Indiana Nut Shows Have Educational Value
W. B. WARD, Extension Horticulturist, Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind.
A few days ago I had a letter from Professor George L. Slate, of the Geneva station, requesting that I send you some information concerning our recent nut shows and a couple of pictures to be used in the current report.
I am enclosing two pictures—one showing a display of hicans, shellbark, shagbark, bitternut, mockernut hickories and in the background a few of the miscellaneous sorts, while the other picture shows mostly the black walnuts. (Latter picture printed on next page.—Ed.)
If you will note in the pictures, we have used a saw and cut the nuts in two for display purposes. This has been one means of classifying the seedlings to find out whether or not they were worthy of further propagation, although this alone was not the final classification. It was rather surprising to the number of visitors we have had at our shows to see the difference in the interior of the nut and believe me it has done a lot toward the education of the people when it comes to locating some of the better seedlings.
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The purpose of the nut program in the state of Indiana was for the betterment of native nuts and we were in hopes that we could find some very promising seedlings that would be worthy of further work. With the cooperation of the Indiana Horticultural Society and the Student Horticultural Show here at the University, we have had this nut show for the past six or eight years. Sometimes it has been in competition, other times it has been mostly for display. The show served the purpose which we had in mind for thus we have located some very nice walnuts, hickory nuts and a few good seedling pecans. After the show had been visited by some six to eight thousand annually for the past several years, we have further made displays at the annual meeting of the Indiana Horticultural Society in Indianapolis, at the A.P.S. meeting at St. Louis last winter and at the Indiana State Fair in 1948, with a display going to some of the other institutions—particularly to Oklahoma and Texas—for display at their state shows. A new collection was gathered by the students and the writer this year which, in part, will be displayed at the Indiana Horticultural Society meeting on January 19, 20 and 21 and another collection is being shown at Oklahoma A. & M. at this time. The nuts will be returned and placed in cold storage to be exhibited at the State Fair next fall and we have sufficient quantities on hand for individual displays as well as for collections.
Each plate contains from 35 to 40 nuts of seedlings or named varieties and at our recent show we had 66 plates of hickory nuts and allied species. We had 41 plates of walnuts including some very fine Persian walnuts, 16 samples of filbert seedlings, 20 plates of miscellaneous and all told 141 different plates at our show which was held on November 5, 6 and 7, 1948.
Some of our best contributors have been such as Ferd Bolten, Linton, Indiana, who sent five good Persian walnuts and one excellent black walnut. Edward Smith, of Rochester, Indiana, and Henry Buit, of Lafayette, also have found some wonderful walnut seedlings. Donald Sly, Rockport, Indiana, has produced the best seedling filberts, about eight in number, and contributed a wonderful display of the McCallister hican. Mr. J. F. Wilkinson, Proprietor of the Indiana Nut Nursery, has contributed largely to the collection of seedling and named varieties of hardy northern pecan while W. A. Owen, Poseyville, and Clem Seib, Owensville, have been consistent winners in the large shellbark hickories. O. W. Thompson, Owensville, and William Seng, of Jasper, contributed some large size thin-shelled shagbark hickories to our show. James Stall, of Brownstown, is a consistent winner in butternuts.
Each year more interest is being shown in the planting of native nuts and some of our Persian walnuts are rather outstanding. Nolan Fateley, Franklin, Indiana, has a very fine seedling Persian walnut of large size which we are hoping to propagate. (A large Carpathian tree.—Ed.)