Part 5

My trees, spaced about 40 x 40 ft., have grown quite rapidly so that now some of the limbs are almost touching. Tree ML No. 2, which is about average size, measured last fall in diameter 12-1/2 inches, in height 24 feet, with a limb spread of 30 feet. By 1943 the trees were getting so large that cultivation was discontinued. An attempt is made to keep all litter possible in the orchard, which, with the shade of the trees, has caused much of the soil to become loose and mellow. Since our sandy soil is very low in calcium I applied limestone one time at the rate of about 1500 lbs. per acre. This I hoped would improve the texture of the soil and make better conditions for growing bur clover between the trees. Basic slag which contains about 10% phosphate was applied at the rate of about 600 lbs. per acre in the early '40's. For the last four or five years I applied about 200 lbs. of guano (4-10-7 usually) and 200 lbs of basic slag annually. Since 1944 I have been adding about 50 lbs. of minor mineral elements to the above mixture. Whether it is a coincidence or not I cannot say, but the next year after applying these elements my yields increased from 430 lbs. the previous year to 961 lbs. and have remained high ever since. Minor mineral elements show beneficial results on our garden crops, and I am inclined to believe they are needed, since our soil is so sandy and porous, and especially the soil that has been cultivated so long. Since my trees have produced so well with this moderate fertilization, I have made no check against higher rates of application. In fact I am against the use of large amounts of mineral guanos since I know certain tender shrubs and plants are injured by their use and some soil bacteria and animal life are also harmfully affected, according to reports I have read.

Three of my trees bore a few nuts at four years. No record of yields was kept until the seventh year or 1942, in which I gathered about 328 lbs. of nuts. After that my records show for 1943, 554 lbs., 1944--430 lbs; 1945--961 lbs; 1946--1722 lbs; 1947--1554 lbs. No individual tree records were kept except in a few cases. I kept a rough record by looking at the burs at the end of the season, and classed trees as excellent, good, or poor producers, along with other characteristics of the trees. However, I know several of my trees produced over 100 lbs. each in 1946 and one tree, ML No. 2, of which I kept a record by weight, in 1947 produced a little over 150 lbs. of nuts.

[A note from Mr. Jones early in 1949 reports a crop of 1,836 pounds of chestnuts harvested from his 21 trees in 1948, the largest yield to date. His ML No. 2 tree produced 165 pounds.]

Nuts on a few of my trees begin ripening the latter part of August, but September is the heavy month, with some extending to the middle of October. Their early ripening period while the weather is usually hot and dry, I think tends to cause damage to nuts from the effects of the hot sun and rapid drying. Damage to the nuts and consequent spoilage can be kept at a minimum if they are gathered promptly, which should be daily.

+Preparing Chestnuts for Market+

Here is how I generally handle my crop. As soon as the nuts are gathered I put them in a container with water and remove the nuts that float. This eliminates practically all spoiled nuts and those beginning to spoil. Those that sink are then placed in coarse mesh burlap bags (about 25 lbs. to the bag) which are tied near the top. These bags are laid on a slatted platform under a shade tree and pressed out flat, so nuts will not be thicker than 2 or 3 inches. These bags are thoroughly wet with water once or twice daily, depending on the weather, until I can carry them to cold storage and store at 30°F., or they are marketed fresh, advising buyer of the perishable nature of these nuts. Last year my nuts kept excellently in cold storage, and after remaining there about six weeks had dried sufficiently to keep much better after taking out than when they were fresh.

Nuts for planting purposes can be kept in excellent condition for several weeks by spreading them thinly between layers of damp sphagnum moss and storing in a cool place. This cannot be allowed to get very wet or sprouting will begin. While holding the nuts out of cold storage I attempt to keep sufficient moisture available so the nuts are not allowed to dry much, and yet have plenty of ventilation to keep them from heating or souring. Until I began using this method, a large percentage of my nuts began spoiling soon after gathering, which caused me much discouragement, as I did not want to offer such a product for sale. Since then my losses still run around 12%, but this could be reduced still further by more prompt gathering and by the elimination of several trees which retain nuts in the burs to a large extent.

I have been able to dispose of my nuts quite easily in near-by Columbus, Ga. and for the last few years have had quite a demand for nuts to use in planting.

My orchard as a whole has been very healthy, showing no blight signs that I can detect, although there is little chance of exposure to blight in my section. One tree is slowly dying, which may be due to cold injury, as it comes into leaf early and also ripens very early. So far I have noticed no damage from chestnut weevils. As my trees are seedlings, there is quite a bit of variation in size of nuts and production of individual trees.

+Undesirable Traits in Seedling Trees+

I might mention some undesirable traits which I notice in my trees. First, I would place retention of nuts in the burs as the worst trouble. This is quite bad in five or six of my trees. Next, nuts too dry and loose in the hull at time of falling, which is present in four or five trees, some of which retain nuts in the burs and some which do not. The dry textured nuts seem to spoil more easily than plump well filled ones. Some trees produce too small nuts but the trees which produce extra large nuts do not usually yield nearly so heavily as those producing small to medium size nuts. I consider too early ripening as undesirable, for those that ripen later are usually better keepers, but this does not always hold true as some of the later ripening ones are also poor keepers.

This year my trees have an excellent crop of burs and show promise of a good average yield on each tree. Considering all things, I am highly pleased with my Chinese chestnuts and believe they have a good future in our section if no greater troubles arise than I now know of although there is much room for improvement.

+Other Tree Crops+

Although Chinese chestnuts are my largest producing tree crop, I am working with a number of other trees and shrubs for both nut and fruit production, as well as other purposes. I have several Thomas black walnuts which I set about 1938. Three of these have grown quite rapidly and are beginning to produce nice crops of nuts, although the kernels have a tendency to be spongy at times.

Of course, I have a small orchard of budded pecans, which do so well in our section. These trees, which are young, are just coming into production. Some other nut trees which I am trying in field plantings include native chestnuts, chinkapins, hazel nuts, native black walnuts, and scaly bark hickory (_Carya ovata_). Since most of these are young and grow so slowly, I cannot say much about their production yet. I have also planted quite a large number of white oaks from a high production tree in hopes of producing acorns for hogs and wild life, also some cork oaks on an experimental basis.

Among non-nut producers I am trying honeylocust, persimmons, and mulberries. I also grow catalpa and black locust for fence posts. This makes no mention of the great variety of native timber trees such as pines, tulip poplar, and others which I try to protect from fires so as to get as great a variety of trees as possible to use for various purposes. I also encourage the growth of ornamental trees and shrubs such as dogwood, redbud, and holly to add beauty to the landscape in season.

Dr. J. Russell Smith's book, "Tree Crops" has been a great inspiration to me along these lines, and I am attempting to study and use as many trees, shrubs, and plants here on my place as possible because I believe we can live easier and better and make better use of the land both for ourselves and nature when we learn how to use our various native plants to the best advantage along with many of the exotic ones.

I might end by saying that I would much rather work in the shade of trees than in the open sun and benefit by their long life and varied uses than to depend so heavily on short lived crops which often require such intensive care.

* * * * *

President Davidson: Thank you, Mr. Jones. A very interesting paper with details that are worth listening to.

Professor J. C. Moore of the Department of Horticulture, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, will give us a talk on Processed Chestnuts on the Market throughout the Year.

Processed Chestnuts on the Market throughout the Year

J. C. MOORE, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Auburn, Ala.

Professor Moore: Mr. President, members of the Association: I have a few packages here that I just wanted to pass around after we get through with a short discourse on processed chestnuts. It might be somewhat of an inspiration to look while I talk a few minutes about it.

These nuts, of course, have been put up from the 1947 crop, but I have nuts put up in 1945 that are still in fair shape. The quality on the 1945 product is not too good. The quality on the 1947 product is excellent when the nut is hot. For instance, a toasted chestnut, I think, has a quality that no other nut has. When the nut sits in a bag sealed for several weeks and gets cold it still is good, but it doesn't have quite the crispness that it has when it is really fresh and hot.

We were very much disappointed with Chinese chestnuts when they first began to bear at Auburn. We got some plants from Mr. Gravatt and the Bureau of Plant Industry in Beltsville in 1938. They were planted; some of them started bearing in 1941. The nuts were large in size; the trees seemed to be perfectly healthy. The early bearing habit gave us a great deal of encouragement. Then we sampled these nuts, and the quality was not good. While the nuts were green and in storage the nuts decomposed in just a few days' time.

The first nuts that we harvested in 1941 were picked, placed in paper bags, set in the office, and we forgot about them, because they were not good when we put them in the bags, and we just put them back for our record purposes. A few days afterwards they were moldy and ruined. In 1942 we had a little better crop, but again the nuts rotted. In 1943 we had a still larger crop, and the nuts rotted again. We did not know how to take care of those nuts at the time.

In 1944 Mr. L. S. Holden was with the Soil Conservation Service. He was transferred to Auburn at the time I was transferred down into Haiti to do some work on rubber production, and he took my place at Auburn on the hillculture project. In the fall of 1944 Mr. Holden had an idea that he could can those chestnuts and preserve them. So he took the nuts, cracked the hull off of the nut, ground it with a little food chopper, and placed the nuts in cans, pints and quarts, put them in a pressure cooker at 15 pounds pressure and cooked them for 15 minutes.

During the fall of 1944, or after the crop was produced, Mr. Holden left Auburn, and he told me when he left that he had sent some of the samples to different parts of the United States and had gotten favorable replies from the samples that he had sent out. That gave me a renewed courage, and along with that in 1945 we sold quite a few raw nuts on the market at Auburn. Those nuts sold just like hot cakes for 40 cents a pound. There were quite a few comments came back to us about those nuts. They were the most beautiful nuts the people had ever seen, and several different ones made comments that the nuts toasted had excellent quality and the nuts boiled had excellent quality, and raw nuts after they were cured had an excellent quality.

Those few different peoples comment on the material and Mr. Holden's work that he had done on canning gave me an idea that maybe he had something, and I have worked since that time trying to perfect a product that would be edible from the hand from a cellophane-bag standpoint. At the present time we have a plan worked out whereby we can produce large quantities of Chinese chestnuts in Alabama.

The thing that is going to confront us in the near future is the marketing possibility. We have to handle Chinese chestnuts rapidly if we put them on the market raw. This processed method that we have has been worked out to perfection, we think, for cold storage purposes.

Now, you can put Chinese chestnuts raw in cellophane bags and seal them with a hot iron. These bags are not sealed. It is a non-sealable cellophane. I didn't get hold of the type of cellophane that you can seal. They are unsealed. They have been in this package about a week, and the nuts are in good shape. On cold storage I have held those nuts for 40 days. Last year was the first time that I tried them in sealed cellophane, but sealed in cellophane bags in cold storage last year they remained perfectly good for 40 days. At that time the cold storage plant went bad, and, of course, the nuts molded.

We think that on the cold storage proposition, and if you have followed food processing and cold storage possibilities on strawberry shortcake, strawberry pies, apple pies and other types of cold storage products, I think when you go to the locker and pick out a little bag of lima beans in a cold storage locker or any other kind of cold packed foods, if you see a pack that looks attractive, chestnuts, after you get accustomed to their flavor especially, it will be a difficult thing for you to fail to pick up a bag of chestnuts and walk out with them among your other grocery purchases. That type of marketing has possibilities throughout the year.

With that possibility from last year this crop came in. We had an excellent crop. I contacted Mr. Harris, who is one of the professors working with food processing at Auburn, and we went over the work quite carefully together, what I had done and the possibilities for the work in the future, and with some suggestions from him and with his help we think we have just about fixed a product that will be a permanent thing on the grocery shelves throughout the year.

Up to the present time all of the nuts that were canned in cans with the shells on developed throughout the year somewhat of a soured condition. When you opened the can and smelled, the odor was foul. When you cracked the shell and tasted the nut, the flesh had just the least bit of a foul odor. Mr. Harris suggested that probably that was a flat sour. We weren't sure that it was flat sour, but we haven't had the bacteria check to find out whether it was caused by one of the thermophilic bacteria or not, but we are pretty confident that it was a flat sour that caused the foul odor. With careful heating and careful drying we have developed some products here that I think have a possibility, and these products will maintain their quality throughout the year.

+Nuts Cured Before Canning+

I have canned chestnuts that have been canned for three years, and the quality is just as good as it was a month after they were canned. The product, however, when it is canned green does not have the quality that it does when it is canned after curing. The way we handle these, to begin with, is to take the nuts from the field, put them on a woven wire and elevate the wire so that air can go under and over, cure at room temperature for about three days. If you cure longer than three days you will lose quite a few of your nuts. That is a rapid cure. We have not tried curing under cooler conditions to see if we can eliminate part of the damage that is caused by deterioration, but curing the nuts rapidly you get a deterioration on quite a few of the nuts after the third or fourth day. If you take the raw nuts three days cured rapidly where the air can circulate over and under, the quality is excellent raw, and I have those nuts cured for three days in cellophane bags on cold storage that can be sold throughout the year. Those nuts must be heated enough to stop the deterioration, whatever it is. It may be a physiological condition, I am not sure, it may be a vitamin reaction, I am not sure, but when the nut dries too fast it turns white on the inside, gets hard, loses its flavor, and it is no good.

This nut (indicating) canned in cans, I will give you the treatment for it. I told you we cured them on those drying racks for three days. Then we put them in a pressure cooker and run the temperature up to about 10 pounds pressure for 30 minutes, take them out of the pressure cooker and hull them, and at that stage they hull quite easily. The hull itself will turn loose from the nut quite easily if you heat it a little while before you try to hull. A machine which can thresh the hulls off very easily will be simple to develop. After the shell is taken off, then they are put in an oven (a drying oven that has an automatic control at 270 degrees), for about 10 minutes in order to evaporate the excess moisture that you get in the steaming process. Then they are put in the cans hot, set back into the oven and heated for just a few moments to get your temperature up again and you put lids on at a boiling temperature. You get quite a vacuum created by sealing them hot. We have had as high as fourteen and a half pounds of vacuum on those cans the third day after they were canned, and if you can get a vacuum like that by sealing the nuts hot, you can preserve their quality for a long period.

I don't care if you open any bag that's here and taste these products. You will find that the ones with the shells off are much better than the ones with the shells on. I believe you will find that. However, the quality of the nut with the shell on is excellent.

[Illustration: Mr. Hardy and some chestnuts prepared for storage (Courtesy Southern Agriculturist)]

Chestnut Growing in the Southeast

Max B. Hardy,[2] Leeland Farms, Leesburg, Ga.

+Introduction+

Just about forty years ago the first blight resistant chestnuts were introduced into the Southeast. This event was to have more far-reaching effects than could be foreseen at that time, as is illustrated by the present extensive interest in the growing of these chestnuts as an orchard crop.

Chestnut blight, a fungus disease of the native American chestnut (_Castanea dentata_ (Marsh) Borkh), first appeared on Long Island in 1904 and destroyed this magnificent nut and timber tree. A Phytophthora root disease added its toll so that a bearing tree of this species is a rarity in the East at the present time. The U. S. Department of Agriculture began making introductions of two species of chestnut from the Orient in 1906, both of which were resistant to the blight which was then destroying the native American chestnut. Of the two species, the Japanese chestnut (_C. crenata_ Sieb. and Zuce.) and the Chinese chestnut (_C. mollissima_ Bl.), only the latter proved to have much merit other than blight resistance and chestnut growing in the eastern United States in recent years has been confined almost entirely to the Chinese chestnut.

About twenty-five years ago, after the first introduction from the Orient of seed nuts of blight resistant chestnut species, the U. S. Department of Agriculture distributed a few seedling trees to various interested growers in the Southeast. Some of these trees are still growing and bearing good crops of nuts and have reached rather large size. The distribution of trees produced from nuts imported at subsequent intervals was continued by the U. S. Department of Agriculture until rather widely scattered planting of several species under varied soil, climatic, and cultural conditions was attained. As time passed it became clear that only the Chinese chestnut had promise as a commercial crop for the production of nuts. As a timber tree none of the introduced species has as yet shown outstanding merit.

[Footnote 2: Formerly Associate Pomologist, U. S. Pecan Field Station, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Albany, Georgia.]

+General Observations+

The Chinese chestnut grows well throughout the southern part of the natural range of the American chestnut and southward to the Gulf Coast, and possibly even into central Florida. Farther north it apparently grows and produces better crops along the Atlantic Coast than inland, thus indicating the need of this species for a long growing season and freedom from late spring and early fall frosts. In the plantings in Georgia, from Atlanta to the southward, no loss of crop from late spring frosts has ever been noted. In the Gulf States and northward along the Atlantic seaboard the Chinese chestnut tree is vigorous, healthy, and productive, coming into bearing at a fairly early age and thereafter producing regular crops. The trees grow to be rather large in size, developing a somewhat rounded form with a spread of branches about equal to the height. Without pruning when young many sprouts usually develop near the ground so that the mature tree has numerous trunks of about equal size, with the lower lateral branches resting on the ground.