Our native chestnut; let us not think of it in memory only, though the pride of our forests seems to have left us after the scourge of the chestnut blight. Unless the history of all scourges has been upset we will find some tree somewhere sometime that is blight resistant and then from this tree we will produce and propagate the chestnut back to its own. At least, as far as an ornamental and useful nut-producing tree is concerned. Should we find no tree in all this huge area which is disease-resistant we have at least one hope in the chestnut brought from China, where for probable centuries this disease has been present, but unable to destroy its host, the chestnut. Already in this country there are thousands of these seedlings growing which are apparently disease-resistant. The tree itself compares very favorably with our native tree. We will yet grow our favorite chestnuts and our children will yet enjoy them as we have done in the days of our youth.
We must not forget the chinkapin, the little brother of the chestnut, but a better fighter of its enemies, for this latter tree is almost resistant to the blight and will bloom and bear nuts while only a little tree, and the nuts are sweet and good. Then, too, it is not necessary to climb the tree to gather the nuts for the tree being small the nuts can almost be gathered from the ground. For planting over rocky banks and hillsides nothing is more handsome. The dark green foliage dotted here and there with the bright green burrs always attracts favorable attention and comment.
Our butternut, too, cannot be omitted, for there are few better flavored nuts than the butternut. Though hard to crack, this fault, if it may be a fault, will soon be overcome, for we will find a tree with thin-shelled nuts somewhere. They are no doubt present and when we do find such a tree we may all propagate from it. Though the tree is a rather irregular grower and is susceptible to certain bark diseases yet it has its place in the home planting for its compound leaves and light bark always shows prominently in the landscape. This tree sometimes grows to an immense size. At my early home in Massachusetts one huge butternut stood in the yard. Though the tree died long before I became especially interested in old trees I remember that we counted the annular rings and as near as I can recall the figures for its measurements and rings were 13 ft. in circumference and 80 annular rings. The trunk was perfectly solid and showed no signs of decay. Many bushels of nuts were gathered from this one tree yearly and I can remember the long winter evenings when we sat in the kitchen cracking the nuts from this old tree. Some have said the butternut is unsatisfactory as an ornamental tree but let me add—do not neglect it in the planting plan for it will give you much pleasure, and, too, the meats are well worth the trouble in cracking the nuts even though a bruised finger may result.
To the family of the walnut we are indebted to Japan for the beautiful and tropical foliage of the Japanese walnut, Sieboldiana. Although the tree has many characteristics of the butternut the foliage is much more luxuriant and it is an admirable tree for planting in the open lawn. The individual fruit of the Sieboldiana walnut is similar in appearance to that of the butternut and is borne in clusters or racemes, sometimes as many as twenty or more in a cluster, and is equal in every way to that of the butternut but the nuts being smaller contain a much less quantity of meat.
The king of the walnuts, Juglans regia, sometimes called Madeira walnut, Persian walnut, Spanish walnut and English walnut, is the finest of the nuts as far as the fruit is concerned, and is a handsome tree growing to immense size with large spreading branches and almost tropical foliage. For over 150 years this tree has been growing and thriving in our immediate neighborhood, producing bushels of nuts annually, yet few people whom we have met will hardly believe that the English walnut will thrive in this northern latitude. There is one specimen of this tree today with which I am familiar in Tarry town, N. Y., which is over 2 feet in diameter, with a spread of 75 feet or more and nearly 100 feet in height. While the tree has not produced regularly yet it bears a few nuts each year and sometimes numbers of bushels.
The English walnut always attracts attention on account of its symmetrical growth and its luxuriant foliage. As a shade tree there are few better.
Of the nut family the one truly American tree of which we should be duly proud is the hickory, this tree being found in no other part of the world, with the exception of China, but North America. As a park or roadside tree there are few trees that can compare with it,—upright in growth with a beautifully rounded head, sometimes growing to immense size and producing nuts almost annually. Of this group of trees we have the shellbark, shagbark and pignut. The pignut being of little value as far as the nuts are concerned, yet having smaller and possibly more luxuriant foliage than the shagbark or shellbark. The shagbark is the nut most sought for by the younger generations and bids fair to become a nut of considerable importance.
It seems strange that in the long history of the hickory or shagbark more has not been done in the improvement of the nuts in the growing of large thin-shelled and sweeter nuts. Trees bearing such nuts do exist and I think most of us can recall certain trees in our boyhood days that produced nuts of far superior quality than are ordinarily found from the common tree. At least, I can recall one tree from which twenty-five years ago there was produced a very large fine sweet nut which was sought by all the children in the neighborhood. This tree, however, has passed away with hundreds of others, either by the hickory bark beetle or the axe.
It is well to mention the filbert and hazel. While not really trees the filbert sometimes reaches a height of 5 ft. or more with very luxuriant foliage in the summer and in the early spring the catkins are very prominent and attractive. There is no reason why the filbert should not be grown more extensively even though it is affected by blight or canker. We are assured that this can be readily cut away with less trouble than the ordinary treatment of trees.
Of the hazel there are two kinds, the common hazel and beaked hazel, both native here. While the nuts of these shrubs are really too small to be of any commercial value yet I believe we will find nuts growing somewhere that are as large as our imported filberts.