G. S. JONES, Route 1, Box 140, Phenix City, Alabama
(Excerpts from letter to Secretary, Oct. 23, 1947.)
Growing trees is a work dear to my heart for I have been interested in it since childhood. Dr. J. Russell Smith's book on "Tree Crops" is one of the best I have ever read along the lines of growing trees to produce food for man and beast as well as producing many other useful products, and much of the work of your Association seems to be along the same line. I am sure we can live easier and better on this earth when we learn to use the trees in their proper place. Man often acts in a shortsighted way by depending largely on annual crops for the main source of food for himself and his animals and neglects the long lived trees which may not have to be planted but once in a lifetime and which, if given a little intelligent management, will improve instead of deplete his land and at the same time make a far more beautiful landscape.
I only have a few trees (maybe 200 or 250) in my nursery which I usually dispose of at the farm or use to set on my place. I have not attempted to grow many seedlings as I don't wish to get into this phase of work. It would take too much time from other work which I like to do. This fall I have sold over 600 pounds of nuts to various nurseries for planting so I would prefer that they grow and sell trees from my orchard. I gather planting nuts from the trees which show the best qualities, consistently, and sell the nuts from the other trees for eating purposes. The trees from which I sell eating nuts have some bad qualities such as some of the nuts being retained in burs, irregular or poor production, and nuts that seem to be too dry at ripening so I would not offer these for sale although the pollen from these trees does mix with the others causing some of the nuts to carry these bad features, a thing which will hardly be avoided in open-pollinated seedlings.
Your letter made me more proud of my orchard than ever when you made the statement that my last year's production of 1,722 pounds for 22 trees so young as mine may have set a record for production. [See 1946 NNGA Report, p. 128—Ed.] I had little idea how my trees compared with other orchards, for Mr. Gravatt had not told me anything about this. In fact I have never seen him nor did I take the trouble to write and ask this question. I knew my trees were producing much better than an orchard of the Soil Conservation Service at Auburn but I attributed that to the better type of soil (for chestnuts) in which my trees are set, and better air drainage. I had also heard about an orchard near Blue Springs above Columbus, Ga., which was not doing so well because the soil was maybe too heavy or damp. I can say one thing and that is that my Chinese chestnuts have surely surpassed my fondest hopes and dreams, for that small area has certainly made me lots of money and has given me much joy in tending it and watching it grow.
You asked me to give some information about my 1947 crop. This has not been quite as large as last year as I have harvested only a little over 1,554 pounds (I say a little over for it is hard to get all the nuts) of weighed nuts. This includes some that were beginning to spoil. I include these since it is sometimes due to my failure to gather promptly and I think can be fairly included in production records. I might state here in fairness to last year's report of a yield of 1,722 pounds of nuts that I recorded 1,557 as being sold which leaves a difference of 165 pounds, which were either discarded as spoiling or were unaccounted for. This gives me a loss of approximately 10% for last year.
Although my total production was lower than last year I had one tree (ML No. 2) which produced 150 pounds of weighed nuts and a few pounds more (maybe 2 or 3) which were not included. This tree has been a consistent heavy bearer for several years but I had not checked its yield separately before. Since it is so early it was easy to keep the nuts separate (as I was keeping these to sell for seed nuts). In about 2 weeks time it had produced about 130 pounds so I made a special effort to check the remainder since I was astonished at so large a yield. When most of the nuts had fallen I had the above figure, to my surprise.
The tree in size is not my largest but about average being 12½" in diameter 3' above the ground with a limb spread of 30' and a height of 24'. It has a very symmetrical shape with enough rigidity in the limbs to hold them off the ground so the tree does not appear very large.
I just had to laugh when I got a letter yesterday from Mr. Ralph D. Gardner, whom I had written previously about the yield of this tree and sent 2 pounds of nuts from it, asking me if the tree produced two crops in one year. He said Mr. James Hobson had told him that he gets two crops from his tree each year. Mr. Gardner had a good reason to ask this question since knowing about the Hobson chestnut, but I reckon he might have thought about what I would have thought under similar circumstances, i.e., surely a tree so young (13½ years from setting) couldn't produce that many nuts at one time, so must have two ripening periods to contain the fruit. I will have to say that all these were produced in one crop. Most of these ripened in just a little over two weeks. I might say that I do have one tree (ML No. 1) which has on a few occasions bloomed the second time and had burs which remained green until near frost but these did not amount to anything and I consider it undesirable. I have never seen No. 2 tree produce late blooms and burs.
I might tell a few things as to how I handle my nuts. As is well said by Mr. Reed in his 1946 article about chestnuts they should be gathered daily (although I sometimes don't carry this out). After weighing I dump the nuts in a tub of water. The nuts which are beginning to spoil will practically all float and the sound nuts will sink. This is where the largest percentage of my culls is eliminated. Some good nuts will float but very few if the nuts are gathered daily. I then put 20 to 25 pounds of nuts in a coarse mesh burlap bag. I use chicken scratch feed bags mostly as these are a nice size, and ties a string near the top of the bag. Then I place these on a lath frame which is about 12" above the ground under a large pecan tree which furnishes shade about ¾ of the day. I arrange the nuts in the bag so it will be flat, which does not allow more than 2 or 3 nuts to be on top of each other.
On days of moderate temperature I wet these bags thoroughly with water once a day but on very hot or windy days I often wet them twice. This keeps the nuts moist most of the time and lowers the temperature considerably from the evaporation. In this way I can keep the nuts days and days and even weeks with very little change except a slight drying. If any spoiled nuts were missed by the water these too will show up in about 10 days with specks of white mold and can be eliminated. The other nuts seem to be as good as the day they were gathered. I only use this to keep them temperarily (as it is some trouble to wet them) and mostly for the eating nuts until I can take them to market or put them on cold storage (30° to 35°F.) If I attempt to hold seed nuts about a week or more I pack in damp sphagnum in crates and keep these under the shade tree with excellent results. This year I used green sphagnum with all its water and the nuts seemed to keep well in it. Some nuts have been in damp sphagnum for over 5 weeks now and are in excellent shape except for a few that spoiled at first (which I am quite sure were bad to begin with). If too much water is used some nuts will begin sprouting but it is surprising how much they can stand and show no tendency to sour.
I am of the opinion that the chestnuts in my section get ripe prematurely and that at a time when we often have our hottest and dryest weather. These nuts seem to need a period to continue their ripening under cool moist conditions which the wet sack treatment gives (or the damp sphagnum.) Even if this is not the case I have had splendid results with it whereas before I began using this method with lots of water I often became so discouraged that I thought I would have to abandon trying to put my chestnuts on the market. Now if I can get them gathered promptly I have little trouble holding them until I am ready to dispose of them.
I failed to tell you that the bad feature about my ML No. 2 tree which produced the 150 pounds of nuts is its early ripening period (the latter part of August and first part of September) which causes some of the nuts to be spoiled almost when they fall. A few hours of too hot sun seems to start the spoiling process. The tree has no other objectionable features except the nuts are only small to medium in size but nearly every one falls freely from the burs. [Nuts about 70 to the pound.—Ed.]