Part 13

I derive great pleasure in observing new seedling plants of filberts, hazels and their hybrids coming into bearing for the first time this year. There are about two hundred of these new varieties. Of course most of them will be worthless commercially. The ideal hybrid hazilbert has not yet appeared, but when it does we will propagate it for sale as rapidly as possible.

At this date, August 20, we have suffered from an extremely dry August and will apparently lose many trees that we cannot reach by irrigation or some other means of watering.

We have been busy at the farm and nursery erecting a small pilot plant for grinding filbert butter which we expect to be able to put on the market between October 15 and November 1.

There is about a one-fourth crop of black walnuts in my orchard trees, with the Thomas leading. Many of the Ohio trees are barren. Usually the Ohio bears freely.

It is my observation here that the wild hazels and some of their hybrids will drop their crop of nuts when it becomes too dry. This probably is an excellent feature from the standpoint of the plant as it no doubt saves the plant from being killed by drouth.

There is no doubt in my mind but that the hazel-filbert hybrids (hazilberts) will make a large agricultural crop in the corn belt. When these crops are shelled in local plants and ground into butter the industry will fall into much the same category as country creameries. However, we have not reached the point where we have the right commercial plants for this purpose and for the time being will have to use the Pacific Coast filberts until such large crops of the ideal hybrids appear.

Home Preparation of Filbert Butter and Other Products

MRS. JEANNE M. ALTMAN, Bellingham, Washington

Filberts may be prepared in different ways at home to make a delicious food. To make filbert butter first shell a roasting pan two-thirds full of kernels and put it in a 325° oven. Stir the kernels thoroughly and often to get an even tan. Cut a few in half to determine when they are brown enough. Cook about thirty minutes. Do not leave in oven any longer than necessary because the kernels begin to brown rapidly upon further cooking. Cool and stir when not too hot. Most of the brown pellicle can be removed by rubbing kernels between one's hands. Run the kernels through a food chopper or meat grinder to make a Crunchy butter. To make a more delicious product, however, first run the kernels through a coarse knife, salt them and then run through a fine knife. This results in a butter with enough oil of its own to make a delicious dish. It takes lots of nuts to make much filbert butter.

In preparing salted filberts in quantity I cook them in a strainer in a kettle of deep fat. Check the temperature with a thermometer and do not let them get too hot. Cool them quickly by putting them into a cold dish and stirring. When salting the whole kernels put only enough fat with them to coat the pellicle. After they are sufficiently brown take them out and salt them as they are cooling. Stir just enough to coat the kernels with salt. Eat pellicle and all; it holds the salt. Stirring too much tends to remove the salt.

You can treat a pound of nuts at a time in a heavy iron skillet on top of the stove stirring constantly. When we follow that practice we eat them salted just as they were instead of grinding them. I think they are better than salted peanuts.

I sent a recipe to one of our west coast papers and they added a note to drain them on a paper towel. That is wasteful and unnecessary. A Bellingham dentist put whole nuts into his false-teeth baking oven in the evening. I do not know what temperature was maintained but it must have been low because he left the nuts there all night and the next morning he found them all roasted and ready to eat.

Filberts, even the green ones just as they come from the tree, may be boiled and then salted and buttered. They may be used to advantage in many cooking and baking recipes.

Notes from Central New York

S. H. GRAHAM, Ithaca, N. Y.

This summer has been a difficult one for black walnuts. A late spring delayed starting and three freezes during the week beginning Sept. 22 prematurely checked development so that poor filling seems to be the rule. The Persian walnuts again demonstrated their ability to ripen their nuts in a short season.

Some of our Persian walnut trees are growing in the partial shade of larger black walnut trees. We prefer to keep these larger trees as they may be valuable stocks to be grafted to the superior varieties that one is always hoping will appear later on. This condition gives a good opportunity to observe the effect of shade. There seems to be no doubt that even light shade is detrimental in our latitude to the Persian walnut and results not only in more spindling and unsymmetrical growth but also interferes with proper ripening of the wood making it more subject to winter injury.

One difficulty with the Persian walnuts in the East is premature falling of the nuts. The female flowers on the young Persian trees that we have seen are usually more numerous than with black walnuts of the same size and age, but even hand pollinating often fails to give a good set of nuts. Last spring we took pollen from eight of our Persian trees to the pomology department of our State College of Agriculture for germinating. The best sample showed 45% viable pollen; the next best 15% and the rest from O to 5%. This had been collected and stored for several weeks according to the methods given by Dr. Cox in the annual report for 1943, page 58. It is possible that this lack of viability may be due to some soil deficiency such as insufficient lime or boron. Prof. Schuster of the Oregon station writes that they find that Persian walnuts readily accept good Persian pollen but not black walnut or butternut pollen. If the viability of the pollen falls below 50% they consider it unsatisfactory. On some of the Oregon soils an application of boron in the form of ordinary borax under the trees in the spring has greatly helped in getting a crop of nuts. This should be well worth trying in the eastern states.

The filbert crop this year is better than usual. Out of over a thousand crosses between Rush and Winkler with European and Pacific Coast varieties, in our estimation, only one has proven worthy of propagation considering size, flavor, abundance of bearing and resistance to filbert blight. Some growers think lightly of blight but our experience in fighting it through the years in cutting out cankered wood has convinced us of the futility of this means of control in infested areas. Control measures may apparently succeed for a time but when conditions of moisture, heat and air movement are just right it can spread like wildfire. Therefore, to us, resistance to this disease (Cryptosporella anomala) seems of paramount importance. The prevalence of blight has been almost universal in the scattered plantings which we have visited in central New York, usually without the owner knowing why his trees were dying. All our European and Coast varieties, as well as most of the hybrids, take blight readily but there is an occasional hybrid that is clearly resistant. Bixby is one of these.

We have always used a knapsack sprayer equipped with a mist nozzle for our trees but this is inadequate as the trees grow taller. This summer a much more satisfactory nozzle was found that may be quickly adjusted to throw a mist for low trees or a far reaching one for the taller trees. This is made by the D. B. Smith Co. of Utica, N. Y.

From time to time articles appear on insects injurious to nut trees. Frequently mentioned are the web worms and the walnut caterpillars. With us, the damage they do is as nothing compared to that caused by the curculios, the strawberry root worm beetles and the leaf hoppers. We are getting the upper hand of the curculios by the use of cryolite spray but the root-worm beetle problem is still unsolved. Until Rev. Crath wrote of leaf hopper damage (Annual Report 1938 p. 111) we had not regarded them as at all serious. Subsequent observation has convinced us that he was right and that they are often the cause of the blackening and dying of the tender young leaves of Persian walnuts and the curling up of older leaves. We were especially impressed during the Wooster, Ohio, field trip last year and, later on, in seeing how Mr. Sherman had overcome this trouble on the Mahoning Co. farm simply by adding DDT to his spray mixture.

In closing, we would like to call the attention of new members to the wealth of information that is to be found in the old Association annual reports.

Experience with the Crath Carpathian Walnuts

GILBERT L. SMITH, Wassaic, New York

In the spring of 1935 we purchased from the Wisconsin Horticultural Society two pounds of the nuts which Rev. Paul Crath had imported from Poland. We planted these nuts in the nursery row. Sixty-two seedlings resulted. We assigned a number of each of these seedlings and transplanted them when they were two years old. Here we made our first mistake. We selected what proved to be a very poor site for them, adjacent to and nearly surrounded by woodland, in which were a goodly supply of butternut curculios which we have found to be by far the worst insect enemy of the Persian walnut. It attacks the terminal growth doing some damage by feeding but principally by laying eggs in the terminals and the fleshy base of the leaf stems. From these eggs grub-like larvae hatch which bore into the terminal and the leaf bases, greatly dwarfing the terminal growth. We have found as many as six larvae in a single terminal. Of course they also like to lay their eggs in the young nuts which then drop from the tree in mid-summer.

In the spring of 1937 we started to graft from these seedlings on black walnut stocks, giving each the same number as that of the seedling from which the wood was taken. It is too bad that we did not start this work sooner as we lost a few of the seedlings, largely through the ravages of the curculio, but possibly some of them were just not rugged enough to stand our climate. We still have 49 of these varieties living, either as grafts or the original trees. To this collection we have added a few varieties, securing wood from seedlings being grown by others. We have had living grafts of some of the named Crath varieties which we suppose developed from some of the wood imported from Poland by Rev. Crath. All of these have failed with us except one, Carpathian D. Apparently they were not hardy enough for our climate.

So far we have had only one severe test of our Crath seedlings, as to hardiness. This was on February 16th, 1943, when the temperature at Mr. Benton's farm was thirty-four degrees below zero. This was not official but was registered by two thermometers which Mr. Benton knew to be very accurate. Many of our Crath seedlings showed no injury at all on this occasion while others showed varying degrees of injury. Our grafts of Broadview were damaged quite severely, Carpathian D to just about the same extent. One other named Crath variety, Crath No. 1, was killed outright. Only one of our seedling varieties showed as severe injury as did Broadview. This was S 12. This tree has now fully recovered but we will not grow any trees from it except for more southern latitudes and then only if it shows exceptional merit when it begins to bear. Therefore, according to our experience so far, there is quite definite evidence that these Crath seedlings are hardier than Broadview. McDermid was killed outright.

We have found that practically all Persian walnut trees, when young, will bear pistillate blossoms for several years before they bear staminate blossoms (catkins). This fact has delayed us in securing nuts from these seedling varieties and has compelled us to resort to hand pollination. However, they are now beginning to produce both kinds of blossoms.

The first one to bear was in 1944, when one tree bore twelve nuts which had resulted from hand pollination with pollen sent us by Mr. Reed. This variety appears to be the most promising one that has borne so far. We have named it Littlepage and have had a booklet printed which describes it fully. We will be glad to mail a copy to anyone who wishes. We have now found a good pollinizer for Littlepage, our No. S22 seedling. This variety produces pollen at just the right time, some of which I used this spring to hand pollenize the Littlepage tree. A fine crop of nuts is now on this tree as the result of this pollination.

Last year (1946) we had a few nuts from each of five other seedling varieties. While we did not consider any of them equal to Littlepage, they were all worth growing and compare quite favorably with English walnuts as found in our markets. This year we have nuts on each of eleven varieties, five of them and the same ones that bore last year and six new ones. Now that these seedlings are beginning to bear we are able to cull out any that prove to be very inferior. As our facilities are far too limited to thoroughly test the promising varieties, we have started to propagate them and offer them in many parts of the country and subject them to many different conditions. Thus it should be only a matter of time until the truly worthy varieties will prove themselves. If we were wealthy we could propagate them and distribute them free of charge but I doubt if it would prove as satisfactory as it is to charge for them, as it seems to be a trait of human nature to take better care of that which costs us something. We will not name these new varieties at present but will put them out under their test numbers. Later the ones that prove best can be named.

To facilitate the distribution of these new varieties we are getting out a folder showing natural size pictures of the nuts of the six varieties which were produced last year, with a brief description of each. I am very sorry that I was unable to get these folders from the printer before coming to this convention. However we will have them very soon and will be glad to mail a copy to anyone who requests it.

As stated before we have found that the butternut curculio is a very bad pest with the Persian walnuts, also heartnuts and butternuts. It does not injure the black walnut at all. There are also several other insects which feed on the Persian walnut, most of these chewing insects that simply injure the foliage more or less severely. Last winter I was advised by Dr. Dean of our experiment station staff, to try benzene hexachloride (hexachlorocyclohexane) for control of the curculio. He stated that in California they have found out that the Persian walnut is quite susceptible to arsenical injury when a spray containing arsenate of lead is used on it. Also tests so far indicate that D.D.T. is not very effective against the apple and plum curculio, therefore not likely to be effective against the butternut curculio. So last spring we secured a supply of benzene hexachloride. Just as we were about to spray the trees I discovered a swarm of orange colored insects with black wing covers, feeding on them. So I checked the compatibility chart in the February issue of the American Fruit Grower and found that benzene hexachloride and D.D.T. were compatible when used together in the spray mixture. I thought it would be well to use a double barreled dose. So we made up a spray of four pounds of benzene hexachloride, four pounds of D.D.T., 50% wettable powder, and 6 pounds of wettable sulfur to 100 gallons of water. This first spray showed a slight burning of the leaves, which I suspected was due to the sulfur. We omitted sulfur from the later sprays and did not note any more burning. We put on three sprays at about two week intervals and a fourth spray about the middle of July. The result of these sprays appears to be excellent. I have found only one nut showing any insect injury and this one was only slightly injured, whereas last summer we lost a considerable percentage of the nuts from curculio injury. A day or two after applying the first spray, I wanted to secure a specimen of the orange-colored insects with black wing covers, but I could not find a single specimen.

We did not apply our first spray quite soon enough and curculio larvae had already invaded a few of the terminals. The first spray should be applied about as soon as the leaf buds separate and quite likely should be followed by the second spray in about a week, as new growth is very rapid at this time and the scant foliage at the time of the first spray would hardly hold enough of the chemicals to give control for more than a few days.

Observations on Hardiness of the Carpathian Walnuts at Poughkeepsie, New York

STEPHEN BERNATH

In our section we have very good Persian walnut varieties of Carpathian and other European sources. I have planted some of all strains and varieties. My place faces northwest on a good elevation. My experience with trees there is that we have no winter injury. We can grow trees there that cannot be grown on some place which is situated low, and therefore does not have enough air circulation. Damage is done after heavy frosts when the sun comes out suddenly. That is what damages the trees--not the cold.

If you take trees and put them in a temperature of 35 to 40 degrees below zero and bring them out to thaw gradually no harm is done. Most people buy trees and plant them in low places; that is the error. We have planted trees where the wind is very heavy throughout the winter and in the spring I found that these trees stood up wonderfully well; whereas, we have European walnut trees with a trunk diameter of about 12 to 14 inches that in one year froze two to six feet--about three to four years growth. If you plant your trees on a fairly good elevation you can be assured of a good nut crop. In planting nut trees I do not know what kind of fertilizer you use, but I always use well decayed cow manure and put a little right around the root system. I never use fresh manure and never use poultry, sheep, or horse manure. They are bad for trees as they are very high in ammonia and this does damage to the trees.

Discussion after Graham, Smith, and Bernath Persian walnut papers.

Corsan: "Is using lime a good idea? I always use a lot of wood ashes."

Stoke: "Use ground agricultural limestone. Burned lime may cause injury."

J. R. Smith: "Barnyard manure is the best."

Stoke: "With the Carpathian walnuts there is no uniformity in winter injury. I have had the Crath variety kill back to two inch wood. Most others have never shown winter injury."

Corsan: "When is it practical to take mulch away?"

MacDaniels: "If you take mulch away too late you will get more injury than if you don't take it away at all."

Member: "Why does my young walnut tree not bear?"

Bernath: "English walnut trees may produce pistillate blooms for a number of years before they produce pollen so that if you have only one tree it may be due to lack of pollination."

Member: "With English walnut is more than one tree necessary for pollination? The male blossom appears a week or 10 days before the female."

Crane: "Persian walnuts should be used to pollinate Persian walnuts--do not depend on black walnuts. In growing Persian walnuts it is best to have trees of two or more varieties in a planting so as to provide cross pollination."

Stoke: "Persian walnuts may not pollinate black walnut, but black walnut has pollinated the Persian walnut in known instances."

MacDaniels: "Control or uncontrol of pollination is very complex."

Crane: "We find that we can not readily produce Persian x Eastern black hybrids under conditions of controlled pollination. We have found a number of natural hybrid trees but they bear very few nuts."

Nuts About Trees

R. E. HODGSON, Superintendent, Southeast Experiment Station, University of Minnesota.

When hiking with a Boy Scout troop, they often asked me, "What tree is that?" In summer I could usually tell an oak from a box elder but had never had much reason to go further into the subject until the boys exposed my ignorance. In self defense I began to hunt up the names and found it a most interesting hobby.

The University of Minnesota has a branch experiment station some 80 miles south of the Twin Cities and it is here that a few acres have been roped off as a testing site for whatever trees of interest we can persuade to grow. My job is with field crops and livestock but my golf, fishing, hunting and bridge are mostly played with a spade and pruning shears or wandering around in the brush somewhere looking for something new. Our soil is a heavy clay loam of Clarion type containing plenty of lime but often poorly drained. It is very rich and productive being at one time part of Minnesota's big woods. Native trees are basswood, oak, elm, ash, walnut and their associates.

My ignorance concerning trees is still profound and becomes more apparent as acquaintance matures, but it has been a lot of fun to start about 130 varieties of trees and shrubs and watch their development. The Latin names are mostly a mystery to me, but their habits, methods and rate of growth along with soil preferences and winter survival have furnished more entertainment for me than picking shot out of a dead bird or furrowing the turf on a putting green. It has been a real thrill to see cypress, sycamore and even a few yellow poplars, survive our rugged winters.

The project began with an attempt to collect native trees and expanded to make room for some exotics, just to see what would happen to them. Detours and by-paths included attempts to grow various conifers from seed and persuade cuttings to root. Somewhere along the line nut trees began to enter the picture and now these have an alcove all to themselves. Perhaps it started when a neighbor offered me $5.00 if I could tell whether a young sprout in his yard was butternut or walnut. He died before I found the answer which was probably common knowledge to most people. The color of the pith did not seem reliable, but at last a book pointed out the little moustache a butternut wears just above each leaf scar. It worked, and the thrill was equal to catching a 10 pound wall eye!