Part 4

DR. MORRIS: I find that in the region of Stamford, Connecticut, hard shelled almonds do pretty well if you look after them pretty closely, but they take all your time. They have so many different blights on them that I am glad mine died a long time ago. They bore heavily, but they were too much trouble. They blossom so early in our locality that the blossoms are apt to be caught by frost. You may overcome that if you set the trees on the north side of a stone wall where the ground retains the frost for from one to two weeks later than on the south side. I find, that by doing this you can retard their time of blossoming sufficiently to materially lessen the danger of their being caught by spring frosts.

MR. HARRY R. WEBER: Will you get the same results if you put a mulch under the tree? Won't that prevent thawing and hold the tree for a week or two?

DR. MORRIS: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Have you used this particular almond?

DR. MORRIS: One very much like it, and it was a mighty good almond--hard to get at but good.

THE PRESIDENT: I would like to ask Mr. Reed as to the blooming time of this particular tree in comparison with some standard peach like the Elberta.

MR. M. P. REED: It bloomed about a week earlier than the Elberta, and the peach crop is light.

MR. HENRY STABLER: I have been associated for the past three or four years occasionally with Mr. M. B. Waite, of the Department of Agriculture, and I have had a good chance to study the effect of spraying on peaches in preventing brown rot and curculio. At Mr. Littlepage's I observed an almond tree that started, I should think, with twenty-five or thirty almonds on it this spring. Those almonds gradually succumbed to the curculio and brown rot until, at last, only one was left, and it seems to me that, if this almond is to be grown commercially in this climate, we will have to use the same methods of growing as with peaches, and we will have to spray them.

THE PRESIDENT: I think the chief benefit of the discussion of the almond would be to get more of us to try it, and the fact that we have one which is only one week earlier than the Elberta peach in blooming shows that we have a good chance, possibly, of even exceeding the possibilities of the peaches.

MR. MCCOY: Mr. President, I notice a good many almonds bloom about the same time as Elberta peaches. I have probably twenty-five trees of this almond that Mr. Reed spoke of, and I think they were in bloom at the time the peaches were. It is very productive, just as he says. I have noticed some of the old trees around in our neighborhood have borne good crops for several years, and I don't notice much disease on them either.

DR. STABLER: I asked the question whether anybody knows whether the almond is affected by peach yellows, and nobody seems to know, but peach yellows is something connected with climate. There is a yellows line that has remained definite and distinct for the last twenty-five years, and you can describe that line on the map, and it stays right where you put it. All north of that line the peach trees are affected by yellows, and south they are not. That line runs through Mount Vernon and Annapolis, and across Chesapeake Bay to Chestertown. Now, below that isothermal line there is a little peninsula south of Chestertown, in Kent county, a little peninsula there--a little long neck that runs out into the bay below Chestertown--where they have never had any peach yellows, and yet at Chestertown the trees have always been affected by peach yellows, and it is probable that it will be found, if the almond is affected by peach yellows, that the same laws apply to it. That is, south they will have the yellows, and north they will not. Now, at Vincennes, I suppose that they are north of the yellows line for peaches. Do your peach trees have peach yellows?

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

DR. STABLER: Perhaps you are north of it, then. If so, the almond hasn't been tried out as to yellows.

THE PRESIDENT: This association is greatly indebted to Dr. Morris, who helped to get it together, for his indefatigable searching of the corners of the earth for specimens, species and varieties of trees in his ambition to get to his Stamford place all of the varieties of nut-bearing trees. Several of our members have taken a little interest in the question of the hazel-filbert family. Dr. Morris has taken a lot of interest. Last year he gave us a most exhilarating presentation of the subject, and he is this year going to give us some brief notes on the progress of his knowledge concerning the hazels and filberts. Dr. Morris.

DR. MORRIS: Just a word, in order to start the discussion. I have tried to work out during the past year two or three points that came up for discussion last year. I stated that in Connecticut the common American hazel would probably not become a horticultural proposition for the reason that the main stock seldom lives more than seven or eight years, and then dies. New stolons, starting from the root, make abundant new stocks. In that way, dying at the center, and growing at the periphery, like a ring worm, one plant may extend so widely as to drive cows out of the pasture lot. (Laughter). Dr. Deming understood me to say that it spread so "rapidly" as to drive the cows out of a lot. I said "widely," not "rapidly." (Laughter). For that reason a plant of our common hazel bears a few nuts about the third year; it bears a good crop about the fourth year and sometimes in the fifth year. It then begins to die and is gone by the seventh or eighth year, while new stolons, coming up on all sides, are ready to perpetuate that rotation. That, at least, is ordinary hazel history in my part of Connecticut. So I doubt if this species will ever be a good horticultural proposition.

This year, for the first time, I have budded the European hazel upon our common stock for the purpose of observing whether the character of the guest will change the character of the host.

Now another point. Many of the European hazels that have been brought to this country, I find, do not bear for the reason that they flower so early that the staminate flowers are caught by frost--not the pistillate. The pistillates will hold out against frost for a long time and make good. There are two or three ways for overcoming this difficulty. We may select for cultivation those kinds which bloom a week or two, or even three weeks later than others, as in the case of the Bony Bush variety.

There is hardly any more valuable tree in Central Europe than the purple leafed hazel. I never have seen one bearing in this country. Its staminate flowers come out too early in Connecticut. I have now some in which I have grafted the Bony Bush, which flowers so much later that I hope to have my purple hazels bearing nuts at Merribrooke.

On the whole, most of the points have been simply confirmatory of points previously considered. We need not fear hazel blight because it is very easily controlled, and many of the European hazels will furnish an immensely valuable crop for almost all parts of temperate America. We may develop, by breeding and by cultivation, types which will be hardy, which will give us large, valuable, marketable crops, and which will be desirable from the market man's point of view.

DR. STABLER: Can you get stocks that are free from blight?

DR. MORRIS: Last year I showed specimens of blight. The blight, fortunately, begins upon a fairly large stem--upon a part of the stem that is in plain sight. It takes from two to four years for a patch of that blight to encircle a limb. If one will go over his hazel orchard once a year and, where a bit of blight appears, cut it out with his jack-knife and later paint the spot with a little white paint, one can very readily control hazel blight. It is so easily done that we need not fear it at all.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Ulman, I believe, is a hazel enthusiast.

DR. ULMAN: I have attempted to gather as much information as I could by seeking out the failures with hazel because I had found no one reporting success. In answer to a large number of letters which I sent out I received some 290 replies which reported failures with the European hazel. Dr. Morris tells us that blight can be readily controlled. So far, that does not seem to be the experience of others, but it is only fair to say that they do not know how to get rid of it in the way that Dr. Morris has told us.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Ulman, I should like to ask if it is not true that the hazels growing at Rochester could be added to your collection of 290 and change this complexion a little bit. Certainly last year we saw hazel trees almost the diameter of this room which appeared to be perfectly healthy.

THE SECRETARY: Can we recommend the hazel to be planted commercially?

THE PRESIDENT: If the hazel propagates by underground stolons automatically, why can we not take the stolons and plant them in the places that the trees have abandoned, letting them run on elsewhere?

DR. MORRIS: In regard to Dr. Deming's question, green European hazel nuts are now selling in New York, out of cold storage, at seventy-five cents a pound. Green hazel nuts like green almonds are prized by the gourmet. All of the European hazels will eventually furnish a good commercial proposition provided that the market is large enough, and the market will probably grow, is growing in fact. Ripe filberts bring, approximately, from ten to fifteen cents a pound. The trees bear well, and I don't know of any reason why the hazel proposition should not be a first rate one right now. The thing to do is to select kinds which we know are valuable here. One may go through the seedling orchards at Rochester and select one parent which bears large nuts prolifically, and then propagate any number of European hazels from that one stock. My Bony Bush is probably a desirable hazel.

In regard to the question of breeding from stolons, if we can keep that thing going it would be all right, but it requires so much work I doubt if we shall do anything in that way with the American hazel. The European hazels don't travel by stolons. That is the advantage. So I have given up the common American hazel as a commercial proposition. A number of European and Asiatic hazels will be commercially profitable, unquestionably, just as soon as we care to develop them.

MR. WEBER: What do you know about the hazels of the Western coast?

DR. MORRIS: Very profitable in parts of Oregon and Washington. They have a large, good crop, which sells locally, but, like most Pacific Coast fruits, the nuts lack flavor and quality. They have size and beauty, but lack quality. The fruits and nuts grown on the Pacific Coast all lack a certain fineness of character, for some reason yet unknown.

You have got to look after your European hazels, and not neglect the orchard. I remember seeing some very beautiful apple trees in central Maine not very long ago--no blight--no codling moth, and the trees free from almost everything in the way of insects or fungous troubles--beautiful, cultivated trees, and beautiful apples on them. I asked another man, one of my acquaintances there, an old farmer, why he didn't set out a lot of similar trees and make a good income. He said, "Well, it won't go." He had a pasture about eight miles north of there, and, said he, "I spent thirty dollars for apple trees to put into an orchard, and I had great ideas about those apples. I set the trees out in that orchard about three or four years ago, and last year when I went up to look at them, there were hardly any apple trees left." He hadn't looked at them for three or four years. (Laughter.) You can't raise hazels that way.

THE SECRETARY: The reason I asked about the commercial value of the hazel is that my own experience has been very unsatisfactory. I got some hazels from Gillet, on the Pacific Coast six or seven years ago, set them out around my place, and they have grown beautifully. I haven't been able to detect any blight on them anywhere. Some of them are fifteen feet high, have grown luxuriantly, and blossom every year, but I haven't seen one nut yet. On the other hand, the other day I visited a man near my home, who told me that he had raised some trees from nuts which he had bought from an Italian grocery on the corner. He gets the nuts when the crop first comes in, and stratifies in wet sand all winter, and he says they all grow. He had some beautiful hazel trees. One I estimated to be twenty feet high. I never saw a hazel tree which approached it. He said it was only five or six years old. Last year he had a fine crop of nuts from it. This year, however, he said that during a warm spell in the winter the staminate bloom came out and was killed, and there were no nuts on the trees. Now it seems to me that there is great uncertainty about the hazels, and I don't know exactly what to advise people to do. People ask me for advice as to what nuts to plant commercially. I don't know whether to advise them to plant hazels or not, and I don't know what varieties to advise people to plant. I don't know how to advise them to overcome this difficulty of the early staminate bloom and the winter killing. I can't now conscientiously recommend people to plant hazel nuts commercially.

DR. MORRIS: Go to Rochester and get some there that bloom every year and that bloom later. My Bony Bush blossoms some three weeks later than the others, I presume. It is a bush that bears well every other year, apparently.

THE PRESIDENT: Are there any further questions about this large family of nut trees of which we have but a small corner of knowledge? If not, we may look to an adjournment.

First, I wish to announce that this afternoon we are going to devote to an excursion around the city, to see some of the most remarkable Persian walnut trees which I think may be found anywhere.

I am asked by Prof. Close to say that the Department of Agriculture has an exhibit of nuts on the fourth floor at 220 Fourteenth Street, Southwest.

Meeting adjourned.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8TH, 2 P. M.

Meeting called to order by the President.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Metcalf, Chief of the Bureau of Forest Pathology, of the Department of Agriculture, has been in charge of the investigations concerning the chestnut blight for a number of years.

DR. HAVEN METCALF: Mr. Chairman and Members of the Society: I will present, first, a few general facts regarding the present status of the chestnut bark disease, and, for the greater part of the information you desire, I will rely on you to ask me questions.

The chestnut bark disease is getting to be an old story, but that plant hyphenate, that objectionable imported disease, is more of a live issue today than it ever has been before. All my attention during recent months has been taken up with another imported plant disease, the white pine blister rust, of which you have heard, and which does not concern the special subject matter in which this Association is interested, unless, perhaps, you may be interested in the pinon nut as the pinon pine may ultimately be subject to attack by blister rust. However, this disease, like the chestnut blight, is an example of what a relatively harmless, or at least, not serious disease in a foreign country can do when it is permitted to get into the United States.

This brings us to the question of the origin of the chestnut bark disease, which, although the story has been told many times before, has been the subject of so much dispute that I probably had better recapitulate that matter. It has been proved beyond question that the chestnut bark disease is a native of eastern Asia, China, Japan and Korea; that it was introduced into this country in the '90's, upon diseased chestnut nursery stock. It was not critically observed until 1904, but the condition of trees which were observed at that time shows conclusively (provided the disease progressed in those early years as it has since) that it was introduced into the country as early as the late 90's. The final demonstration of the fact that the disease is a foreign disease and a native of Asia we owe to Mr. Frank Meyer, of the Office of Seed and Plant Introduction, of the Department of Agriculture. Mr. Meyer's observations are so interesting that I will pass around a few pictures illustrative of his observations in China, the first picture showing the country that is the home of the chestnut bark disease. The second picture shows a chestnut orchard in China where the trees have, with characteristic thrift, been planted around human burial mounds. The remaining pictures show how the chestnut blight acts in China--very differently from the way it acts in this country. In China, it produces, as the pictures show, definite cankers, which do not girdle the tree, which kill young trees occasionally, mutilate old trees, kill branches, but the cankers do not girdle the trees. That disease has been known in China we have no idea how many years, and, while it does a certain amount of harm, is said by Mr. Meyer not to be really serious in China. You can readily see, upon examining these pictures, that there is a sharp contrast in the behavior of the disease as observed in China and its behavior as observed in this country, where it will girdle a comparatively large tree and the fungus spread all through the bark, completely covering it, and doing that in a very short time. Of course, then, the chestnut blight is one of those cases of which we have so many, where a disease, passing to a new country, finds new surroundings, hosts more favorable to its development, and progresses rapidly.

The natural range of the chestnut bark disease at the present time--that is, I mean, its range on the native chestnut and the range through which it is now spreading by non-human agencies, is, on the north, practically co-extensive with the range of the native chestnut. The disease is found in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, as far south as Virginia, and as far west as western Pennsylvania and eastern West Virginia. Throughout this area it is spreading by what I may call natural means, and the disease has been shown to be unusually well provided with means of dissemination. I will speak a little later about the spread of the disease outside of this area--that is, west and south, since in the West and in the South it is being spread, as far as we know, exclusively by human agencies.

The question is often asked me, "What is the future of the chestnut--that is, the native chestnut--in this country? What is the course of the disease going to be?" The only way in which we can answer that is to look in the parts of the country where the disease has been present longest--Long Island, for example; Westchester county, New York; Bergen county, New Jersey; Fairfield county, Conn. Upon a recent examination of those areas I found no chestnut trees surviving in a healthy condition. We have, of course, from the beginning, hunted, and hunted hard, to find individual chestnut trees that might be immune to the disease--native American chestnuts. We expected to find such trees, but up to date we have not found them. It is a very extraordinary fact and an almost unparalleled fact, because with the majority of plants affected, by any given disease, we can find some individuals that are not only resistant, but immune.

Now, in these old areas, particularly on Long Island, in 1907, when the disease first came under my observation, I marked certain trees in order to observe how long the stumps of these trees or the dead trees would continue to send up sprouts from the ground. It is an interesting fact that some of those trees which were dead in 1907 are still putting up sprouts. The sprouting capacity of the chestnut tree is indeed marvelous, but I am sorry to say that I haven't been able to find any healthy sprouts over three years old. I haven't been able to find any living sprouts more than four years old. The disease seems to be following up the sprouts as it followed up the original stem.

Right there, in the behavior of the disease toward the sprouts, we have an interesting fact. During the first year of its life the chestnut tree or the chestnut sprout is immune to this disease, or practically so. You can rarely find a seedling or sprout of the first year that is attacked by the disease, and even in the second or third years a comparatively small per cent of them are attacked. It is thus possible to produce chestnut nursery stock that for several years does not show the disease.

So far as I can see, the chestnut blight is not stopping naturally in its course anywhere. I cannot get a particle of reliable evidence that it is. In this part of the country and to the south of here, in Virginia, for example, the parasite has more months in the year during which it can grow, it appears to be utilizing that time in spreading more rapidly, at least killing trees more quickly, than to the north of this area. From the standpoint of the grower of nuts, the important question is, of course, whether the disease can be controlled. I think your Secretary, in a recent article, summed the situation up as clearly and briefly as can be done. He said, in an article entitled "The Progress of Nut Culture in the East:"

"Of the chestnut we have excellent varieties such as the Rochester, Boone and Paragon, but all development in the culture of this nut is being held up by the blight. Everybody is awaiting the results of the government work in breeding immune hybrids. There may be great opportunities, nevertheless, in chestnut growing outside its native area, where the blight can be controlled."