Then I bought walnuts from A. C. Pomeroy, of Lockport, New York. These were even more tender than other varieties with which I had experimented, although they were very much publicized by Mr. Pomeroy in the Nut Grower during that era as being extra hardy, because they were growing near the south shore of Lake Erie.
I next went to Mr. Jones, who was then selling quite a quantity of Wiltz Mayette and Franquette strains of English walnut grafted on black walnut. These proved to be among the most tender varieties I have ever tested here. Then he sent me scions of the Hall and Holden varieties, which he felt were considerably more winter hardy, but here they failed to survive even one winter.
We have not neglected the Rush English walnut either, which was tested in a similar manner without any good practical results.
This now brings us to the convention at Geneva, New York, in 1936 when the Rev. Mr. Crath and George H. Corsan presented a new strain of English walnuts, known as the Carpathian strain, originating in the Carpathian mountains in Poland. This so impressed me that after talking it over with my father we decided to finance a trip into the same region that Mr. Crath had been in, to locate new and better varieties for a real test. The story of the Rev. Mr. Crath's and my adventure along these lines, during the winter of 1936-37, has been printed in the records of the Northern Nut Growers Association, and I will bring out only the high spots that seem to be important 14 years later.
In the shipments of hardy material collected were some 4,000 scions of possibly a dozen different good strains of what Mr. Crath considered hardiest and best. In addition to that, there were around 500 trees ranging in size from small whips of one foot long to some that were over eight feet; also there were some 400 pounds of nuts to be planted to produce seedlings.
These nuts had been gathered from superior hardy trees with the expectation that the seedlings would produce nearly true imitations of their parents in the quality of their fruit and hardiness. These seedling nuts produced somewhat over 12,000 seedling trees, which were planted in about six large strips of land so as to give room for cultivation. The 500 trees received from Poland were planted in favorable locations and many of them are still alive. The scionwood was put on native butternut and black walnut. Some of it was grafted to young nursery stock, but most of it was put on large mature trees, being top worked. Grafting was started in April and continued into the early part of June. The later grafts were much more successful than the earlier ones, although some of the April grafts grew and flourished. Many of these grafts bore flowers and had little nutlets but none of them ripened nuts. After about three seasons some of the grafts that continued to live produced a few nuts.
Three varieties were practically mature, and then the native insect pests caught up with them. Also, there was a black rot or wilt which I am fairly sure was walnut bacteriosis disease, although specimens sent out to competent authorities did not corroborate this diagnosis. What turned out to be the butternut curculio attacked all grafted and seedling trees with such vigor that there was no way to combat it. I sprayed some of the grafted specimens and kept it up for several years, trying to hold on to them, but it became too much for me and my equipment; I doubt now whether any amount of poison would have saved the trees because the butternut curculio is difficult to kill with poison. One of the varieties, known as the Kremenetz, grafted on black walnut, was sent to Harry Weber. It thrives and bears nice crops at his country estate in Cleves, Ohio, near Cincinnati. He has sent me scions of this variety, and this spring I grafted them back on black walnut, as the butternut curculio is not nearly as bad as it was when there was so much English walnut foliage for them to feed on (this foliage is their choice over all other foliage). These insect pests also wiped out several heartnut varieties which came from J. U. Gellatly, of Westbank, B. C, Canada; for next to English walnuts the curculio loves heartnut foliage and its new branch growth.
We have about 60 to 70 acres of woods which contain a large percentage of butternut, therefore it is next to impossible to wipe out their native food. I doubt very much whether this would have benefited the situation at all, as the curculio would have then centered all its activities on the English walnut foliage and perhaps have attacked hickories, pecans, and black walnuts, on which they sometimes try their appetites. Hybrids between butternut and black walnut are viciously attacked by this curculio. Hybrids between English walnut and other species of walnut which I have here also become a prey to curculio. So there is no trick species which would be immune to their attack.
The English walnut usually vegetates too early in the spring to escape some of our late frosts. Because this new growth generally contains the flowers, the fruiting of such trees would be very unreliable and only occasional. We even have trouble with black walnut and butternut in this respect. The hickory is much better, and the pecan is even later in respect to vegetation. I mention this because even though everything had gone well it is doubtful whether reliable crops of English walnuts would ever have been produced from the so-called hardy Carpathian series.
A year or so following the experiment with the Carpathian walnut, I imported about 100 pounds of seeds from Austria. They came in two different lots: one of them was more expensive than the other seed, and it proved to be much the hardier. The larger lot of smaller seeds was not as hardy. Although we have several hundred trees of this better seed lot which remain alive, they are no better off in any respect than the Carpathian seedlings. In fact, I could not see much difference between the behavior of these seedlings and the behavior of the Carpathian walnut strain.