FERD BOLTEN, Linton, Ind.
Members of the Northern Nut Growers Association, ladies, and gentlemen. It may be a little unusual for a fruit grower and farmer to be on this program; however, I have lived a lifetime working with trees on the same farm I was born on sixty-six years ago last May. We have one hundred acres of orchard, several varieties of nut trees, including English walnut, pecans, hybrid pecans or hicans, hickories, filberts, hazelnuts, heart nuts, butternuts, black walnuts; also, persimmons, pawpaws, hybrid oaks and many of the native forest trees. In operating a farm this size, you naturally get a lot of experience and headaches. A very good friend of mine told me a joke that I think fits in with my farm very well. He said a fruit grower delivered a load of apples to the insane asylum. One of the inmates was helping unload the apples. The inmate kept talking about apples, so the grower asked him if he was ever on a fruit farm. The inmate replied that he was before he came to the asylum and, in return, asked the grower if he had ever been in the asylum. The grower replied that he had not. Then the inmate said, "Mr., I have been both places, and I can tell you something. It is a lot nicer here than it is on a fruit farm".
My subject is,
THE VALUE OF A TREE
A tree out of its natural habitat sometimes becomes worthless. As an extreme example, the orange tree in Indiana has no commercial value and the apple tree in Florida has no commercial value. Therefore, it seems that we should, in Indiana, endeavor to develop better trees in the trees which are at home here. This includes the native hickory and the black walnut, hazels, filberts and the pecans in Southern Indiana. Personally, I am spending quite a bit of time with the Crath Carpathian English or Persian Walnut. Last winter, I lost seven out of fifty trees from some cause, after they had gone through the winter of 1950 and 1951, at a temperature of nineteen below zero without injury. It may have been they were caught last fall by a hard freeze in full foliage, early before the apples were all picked; and, again, it may be blight. I hope not. But this I do know, the hickory and black walnut in their natural habitat were not injured.
I wonder why hickories are so erratic in their bearing habits. Could it be the winter rest period? For example, the peach has to have from seven hundred hours, in some varieties, to twelve hundred hours, in others, of below forty-five degrees temperature, or they will not set a good crop of fruit. The value of a variety of peach in Georgia sometimes is determined by the number of hours of rest period below forty-five degrees that the variety has to have. It has happened that the same variety of peach has produced a good crop in Northern Georgia and a poor crop in Southern Georgia. Where the winter was not as cold in Indiana we never lose crops from the lack of enough cold weather; we lose them from sub-zero temperatures. So you see, the value of a variety in Georgia is different to Indiana.
The value of a tree may be in the wood or in the food its produces, or its beauty in winter. Many a picture is taken of evergreens covered with snow. Its value may be its beauty in summer, or the coloring of its leaves in the fall. There is also a sentimental value; a limb that is just right for a child's swing, the Constitutional Elm at Corydon, or the Harrison Oak at North Bend, Ohio. They have a historical value and are visited by many people.
A man said to me some time ago, "I wonder why God made the hicans the cross between the pecans and the hickory?" There may be a valuable nut tree show up in the second or third generation of the hybrid trees when certain characteristics begin to revert to the parent trees. I have on my farm some hybrid oaks grafted, and am very anxious to see them produce acorns so I can plant them and watch the results. This hybrid originated in the Greene and Sullivan County Forest in Indiana, and is called the Carpenter Oak after Mr. Carpenter, the district forester. It is, apparently, a cross between the shingle oak and the pin oak because it is comparable with both of them.
The value of a tree is not always the one that wins first prize in the show. The best plate of nuts in the show may not be from the most valuable tree, because it may be biennial in bearing habits, it may be a shy bearer, it may be an early bloomer and subject to frost. My most productive Crath Carpathian tree is not the best walnut and would not get anywhere in the show, but it is hardy, blooms late, and is productive; so its value is in these traits. The number of chromosomes in the Crath Carpathian walnut may be different. There is quite a difference in the size of nuts produced on individual trees. This indicates that there may be a difference in chromosome count. If this is true, it will be a great help in improving the size of the nuts produced. It may be of value in pollination. The triploid apple needs to be pollinated by the diploid variety. By setting them close together, you get a much better set of fruit.
Sometimes I think trees are as temperamental as people. Some trees, especially the apple, lose their value because they are subject to certain diseases. Some are susceptible to scab, blight, codling moth, rots, blotch, and other diseases, to a point where they become worthless as commercial varieties. The honey locust has been considered one of the trees on farms to be destroyed, because it was thought to be worthless. Now, its value is being found in the correcting of sugar deficiency in dairy cattle. The pods of the honey locust are one of the best foods to correct sugar deficiency and cattle like them and eat them freely. I have on my farm a thornless honey locust that produced ten bushels of pods one year. The honey locust is also a legume and produces nitrogen which, in turn, is used by the pasture grasses and makes more pasture for the cattle.