In addition there are seedling trees of four additional species of walnuts, seedlings from several hybrid walnut and hickory trees, besides some thousands of seedling nut trees of practically all species for use as stocks.
I have for the past two years been gathering selected native hazels from the various sections of the United States taking care to select bushes that bore nuts that were relatively large, thin shelled and fine flavored.
Inasmuch as the hazel is native all over the country, and just how to get bushes that bear the best nuts is not generally known, I will tell how I do it, hoping that many others will seek out the best hazels in their section and get them into cultivation. I provide myself with a cloth about as large as a large handkerchief, a number of wooden labels, some paper bags, a hand vise, a pair of calipers, a scale and tools for digging plants. A spade or round-nose shovel is about the best tool for digging the plant and frequently a hatchet, axe, mattock, or bar is required in addition in case the hazels have to be dug away from among the roots of large trees or from among stones of considerable size.
When a plant is found where the nuts look promising the branch on which nuts are to be examined is marked temporarily by throwing the cloth over it. A nut is then carefully cracked in the hand vise, taking pains to extract the kernel whole. This is then calipered with the calipers, set at a minimum size desired. If it is undersize the bush is rejected and another sought. In measuring the longest dimension is the one considered. The minimum size depends on the section from which the hazels are being taken, no kernel which is less than 3/8" in its longest dimensions being considered. While sometimes it requires a good deal of hunting to accomplish it, I have never had to take bushes where the kernel was smaller than this and it is seldom that it is necessary to take those where the kernel is as small as this. In many instances it is very much larger. If the size is satisfactory the kernel is then eaten, only those bushes having well flavored kernels being taken. If all tests are satisfactory the cloth is removed and a wooden label put on the bush which is then dug. The nuts are removed from the bush and put in a paper bag labeled the same as the bush; the bush is cut back to about 6" in height and then put in a sack or other convenient means for keeping moist till it can be put into the ground.
The gathering of the above mentioned trees in a small compass and closely observing them have enabled me to make a number of observations which may be of interest.
Fertility of Soil: The importance of this was shown strikingly in the case of a lot of Japan walnuts received in the spring of 1918. They were quite large and seemingly never had been transplanted and were dug with small roots. For lack of a better place they were set in sod ground which had not been cultivated or fertilized for many years. They eked out a miserable existence during the years 1918 and 1919. During the spring of 1920, I put chickens in that patch and an improvement was noted that year but this year practically every tree has grown six feet or more. The manure of the chickens and the thorough cultivation of the soil caused by their scratching have certainly worked wonders. While I do not minimize the effect of clean cultivation, I am inclined to believe that abundant plant food is the really important thing, for a goose watering pan under a tree pushes the tree along at a remarkable rate, and geese never scratch. They do keep the grass closely cropped, supply an abundance of manure, and the watering pan puts the plant food where the trees can get it.
Pruning: The importance of severely cutting back was strikingly shown this spring. A butternut raised from a nut in a lot of "Virginia" butternuts, bought in a nut store and which had outgrown every other tree in that lot and which I believe to be a Japan walnut butternut hybrid was transplanted this spring. Care was taken to get as much of the roots as possible and practically all were obtained; good soil was taken to fill in around the roots. Over the half of the branches were removed but the five highest ones were not shortened. This tree has not grown as well this year as some others not as vigorous and set in poorer soil but where all branches were cut back severely. Were this the first time I had noticed this, I might have considered it an isolated case, but the need of severe pruning was emphasized even in this case where I hardly expected it to show on account of the tremendous natural vigor of the tree which was transplanted, and the ideal conditions under which the transplanting was done.
Varieties: I get frequent requests from persons who want to know the best variety of this nut or that nut with the idea of planting only the best. The thought behind the request is one with which I heartily sympathize, but the method of accomplishing it that the enquirer has in mind will not accomplish it. The failure of most plantings of European hazels has, it has been thought, been due more to lack of proper pollination than to any other one reason. This year several varieties showed abundant pistillate flowers but there was but one European variety where it was not evident that the staminate flowers had suffered greater or less winter injury. This variety, Grosse Kugelnuss, shed an abundance of pollen when pistillate flowers of several of the others were receptive and there are nuts on three or four varieties for the first time. I believe that the success of Messrs. McGlennon and Vollertsen in fruiting the European hazels would have been but a fraction of what it has been had they not set out the large number of varieties that they did. In setting out nut trees at the present time as large a number of varieties as practicable should be planted. Later we will have the accurate observations that will enable us to select a few and feel sure of getting good crops of nuts, but we cannot do this now.
Chestnuts: While the blight is all around me and several of my trees have been killed by it, there are enough left to produce nuts of nearly every variety and I see no reason yet to change my belief that, by watching, cutting out blight and occasionally setting out new trees, chestnuts of nearly every variety can be grown and fruited in the blight area.
Age of Bearing: My experience would seem to show that grafted or budded nut trees are as a class not slow in coming into bearing provided they have had good care. I have had Lancaster heart nut trees set out in the fall bear next spring and have had hand-pollinated English walnuts bear the third year. Apparently a year or two longer will be required before they bear staminate flowers. Walnut trees certainly appear to bear fully as young as apple trees, in fact sooner, as a class, than apple trees which I set out at the same time that I did walnut trees. Pecan trees appear to take about two or three years longer than walnuts and hickories several years longer than pecans. On the other hand top-worked hickory trees bear about as soon as young transplanted Persian walnuts. Hazels with me have taken about as long as Persian walnuts but I think that they are more rapid in most instances. The soil of most of my place is quite heavy, walnuts, pecans and hickories doing finely. I am inclined to believe that a lighter soil would be fully as good if not better for hazels.