Part 6 (1/2)

DR. MacDANIELS: That makes sense.

MR. SHERMAN: How many nuts are expected?

MR. CHASE: Last year we asked and received fifteen. We'd like to have twenty-five. That gives us a better opportunity for the tasting department. We have a lot of tasters. We don't have many crackers, but a lot of tasters.

MR. McDANIEL: I found that the mice in the State Capitol at Nashville weren't very particular as to variety. They took to any that were open.

DR. MacDANIELS: Are we men, or are we mice?

MR. CHASE: In case you didn't notice, downstairs we have all the entries in the contest with the exception of some which human mice got from me, two samples, I believe. But all the rest I managed to save. And I, of course, have not seen too many Persian walnuts, being down there where the spring frost gets them. I was very favorably impressed by the appearance of all these samples. We simply picked five, as I said, and pointed out that this should be considered a preliminary finding and not definite, but all those samples were fine. Some were, of course, more bitter to the taste than others. That's where we lost a lot of nuts, trying to find out the least bitter. But many were an improvement on the commercial varieties, as far as I was concerned.

I think if we all get active on hunting out these Persians the way we have blacks, we can make very good progress.

MR. McDANIEL: Even on appearance I think some of them beat what you see in the stores.

MR. CHASE: Yes, on appearance. Of course, some of them were handed back and forth and competing against each other, that's what happened.

DR. McKAY: I'd like to ask how much importance you ascribe to tree characteristics and not the nut itself.

MR. CHASE: I asked for that information and tabulated it, and it didn't mean much. We found we couldn't do it. So then we came back to the nut first.

Carpathian Scions for Testing~

There is one other point I might mention. Last year you may recall that I reported on our planting of Carpathian seedlings at Norris, some 500 of them, which were frosted every single year. We have babied them along now for almost ten years, and I don't see any prospects of getting any nuts on them.

Now, among those 500 there must be one good one, and I will be very happy to collect scion wood of all those trees and send it to members who are willing to top-work them and see what they will do. So if any of you folks are interested in some of these varieties--not varieties yet, but seedlings--I'd like to see them fruit, and I am sure we never will at Norris.

DR. MacDANIELS: Where did you get the seed?

MR. CHASE: From the Wisconsin State Horticultural Society.

DR. MacDANIELS: In other words, it's just as good seed as any other.

MR. FRYE: You are in a frost pocket.

MR. CHASE: The whole place is a frost pocket. They are up on the hill--the frosty spot.

A MEMBER: When were they planted?

MR. CHASE: In the spring of 1939.

MR. CORSAN: Let me understand that. You say there are 500 trees that did nothing at all?

MR. CHASE: We have approximately 500 of the Crath seedlings, and each year they are frosted.

MR. CORSAN: Let me explain that. I have had the same trouble. Mr. Crath, not knowing the nature of my place, put some of the best nuts in wet places, in frost pockets, but he had two rows of one kind of nut that grew very rapidly the first year, but they are not any bigger now, and that was many years ago, back in 1935 they were planted. And there were about 80 varieties he got from Russia, he being able to speak four Russian dialects, his father being the Burbank of Russia and the gardener to the Czar, he had a lot of information, and he knew just what he was doing. But he was too hopeful and got some varieties from the foothills, some up a little higher, some up half way, some up towards the snow line, and they are tremendously hardy.

Now, I have given these nut trees away to people south of Lake Ontario.