WILCOX is the outstanding variety of hickory of those which have borne in our test orchard, so far. This originated near Geneva, Ohio. It. won second prize in the Ohio contest of 1934. It appears to be a consistent, alternate bearer. The nut is only medium in size for a shagbark, about 90 to the pound. It cracks almost perfectly, yielding about 38% kernel, mostly in whole halves. Color of kernel bright and of very good flavor.
MINNIE has also appeared very good. It is a trifle larger than Wilcox, being 85 to the pound. It cracks excellently and is of good quality. But so far it has not yielded as well as has Wilcox.
DAVIS has shown up quite well. Our oldest graft is on a bitternut stock; it has borne well but the nuts have not cracked as well as those from the original tree or the ones grown at Cornell. In size the nut is between Minnie and Wilcox, kernel bright, plump and of good quality.
FOX has been rather disappointing as produced on grafts so far. Not that it is a poor nut, in fact it is a good nut, but because it has fallen so far short of what was expected of it. Fox is the mystery variety of the hickories. How it could unanimously win first prize in the Northern Nut Growers Association contest of 1934, with a sample of nuts so excellent in every way and then for the grafts to bear only fair nuts, is a mystery. Some have advanced the idea of bud variation in the parent tree. To prove or disprove this, I made a trip to the original tree in the spring of 1943 and gathered grafting wood from various parts of the tree. This wood was grafted on various stocks in our test orchard, so that we now have living grafts from 13 different parts of the original tree. If there is a bud variation, we should certainly have some of the good ones and are anxiously waiting the time when these grafts begin to bear. To lend a little credence to the bud variation theory, I found that at some time in the past the Fox tree had been broken off in a storm and had since formed a new top, largely from a single leader. Mr. Fox stated that he had naturally taken wood from the lower portions of the tree as it was much easier to do so. (The late Dr. Zimmerman made a similar study of this tree and its nuts from different branches. He was firmly convinced that there were differences.—Ed.)
Heartnuts
We have really tested only two varieties so far, these are the Fodermaier and Wright. Both are very good, but we now consider Wright to be by far the better of the two. It is somewhat hardier than Fodermaier, nuts ripen earlier, and bears better with us. Fodermaier is also more severely affected by the butternut curculio than is the Wright, some years nearly all of the Fodermaier nuts have been destroyed by the curculio.
GELLATLY has borne only one year with us, so we cannot form much of an opinion on it. It appears to be a very good nut.
Crath Carpathian Persian Walnuts
Several of our seedling Crath trees have nuts this year. In all cases, there are only a few nuts on each as our trees are still quite small. I had to hand-pollinate the blossoms this spring; this resulted in a rather small percentage of sets; then the curculio took a rather severe toll, so we will have only a few of each variety.
In 1944 one of our seedlings bore 12 nuts. These were so good that we have named the variety "Littlepage" in honor of the late Thomas Littlepage, and are having it patented. We have published a little booklet on this variety, and upon request, we will be glad to mail a copy to anyone interested.