MR. CHASE: Then we end up, there is no such thing as a Carpathian, it's just a name for a hardy walnut that came from a certain region, that distinguishes it from others.
MR. KEPLINGER: In my parents' old home in Eastern Germany in the Bohemian mountains there is an English walnut tree that's 300 years old and bears a hundred bushels of walnuts a year. They stand 40 below zero there, too, and the nut cracks and hulls well. It has a record on standing the cold, but there hasn't been any of them brought out here and planted in this country, but they are there. I know they are there, because they are on our estate.
DR. CRANE: Mr. Moderator, there is one remark that I want to make. Here we are, the Northern Nut Growers Association, and yet we still use the term, "English walnut," when we are talking about Carpathian walnut and Persian walnut. This "English walnut" is the worst form of terminology that can be used. England doesn't have any walnuts; they have never grown any Persian walnuts or English walnuts, they haven't in the past and they aren't today. They have a few trees but are in the same fix that we are in the Northern Nut Growers Association; they are trying to find a variety of Persian walnut that they can grow in England, and yet here we call them English walnuts. They should be Persian walnuts, or Chinese walnuts. We don't know where they came from. The best authorities seem to think that they originated in Persia; others think they originated in China, but the abundance of evidence is on Persia.
We want to get this thing kind of straight. They are all the same thing, Juglans Regia.
MR. CLARKE: I'd like to make a suggestion. I don't know as you have any authority or power to change, but the term Juglans Regia means "royal walnut." Why not work for the adoption of a name like that, and it will include all of them.
DR. MACDANIEL: That's what they call them in France. This country has a little complication; there is another Royal walnut, one of the hybrids between the California black and the Eastern black.
DR. GRAVATT:-While we are talking about bringing English walnuts, Persian walnuts, whatever you want to call them, from Europe, I want to give a warning about a disease that is killing thousands of trees in Southern France. Just recently I saw quite a few of them in France and the edge of Italy. I don't know whether it's virus or what it is, but it is certainly killing out the English walnuts there at a very rapid rate, and I advise very strongly against introducing walnut seed, scions and such, from those areas in France and Switzerland or other areas in southern Europe where this disease is prevalent. We will know more later about it, because quite a team of pathologists is working on it in Europe.
MR. CHASE: Has anybody else got any comments about Juglans Regia? I am afraid to say anything else.
DR. MACDANIEL: I will say that this Carpathian strain, of Juglans Regia is the first walnut of the Persian type that we have had for Illinois. The Pomeroy, other Eastern strains and California varieties have not survived very long in the climate of the state of Illinois. We do know now that some of the Carpathian seedlings have been fruiting for 10 or 12 years and do show considerable promise there. I don't know whether it will ever develop into a commercial industry but they are worth growing.
MR. CHASE: Thank you. I'd like to ask George Slate what he knows about the Northern Star Persian walnut. Very hardy, and so forth? I think maybe the members might be interested in that.