We have a short paper here that I have asked Dr. Anthony to summarize for us, "Experiences in Nut Growing Near Lake Erie," by Ross P. Wright, Erie, Pennsylvania.
DR. ANTHONY: Mr. Wright is a very interesting man and has a very interesting plantation. He is a manufacturer and fortunately has a son who is mature and married and as interested in the work as he, so there is a continuity that we are pretty sure of.
Experiences in Nut Growing Near Lake Erie
ROSS PIER WRIGHT, Erie, Pennsylvania
This report should be made by my son Richard Wright. He is in charge of the farm but is on a trip to Europe with his family and will not return in time for your meeting.
The farm is located in the Chautauqua Grape Belt; due to the proximity of Lake Erie, which acts as a heat reservoir, it is not as a rule bothered by the late frosts in the Spring or early frosts in the Fall, this making it a very satisfactory climate for Concord grapes. Peaches are also grown commercially.
The village of Westfield is located on the main road between Erie and Buffalo, and the Wright family has lived there for the past 136 years. We have several hundred acres and really started the endeavor more with the idea of seeing if nuts might be profitably grown, without any idea of going into the nut business.
In 1915, 35 years ago, we planted a three acre plot with several varieties of nut trees obtained from nurseries. They were black walnuts, hickories, hazel nuts, pecans, English walnuts, and Japanese heartnuts.
The black walnuts are native of Westfield and the trees we planted have done well. The only hickories that survived were two Siers hickories. We did not think much of them until recently as they did not fill out any too well, but the last three or four years they have for some reason decided to fill better. Due to the extremely thin shell they are very easily cracked and at the moment we think quite highly of these Siers hickories.
We have a nut cracker made by the Dazey Corporation of St. Louis,
Missouri, which costs $5.00 or $6.00. It is very effective with the
Siers but does not crack thick shelled hickories very well. On the other
hand it is ideal for pecans and English walnuts.