The Eastern Black Walnut as a Farm Timber Tree
JOHN DAVIDSON, Xenia, Ohio
Most people instinctively love trees. Perhaps this is an inherited result of arboreal ancestry. Even so, very few of us realize what an astonishingly close tie exists between the survival of trees and the well-being of the human race. Probably even fewer realize the very great importance, in the economy of animal life, of trees which bear nuts. Not alone for the sake of their nuts are they important, valuable as nuts are, but also for the sake of the unmatched timber which some of them produce, as well as for the sake of their service as soil conservers and builders, as beautifiers, and as silent, persistent builders of capital values.
In view of these outstanding qualities, it is strange that nut trees are today unfortunately and shamefully neglected in the north. Especially, I claim, is this true of the Eastern Black walnut. Here is a mystery. Why do not northern planters of trees plant more Eastern Black walnuts for their exceedingly valuable timber?
"Backward" Burma could give us lessons in intelligent forestry. It is said that the Burmese are permitted to clear their thickets and tropical woodlands for agricultural use only after they agree to plant a definite amount of that land in teak, perhaps the most valuable of all woods. It is said that, due to the effectiveness of this system, some 35,000 acres have now been stocked with this valuable timber.
There are two or three main reasons why the planting of Eastern Black walnut for timber is thus far not very common in America. (1). The native and favorable area of this tree is limited to a comparatively small section. (2), The tree grows well only in deep, fertile soil where quick-money crops have had the first call. Strip-mine planting is better than none at all, but such soil as is left after a strip-mine operation is hardly the best. (3) We are in too great a hurry. (4) Most farmers must have annual incomes, or they must quit farming.
What, then, are the offsetting reasons why this kind of planting should have an appeal to far-seeing people who are favorably located? In the first place, the Eastern Black walnut yields wood of unique quality. Pattern makers, who must work within tolerances of thousandths of an inch, prefer it. Walter Page, a well known sports writer has this to say: "Few woods come as close as walnut to fulfilling all the demands of a good gunstock: beauty of grain, workableness with cutting tools, resistance to warpage, weight or density in proportion to strength."
Another example of the many-sided versatility of this wood can be found in those timbered regions of America where termites are a problem for home owners. Termites seem to leave black walnut wood very much alone. It probably has a taste which termites cannot stomach. This is one reason why so many of the old rail fences of our ancestors in the walnut area were made of black walnut. The "ground-chunks," in particular, which were laid upon the ground under the corners of the worm-fences were often either of rock, or of walnut.
Just this year I watched the demolition of part of an old log cabin which was being riddled by termites. Many of the ordinary logs were in ruins but the walnut boards which had served as weather-boarding over the ends of some of the termite-infested logs were as sound and as beautifully preserved as they had been when they were placed there.
Is it any wonder that so many of the pioneers who had lived long enough in the termite area to see what could happen to other lumber, chose walnut, whenever they could get it, for structural work and for weatherboard protection?