Part 16

Certain nut weevils (_Balaninus spp._) attack the native hazels, but Slate (1930) reports they do not attack the European filbert (_C. avellana_). Mr. Slate reports that in Geneva where nuts are carefully picked up they do not have much of a problem with weevils.

Dr. Crane reports that the Japanese beetle severely damages the filbert. While the Japanese beetle has not yet become widely established in Virginia, it undoubtedly will eventually become a problem throughout this state. The Japanese beetle can be destroyed by using four pounds of 50% wettable DDT or two pounds of actual DDT per 100 gallons. Such sprays should be applied as the Japanese beetles begin to cause injury, and usually two applications may be sufficient.

Mr. G. F. Gravatt has reported that his filbert plantings, surrounded on three sides by woods, are badly attacked by stink bugs that sting the nuts. DDT as suggested for Japanese beetles may also be used for stink bugs.

Another serious insect pest on hazelnut is the curculio. Clean cultivation has been reported as a supplementary measure for curculio control, as they depend, upon unbroken soil in the fall for their metamorphosis. Some hybrids are reported as being relatively immune to the attacks of curculio (Weschcke, 1946). Benezene hexachloride has shown promise with other plants in curculio control and may have possibilities on the filbert.

LACK OF HARDINESS. A third limitation has been lack of hardiness in the case of European varieties. With the European varieties the staminate or the pistillate flowers or both are likely to be killed by winter temperatures. In fact, occasional unduly low winter temperatures may kill the tree tops or even the tree trunks to the ground. The Winkler variety (_C. americana_) has been reported as more hardy in New York State than the Barcelona (_C. avellana_) or the Jones hybrids (_C. americana_ x. _C. avellana_) (Ross Pier Wright, 1944).

Under western New York conditions, Slate (1930) reported that the blooming period starts about March 20 to 25 at Geneva, and lasts about a month. In central Virginia this may well be several weeks earlier. Slate (1930) also reports that the flowers in bloom will withstand considerable frost, and that even with temperatures of 16°F. during the blooming season, neither female nor male flowers, may be injured. Nevertheless, with filberts coming into bloom in late February to early March, they would be subjected to temperatures that might result in injury especially to the catkins.

Some of the more hardy varieties as reported by Slate (1930) include the following: (a) White Lambert (not of value) (_C. maxima_); (b) Red Lambert (_C. maxima_); (c) Cosford; (d) Purple Aveline (_C. avellana_); and (e) Early Globe (of little value).

Some of the varieties upon which both the staminate and pistillate flowers tend to bloom relatively late are (a) Althaldensleber, (b) Kentish Cob, (c) Red Aveline, (d) Purple Aveline, and (e) Bolwiller. Late blooming, however, does not necessarily insure escaping injury from low spring temperatures. The Cosford, Italian Red, and Medium Long are considered by Slate as good for New York. The Bixby and Buchanan are the result of crossing _C. americana_ x _C. avellana_, and appear to be of promise for home plantings in the East. Mr. H. F. Stoke is growing the Italian Red and Du Chilly (Kentish Cob) with Daviana for pollination purposes in the Roanoke area.

CROSS-POLLINATION. A fourth limitation is the fact that varieties are nearly entirely if not fully dependent upon cross-pollinization by other inter-fertile varieties that bloom at about the same time in order to insure a set of nuts. This limitation may be overcome by the proper planning of hardy varieties are inter-fertile. Colby (1944) has reported that the Winkler variety is self-fertile.

SUCKERS. A sixth limitation is the tendency of the _C. avellana_ or _C. maxima_ to sprout about the base and the labor and expense of keeping these sprouts pruned out. It is possible that this factor may be overcome by using Turkish hazel (_C. colurna_ L.) as an understock and grafting or budding thereon the varieties that sprout when on their own roots. The Turkish hazel does not sprout as badly as the two other species.

Note by Editor: An Oregon nursery, which formerly propagated European filberts on the Turkish understock, now has abandoned its use. The grafted filbert tops did not seem to survive and bear as consistently as those on their own roots, after a period of several years in orchards.

PLANTING IN VIRGINIA. In a letter dated May 17, 1948, addressed to R. C. Moore, Assistant Horticulturist, V.P.I., H. J. Pettit, Assistant Secretary of the Planters Peanut Company, Suffolk, Virginia, reported that some years ago they planted several thousand trees of filberts, which they obtained from the states of New York and Oregon. From their experience it appears that late spring frosts destroyed the flower parts, which developed early, with the result that the yields were too low to be profitable. Hence, the filberts were removed and the land otherwise utilized. Mr. H. F. Stoke, however, in the Roanoke area has not found lack of hardiness as serious as the problems of diseases and insects of filberts.

An important nursery in Maryland has provided information to the effect that during this past 1947-48 season it sold for planting in Virginia a total of 34 filbert plants in lots of from one to ten. Its 1947-48 catalogue lists varieties of filberts for sale as follows: Barcelona, Daviana, Du Chilly, and American hazel.

Dr. H. L. Crane, Principal Horticulturist of the USDA, writes in a letter dated July 27, 1948, that he knows of no substantial plantings being made anywhere in Virginia. He has observed a few bushes or trees scattered about the homesteads, particularly in the northern or more mountainous part of the state. In most cases the performance of these filberts has not been entirely satisfactory because of leaf scorch during the summer, due apparently to high temperatures or unfavorable moisture conditions or to the winter killing of the catkins, or in some cases winter injury of the shoots. The largest plantings in Virginia that have yet come to the attention of the V.P.I. Department of Horticulture are those of Mr. Stoke in the Roanoke area.

Dr. Crane has observed the planting of a few bushes of the American hazelnut in Virginia. Their performance has been somewhat better than has been that of the European filbert, especially as to hardiness, and these American hazelnuts have borne more satisfactory crops of nuts than have the European filberts. The nuts produced by the native varieties, however, are small in size, thick shelled, and the kernels are small and lack quality. Observations by Dr. Crane, which have been made in the State of Virginia, lead him to believe that with the material that is at present available from nurserymen, there is not much hope of successful commercial filbert culture in the State of Virginia. When, however, seedlings 1667 and 2336 may become available, two varieties that are hardy and productive of fairly high quality nuts may provide material for home plantings or for local markets.

_Ornamental Value._ The filbert, however, also has possible value for ornamental plantings with its attractive foliage, or as a hedge, as well as for nut production, providing the home owner will control insects and diseases and maintain favorable growing conditions for our best known varieties.

_Future Outlook in Virginia._ With a further breeding program to combine the hardiness of the American hazel and its tolerance to Filbert Blight with some of the better qualities of the European and other species to obtain self-fertile varieties better adapted to Virginia conditions and with the better insecticides and fungicides now becoming available for insect and disease control, it may be that filbert growing in Virginia has a brighter future outlook than now appears to be true.

[Footnote 19: Tree Nuts, Acreage, Production, Farm Disposition, Value, and Utilization of Sales, 1909-45. USDA Bureau of Agr. Eco. Crop Rept. Brd.: 1-25 Oct. 1947.]

[Footnote 20: Rush, itself, is now considered a natural hybrid of American and European filberts. Many of the European varieties are derived from hybrids between +C. avellana+, +C. maxima+, and possibly other Eurasian species.--Ed.]

[Footnote 21: Now located at Erie, Ill.--Ed.]

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President Davidson: Thank you, Dr. Overholser. We have a paper from Mr. Elliott. Mr. Elliott is not here, but we are already behind our program, so I am afraid you are going to have to have that in printed form later on.

Filberts for Food and Looks in Kentucky

N. R. ELLIOTT, Extension Landscape Specialist, Department of Horticulture, University of Kentucky

Those of us interested in the landscape phase are always thinking of as many different kinds of plants as possible that may be used to create pleasing effects. Perhaps we might be criticized for overlooking several plants that would not only assist in creating pleasing effects but at the same time produce edible fruits of good quality. In my own experience I have often recommended the use of grape vines on a trellis to create a screen and at the same time produce fruit. Also in border plantings, like the shrub border, the gooseberries and currants make attractive shrubs and in addition supply fruits. In making these suggestions for plantings one needs to depart somewhat from the usual run of plants and in most instances the homeowner has never thought of using plants for effects as well as fruits.

+Filberts Good Dual Purpose Plants+

Filberts are certainly outstanding dual purpose plants, and I feel that they have not been used nearly as much as they should be. If we think of landscape from the broad point of view, we realize that screen or border plantings make up one of the most important parts of the set-up, especially in rural parts. Practically every farm home has some unattractive view near by that needs to be screened out, either partially or entirely. This view may be caused by a lot where farm animals are kept, an old, unattractive barn, or even a gullied field. Lots where animals are kept and the barn are necessary parts of the farm operations, and the gullied field may result from neglect, but regardless of the cause for the undesirable view it can and should be screened from view from the home.

In making a screen planting, two plans are possible--one, the shrub border, and the other the hedge row, and filberts are excellent to use in either planting. Where space is at a premium, the hedge offers the best form of screen. Filberts planted two and a half feet apart and pruned in such a way as to make them have a shrub appearance will make an ideal hedge and produce lots of nuts of good quality. This hedge can be counted on to be effective up to twelve feet in height.

In the shrub border filberts are allowed to produce many stems and to grow into small trees. This is done by pruning and by using groups of two or three plants in a place, planted some five or six feet apart. Different varieties may be used for different groups, thereby producing a variation of foliage. The filberts will take their places with the well known small trees like the dogwood and the redbud, when used in this way.

Still another use for filberts in landscape work is to use them for small trees as lawn specimen plants. They have a size, shape, and foliage that makes them attractive when used in this way.

+Cross Pollination Necessary+

Our experience has been that there is need for cross pollination to get maximum yields of fruit; therefore, we suggest that different varieties be used in a planting. Barcelona, DuChilly, and the Jones Hybrids seem to us well suited for this. Of course, there are others, but our experience with varieties is limited.

When it comes to the soil for filberts, we find that a fairly rich soil that has plenty of moisture is the best. Of course, the soil must drain well because the roots of filberts seem to be very susceptible to poorly drained soil conditions. If there is a lot of sand in the soil, give the filberts more moisture and food because they are rapid growers.

So far, we have not had many complaints about filberts suffering from winter injury. This may be due to the fact that so far Kentucky is not using great quantities of these plants, or it may be due to the fact that the varieties used have been reasonably hardy. The little winter injury seen so far has been in the terminal twig growth, and removal of these twigs in the spring has not meant altering the normal shape of the plant.

I do not know whether there is any significance to it but the filberts that have been fed by using well rotted manure applied in the fall and spaded into the top four inches of soil next spring have made the best growth and produced the most fruit.

So far the filberts that we have had experience with have been free from insects and diseases. One never knows how long that condition will last.

Now, when it comes to discussing filberts as a food, all that I want to say is that at Christmas time when you buy mixed nuts you usually get a few of the filberts in the mixture. These nuts are good eating, and when the plants are grown on the home grounds everyone who has them says they are much enjoyed by all members of the family. Our experience has been that filberts yield annually and, if given reasonable care, in good amounts.

In conclusion we would like to say we feel there is not only a place for filberts in landscape work, but there is an absolute need for greater use of these plants especially in rural plantings. At present, the professional landscape artists are not inclined to recommend them as often as they could, simply because they have not been trained to think of dual purpose plants. Greater publicity as to the value of these plants would undoubtedly mean greater use of them.

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President Davidson: We also have a paper from Mr. Reed, which is of quite a good deal of importance historically on the work of Mr. Jones. I wish you could have that. Probably you will have to read that, too.

J. F. Jones, Introducer of Many Nut Varieties

CLARENCE A. REED, Collaborator[22]

The name of J. F. Jones was once one of the best known and most highly respected in eastern nut culture. It was from Mountain Grove, Wright County, Mo., that he was first heard from in 1900, when he discovered and introduced the Rockville hican, which he named after the nearest town. It never proved of value, but that fact did not detract from the importance of being first, a habit which remained with him till his death. In 1902 he moved to Monticello, Jefferson County, Florida; five years later he moved to Jeanerette, Iberia Parish, Louisiana; and in 1912, he moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he died in January, 1928.

[Illustration]

In 1903, while at Monticello, he successfully graft-propagated the Rush Persian (English) walnut and the Weiker hickory, an intermediate form between shagbark and shellbark. Both were from Lancaster County, and he used scions sent him by J. G. Rush, of West Willow, south of Lancaster. Mr. Rush is credited with introducing the walnut bearing his name, while credit went to Mr. Jones for the Weiker hickory. Some years later, on two occasions, Mr. Jones took a visitor to the Weiker parent tree when the branches were laden with nuts so that they hung down in a manner suggestive of plums. For some reason, never explained, no other tree of the variety, so far as is known, ever bore as much as a quart of nuts, although the trees frequently flowered profusely. The variety was, however, markedly dichogamous. The parent tree, which stood in the yard of Mr. Christ LeFever of Lampeter, about two miles east of the Jones home, was blown over in a heavy gale many years ago.

Mr. Jones graft-propagated a considerable number of Hales shagbark while at Monticello, with scions that came from the original tree near Ridgewood, New Jersey. However, this variety was first propagated by Henry Hales of Ridgewood, in 1879. He also had Kirtland from Yalesville, Connecticut, but like many others since that time, both it and Hales proved to be light bearers. Other hickories may have been propagated by Mr. Jones while at Monticello but these are the only ones of which there is record. The Kirtland was first propagated in 1897.

[Footnote 22: U.S.D.A. Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils and Agricultural Engineering, Plant Industry Station, Beltsville, Md.]

+First Carload of Grafted Pecan Trees+

When he went to Florida, there were few pecan trees of bearing age in either that State or Georgia and none to speak of in the Carolinas. The "fast" trains went no more than 30 or 35 miles an hour, and a minimum of three days was required to see even an occasional planting or a single tree. Within the next few years, nurserymen everywhere propagated their own varieties and listed them in their catalogs. Mr. Jones was discriminating and propagated only varieties that then had the best reputation, such as Schley and Stuart, and some others that have not stood the test of time. In one way, he was distinctively first; he shipped the first carload of pecan trees ever to go to one address. This was in January of 1906, when 10,000 trees were shipped to Professor H. E. Van Deman who was then establishing a 900-acre orchard near Ferriday, La. A picture of the car appeared in the American Nut Journal, published by W. N. Roper, Petersburg, Va., Vol. III, No. 50, March 1906, (Van Deman had been the first Pomologist in the Department of Agriculture, 1886 to 1892).

Mr. Ray Simpson of Vincennes, Ind., went to Mr. Jones to learn how to graft pecan trees. He offered to work without pay if Mr. Jones would teach him the art. He had graduated at Cornell in 1905, and had been inspired by John Craig, Professor of Horticulture there. Craig himself later invested somewhat heavily in pecan orchards both near Monticello and at Albany, Georgia. Mr. Simpson was taken on and proved as good a propagator as the best hand and received the same pay.

While at Monticello Mr. Jones began to feel that the region might not be the best place for pecans. Perhaps he had made a mistake. It was 300 miles to middle western Alabama, where there were the nearest native trees. A disease was appearing among many of the trees planted in the East, which was then poorly understood (rosette). Pecan wood for budding and grafting was scarce and Mr. Jones would trust no one to cut it for him. He went to the trees himself.

One man who then had an abundance of wood and who could be relied upon was B. M. Young of Morgan City, La., and Mr. Jones went to him for wood several times. Once he became confused as to the trees from which he had cut a couple of bundles, so both were thrown in the river and he went back for more. Mr. Young was greatly impressed, so much so that he remembered the incident, as we shall see.

+The Move to Louisiana+

Back in Florida Ray Simpson wished to buy and Mr. Jones wished to sell, so a deal was soon made. Mr. Jones went to Louisiana where the pecan is native and there were many large trees, probably as many as could be found in any one place in the entire South. Mr. Young knew of a group from St. Paul, Minnesota, who were about to buy and plant a thousand acres near Jeanerette and who were looking for an experienced man to take charge. Mr. Jones was recommended and was soon at work. For another five years, he worked harder than almost any other white man in the State. Great odds were against him. Being from the North, he did not associate exclusively with whites, and presently the southern white people left him severely alone. That was not all; he could not raise as good nursery trees as he had in Florida. The trees grew slowly in the cold, heavy soil of Louisiana, and the fibrous root system failed to materialize. The excellent reputation he and his trees had enjoyed in Monticello began to deteriorate. He worked harder than ever and waited for a break. When it came, he did not hesitate.

+Jones Shifts to Pennsylvania+

The St. Paul crowd fell into a squabble and divided into two factions, each wishing control. A man went south to see if Mr. Jones would sell his stock. Would he? He knew when to keep his mouth shut and he meekly made a deal. He was probably never more glad over anything in his life. He came north, lock, stock, and barrel. But he was far from being without a place to land. Since his Monticello days, he and Mr. Rush had been good friends. Mr. Rush knew a farm of 20 acres with buildings, which could be had for $8,000. It was four miles south of Lancaster, and at a point where two main highways leading into the city came together. It sloped eastward enough so that it did not get the full force of west winds. It was two miles from Mr. Rush's home, with the town of Willow Street between.

Mr. Jones then began eight or 10 years of lean hard work. He modernized buildings, planted an orchard of nut varieties most of which were purchased from W. C. Reed of Vincennes, Ind., and W. N. Roper of Petersburg, Va. From Roper he bought both seedling and grafted trees. Some of the "seedlings" had been budded and then not cut back to force the buds. The latter were still dormant and when the trees were properly cut back, the buds pushed forth. T. P. Littlepage, of Washington, and Prof. W. N. Hutt, of Raleigh, N. C., had a good laugh at Roper, but as the trees bore no labels, they were no more valuable than seedlings and were treated as such. All three men are now deceased.

Thomas black walnut trees came from E. A. Riehl, Godfrey, Illinois. The variety had originated in eastern Pennsylvania and was first grafted in 1881 by J. W. Thomas and Son, at King of Prussia, Pa. The parent tree had been destroyed some time before by the Pennsylvania Railroad, in extending its lines. The Thomas is today the most widely planted variety, although it has rarely borne well. Mr. Jones selected and grafted the Ohio walnut, but the owner of the seed-parent tree was given credit for its introduction, although she probably knows nothing of the incident, to this day. She was a Miss Clark, McCutcheonville, Ohio, and it was felt that it would help more to give her name as originator if one were ever to locate the tree.

[See Ohio black walnut original tree photos, NNGA Rept., 1946.--Ed.]

The Stabler eastern black walnut, introduced in 1916 by Mr. T. P. Littlepage by means of a paragraph inserted in the _Country Gentleman_, was also propagated by Mr. Jones, but he early found it disappointing in its habits of bearing. He also found that about 80 percent of the nuts from the parent tree had single kernels, while with young trees 80 percent had double kernels. Most planters have long since discontinued using this variety. However, Mrs. Jane Baum, Douglassville, Pa., reports that her customers like the Stabler best. Others she has are Thomas, Ohio, and Ten Eyck.