Part 12 (1/2)

Perhaps, as the result of this training early in life, a new interest among the farmers will emerge and some of our sins of omission will be remedied. As a planter of trees for the future, the American farmer, both of yesterday and today, has notoriously, thoughtlessly, and disastrously failed both his children and himself. By all standards, he should be the first-ranking tree planter of the land. As a matter of fact, it is practically impossible to interest the average farmer at all. State experiment stations and forestry departments make some effort to stimulate interest in the planting of trees by furnis.h.i.+ng seedling stocks of forest trees at nominal prices and by issuing occasional bulletins. However well intentioned and, within their limits, well done these bulletins may be, the fact remains that in proportion to their numbers, farmers are still not notable planters of trees. Perhaps one reason for this failure is that most of the literature upon the subject seems aimed at lumbermen, and not at farmers. As to the bulletins which are aimed primarily at the farmer, examples of advice on forestry which is given in these rather too specialized and somewhat near-sighted publications are typically of the following kind: ”Fence off the woodlot and never pasture it,” ”Use your best land for field crops; your waste land for trees.” ”You are interested in nuts? You can not have nuts and timber, too.”

It is evident that these rules are prepared by foresters--not farmers.

Is it any wonder that the inquiring farmer finds them rather frustrating?

It should be remembered that practices which are valid and helpful in the care of an already existing forest or woodlot where mature growth is periodically harvested and where young sprouts are encouraged for replenishment may be of little use in the management of an entirely new planting of certain kinds of trees where cultivation, at least for a time, is necessary. Deep-rooted trees, for example. Such rules have been of little use to me in my own planting of American black walnuts upon an Ohio farm. Indeed, to have followed them would have been disastrous.

My planting is not large. It is modest enough to be within the power of nearly any farmer. It has been treated as a farmer would treat it, without too much pampering. We now have a few more than three thousand trees planted upon forty acres. Most of them are now fifteen years old.

Here are some of the things we have learned in fifteen years from our trees:

1. Trees s.p.a.ced 80 feet apart in good deep soil have not made as much growth as seedling black walnut trees s.p.a.ced 8 feet apart in rows 20 feet apart, also in good soil. However, these wider s.p.a.ced trees are grafted pecans and Persian walnuts.

2. The seedling trees which stand in good soil have made surprisingly good growth. Some better than 8 inches diameter, breast height. One measured tree has grown 7 feet 1/2 inch this year to date--Aug. 20. (No fertilizer used, but cultivated.) Those which stand in shallow, thin soil are dwarfs, worthless. Walnuts have deep taproots. They need deep, rich earth.

3. Trees grown from planted seed make the best timber trees. Upon the other hand, if production of known quality is the primary objective, grafted trees of known varieties must be planted. The seedling _of good parentage_ is an exciting gamble. It may be, and usually is a commonplace producer of nuts. Upon the other hand, it is more likely than the tree of poor parentage to win a place among the named varieties, set aside for propagation by budding or grafting upon other stocks.

4. Walnut seedlings like human beings tend to show marked inherited trends, erratic and undependable though they may be. Thus, seedlings grown from vigorous and upright trees _tend_ to be vigorous and upright.

Conversely, trees of poor parentage, either as timber or nut producers, will tend to reproduce the poor characteristics of their parent. This is more markedly true where the parent tree stands isolated from the pollen of other walnut trees of the same species.

5. I have found no real evidence that walnuts of our planting are toxic to other trees standing immediately beside them. To test this, we planted a few apple, peach, and plum trees in the walnut rows. They still stand literally arm in arm. This is, of course, all wrong. No tree should be so crowded. The apple trees monopolize s.p.a.ce by excessive lateral growth. The plums send up unwanted shoots from their roots. The peach trees are pa.s.sing out. Two or three of the apple trees are half dead. Others still live, but I am not very hopeful that, after the walnut trees are more mature, any of the apples will survive. The usual diseases and insects, plus shading by the walnuts seems to account for most if not all of the dead trees to date.

6. Gra.s.s growth is excellent right up to the trunks of all of the trees.

It has never been necessary for us to lose the use of the land upon which the trees are planted. While the trees were young, of course, no pasturing was permitted. The land between the rows was cultivated. In these strips we raised berries and other crops. Now that the trees are tall enough to be beyond the danger of damage from livestock, we graze the pasture under and between the trees. No damage is evident from trampled earth (the walnuts are deep-rooted) and the hazard of fire is eliminated because there is now no need to mow excessive gra.s.s, weeds, or brush.

7. The most precocious seedling walnuts began to bear nuts at about 7 years of age. New bearers are coming in each year. All are still counted as adolescent trees, yet, last fall, picking up the nuts from none but trees marked for their better quality of nuts, we gathered some 40 bushels of nuts in the sh.e.l.l.

8. Today, we can count about 2,000 walnut trees which promise to be of good timber quality 35 years hence. At a reasonable estimate, 1,000 trees will then survive, be 50 years old, be worth $50.00 each, at present prices. Total, $50,000.00. This represents an annual increment in value of $1,000.00 per year for the 20 acres which are closely planted to black walnuts. Can the average farmer _save_ that much in his lifetime? Can even the exceptional farmer do it on 20 acres? With as little investment of money and work? If so, how?

Any farmer can do as well, or better, without losing a single immediately productive acre. Why doesn't he?

The answer is in the very nature of the farmer's business. As has already been said, he is primarily a producer of food. If trees stand in the way, he chops them down. He has always chopped them down. It has become a habit. If the farmer is to be persuaded to change his ways and turn to planting trees, instead of destroying them, I repeat, the entering wedge into his interest will be, I believe, through dual-purpose trees--trees for food crops, as well as for timber crops.

Of these species, the black walnut of eastern America is probably the most outstanding one of all, at least in the mid-section of America. The b.u.t.ternut--”white walnut”--flourishes better in the north. The chestnut is another--a tree almost literally raised from the dead by the efforts of a few miracle workers like Dr. Arthur H. Graves of the Connecticut Experiment Station, who, with others of his kind, has been in the throes of producing a blight-resistant, tall-growing hybrid timber tree out of the bushy Chinese chestnut, a producer of the sweetest of nuts. The pecan, too, is being pushed northward. Great groves of wild pecans have firmly established themselves along the Ohio River. Their timber is fair; not wonderful. The mulberry tree is still another. The American species produces a timber which is remarkably durable under ground. Its fruit is not sufficiently appreciated. It makes an unsurpa.s.sed jam or jelly or pie when combined with a tart fruit like the cherry, grape, or currant. And who does not know the precious wood of the wild cherry? Its rosy warmth of color is the pride of the ”antique” connoisseur; its fruit beloved by birds and squirrels; its juice, the secret of the cherry cordial. Even that foreigner, the Persian ”English” walnut, of Carpathian strains, is pus.h.i.+ng north into Canada and the East Coast region. Its wood, too, under the name of ”Circa.s.sian,” is famous for its figured beauty[3].

[3] Some of the ”Circa.s.sian walnut” is another genus, the wingnut (Pterocarya).--Ed.

One might go on and on with a list of trees and tree crops easily available, mostly native, all of which should be both figuratively and actually right down the farmer's alley.

Perhaps the education which can come through the agency of many school forests will in good time turn the attention of young and impressionable minds to the potential wealth to be found in the trees. Normally, the young, who, of all people, should be forward-looking, are least concerned with the long-term future. They are not given to making plans or building estates for their grandchildren. As a consequence, the planting of trees is traditionally taken over by the aged, or at least by the mature. This is all wrong. The young farmer who plants interesting trees is preparing for some of the most exciting and prideful moments in the years which follow. And he is also building, at low cost, and with little labor, a priceless estate.

How to Lose Money in Manufacturing Filbert Nut b.u.t.ter

CARL WESCHCKE, St. Paul, Minnesota

Inasmuch as there are so many words of wisdom and advice showing the reader how to make money in different ways, I have started a new line of caption with the hope that it might serve as a warning for those who would stick their necks out, as the term applies to those people who venture beyond safe margins of restraint. Since this is a recital of facts, and since Professor George L. Slate has requested me to report on my experiences, I submit the following for what interest it may hold for the readers.

Most ventures are backed by optimism of some sort or other, coupled with some experience, capital, hopes, and ambition. The project which sparked the entrance into the manufacture of filbert b.u.t.ter was the success that I was having with hybridizing our best native hazels with the best known filberts, such as crossing of the wild American hazel with Barcelona, DuChilly, Italian Red, Purple Aveline, Red Aveline, White Aveline, also filbert strains from J. U. Gellatly of Westbank, B. C., Canada, and strains from J. F. Jones, hybrids, European strains of filberts from the Carpathian mountains, and any right pollen which could be obtained from known filbert parents. Today we have over 2,000 seedling hybrids of which between 500 and 600 have come into bearing. Some of these are really surprising varieties of the combination hazels and filberts, but a complete history of the hybridization work and the results really deserve a separate account to be published some time in the future. I merely mention this because the success of these plants in producing nuts leads me to contemplate the future production of these hybrid nuts, called Hazilberts,[4] on a large scale.

[4] Another coined name, by Mr. Gellatly, is ”Filazel.”