Purdue University, Illinois

Friends: I believe an apology is due you. I was away on my vacation at the time the invitation came to me to make an address at this meeting and I have come here without one. But I shall be glad to give you some sort of an idea of the past, present and future of nut culture in Illinois.

I became actively interested in nut growing about a year ago. Our work started partly in response to public demand. We have been receiving an increasing number of letters of inquiry from people interested in the subject but who know little about it. We are attempting to secure such information as will be of value regarding the best species and varieties of nuts to plant, where to plant them, and how to care for them. There are a number of members of the N. N. G. A. in Illinois and they are very kindly helping me in this work. The Illinois State Horticultural Society, founded in 1856, has also been interested to some extent in nut growing.

Illinois has had three grand old men in the nut industry, Mr. George W.
Endicott of Villa Ridge, Mr. E. A. Riehl of Alton, and Mr. Benjamin
Buckman of Farmingdale. Mr. Riehl is eighty-seven years young now and is
the only one of the three men living.

Mr. Endicott was interested, not only in the commercial side of horticulture but was a pioneer in scientific work. He originated the Endicott plum and other valuable fruits and, since he was interested in plant improvement, naturally turned to hybridization of the chestnut, a tree which grows readily in southern Illinois. In 1899 he crossed the Japanese chestnut (Castanea japonica) with pollen from the American Sweet (C. americana). He must have had some difficulty in crossing the species because they did not bloom at exactly the same time. He was, however, successful in securing five hybrid seeds, raising three trees from them, naming them the Blair, the Boone and the Riehl. Naturally there were differences in the characteristics of these trees though they were all vigorous and produced nuts of commercial value. The Blair and Riehl began to bear at four and five years respectively, while the Boone bore its first crop at seventeen months of age. The Boone is the most valuable since it matures fruit of good quality about two days earlier than the Blair and two weeks before the Riehl. It also retains the burr and drops the nuts free at the beginning of the season so that about half the nuts can be picked up before the burrs fall.

Mr. Endicott was so pleased with the results of the cross that he raised over 175 seedlings from the Boone tree. From these second generation hybrids he secured trees very uneven in growth and size with a great range in time of coming into bearing. The nuts differed widely in size, quality, and season of ripening. The character of the burr showed all gradations between the extremes of thickness, length, rigidity of spines, etc. These striking variations in the second generation trees show that many hereditary factors had been segregated and recombined and offer a most interesting opportunity for scientific study. I have visited the orchard several times.

Mr. Endicott died in 1914 but his son Robert has since cared for the trees which have brought him considerable revenue. He tells me that he secures about 160 pounds of nuts per year from each of the three original trees. At an average price of thirty-five cents a pound wholesale the crop from each tree is worth $56.05 per year. Since the chestnut blooms late it is pretty certain to escape spring frosts. The Blair, for example, has had a crop failure once only since beginning to bear.

(Displays photographs of the Japanese and American chestnuts and the
Boone tree).

Mr. Endicott is top working some of the worthless second generation trees with wood from the Boone tree.

(Displays photographs showing method of grafting).

I have had the good fortune to visit Mr. Riehl several times and have secured many representative nuts from his collection. While he has grown a large number of nut species and varieties he believes that the chestnut pays the best in southern Illinois. He plants them on rough and hilly land, difficult to cultivate, pasturing with sheep, and has had very good success. He does not worry about the chestnut blight, since the chestnut is not native here and there is such a great distance between the blight ridden East and Illinois.

Mr. Buckman was an amateur horticulturist, in the work for the love of it. On his land he had nearly two thousand varieties of apples and hundreds of varieties of peaches, plums, pears, cherries, grapes, small fruits, and nuts collected from all over the world. I was much interested to study the fine pecan and chestnut trees growing and producing good crops as well as the persimmon and papaw trees, of which he had a number of rare varieties. I was able last spring to secure cuttings of a number of rather rare papaw varieties which I sent to Doctor Zimmerman for propagation at the request of Doctor Fairchild.

Mr. Buckman recently died and there is now a movement on foot to secure, either through the University or the Horticultural Society, as far as possible, all the valuable data which he had been collecting for years.

There are several other men interested in nuts as a commercial proposition in Illinois, such as O. H. Casper of Anna and Judge W. O. Potter of Marion. I recently visited these orchards. Mr. Casper has mostly pecans and walnuts growing in sod. They are from six to eight years old and would have borne this season if weather conditions had been favorable.

Judge Potter has over twenty acres of pecans interplanted with chestnuts and filberts. For part of the orchard this is the fifth growing season. The trees are growing vigorously and make a very impressive showing. I counted thirty-nine nuts on a representative Thomas black walnut tree. The filberts look especially promising. Although the weather at blooming time was unfavorable a fair crop of nearly a peck was gathered from four or five bushes of a late blooming imported variety. Judge Potter is also growing another orchard using apples as fillers between black walnut trees. This experiment will be watched with great interest since it will be of great value in showing future possibilities in nut growing in Illinois.

Now as to some of the things we are trying to do at the experiment station at Urbana. This will be necessarily a progress report. I am making a survey of the state to find promising individuals of the different species and varieties and marking them for future use. We have our state fair at Springfield next week and as I speak to the boys and girls attending the state fair school I hope to interest them to tell me of any trees in their neighborhoods of particular value.

Some of the agricultural leaders in the various counties, that is the farm advisers, are awake to the value of the nut industry and we have a number of these men co-operating with us. From Gallatin County, in the Wabash and Ohio river bottoms, around $100,000 worth of native pecans are sold in some seasons. In the southern counties and over north of St. Louis in the western part of Illinois there are also native pecan groves which are quite profitable. We hope to find valuable northern pecans, adaptable to our conditions. We, of course, know that the English walnut is very difficult to grow in Illinois and we are not recommending it as a commercial proposition. We believe that the black walnut, all things considered, has the most promise and we hope to have something worth while in a few years as propagating material. The Thomas, Stabler, and Miller are especially to be recommended for Illinois at this time.

We hope soon to have a complete collection of hardy nut trees on our experimental trial grounds. Here we shall study not only the varietal characteristics but try out new methods of propagating, pruning, fertilizing, etc. There is very likely some connection between winter injury and hardening up of the wood in autumn and we hope to learn something about that problem through the use of various cover crops, for example. We have at the station a complete experimental cold storage plant in operation where we may be able to learn more about the effects of extremes of temperature on the roots and trunks of certain species.

In such new but important work we must make haste slowly. We have some things to unlearn and many things to learn. We hope to be able in a few years to make a worthwhile contribution to such an interesting and important subject as nut growing in the middle west.

I shall be glad to have you ask me any questions which occur to you.

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THE PRESIDENT: DO you happen to know Mr. Spencer?

PROF. COLBY: No, I wrote Mr. Spencer but I did not get any reply from him. I hope to visit him this fall.

MR. REED: DO you know anything about the top-working of black walnuts from Missouri at the university?

PROF. COLBY: No, I do not know about them.

MR. GREEN: In regard to those Gallatin County nuts; has any survey ever been made by the U. S. Department of Agriculture of the nut trees in Illinois?

Prof. Colby: Not that I know of.

Question: At what age are they planting those walnuts in Williamson
County with apples and how far apart?

PROF. COLBY: The walnuts are from 50 to 80 feet apart interplanted with apples. The walnut trees are about two years old; the apples four and five.

A SPEAKER: I believe those apple trees will die.

PROF. COLBY: That's what I want to find out. There is a great difference of opinion as to the compatibility of walnuts and other fruit trees.

MR. BIXBY: You will see at Baldwin, this afternoon, peach trees planted between nut trees. It is too soon to say what will happen but so far, it is all right.

DR. SMITH: As a matter of very great importance, how will you "round up" the forces in Illinois?

PROF. COLBY: We have a number of interesting suggestions brought out in Professor Neilson's paper. He would use every way possible, including questionnaires sent out judiciously, as well as the boys' and girls' clubs, and the Boy Scouts, of which Dr. Morris speaks. The horticultural society can be of very great help. In Illinois where we have over one hundred counties, almost all of which are very efficiently covered by farm bureaus, the farm advisers are of considerable assistance. The local horticultural societies, as for instance the one with which Mr. Riehl has been so prominently connected in Alton, have helped very much in the past. The Smith-Hughes teachers in charge of agricultural teaching in the high schools can easily get in touch with promising native trees through their students. I know most of these teachers and know they will be glad to help me. I recently had a request from the Associated Press representative in Springfield to write an article on nut growing in Illinois. There is a wonderful field for development along such lines as this.

THE PRESIDENT: It seems to me that if the agricultural colleges were asked to hand in information that might bring results, and particularly the students' work in isolated sections which would not be reached by Boy Scouts.

PROF. NEILSON: For the benefit of those who did not hear my address in 1922, I may say that I have circularized the whole county and the college stations; I have sent about 125 circular letters to the horticultural society and to its officers, high school inspectors, and to anyone I thought might be glad to get the information. I wanted to carry this further but could not. I wanted to send letters to every school teacher in the Province of Ontario and ask them to bring the matter to the attention of the boys and girls, and to offer them a substantial prize for the location of the best tree in their locality. I will say, however, that I got a great deal of encouragement from the horticultural society, the public school and the high schools.

THE SECRETARY: I will read again a sentence from Mr. Howard Spence's letter:

"The Minister of Agriculture has agreed to instruct all their inspectors over the country to make a collection of all walnuts of merit and to forward them to me for classification and identification of varieties which may be worth perpetuating."

If we could do something of that kind in the United States to enlist the extension agents, we should get some valuable information.

MR. OLCOTT: I think that a very important thing would be to send that message not only to the state experiment stations, but also to the government authorities. Why should not the Department of Agriculture make a systematic survey of that kind? Why should it be left to the small societies like this one, when the federal Department of Agriculture is so thoroughly equipped to get this? The department at Washington has expressed interest; I wonder if it would not be appropriate for this association to take some formal action, suggesting federal government action in that matter, in co-operation with the extension service, Boy Scouts, etc.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you put that in a resolution?

MR. OLCOTT: I submit the following resolution:

WHEREAS, The investigational and experimental work of the Northern Nut Growers' Association during the last fourteen years has been signally successful in improving native nuts of the northern United States, based upon discovery and propagation of superior specimens; and

WHEREAS, This work could be greatly extended with the facilities at the command of the United States Department of Agriculture, as compared with the efforts of the small number of members of this association; therefore be it

RESOLVED: That it is the sense of the Northern Nut Growers' Association, in fifteenth annual convention in New York City this fourth day of September, 1924, that the U. S. Department of Agriculture be asked to take up systematically the work of discovery and investigation of promising native nuts in the northern states and of testing selected specimens at government stations in co-operation with the authorities of the state experiment stations; such discovery to be brought about by enlisting the aid of boy scouts, school children and others, in connection with the activities of county farm agents, inspectors and other attaches of the department.

THE PRESIDENT: Prof. MacDaniels, of Cornell University will now address us.

L. H. MacDaniels, Professor of Pomology, Cornell University

It gives me great pleasure to bring you greetings from the Agricultural College at Cornell University and to express my appreciation for your invitation to address this convention concerning what the college is doing along the line of nut growing. I have a very real interest in nut growing and in this association. I like to think of it as comparable with the American Pomological Society when it started more than one hundred years ago. All of you men who are spending your time and energy in finding new facts regarding the propagation and culture of nut trees are doing pioneer work, and your names will go down in the history of nut growing in the same way as those of Wilder, Downing, and Prince have come to us linked with the early development of fruit growing in the United States. I feel confident that the work of the association will stand the test of time.

Interest in nut growing at Cornell, as you probably know, was started by John Craig who died about a dozen years ago. He was greatly interested in northern nut growing and also in southern pecans. As a result of his work we are still receiving inquiries about southern pecans addressed to Professor Craig. While at Cornell he established a course of study in nut growing which was a part of the regular curriculum. At the time, however, the actual known facts about the growth of nuts in the northern states were so few, and reliable information so scarce, that after Professor Craig's death, when there was a general consolidation of courses in the department, nut growing was combined with another course in economic fruits. Since that time, as our knowledge of nut growing has increased, more and more attention has been given to the subject. Our aim is, in fact, to give all of the up-to-date information that we have regarding the propagation and culture of nut trees.

The nut tree plantings in the experimental orchards at Cornell have not been particularly successful. About ten years ago Professor Chandler set out about one-half acre of named varieties of pecans, Persian walnuts, black walnuts, hickories, hazel nuts, chestnuts and Japanese walnuts. These have received good care, both as to cultivation and fertilization but to date the only trees which have borne are the Japanese walnuts and these have not had good crops. Apple trees of the same age in adjacent land have been bearing commercial crops for a number of years, especially such varieties as the McIntosh, Wealthy and R. I. Greening. The climate at Ithaca is apparently rather too rigorous for most of the nut trees. Persian walnuts, hazel nuts and frequently Japanese walnuts suffer from winter injury. In the case of the chestnut, blight has practically killed all of the trees. The pecans are perfectly hardy but as yet have not borne, probably because our seasons are not sufficiently long or warm enough to grow this nut to advantage. Hickories have been very slow to become established and in fact have never made really good growth. This experience, of course, makes us feel that nut growing is really not as easy as some enthusiasts would have us believe.

In addition to this variety planting there are four or five acres of recently cleared woodland in which there are hundreds of hickory seedlings which can be top-worked. We are aiming also in this area to establish seedlings of all of the hardy nut trees to use as stocks and eventually to get a collection of all named varieties of nut trees. Grafting so far has not been particularly satisfactory due in some cases to failure of the grafts to set; in other cases to the winter killing of grafts which have made fairly good growth. Injury by bud moths and wind storms have also been detrimental factors. Our own experience together with observations upon the results of nut grafting elsewhere by experts lead us to believe that grafting of nut trees is a very difficult undertaking as compared with that of other fruit trees. It involves a knack which must be acquired by very considerable experience. I realize, of course, that new facts regarding nut grafting are being discovered almost daily and in the future we may look for better results.

The attitude of the Department of Pomology at the College with regard to nut growing is of necessity conservative. First of all, the men in the department are trained in scientific methods and have a somewhat critical attitude when it comes to statements regarding marked success in any line. The tendency is in each case to try to find the data or the experience upon which statements are based. Unfortunately, in nut growing there are very little data upon which statements can be based. Mr. Bixby's experiments with stocks are a very good start in the right direction, and it is upon such experiments as he is carrying out that real knowledge regarding nut growing will be gained.

We have heard enthusiastic statements as to the profits which may be derived from the planting of nuts in the northern states, but I must confess that I have looked in vain both for the facts upon which such statements might be based and also for orchards which actually are profitable. If such exist in New York state I have not been able to find them even after considerable travel.

In order to be profitable, an orchard must pay all the expenses involved, including interest on the initial cost of land; the cost of labor and materials and depreciation on tools, etc. We have cost accounts covering these items on many crops such as apples and wheat, but not on nuts. It seems to me we must recognize that nut culture is in its experimental stage only. This is in fact one thing that makes it particularly attractive for the amateur.

Another reason for our conservatism is that we feel it our duty to the growers to give out statements which are based upon facts only. If a man in a northern state wants to plant ten acres of nuts what shall we tell him? Shall we tell him to go ahead and assure him that if he takes care of his trees a profitable plantation is certain? On the basis of what we know I think surely not. A hundred and one unanswered questions come up. What kinds of nuts will succeed under his climatic and soil conditions? What stocks should be used? What varieties will succeed under his conditions? Will the meats of the nuts fill out in the average season? Are the seasons long enough, etc. The fact is in most cases we do not know. In most parts of New York state we are extending a natural range of many of the nut trees and they have not been grown long enough under the new conditions to make it possible to answer these questions with certainty. On the other hand, we can tell the prospective nut grower that nut growing is in its experimental stages and under certain conditions has great commercial promise. On the basis of our present knowledge we cannot recommend large plantations but would encourage the planting of nuts in an experimental way, especially for home use. It should be borne in mind that in the early days of fruit growing in America it was the amateur planting of varieties that laid the foundations for the present industry. If shade trees are to be planted let them be nut trees. Plant nut trees as a hobby but do not go into nut culture on a large scale for profit unless you can afford to lose.

I have great hopes for the future of nut growing in the northern states and also for this society. I am confident that new and better varieties of nuts will be found and better methods of propagation and transplanting originated so that in the future there may be a commercial industry in the north. For the present, however, I believe that conservatism is advisable, and that great harm may be done by misrepresentation. Sound growth of a northern nut industry will be built upon facts and honest experience and not on conjecture, hearsay, or even on enthusiasm, however necessary this may be. I believe that we should encourage people to plant nuts for pleasure, plant nuts as a hobby, plant them for shade and for posterity, but under present conditions not for financial profit.

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THE SECRETARY: We must adjourn at once to the lecture room, that we may hear Dr. J. Russell Smith's talk on "Nut Tree Crops as a Part of Permanent Agriculture without Plowing." He will have some interesting slides to show during his talk.

Dr. Britton has asked that we have lunch today at noon instead of one o'clock. Everyone present is invited to take luncheon at that time as a guest of the Botanical Society and of Dr. Britton, it makes no difference whether they be members or guests.

MR. REED: May I make the motion to extend a rising vote of thanks to Dr. Britton and his associates for the cordial and generous way in which they have entertained us?

(Motion seconded, passed, and acknowledged by rising vote).

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Britton, you are officially notified.

DR. BRITTON: I would like to have that vote of thanks mentioned in the official record of this convention, and in the record of the Botanical Society.

THE SECRETARY: We will see to that.

DR. BRITTON: You will be interested in knowing that we have with us the very distinguished Curator of the British Botanical Herbarium of the Royal Society. Dr. Stapf has been traveling in Canada, attending the meetings of the Royal Society there.

THE PRESIDENT: We shall very much appreciate the opportunity of meeting him.

We will now adjourn to the lecture hall, to hear Dr. J. Russell Smith.