I am also experimenting with the propagation of the Persian (English) walnut, and so far have had very satisfactory results. I am trying some of the California varieties—the "Franquette" and "Parisienne" especially—and last spring I grafted a number of them on the wild seedling black walnut and they grew as much as four feet in height during the summer. There are several very fine varieties of the Persian walnut that are hardy throughout our latitude, and when grafted on the native black walnut stocks, make very satisfactory growth. I have had several Persian walnut trees under observation in Washington, close to where I live, and have found that some of these trees bear good crops of very fine walnuts. I cannot make this paper long enough to go into the details of this subject as it has been discussed here by others who know more about it than I. I merely desire to mention the fact that so far as our experiments have gone in Indiana up to date with the Persian walnut, everything seems to indicate that it can be very successfully propagated and grown there, provided the right varieties are selected; but with this, as with all other nut trees, the prospective orchardist must make very careful selection of the varieties which he plants.
In closing, I want to add just a few words more as to the value and beauty of nut trees. It is very hard to overstate either if the trees are properly cared for. A friend of mine recently asked me how early a pecan tree would bear, and how big it would grow within a certain time. I told him that it depended altogether upon who owned the tree. Nothing adds so much to the value of a home or to a farm as beautiful trees, and nothing indicates more the intelligence and taste of the person who owns a home or farm than the character of the trees surrounding it. In taking a trip through the country, it is very painful to notice how little attention has been given to trees, and I take it that this is due to the lack of information on this subject. A house can be built in a very short time. It can be furnished beautifully if one has taste and money. The science of mechanics can do much toward making an attractive place in which to dwell, but after all, the home that is remembered and admired, both by its occupants and by others, is the home surrounded by beautiful trees that bring forth their leaves and blossoms and fruit to please the eye and the taste and temper the heat of summer. These cannot be bought with mere money nor made in a day, but when placed there with care and intelligence come forth with surprising rapidity and beauty and not only add manifold value to the home and farm, but bespeak for some one a standard of intelligence and nobility that is better than great riches; for he who plants and cares for a tree is of the true, the beautiful and the good.
President Morris: The paper is now open for discussion.
Professor Lake: I'd like to ask Mr. Littlepage a question. What is the condition of the wood of those large growths of walnuts?
Mr. Littlepage: When I observed it in November, it was ripening off very nicely. The average frost period for that latitude is about the twentieth of October, and we had had quite a number of very hard frosts,—in fact, there had been some ice. It had not been injured.
Professor Lake: That is remarkable.
Mr. Littlepage: I have pictures here of those, taken the twentieth of June. There was perhaps three feet of growth at that time. They quit growing about the middle of August down there, and to that I attribute very largely the fact that the wood ripened up.
Professor Craig: What is your minimum temperature?
Mr. Littlepage: I have seen the thermometer ten degrees below zero. I have seen the Ohio River frozen over so thick that for a month at Rockport the wagons could go across the river on ice. In fact, a threshing machine was hauled over. I don't know how low the thermometer got. I imagine it went lower than ten degrees.