The prize nut contest staged by our office last autumn resulted in the discovery of some very good black walnuts and a fine Japanese heartnut. Samples of these are shown in some of the plates on the table.
The Persian walnut was found to have a wider distribution and is more abundant in Ontario than was expected when our nut survey began. About 150 bearing trees have been located in that part of Ontario extending from Toronto on Lake Ontario to Goderich on Lake Huron. This number of course will seem insignificant in comparison to the numbers of trees in some sections of the northern United States, but it must not be forgotten that Ontario is on the northern margin of the Persian walnut territory, and therefore the results are rather encouraging.
Several fine Paragon chestnut trees have been located which bear good crops and which appear to be resistant to chestnut blight. This disease has unfortunately appeared at several places in Ontario and will undoubtedly destroy the majority of our chestnut trees.
The members of this association will be interested to learn that Gellatly Brothers of Gellatly, B. C., prepared and sent to the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley a large collection of nuts that has attracted a great deal of attention and favorable comment. This should do a great deal toward advertising the nut cultural possibilities of that province and of Canada generally.
The trial plantations on the experiment station grounds are doing very well indeed. The black walnuts are making a fine growth and one variety the McCoy, has a good crop of nuts at two years from planting. The Ten Eyck is making an extremely rapid growth, in some cases, producing new shoots over four feet in length.
The English walnuts are also making a good growth and two varieties,
Mayette and Hall, have borne nuts in the third season.
I am pleased to state that we now have about 100 seedlings of the Chinese walnut growing on the station grounds and at various other points in Ontario. These little trees seem to be making a more rapid growth than our seedlings of the "Ontario," a Persian walnut which is a native of St. Catharines.
We also have about 60 seedlings of the Persian walnut from the Northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains in the Ukranian region of what used to be the old Austrian-Hungarian Empire. These nuts were obtained from Rev. Paul Crath, of Toronto, who informs me that the winter temperatures in that part of Europe often go lower than in Toronto. We hope for some interesting developments from the growth of these trees because of the rigorous climatic condition of their native land.
During the latter part of the past winter an experiment was conducted in propagating the walnut under greenhouse conditions. For this purpose 100 well grown one year black walnut seedlings were obtained from our forestry station at St. Williams in the late autumn and heeled in out of doors until about February 1st. These were then brought inside, planted in 8 inch pots and placed in the greenhouse where they were allowed to remain until a good leaf growth had been produced. The young trees were then side cleft grafted with scions of the best English walnuts in the district. While engaged in this work one of the trees was inadvertently cut off a few inches above the ground. The stub was then whip grafted and to my surprise it made a better growth than the others which had a part of the top left on. The results of our experiment were much better than I expected. About 40% of the scions grew which was quite satisfactory considering that I was a mere novice in the art of grafting nut trees and that my method was an experiment. I believe I could get 70 to 75% to grow with greater care in the selection and handling of scions. The object in doing the work in the greenhouse was to obtain better control conditions of moisture and temperature and thus reduce the mortality of scions due to these factors.
I also outlined an experiment in propagating nut trees by cuttings as a thesis subject for one of our fourth year horticultural students at the O. A. C. In this experiment ten cuttings each of English walnut, butternut, Japanese walnut, hickory, chestnut and black walnut were planted in sand and watered at intervals with a 1 to 10,000 solution of potassium permanganate. In the course of time the majority of cuttings came out in leaf, but none formed roots, and hence soon died. It is admitted that this experiment may have been improperly planned and conducted, but it showed at any rate that it is not an easy matter to propagate most nut plants by root or stem cuttings.