I. C. MARRITT, District Forester, Ontario Department of Lands and Forests
It was suggested to me that a paper be prepared on nut culture in Ontario. The Department of Land and Forests of Ontario has not done specialized work on nut culture. The reason for this neglect is not that various members did not realize the importance of nut culture, but that there was always more work on general reforestation and woodlot extension than could be done. The work with nut trees has been along with their general work. We have not, as yet, had a member of the staff who has gone "nutty" over nuts. It is hoped that your meeting here will stir up interest in this worthy subject.
We are very proud in Ontario of the work that has been done on general reforestation and woodlot management. This is a subject that all nut enthusiasts are interested in, and we would like you to know what is being done in Ontario.
The Province of Ontario has been distributing trees free to landowners since 1907. There are three well-equipped tree nurseries, and a fourth is being developed in the eastern part of the province. A fifth nursery has been started in the northwest at Fort William on Lake Superior. The number of trees distributed varies considerably from year to year. The high distribution years were 1939 and 1940, when approximately seventeen million trees were planted each year. During the war years, on account of the labour situation and war activities, the distribution declined to between ten and eleven million trees. This past season, the demand was much larger than the supply. All the nurseries are expanding, as it is anticipated there will be a heavy demand by private planters, and also most of the counties are enlarging the area of their county forests.
The application form for forest trees includes seven evergreens and nineteen deciduous trees. Walnut and butternut are the only nut trees on the application form. Shagbark hickory has also been grown, but not in large enough quantity to include it in the list of available trees. The St. Williams tree nursery near Lake Erie has grown named varieties of walnuts and hickories. These have been given out to interested parties, and, in future years, will further the growing of the more desirable nut trees. About ten years ago, the citizens of St. Thomas planted nut trees two or three feet in height for seventy miles along No. 3 Highway which crosses Elgin County. A large number of these trees have survived.
A large acreage of forest trees has also been planted under the Counties Reforestation Act. Under this act the county purchases the land and the province plants and looks after the plantations for thirty years. The county then has three options re paying back the cost of planting and supervision. All the options are without interest charges. The county forests are largely on light sandy soils that, in most cases, are a liability to the municipalities if they are not growing trees.
The Ontario Government passed an act in 1946 that gave the counties the right to pass a by-law to regulate cutting on privately-owned woodlots. You will be interested to know that eleven counties have passed by-laws to regulate cutting. They are all based on a diameter limit. We realize that a diameter limit is a poor substitute for good forestry practice, but it is better than unrestricted cutting. The diameter limits range from ten to sixteen inches for most trees, and five to six inches for cedars.
Considerable extension work was done on nut growing in the period from 1920 to 1930. Mr. James A. Neilson, an Extension Horticulturist stationed at Vineland, became very interested and located many individual trees and gave numerous lectures on nut culture. A bulletin by Mr. Neilson on nut culture was published in 1925, and reprinted in 1930, by the Ontario Department of Agriculture. Mr. Neilson went to Michigan and did extension work on this subject until his untimely death. Mr. G. H. Corsan has also done considerable work to keep nut culture before the public by writing letters to the different newspapers.
There has always been a large demand for black walnut. The reason for this is the high value placed on this wood and the planting of these trees for shade and nut production, although the consumption of native nuts is comparatively low. The black walnut grew, originally, south of a line from Toronto to Sarnia. It has been planted as far north as Ottawa, and is distributed quite widely in Old Ontario now—being planted largely as shade trees. These shade trees are producing nuts, and with the aid of squirrels, the walnuts are seeding up along fence rows, around farm homes, and in woodlots. Walnut has been observed coming up in a woodlot, and the only possible source is a shade tree half a mile away. The walnut caterpillar defoliates the trees but seldom kills them, although it does lower their value as shade trees.
Walnut has been a favorite species for forest tree planting. It is planted in pure stands and in mixtures. The largest and best known walnut plantation was put out by Sir William Mullock in 1926 on the highway north of Toronto. There are numerous small plantations throughout the province. Foresters in Ontario generally recommend mixing walnut with other hardwoods and evergreens rather than planting in pure stands.
It has been advocated to plant walnuts with white spruce. The idea is that spruce will shade the ground, kill the side branches of the walnut, and help to force the walnuts to grow long slender poles. It is understood, and expected, that the spruce will be ruined, as their leaders would grow into the branches of the walnut. As far as we know, this experiment has not been undertaken.
The butternut tree is found growing naturally farther north than the walnut tree. Its northern boundary is roughly a line drawn from Midland on Georgian Bay to Ottawa. It is widely distributed, but is not in large enough quantity to have commercial value for lumber. An expert wood carver, who is employed by the Department of Lands and Forests, uses butternut largely in his work.
The shagbark and bitternut hickories make up the large percentage of the hickories growing in Ontario. The northern limit of the bitternut is approximately the same as the butternut—that is, Midland on Georgian Bay and Ottawa on the east; while the northern limit of the shagbark is thirty to forty miles south of the bitternut. The pignut and the mockernut hickories are found in the southern hardwood belt along Lake Erie.
The American chestnut was quite plentiful in different sections of the southern hardwood belt. It was valued quite highly for the nuts. It has been killed out by the chestnut blight and it is very rarely that live suckers are seen.
The beech was widely distributed in the woodland of southern Ontario. It has rarely been planted as a shade tree and it is not seeding up extensively in woodlots. There are many stories of hogs being fattened on beechnuts in pioneer days.
The Japanese heartnut has been planted in various parts of the province. A heartnut tree in Bruce County lived through a hard winter that killed many sugar maples and beech in the same area. Nut trees are seeding up in many pastured woodlots in southwestern Ontario. The reason for this is that stock do not relish their foliage as they do the maple, beech and basswood, etc., and because of this, it is likely that nut trees will make up a larger percentage of trees in Ontario woodlots than originally, as it is a sad fact that at least seventy-five percent on the farm woodlots in Ontario are still being pastured.
It is hoped that more interest will be shown in planting nut trees by farmers and home owners. The Department of Lands and Forests is enlarging its staff of Extension Foresters, and no doubt they will include the propagation of nut trees in their extension work.