Part 12

Elmer Myers is a beautiful thin shelled nut, but so far a little shy in bearing. I believe this can be corrected if I can find another walnut that will shed pollen late enough to catch the Myers pistils. Homeland may be the one to do it. I have set some grafts of it with the Myers to see.

Carpathian D, and a variety of unknown origin from Haywood County are the only Persian walnuts I have fruited. This tree of unknown origin grows alone, is at least 50 years old, is three feet in diameter, has a spread of 40 feet, and is about the same in height. Some years it produces a heavy crop, others, nothing. To my knowledge, it has received no care in the past 20 years.

My 18 Carpathians are all growing with varying vigor and resistance to leaf spot. None has shown winter injury.

Of all the heartnuts, Rhodes is my favorite. The nut does not appear to be as large as some, but the kernel is just as heavy, due to its compact shape which causes it to fall out when the nut is cracked. It is self-pollenizing and also a good pollenizer for all my other varieties, shedding pollen over a long period of time, although it is the latest of all in producing its pistils. It grows vigorously on black walnut stock.

Rush seems to be the best filbert for this section. Its catkins are usually hardy here.

Chestnut trees, like gray ghosts, still reach their naked arms high on many West Tennessee hillsides, and occasionally one finds a farmer splitting posts from their remains, for chestnut is an enduring wood. A few of these tenacious individuals are still sending up sprouts that may reach considerable size before they are again struck down.

I have had no serious trouble with blight in any of the named chestnut varieties, either Chinese or Japanese. I have lost some trees by its entrance into the seedling stock, but not many. My greatest headache has been sun-scald and winter killing, or to be more exact, "early spring" killing.

One of the juvenile characteristics of oriental chestnuts is the retention of their leaves all winter. They also grow in a rather sprangling way. This is a protective mechanism, and when we prune them to an upright form, or graft, this wood having lost its juvenile characteristics, we are inviting trouble unless we protect the trunk in some other way. I prefer to use a paper wrap as described under Pecans, as it is quickly done and is inexpensive. This also gives protection to immature callus cells at bud or graft union.

Of the older Chinese chestnut varieties in my hands, Hobson has excelled, with large chestnuts (34 to the pound in 1948.) Zimmerman also produces a good nut. Colossal (Hybrid) is very productive and produces the largest nuts of any chestnut that I have seen grown in Tennessee, but the quality of the raw nut is not equal to Hobson. It refuses to grow on Chinese stock, but thrives on Japanese. It is pollen sterile. I have several newer varieties under observation and although they are growing vigorously I have not had time to form an opinion on them.

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President Davidson: The Reverend Bernard Taylor of Alpine, Tennessee, will next read a paper on The Marketing of Black Walnuts as a Community Project. Mr. Taylor.

Marketing Black Walnuts as a Community Project

THE REV. BERNARD TAYLOR, Alpine, Tennessee

The Rev. Mr. Taylor: I suppose that every community where black walnuts grow wild has a marketing of some kind, some kind of a plan of marketing, maybe just what every boy or every man who has some spare time or some of the womenfolks may do to make something out of the walnuts that are lying around.

In the community of Alpine, which is in Overton County, people used to go out on the ridge with wagons and bring home wagonloads of walnuts, and they would sell them either in the shell or they would crack them and sell them in pretty poor condition, however they could sell them. When we first began selling walnut kernels in Alpine we got 19 cents a pound for the kernels, and that was more than they were worth, I believe, because they were dirty, greasy, and they had mildew gobs in the bunches of kernels. So I don't know how the rolling stores that came around that way could make anything out of them trading them in at that price.

Then we began to study the Government bulletins on how to produce good walnut kernels, and there is a good bulletin on that; all of you are acquainted with it, probably. When we began to harvest those nuts and hull them as quickly as we could and wash them and dry them out thoroughly and then crack them before they got too dry, we organized what was called the Walnut Club. This Walnut Club mostly was composed of some of the women of the community who lived up in one little cove where the limestone outcroppings seem to favor the walnut and the air drainage or whatever it was seemed to favor the crop yields rather regularly. We don't have an every-year good walnut crop.

Well, these women got finally so that they could get 35 cents a pound for their walnut kernels, then 45 cents a pound. Then we found a good friend in Pennsylvania who would take those kernels, all we could send her, and put them up in little pound packages and sell them for whatever she could get and send us all the money. That's altogether contrary to Hoyle I guess.

You merchants, if there are some of you here, who are dealers in walnut kernels know that our people were just getting spoiled. Anytime now that a merchant says, "I will give you such-and-such a price for the walnuts and then I will sell them for such-and-such a price," he looks to them like a robber. They want to sell them for what the people pay who eat them. That isn't quite fair, maybe, but we got $1.39 a pound last year for all the kernels we could produce, and the year before it was $1.40, I believe, and it stays about that price.

That is about the story of the community project. It is a direct contact by way of a benevolent friend between people in the mountains in Tennessee and people in Pennsylvania who say that these kernels taste better than black walnut kernels in Pennsylvania taste. I don't know whether any Pennsylvanians here agree with that or not. I think they are wonderfully mild-flavored, a good many of them very light-colored kernels. Though Mr. Chase has made some beautiful exhibits of how the color changes depending on how long a time you leave them in the hull, we still have some that stay lighter than others. Some of them have rather gray-colored kernels.

There is one of those trees that Mrs. Ledbetter has, on her husband's farm. He was about to sell that tree for a log and a stump. They come along and grub the stumps out and sell the stumps and all for veneerwood. But she wouldn't let him sell it, and over the course of the last few years they sold enough kernels more than to pay for that walnut tree and it is still going to yield a good many years, probably better and better as time goes on.

I think that possibly the community angle of this is a little bit misrepresenting. It's not the entire community, but it is a little group of the community who are interested in the wild black walnut.

Last spring we were very fortunate in having some help in grafting some of the seedlings. This Mrs. Ledbetter's husband got interested in walnuts, and he planted a whole pasture with walnuts spaced every so often, and this spring we went there with the help of God and were able to graft those to Thomas black walnuts. They were just little seedlings, so we hope to go into the named black walnuts as time goes on.

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President Davidson: May I ask, Mr. Taylor, the people, of course, now comply with the Government regulations on pasteurization and so on?

Mr. Taylor: Never heard of it. You will have to tell me about that after a while, if you will, please.

President Davidson: Mr. Shadow, the County Agent of Decatur, Meigs County, Tennessee, will tell his experiences with tree crops in that county.

Experiences with Tree Crops in Meigs County, Tennessee

W. A. SHADOW, Meigs County Agent, Decatur, Tennessee

Mr. Shadow: Mr. Chairman and members of the Nut Growers Association: As President Davidson announced, I am an agricultural agent. About twelve years ago I thought it would be good to have a hobby, and since I was born and reared in the nursery world propagating fruit trees and ornamentals, and due to the fact that John Hershey came by one day and talked to me about the tree crops in the Tennessee Valley, it struck me just right, and I have made that my hobby.

You know, every man who has a job gets fed up on his job and needs to get out and play with himself, or something else, to forget his troubles. So I find in propagating nut trees, top-working them, if you will, top-working trees where I find them to named varieties, is very interesting to me.

John Hershey taught me the technique of grafting nut trees. I had grafted and budded in all kinds of ornamentals and fruits, but I needed training in nut trees. So in the spring of 1935, I guess, I grafted about a hundred Thomas black walnut on trees where I found them in the woodland. At the same time I grafted maybe a hundred Japanese persimmon of possibly a dozen varieties on the common native persimmon. I purchased three, four, maybe five Japanese persimmons and planted these trees in the spring of 1935. All these persimmons, maybe 60 or 70 of them, grew nicely. The Thomas grew very well, and the winter of 1939 or 1940, I don't recall just which, was rather severe. We had below-zero weather, and all of my persimmons were killed--I thought. The next year I found a persimmon tree up in the woods with maybe a peck of great big nice persimmons and later I found that that was a Fuyugaki persimmon. All the rest of mine were winter killed. Those that I purchased were winter killed the first year. I don't know why. I grafted the persimmon about 5 feet high. Those that were grafted at the ground I noticed winter killed the first year, and these that are grafted up about shoulder high seemed to live three or four years before they winter killed, and the one variety that survived as Mr. Kline and Mr. Chase, or someone, has told, is Fuyugaki, I believe. I have a Tamopan persimmon, a great big, nice persimmon about so big, but bitter as the dickens, and about the only thing I think it is good for is to look at. It is pretty. But the Fuyugaki is never bitter. It is very tasty even partially green, and as it ripens my lady thinks it is very good, and I think it is good, myself.

I have about two or three varieties of mulberries. I got them from Glen St. Mary Nurseries in Florida. They make awfully good pig feed and bird feed, and I don't mind eating them myself.

There are some honeylocust, Millwood and Calhoun. I purchased several seedlings of thornless honeylocust from some northwestern nursery and grafted them to Millwood and Calhoun. I also have four trees that are ten years old and they have never borne. Last year there was one tree of that hundred that bore heavily, and the rest of them are barren. It must be lack of pollenization, or something. I am not getting fruit from my honeylocust.

Someone asked me what I am going to do with all this stuff, and I said, "Well, the squirrels and I will have lots of fun anyhow, and the cows will eat the honeylocust if they ever bear."

I have two pecan trees that are bearing nicely. One is a Posey and the other is a Greenriver, bearing very nicely. They are about ten years old. I have some Schley and Delmas and Mahan, and they are not bearing. I don't know why. We are out of the realm of the southern pecan and too far south for the northern pecan, I am afraid.

My Persian walnut, heartnut and Japanese walnut think it is spring too quick, and every year they burst out and grow about so long, and then they fall down and die from freezing, and then they grow out, and this time of the year you look at them and you say, "That's a beautiful tree," But they freeze just enough to get the fruit each year.

Mr. McDaniel came by last spring a year ago and left with me a little scion of a Carpathian walnut, the Bayer selection. I wasn't present, but he left it with my lady and suggested to my lady that I would know what to do with it. I put it on a common black walnut grafted about so high, and it is ten feet high now growing nicely, but this spring I noticed that it, too, thought the spring was here before it was here. I don't know how it is going to bear. I may have to take it out on top of the hill and re-graft it on a high place where it has more air drainage.

Of the Chinese chestnut, I planted about a hundred, but I planted them in a cut-over woodland that was full of native chestnut sprouts. You know how the chestnut sprouts will do. They grow up and blight out and die down, and another sprout comes from the stump. They have been doing that for 30 years over in my part of the country. I planted these chestnuts purposely in that grove where there was lots of blight. Out of that hundred I have eight trees that are alive. The rest of them have died from blight. They are bearing very nicely, but I haven't learned how to care for those fruits so that they are good a long period of time. Someone just told me that you had someone on the program this morning who would tell us that. It is a very interesting subject for me.

And the Thomas walnut is a nice black walnut. The trees are a little bit peculiar about their bearing; sometimes they bear heavily and again they forget to bear. The Stabler doesn't bear at all for me. I just know they are Stablers because someone told me so. I have them labeled. I have Creitz black walnut. I got five from TVA four or five years ago, and they just literally bear themselves to death. They're about so high and bear every year, very nice nuts. I will have to pull the walnuts off long enough to make them grow up and make real trees. I think they are going to be all right.

Mr. Chairman, I am not an expert. I use my hobby to keep from bothering about the troubles that I have with other things, and when I get mad at a neighbor I go to playing on my trees, and it gets me well. I recommend it as a very soothing hobby.

Now, some day we will make a business out of tree crops when we in Tennessee get the bugs out of it and get them so we will have the right varieties to produce. I am not satisfied with the Thomas. Someone suggested it was a wonderful nut. I am not satisfied with it. We need a better walnut than the Thomas. But it's the best I have.

There is a native walnut I found in the valley near Watts Bar Dam. I named it Pineland. It is just a seedling. It is a most wonderful nut if it wasn't for its hard shell. It's hard as the dickens. It is a wonderful bearer, has borne every year for nine years. It happens to be in unusually good soil. But I have grafted a few up away from the river, and the grafted trees are bearing nicely. The trouble is it is hard, but it is a wonderful good kernel and it is a big nut.

Groups like this working with tree crops and nuts over a period of time will develop the right varieties, and if we can get some youngsters interested--and I am in my county getting some youngsters interested in grafting--and tell them not to expect too much but get a whole lot of satisfaction out of the fun of producing something, I think this will be the beginning. Or rather, you have been going a long time. This is a means of progress in tree crops that I am well pleased to take a part in. Mr. Chairman, I think that's about all that I have.

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President Davidson: I know we all wish we had more county agents like that, interested in trees and interested in young folks. Those two things should go together. I wish you would just sort of propagate that idea when you meet other county agents, won't you, Mr. Shadow?

Now, then, Mr. Frye of Pleasant Dale, West Virginia, will tell us something about Nut Hobbying in Eastern West Virginia.

Nut Hobbying in Eastern West Virginia

WILBERT M. FRYE, Pleasant Dale, West Virginia

Mr. Frye: After hearing such wonderful speeches as we have had, with your reading, Mr. McDaniel, I wish I could be all of us, but as it is, I am just myself. I don't know how many know where Pleasant Dale is, but anyhow, you know where Washington, D. C. is; I live just along U. S. 50 and my section is 103 miles west of Washington, D. C. That will locate where we are.

This section of the country is composed of a lot of long ridges with steep hills, narrow valleys, some of them very fertile. These valleys form bases where you will get the draft off these hills down into the valleys. You must keep all the fruit and most of the nut trees out of those places, or you have these frost spots that I have been telling some of you about.

As far back as people can remember that country has been covered with all kinds of nuts except the European (Persian or "English") walnuts, and the early people coming in there used these nuts for food, and the chestnut was their main one. Whenever a person clearing the land found a nice tree he would save it. Then he would show much pride in having a good tree, and it kept on going until there became a rivalry as to who had the best chestnut tree. Some had an orchard of them.

When the blight hit the country I had an orchard of chestnut trees. When I saw the first blight in the top of a tree I didn't like the looks. I kept noticing that. It kept on coming down the tree, and it killed the base. The total result was everybody lost their hobby trees, and then soon they changed to something else.

Now, when the blight took the chestnut out of the country the people began to pride themselves on the walnut, who had the best walnut, who had the best shagbark in the country.

Some distance from where I am is a two-acre grove, a wonderful grove of our larger nuts. Some places it is called kingnut and some places they call it under the name of this big one in the show room, shellbark. Anyhow, there were two acres there and real moist meadows, and every once in a while the frost would kill those nuts, and the next year they would have a wonderful crop. So the climate determines whether we have an annual crop or an intermittent crop on these trees.

Then I always liked to mess around with hobbies with nature. I became interested, got to wondering who did have the best of the best. Then I began to go out and visit all of these farms and ask them for a certain number of the best, and I began to send them around to Mr. Reed and Mr. Zarger and other people to take their word on it. And, of course, I have located some that cracked very well. But every once in a while somebody tells me they have got a better one yet, and the other day I ran across a fellow a hundred miles away--he happened to hear about me, and I have a neighbor who knows him--who has a black walnut that looks like a Persian walnut. So you see, I have a trip of a hundred miles to make to see what he's got. I wrote to him just before I left. I wrote to him to send me at least 20 of those nuts, and just as soon as this fellow sends me the nuts I would come up and see him and later on would try to get some grafting wood and send down to Mr. Zarger of the TVA group.

My job is not to keep them to myself but to put out the best. So we have those different nuts, and now it is time to consolidate the best in what we have and get them in the hands of the nut growers groups and those who will put them out and really make use of them. But first we want to see these best trees all over the country. Some of them are not as good for timber as the others, but I like to incorporate the timber with the nut production.

We talked about the black walnut earlier today. The speaker was not saying much about flavor. That's one thing we want to do in all of our nut work, get as good a flavor as we can. So why not get the best and go putting it out to give it to everybody. Why keep anything within ourselves? That's the main thing we can do.

A brother was talking a while ago about this nut job, a community nut job. Now, two years ago--I will have to use my dad, who is 82 years old, as a little reference--my dad cracked 83 pounds of black walnuts from just the best of them, you might say. Sold them at a price of $1.49 a pound. So that wasn't bad, was it? I thought that was right good.

Last year we didn't have a nut in there because we had a freeze on the 31st of May of around 26° to 28°, depending on where you were and the location. But then in the fall on the 23rd of September we had another drop just when everything was in full growth, due to a dry spell and then a rain. But in the fall on the 23rd of September we had a drop down to 20, so that was what happened to all the remaining nuts in that country. They were just frozen like black mummies.