During the first few years it did well despite its early starting in the spring, and bore heavy crops; then disaster fell. One spring the tree failed to leaf out at the usual time. On examination I found that it had winter-killed back to five-year wood. The winter had been unusually cold, and the tree could not take it. Pruned back, the belated new growth did not fully mature before winter so in turn was damaged, a phenomenon that recurred from year to year. Exit Payne as a Virginia prospect.
An example of the other type of winter injury was that of my first Crath Carpathian. I secured scions of this variety from Rev. P. C. Crath in 1929. The parent tree had been growing and bearing in the vicinity of Toronto and was apparently fully hardy. The scions grew vigorously on the young black walnut stock on which it was worked, and completed their longitudinal growth early in July, giving ample time for the ripening of the wood before winter.
After several years I noticed the bark on the south side of the trunks dead from so-called sun-scald. Activity had been induced by the warmth of the winter sun, followed by freezing. After some years the wood was killed back to limbs the thickness of one's wrist, and this has been again repeated. The tree was hardy in Ontario, but not in Virginia.
The nut of this variety, which to me is the Crath, is much superior to the average Carpathian, and I think might be well worth while in the north-east and along the Great Lakes, but not in the upper South nor the Mid-West.
Besides their winter weaknesses, both the Payne and Crath start too early in the spring for my conditions.
Broadview and Lancaster both blossom here in mid-season and, since both have a rather long period of producing pistillate blossoms, they seldom fail to produce a crop when properly pollenized.
Franquette and Mayette, both highly recommended as being late vegetating and producing excellent nuts, have offered me some difficulties of another order. With Franquette the chief trouble has been to get a suitable pollenizer. Like the Mayette, its pistillate blossoms appear ten days or more after the staminate blossoms and self-pollination is not effected. I tried King, recommended as a pollenizer, but it was too early to be reliably effective. When Franquette is properly pollenized it, with Payne, is one of the heaviest bearers.
Mayette in Virginia produces a fine, healthy, vigorous tree, but it refuses to produce pistillate blossoms. A dozen nuts is an average crop for a tree that should produce a bushel. It, like Franquette, demands a late pollenizer, but the pistillate blossoms are simply not there. Neither of these two late varieties have ever suffered winter injury with me, nor have been damaged by spring frosts.
I will not attempt to go into detail regarding all the varieties and seedlings that I have tried through the years; Eureka, that ranks with Mayette and Franquette for lateness, but refuses to bear, apparently for want of pollination; Chambers that was recommended along with King for pollenizing the late bloomers but not fully successful; Breslau, with its huge nuts but slow growth, in addition to an assortment of Carpathian seedlings. Of the latter my Caesar is one of the more promising with its vigorous growth, large thin-shelled nuts and ability to pollenize itself in some seasons. Gilbert Becker has reported it passing through Michigan winters unhurt.
As matters now stand, I believe Bedford, Caesar and Lancaster have proven the most satisfactory varieties to date under my conditions, although some seedlings I have grown appear even more promising. Chief of these are several that I grew from open-pollenized nuts of the Lancaster, which I am here exhibiting.