NOTES BY MR. BIXBY
Thursday, Sept. 27
Trip by automobiles to Mr. Littlepage's farm at Bowie, Md., and to the
U. S. Experiment Station at Bell.
Mr. Littlepage has an orchard of 275 trees covering thirty acres of pecans and Stabler black walnuts, the first pecan trees being set in 1914, and the Stabler black walnuts some three years later. Now both are starting to bear, a few nuts having appeared last year, and a very few nuts the year before.
The trees are growing finely, the leaves have a fine dark green color, and nuts were noticed in clusters, the pecans being in clusters of 2, 3, 4 and 5; and the black walnuts in ones and twos.
That the orchard has been given good care is evident. Commercial fertilizers and green manures have been used. A winter cover crop of rye was grown last fall and plowed under this spring, and a summer cover crop of soy beans was grown this summer and will be plowed under this fall.
The varieties noticed in bearing were the Major, the Greenriver, Stuart, Busseron and the Indiana. Of the above, all are northern varieties, excepting the Stuart, which is a southern variety which has given evidence elsewhere of being able to grow and to bear further north than almost any other southern variety.
The pecans are set in blocks, the earlier ones being set 60' x 60'. Mr. Littlepage became convinced after his first plantings that this was too close, and the last planting of pecans was 100' x 120'.
The black walnuts are planted along two fence rows, the trees being fifty feet apart, the total length of the rows being about three-quarters of a mile. The peculiarity of the Stabler black walnut of bearing some nuts where the kernel is in one piece, that is where one lobe of the kernel has not developed, was noticed in some of Mr. Littlepage's trees. There is going to be, in future years at Mr. Littlepage's place, an opportunity to study this peculiar behavior of the Stabler black walnut, that could be carried on at the parent tree only with great difficulty, because of the inaccessibility of the tree, in the first place, and the inaccessibility of the flowers, owing to their great height above the ground, in the second.
At Bell Station was seen Dr. Van Fleet's work on chestnuts. Some ten years ago Dr. Van Fleet began this work for the purpose of getting something that should be blight proof, or at least strongly blight resisting and that would furnish the nuts which the chestnut blight is rapidly making impossible of production. With this end in view, some ten years ago Dr. Van Fleet planted nuts of the Chinese chestnut, Castanea mollissima, and planted out the seedlings. He also procured from the place of J. W. Killen, at Fenton, Md., nuts of Japan chestnuts that had withstood the blight up to the time the nuts were planted. The first thing to be found out was how well these would resist the blight. None were found to be immune, although the trees are still alive after ten years exposure. Dr. Van Fleet's ambition was to get a blight-resistant chestnut the size of the Japan chestnut with the delicious flavor of the chinkapin. This, as yet, has not been accomplished, although some very good nuts much larger than chinkapins were seen. One interesting fact noted as to resistance was that the Japan chestnut, which is not generally supposed to be as resistant as the Chinese chestnut, was at Bell Station apparently standing up just as well.
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At the evening session, Thursday, Sept. 27, a rising vote of thanks was
given to Mr. and Mrs. Littlepage for their hospitality of the afternoon.
The president then introduced Mrs. W. N. Hutt, editor of the Progressive
Farm Woman, of North Carolina.
Mrs. Hutt quoted H. G. Wells as saying, "The primeval savage was both herbivorous and carnivorous. He had for food hazel nuts, beech nuts, sweet chestnuts, earth nuts and acorns." She went on to say:
In Spain and Southern France, the chestnut is now used much more than in the past. You should know in what appetizing forms they are cooked. It is a question how you should cook the chestnut if you do not want to spoil its flavor. Should you steam it, boil it, or what? When you want it in bread, or when you use the tasteless forms, it is first steamed or boiled, and later is mashed up and made into bread, or mixed with cheese or tomatoes. But if you want to develop the flavor, then roast it, pick it out from the shell and crush it, using almost no other flavor with it.
Have you ever realized how much we depend on the walnut in cooking? Take the pecan, or perhaps almost all of the nuts; the flavor is diminished by cooking. But the walnut is the one nut that gains in flavor by being cooked. This means a great deal for the popularity of the walnut.
A friend of mine was captured by the Germans, and was sent out each day into the forests to gather acorns to be used in the prisoners' food. The friend said that many a time he thought he would rather die than to have to eat or gather any more acorns.
Farmers' Bulletin No. 712, "The School Lunch," by Caroline Hunt, has been especially valuable in the preparation of the school lunch with nuts. There is a man who comes to North Carolina every winter, who will tell you that he lives on ten types of nut oils and nut butter.
The great mass of people out through the country are not yet ready to comprehend this; but once they are educated to the value of nuts, the demand for them will be unlimited.
As to the question of economy, the prices should not go up any farther; they will not be used enough until they become cheaper. With many boys and girls in a family, a dollar's worth of nuts, at $1 a pound, will not go far. If we could get nuts at more reasonable prices it seems to me that women would consider them more than they do for food. They want them not only for their parties, but in everyday life.
We should popularize nuts through newspapers. It pays to advertise, and little notices in the paper are much more far-reaching than any other way of telling the story of the nourishment to be found in nuts.
As to the value of nut trees in landscape work, a real estate man told me that when he wanted a good price for a house he planted fruit trees at the back of the house, and nut trees on the sides. He would talk about those trees to the people who came to buy, and has sold many houses in this way.
Then take Arbor Day, and we have one in nearly every state in the Union. If we could get the papers and the forest magazines to talk about Arbor Day, and urge everybody to plant something, and particularly to plant a nut tree, it would not be long before we got results. I could not think of anything much more patriotic than planting avenues of memorial nut trees. Nut trees are better to look at than are many of the monuments erected, and the patriotic societies do not realize the truth in this. There is a case where with a stroke of the pen, the nut trees could be increased all over the country.
Then consider the home demonstration agents in the country. They have the women organized and are in touch with the men of progressive thought and feeling everywhere; and it seems to me that we could make more use of them. It would seem that if this organization could in some way raise the money to have someone talk at these demonstration meetings, it would not be long before the value and the beauty of nut trees would show the use of doing this splendid work. What more effective methods could there be than to go to the state meetings held by home demonstration agents twice a year, and talk nuts to those people? They go home and talk these same things to all of the women in their little organizations and communities. There is no rapid transit method more effective than that. Then, when the women are taking up a subject like that, men are apt to read it also.
Another form of advertising that is equally important is in men's organizations. A number of years ago Mr. Hutt went down through the eastern part of the state on the old farmers' institute work. He took with him a case fixed up to display nuts. He talked about them, and especially about pecans. The people had never seen anything but the little, old, wild pecan, and they became enthusiastic. When you get a farmer enthusiastic you are doing something. The people became quite enthusiastic and planted quite a number of orchards. Mr. Hutt left the department and the new man who came in was not particularly enthusiastic about nuts. Then Mr. Curran came into the work and decided there was nothing he could do better than to urge them to plant nut trees. He is trying to get an unlimited quantity of pecans and walnut trees planted and he hopes to have a large number of trees put in within a few years.
To paraphrase what Mr. Littlepage said this morning, in connection with the raising of hogs, in getting the world to plant more trees, to use more nuts and to appreciate the value of nut trees for both beauty and use, you need 90 percent of advertising; and let the 8 percent be the man and 2 percent be the nut.
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DR. MORRIS: Last year, when my experiments with the use of paraffin grafting had apparently been completed, I included what I knew of this subject in a little book, and this brought out letters from all parts of the country, in fact from all parts of the world, reminding me that I had not completed the subject of the use of paraffin in grafting. From tropical countries men complained that my suggestions about the use of one particular kind of paraffin, "Parowax," were not applicable to their part of the country where the paraffin would melt in the summer sun. Then, from some of the regions where the nights were cold, they said the paraffin would crack and leave the stocks bare, owing to the change of temperature.
We are consequently faced with a necessity for extending our information on this subject. My reason for presenting it, before I have completed investigations, is to get suggestions from members of the audience here, and from practical nurserymen. I have written a number of books on various topics, and have never sent one out without feeling sorry that it was not time for the next edition.
The theory is that if we cover a graft completely with melted paraffin, including the entire scion, buds and all, we have accomplished several things. In the first place, the paraffin prevents the graft from drying out before new cells can make union with cells of the scion.
In the second place it fills all interstices where sap would collect.
In the third place it provides an airtight covering so that the free sap pressures, negative and positive, under different temperatures, will be analogous in stock and scion. When there is low sap pressure we assume that some of the sap may be drawn out of the scion. This airtight covering prevents that.
In the fourth place it provides a translucent covering, which allows action by the actinic rays of light, which brings the chlorophyll into activity. All plant growth is conducted under the influence of chlorophyll, and the actinic rays of light activate this. Consequently, I seemed to have a perfect grafting material in this Parowax, which we may find in any grocery store. In my locality this wax worked perfectly and, theoretically, nothing more was to be desired. It melts at 125 degrees farenheit.
I have brought with me a specimen of a pear tree that I grafted in this way in July of this year. You will see that the Parowax covering is still complete. The new shoots have grown about eight inches since July 1, and I do not see how you could imagine anything more perfect than this specimen, from which I wrote my description in the book. As a matter of fact it is by the use of the paraffin method that I seemed to have solved the very great problem of making it possible for anybody to graft anything, and at any time of the year. The most difficult thing to graft is the shagbark hickory, and we have even done that every month of the year, except December and January. This year we are going to try those months, for I believe that the hickory tree may be grafted any month of the year.
Now the point of my remarks will relate to different kinds of paraffin. This Parowax, which melts at 125 degrees farenheit, will be satisfactory in the north temperate regions. We may raise the melting point ten degrees, if we like, by the addition of the carnauba wax, which, however, is highly crystalline. A crystalline wax is not desirable because it cracks and permits the air to enter and we have a desiccation of the scion. The Standard Oil people will furnish paraffin with a melting point of 138 degrees, and that will cover all of our needs for hot countries. But in getting paraffins that melt at 136, 137 or 138 degrees we have a rather definite crystalline element. Mr. Bixby has suggested the use of the earth wax which is mined in Australia. It is really a fossil paraffin and is not so granular. I found that it is not to be had in this country at the present time, however, although various dealers told me that they had it, and I obtained from a firm in New York City a misbranded specimen called "Ozokerite," which they said is a technical term for this particular fossil paraffin. But it was nothing of the sort; it was something they had made up for themselves. Mr. Bixby kindly gave me a pound or so of the real "Ozokerite," so I had the genuine thing to experiment with. We may then settle the question of obtaining paraffines which have a high melting point, by knowing that they may be obtained from any of the Standard Oil people.
Knowing that we must have, in addition, the elastic feature, I found one man who had succeeded by adding something to a high melting-point paraffin. He said that it was a secret, but I soon found that it would be no secret to a bee. It would seem, then, that this quality in beeswax would be valuable, since the secret formula from this same dealer has little more than beeswax in it. Beeswax is a different kind of organic product from paraffin and I would not expect them to mingle naturally when in melted solution, but apparently they do. You will find that the specimens which contain this wax are very smooth to the touch, and apparently are more homogeneous than paraffin.
The subject for experiment then, for members of this audience, is that of finding some substance that may be added to give elasticity, but which will not change the melting point. In the South we may require in addition something to whiten our paraffin. Some men in Southern California wrote me that they had fastened white paper about each graft and put a rubber band over it. I suggested this plan to one or two men in Australia and in Ceylon, who had complained about the melting of the Parowax, and I have not yet received their replies. I have been trying, however, to simplify things in the way of grafting. In addition to the elasticity that we need, we must have whitening, and for this purpose we must add something that will not be poisonous to the tree but will mix with the paraffin readily and give a white paraffin, which will interfere somewhat with the actinic light. I have found that carbonate of lead will mix well with paraffin. Carbonate of zinc will also mix well. They are both heavy, so heavy that they need a certain amount of stirring. A lighter substance is citrate of zinc, which will give elasticity, and which will probably also give a white effect. It melts with the paraffin and, being neutral, it will do no harm to the tree.
I have given you an outline on which I wish discussion, for I hope to get from this audience the information and suggestions that will enable me to make my experiments in the right way so that by next spring we may have no further need for discussing the question as to the correct paraffin method in grafting.
MR. BIXBY: There is another wax that is not so crystalline as the Parowax, and that is Candelilla, which is produced in Texas and New Mexico. It may be obtained from the wax importers in New York City, not from the Standard Oil Co., but the importers. I will find out just where it is from. I can easily get samples. Its melting point is not so high as Parowax, but it is much higher than any of the other waxes.
DR. MORRIS: Then by mixing it with the high-melting point waxes, those of about 138 degrees, we might get good results.
MR. BIXBY: I think so, and without introducing the crystalline element.
Prof. H. H. Hume of Glen St. Mary, Florida was then asked to speak. He said that he uses fresh pine gum from the turpentine cups to make grafting wax stick. This will mix with beeswax and give the elasticity needed for winter work (in the South). Also it is unaffected by a temperature as high as 120 degrees. He uses a mixture of high grade rosin, beeswax and pine gum with which pieces of cloth are saturated. Gum should be obtained in the spring when it is purest. It is thin enough to pour out.
Dr. Zimmerman said that he had tried pine gum with paraffine and it would not mix.
Prof. Hume said that beeswax can be had in various shades up to pure white.
Dr. Morris said that black grafting wax attracts heat and excludes actinic rays. He prefers a translucent wax.
Prof. Hume stated that in the country where Jacksonville, Florida, is there are 100 miles of roadway under construction which will be planted with nut trees where possible. He added that once when he was ill for a long time the doctor finally ordered a glassful of milk and a handful of pecan kernels for his diet. He tried it and it worked.
Dr. Zimmerman said that for grafting wax he had used equal parts of paraffin, stearic acid and beeswax with good results.
Dr. Morris stated his belief that the simple splice graft is the strongest kind.