NOTES ON THE NUT BEARING PINES AND ALLIED CONIFERS.
Dr. Robert T. Morris, New York
Among the food trees of the world of the nut bearing group the palms with their many species of cocoanuts probably stand first, the pines next, and the chestnuts third in order, so far as food supply for various peoples is concerned. Then come the almonds, walnuts, hazels, hickories and other nut bearing trees, the nuts of which have been somewhat carelessly looked upon as luxuries rather than as an important pantry full of good substantial calories to be turned into human kinetics.
The pines and allied conifers like Araucaria and Podocarpus will take their respective places in furnishing food supply for us all when the need comes. Such need is already close upon our new vista of war supplies. The squirrels and mice this year will eat thousands of tons of good food that our soldiers would be glad to have. The particular advantage in planting nut bearing pines rests in the fondness of these trees for waste places where little else will grow, and they need less attention perhaps than any other trees of the nut bearing group. For purposes of convenience in description I shall group all of the conifers together under the head of pines in this paper, although in botany the word "Pinus" is confined to generic nomenclature.
Up to the present time we have not even developed our resources to the point of utilizing good grounds very largely for any sort of nut tree plantations. In accordance with the canons of human nature men work hardest, and by preference, with crops which give them small returns for their labor. Riches from easily raised crops go chiefly to the lazy folks who don't like work. On the way to this meeting some of you perhaps noticed near Rye on the west side of the railroad track, a chicken farm on a side hill and a rich bottom land which had been ditched and set out to about three hundred willow trees along the ditch banks. Now if the owner of this property had set out English walnuts in the place of the willows, each tree at the present time, at a low estimate, might be bearing five dollars worth of nuts per year per tree, and I am, sure that would be a much larger income than the owner gets from his chickens—an income obtained certainly with much less trouble, because neighbors cannot break in at night and carry off walnut trees of such size. Two or three weeks from the present time you will observe people everywhere in this section of the country raking up leaves from various willows, poplars and maples, when they might quite as well be raking up bushels of nuts of various kinds instead of just leaves.
I presume that the extensive planting of pine trees for food purposes will have to wait until we have advanced to the point of putting other kinds of nut trees upon good ground first. Pines will be employed for the more barren hillsides when the folks of three hundred years from now begin to complain of the high cost of living.
Among some thirty or more species of pine trees which furnish important food supply for various peoples I exhibit nuts from only sixteen species today, because much of the crop comes from Europe and from Asia. I could not obtain a larger variety of specimens on account of the present interest of people in the game which military specialists play wherever industrious nations have saved up enough money to be turned over to their murder experts. In the pine trees we have opportunity for combining beauty and utility. As a group they are mountain lovers preferring localities where the air drainage is particularly good, but many of them will grow thriftily and will fruit well on low grounds. Fine nuts range in character from the rich, sugary, oily and highly nitrogenous nut of the Mexican piñon to the more starchy bunya bunya of Australia, as large as a small potato and not much better than a potato, unless it is roasted or boiled. Yet this latter pine is valuable for food purposes and the British Government has reserved one forest of the species thirty miles long and twelve miles wide in which no one is allowed to cut trees.
The nut of the Araucaria imbricata has constituted a basis for contention among Indian tribes in Chile for centuries, and perhaps more blood has been shed over the forests of this pine than over any other single source of food supply in the world. We do not know if the Pinus imbricata will fruit in the climate and at the latitude of New York, but I know that at least one tree of the species has lived for twenty years on the Palmer estate here in Stamford.
Some of the smaller pine nuts like those of the single-leaved pine, or of the sugar pine, are delicious when cracked and eaten out of hand, but the smaller pine nuts are pounded up by the Indians with a little water and the thick, rich, creamy emulsion like hickory milk when pressed out, is evaporated down to a point where the milk can be kept for a long time without decomposition. In addition to the nuts of the sugar pine, the Indians collect the sugar of dried juice which exudes at points where cuts have been made in the tree for the purpose. Incidentally, the sugar pine is one of our finest American trees anyway. Botanists tell us that it grows to a height of two hundred and seventy-five feet, and travellers say that it reaches three hundred feet. The latter people having actually seen the trees we may know which estimate to accept.
Aside from the beauty of most pines and the majesty of some of them, their utility is not confined to nuts alone. Timber and sap products are very valuable. The sugar pine in the latitude of New York is hardy, but does not grow as rapidly as it does in the West. The same may be said of the Jeffrey bull pine, but I shall show you some thriftier trees of this latter species tomorrow on my property. A very pretty striped nut is that of the Pinus pinea. This is the Italian pignolia, and you may buy them in the confectionery stores in this country. They are used as a dessert nut chiefly, but form an important food supply in some parts of Europe. The Swiss stone pine, Pinus cembra, is one of the hardy nut pines, fruitful in this vicinity, and the Pinus Armandi, the Korean pine and the Lace-bark pine from central China, are hardy and fruitful in this vicinity, to our knowledge.
Two very handsome pine nuts are those of the Digger pine, Pinus Sabiniana and the Big-cone pine, Pinus Coulteri. Both trees are hardy in this latitude, but I have not been able to locate any which are of bearing age as yet. The nuts have a rich dark brown or nearly black and tan shading. The nut of the Digger pine is very highly prized by the Indians and is larger and better in quality than the nut of the Big-cone pine which looks so much like it.
Nuts of the Torrey pine have been somewhat difficult to secure for planting, because they are esteemed so highly for food purposes that they have been collected rather closely by local people in the small area in which this species is found, on our Pacific Coast. It is improbable that the Torrey pine will be hardy much above our most southern states.
We do not advertise dealers in our association as a rule, but Mr. Thomas J. Lane, of Dresher, Pennsylvania, is not likely to make any great fortune from his sale of pine nuts to us. Consequently, I am stating at this point that Mr. Lane has offered to go to the trouble of securing pine nuts from different parts of the world for our members who wish to plant different species experimentally. I have given him a list of species to be kept permanently on file, and the list is marked in such a way that ones which are known to be hardy, semi-hardy, or fruitful in the latitude of New York may be selected for experimental planting. I hope that some of our southern planters will plant South American, Asiatic, African and Australian species of nut pines for purposes of observation. Mr. Lane will get the seed for them.
I have included among the specimens here today nuts of the ginkgo because that tree belongs among the conifers in natural order. It is an ancient tree which should not fit into this time and generation, but it has gone on down past the day when it belonged on earth. Its prehistoric enemies have died out, so the ginkgo tree has come rolling along down the centuries without enemies and at the same time with many peculiarities. Comparatively few of the trees are females, but the tree grows heartily in this latitude and one may graft male ginkgos in any quantity from some one female. The nut of this tree is rather too resinous to suit the American palate, but the Chinese and Japanese visitors to the Capitol grounds at Washington greedily collect the nuts from a bearing female tree growing there.
Most of the pine nuts have a resinous flavor, but as a class they are so rich and sweet that this is not disagreeable. The nuts of the single-leaf pine and our common piñon, Pinus edulis, are delicious when eaten out of hand and both of these trees are hardy in this latitude, but they do not grow as rapidly here as they do upon the arid mountains and under the conditions of their native habitat.
In Europe and Asia pine nuts for the market are cracked by machinery or by cheap hand labor, and I presume that we may eventually hull some of the smaller ones as buckwheat is hulled. If the contents of the smaller nuts are extracted by the Indian method of grinding them up with a little water and then subjecting them to pressure, the waste residue will probably be valuable for stock food of the future, very much as we now use oil cake.
When planting nuts of pine trees I would call the attention of horticulturists to one very important point. The nuts must be planted in ground that does not "heave" in the spring time when the frost goes out. Many of the pine nuts send down a rather slender root at first without many side rootlets, and when the frost opens the ground in the spring the young trees are thrown out and lost. Here is another point of practical importance. Do not plant pine seed where stock can get at the young shoots in March. The little gems look so bright and green, so fresh and attractive when the snow goes off that cows and sheep, deer, squirrels and field mice will all try to collect them. Young pines should be grown in half shade during their first two years. They will require weeding and nice attention on the part of a lover who wishes to be polite to them.
Question: Is there any difficulty in harvesting the crops, do the cones shed?
Answer: With some species the cones are shed before they are fully opened. They are collected and stored until the nuts can be beaten out. Other species retain the cones until the nuts have been shed. The branches are shaken and the nuts collected from tree to tree by the beaters and spread out upon the ground.
Sometimes coarse sheeting or matting is carried from tree to tree by the beaters and spread out upon the ground.
Question: At what age will they bear?
Answer: Pines bear rather late as a rule. I doubt if very many of them will bear in less than 10 years from seed.
Question: Would it be possible to produce grafted trees?
Answer: Yes, without much difficulty. Undoubtedly you could get bearing wood from old trees and graft on young trees, or graft on other species. They may be grafted back and forth like the ornamental firs and spruces of the nurserymen.
Question: They don't compass, do they. If you cut them off, do shoots come out of the stumps?
Answer: Not as a rule. Adventitious buds belong to few pine trees. They graft conifers when the stocks are young.
Question: Of those that you suggest, what would be the best here?
Answer: The Korean, the Bungeana or lace-bark, the Swiss stone pine, and the Armandi. These can be counted on to bear in the vicinity of New York. Several other species not yet tried out may bear well here, but I have not gone over the trees on estates very extensively as yet with that question in mind.
Question: Are any of these specially good for the South?
Answer: Yes, most of the pine nuts that I have shown here will grow south of Maryland and seven of the best pine nuts in the world belong to our Southwest.
Question: Is there any more trouble with the cows and squirrels over nut pines than there is with ordinary pine trees?
Answer: No, excepting that you don't miss the ordinary kinds so much. It is largely a matter of comparative interest.