CHINESE NUTS—WALNUT
P. W. WANG
Kinsan Arboretum, Chuking, Kiangsu Province, China.
Historic research by Berthold Laufer in his "Sino Iranica" published by Field Museum of Natural History of Chicago is very valuable. His conclusion is that China is not the original home of walnuts but imported from Persia via two routes, the earlier by Chinese Turkestan and little later by Tibet. I recommend every member to read this book. It contains many valuable historical informations about trees and vegetables in Asia.
According to the recent travel of late Mr. F. N. Meyer no grafting or budding of nut trees yet practiced in China. The walnuts varied from thinnest shell like peanut or hard shell with poor flavor. The Chinese walnut are proved to be hardier than Persian walnut in America.
There is no walnut in this province except a few in ornamental gardens. What we can get is through grocery stores. They imported them from Tientsin or Tsintao. The former is easy to crack with fine flavor and the kernel color is light. The latter is hard to crack, the internal partition has a peculiar construction that the kernel is very hard to take out even in broken pieces and the kernel has a brown color with the taste of bitterness and astringency. That shows that the walnut in Chili is far superior to that of Shantung. I do not believe that the above difference is due to the latitude, because there is one walnut tree in a garden in Soochow, a big city 50 miles from Shanghai, the nut is very good.
The Chinese way of eating walnut is just like Americans. One thing that coincides with Dr. Kellogg's treatment to a Senator's daughter. In China there is no baby fed by cow's milk. When the mother lacks milk and the home is not rich enough to hire a milk nurse, walnut milk is substituted. The way of making walnut milk is rather crude here, they simply grind or knock the kernel into paste then mix with boil water. I wish to learn Dr. Kellogg's way of making walnut milk.
One tradition that believed by most Chinese even well educated Chinese for thousands years that if you eat walnut constantly, your life will be prolonged, and if you only eat fruits and nuts excluding all provisions other than produced from trees even rice and wheat your life will be eternal. I must recall the theory of Dr. Kellogg that may be the proof of the above tradition. "Beef fats is deposited in the tissue as beef fats without undergoing any chemical change whatever; mutton fat is deposited as mutton fat; lard as pig fat etc." Perhaps the influence of animal fat reduces the life as animals are generally short lived and nut fats increases the life as nut trees live for centuries.
Chinese walnuts are sometimes met with very good ones, moreover they are hardy and free from insect or fungus attack. They are really worth while to propagate. As I can not get propagate nor scions I am now planting seedling from best nuts. I wish you are doing the same work and finally we can supply the colder world with suitable walnut trees.
I suggest one plan that I know very big amount of walnuts of best quality are exported from Tientsin to the States. You can secure the best ones by selecting from the walnut importers for planting.
There is another walnut produced in the vicinity of Hangchow Carya Catheyensis, really a hickory, last year I sent to Mr. Jones for 50 lbs. The taste is far below that of Pecan, but just 3 months ago I ate at a friend's house. The hickory kernel was roasted with sugar syrup. It lost all bitterness and has a very good hickory taste with fine hickory flavor.
Pterocarya stenoptera grows best among any other trees in this region. It resists drought very well. I like to try to use it as stock for grafting.
I do not interest in chestnut yet. As far as I know the best chestnut is produced in Lian-Shang near Tientsin.
Castanopsis from Hangchow is very nice. They said the tree is over 100 feet high and is ever green.
Hazelnut is from Chili and North. They are not so good as yours.
Chinese almond is apricot kernel, the best one is from Peking or
Tientsin.
Ginkgo nuts are never eaten afresh, we eat them sometimes roasted and most times cooked with meats. In which you will find both meats and nuts of good taste.
I like Torreya Grandis very much, I think Americans do not like it because they do not use the right way. Chinese roast the Torreya nut until all moisture gone then wait they are cold and eat them. They must be kept dry after roasted otherwise the taste is not so good and a second roast is necessary.
I hope you will try the above two kinds nuts by the above way, as Ginkgo can live over thousand years and Torreya in this country is also long lived, their nut fat would keep the human tissue less easy to decay.
The pine seeds kernels are sold here for Mex. $1.60 per pound. If your pine seeds kernel are cheap, it is possible to come over. The pine seeds are Pinus Bungeana and P. Massoniana.