The East Malling Station is really a fruit research station, as I said, and they are the ones who are primarily interested in walnut crops and not timber production. "However, there is no reason why a tree shouldn't produce both good crops and good timber."
"The French, have been grafting walnuts for well over 100 years, and the famous Grenoble nuts all come from grafted trees of named varieties." She emphasizes the fact that almost all of the English walnuts are grown on seedling trees and are very much inferior to those that come from the Continent and from this country. And of course that was the purpose of their work, to encourage the use of grafted trees.
I was interested in this sentence: "The late Mr. Howard Spence began the survey and collection of good varieties growing in this country and abroad, and collaborated with East Malling in the trial of selected varieties." He was always interested in our society and was an honorary member of it for a good many years prior to his death.
I was interested in the fact that the problems that they have over there in the way of climate and some other things are very similar to our problems. She speaks a good deal about the matter of climate. I will come to that as I go along.
"Work on walnuts, started at East Malling in 1925, soon showed that the budding or grafting of walnuts out of doors was far too chancy in this climate to be relied upon as a means of raising young trees," so that all their grafting is done in the greenhouse, and they don't try to do anything outdoors.
"Outdoor grafting can be done successfully only where the mean temperature from May to September is above 65° F." Then she gives a description of the greenhouse grafting, bringing in the seedlings and potting them in November, in the fall, and then starting along in February in grafting, and then taking them out and planting them in the spring. I won't go into that; there is nothing particularly interesting I think, for us about that.
Patch budding she also describes…. She says it's a much cheaper method than grafting under glass but at the moment the results are far less reliable.
"The walnut will tolerate a wide range of soils so long as the drainage is good and the soil is not too acid. Lime should be applied before planting, unless there is plenty present in the soil.
"The site should not be in a valley or frost hole, because, although the dormant tree is quite hardy and can stand severe frost, the young growths and catkins are very easily killed by spring frosts." They are talking about the same problem we have. In fact, in spite of the fact that the weather is warmer than in Boston and New England, they don't have the severe winters, but they do have this late frost.
Manuring. They recommend mulching with farmyard manure or compost put on the soil and worked in and no artificial nitrogen because that again gives too much late growth, and you have trouble with killing back.