect embodiment of vigor. ”

“ The black walnut is a valuable native forest tree, widely but not abundantly distributed in the eastern United States. It is extensively planted as a forest tree. The numerous plantings and natural stands around farm homes, along fences, and in pastures are also very valuable. More and more grafted ornamentals, and orchards of black walnut are being planted. ”

“ Black walnut is doing fairly well in such places as the Provincial Horticultural Station, Brooks, Alberta, (P. D. Hargrave, Supt.) , and at Portage la Prairie, Winnipeg and Morden, Manitoba. Apparently the black walnut enjoys a heavier soil than the butternut (or white walnut) . The white has been more widely planted than the black. The Manchurian seems hardier than either and is the most rapid grower of the three Juglans on test here. However, the two natives usually give us a fairly abundant crop of nuts. ”

“ They are very closely related botanically—as closely as are brothers in the same household. Black walnut is larger, stronger, better known, and has always dominated and eclipsed the other in usefulness and public esteem ”

“ This will husk them rapidly and well. We should promote the growing of more improved black walnuts. Most catalog nurseries still list seedling walnuts. We sold 3000 Thomas and Myers black walnut trees to one mail order nursery, and they could have used more.
English Walnuts
I tried all the California varieties, but these lacked hardiness. The Wiltz Mayette grew into a big fine tree but the 1940 Armistice Day freeze proved fatal. Breslau, Broadview, Schafer, and several others with some 25 Carpathian seedlings are just coming into bearing. Some give promise of adaptation here. ”

“ Crossing often brings about great vegetative life at the expense of reproductive life, or the reverse. The young (second generation) hybrids of the black walnut and the English walnut show very great variation in their leaves, resembling neither parent. The hybrids of the English and California black walnuts are most rapidly growing trees and unusually productive. The first hybrid, of the English with the Japanese walnut, Juglans sieboldi, is largely like the Japanese in the nuts, but rather more like the English in foliage, the second generation being very variable as usual. ”

“ You people probably don't know it, but you have the best advertised nut in the United States that you are working with, black walnuts. There are very few people in the United States that don't know what a black walnut kernel is, or a black walnut. In fact, I would say that 75 per cent of them at some time or other have gathered black walnuts, have hulled them. ”

“ Likewise, it is also sometimes assumed that a black walnut variety originating in Arkansas, Texas or Tennessee should be hardy in the black walnut belts of New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, or wherever the species is indigenous or has been successfully transplanted.
There are definite degrees of hardiness which must not be overlooked. A species or variety may be hardy enough to grow thriftily for many years, and to make a splendid tree, hundreds of miles north of the latitude at which it will mature occasional crops ”

“ The walnut is usually a very vigorous tree and will fight its way among adverse conditions and surroundings, but its golden showers are much more abundant if it is protected from the scars of battle, especially in its youth. It almost seems to respond to the love and affection given to it by a kind master. Animals respond to kindness, and why not the domestic trees? It will pay you a big salary after a while when your other bank accounts and your health and strength fail. [Pg 20]
American Black Walnuts ”

“ Most of the terminal buds and youngest wood of our nursery trees of black walnut were killed, but the trees have grown well this year from the lateral buds. In the woods some black walnuts which had been cut down about four or five years ago, and which had made sprout growth now about fifteen feet high, were killed back from two to four feet by the winter. A twenty-year-old Stabler black walnut on our lawn lost many of its top limbs, though the lower limbs survived the winter all right. ”

“ The reason why the walnuts are put in exposed places, on the slope of a rise, with open aspect to the east and north, is because the walnut is a foolish tree that will not learn by experience. If it feels the warmth of a few genial days in early spring, it immediately protrudes its buds; and the next morning a bitter frost cuts down every hope of fruit for that year, leaving the leaf as black as may be. Wherefore the east wind is desirable to keep it as backward as possible. ”

“ Seedling black walnuts are common on farms of west Tennessee. Dr. Richards and Mr. Rhodes have been most active in showing that these can be topworked readily to improved black walnut varieties under the conditions prevailing there. Mr. Rhodes has also fruited such older Persian walnut varieties as Lancaster, Mayette, and Franquette on black walnut stocks, but finds them generally unproductive in his climate. Newer varieties, including some selections of the Carpathian strains are now being tried and should be of fruiting age soon. ”

“ The black walnut has a wider range than any of the other nut trees. Travel wheresoever you will about the country and you will observe wild black walnut trees growing almost on every farm. The planting of the Persian, or English walnut, as it is more generally known, has had more of a popular appeal, perhaps from the fact that we are accustomed to seeing clean, smooth nuts of uniform size of that variety in almost every grocery store, the kernels of which may be extracted without great effort. ”

“ The Eastern black walnut requires more rest than most Persian walnut clones, and they more than the Southern California black walnut. Even within a species there is considerable difference in the rest period of individual seedling trees and certain clones. For example, it has been found that the varieties of Persian walnut grown in northern California and in Oregon, such as Franquette and Mayette, have the longest rest period ”

“ It grows to a large size and is generally healthy. Its shape is good and the foliage attractive in summer. The leaves drop early and they are not especially attractive in autumn coloring. Black walnuts are strong in appearance. They lack the gracefulness of the elm and if I were making a list of trees in the order of their appearance, placing the most beautiful first and the least attractive last, I should place several trees ahead of the black walnut, among them sugar maples, elms and several of the oaks. ”

“ The black walnut is found from Massachusetts westward to Minnesota and southward to Florida and Texas. In the forest, where it grows singly, it frequently attains a height of 100 feet with a straight stem, clear of branches for half its height. In open-grown trees, the stem is short and the crown broad and spreading.
The bark is thick, dark brown in color, and divided by rather deep fissures into rounded ridges. The twigs have cream-colored chambered pith and leaf-scars without downy pads above. ”

“ I have a cut leaf black walnut tree, of value as an ornamental, which originated in Pennsylvania. Although it had catkins for several seasons, not until the past season did it produce, and then only one lone nut. The husk of that nut had a smooth exterior similar to that of a Persian walnut; but it lacked the characteristic black walnut odor. In fact, it had none. If this tree has any Persian walnut blood in its makeup, that hybrid strain may have manifested itself in the foliage; in any event, there was an influence of some kind that caused the change in the usual type of foliage. ”

“ You'd have thought in 41 years we'd have come up with something, but we haven't yet. Now, I feel that it's about time that we stop and take stock of our situation.
I am not going to do the talking tonight, I am just making a few suggestions and trying to direct the thought a little bit. But one of the nuts that we have done so much with and have said so much about in our reports is the black walnut. ”

“ Walnut, wawl′nut, n. a genus (Juglans) comprising seven or eight species of beautiful trees of natural order Juglandaceæ—the wood of the common walnut is much used for furniture and gunstocks; its ripe fruit is one of the best of nuts, and yields an oil used by artists, &c.—Black walnut, a North American walnut, the timber of which is more valuable than that of common walnut, though the fruit is inferior. ”

“ Anyone who has doubt about the healthy condition of these other species when grown close together with black walnut trees, may obtain evidence for himself by noting the frequent combination of this sort easily found in fields and gardens of the country and small towns. It is surprising how often these combinations of black walnut and other species are to be seen. Any unprejudiced person could hardly fail to become convinced that, in the great majority of cases, the danger is of small practical consequence. ”

“ Though now generally cleared and cultivated, to protect the soil from floods a fringe of trees is left along each bank of the river—the sycamore, the elm, and more especially the black walnut, while here and there, scattered through the fields, a huge shell-bark yields its summer shade to the weary laborers, and its autumn fruit to the black and gray squirrel, or the rival plow-boys. ”

“ These questions need an answer, and the answer almost invariably is that the poorer varieties and species have had but little attention and development by human beings while the better ones, Persian walnuts, grapes, melons, apples, dates, figs—all have had much attention and painstaking selection—in some cases for centuries. Upon the other hand, to cite a contrasting case the black walnut has no such history. It is the baby among nuts—a pure American baby—waiting for some nursemaid—for many nursemaids—to tend and develop it as a prince among trees should be developed. ”

“ Production of black walnut kernels in this country is fully 99 per cent from seedling trees of the fields, forests, roadsides and dooryards. That from orchard and top-worked trees, while now considerably on the increase, due to recent activity in planting and top-working, will hardly become of relative importance for some years to come. ”

“ Butternuts have a range extending further north and they are more subject to disease than the black walnuts. Like the walnut, their leaves come out late and drop early. They are subject to the attacks of boys. When healthy, they are attractive in appearance and they deserve to be planted in most places where trees are used for landscape effect, but in the list I suggested, they would come below the black walnut. ”

“ One of these, in a magazine of general circulation which is over half a million, within a month resulted in almost one hundred letters asking for additional information, which shows that a great many people want to know more about the possibilities of black walnuts. This interest will certainly increase when profitable black walnut orchards are actually growing and paying good profits. ”

“ More and more English walnuts and pecans are being sold in the form of kernels, and black walnuts also will best be sold in kernels. These can be canned in vacuum glass or metal cans, and the housewife will use more nuts when she can get the shell-free meats with her favorite cooking utensil, the can-opener. Confectioners and bakers will take black walnut meats by the carload in preference to other nut meats because they have more flavor, and so "go further."
The growing of black walnuts in a commercial way will require education, but already there is a growing interest. ”

“ Our native black walnut is a magnificent tree which can compare favorably with the finest oak in size, in shape, in picturesqueness and above all, in its huge nuts, which are both wholesome and delicious. Were it not for the great value of its wood for making gun stocks and for cabinet work we would today have hundreds of these trees growing, where now but few can be found ”