~Results~: Increasing the spacing produced seedlings of larger girth and shorter height—a desirable characteristic in black walnut budding stocks. The most desirable spacing appeared to be 6 x 7 inches. Even though the number of seedlings resulting from this spacing was approximately half the number produced at 4 x 4 inches spacing, more usable seedlings were produced at the wider spacing.
Thinning seedlings spaced 4 x 4 inches resulted in larger girth of those remaining—very similar in size to seedlings spaced 5 x 5 inches. Seedlings from the thinned and unthinned plots averaged 0.62 cm. and 0.55 cm. in diameter, respectively. In the nursery row 73 percent of the larger transplanted seedlings were large enough for budding the following summer, while only 59 percent of the smaller seedlings attained proper size. Bud survival was 22 percent on the larger stocks indicating the desirability of using large stocks.
My Experiments, Gambles and Failures
John Davidson, Xenia, Ohio
In reading the past reports of this Association, I find one thing lacking. One becomes interested in a report dated, let us say, 10 or 20 years ago, which contains an account of a project then started. It had great possibilities. What was the outcome? We do not know. No mention of it has appeared since. Did it fail? Let us say it did. Why? The answer to this final query is almost, if not quite, as important as would be an account of the means employed to make it successful—if it succeeded.
I should like to know, for example, whether anything remains of the Neilson-Post project in Michigan and what its history has been. I should like to hear more, also, about the outcome of many of Mr. Gerardi's intensely interesting and original experiments, such as his method, described in the 29th Annual Report, of asexual propagation of heartnut trees on their own roots; or his method of artificially creating beautifully marked burls on black walnut logs by systematically and repeatedly scoring the bark. These and many others. Which experiments were successful and which were not? Mr. Gerardi's original and adventurous mind is the sort that should be probed for the benefit of those who come after us.
My report today is my own short and tentative contribution to such a resume.
In the 1938 Report, on page 73, you will find my ambitious and optimistic "Farm Plan for Nut Tree Planting." In it I tried to outline a plan which could be used by any practical farmer with but slight sacrifice of useful land. Its last sentence reads as follows: "Meantime, I shall have kept practically all my land in profitable use all the time." Well, that depends upon what is interpreted as "profitable use." Tree growth is surely profitable.
The plan, in substance, was as follows: First, plant 20 acres in a modified forest formation to selected seed, mostly black walnut, the trees to stand 8 feet apart in rows 22 feet apart. Use the space between the rows first for truck gardening and later for an interplanted row of some fast-growing species for timber. No grazing permitted. Second, plant another 20 acres to a nut orchard using grafted trees of named varieties spaced 80 feet apart. Protect from livestock and permit grazing. Finally, plant seed in another 30 acres, spaced 80 feet apart, the seedlings to be eventually topworked to the wood of promising discoveries from the first plot. Protect and cultivate or graze.
What has been the outcome of this plan to date? The proposed plan worked very well in a 20-acre plot where a meadow was planted to an orchard of grafted trees, mostly pecans and Carpathians, which were protected by cattle guards, but was not completed in the seedling 20-acre plantation where the trees stood 8 feet apart in rows 22 feet apart. No grazing was permitted there, but berries and truck crops were put out. I couldn't keep it up. The reason: a World War, and lack of help for the intensive type of farming required for the project. Finally, when I attempted to interplant the rows with fast-growing trees, weeds choked out most of them in spite of my own efforts. My own physical and time limitations defeated me in the interplanting undertaking.