LEVI HOUSSER
About twenty years ago I started to plant nut trees, as I decided nuts were the solution to good health, which I later found was correct. Most of my first trees died. I started gathering nuts all over the country until at last, near my own home, I found a neighbor who had ten trees and two out of the ten were bearing large size nuts of an excellent flavor. I also added filberts to my collection.
About this time I learned of Prof. Neilson, so I went to see him in Guelph. He told me about the Northern Nut Growers Association. I also learned about Mr. Corsan and his work at Islington so I went to see him. He also told me about the Association so I went to the next meeting and joined up. I began to add more varieties to my plantings. My first four acre planting was seeded with oats the second year. All my tress had a nice start. I spent some three hundred dollars that year for grafted nut trees. That second fall I hired a man to watch and stand by each tree as the binder passed. It was impossible for me to be there. The man who cut the oats in his own stubborn way went alone and cut everything as he went, trees and all. My heart was nearly broken! I started again. I bought nuts of good varieties from all over. I decided to make a little nursery this time then plant out after the trees got bigger. Just as I got this started nicely the war came. I also had a fruit farm where I now live besides also planting some grafted stock here. My nursery, seventy-eight miles away on my fifty acres, I had to leave as gas was rationed and I was forced to sell, so remaining there are about one hundred trees which I shall watch. My best trees died but I kept going on planting every year. Today, after all the calamities I had, I have around two hundred trees living.
This year I expect two bushels of heartnuts; about two bushels of filberts; some extra nice ones that ripened early, large and well filled; about two bushels of black walnuts, some very promising. Besides these I have about fifty trees of the Carpathian walnuts from which I have gathered about two quarts of nuts. My oldest tree is ten years old. One I grafted on black walnut stock and it is a very large nut. I gathered five nuts from this. The graft is now five years old. Hundreds of nuts started; nearly all dropped off. Possibly as the tree gets older it will do better as I have planted several other nut trees not far away to help with cross pollination.
I have some good sized butternuts and I gathered about 17 quarts of these so I expect to have enough nuts to supply my daily needs from now on from my own plantings. After twenty years of hard work and with an outlay of at least $1,000, my trees, as they grow up around me, are like children to me. They supply me with food. My nervousness was cured by them and my health has returned.
My worst enemy here with filberts is they start to grow too early, then a frost comes and they are done after a week or two of nice weather. Even though we have this trouble we gathered nearly two bushels from 25 trees which are eight years old.
Our lowest temperature here was 20 below zero a few years ago. My Carpathians did not seem to mind that nor did the heartnuts. From now on I am planning my own little nursery and do my own grafting as well. I top work my young trees that show poor nuts.