EXAMPLES OF SOME RECENT CORRESPONDENCE
Farmingdale, Ill., August 5, 1914.
I am interested in fruit and nuts of all kinds, but plant only for home use and experimentally.
I believe the chestnut is a better money nut here than the pecan, as natives here bear very sparsely and irregularly although the catkins or male part usually come out in great profusion.
I note that you say "there is probably not much use in trying to grow the pecan or Persian walnut outside the peach area." Here our pecan seems as hardy as the average apple, withstanding 25° below zero or more with little or no injury. I find that the "Andrus" Persian walnut is much hardier than the "Pomeroy" as I planted two small one-year trees that endured the following winter 20° below, with no injury to even terminal buds. So twenty years may show a change of opinion as to the value of the Persian walnut in the Middle West.
The Japanese walnuts here are often injured by winter at 15° below, but there may be hardier types and varieties than those I have tried.
I have never been able to graft the pecan successfully—annual or budding has given me the only success I have had. And in years like this and last, I find it very difficult to make a transplanted grafted pecan live without watering.
I have failed, so far, in finding a practical method to keep chestnuts in good eating and planting condition until spring. If stored in the ground cellar or as peach pits, they mould, if kept in an ordinary building they become too dry.
South Waterford, Me., November 21, 1914.