The general summary I want to make is this: Nut trees have a large number of fungus parasites. In a few cases the native fungus parasites attack European or Old World species and varieties to such an extent as to make very serious problems, so much so that they can not be regarded as solved, the walnut bacteriorosis and filbert blight being examples of these. On the other hand, most of the native fungus parasites of our native trees are not to be feared as enemies of these trees, not only in the northeastern United States where this body is endeavoring to further a good cause, but over the whole eastern United States. These parasites in some cases may be serious enough to justify spraying and other lines of treatment, especially in the nursery. On the other hand, considering the nature of nut trees and considering the results of work on the pecan scab, the object of the nut grower should be to breed and select as far as possible resistant sorts, to work on and select native species and hybrids particularly where the native trees will give the necessary hardiness, immunity and resistance. The outlook, therefore, is promising for the cultivated varieties of hickory nuts and walnuts that I know you are all working for. Foreign parasites are always dangerous. This chestnut blight fungus comes into any such scheme as that like a bombshell. When it comes to an introduced parasite like that we can not tell what will happen. I thank you for your attention.
The Chairman: I think everybody here will agree with me, when you come to look over this list of amounts appropriated for work in nut culture investigation, that there will be no further criticism of the Department of Agriculture from any member of the association for not doing more in the interests of the nut grower.
The Secretary: We are all indebted to Professor Waite for his clear way of stating facts, for resisting the temptation to give a technical talk and for enunciating principles of wide applicability.
This question of the blight on the hazel is a most important one for the northern nut growers. Mr. Reed was telling me yesterday about a man from California who went out near some city there and bought 10 acres of land at six hundred dollars an acre, planted almonds and in a few years had the place paid for and was making a good income, two or three thousand dollars a year from his ten acres of almonds. We can do almost that in the East, I believe, if we can cultivate the European hazel. If it were not for this blight, we could have splendid crops of the hazel. If the government would grant larger appropriations for nut culture investigations it might enable us to find a way to control this disease. Dr. Morris is breeding hazels, however, and hopes to get one which will be immune.
Professor Smith: It is a great pleasure to listen to a man who knows what he is talking about. I figured out some years ago that I was going to be a teacher and I decided that I would like to have a chestnut farm also. I got along very nicely, planted my trees and then the chestnut blight came along, and I regard the business, at least as to profits, as in abeyance. We are in a period of particular danger from the importation of foreign plants; we are bringing in perfectly innocent-looking things from other countries which are causing us great damage. I want to suggest to any one here who wants to plant an orchard, to plant two kinds of trees. If my nut orchard had been planted with something besides chestnuts, I would now have that something else. I would suggest the possibility of having two things on the same ground—say chestnuts and English walnuts—so if the planter finds he cannot raise one he can still have the other. Then he will not be in the same place I am with my chestnuts.
The Chairman: I understand we have Mr. Fullerton of Long Island here, and we would be pleased to have him give us some of his experiences.
DR. WILLIAM CHAMPION DEMING
Secretary-Treasurer of the Northern Nut Growers Association
Mr. Fullerton: I just came in to see what you folks are doing and I don't think I can pose as a nut expert. I live on an island that has a great many varieties of nuts on it that have become native. We have quite a plantation of hazelnuts; nobody knows who planted them. They are used by nurserymen to fill orders. Also quite a plantation of magnolias which came from the South a couple of hundred years ago. They are thoroughly acclimated. We have also some of the very largest—and I am going to catch it here because I have never used a tape line—we have some of the very largest and oldest of the Persian walnuts in the United States, which produce annually a big crop of the so-called "English" walnuts. The trees produce the largest walnut I have ever seen, with the thinnest shell. They have been there about one hundred and fifty, two hundred and fifty or three hundred years. They are very large, larger than the black walnuts. Whether they were planted or not I don't know. Their history is probably this: Long Island was a sea-faring community a few hundred years ago. These sailors who went out from the island, some of them, loved nuts and they would bring back from other countries nuts or other plants, and now we have a most remarkable mess of trees. We have planted the Japanese walnut, I don't pretend to know which variety, and it began yielding the third year and has yielded every year since, bearing nuts in bunches like grapes.