Part 7

Lastly, I wish to emphasize one more possible crop insurance tree for the man who is planting nuts on land difficult of cultivation, or entirely untillable, and that is the persimmon. I have paid my respects above to the tilled crops and the pastured pig for the arable land, and for the unarable land I would still emphasize the pig and give him other sources of food to supplement pasture. Among these possible foods is the persimmon which as yet has been little appreciated in an extensive way, although hundreds of thousands of men know it is highly prized forage and of considerable fattening value. It has a crop insurance virtue, however, other than its acceptability as pig feed. That is the hardiness of the tree and the ease of establishing it. In my pasture lot the Angora goat, even when pushed with hunger, has not touched persimmon wood or leaves. The same is practically true of the black walnut and of the butternut. This fact is one of great importance, because it means that we can keep rough land in pastures, even goat pasture, during the period when we are planting out tall-headed nut trees of almost any variety, and at the same time have a perfect stand of two kinds of crop insurance trees coming along, namely, walnuts and persimmons.

In this connection it is desirable to point out the relation of this recommendation to the actual practice in nut growing regions of Europe. They do not plant a little two or three foot tree. They plant an eight or nine-foot tree often so slight it can not hold itself up, and is kept in place by one or two stiff poles. This tall-headed fellow stands out in the middle of the wheat field, the vineyard, the hay field, the goat pasture, the cow pasture, with its head entirely out of reach of the pasturing animal, its trunk protected by one or two stout sticks, and in due time it takes hold. With the trees properly developed in the nursery, I know of no reason why the same practice cannot prevail here, and I have at least one Busseron pecan tree that has gone safely through the first summer of it.

The practice of one pecan grower in Texas, reported in the Nut Journal, is suggestive of a crop insurance practice capable of wide use in the North, namely, planting of filler trees of quick-yielding varieties. There is no reason why the northern nut trees might not be planted 40, 60, or 80 feet apart in peach or even apple orchards, as did the Texas man with his nut trees 72 feet apart, occupying every fourth place in an 18-foot spaced fig orchard. I would call attention of Northerners, however, to the desirability of the mulberry, the most rapid growing and cheapest of all our fruit trees, doing well in Carolina at a space of 30 feet, which would enable the Northerner, by a little variation of the interval between his mulberry trees, to plant nut trees anywhere from 60 to 100 feet apart.

_Sod Mulch Nut Orchards._

I know that any suggestions of the production of trees without plowing is unorthodox, and therefore not likely to be heard straight, and

## particularly perilous in the presence of professional horticulturists in

state or national employ. To such I wish to call attention to the fact that I have emphasized in this matter, first, the tillage methods, and that I am making no knock against cultivation. We all know that it works under some conditions, and we all also know that there are some conditions in which it will not work. If I lived on level, sandy loam, I'd be a furious tiller of tree crops fifteen times a year. But I was born upon a rocky hill, and now I live upon another that is higher and rockier, and I don't believe in tilling it fifteen times a year. Must I abandon it, or adopt uses to its conditions? Out of these conditions mulch orcharding has come. Despite the orthodox, I know that the growing of some kinds of fruit trees without cultivation has passed the experimental stage. At this moment millions of barrels of apples are approaching perfection in orchards in Virginia and other eastern states that have not been plowed for more than one, and sometimes for more than five seasons. The application of this method to nut trees is still in the embryonic stage, with theoretic factors favoring it.

I do not know how far the mulch-fertilizer method can go, but I am sure it may go much farther than most professional horticulturists will admit. I find that the pecan tree starts off nicely under the mulch fertilizer conditions of the apple. The walnut tree has certainly done it for ages with less aid, and I believe it is up to us to find methods of handling land and trees and moisture which will enable us to avoid the danger, costs, and difficulties of plowing rough land and still get good trees. For example, the absence of cultivation does not necessarily imply the absence of fertilizer. The way a few black walnut trees in my apple orchard have snapped their buds and grown in response to the nitrate of soda that has been put upon the apple trees beside has been little short of astounding. The way a poor little starveling persimmon wakes up when the same treatment comes along, is equally interesting. I cannot speak definitely yet about the influence of fertilizer on the Persian walnut or the pecan.

In connection with the fertilization matter, it is well known that a crop of clover or other legumes is very important as a part of the rotation of crops in plow agriculture. Similarly I expect great value can be obtained in our pastured and fertilized nut orchards if we so treat the soil with lime, phosphorous, and whatever else is needed, to give a good mat of white clover and other legumes which are undoubtedly a good nitrogen supply for trees whose roots interlace with theirs.

Similarly I see great possibilities in the interplanting of some leguminous crop tree such as the honey locust or the Kentucky coffee bean in our nut orchards. It is true neither of these trees has yet been selected and developed to the crop point, but they are much more promising than Sargent says the wild Persian walnut was at its beginning. It is an established fact that a non-leguminous plant can take nourishment from the nitrate-bearing nodules on the roots of adjacent living legumes, to say nothing of its well-known ability to feed upon the nitrate collections of legumes that have lived in past seasons within reach of its roots. Thus the interplanting of a legume and a nut tree seems to promise a continuous supply of the all-important nitrates for the nut tree.

_The Question of Moisture._

It is not necessarily true that a tree gets a low percentage of the local rainfall because it is not plowed. The last palliation, or is it provocation, that I would throw into the camp of the orthodox and the worshippers of the plow, is the water-pocket, or small field reservoir, draining a few square rods and holding hard by the roots of a tree a few gallons or a few barrels of water which would otherwise run away. I showed this association a number of photographs of these water-pockets last year. Their most extensive American user, Dr. Mayer, considers them successful from the tree's standpoint and profitable from the economic standpoint. Since the great virtue of cultivation is the conservation of moisture, I will submit that this device, worked out and used for three centuries by the olive growers of Tunis, for twenty years by Dr. Mayer, of Pennsylvania, and about the same length of time by Colonel Freeman Thorpe, Minnesota, can from the point of theory and perhaps also from the point of practice, equal tillage on some soils, and with less labor and much greater economy in farm management, for the making of water pots is a job for odd times, the bane of agriculture, and tillage all comes in a pile--another bane of agriculture.

Upon the whole, I think my 21 years of nut loving have run me directly and indirectly into ten thousand hard earned, and as yet, partly not earned dollars. Rather a deep sting for a pedagogue. When the last of my grafted chestnut trees come down next year, I will have little to show for that ten thousand, but an experimental nursery and some experimental trees scattered about the hillside. But the experiments are still interesting. I still have hope, and I still love trees. I am still ahead.

* * * * *

THE PRESIDENT: I believe every other man here today has defended his thesis. I will not claim any exemption.

DR. STABLER: The President has mentioned the combination of apple and walnut trees. I would like to ask him if he has seen any deleterious effects upon the apple from the proximity of walnut roots. Now, some of my friends in Montgomery county have the idea that an apple tree will not live within fifty feet of a walnut tree. I have, myself, seen a number of apple trees die, apparently because they were neighbors of walnut trees. I wasn't sure that that was the cause of death, but they died, and walnut trees situated in an apple orchard will have a ring of dead apple trees around them. Now that is one case that I know of where the walnut tree acts injuriously upon the vegetation to which it is neighbor. All of the farm crops, wheat, corn, grass, and oats, and rye, etc., seem to thrive just as well under the limbs of a black walnut as they do away from it. In fact, frequently you see the grass greener and more luxuriant right up to the trunk of the tree than anywhere else, but it doesn't seem to be true of the apple. Now, I would like to hear from the President.

THE PRESIDENT: I simply made that as a suggestion and referred to this instance as an illustration of the effect of fertilization on the walnut.

DR. AUGUSTUS STABLER: Well, how are those apple trees doing?

THE PRESIDENT: I had enough trouble without looking for more by mixing walnut and apple trees. The walnut trees are small, merely the growth from stubs repeatedly cut.

The next on our program is a paper by Mr. McMurran, of the Department of Agriculture, upon the question of diseases of the English walnut. Mr. McMurran.

MR. S. M. MCMURRAN: I am sorry that in this, my first appearance before this Association I haven't a more optimistic and encouraging subject to talk on than diseases. You men and women who are burdened with establishing this industry have enough on you without contending with diseases, and it was not my intention to talk upon diseases at this meeting, but Mr. Littlepage, Mr. C. A. Reed, and Mr. Jones, and several others, have been urging the matter strongly, which explains my appearance at this time.

Walnut blight is a very common and serious disease on the Pacific Coast. It may be a native disease, though it has never been reported on native black walnuts, and it has proved a very serious menace to the seedling English walnut groves on the Pacific Coast.

This little piece of work I want to tell you about tonight was done through the co-operation of Mr. Jones and Mr. Rush, at Lancaster, Pa., and has just been completed within the last few days. I made a trip through New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, about the first of August, and found a number of nuts that had all the appearance of being infected with the walnut blight germ. They had the same appearance as those nuts that you saw this afternoon in Georgetown. I brought them back here and made cultures from them in the laboratory, and after that the problem was absurdly easy. The germ was obtained without difficulty, I obtained a pure culture, and then I went up to Mr. Rush's place, at Lancaster, and made a number of inoculations, of which these few I have here are typical. This nut that you see here was inoculated from a pure culture along with a number of others, and the condition is as you see it, after about a month. Inoculations were also made into twigs, and I will pass these around for your examination.

The one marked, inoculated, has a little canker on it, and on the other you will have difficulty in finding the needle punctures, but you will see them if you look closely.

Now, I hardly know what to say about this disease at this time. As I have stated before, my work has been in the South for the past several years, and no work has been done on this disease in the East prior to this summer. That it must have been here for a long time seems almost a foregone conclusion, because of its wide distribution. Mr. Jones was a little bit conscience-stricken for fear he brought it here with him. Still it is in Delaware and Maryland as well as Pennsylvania, and you can't blame Mr. Jones for that. I think, too, it is less actively pathogenic than on the Pacific Coast, or we would have heard of it before. That it should prove a serious menace to the development of the walnut industry in the East, is too much to assume at this time. It will undoubtedly eliminate a number of the varieties that are considered promising now, but the course that will have to be taken will be to propagate only varieties which are highly resistant or totally immune to the disease. Just what these varieties are going to be in the East we do not know as yet, of course. We should avoid the mistakes that the growers on the Pacific Coast have made of planting seedling trees, and taking the chance of their being resistant to the disease. A great many varieties will be automatically eliminated when the nurserymen bear in mind that this disease is one to be considered, and I want to say, that, in addition to this, the Department will take pleasure in making artificial inoculations and tests on all those concerning which there is any question. We have the germ in culture now and will maintain it, and anyone who discovers a new variety, or has an old one they would like to propagate, can communicate with us, and we will take pleasure in testing its susceptibility.

I think that is about all that can be said on the subject at this time.

This disease has been studied very carefully on the Pacific Coast and a number of publications issued from the California Experiment Station concerning it.

For those who are interested in looking the literature up, I have here the following references: Cal. Station Bulletins, 184, 203, 218, 231, and Circulars 107 and 131.

A MEMBER: Is spraying of any avail?

MR. MCMURRAN: It has helped somewhat, but it has not proved economical on the coast.

A MEMBER: In order to have that test made, would it be necessary to send the things to the Department?

MR. MCMURRAN: No; it would be necessary for me to come to you and test them on the trees.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Did those walnuts in Mr. Brown's yard look to you as though they had the blight?

MR. MCMURRAN: Yes, they looked like this (showing specimen).

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Did you notice that tree just across the fence? The reason I ask the question is that if that is blight out there, then that tree right across the fence is very likely resistant, because I have noticed that those walnuts have had this on and off for six or seven years. The limbs of the two trees are within twenty feet of each other.

MR. MCMURRAN: Well, that is a very encouraging point.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: I didn't think that was blight. All those trees at Georgetown that I have observed have that condition on them, more or less, except that one tree.

MR. MCMURRAN: Yet, isn't it true that they bore pretty good crops of nuts, nevertheless?

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Oh, yes.

MR. MCMURRAN: Well, that was the point I had in mind. Of the two trees one bears every other year, and the other bears heavy crops every year.

DR. MORRIS: You see the same thing at the Experiment Station in southern California. One tree will be absolutely resistant to blight; the other will be all killed. And down at Whittier, perhaps, seven-tenths of all the trees will be badly affected with the bacteriosis, and the others not very much affected, so that, apparently, it is largely a matter of this cynips, which introduces the bacteria, selecting certain trees. Certain walnuts are very much affected, and the involucre looks very much like that of these nuts (showing specimens), but, on examining them, I found a very large number of small larvae beneath the involucre. I sent some of them to the Connecticut Experiment Station and some to Washington, but they didn't tell me what they were. Those same larvae I found in one black walnut on my place, which is very heavily infested with them. Most of the nuts drop because of the injury to the involucre. I haven't determined the species yet. I don't know whether the larvae come first and the bacteriosis second, or whether it's the other way around.

THE PRESIDENT: Are there other persons who wish to give themselves a chance of asking Mr. McMurran a question? I have a question that is troubling me. Perhaps the house can throw light upon it. I had a number of Persian walnuts, Vrooman Franquette and Mayette, grafted on black, and by the Fourth of July they were growing nicely, with tops all the way from four to twenty-four inches long, and then the tip got black and the blackness went down. I sent a sample to Mr. McMurran. The leaves first died and then the twigs.

MR. MCMURRAN: I received that, but it was so dried when I got it it was impossible to make anything out of it. I have seen the same thing on pecans, only in those cases the leaves just got black and fell off, and we never have been able to assign a reason for it.

THE PRESIDENT: Am I the only man that has had that experience?

A MEMBER: I had this year the same thing on the Vrooman Franquette, but it recovered and has made excellent growth since.

MR. MCMURRAN: Have yours subsequently lived?

THE PRESIDENT: No, they subsequently died. (Laughter.)

MR. J. F. JONES: I had that experience this summer. The new growth was very tender and took blight very readily.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, this doesn't appear to be blight.

MR. JONES: If the English walnut starts late and the tender growth comes in the hot weather, the sun will kill it.

THE PRESIDENT: You have described my conditions. These are late grafts. Have you had that same experience with late grafts and not with early ones?

MR. JONES: Yes, sir. The blight will show itself in the specks on the twig.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, do you mean on this sunburn?

MR. JONES. No, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: There were no specks in this case. Has any other member any question on the blight? I want to call attention to the fact that we have here in this room tonight nearly every one who is studying the question in the eastern United States.

MR. MCMURRAN: Mr. President, I would like to say that we would like to get all the information we can on it.

A MEMBER: According to my observation, the blight is not going to do much to the tree, because the tree here makes its growth and hardens up before the blight comes. The blight, you see, must have moisture and heat to work, but it comes in just right to catch the nuts.

MR. R. L. MCCOY: Mr. President, some mighty strange things happen with grafted and budded English walnuts, and I believe I could ask questions that would puzzle a school of wise men. Now, none of the answers here will stand up very well. For instance, Mr. Jones says this dieing back is due to late grafting. Well, I had some Holdens that we budded this last June a year ago, that suddenly, all at once, along in July this year, proceeded to quit business, and quit clear down, and the root died, too, the black walnut root. It is a serious question in my mind whether the black is the best stock to be used or not. Mr. Jones and Mr. Reed have good success grafting the English on the black. We don't down our way. Both of those men are in regions where the land is inclined to be alkali. The land where my orchard is, and where Mr. Littlepage's and Mr. Wilkinson's orchards are, is inclined to be acid. I am of the opinion that, to make a success of the English walnut, we are going to have to use lime, and use it extensively, not only in the nursery, but until the time when the trees begin to bear.

THE PRESIDENT: It is one of the common pieces of knowledge of all the agriculturists of France that the walnut does well on lime soils, and they don't expect it to do well on acid soils.

MR. JONES: Mr. President, I think, if Mr. McCoy will examine his trees, he will find that the root dies first.

MR. MCCOY: Well, why should they rot?

MR. JONES: That is like a good many other things, Mr. McCoy. We don't know why.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: A pecan top-worked on a water hickory will sometimes kill the whole tree, top and all. It is the top that does it.

MR. M. P. REED: This year we made some observations of different varieties, as to time of leafing out, and we found the Eastern varieties leafed out about the first of April, and the Franquette and Mayette about the fifth of May, and one variety we got from the Department, No. 39,884, didn't leaf out until the twenty-fifth of May. That seemed to indicate that the French varieties were going to prove better than the Eastern varieties, because late frosts cannot hurt the blossoms.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: That is correct. I watched them this spring at Mr. McCoy's. Franquette and Mayette, over there and with us, were anywhere from ten days to two weeks later leafing out. Some of the buds were entirely dormant and some just bursting when many of our Eastern varieties were in full leaf. But my experience here in Maryland on walnut trees from all sections was that every one winter-killed except one Nebo tree and a top-worked Potomac. I have a Potomac which has made ten to twelve feet of growth, and it didn't winter-kill the slightest, and my Nebo tree hasn't winter-killed any, but the Franquette, the Meylan, the Rush, the Holden, and several others winter-killed very badly. At least, Mr. McMurran said that was what it was, and I thought it was, too.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Mr. Littlepage, isn't "winter-killing" rather a relative term, dependent partly upon the climate and partly upon the condition of the tree at the end of the growing season? Was there anything back of your statement, any late growing, or something of that sort?

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, they didn't grow any later than the Potomac grew, but that tree was top-worked about five or six feet above the ground and I think that makes them hardier.