Part 3

This variety was discovered by Henry Stabler, and I named it after him. Perhaps one out of every ten of these nuts furnishes a whole, solid, undivided kernel. The other walnut is the ordinary field walnut that has little commercial value for the reason that you can't get the kernels out. It wouldn't make any difference if the nuts grew as big as pumpkins and a million of them on a tree if you couldn't get the meat out of them. I suppose no one will question that the black walnut will grow and bear almost anywhere. It is a weed tree in this part of the country. On President Smith's farm last year I saw them growing everywhere. They grow and bear all over the fields. And, as I said, the question of propagation is rather simple. I think the great trouble we are up against on the farm in America is labor, and that is because you cannot afford to pay good labor. You want a superabundance of laborers in the summer time for two or three months, and expect them to loaf all winter. The farm proposition isn't a profitable one, very largely because of the question of labor, and the farmers of this country must produce something profitable enough to enable them to hire and pay high-grade labor the year round, or they will go broke. They must raise such crops as Alfalfa that they can feed to their dairy cattle, and tree crops that they can use their labor on in the winter time. Nine men are leaving the farm today for every one going there. If you don't believe it, read the census statistics. The reason is labor and because you can't afford to pay it. I don't think there is any profit in selling the black walnut as a nut, but there will be profit in gathering that nut, storing it, and, when your farm crops are all in and you are ready to discharge the labor, put up an ordinary cheap cracking shed and let them crack the nuts for you, and sell the meats. That solves the question of what to do with farm labor in the winter time. The walnuts return about ten pounds of meat to a bushel, and a good cracker ought to crack from four to six bushels of nuts a day. Suppose you get only twenty-five cents a pound for the meats and your men crack only three bushels a day, each there is $7.50 a day coming in from each cracker, and, besides, you have made a valuable employment for your labor through the winter, and you can afford to pay them for their work. That is why I say the black walnut is, to my mind, one of the best commercial propositions.

I don't know how soon you can bring a black walnut orchard into bearing. Here is a picture of a tree probably seven or eight years old, loaded with nuts. That is a seedling tree. I should think a budded tree would bear sooner than that.

I don't know much about walnut varieties. The Rush and Thomas are excellent nuts. But this Stabler walnut, in my opinion, is in a class by itself in cracking possibilities. It is simply a cracking proposition with the black walnut, and that is, to my mind, about all there is to it. Perhaps, other good varieties will be discovered. Then, suppose we find, after a while, an English walnut much better and more profitable than we have at present, and one that is blight resistant. If you have an orchard of black walnuts you have an ideal stock to top-work to English. I will show you one on my farm with a larger top than I cut off grown in two summers, and it set some nuts last spring. So, if you want a foundation for an English walnut orchard, you can't make any mistake in planting the budded or grafted varieties of these black walnuts.

The black walnut is a beautiful roadside tree. There are different types, the same as with the pecan tree. Here is a picture of curly black walnut wood. The logs were cut from a tree in Kentucky. It took three wagons to haul this one tree to market, and it brought thirty-five hundred dollars.

THE PRESIDENT: I wish to present Mr. Stabler as the original propagator of the tree that bears his name. The nuts of the Stabler black walnut have been pronounced by a good many authorities as the best variety thus far discovered.

MR. HENRY STABLER: Dr. Smith has just introduced me as the discoverer of this walnut. This is hardly fair to Mr. Littlepage, who first introduced and, probably, first propagated this walnut. It was discovered by my grandfather a little over forty years ago. Nothing was done with it at that time for the reason that nothing could be done, but I was not the first one to get the idea of propagating it, because my father, who is here today, attempted to graft these walnuts, and every cion failed.

It seems to me that Mr. Littlepage strikes the key-note in his article in _The Country Gentleman_ last spring when he says that:

"Through the efforts of the Northern Nut Growers' Association there was recently discovered a black walnut tree in Howard County, Maryland, producing nuts that crack out seventy-five to eighty per cent of whole halves. The meat of this variety, the Stabler, weighs forty-seven per cent of the whole nut."

That's it, gentlemen. I did not discover this walnut, and without the organization of the Northern Nut Growers' Association I could not have done any more with it than my grandfather was able to do forty years ago, but, as it was, we just took up several samples and the Northern Nut Growers did the rest. The walnut has been attracting more and more attention ever since.

Considering the black walnut as timber, here is a picture of a black walnut log, published in Farmers' Bulletin No. 715, of the Department of Agriculture. The original owner, a farmer, sold the whole tree, standing, for fifty dollars; the buyer felled it at a cost of fifteen dollars, and sold it there for $138.26. It was resold, without being removed, for $164.84, and later sold (the last price is not published) to a large sewing machine factory, but it certainly brought more than that last price which is printed, of $164.84. We occasionally hear of prices of $100 or so being paid for black walnut trees on the stump. The reason we don't hear of such prices being paid more frequently is because the farmer in not more than one case out of twenty gets real value for his black walnut trees. There is a very highly organized and efficient system in the United States of gathering up the black walnut trees which are large enough to use for furniture and other purposes and paying for them as little as possible; but they make a practice of getting them even if they do have to pay more. There was a man living not so far from where I live, up in our country, who had a very fine black walnut tree standing in his yard. One day a man came around and entered into conversation with him, and said, "Mr. Harder, what will you take for that tree in your yard?" "It isn't for sale," said Mr. Harder. "Well," said the man, "I'll give you a hundred dollars for it." Mr. Harder merely shook his head. The buyer dickered along a little bit more and after a while said, "I'll tell you what I'll do; I'll give you $150 for that tree." Mr. Harder said "If you don't get off this place, sir, immediately, I'll shoot you."

I am prepared to say that if you are going to plant trees for timber there is no other tree which will give such a yield as the black walnut, with the exception of the catalpa, and, perhaps, the black locust. It is the most valuable tree we have, and it is the most valuable wood grown in the North. I don't believe, either, the black walnut will ever be less valuable than it is. I know positively that the Stabler tree is not over sixty-five years old, perhaps, not over sixty, and yet that tree, judging from the prices I have seen paid for other trees of similar size, is worth from $125 to $150 on the stump. From the time that tree started until now, it has increased in value at the rate of two dollars a year, for timber alone, to say nothing of the nut. Suppose the tree had been purchased sixty years ago at two dollars from the nurseryman. It would have paid one hundred per cent annually on the investment. It bears, as a regular thing, a crop every other year.

As to what Mr. Pomeroy said about the black walnut not cracking well and crumbling up when it gets to be old, I have some specimens here of the Stabler walnut I cracked this morning, which are of the 1915 crop.

The kernel of these old nuts keeps its flavor and sweetness wonderfully. There is hardly any change in quality within one year, whereas some other nuts, as the hazel and some varieties of the pecan, become rancid after keeping six months.

DR. MORRIS: I would like to say one word about the curly walnut. In Maine, not long ago, I saw a young man who had bought a bird's eye maple, perhaps fifty years of age, that he paid $1,500 for. I asked him why he didn't graft one million ordinary maples from that tree and sell the stock at $200 per tree, and then he would have $200,000,000 at just about the time of life when he could enjoy it. Well, that hadn't occurred to him. Now, if Mr. Littlepage will hunt up this curly black walnut stump that sold for $3,500, and if he will graft a million trees from that he will be able to raise a family of ten children (Laughter.)

DR. STABLER: Mr. President, I just want to call attention to an omission in the little talk that my son gave about the characteristics of this Stabler tree, namely, its beauty as a shade tree. He didn't mention that, and I don't think any one has mentioned it in connection with the black walnut. Now, the black walnut trees, as we meet them along the roadsides, vary exceedingly in habit of growth. The majority of them have very few main limbs, perhaps not over half a dozen main limbs on a tree, and they will be gaunt, ungainly things, stretched out straight, like great arms reaching out with very little beauty. Now, if you plant seedlings, that is what you are likely to get on your lawn. You may have something that is not pretty except as a trunk, but the tree that produces these very remarkable nuts is also one of the most beautiful in its conformation. It is shaped just like an umbrella, rather low, very spreading, and very frequently with a very much larger number of limbs than almost any black walnut tree that I have ever seen, and its habit of growing in the nursery confirms that opinion--that it produces a very large number of buds and branches from each graft.

Mr. Littlepage has in his fence row, uncultivated and surrounded by bushes of every kind, a small seedling walnut that he grafted this year with the Stabler walnut. When he grafted the seedling it was a little over an inch in diameter. I measured the growth from that graft recently, and five shoots measured over five feet long, and others over four feet long. Four month's growth--five shoots over five feet long! Now, I don't know of any other walnut or any other nut tree that would have produced that many shoots from a single graft. It makes a very beautiful shade tree and has a top which is capable of producing very large crops of fruit.

THE PRESIDENT: It sometimes makes me feel ashamed of my race when I realize our limitations in comparison with the trees. We run across a valuable type of tree genus, and we can make millions like it in a short time. But when a remarkable specimen of the genus homo, arises, he stays with us but a short while before we cart him off to the cemetery, and that is the last of him. Does any one else wish to make a contribution to the black walnut?

MR. M. P. REED: Mr. Littlepage made the remark that it is very easy to propagate the black walnut. We haven't found it so. We have made almost a complete failure of both budding and grafting.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, I was speaking of my experience in grafting this spring. I think I remarked that my personal experience in budding had not gone far enough to tell definitely what the results are going to be. But I put in about fifty-five grafts, and I had fifty of them to grow, and of that fifty there were probably ten or twelve knocked out--thrown out at the first cultivation--and probably thirty-five are growing there yet. I don't know what Mr. White's experience was in Indiana. I think it was, perhaps, not as good as he expected, because of the fact that a lot of the bud-wood dried out, but I think Mr. McCoy can give some experience. Now, Mr. Roper here, has had experience in budding the black walnut, haven't you?

MR. W. N. ROPER: We only put in about a dozen buds a short time ago. I think half of those are growing.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, we budded, perhaps, two or three hundred this summer, and I don't know really how they are coming out, but, from the way these grafts behaved this spring, I don't see any reason why it is going to be very difficult. What do you know about it, Mr. McCoy?

MR. R. L. MCCOY: Mr. Stabler's grafts didn't take very well, but so far as budding the black walnut is concerned, it is just as easy as handling the peach; there is nothing to it when you get the bud-wood; but first you have got to have the bud-wood. You can't jump on to any old tree and get buds that will give satisfactory results. Now, if Mr. Reed and his father had to go into Wisconsin and Michigan to get their bud-wood, and cut it from some old cherry trees, we'll say, and came back to Indiana and tried to produce trees from those buds in the nursery, they would fail.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the net result, apparently, of the discussion on propagation seems to be that Mr. McCoy, in Indiana, has had great success with buds; Mr. Littlepage, in Maryland, has had great success with grafts; I also had great success with grafts put in by a man who could neither read nor write, but who was taught the technique as taught by this Society. Is there any further discussion?

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President, Professor Hutt ought to know something about the black walnut. He knows something about everything else I have ever talked to him about. I believe he wrote me, in connection with some of his tests, that forty-seven per cent of the Stabler nuts were meat.

PROF. W. N. HUTT: I think so. I think it was pretty close to a half. There were no broken halves at all, and some of them came out entirely whole.

THE PRESIDENT: We want to hear from Dr. Deming.

THE SECRETARY: I just want to call attention to one of the questions on our list. "What can we do to cheapen nuts and nut meats in the retail market so as to make this valuable food available to persons of small means?" It seems to me that we are going to do that with such nuts as the black walnut. I think we ought to work for the time when the black walnut can be sold in quantity in New York City, and in all the larger cities for around a dollar a bushel. Perhaps the shellbark hickory is also going to be a nut of the same kind, a nut that can be put on the market in large quantities at a small price, for the man of limited means to buy and crack out himself. Dr. Morris, speaking of some tough nut, once said it was so tough that it was only of interest to squirrels and men out of work. That expression about "men out of work" made me think, as do so many things that Dr. Morris says. If a man out of work can buy a bushel of black walnuts for a dollar, and if he can crack out several bushels a day, or even only one bushel a day, he can make more wages just cracking out that bushel of black walnuts than at ordinary laboring work. I think that we ought to get on the market a supply of cheap nuts for the man of limited means and that we ought to educate the people to a knowledge of the value of such nuts.

THE PRESIDENT: It is always well to put the brakes on. I haven't heard a thing about this black walnut except virtues. I believe Mr. McMurran, of the Department of Agriculture, is present, and I think he has been giving particular attention to the black walnut, and perhaps he will tell us of some of its enemies, either animal or vegetable.

MR. S. M. MCMURRAN: Well, Mr. President, unfortunately, I haven't given much attention to the black walnut. My time has been given to the pecan until this summer, when I worked on the persian walnut to some extent, but I can say, generally, that the black walnut hasn't got any very serious enemies. Everything it has got is right here now. There isn't any reason to suppose that it would have any serious disease if we cultivated it on an extensive scale.

As to the insects, I am not able to state. I have never noticed any

## particularly on the nut since a boy.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President, I think Mr. McMurran has covered the diseases of the black walnut. I think the observation of every one will confirm what Mr. McMurran has said.

THE PRESIDENT: The chair will deviate from parliamentary practice for a moment by dismissing the question. I wish to contribute three small facts. One is with reference to the special growth of the black walnut under fertilization. The men on my place have to cut bushes around apple trees, and some stray black walnuts planted by nature under those trees have been cut for 10 years but for the last two seasons have been left alone. They have promptly come up through those apple trees, under the influence of nitrate of soda, like a steer going through a bush. They have grown five or six feet each season.

Another point is the great variation, apparently, of the black walnut with regard to its keeping qualities. I recall putting away in a garret, in 1894, a number of bushels of a nut of particular merit, and they were perfectly sweet and edible as much as seven years later. Now it is only occasionally that you will find one that will keep as long as that, but with the trees bearing every two years, it is quite possible that the fruit would be marketable for two or three, or even four years afterwards, if kept properly.

There is no reason to think that the Stabler is the best nut growing in the United States. It merely grew within reach of the eyes of observing men.

The filbert and the almond we hope to cover briefly before adjourning. I will ask Mr. Reed to give us a short contribution on the almond.

MR. M. P. REED: This almond (exhibiting specimens) we received scions of from Mr. C. A. Reed, of the Department a few years ago. It was three years ago this summer that we top-worked it, and we picked almost half a bushel of almonds from it this summer. The almond has a thick shell, kernel of good flavor, but I don't think it will amount to anything very much except for home use.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: How old was the tree that bore them?

MR. M. P. REED: Top-worked three years ago this summer.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: And bore how many?

MR. W. C. REED: Bore a half a bushel this last summer.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: If any one here would like bud-wood of that almond I will be glad to send it to them.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Littlepage offers to send those present bud-wood of that tree, which can be, with great ease, top-worked on the peach by the ordinary process of shield budding.

DR. IRA ULMAN: I have grafted scions of this nut on Amygdalus Davidiana, the new Chinese peach of the Department of Agriculture, and the growth is marvelous. It does just exactly as Mr. Reed told you.

DR. STABLER: I would like to ask whether the almond is attacked by the same insects and diseases that affect the peach, whether it is affected by peach yellows and whether it is affected by the peach borer. I understand that the apricot is, in a measure, immune to the peach borer at least, and possibly also to the peach yellows. If the almond is to be short-lived like the peach tree, it may not be nearly as valuable as if it were a hardy tree. If you place it upon peach stock it seems to me you must expect it to be attacked by the peach borer.

MR. M. P. REED: I believe that the original tree of this variety is something over sixty years old. Not very many peach trees live to be that old, and in the nursery it is a very vigorous grower.

THE PRESIDENT: The commercial almond is a rather long-lived tree in the countries where it is grown. Of course, here is a question of technique and individual behavior which only experience can answer. We ought to take some of these nuts home that Mr. Reed has given us. I should like to know why Mr. Reed so deprecates a tree which bears so much fruit in so short a time. If the fruit is good, why can't it be handled commercially?

MR. M. P. REED: It is the cracking quality. It has a very thick shell.

THE PRESIDENT: Is that a problem that machines cannot solve?

MR. M. P. REED: No, sir.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: How is the flavor?

MR. M. P. REED: The flavor is good.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: I was just going to say, Mr. President, that I visited Mr. Reed's place this summer, and it is utterly surprising how fast and beautifully this hardy almond grew. He took me out at the edge of the garden where he has them growing, and I could hardly realize that they were only three-year-old trees. They were as full of little almonds as the peach trees were of peaches, only they were much longer and with very red leaves. Vincennes, Indiana, is on the thirty-ninth parallel, which is the northern boundary of the District of Columbia, and it gets much colder there than here, and those trees haven't the slightest sign of winter-killing. I don't know anything about the quality of the meat, but they are certainly wonderful bearers.