The U. S. Department of Agriculture has issued a bulletin "Soil Survey of Niagara County, N. Y." By referring to this, I find that the soils that have produced thrifty, and prolific Persian walnut trees are, Dunkirk loam, Dunkirk sandy loam, Dunkirk silt loam, Clyde sandy loam and clay loam.
The winters of western New York are frequently quite severe. The winter of 1911-12 was a very severe one, zero weather prevailing most of the time and frequently it was way below zero for days. No injury was done to the Persian walnut trees and a good crop of nuts was harvested in the fall of 1912.
In May, 1913, on the nights of the 11th and 12th it was so cold that ice formed an eighth of an inch, or more, in thickness. The staminate catkins on the Persian walnut trees were fairly well developed and it was thought the nuts were gone for this year surely, but the last of May the pistillate blossoms came out, the staminates matured and the results have already been told you.
I think that Persian walnut trees pay better than apples, and that there is no danger of an oversupply.
The cost for labor in caring for the trees and in harvesting the crop is very much less than for any other fruit crop. No spraying and no picking are necessary.
The cost of production is slight, yet the demand and prices for this nut have been steadily increasing for several years.
The Chairman: I would like to have a good discussion of this paper, because it seems to me that in all the activities of the Northern Nut Growers Association the Persian walnut offers the highest possibilities. The Pacific coast people and southern people have always thought that only the hickory or black walnut could be raised in the northern parts of the country, and now we find that the Persian walnut also does well there. The Secretary has sent out a letter recently asking for information about the Persian walnut trees in the vicinity of each person addressed. This letter was gotten out for the reason that in the culture of the Persian walnut the Pacific coast people have distanced us, and it is probable that we have not learned the possibilities of these splendid nuts in the East. We have a few very fine varieties of these eastern nuts, and it looks as if, by use of these varieties, the eastern part of this country can produce these nuts in as large quantities as the western. Mr. Pomeroy originated the walnut bearing his name, and we have another nut that offers very good promise, and I believe the originator is here this morning. Mr. Rush we would like to hear from you.
Mr. Rush: I am satisfied that Persian walnut culture can be made just as profitable on the Atlantic coast as on the Pacific and in France. We have varieties that have stood a temperature of twenty-three degrees below zero.
I have discovered another variety in Lancaster. This tree was brought in from Germany about thirty-five years ago and it has turned out to be an extremely valuable variety. I have seen these nuts selling in the open market at fifty cents a pound. As regards propagation of the Persian walnut, of course the black walnut is the most common variety on which to propagate. Another stock is the Japan walnut, in a sense better than the black for grafting. It has a better lateral root system and is not so fierce in going down to the center of the earth. Its root system is magnificent. Several trees budded on this stock a year ago last August and transplanted in November the same year, had a growth this summer of over six feet from the bud, showing that there must certainly be remarkable vitality in the Japanese roots. I have a young tree thirteen years old budded on black walnut that produced twenty-one nuts this summer. I have a seedling about ten years old which didn't have one catkin bloom. But a tree of the Rush variety, so named for me by Mr. Jones, the first propagator, stood about forty feet away from the first, and at the end of the season this seedling tree produced sixty finely developed nuts. This seedling tree, however, had a great many pistillate blossoms, which received pollen from the neighboring variety that was prolific in staminate bloom. It would seem to be an advantage for a seedling Persian walnut to have a good pollenizer in its company.