LETTER FROM W. C. REED, VINCENNES, INDIANA
The Indiana pecan tree bore a splendid crop of about 3½ bushels. The Busseron also had a good crop on all the old wood and some on the new wood. The Busseron is just recovering from a severe cutting back by the owner and should be in shape to give a good crop next year. Other pecans in the vicinity bore a very light crop.
The Niblack bore only a few nuts this year. Butterick had a very good crop for an off year, some five bushels as reported to me, and they were well filled. This tree is very large, 4½ feet in diameter, 90 foot spread, located near Grayville, Ill.
The writer and my son, M. P. Reed, have top worked quite a number of large black walnuts, ranging from 3 to 9 inches in diameter. They were cut back last spring and budded in the new growth this summer, setting from 20 to 40 buds in some of the trees. Buds of the Hall, Pomeroy and Rush have taken well and look very promising. Of other varieties only a limited number have taken. We will top work several large trees this coming summer and should get results soon from these.
Pecans in the nursery have made a very satisfactory growth. The stand of buds was only fair, in some cases poor. We still have a limited number of Indiana and Busseron trees but the supply of other kinds is exhausted for this year.
We have planted 600 pounds of pecans and 50 bushels of walnuts and with the seedlings we have on hand in nursery hope to have plenty of stock to work in the future.
We had a splendid stand of grafts of the Major pecan the past spring and some of these made 4 feet of growth and calipered ¾inch, for grafts set May 1st.
THE LATE HENRY HALES AS A NUT CULTURIST
H. W. Hales, New Jersey
About 1876 he and the celebrated writer and agriculturist, Andrew S. Puller, made extensive experiments with the large English filbert,—mostly of the Kentish cob varieties. These proved unadapted to the climate as the trees seemed to run all to growth and bore very few nuts. About this time, also, very extensive plans were laid to propagate by grafting the Hales Paper Shell Hickory. There is probably no more difficult tree in existence to graft than the hickory as, owing to the extreme hardness and close grain of the wood there is always an uncertainty about their uniting permanently, consequently the percentage of perfect trees was always small. Mr. Hales tried all kinds and methods of grafting, some were done on stocks that stood naturally in the fields, others were grafted in greenhouses, then again, others were tried in frames or sashes, and large numbers were grown in pots, and success was only attained after years of time and thousands of dollars were spent. Mr. Hales was also an enthusiastic grower of the English or European walnut and one tree which grew on his farm at Ridgewood was grown from seed given him by ex-Mayor Daniel F. Tieman of New York City many years ago.
Japanese walnuts were also grown on the farm at Ridgewood and some of these are now bearing. A large number of Japanese chestnuts were planted some years ago, and while these bore heavily for a short time they nearly all succumbed to the chestnut blight. There is some difference of opinion among nut growers on the subject, but Mr. Hales was always of the opinion that the chestnut blight was introduced into this country with the Japanese trees, and that when the Japanese trees were gone the disease then spread to the native trees. The Hales Paper Shell Hickory, it may be remarked, still holds the palm as being the largest and thinnest shell nut, and it was only by the most persistent and painstaking efforts that Mr. Hales succeeded in propagating them at all. A large number of chestnuts were grown by Mr. Hales, such as the Numbo and other varieties. Some of these were said to be purely American varieties and others hybrids, or crosses. All of the hybrid varieties seemed to lack the hardy constitution of the American and although some of the nuts were very large he did not succeed with them in the long run as well as with the native varieties. Pecans of all kinds were tried by him and choice specimens were obtained from all parts of the country. Like the hickories these were grown and grafted in different ways and the percentage of good results was always much larger than the hickories. Grafting the hickory on the pecan was of course tried, and this proved one of the best ways of propagating the hickory. Everything that he could possibly think of or do was brought to bear in his efforts at nut culture and it is some satisfaction to know that many nut lovers will have the benefit of his work and efforts, long years after he has passed away, the hickory especially being a very slow growing and long lived tree.
ABSTRACT OF PAPER BY HUMPHREY
Filbert. Black knot, Cryptosporella anomala
Humphrey, James Ellis. Mass. Agr. Exp. Sta., 10th an. rept., 1892, p. 242-243.
The author describes this fungus as killing the canes of the European hazel, Corylus avellana, at Palmer, Mass. The fungus appears in the form of protuberances with elliptical bases that burst the bark and rise rather thickly from the affected portions of the branch. The diseased portion is sunk below the surface of the healthy part. The interior of the protuberance, which is the fruiting part of the fungus, contains numerous black, flask-like structures whose tips reached the surface. Within the cavities of these flasks are formed the very numerous spindle-shaped spore cells, each containing, when ripe, eight colorless elliptical spores. The author noticed that the inner bark on the part of the branch occupied by the fungus is reduced to a narrow black line between the wood and the outer bark. This reduction in the thickness of the inner bark explains why the surface of the affected parts is sunken. If the entire circumference of a cane becomes involved, the result is that it is girdled, and the part beyond necessarily dies. The attacks of this fungus on the host-plant are essentially similar in their results to those of the black knot of the plum, though the immediate effect on the inner bark is here one of atrophy, while in the latter case it is one of hypertrophy. The fungus is also related to the black-knot fungus on the plum, but its life-history is not yet known. There may be other spore forms in its life cycle, and therefore it is impossible to give any more definite suggestions for avoiding it than to recommend that infected branches be cut away well below the point of infection and burned as soon as they are seen to be infected.
THE TRUTH ABOUT TREE PLANTING WITH DYNAMITE.
[Note by the Secretary.—As planting with dynamite has been especially recommended for nut trees, on account of their long tap roots which have the habit of growing down until they reach permanent water; as there has been some difference of opinion among horticulturists as to the merits of tree planting, in general, with dynamite; and in order that nut growers may know how to use this method as advised by the dynamite makers, in case they may wish to try it in setting their trees, the following description of the method advised, from the pen of Mr. George Frank Lord of the E. I. du Pont de Nemours Powder Company, is here printed.]
During the past two years there has been considerable discussion in the agricultural press on the merits of dynamite in tree planting. The majority of orchardists who have tried the new method are enthusiastic over the results, but now and then we hear someone condemning the practice, and stating that they have tried it with poor results. It would appear from investigation that the theory of the use of dynamite in tree planting is a good one, but that the practice is sometimes incorrect, and hence fails to produce the desired results.
Purpose of Dynamiting for Tree Planting:
In the first place, to secure successful results it is necessary to understand clearly what the dynamiting is to accomplish. Some orchardists and farmers have the idea that the purpose of the dynamite is to excavate the hole for the tree and save them the trouble of shoveling out the soil. This is a wrong theory.
The object of dynamiting for tree planting is to break up the subsoil at a depth of from three to five feet so as to create a soil sponge or water-absorbing area twelve or twenty feet in diameter around and underneath the spot where the tree is to stand, so that the heavy rainfalls and melting snow of spring may be conserved in the subsoil to take care of the tree during the long dry summer.
If the force of the dynamite is used merely to blow out the soil and make digging unnecessary, it is unreasonable to expect the dynamite to do this underground work. On the other hand, when the charge is properly placed at a depth of about three feet and tamped in just enough to confine most of the force of the explosion in the subsoil, the blast will not only crack and pulverize the subsoil, but will also break up the ground around the bore hole clear to the surface, and throw it into the air, possibly a foot. It is then a very easy matter to excavate the hole for planting.
Necessary Soil Conditions:
There is no economy nor advantage in using dynamite in a soil that is loose and sandy to a depth of three or four feet. The weakness of this soil is that it allows water to percolate through it too rapidly, hence dynamite would be harmful rather than helpful under such conditions, but no matter how loose the top soil or plowed soil may be, if it is underlaid by more or less impervious clay, or even a heavy loam, dynamiting under proper conditions will certainly increase its water-storing capacity, and also make it easier for the roots to grow downward and deep.
The proper conditions referred to are that the blasting must be done when the subsoil is relatively dry, otherwise it will not crack or pulverize. Every farmer knows the disadvantage of plowing wet top soil. It is equally disadvantageous to blast a wet subsoil. Of course, some subsoils are always in a more or less damp condition and never get thoroughly dried out, but they may be safely and advantageously blasted when they are in their dryest condition.
Water-logged soil should never be blasted except for the purpose of ditching it or tiling it so as to get it into a proper condition for blasting. The ditching may be done economically and quickly with dynamite, and in many cases this will answer just as well as the more expensive tiling. When the ditching or tiling has drained this subsoil, it may then be safely blasted.
Filling the Pot-Holes:
In any heavy soil the explosion of the dynamite tends to form a cavity in the immediate vicinity of the cartridge, varying from one to two feet in diameter. The heavier or the wetter the subsoil, the larger this cavity is likely to be. After the blast the top soil should be shoveled out and laid to one side; next shovel out the subsoil and lay it on the other side of the hole; continue this excavation until the pot-hole is reached, then be careful to fill this hole reasonably tight with subsoil, the object being to prevent the possibility of soil falling away from the roots of a tree after planting, and leaving it suspended in the air. This is the cause of the death of trees planted in dynamited holes which some unsuccessful experimenters report. It takes a little time to fill this pot-hole, but the many advantages of planting trees properly in dynamited holes more than offset this extra time and trouble required to properly prepare the hole.
Planting the Trees:
After the pot-hole has been filled, continue to shovel in subsoil until the proper height is reached for planting the tree, then throw in half the top soil and spread the roots on that in their natural positions, then throw in the remainder of the top soil, next get in the hole and walk around the tree several times, tramping the top soil down tight around the roots so as to remove all large air spaces that surround the roots, then fill the hole to the surface with subsoil. Planting a tree in this way costs a few cents more per tree than the old way, but since the tree can only be planted once and the comparative records as to loss of trees the first year after planting, show an average advantage of 30 per cent. in favor of dynamited trees, namely, the loss is cut down from three to five trees per hundred, a dynamited tree grows so much more vigorously and produces fruit from one to two years earlier, therefore it pays to take the extra trouble and do the job right.
The editor of Successful Farming was at one time skeptical as to the use of dynamite in tree planting, but has been convinced from personal observation of its use in large commercial orchards, and from letters from various subscribers, that it is an important and valuable innovation in horticulture, provided it is used with proper care and discretion.